Category: Past Tense

Generations of women in a Métis family search for belonging in this interwoven tale of healing and family heritage. Told from a chorus of voices, including the descendants of the bison who once freely roamed the land, A Grandmother Beings the Story is a story of family unlike any you’ve read before.

A community of Black and Jewish residents is rocked when a body is uncovered from a well in their part of town. They know exactly who it is and what happened, but the secrets the people of Chicken Hill have been keeping uncover deeper truths about the reality of life on the margins and the lengths communities will go to in order to protect one another.

This book is perfect for fans of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. A writer is commissioned to write a history of the food of England during the Great Depression. Considering the country’s reputation for bland food, Stella isn’t optimistic about the book’s prospects. But when her car breaks down and she’s rescued by an antique dealer, her story goes in surprising new directions.

A girl raised by her science teacher father, who tells her stories of their Dakota ancestors, is sent to live with a foster family when her father fails to return from the woods one day. Years later, after years of living with her white husband on his farm, she returns to her childhood home and searches for answers about what it means to be descended from a long line of powerful women who protected their families and a cache of precious seeds through years of hardship and loss.

In the 1600s Algonquin territories, a gifted healer was pressured to marry a French settler to help protect her people. While the daughter they have would’ve been revered for her Two-Spirit nature by the Deer Clan, she’s considered unnatural and dangerous by the French—including her father. Caught between worlds and beliefs, with the powerful dictating their fates, how will these women learn to survive?

Five generations of Métis women, connected by love and loss, search for answers in themselves and each other as they try to reconnect and move on. It’s a beautiful tale of womanhood, family, intergenerational trauma, and bison.

In England during the grips of the Great Depression, an author worried about her future is commissioned to write a history of food in Great Britain. Unfortunately, Britain isn’t exactly known for its food. Stella is determined to succeed anyway, and when her car breaks down, an antiques dealer shows her a side of England she never knew before, along with exactly the sorts of stories and food she needs to write a bestselling book.

Bartolomeo Scappi, a legendary Renaissance chef who served several popes and wrote one of the best-selling cookbooks of all time, warns his nephew that the contents of two strongboxes could put all their lives in danger if he doesn’t burn them. But Giovanni wants to learn his uncle’s secrets, and, after deciphering the journals he finds inside, he discovers a life story full of food, deception, and illicit love—not to mention recipes certain people would do anything to get in their possessions.

Winnie and Helen are best friends who have always kept each other’s secrets. But now, Helen believes she is dying and wants the truth to be known. Helen’s secrets aren’t only her own, though, and Winnie determines that if the truth is going to come out, she’ll be the one to tell it—including the parts even Helen herself doesn’t know.

Exploring a part of American history that is often overlooked, The Davenports depicts the experiences of a wealthy Black family in the early 20th century United States. It’s inspired by true events and has a very Bridgerton feel that historical romance fans—and historical fiction fans in general—will love.

A mystery at a Nashville zoo brings together an odd cast of characters, from a young Cherokee horse diver on loan from a Wild West show to a haunted WWI veteran-slash-zookeeper. Can they figure out what a series of disasters has to do with the zoo’s past before their entire show falls apart?

A fake engagement based on a real engagement between two people with secret agendas of their own in late 19th century England? Yes, please! When a young woman with dreams of taking an “ambulance class” for first responders is told the man in charge of her must sign off on the class, she claims the handsome Chinese nobleman she just met is her fiancé. Kai has reasons of his own to agree to this arrangement, not least of which is the fact that he and Naomi really were betrothed as children.

A new earl fending off claims to his positions from all sides finds a surprising ally in one of his enemies, a smuggler who also happens to have the secretarial skills and scheming brain he needs to succeed. Despite their growing feelings and romantic entanglement, can a relationship really work between two men whose motives—and allegiances—are at odds?

A young woman desperate for security after her father was executed in the Mexican War of Independence ignores the rumors swirling around a wealthy man courting her and agrees to marry him. But when she arrives at Hacienda San Isidro, the darkness that resides there is impossible to ignore. And the local priest she’s impossibly attracted to may be the only one able to help her ride the house of its literal and metaphorical ghosts.

Three women, one haunted by her experiences at a rubber plantation in the 1980s, one involved in a dangerous scheme in the 2000s, and one who disappears in 2011 without a trace: what do their stories have to do with one another and, more importantly, with the possession of bodies and land?

Years ago, Nena was attacked by a strange creature that left her all but dead. Now, years later, the United States has invaded Mexico, and rumors of terrifying monsters once again plague the countryside. Can Nena survive them–and the encroaching violence–a second time?

A girl drained of her blood. A new book about a terrifying monster.

After her sister is found dead with two puncture wounds on her neck, Tillie can’t help but think of Bram Stocker’s recently released novel. But vampires only exist in stories, don’t they? With rumors swirling and those closest to her all too happy to keep her in a laudanum-induced haze, Tillie begins to wonder just who–and what–she can trust.

Since the 15th century, Blanca has been keeping watch over the hilltop monastery in Mallorca where she died. She’s created trouble for corrupt monks and fallen in love a few times, but never has she set eyes upon anyone like the writer George Sand. George defies convention with her children and lover Frederic Chopin in tow. Blanca could watch her forever. But the conservative people of Mallorca don’t appreciate the author’s presence. Will Blanca be able to stop tragedy before it strikes this time around?

Li Lan is the daughter of a once-wealthy merchant family in colonial Malaysia with few hopes of making a respectable marriage match. But the offer of becoming the ghost bride to the recently deceased heir to a rich family is untenable to her. Unfortunately, his ghost is hell-bent on having her one way or another. A journey to the spirit world where he resides might help her uncover why he is so obsessed with her—but it could also condemn her to an afterlife by his side forever.

When the witchfinder arrives to East Anglia in 17th century England, a voiceless midwife is enlisted to search for “devil’s marks” on the accused. Unable to speak up for the local women being hunted and detained, Martha must decide whether to save the others or protect herself.

After a devastating fire kills her father and disfigures her, Aila and her mother move to a remote parish in the Scottish highlands to get away from their past. But the minister’s interest in them only serves to alienate them from the locals further. And when a troupe of entertainers arrives, bringing with them joy Aila and her mother haven’t felt since before the fire, it becomes clear that the truth means nothing when faith can be invoked.

The line between healer and witch has often blurred, and it’s never more clear to Rue, who has reluctantly continued her mother’s work as a midwife than when she delivers a baby the townsfolk believe is cursed. Soon, her neighbors eye her with suspicion. But the secrets she’s keeping stretch back far longer than anyone could imagine, even those so ready to suspect the worst of her.

In this retelling of the classic Chinese novel Water Margin, a group of bandits whose progressive ideas the Empire would like to destroy push back against the norms of society. When an expert arms instructor is betrayed and disgraced, she joins the Liangshan Bandits. Together, these powerful outlaws could bring down an empire.

A Scottish seamstress recently immigrated from Scotland, and a young Nathaniel Hawthorne find themselves drawn to each other after Isobel Gamble’s husband abandons her. Nathaniel is still haunted by the women his ancestors condemned to the gallows in Salem. Isobel is a young immigrant, both talented and troubled. Both must contend with what it means to be a “real” American in a time when the Underground Railroad is still in its early days.