Category: Past Tense

A woman who made a spiritual bargain to save her son’s life from the destruction of Jerusalem’s temple during Roman occupation now lives with the consequences: eternal life. She’s buried numerous children and grandchildren and lived to see tragedy and triumph, but now she’s done. After 2,000 years of living, can modern technology help Rachel find a way out or will she be stuck being reborn into an 18-year-old body for the rest of eternity?

In this magical novel, a living doll is whisked away to Poland in the company of a Dollmaker with a storied past. The two are soon befriended by a local violinist and his daughter. But when their new friends are threatened by the Nazi soldiers descending upon Poland, Karolina and the Dollmaker become determined to save them no matter the cost.

In this sequel to A Marvellous Light, the younger sister of baronet Robin Blythe attempts to bring an elderly magician back to Britain to help prevent the dangerous conspiracy overtaking the magical community there. But when she’s murdered in cold blood, Maud must team up with an unlikely group of allies including a scandalous socialite, a surly magician, and a thief in order to steal back the murdered magician’s priceless silver artifacts before their enemies realize just what it is they’ve stolen.

Former Rioter and author of the Goodreads Choice nominated Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating, Adiba Jaigirdar, is back with a new book — this time set on the Titanic! It’s described as the Titanic with “an Ocean’s 8 makeover,” following a thief, an artist, an acrobat, and an actress attempting to steal a jewel-encrusted book, the Rubaiyat, before the ship’s journey comes to its fateful end.

A young Chinese-British acrobat sneaks aboard the Titanic to track down her twin brother and convince him to join her in a new act in America. But her brother isn’t interested, she’s pretending to be someone she’s not, and a recent act passed in the United States is barring entry for people of Chinese descent. And that’s not even to mention the fate we all know awaits the Titanic on her maiden voyage. But Valora possesses an auspicious surname — Luck — and perhaps it will help her reach the other side of the Atlantic if luck is in fact on her side.

In this novella-length book of short fiction, the author of The Wonder and The Pull of the Stars follows four centuries of wanderers from puritan Massachusetts to antebellum Louisiana. The stories feature emigrants and runaways, gold miners and drifters. And all of them explore the history of restless times.

The acclaimed author of Washington Black brings her talent to a short tale of a West African girl who’s gift for languages is used for the advantage of her English enslavers. But it’s the guilt she still harbors for losing her younger brother that helps her find her own voice.

A young mathematician sets out to solve the Riemann Hypothesis, the greatest unsolved mathematics problem of her day. Her research into this theorem with a mysterious past also brings up questions about her own history and identity. Her parents are not who they seem to be — so who, exactly, is Katherine? It is a question that will have her digging into some of the biggest moments of the 20th century.

Two men who were awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA. But they were not the first to uncover the hidden double helix structure of DNA — Rosalind Franklin was. Her place in scientific history was hidden by the men around her, but her discoveries advanced our understanding of DNA forever. This is her story.

In a family saga that spans generations, two identical twin sisters find their lives diverging radically as one moves back to the hometown she always tried to escape with her Black daughter while the other passes as white with a husband who knows nothing of her past or her racial identity.

Another tale of twins awaits in The God of Small Things. Raised in an affluent Indian family, Rahel and Esthappen’s world is shaken by the arrival of their young cousin and by a growing tide of unrest. Amidst it all, the complicated shambles of their family provide some comfort. But soon, the arrival of Sophie and her English mother prove that all that they thought they knew can change in a day.

A down-and-out former policeman is brought in to help investigate the death of a reclusive family’s matriarch in the 1950s. Irene Lamontaine was notoriously secretive about her soap recipes, but that wasn’t the only secret she held dear. She and her family stayed hidden to protect themselves, but now they must let someone in. And Evander Mills is beginning to see that there might be more to life than nightclub trysts and desperate lies. But certain members of the Lamontaine family are hiding darker secrets. And Mills is beginning to think he might be on the hunt for a killer after all.

In 1920s Bombay, Perveen Mistry has just become one of the first female lawyers in India. When she comes across a strange amendment to a will, she suspects the three widows living in seclusion after their husband’s death are being taken advantage of. When her investigation results in a murder, Perveen knows her suspicions were right. What exactly is happening on Malabar Hill? And will her skills as a lawyer and a women’s rights activist help her make it right?

An unsolved murder haunts the town of Pluto, North Dakota, generations after it changed the lives of the Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation forever. And in a reckoning during the present day, a part-Ojibwe girl, her grandfather, and a local judge come together as a wrenching truth is finally revealed.

Aiyi Shao, a young heiress and owner of a Shanghai nightclub, hires a Jewish refugee to play piano at her club. His hiring causes a sensation, but it’s their shared love of jazz and a burgeoning feelings for one another that change things for good — especially as the war worsens and circumstances threaten to tear them apart.

Siblings working for the war effort stateside discover a mysterious woman hiding underneath their back stairs. This woman, who has a penchant for poisons, quickly draws Maggie and Will under her spell, but she may be hiding deadly secrets. Is she a friend or a foe? And will befriending her become Will and Maggie’s downfall?

Two women, one the American wife of a Frenchman, the other a crack shot with dual citizenship recruited by the British Special Operations Executive, become enmeshed in clandestine operations during WWII only to find their endeavors brought to a jarring halt when they’re caught and brought to the Ravensbrück concentration camp.

At the Glendale Park Zoo in 1920s Nashville, a young Cherokee horse-driver on loan from a Wild West Show must help her fellow employees get to the bottom of strange happenings going on at the zoo as lingering vestiges of the ancient past begin to manifest in the present.

A prosperous farmer and mother to five boys in the Cherokee Nation West decides to take a stand as she watches the violence in the frontier community around her escalate. People are missing, her son is caught up in a murder case, and guns and gold are going missing. In order to save her community, Cherokee America Singer will have to help her community come together and face these issues — even if it means expelling one of their own.

Rue inherited her knowledge of healing from her mother, but it’s a gift that brings her close to life and death in her community. When a child she helps bring into the world is labeled “cursed,” the superstition of those around her threatens to bring her to ruin — especially as certain questions about her past and her connection to the white family who once owned them come to light.

Tituba, an enslaved woman of Indigenous descent, was one of the first people accused of witchcraft during the infamous Salem Witch Trials. In this fictionalized account, Condé creates a richly imagined take on her life and the choices and events that led to her fateful place in Salem.

The author of The Year of the Witching is back with a historical vampire novel about a young girl raised in the slums who finds a dangerous way out: by answering an ad in the papers for a bloodmaid. In her new position at the notorious House of Hunger, she is swept into a world of darkness and debauchery where bloodmaids go missing in the night. These halls could become home, but that’s only if she can learn the rules to the dangerous games the elite play before she goes missing, too.

This classic of 20th century lesbian vampire fiction follows a woman who escapes from slavery and finds a community of benevolent vampires who take her in as one of their own. It’s a radical exploration of Blackness, family, and queer identity.