Category: Past Tense

A girl who died in the 15th century and has been haunting the Mallorcan monastery ever since falls for a visiting author and her strange, unconventional family in this beautiful historical fiction novel.

Haunted by her past as an enslaved woman, Sethe is still trying to make peace with the horrors she’s endured, particularly those from her time at Sweet Home. Even 18 years after her escape to Ohio, her house is haunted by the spirit of her baby who died nameless with a grave marker that read only “beloved.” But when a teenage girl shows up calling herself Beloved, secrets from Sethe’s past come bursting into the present in this wrenching, heartfelt novel.

A chorus of ghosts — including the young son of Abraham Lincoln — narrate their time in purgatory together in this strange, genre-defying novel by George Saunders.

This gorgeous historical thriller has been compared to Mexican Gothic, probably because both books feature young women facing supernatural events in historic Mexican manors. But believe me, The Hacienda stands on its own. It’s full of Mexican history, a husband with a dark–and secretive–past, a conniving sister-in-law, and a priest who also deals with the supernatural in spite of the wishes of the Catholic Church.

With a new Apple TV miniseries, it’s the perfect time to read this atmospheric novel about science, myth, and modernity. Newly widowed Cora Seaborne escapes with her eleven-year-old son to the Essex coast, where she begins hearing rumors of a serpent claiming lives. A naturalist, Cora feels this may be a previously undiscovered species. Alongside a local vicar, who is also suspicious of these rumors, she is drawn into an intense relationship that will change them both for good.

An aspiring photojournalist in Los Angeles follows her Kurdish boyfriend home to northern Iraq for a wedding where she hopes to acquire a better understanding of his childhood and heritage. But the reality of a town patrolled by the military and under constant threat takes her by surprise. Still there is so much love and beauty here, and when she captures a tragic moment on film, she must find the courage to stand up even with all their lives upended and on the line.

Note: This book takes place in Iraq, not Iran, but deals with Kurdish history, which is inextricably tied to the ongoing protests in Iran as Jina Amini was a Kurdish woman.

Amidst the upheaval of 1950s Tehran, a dreamy teenager finds reprieve–and love– in Mr. Fakhri’s neighborhood stationery shop, full of books and pens and colorful ink. But just before Roya is to marry her betrothed, Bahman, violence erupts, the result of a coup that changes the course of the country irrevocably. Sixty years later, after moving on and immigrating to New England, Roya finally comes face to face with the man she once loved and can ask the questions she has always held in her heart: what happened to you, why did you leave, and how could you forget me?

On an orchard in the small Iranian city of Naishapur, a former judge and his wife tend to their fruit and generations of family on the eve of the Islamic Revolution, watching first hand as corruption and extremism change the face of their country.

In the 1970s, iconic interracial rock duo Opal and Neville Charles become a sensation. But one bold, antiracist protest and the violent repercussions that follow tear the duo apart just as Opal is reaching her peak. Years later, their attempt at a reunion is still haunted by the past, and as music journalist S. Sunny Shelton curates an oral history of her idols, she discovers there’s far more to the story than anyone has uncovered before.

Another oral history about a fictional musical group, Daisy Jones and the Six follows the tumultuous rise and fall of a 1970s rock band. Their story is the stuff of legend, and everyone knows how a producer realized the only thing that could make hot new singer Daisy Jones and upcoming band the Six even bigger is bringing them together. But what they don’t know is why the band broke up at the height of their success. Until now, that is.

Told through the eyes of the people whose paths they crossed is the story of two realist poets — Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima — and their search for the vanished poet Cesárea Tinajero that turned into a life on the run after a violent showdown in the Sonora desert. Funnily enough it’s also set in the 1970s. The seventies are clearly a hot setting for fictional oral histories.

How does a palace concubine become Empress of China? Mei knows nothing of the courtly arts the other concubines use to gain the attention of an Emperor, but her curiosity and intellect set her apart. Soon, Mei is in a unique position to seduce the most powerful man in China, but as divided loyalties split the palace in two, she will first have to survive the coming battle before taking up her rightful place as along the Emperor’s side.

The eldest Romanov sister, Olga, will be the last Grand Duchess of Russia — but she doesn’t know that yet. As she comes of age during a time of shifting cultural mores and unrest, she finds hope and love outside the palace walls. But when war breaks out across Europe and protests turn to revolution, she will watch 300 years of Romanov rule come to a terrible end.

In 16th century Iran, the court is thrown into turmoil when the Shah dies before naming an heir. The Shah’s daughter and protégée, Princess Pari, knows more about politics than almost anyone around her, but her attempts to instill order after her father’s death are met with resentment. Equal of the Sun is the story of an incredible woman and a political player at the heart of a power struggle of epic proportions.

Three women running to and from Key West find themselves trapped during one of the worst storms to ever hit Florida. And, even if they survive, Mirta, Helen, and Elizabeth will never be the same.

When a wealthy white woman is murdered while a storm is brewing just off the coast, a Black veteran finds himself suspected of a terrible crime even as he struggles to find his place in a country he once fought for — but doesn’t seem to have a place for him anymore.

Audible Hall of Fame narrator Bahni Turpin brings her experience as a television and film actress to this novel about an anthropology student from New York who goes to Sea Islands off the Carolina coast in the 1920s to explore her origins as part of a proud Gullah-Geechee family tracing their roots back to the Ibo in West Africa.

Robin Miles is another Hall of Fame narrator whose brilliant voice work has brought to life books as diverse as The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and The Fifth Season. In The Personal Librarian, the incredible legacy of J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, is brought to light. A Black woman who passed as white, Belle became a fixture of New York City society and a powerful force in the world of art and literature as she helped curate Morgan’s world-class collection.

Karen Chilton leans into a southern accent in her rendition of The Prophets that really brings this Civil War era story about love and betrayal to life.

A stolen recipe plants the seeds of rage for a groundskeeper after a caricatured likeness of him is used to market a rib sauce stolen from a white family’s talented Black cook. Humiliated and increasingly distraught, August Sitwell’s rage grows into an explosion that will wreak tragedy for everyone around.

After fleeing Saigon in 1929, a Vietnamese cook serves first as a galley at sea and then as a live-in cook for the eccentric hosts of a literary salon in Paris. It’s a story of food, identity, belonging, and what it means to call a place home.

Inspired by a real historical mystery, this story follows three lighthouse keepers who go missing one night on a remote island off the Cornish coast. What happened to them? When a writer comes to visit the wives and girlfriends those men left behind two decades after their disappearance, what truths will finally be uncovered?

In late 19th century British occupied India, Captain Jim Agnihotri recovers in a military hospital after a skirmish left him injured, rereading his favorite Sherlock Holmes mysteries. But when a case in the local papers catches his attention, what is being called the crime of the century becomes the Captain’s first job as an investigator. He’s determined to find out what exactly happened to cause two young women to fall from a clock tower in broad daylight.

If you aren’t already a fan of Silvia Moreno-Garcia and her incredible range, here is a great place to start: her new take on The Island of Dr. Moreau. Carlota Moreau has grown up on her father’s isolated estate, where his part-human part-animal hybrids roam free. It’s a life of relative peace compared to the strife on the Yucatán peninsula, but the arrival of a careless stranger sets off a dangerous chain reaction that could upend all their lives forever.

I’ve been a fan of Safi’s fiction ever since I read her novel, Not the Girls You’re Looking For, and interviewed her for Book Riot. But I was absolutely and completely blown away by her first historical fiction novel, Travelers Along the Way, which reimagines Robin Hood as a young soldier in the Holy Lands during the Crusades. It’s an absolutely incredible tale of friendship, bravery, and compassion, and I can’t recommend it enough.

Who shot Jay Gatsby? In this historical reimagining, three women are wanted for questioning in regards to the death of West Egg’s most illustrious resident. One, Daisy Buchanan, once thought she would marry Gatsby. Another, Daisy’s best friend Jordan Baker, is guarding secrets that ruined her golf career and could now ruin her friendship with Daisy as well. And third, a suffragette named Catherine McCoy, is fighting for the right’s of women, especially her sister, Myrtle Wilson, who’s trapped in a loveless marriage. Each woman was pulled into Gatsby’s circle over the past few years. And each of them could’ve killed him. But did they? Only time will tell in this tale of love and obsession, greed and power.