Kohōpeh’s The Kabuki Book takes place in Japan after the 1600 Battle of Sekigahara, as Tokugawa power begins settling over Kyō. Okuni no Izumo is an exiled shrine maiden traveling to the capital after brigands steal her ox cart. When a servant abandons her on...

Salt & Honey by Candi Miller is a well-researched historical novel set in South Africa in the 1950s and 60s. I knew very little about this piece of history, and it is exactly as sad as I thought it would be. The story follows Koba,...

Some journeys change far more than your destination. In Forsaking All Others, Jo Horne takes readers back to 1858 Missouri, where Annabelle “Belle” Carrington's life appears carefully planned. However, as her engagement approaches, she begins to have doubts. At the center of her world is...

Stephen James’ Trial by Conscience begins with a panicked choice that alters a person’s life forever. In 1964, an ordinary morning for a runner named Richard in Birmingham is shattered after a cruel family prank goes wrong. Believing he is responsible for a girl’s sudden...

Of Princes and Patriots: Chronicles of the Threlphax by Laura Lee Dooley is a fascinating historical novel of early Siam (Thailand) in 1864 that weaves an element of science fiction into the narrative. When Chanchai was just a young boy hiding in a sugarcane field...

Raymond Hackney’s A Plea for Freedom follows Daniel Asbury, a fifteen-year-old farm boy in Bedford County, Virginia, as the Revolution reaches his family in 1777. After Judge Charles Lynch punishes two captured Tories beneath the walnut tree in New London, Daniel’s desire for liberty becomes...

C.F. Yetmen’s The Pretense of Memory follows Oskar Gruenewald, a law student in 1958 Wiesbaden whose life begins to tilt after Professor Brehmer accuses him of plagiarism. Oskar survived the war as a child and was raised afterward by Anna and Henry Cooper, yet his...

One unexpected moment can change everything. In All That I'm Asking by Ellen Halter, those hits just keep coming for one young woman. The novel takes place in New York City during the late 1960s and opens as Alice Kaplan escapes an attempted sexual assault...

Martha Conway’s novel, We Meet Apart, is a deeply haunting historical novel interwoven with intriguing speculative fiction and supernatural elements. The story, set in 1940 during WWII, has two concurrent timelines. In one timeline, Ireland is a free, neutral country. In a second timeline, the...

Mark Guillerman pens a sweeping historical novel in A Heart That’s True, set in the aftermath of the 19th-century Indian Wars. The novel follows two Lakota children, twelve-year-old Joseph Cross, named Blue Thunder at birth, and his cousin, White Cloud, as they are ripped away...