Mission 37 by Michael Berk begins in 1945, when Army flight surgeon Captain Jack Monroe is summoned from a quiet English hospital to observe an autopsy in Germany that is meant to confirm the death of Nazi official Martin Bormann. When procedural gaps and missing...

Song of the Chimney Sweep by Tamatha Cain traces the life of Betty Van Disson, nee Langdon, from a winter night in Florida in 1969 through decades shaped by obligation and secrecy. As a teenager, Betty meets singer Dominicus Owens and imagines a future beyond...

Poinsettia Girl by Jennifer Wizbowski is a historical novel set in Venice in the early eighteenth century. Agata Farusi was a ten-year-old girl trying to come to terms with the untimely death of her mother. Cared for by her loving Nonna (grandmother), in their neighborhood...

Self-Liberation of Parson Sykes by David J. Mason is a historical novella that traces one young man’s path from enslavement in Southampton County, Virginia, to the uncertain promise of freedom during the Civil War’s final years. Parson Sykes begins as a skilled laborer on Jacob...

Lord Lorenzo Medici, the de facto ruler of Florence, has summoned ship captain Niccolo Corsini to his estate. A mysterious fleet of ships flying a white flag with a black cross is decimating cities on Italy’s coast with Florence in its sights. This fleet doesn’t...

Gin Crow by Jason Hill follows Willy Knight, a widowed father living with his daughter Christy in 2005 San Antonio. Willy has spent years studying the death of Helen Ruth after recognizing parallels between her disappearance from public memory and his own wife’s death after...

Therein Lies the Pearl by Catherine Hughes is one of those historical novels that I devour with great pleasure. Set in Normandy and England in the eleventh century, in the years leading up to the Norman Conquest in 1066, it focuses not so much on...

Ballot by Dan Mulvagh is a powerful anti-war novel that follows the exploits of four Australian servicemen (Diggers) called up to serve in the Vietnam War. Mitch Masters' career in motorcycle speedway racing is derailed by a call-up in the 1969 Australian draft ballot. Three...

When Lieutenant Colonel William W. Harris, a World War II veteran, is assigned to the 65th Infantry Regiment in Puerto Rico in 1949 as commander, he sees it as a demotion and the end of his promising military career. Composed almost entirely of Puerto Rican...

Iysh by Greg Price begins with Leo Butlion, a medical student in 1940s Koblenz, when the German state turns its full attention to Jewish families. After a narrow escape from deportation, he survives by passing as a non-combatant inside the German military, using medical training...