historical fiction

Audiobook: Deep Dark

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by Zohra Nabi
Read by Sarah Ovens
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Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There are some intense parts, jump scares, and neglectful/bad parenting. It would be in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore if it existed in physical form.

Cassia Thorne has spent half of her life in a debtor’s prison in London, eking out what living she could while her father slowly descended into madness. She has made her way as a flute player at the Bartholomew Fair, but this year, she has hopes of something grander: to write and sell the songs that everyone sings. But, her quest for a grander life is waylaid when her friend’s younger brother goes missing. And suddenly Cassia is thrust into the underworld of London, a world of monsters and greedy men, a world where poor children go missing solely because no one will think to go looking for them.

Can Cassia help before it’s too late?

I pitched this one to my coworkers as Dickens with a kraken, and they all agreed: who wouldn’t want to read that? I do have to admit, I was a little disappointed there was an actual monster; I was kind of hoping for a straight-up historical mystery. That said, Nabi did a fantastic job weaving both the speculative aspect of an actual monster in the tunnels under London with the historical elements of class and the way poor people had to scrape to make it.

Ovens was a fantastic narrator, though, keeping the story moving forward, and keeping me engaged enough to keep wanting to listen. I’m sad there isn’t a physical publication of the book in the US; I can think of a handful of kids who would love this one.

But it’s fantastic on audio.

Audiobook: Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales

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by Heather Fawcett
Read by Ell Potter & Michael Dodds
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Or listen at Libro.fm
Others in the series: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands
Content: There are some intense moments and a bit of faerie violence. It’s in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

Spoilers for the first two, obviously.

Emily and Wendell have returned to Wendell’s kingdom, the Silver Loopie, for him to take his place as ruler. It’s not all fun and games, because the former queen, Wendell’s stepmother, isn’t quite dead yet and has put a curse on the land poisoning it. It’s up to Emily, and her immense knowledge of fairy stories, to figure out which story this is playing out as, and how to set the Silver Loopie to rights. And, maybe somewhere along the way, she will figure out how to be the queen of a faerie realm.

I probably guessed somewhere along the way, that this was going to be the end of Emily and Wendell’s adventures, and while I’m sad to see them go, I love the way Fawcett wrapped them up. It had everything I have come to adore about these books: faerie magic, a bit of tension between Emily and Wendell, her dog Shadow (love the dog!), and adventures that she approaches scholarly. It was as charming and as wonderful as the other two.

I do have to admit that I got an advance copy of this book, and tried to read it but couldn’t connect with it. It wasn’t until I picked it up in audio and started listening that I realized that these books, while charming and delightful on their own, are made for audio. Potter does such as wonderful job capturing Emily’s voice and mannerisms, that she makes Emily just jump off the page. They are truly delightful as audiobooks

And, to be honest, I’m okay with the series ending. What I would like, though, is a spin-off series featuring Emily’s niece Ariadnae (not sure of the spelling of that one!). That would be delightful.

A thoroughly charming ending to a thoroughly charming series.

The Hedgewitch of Foxhall

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by Anna Bright
First sentence: “I was seven years old when I met wild magic.”
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Content: There is some violence, including talk of violence done to women. And there is a slight romance. It’s in the Teen (grades 9+) section of the bookstore.

Ffion is a hedgewitch in a remote village in Wales; she lives off the earth and people’s goodness, because she shuns the ways of the Foxhall coven, which she thinks has gotten too big and powerful, and neglects the needs of the poor and downtrodden. And when her familiar, Cadno the fox, gets caught in one of the Foxhall’s sacrifices for a spell, Ffion is livid. Livid enough to team up with Prince Tal, who arrived at the coven asking for their help to do his father’s bidding – destroy the wall that they believe is hindering Welsh magic. Tal has his own reasons to be there: he and his half-brother Dafydd, are in a competition to win the throne after their father, the king, is foretold his death by his court magician. Whoever can bring magic back will be the next king.

It’s obviously not quite as simple as all that, but that’s the basic gist. What I kept thinking though, is that it felt so much like Diana Wynne Jones’s early work, full of lore and mythology and Welsh magic and grounded in nature and the mystical. This one has an elegance about it that pulled me in and kept me reading. I loved Ffion as a character, and I liked the way Bright wove magic and folklore through the book. I liked the tension between Tal and Dafydd, and have to admit that Bright surprised me with the direction the book takes. It’s not what I expected at all.

And I simply loved it.

The Listeners

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by Maggie Stiefvater
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: June 3, 2025
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is some fade-to-black sex and talk of Nazis. It will be in the Adult Fiction section of the bookstore.

The story goes like this: Maggie announces that she’s got a book out in June, that it’s published by Viking. She then posts, saying (much more Maggie-like) that she announced too early. But, by this time, I figured out that Viking is published under Penguin, and I emailed our Penguin rep asking if there are ARCs and if can I have one. He emailed back saying that it was super early, and maybe… though later, when I saw him in person, he admitted I caught him off-guard because he had no idea about the book. At any rate, her editors were looking for people to read early manuscript copies, and he gave them my name. Eventually (a month after he told me all this!), the book came in the mail to the owner, who then asked if I wanted it. I had a fangirl moment “Ohmygod, ohmyGod, OHMYGOD, YES!” (she laughed at me) and then took it home and read it practically in one night.

This won’t be a real review; I will want to read it again when it comes out, to get more out of it, to enjoy the cover (that’s just a placeholder there), and to write a real review. But know this: if you like Maggie’s work, you will like this one. The magic is subtler than in her other books, but it’s all very much Maggie. And the characters are so fascinating, so complex. And there are so many little turns of phrase that just melted my heart and caught my fancy. It’s going to be a good one.

I can’t wait for others to get to read it!

The Night War

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by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
First sentence: “I could hear sirens.”
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Content: There are intense moments, including a round-up of Jews to go to concentration camps. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Miri and her parents are living in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1942, after fleeing Germany after the kristalnacht. They’re making do in a small apartment, but they have Jewish neighbors and it’s working. That is, until the French police raid the neighborhood and round all the Jews in France up. Miri escapes with her neighbor’s 2-year-old daughter, Nora, and after finding refuge in a nunnery (the nun saved her from an interaction with a Nazi soldier), she is separated from Nora and sent to a Catholic school in the French countryside. She has to pretend to be a Catholic, which is hard. The only bright side is that she’s close to the Vichy border, and escape. Can she find Nora and get across before she is found out?

On the one hand: this is a well-written book. (I have issues with the ghost, but aside from that.) Bradley knows how to pace a story and knows how to make a historical story relatable (in this one: all religions are valid, we shouldn’t be afraid of those who are not like us, we shouldn’t believe the propaganda we hear). However, I am just so tired of World War II books. I just am. I know these stories need to be told, but I am so so very tired of them. And, I don’t think that the ghost in this one was necessary. Bradley used the ghost as a narrative cop-out – Miri was the only one who could see the ghost and it helped her get out of sticky situations.

I just wanted more (or something entirely different) from this one.

Audiobook: The Seventh Veil of Salome

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by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia
Read by Caitlin Kelly, Atlanta Amado, Victoria Villarreal, Arthur Morey, Andrew Eiden, Kristen DiMercurio, Frankie Corzo, Lauren Fortgang, Javier Prusky, Fred Sanders, Lee Osorio & Cassandra Campbell
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is violence, sexual harassment, racist slurs, and swearing, including a few f-bombs. It’s in the fiction section of the bookstore.

It’s 1955 and Hollywood is all-in on big-budget Biblical films. In this case, the story of Salome, the woman who danced for Herod and asked for John the Baptist’s head on a platter. The problem the director is having, though, is finding the right woman to play the title character. Enter Vera Larios, a newbie from Mexico City. She’s the perfect person, except…. she won’t entertain the advances of the playboy leading man. And she “took the role” from another aspiring actress. (And she also “took” the aspiring actress’s boyfriend.) And, worst of all: she’s Mexican.

One of the things we have said about Moreno-Garcia at the store is that she doesn’t write the same book twice. A big, sweeping historical drama was not really on my bingo card for her, but that’s not to say she didn’t do it well. It’s very character-driven, especially the three female characters: Vera, of course; but also Nancy (the aspiring – and failing – actress); and Salome herself. At first, I thought the Salome chapters were a bit weird, but as the book went on, I saw the parallels between that story and the one playing out around the movie. I ended up thinking about halfway through that this was a book about the ways women use their sexuality to gain power, and maybe that’s so. I’m not entirely sure, though, now that I’m done.

The full cast recording was really well done, however. There are no chapters, just narratives by various people – from other cast members to the director, a screenwriter, and other Hollywood notables – and the full cast helped distinguish that. I did wonder why most of the narratives were in first-person, kind of documentary-style, but the Nancy, Vera, and Salome sections were in third-person. Again, it was a choice, and while I did not mind it, I was a bit put off initially.

I am glad I read it, though, even if it’s not my usual fare.

Operation: Happy

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by Jenni L. Walsh
First sentence: “A dog is at the top of my wish list.”
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Content: There are some intense moments – bombs dropping on Pearl Harbor, and an attempted assault – though it is short and age-appropriate. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Jody is the daughter of a Marine, who is stationed in Pearl Harbor in 1940. If you know history, you know where this is going. The book is divided into two: before the attack, where Jody is enjoying living in Hawaii and having her family around, and then after, when she, her mom, and her sister are evacuated to San Francisco, dealing with the aftermath of the attack.

It’s a slim book to handle all that’s in there, but Walsh handles it quite beautifully. As a reader, you get a sense of the idyllic Hawaiian life before the attacks, how Jody loves spending time with her dog and her family. And then the intensity of the attacks and the spiral afterward, when Jody’s mom becomes overwhelmed and depressed and Jody and her sister have to figure out how to deal with creating a livable life for themselves in San Francisco. And I appreciate that while Walsh didn’t sugarcoat the panic or the fear, she made it age-appropriate.

The only thing I didn’t get was the purpose of the chapters written from the dog’s perspective. While it never veered into speculative, I didn’t feel like they added much to the story. But, aside from that, it’s a charming historical novel that addresses some intense subjects.

Audiobook: The Paris Novel

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by Ruth Reichl
Read by Kiiri Sandy
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Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is mention of sexual abuse to a child, as well as just general bad parenting. It’s in the Fiction section of the bookstore.

Stella was raised by a single mom, who was not reliable. She was flaky and inconsistent and as a result, Stella became very routinized. She had rules she followed, and systems to make her life make sense. And then, in the early 1980s, Stella’s mother dies and leaves her money with specific instructions to go to Paris until the money runs out. So, Stella does. And, she sets about living in Paris like in New York – very frugally. That is until she wanders into a second-hand clothing shop and tries on the Perfect Dress. She can’t afford it, but the shop owner talks her into it, promising she could return it the next day. She also promises that Stella’s life will change. And it does. She meets Jules and through him, the whole world of Paris opens up and eventually completely changes Stella’s life.

This was a delightful little novel. I could tell that Reichl was a food writer – food was incredibly important to the story, both to the plot and just in the descriptions of the food. I felt like I could have been in Paris, enjoying the food that Stella had. That was part of what I enjoyed about the book – the descriptions of Paris in the early 1980s – it was someplace that someone could go and live for months on very little, and still enjoy so much. It was also a story about enjoying life to the fullest; Stella discovers that the limiting way she had been living her life was soulless, and to really Live, one needed not only to Enjoy the finer things but also to Follow Your Dreams.

Sandy was also an excellent narrator. She brought the characters to life and was able to make the whole Paris world feel full and vibrant. In the end, I thought it was a very enjoyable read.

Across So Many Seas

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by Ruth Behar
First sentence: “The sound of trumpets coming from the direction of our town gates tears me from sleep, my dreams forgotten as I jolt out of bed.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There are some instances of hatred toward Jews, deaths of parents, and overly strict fathers. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

These inter-connected short stories follow girls in the same Sephardic Jewish family from their exile in Spain in 1492, to their lives in Turkey and one girl’s exile from there to Cuba, to finally landing in Miami in present times. Three of the stories follow a direct mother-daughter line; the fourth is their ancestor in Spain. While there isn’t much of a plot except for these girls’ experiences, there is a lot of history here, much of which I didn’t know. 

Behar is a talented writer, capturing quite a lot in a few words. It’s an elegant little book, and I appreciated that it was interconnected stories rather than trying to be one long novel. It was just enough to keep me interested and yet dense enough that I felt I connected with the characters are well as learning something new. 

I’m not entirely sure it’s for kids, but maybe some out there will find an interest in this story. It’s a good one. 

Audiobook: Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands

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by Heather Fawcett
Read by Ell Potter & Michael Dodds
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Others in the series: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries
Content: There are some dangerous moments and an off-screen sex scene. For some reason, it’s in the Romance section of the bookstore, which I disagree with. (While it has a romance, it’s not Romance!)

Spoilers for the first one, obviously.

It’s a little while after the events of the last book, and Emily and Wendell have settled back into teaching (such as it is, for Wendell) at Cambridge. But, soon after his birthday, he starts feeling ill, and his faerie magic goes haywire. It turns out that his stepmother -who overthrew his father and killed his entire family for the throne – is stepping up her assassination plan. This concerns Emily and she’s more than ever determined to find the Nexus and get Wendell back to his realm so he can off his stepmother. This involves a trip to the Alps, this time with the department head and Emily’s niece in tow. As they try to unravel the mystery of the Nexus, Wendell slowly deteriorates. Will they be able to find it and get him back to his realm in time?

Much like the first book, this is utterly delightful. The combination of historical fiction and faerie magic is charming, and Emily is a delightful narrator to be our guide through this world. It’s doubly delightful on audiobook with Potter doing an admirable job capturing all the characters and the intricacies of the plot. I loved the twists and turns in this one, and I liked that Fawcett allowed Emily to save Wendell by using her own wits, and not relying on magic to get her out of trouble.

I don’t know if this is it for Wendell and Emily – the book had a logical end to the story – but I’d happily follow them on more adventures! Such a good series.