New Books In Historical Fiction

How to Dodge a Cannonball is a razor-sharp satire that dives into the heart of the Civil War, hilariously questioning the essence of the fight, not just for territory, but for the soul of America.How to Dodge a Cannonball (Henry Holt, 2025) is funnier than the Civil War should ever be. It follows Anders, a teenage idealist who enlists and reenlists to shape the American Future―as soon as he figures out what that is, who it includes, and why everyone wants him to die for it. Escaping his violently insane mother is a bonus.Anders finds honor as a proud Union flag twirler―until he’s captured. Then he tries life as a diehard Confederate―until fate asks him to die hard for the Confederacy at Gettysburg. Barely alive, Anders limps into a Black Union regiment in a stolen uniform. While visibly white, he claims to be an octoroon, and they claim to believe him. Only then does his life get truly strange.His new brothers are even stranger, including a science-fiction playwright, a Haitian double agent, and a former slav

NBN host Hollay Ghadery speaks with author Jack Wang about his novel, The Riveter (HarperVia, 2025).  In the vein of All the Light We Cannot See, a cross-cultural love story set against the dramatic backdrop of the Allied invasion of Europe during WWII. Vancouver, 1942. Josiah Chang arrives in the bustling city ready to make a new life for himself. The Second World War is in full swing, and Josiah, like so many Canadians, wants to prove his loyalty by serving his country. But Chinese Canadians are barred from joining the army out of fear they might expect citizenship in return. So, Josiah heads to the shipyard where he finds work as a riveter, fastening together the ribs and steel plates of Victory ships. One night, Josiah spots Poppy singing at a navy club. Despite their different backgrounds, they fall for each other instantly, and soon Josiah is spending his nights at Poppy’s small wartime house. Their starry-eyed romance lasts until Poppy’s father comes to visit and the harsh reality of their situation

Keeping details straight while writing a chronologically organized series is difficult enough. Focusing four full-length novels on the events of a single group experience in a single year, with back stories and future developments for a small group of heroines, each of whom has a chance to tell her own story of the central event and its consequences, requires even greater skill. Yet Karen Swan pulls off this mammoth enterprise in her Wild Isle series, which concludes with The Midnight Secret (Macmillan, 2025). The Last Summer, the first book in the series, opens in June 1930 with three friends sitting on a rock plucking fulmars, a kind of seabird. Effie, Mhairi (the Gaelic form of Mary, pronounced VAH-ree), and Flora already know that they will have to evacuate their island home in the Outermost Scottish Hebrides within a few months. Flora greets the change with enthusiasm, Effie with cautious pragmatism, and Mhairi with despair. From this first book and the two that follow, The Stolen Hours and The Lost Lo

For decades Frank X Walker has reclaimed essential American lives through his pathbreaking historical poetry. In this stirring new collection, he reimagines the experiences of Black Civil War soldiers—including his own ancestors—who enlisted in the Union army in exchange for emancipation.Moving chronologically from antebellum Kentucky through Reconstruction, Walker braids the voices of the United States Colored Troops with their family members, as well as slave owners and prominent historical figures from Abraham Lincoln to Frederick Douglas and Margaret Garner. Imbued with atmospheric imagery, these persona poems and more “[clarify] not only the inextricable value of Black life and labor to the building of America, but the terrible price they were forced to pay in producing that labor” (Khadijah Queen). “How do you un-orphan a people?” Walker asks. “How do you pick up / shattered black porcelain and make / a new set of dishes fit to eat off?”While carefully attuned to the heartbreak and horrors of war, Walke

Joanna Miller’s The Eights (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2025) follows four women attending the University of Oxford in 1920. They are not the first female university students in the United Kingdom, or even the first who can hope to attain a degree, but they are the first class of women who can, if they fulfill all the requirements, attain a university degree from Oxford. Perhaps unsurprisingly, not everyone on the campus regards their presence as a plus. Views of women as lightheaded, emotionally unstable creatures incapable of mastering sophisticated thought or living without male guidance have begun to fade since the Great War of 1914–1918, but they continue to influence popular thinking. Unlike the men, women students live under strict restrictions against partying or even entertaining male visitors who are not blood relatives. Defy the rules, and they risk being “sent down” (suspended, in effect) or even dismissed from the program altogether. So what brings the four heroines to Oxford? Each has her own story,

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with debut Toronto author Tim Welsh about his novel, Ley Lines, published by Guernica Editions, 2025.  Set in the waning days of the Klondike Gold Rush, Ley Lines begins in the mythical boom town of Sawdust City, Yukon Territory. Luckless prospector Steve Ladle has accepted an unusual job offer: accompany a local con artist to the unconquered top of a nearby mountain. What he finds there briefly upends the town’s fading fortunes, attracting a crowd of gawkers and acolytes, while inadvertently setting in motion a series of events that brings about the town’s ruin. In the aftermath, a ragtag group of characters is sent reeling across the Klondike, struggling to come to grips with a world that has been suddenly and unpredictably upturned. As they attempt to carve out a place for themselves, our protagonists reckon with the various personal, historical and supernatural forces that have brought them to this moment. A wildly inventive, psychedelic odyssey, Ley Lines f

Sona Falstaff, a hospital nurse in Bombay, has things more or less where she wants them. Yes, she faces a certain discrimination, positive and negative, because of her mixed heritage, which makes her a “half-half” in the lingo of 1930s India. She lives in a poor section of the city, and she must work to support herself and her aging mother. India itself is a state of flux as the British Raj comes to an end and demands for independence increase in intensity and volume. But all in all, Sona wants nothing more than to cling to the job and the life she knows. Yet when the painter Mira Novak is admitted to the hospital, she upends Sona’s carefully constructed world. Mira’s vibrancy, passion, and generosity awaken a yearning to explore that Sona didn’t even know she had. But just as she begins to cherish the possibility of friendship, Mira dies, six days after entering the hospital. The job Sona loves is threatened by suspicion that she somehow contributed to the painter’s death. Sona soon discovers that Mira has l

Afterthought: A Family Story (Indiana University Bloomington Libraries Publishing, 2025) by Dr. Heather Akou focuses on the life of her grandmother, Lila Slaback, who grew up in a dysfunctional, working-class family in La Crosse, Wisconsin, in the 1930s. In her short adult life, she gave birth to seven children with at least four different men and died in 1958 at age thirty-six. She was a real person, but her family was not proud of her story. This book is my best attempt to recover it. This work of historical fiction can be read like a memoir. With extensive notes and resources, it can also be read as inspiration for researching and writing historical fiction, especially in the United States. As an educational text, it would be appropriate for courses on fashion history, American history, gender roles, family, poverty, healthcare, and generational trauma. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and impl

Most people in North America have probably at least heard the name W. E. B. Dubois. In the early twentieth century, DuBois—the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard—published and spoke extensively about his vision of equality through education. In particular, he edited The Crisis, the monthly magazine of the NAACP, while also writing such classics as The Souls of Black Folk. But if Dubois is well known, the same cannot be said these days of Jessie Redmon Fauset, the central character of Victoria Christopher Murray’s Harlem Rhapsody (Berkley, 2025). In her day, Fauset—who held a degree from Cornell as well as a master’s from Penn and a certificate from the Sorbonne in Paris—worked as the literary editor of The Crisis and its associated children’s magazine, The Brownies Book, while writing the first of what would become four acclaimed novels. She fostered such stars of the Harlem Renaissance as Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Jean Toomer, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Nella Larsen, and Zora Neale Hurs

Raphael Klonimus battles deep regret. Haunted by losing Laila, he sees himself as a coward for letting her slip away. But fate offers him a second chance. He whisks Laila away to a secluded castle, determined to reignite their passionate love. A single, soul-stirring kiss sparks hope, yet Raphael knows their journey to happiness will be challenging. In Instead of Harmony (2023) by Sara Adrien, can he prove their love is worth fighting for, or will his past mistakes haunt them? Delilah "Laila" Mandel, a young widow, lives a life of duty and sacrifice, having married a dying friend to ease her mother's debts. Yet, her heart has always belonged to Raphael, the boy next door. When he reenters her life, offering a chance at genuine happiness, Laila feels torn between the intoxicating allure of first love and the heavy burden of her obligations. Can she trust Raphael to protect their love from the greed and desires of others, or will she have to sacrifice her happiness once more? This interview was conducted by Dr.

As Nazi tanks roll toward Leningrad in August 1941, an unmarried nineteen-year-old ballerina gives birth to twin girls in the soon-to-be besieged city. Bereft of hope, the dancer—once a rising star at the Kirov—slashes her wrists, but her babies survive, rescued by the devoted friend who arrives just too late to save their mother. The friend, too, is a dancer with the Kirov, and her tutelage and self-sacrifice ensure that the girls, Maya and Natasha, become students at the Vaganova Academy after the Siege of Leningrad is broken. We meet the twins as they enter their senior year in 1958. At once inseparable and competitive, Maya and Natasha have developed quite different personalities, with Natasha the leader and future star, Maya her loyal follower. But as they turn seventeen, various factors pull them apart: boys; the changing climate of Khrushchev’s USSR; and the approaching end to their schooling, which even in a state-run economy doesn’t guarantee anyone a specific place in the world. But it’s when the st

When the nobility and gentility of England are at their wits end, they send a discrete note to Miss Vivienne Clarke’s Governess Bureau. Only accepting the very best clients, their governesses are coveted, with every governess following three rules: 1.You must have an impeccable record. 2.You must bring a special skill to the table. 3.You must never fall in love… In this interview with Dr. Miranda Melcher, Emily E K Murdoch takes listeners behind the scenes to explore the historical research that went into the six-book Governess Bureau series (Dragonblade) published by Dragonblade from 2021 to 2022. They also discuss how the novels bring together the genres of historical fiction, mystery, and romance, how the series is structured and why, and much more. If you’ve ever been interested in how series are created and genres are smashed - this is the conversation for you! This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiati

Today I talked to Alegra Goodman about her novel Isola (The Dial Press, 2025) After Marguerite is orphaned as a young girl, her guardian leaves her alone in her family’s enormous home, where servants see to her needs until he hires a mother and daughter to tutor her in the ways of wealthy 16th century lords and ladies. The guardian sells her home and spends her fortune, betting on an expedition to New France (now known as Canada). The guardian insists that she accompany him, only with her old maid. Afraid and lonely, Marguerite befriends her guardian’s secretary and falls in love with him, but the guardian learns of it and abandons her, her maid, and his secretary on a deserted island. Marguerite is forced to learn survival skills in this tale based on a true story. Allegra Goodman’s novels include Isola (2025), Sam (a Read With Jenna Book Club selection), The Chalk Artist (winner of the Massachusetts Book Award), Intuition, The Cookbook Collector, Paradise Park, and Kaaterskill Falls (a National Book Award f

RuFF (Latitude 46 Publishing, 2024) is Rod Carley’s highly-anticipated fourth novel. This historical fiction transports us to Elizabethan England, where we witness Shakespeare struggling through a midlife crisis while trying to win a national play competition to secure the King’s business. Hilarious hijinks ensue, with whip-smart dialogue and a captivating tale that touches on salient social issues that persist today, including equality, justice, and censorship. Humour and incisive wit combine to create a compulsively readable and thought-provoking novel from this Leacock Award long-listed author. We know RuFF will be a favourite book of the year for many. More About RuFF: Rod Carley is back with another theatrical odyssey packed with an unforgettable cast of Elizabethan eccentrics. It’s a madcap world more modern than tomorrow where gender is what a person makes of it (no matter the story beneath their petticoats or tights). Will Shakespeare is having a very bad year. Suffering from a mid-life crisis, a plag

Charlotte Cross has built a satisfying career as assistant curator in the Department of Egyptian Art at New York’s Metropolitan Museum. It’s 1978, the museum has just opened the Temple of Dendur and is preparing to become the last US stop for the King Tutankhamun exhibit, and Charlotte at sixty has almost completed her long-planned article on Hathorkare, one of ancient Egypt’s few female pharaohs. Between that and a steady romantic relationship with the playwright Mark Schrader, life looks pretty good. But if things stopped there, the story would end before it began. In The Stolen Queen (Dutton, 2025), Fiona Davis nimbly juggles three threads and two narrators: Charlotte in 1978, Charlotte in 1936, and Annie Jenkins in 1978. What connects them, besides a shared interest in Egyptology, is the Cerulean Queen, part of an ancient statue of Hathorkare and the stolen queen of the title. The theft of the Cerulean Queen and the mystery surrounding it presumably explain the publisher’s decision to describe the book as

In The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective (Yale UP, 2024), Sara Lodge tells stories of women who brought 19th century criminals to justice, in real life and popular culture, as unacknowledged crime-fighters and feminist icons.  On stage and in fiction, women detectives were sensational figures who fascinated the public with cross-dressing, fist-swinging heroines who captured thieves, flushed out cheats, and solved murders. Few people realize that these characters were based on real women who were active as detectives in private agencies and in the Victorian police force. Far from the mythology of an all-male world, women were a daily presence in police activity, although often underpaid and overlooked. They did important and dangerous work in a variety of roles both openly and as undercover agents.  While the fictional characters were heroic figures who always saved the day, these morally ambiguous real women were sometimes paid to betray, deceive, or entrap in the murky underworld of Victorian

The Donoghue Girl (Latitude 46, 2024) is heart-wrenching historical fiction from beloved Canadian author, Kim Fahner. .With her incomparable ability to create immersive worlds, Fahner tells the story of an Irish Catholic family in a Northern Ontario mining town almost a hundred years ago. Willful, headstrong Lizzie is our relatable protagonist and we follow her through an uncertain courtship, a difficult pregnancy, an absent husband, and family expectations that threaten to undo her. The result is a riveting tale that transports us back in time, while also encouraging us to examine patriarchal systems and expectations that continue to shape and subjugate the lives of women today. With an unforgettable cast of characters and a gripping take on Canadian history, Fahner has gifted us a complex and moving tale in The Donoghue Girl. More About The Donoghue Girl: Longing for a life bigger than the one she inhabits, Lizzie Donoghue thinks she’s found a simple escape route in Michael Power, but soon discovers that sh

Set in 1898, Harriet Morrow is 21, supports her 16-year-old brother, and has been accepted as the first female detective at the Prescott Agency. She’s given one week to find Agnes, maid to the wealthy Pearl Bartlett, who lives in one of the Prairie Street mansions on the south side of Chicago. Harriet, who prefers wearing men’s shoes and hats and has no intention of ever getting married, immediately notices that Agnes has been taken, probably by force, from her attic apartment. Harriet visits Agnes’s family and neighborhood and riding her trusty bicycle begins searching for clues across the city while grappling with someone in the agency who is trying to sabotage her. If she doesn’t solve the case, she’ll be booted from the agency, and Harriet Morrow can’t let that happen in Rob Osler’s charming novel, The Case of the Missing Maid (Kensington Books Publishing 2024). Rob Osler was born and raised in Boise, Idaho and earned a B.A. in Philosophy at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA. Soon after, he mov

Robert Penner’s best-selling novel, The Dark King Swallows the World (Radiant Press, October 2024) is a phenomenal genre-bending read. A coming-of-age, historical fiction, and fantasy novel that simultaneously engages with and dismantles the cliches of its many genres, The Dark King Swallows the World is a totally unique and totally fresh story that is both engaging and emotional. Most of all, given the surreal events south of the border, Robert’s book—which is about a dark king brainwashing adults—feels uncannily portent. Isolated and friendless in World War II Cornwall, Nora, a precocious American adolescent, loses her younger half-brother in a car crash. Overwhelmed by grief Nora’s mother becomes involved with Olaf Winter, the self-professed necromancer Nora comes to believe is responsible for the accident. Desperate to win back her mother’s love from the nefarious Mr. Winter, Nora is plunged into a world of faeries, giants, and homunculi. Ultimately, she travels to the land of the dead, where she confront

Arabella Grant doesn’t want to deceive London high society. It’s her cousin Lady Isabella, known as Issie, who convinces Arabella to take over so that Issie can nurture her frail health and spend her time reading, which she much prefers to parties. It’s only for three months, after all. Of course, things don’t go as planned. While Arabella meets the lord of her dreams but can’t tell him who she really is, Issie falls in love with a handsome physician. And all of a sudden, three months seems long enough to get both cousins into trouble. This light-hearted romp is perfect for the winter holidays, so grab some cocoa or egg nog and enjoy! Suzanne Allain has written several historical romances, one of which, Mr. Malcolm’s List, has been turned into a film. The Wrong Lady Meets Lord Right (Berkley, 2024) is her most recent book. C. P. Lesley is the author of two historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible and four other novels. Her next book, Song of the Steadfast, is due in 2025. Learn