Historical Fiction

Kathryn Stockett's long-awaited return, The Calamity Club, follows three women in 1933 Oxford, Mississippi who refuse to take what life has handed them: an eleven-year-old orphan with a sharp mouth, a chinless small-town spinster, and a desperate mother running on fumes. Funny, occasionally baggy, and full of women you do not forget after the last page.

The Thorn Queen by Sasha Peyton Smith is the sequel to The Rose Bargain. Quieter court warfare, hotter romance, darker faerie kingdom.

Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker is a slow-burn horror novel blending samurai history and Japanese myth. A Gothic horror novel where a grieving present-day fugitive and a 19th-century samurai's daughter discover each other through a door that should not exist, with Kylie Lee Baker's dark prose and Japanese mythology holding the whole haunted house together.

Only Breath & Shadow by Andrew Tweeddale is the powerful conclusion to the Castle Drogo series. A blind English veteran, a Jewish family in peril, and 1938 Vienna come alive in this quietly devastating work of literary historical fiction.

A sharp, darkly funny review of Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke — the debut novel about a tradwife influencer who wakes up trapped in pioneer-era Idaho with no way home.