Seattle Picks: Historical FictionLike this list

31 items

• River Spirit

  a Novel

  Aboulela, Leila, 1964-

  Add River Spirit to your for later shelf

  Told through the voices of seven men and women whose fates grow inextricably linked, this breathtaking new novel, set during the Mahdist War in 19th-century Sudan, is a story of people who--against the odds and for a brief time--gained…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Horse

  Brooks, Geraldine

  Add Horse to your for later shelf

  A scientist from Australia and a Nigerian-American art historian become connected by their shared interest in a 19th century race horse, one studying its remains, the other uncovering the history of the Black horsemen who were critical to…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea

  a Novel

  Chang-Eppig, Rita

  Add Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea to your for later shelf

  A legendary Chinese pirate queen fights to save her fleet from the forces allied against them, and the dangerous price of power.

• The East Indian

  a Novel

  Charry, Brinda

  Add The East Indian to your for later shelf

  Kidnapped and transported to the new world after traveling from the British East India Company’s outpost on the Coromandel Coast to the teeming streets of London, Tony finds himself in Jamestown, Virginia, where he works the tobacco…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Beyond the Door of No Return

  Diop, David, 1966-

  Add Beyond the Door of No Return to your for later shelf

  In 1806 Paris, the renowned botanist Michel Adanson lies on his deathbed, the masterwork to which he dedicated his life still incomplete; and as he expires, the last word to escape his lips is a woman's name: Maram.

• Independence

  a Novel

  Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee, 1956-

  Add Independence to your for later shelf

  In 1947 India, three sisters, after their father, a well-respected doctor, is killed during a riot and their neighbors turn against them, find themselves separated from one another, each on different paths due to events beyond their…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Lost Journals of Sacajewea

  a Novel

  Earling, Debra Magpie

  Add The Lost Journals of Sacajewea to your for later shelf

  Stolen from her village and then gambled away to a French Canadian trapper and trader, Sacajewea, determined to survive and triumph, crosses a vast and brutal terrain with her newborn son, the white man who owns her and a company of men…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Coleman Hill

  Foote, Kim Coleman

  Add Coleman Hill to your for later shelf

  Two American families' fates become intertwined in the wake of the Great Migration.

• The Trackers

  a Novel

  Frazier, Charles, 1950-

  Add The Trackers to your for later shelf

  Commissioned to create a mural representing Dawes, Wyoming, for their new Post Office, Val Welch, a painter in Depression-era America, stays with a wealthy art lover, his wife and a mysterious elder cowboy where he turns up secrets that…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Bullet Swallower

  a Novel

  Gonzalez James, Elizabeth, 1982-

  Add The Bullet Swallower to your for later shelf

  A Mexican bandido sets off for Texas to save his family, only to encounter a mysterious figure who has come, finally, to collect a cosmic debt generations in the making.

• Afterlives

  Gurnah, Abdulrazak, 1948-

  Add Afterlives to your for later shelf

  A young man returns home years after being kidnapped to find his parents gone and his sister basically a slave in a multi-generational saga set during the colonization of east Africa that won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature.

• This Other Eden

  a Novel

  Harding, Paul, 1967-

  Add This Other Eden to your for later shelf

  In 1792, formerly enslaved Black man Benjamin Honey and his Irish wife, Patience, discovered Malaga Island off the coast of Maine and created a racially integrated community that endured for a century. Then white folks arrived with the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Great Divide

  a Novel

  Henríquez, Cristina, 1977-

  Add The Great Divide to your for later shelf

  A sweeping saga of the building of the Panama Canal, told through the stories of the diverse laborers involved in its construction in 1907.

• A True Account

  Hannah Masury's Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates, Written by Herself

  Howe, Katherine, 1977-

  Add A True Account to your for later shelf

  In Boston, Hannah Masury - bound out to service at a waterfront inn since childhood - is ready to take her life into her own hands. When a man is hanged for piracy in the town square and whispers of a treasure in the Caribbean spread,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Loot

  James, Tania

  Add Loot to your for later shelf

  Set in 18th-century India, England and France, this sweeping novel follows gifted woodcarver Abbas who embarks on a perilous journey to retrieve the giant wooden tiger he created for Tipu Sultan from an estate in the English countryside,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• North Woods

  a Novel

  Mason, Daniel (Daniel Philippe)

  Add North Woods to your for later shelf

  Exploring the many ways we're connected to our environment and to one another across time, language and space, this sweeping collection of stories about a single house in the woods of New England is told through the lives of an…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

  McBride, James, 1957-

  Add The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store to your for later shelf

  When a skeleton is unearthed in the small, close-knit community of Chicken Hill, Pennsylvania, in 1972, an unforgettable cast of characters, living on the margins of white, Christian America closely guard a secret, especially when the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Wandering Stars

  Orange, Tommy, 1982-

  Add Wandering Stars to your for later shelf

  Traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through to the shattering aftermath of Orvil Red Feather's shooting in There There.

• The Beasts of Paris

  a Novel

  Penney, Stef

  Add The Beasts of Paris to your for later shelf

  Enter the world of Haussmann's newly built City of Light: a dazzling, panoramic novel of love and survival set during the Siege of Paris in 1870.

• The Seamstress of Sardinia

  a Novel

  Pitzorno, Bianca, 1942-

  Add The Seamstress of Sardinia to your for later shelf

  In 1900 Sardinia, an intelligent and ambitious young woman with an impossible dream, becoming the seamstress for a wealthy family, is drawn into a world far different than her own where she observes the town’s residents who are not quite…Read moreRead more of this annotation