Forthcoming Historical Fiction for 2008

This list of adult historical fiction titles has been compiled from publishers’ catalogs, publisher home pages, Publishers Weekly forecasts, Amazon US and UK, and information supplied by authors.  Titles and dates on this list are subject to change. We list mainstream and small press titles set in the 1950s and earlier. 

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View Archive: Historical Novels from 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, and 2003

January 2008

Suzanne Arruda, The Serpent's Daughter, NAL (Jade del Cameron mystery set in 1920s Morocco)

Antonia Arslan, Skylark Farm, Atlantic (The chronicle of a family’s struggle for survival during the Armenian genocide in Turkey in 1915)

Maureen Ash, Death of a Squire, Berkley Prime Crime (2nd in Templar Knight mystery series)

Pat Barker, Life Class, Doubleday (artists and lovers caught in the maelstrom of the Great War)

Stephen Baxter, Navigator, Ace (alternate history set in medieval Europe)

Joanna Bourne, The Spymaster's Lady, Berkley (historical romance set in England and France during the Napoleonic Wars)

Gyles Brandreth, Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance, Touchstone (the famed Irish author and wit investigates his first murder case)

Geraldine Brooks, People of the Book, Viking (the detailed journey of a rare
Jewish text, over 500 years)

Vincent Louis Carella, Serpent Box, HarperCollins (coming of age in post-WWII Appalachia)

Bernard Cornwell, Sword Song, HarperCollins (new novel in Saxon Chronicles series)

Jennifer Donnelly, The Winter Rose, Hyperion (sequel to The Tea Rose; a young female doctor working in London's East End in 1900 saves the life of the city's most notorious gangster)

Bernard du Boucheron, The Voyage of the Short Serpent, Overlook (novel of
untamed murder, Christianity, and sex in early Iceland)

Ariana Franklin, The Serpent's Tale, Putnam (2nd in series about medieval
coroner Adelia Aguilar, in which she solves Rosamund Clifford's murder)

Margaret Frazer, The Apostate's Tale, Berkley Prime Crime (Dame Frevisse medieval mystery)

David Fulmer, The Blue Door, Harcourt (detective novel set in the early days of Philadelphia's music scene)

Laurien Gardner, The Spanish Bride: A Novel of Catherine of Aragon, Berkley Trade (reissue of this biographical novel in trade pb)

Robin Gerber, Eleanor vs Ike, Avon A ("what if" novel about the presidential campaign of 1952)

Kerry Greenwood, Death Before Wicket, Poisoned Pen (Phryne Fisher goes on holiday; mystery of Jazz Age Australia)

Jeffrey Hantover, The Jewel Trader of Pegu, Morrow (forbidden love at the end of the 16th century, as a young Jewish widower travels from Venice to the kingdom of Pegu)

Lenore Hart, Becky: The Life and Loves of Becky Thatcher, St. Martin's Press (Tom Sawyer's sweetheart tells her own story)

Karl Iagnemma, The Expeditions, Dial (an estranged father and son's unlikely journey through the wilderness of 19th century Michigan)

Jessica James, Shades of Gray, Patriot Press (Civil War-era novel)

Sudhir Kakar, The Seeker, Shambhala (re-creates the real-life relationship between an upper-class British woman and Mahatma Gandhi)

Elmer Kelton, Hard Trail to Follow, Forge (part of the Texas Rangers series, as former Ranger Andy Pickard follows the trail of his friend's killer)

A.L. Kennedy, Day, Knopf (Alfie Day, RAF airman and former WWII POW, gets the chance to return to those glory days as an extra on a POW film)

Laurie R. King, Touchstone, Bantam (stand-alone novel of suspense set in Great Britain between the wars)

Karleen Koen, Now Face to Face, Three Rivers (reissue of Koen's epic of 18th century America and London)

Dewey Lambdin, Troubled Waters, St. Martin's (14th in Alan Lewrie Naval Adventure series, set in 1800 but set on land, as Lewrie fights the battle of his life in the London courts)

Zachary Lazar, Sway, Little Brown (about the Rolling Stones, the Manson
family, and the tragic arc of the 1960s)

Andrew Martin, The Lost Luggage Porter, Harcourt (atmospheric thriller set in 1906 York)

Kathleen Morgan, As High as the Heavens, Revell (romantic historical novel set in 1568 Scotland)

Patricia O'Brien, Harriet and Isabella, Touchstone (about two sisters of Henry Ward Beecher, and how his trial for adultery drove a wedge between them)

Tracie Peterson and Judith Miller, A Daughter's Inheritance, Bethany House

Jean Plaidy, The Merry Monarch's Wife: The Story of Catherine of Braganza, Three Rivers (biographical novel; reissue of The Pleasures of Love)

Deanna Raybourn, Silent in the Sanctuary, MIRA (2nd Lady Julia Grey mystery set in Victorian England)

Linda L. Richards, Death Was the Other Woman, Thomas Dunne (hard-boiled novel starring detective Kitty Pangborn in Depression-era LA)

Judith Merkle Riley, The Serpent Garden, Three Rivers (reissue, novel of portrait painter at the court of Henry VIII who finds herself the target of a secret society)

C.J. Sansom, Winter in Madrid, Viking (spy thriller set in 1940s Spain)

John Burnham Schwartz, The Commoner, Doubleday (imagines the dramatic real-life stories of the reigning empress and crown princess of Japan)

Diane A.S. Stuckart, The Queen's Gambit, Berkley (a Leonardo da Vinci mystery)

Frank Tallis, Vienna Blood, Ballantine (historical mystery set in 1902 Vienna, starring Dr. Max Liebermann, expert interpreter of Freudian psychology)

Charles Todd, A Painted Horse, Morrow (A body found in the ruins of an ancient abbey sends Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge off to find a killer)

E. Duke Vincent, Black Widow, Bloomsbury USA (extraordinary life of Vinny Vesta continues in this follow-up to Mafia Summer; set in 1957 Jacksonville)

Jules Watson, Song of the North, Overlook (historical novel set in Roman Britain, 4th century AD, 3rd in Dalriada Series)

Florian Stone Wells, The Sword and the Shield of the Realm, Sapientus (historical saga set in Eastern Europe in the mid-15th century)

John Wilcox, The Guns of El Kebir, Headline (Simon Fonthill’s adventures continue in the battle of Tel-el-Kebir in 19^th century Egypt)

Tod Wodicka, All Shall Be Well: And All Shall Be Well; and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well, Pantheon (life of a modern medieval re-enactor that moves between time periods, continents, and histories both real and re-enacted)

Sandra Worth, Lady of the Roses: A Novel of the Wars of the Roses, Berkley Trade (novel of the romance between Isabella Ingoldesthorpe and John Neville, medieval ancestors of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill)

Sara Young, My Enemy's Cradle, Harcourt (a dramatic identity switch between cousins at the Lebensborn, a maternity home for Aryan girls carrying German babies)

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February 2008

Boris Akunin, Special Assignments, Random House (latest Erast Fandorin mystery set in 19th century Russia)

Russell Banks, The Reserve, HarperCollins (Depression-era tale in which a daring artist falls for a beautiful, disturbed heiress on her parents Adirondack estate)

Jonathon Barnes, The Somnambulist, HarperCollins (about a stage magician trying to stop a sorcerous uprising in turn-of-the-century London)

John Boyne, Next of Kin, Thomas Dunne (1936: a man cut out of his late uncle's will finds a motive for murder)

Jerome Charyn, Johnny One-Eye: A Tale of the American Revolution, Norton

Edward Chupack, Silver, St. Martin's (the "memoirs" of Treasure Island's Long John Silver)

Francis Clark, Waking Brigid, Tor (battling magicians and demons in post-Civil War Savannah)

Jacqueline Cook, Sunrise, BelleBooks (novel detailing the true love story behind one of Georgia's most famous antebellum mansions; set in the 1850s)

Brian Cullin, Seekers of the Chalice, Tor (Celtic mythology and fantasy set in prehistoric Ireland)

Tatiana de Rosnay, Sarah’s Key, John Murray (Interwoven stories of a contemporary American journalist and a Parisian-Jewish family rounded up in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ of 1942 when French police arrested thousands of Jews and sent them to their deaths)

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Palace of Illusions, Doubleday (an epic novel of ancient India, narrated by a beautiful princess who shares and helps shape the fate of five heroic brothers)

P.C. Doherty, The Poisoner of Ptah, Minotaur (new novel of murder set during the reign of Pharaoh Hatusu)

Amanda Elyot, All for Love: The Scandalous Life and Times of Royal Mistress Mary Robinson, NAL (biographical novel of Mary Robinson, mistress of George IV when he was Prince of Wales)

Juan Eslava Galan, The Mule, Bantam (satirical anti-war novel about a muleteer in the brutal Spanish Civil War)

Aris Fioretos, The Truth about Sascha Knisch, Rookery/Overlook (sex and film
in 1920s Berlin)

Nicole Galland, Crossed: A Tale of the Fourth Crusade, Morrow (blends the history of the Fourth Crusade and the sack of Constantinople in 1204)

Lawrence Goldstone, The Anatomy of Deception, Delacorte (historical thriller set in 19th C Philadelphia, seen through the eyes of an impressionable doctor at the cutting edge of forensic medicine)

Tricia Goyer, A Whisper of Freedom, Moody (2nd in chronicles of the Spanish Civil War)

Peg Herring, Macbeth's Niece, Five Star (As Macbeth rises and falls in the Scottish highlands, Tessa is haunted by three witches’ predictions)

Steve Hockensmith, The Black Dove, Minotaur (Big Red and Old Red, Holmes-style detectives in the Old West, wash up in 1893 San Francisco)

Samantha Hunt, The Invention of Everything Else, Houghton Mifflin (imagines an unlikely friendship between Nikola Tesla and a chambermaid in the Hotel New Yorker where he lives out his last days, in 1943)

Susan Fraser King, Lady Macbeth: A Novel, Crown (biographical novel of Queen Gruadh of Scotland, last female descendant of her country's royal line)

Ross Leckie, Hannibal, Canongate (Novel bringing to life the great hero of the Punic Wars in the second century BCE)

Julianne Lee, Knight's Lady, Ace (romantic time-travel novel set in 14th century Scotland)

Morgan Llywelyn, 1999: A Novel of the Celtic Tiger and the Search for Peace (final novel in her Irish Century series)

James McBride, Song Yet Sung, Riverhead (about a runaway slave and a
determined slave catcher)

Catriona McPherson, Bury Her Deep, Hodder & Stoughton (Dandy Gilver investigates a series of eldritch events in 1920s Fife)

Sharan Newman, The Shanghai Tunnel, Forge (historical mystery set in 1868 Portland, Oregon)

Jem Poster, Courting Shadows, Overlook (interpersonal drama in 1881 England)

David L. Robbins, The Betrayal Game, Bantam (what-if thriller set in 1960s Cuba)

Owen Sheers, Resistance, Doubleday/Talese (in the Welsh border valley of Olchon in 1944, the women - left alone after their men depart for war - are forced to depend on members of a German patrol during a harsh winter)

Anne Easter Smith, Daughter of York, Touchstone (In 1461, 15-year-old Margaret of York's father dies, throwing the country into turmoil)

Traci L. Slatton, Immortal, Delta (a mysterious narrator recounts his origins as an ordinary street urchin in 14th century Florence, then discovers he is anything but ordinary)

Willard Thompson, Dream Helper, Rincon Publishing (a young Chumash Indian woman begs protection from the Franciscan priests at California's Mission Santa Barbara in 1796, forcing her into a captive life)

Kevin Vennemann, Close to Jedenew, Melville House (the real and imaginary worlds of the children from the rural villege of Jedenew, Poland, as they watch their Jewish friends disappear one by one)

Dan Vyleta, Pavel & I, Bloomsbury USA (the Cold War heats up amid the ruins of occupied Berlin, set in 1946-47)

John Edgar Wideman, Fanon, Houghton Mifflin (three narratives about the life of psychiatrist and revolutionary Frantz Fanon)

Niall Williams, John, Bloomsbury USA (lyrical reimagining of John the Apostle in the final years of his life)

Lauren Willig, The Seduction of the Crimson Rose, Dutton (Regency romantic
spy novel, 4th in series)

Budge Wilson, Before Green Gables, Putnam (authorized prequel to Anne of
Green Gables series)

Jacqueline Winspear, An Incomplete Revenge, Holt (Maisie Dobbs delves into a series of crimes in a small rural community in 1930s England)

Hong Ying, The Concubine of Shanghai, Marion Boyars (novel about the rise of a young woman from servant girl to "godmother" of Shanghai, beginning in 1907)

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March 2008

Warren Adler, Funny Boys, Overlook (romp through 1920s New York
gangsterland)

Jeffrey Archer with Prof Francis J. Maloney, The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot, St. Martin's (fifth Gospel, told through the eyes of Judas)

Stephanie Barron, A Flaw in the Blood, Bantam (suspense novel set around Queen Victoria's troubled court)

Rhys Bowen, Tell Me, Pretty Lady, Minotaur (Molly Murphy mystery set in early 20th century NYC)

Kate Brallier, The Boundless Deep, Forge (paranormal, time-slip novel about a modern woman who dreams of a Nantucket ship's captain)

Gerri Brightwell, The Dark Lantern, Crown (about the secrets in a Victorian London household and how they affect the master's experiments in establishing identity through body measurements)

Cassandra Clark, Hangman Blind, John Murray (First in a new series of historical mysteries featuring Hildegard, a 13^th century abbess)

Catherine Delors, Mistress of the Revolution, Dutton (about a noblewoman
caught up in the French Revolution)

Ruth (R.S.) Downie, Ruso and the Demented Doctor, Penguin UK / Terra Incognita, Bloomsbury USA (2nd in Ruso detective series of ancient Rome)

Dave Duncan, The Alchemists' Code, Ace (historical fantasy about Nostradamus)

Tony Earley, The Blue Star, Little Brown (Jim the Glass (from his earlier
Jim the Boy), now a teenager, returns in a story of young love on the eve of
WWII)

Jennifer Cody Epstein, The Painter from Shanghai, Norton (an epic historical novel based on the true story of Pan Yuliang, a celebrated and controversial female Chinese painter )

Eva Etzioni-Halevy, The Triumph of Deborah, Plume (biblical novel about
Deborah)

Jo Graham, Black Ships, Orbit (a retelling of The Aeneid; historical fantasy
about a slave girl, an oracle, who guides Aeneas on his quest)

Laurie Graham, The Importance of Being Kennedy, HarperCollins (fictionalizes the story of the Kennedys between the world wars)

Joanna Hershon, The German Bride, Ballantine (a woman's quest for identity as she leaves mid-19th century Germany for the American frontier)

Conn Iggulden, Genghis: Eagle of the Mountains, Delacorte (next installment in adventure saga of Genghis Khan)

Sadie Jones, The Outcast, Harper (A young man breaks through the oppressive hypocrisy of 1950s middle class London suburban life and saves an unexpected love)

Hillary Jordan, Mudbound, Algonquin (married life, friendship, and prejudice in the Mississippi Delta circa 1946)

Al and JoAnna Lacy, Web of Destiny, Multnomah (book 2 of the Kane Legacy series, family saga set in 1830s Texas)

Rosalind Laker, The Venetian Mask, Three Rivers (reissue, rags-to-riches story of two women in 18th century Venice)

Eric Lerner, Pinkerton's Secret, Holt (about the Civil War era's legendary private eye, including dramatic exploits and his clandestine affair with his partner)

Adam Mansbach, The End of the Jews, Spiegel & Grau (the battling Brodskys, a family of Jewish artists and writers whose ride through the 20th century is fueled by a quest for love and inspiration)

Beverle Graves Myers, The Iron Tongue of Midnight, Poisoned Pen (a country house mystery flavored with the passion of Italian opera; 4th Tito Amato mystery, set in 1740)

Kate Noble, Compromised, Berkley (Regency historical romance)

Janet Paisley, White Rose Rebel, Overlook (novel of a female "Braveheart,"
Anne Farquharson, in mid-18th c Scotland)

Judith Pella, Sisters Choice, Bethany House (part of Patchwork Circle series set in late 19th century Oregon)

Anne Perry, Buckingham Palace Gardens, Ballantine (first Thomas Pitt novel since Long Spoon Lane, shows an inside view of Buckingham Palace in the aftermath of a bloody murder)

Anne Rice, Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, Knopf (2nd in trilogy about Jesus Christ)

Laura Joh Rowland, The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte, Overlook
(historical mystery and adventure starring the Bronte sisters)

Mary Doria Russell, Dreamers of the Day, Random House (story of late-life romance set at the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference)

Kim Vogel Sawyer, My Heart Remembers, Bethany House

Simon Scarrow, Centurion, Headline (Rebellion threatens Rome in the first century CE)

Adam Lewis Schroder, Empress of Asia, St. Martin's (as his wife Lily lies dying, Harry travels to Thailand in search of answers about the man who saved his life during WWII)

Mary Street, The Confession of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Berkley (Pride and
Prejudice retold from Darcy's viewpoint)

Richard S. Wheeler, Virgin River, Forge (a Barnaby Skye novel, 16th in series)

Russell Whitfield, Gladiatrix, Myrmidon (visceral adventure, set in 1st century Asia Minor, featuring a female gladiator named Lysandra)

Gene Wilder, The Woman Who Wouldn't, St. Martin's (at the turn of the last century, in Germany, a court violinist falls in love with an unlikely and mysterious woman)

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April 2008

Rabih Alameddine, The Hakawati, Knopf (in 2003 Beirut, at his father's deathbed, a man remembers his grandfather's bewitching stories - all classic tales of the Middle East, reimagined)

Elizabeth Aston, The Darcy Connection, Touchstone (continued romantic adventures of members of the extended Darcy family)

Ace Atkins, Wicked City, Putnam (noir crime set in 1955 Phenix City,
Alabama)

Mary Balogh, Simply Perfect, Delacorte (conclusion to her Regency-era Miss Martin's School for Girls romance series; this entry features Miss Claudia Martin, the schoolmistress herself)

Richard Bausch, Peace, Knopf (during the terrible winter of 1944 on Mount Cassino in Italy, three soldiers on a reconaissance mission are confronted with the horror of their own time)

Zana Bell, Forbidden Frontier, Mira Harlequin Australia (novel based on real-life convict Charlotte Badger, pirate and first known English woman to come to live in New Zealand after staging a mutiny - with a baby tucked under one arm)

Emilio Calderon, The Creator’s Map, John Murray (A mysterious map sets the course for love in Fascist Rome) 

Rebecca Collins, The Pemberley Chronicles, Sourcebooks Landmark (sequel to Pride and Prejudice)

Ellen Cooney, Lambrusco, Pantheon (in 1943 Italy, a mother's picaresque journey across the countryside in search of her son, who's been plotting against Mussolini)

Carol Cox, A Bride So Fair, Barbour (mystery, romance, and intrigue at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, inspirational)

Paul Doherty, Murder’s Immortal Mask, Headline (Claudia, Empress Helena’s secret agent, must find a vicious killer stalking the streets of Imperial Rome)

Ildefonso Falcones, Cathedral of the Sea, Dutton (set in 14th century Barcelona, tells about the lives of the citizens caught up in the 80-year construction of the Church of Santa Maria)

George MacDonald Fraser, The Reavers, Knopf (an adventurous romp along the Scottish borders during the turn of the 17th century)

Laurien Gardner, A Lady Raised High, Berkley (novel about Anne Boleyn, seen from one of her ladies' points of view; reissue in trade pb)

W. Michael and Kathleen O'Neal Gear, People of the Weeping Eye, Forge (part of their First North Americans series, set on the banks of the Mississippi over 1000 years ago)

Michael Gregorio, Days of Atonement, Minotaur (Hanno Stiffeniis searches for a dead woman's missing husband in early 19th century Prussia, 2nd in series)

Sally Gunning, Bound, William Morrow (in colonial Cape Cod, an indentured servant discovers that freedom has a far higher price than she had ever imagined)

Diane Haeger, The Secret Bride, NAL (biographical novel of Mary Tudor,
sister of Henry VIII)

Brian Hall, Fall of Frost, Viking (about the life and work of Robert Frost)

Marek Halter, Mary of Nazareth, Crown (biographical novel of the mother of Jesus)

Cecelia Holland, Varanger, Forge (in the chill of a Russian winter, two men scheme to go a-viking all the way to Byzantium; 4th in Corban Loosestrife series, this volume covers his son, Conn)

Conn Iggulden, Genghis: Lords of the Bow, Delacorte (historical adventure: Genghis's quest to conquer the mighty Chin empire)

Jane Kirkpatrick, A Mending at the Edge, WaterBrook (final novel in trilogy about Oregon pioneer Emma Wagner Giesy as she finds her place inside, and outside, the confines of her 1860s religious community)

Janet Lane, Emerald Silk, Five Star (romantic adventure set in autumn, 1448 at England's Applewood horse fair in Somerset)

Ursula K. Le Guin, Lavinia, Harcourt (the story of Lavinia, the king's daughter from The Aeneid, set in the half-wild world of ancient Italy, when Rome was a muddy village near seven hills)

Kate Morton, The House at Riverton, Atria (romantic suspense/family saga set
in England between the wars)

Kate Mosse, Sepulchre, Putnam (haunting tale of secrets, murder, and the occult set in 19th and 21st century France)

Julia Navarro, The Bible of Clay, Bantam US; John Murray UK (An archaeologist and a murderous group of conspirators vie for a legendary Bible of Clay that has the potential to rewrite history)

Joyce Carol Oates, Wild Nights! Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James and Hemingway, Ecco (short story collection; imagines the death scenes of five major American writers)

Ben Pastor, The Fire Waker, Minotaur (Diocletian's official historian, Aelius Spartianus, investigates a strange miracle-worker named Agnus)

Caro Peacock, The Foreign Affair, Avon A (first Liberty Lane historical mystery, set in 1837 England, about a young woman masquerading as a governess)

Anne Perry, Buckingham Palace Gardens, Headline (Victorian Inspector Thomas Pitt must find a murderer bold enough to kill in Buckingham Palace)

Amanda Quick, The Third Circle, Putnam (Arcane Society novel set in Victorian London, about a gifted crystal worker and a hypnotist; romantic suspense)

Steven Pressfield, Killing Rommel, Doubleday (WWII tale based on the real-life exploits of the Long Range Desert Group, an elite British commando unit that took on the Afrika Korps)

Mary Reed and Eric Mayer, Seven for a Secret, Poisoned Pen (John the Eunuch, Lord Chamberlain to Emperor Justinian, finds the corpse of a young woman in a subterranean cistern)

Jiang Rong, Wolf Totem, Penguin Press (about the struggle for life on the Mongolian grasslands)

Albert Sanchez Pinol, Pandora in the Congo, Canongate (1914, a bedraggled British manservant emerges from the Congo as the lone survivor of an ill-fated expedition)

Manda Scott, The Crystal Skull, Delacorte (thriller that moves from the secrets of the Mayans to those of a 16th century physician to a shattering prophecy in the present day)

Anya Seton, The Hearth and Eagle, Chicago Review (saga set in Marblehead, Massachusetts, from the sixteenth through twentieth centuries; reissue)

Jessica Stirling, The Fields of Fortune, Hodder & Stoughton (On the brink of a disastrous marriage, Nicola flees Ayrshire to seek her fortune in 18^th century Edinburgh)

Alain Claude Sulzer, A Perfect Waiter, Bloomsbury USA (multiperiod story, a man comes to terms with the memory of his lost love, a waiter-in-training named Jakob who fled Nazi Europe with his new lover)

Nick Taylor, The Disagreement, Simon & Schuster US (tells the story of a 17-year-old medical student in Virginia during the Civil War)

Brian Thompson, The Widow’s Secret, Atlantic (First in a new series of Victorian detective novels, introducing Bella Wallis, sensationalist novelist and unwilling sleuth)

Jacqueline Walker, Pilgrim State, Sceptre (Woman who has been forcibly sectioned in Pilgrim State mental facility in New York State in 1951 struggles to keep her children and her sanity)

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May 2008

Gil Adamson, The Outlander, HarperCollins (in 1903, a young woman's desperate journey west after her husband's murder, with her cold-blooded brothers in law on her trail)

Boris Akunin, Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk, Random House (historical mystery, 2nd in series, featuring Bishop Mitrifanii and bespectacled, clumsy nun Sister Pelagia in a remote area of Russia, mid-19th century)

Robert Alexander, The Romanov Bride, Viking (the drama of Grand Duchess Elisavyeta, and the peasant who decides her fate)

Howard Bahr, Pelican Road, MacAdam/Cage (portrait of the men who served on the great American railroads in the early 20th century)

Chris Bohjalian, Skeletons at the Feast, Crown (a dramatic love story set against one group's attempt to cross the remnants of the Third Reich, from Warsaw to the Rhine, to reach British and American lines in January 1945)

Megan Chance, The Spiritualist, Three Rivers (to uncover her husband's killer, a woman who "married up" to enter 1850s New York society must retrace his last steps, which takes her deep into the world of spiritualists and seances)

Thomas Cobb, Shavetail, Scribner (brutal coming of age of a boy soldier
stationed in the Arizona desert in 1871)

David Downing, Silesian Station, Soho (historical espionage about a British journalist on the eve of WWII)

Pamela Billings Ewen, The Moon in the Mango Tree, B&H (about a young woman who abandons a possible career as an opera singer to follow her missionary husband to Thailand in the 1920s)

Alan Gordon, The Moneylender of Toulouse, Minotaur (latest Fools Guild mystery)

Dolores Gordon-Smith, Mad about the Boy?, Constable & Robinson / Soho Constable (Jack Haldean crime novel, a country house murder mystery set in 1923 Sussex)

Gene Hackman and Daniel Lenihan, Escape from Andersonville, St. Martin's (fast-paced adventure set during the Civil War)

Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project, Riverhead (multi-period story, set in Chicago both now and in 1908, centering on the murder of a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe)

Willem Frederick Hermans, The Darkroom of Damocles, Overlook (Dutch thriller set during the German occupation of Holland)

Katie Hickman, The Aviary Gate, Bloomsbury USA (tale of ancient alliances and intrigues, the story of a British sea captain’s daughter held captive in the Sultan’s harem circa 1599)

Siri Hustvedt, Sorrows of an American, Sceptre UK; Holt US (Psychiatrist uncovers his deceased father’s secret life in Depression-era rural Minnesota)

Jane Johnson, Crossed Bones, Crown (an epic about the Barbary pirates in the 17th century, the uncanny link between two women in two different eras)

Michael Kleeberg, The King of Corsica, Other Press (novel of Theodor von Neuhoff, a historical figure caught between the Baroque Age and the Enlightenment)

Robert Low, The Wolf Sea, Thomas Dunne (Viking adventure series, book 2 after The Whale Road)

Jorge Molitz, The Ring, Atria (one modern woman's romantic transformation,
set against the fall of the Knights Templar)

Allison K. Pittman, With Endless Sight, Multnomah (3rd of Crossroads of Grace series about women in the Old West)

Jeff Shaara, The Steel Wave, Ballantine (novel of World War II, following The Rising Tide)

Rosemary Sutcliff, Sword at Sunset, Chicago Review (re-release of this classic novel about King Arthur, with new foreword by Jack Whyte)

Don Robertson, The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread, Harper (a boy's day-long odyssey across Cleveland with his baby sister in 1944, set against the backdrop of one of the worst disasters in American history; reprint)

Elisabeth Payne Rosen, Hallam's War, Unbridled (story of passion, steadfast loyalty, and uncommon love, set against the devastation of the Civil War in Tennessee and Virginia)

Jack Todd, Sun Going Down, Touchstone (about four generations of the author's family in the American West, from the Civil War to the Great Depression, inspired by old family diaries and letters )

Nilita Vachani, Homespun, Other Press (traces the last imprints of war and the search for peace in a tale spanning three generations, from India's struggle of independence to the present)

Alison Weir, The Lady Elizabeth, Ballantine (novel of the early years of Elizabeth I's life)

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June 2008

Tasha Alexander, A Fatal Waltz, Morrow (historical mystery set in Victorian England, featuring Lady Emily Ashton)

Natasha Bauman, The Disorder of Longing, Putnam (follows a woman in Victorian Boston who flees her husband and his obsession with tantric sex to hunt for rare orchids in Brazil)

David Benioff, City of Thieves, Sceptre (During the siege of Leningrad, two prisoners sentenced to face a firing squad bargain for their lives)

Martin Caparras, Valfierno: The Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa, Atria (fictionalization of the greatest theft of the 20th century, circa 1911)

Meg Waite Clayton, The Wednesday Sisters, Ballantine (five young California mothers form a sister-like bond in the summer of 1968, while tackling the ups and downs of life)

Karen Essex, Stealing Athena, Doubleday (chronicles the history of the Elgin Marbles through the dual narratives of Mary Nisbet, wife of the Earl of Elgin, British ambassador to Constantinople, and Aspasia, mistress of Pericles during the Golden Age of Athens)

Anthony Flacco, The Hidden Man, Ballantine (historical thriller set against the 1915 San Francisco World's Fair, 2nd in series featuring Detective Randall Blackburn and his protégé, Shane Nightingale)

Alan Furst, The Spies of Warsaw, Random House (espionage thriller set in Warsaw circa 1937, featuring a total of twenty-one spies)

W. Michael and Kathleen O'Neal Gear, The Betrayal: The Lost Life of Jesus, Forge

Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies, John Murray (Epic set just before the Opium Wars in colonial India and imperial China)

Ann Granger, A Mortal Curiosity, Headline (Lizzie Martin, a lady’s companion, investigates the murder of a rat catcher in Victorian London)

WEB Griffin and W. E. Butterworth IV, Death and Honor, Putnam (military thriller set in Germany and Argentina circa 1943, part of Honor Bound series)

Sandra Gulland, Mistress of the Sun, Touchstone (novel of Louise de la Valliere, mistress of Louis XIV)

Dorothy Hearst, Promise of the Wolves, Simon & Schuster (about 14,000 years ago, a young wolf, Kaala, is the last of a bloodline charged with watching over humans to keep them in touch with nature)

Richard Liebmann-Smith, The James Boys, Random House (what if William and Henry James's troubled younger brothers became Frank and Jesse James?)

Elizabeth Maguire, The Open Door, Other Press (novel inspired by the life of Constance Fenimore Woolson, one of the most widely respected authors of the 19th century)

Andrei Makine, Human Love, Sceptre (An Angolan communist and revolutionary witnesses forty years of Africa as a battleground between East and West)

Judith Miller, An Uncertain Dream, Bethany House (book 3 of Postcards from Pullman, suspense and romance set in Pullman, Illinois, in the 1890s)

Mary Alice Monroe, Time Is a River, Pocket (a woman recovering from breast cancer in modern-day Asheville, North Carolina, finds the 1920s-era journal of a well-known fly-fisherwoman)

Nancy Moser, Washington's Lady, Bethany House (novel of Martha Washington)

Robert B. Parker, Resolution, Putnam (adventure in an Old West town, sequel to Appaloosa)

Eva Rice, Dragonfly Summer, Dutton (in 1962, a young woman is caught up in the chaos and urgency of pre-Beatles London)

Salman Rushdie, The Enchantress of Florence, Random House (historical novel set in Renaissance Florence and the court of the Mughal Empire)

Hannah Tinti, The Good Thief, Dial (debut novel set in 19th century New England, about an orphan boy and the colorful con man who claims to be his brother)

Nicola Upson, An Expert in Murder, HarperCollins (mystery writer Josephine Tey, on a train journey from Scotland to London in 1934, investigates the death of a young woman)

Sally Vickers, Where Three Roads Meet, Canongate (A novel of the last months of Sigmund Freud’s life)

Jacqueline Winspear, An Incomplete Revenge, John Murray (1931: Maisie Dobbs investigates arson and theft in the Kent Weald)

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July 2008

Fadhil al-Azzawi, The Last of the Angels, Free Press (revealing glimpse of Iraq and its people told through the story of three Iraqis living in Kirkuk in the 1950s)

Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture, Viking (Roseanne McNulty, a 100-year-old woman in an Irish mental hospital, revisits her past, but a document written by a local priest tells a very different story)

Emilio Calderon, The Creator's Map, Penguin Press (A mysterious map sets the course for love in Fascist Rome)

Martin Caparros and Jasper Reid, Valfierno: The Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa, Atria

Susan Carroll, Twilight of a Queen, Ballantine (latest entry in her Dark Queen series, romantic historical fantasy set in 1588 France and centering on power-hungry Catherine de Medici)

C.W. Gortner, The Last Queen, Ballantine (the story of Juana of Castile, the last queen of Spanish blood, and her determination to hold onto the throne that is rightfully hers)

Kathryn Miller Haines, The Winter of Her Discontent, Harper (2nd WWII-era mystery starring actress Rosie Winter)

Rachel Kushner, Telex from Cuba, Scribner (debut set in the American community in Cuba during the years before Castro's revolution)

Al and JoAnna Lacy, High is the Eagle, Multnomah (Kane Legacy series book 3, as the Kane brothers fight for their family's freedom and survival during the Mexican-American War)

Bret Lott, Ancient Highway, Random House (three generations of a family, circa 1927, 1947 and 1980, whose lives are shaded by a dream of stardom)

Laurel Means, The Long Journey Home, Academy Chicago (saga set in the 1860s Minnesota prairie and the Dakotas)

Naomi Novik, Victory of Eagles, Del Rey (5th in Temeraire series of sentient dragons assisting the British during the Napoleonic Wars)

Christi Phillips, The Devlin Diary, Pocket (novel of intrigue, romance, and murder shifting between present-day Cambridge, England, and Restoration London, as a killer stalks the court of Charles II)

Shan Sa, Alexander and Alestria, HarperCollins (Alexander, king of Macedonia, meets Alestria, queen of the Amazons)

Susan Holloway Scott, The King's Favorite, NAL (a novel of Nell Gwyn and Charles II)

Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Dial (an author discovers how a small group of neighbors survived the Nazi occupation through their regular book club meetings; set on Guernsey in 1946)

Kelli Stanley, Nox Dormienda (A Long Night for Sleeping), Five Star (first in Arcturus series, Roman noir featuring Agricola's doctor in the first century AD)

Nahal Tajadad, Rumi: The Fire of Love, Overlook (novelization of the life of the famous poet)

Heather Terrell, The Map Thief, Ballantine (thriller about a legendary map that could shake the pillars of history, from the Ming Dynasty to Renaissance Europe through modern-day NYC)

Will Thomas, The Black Hand, Touchstone (Barker & Llewelyn novel of historical suspense set in Victorian England)

Harry Turtledove, The Man with the Iron Heart, Del Rey (alternate history that presupposes that Reinhard Heydrich survives the assassination attempt on his life and hatches a terrible insurgency)

Hannah Tinti, The Good Thief, Delacorte (lyrical tale about a boy's redemption in the wake of transgression and the search for a place to call home, set in  New England in a past century)

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August 2008

Alla Avilova, Revelation of Fire, Permanent Press (history of the Cenergite Manuscript, a document secreted away in a Russian monastery, and the changes in its ownership over the past 200 years)

Louis Bayard, The Black Tower, HarperCollins (literary thriller about Eugène François Vidocq, a criminal who transformed himself into the world's first and greatest detective)

Christine Blevins, Midwife of the Blue Ridge, Berkley (in 1763, a young Scottish midwife becomes the indentured servant to a farming family living in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains)

Laurinda D. Brown, The Highest Price for Passion, Strebor (a promiscuous slave master and his wife are both drawn to the same female slave)

Beatrice Colin, The Glimmer Palace, Riverhead (literary novel about an orphan girl's journey from poverty to film stardom, set against the backdrop of WWI-era Berlin and after)

Lori Copeland, Thunder Ridge, Avon Inspire (first in Belles of Timber Creek series, as a schoolteacher sacrifices her hope for true love to provide for her friends after the Civil War)

Patrick Culhane, Red Sky in Morning, Morrow (thriller about members of the US Navy during WWII)

Andrew Davidson, The Gargoyle, Doubleday (a severe burn survivor meets a schizophrenic woman who claims that they were lovers in a past life in 14th-century Germany)

Selden Edwards, The Little Book, Dutton (mystery/time-slip novel, a love story that spans generations, from fin-de-siecle Vienna through the pivotal moments of the 20th century)

T.L. Higley, Shadow of Colossus, B&H (inspirational fiction about one of the Seven Wonders of the World, first in series)

Sidura Ludwig, Holding My Breath, Shaye Areheart (coming-of-age tale told from the viewpoint of the youngest in a household of two generations of strong Jewish women in post-WWII Winnipeg)

Rose Melikan, The Blackstone Key, Touchstone (historical adventure about an intrepid young woman caught up in drama and danger during the Napoleonic Wars)

Antonio Munoz Molina, A Manuscript of Ashes, Harcourt (in the late 1960s, a Spanish university student uncovers a love story involving an obscure Republican poet, which leads him to a lost manuscript and a crime)

Frances de Pontes Peebles, The Seamstress, HarperCollins (in 1930s Brazil, a vigilante gang invades the home of two seamstresses, kidnapping one of them - who joins their cause)

Arturo Perez-Reverte, The King's Gold, Putnam (fourth adventure of Captain Alatriste, swashbuckling hero of 17th century Spain)

Tracie Peterson, A Lady of Secret Devotion, Bethany House (book 3 of Ladies of Liberty series)

Jean Plaidy, The Queen's Devotion, Three Rivers (biographical novel of Queen Mary II, final reissue in the Queens of England series; formerly titled William's Wife)

Dirk Wittenborn, Pharmakon, Viking (an epic novel about family secrets and the consequences of ambition, and the consequences of a drug that promises happiness, from the postwar period until the present)

Xu Xiaobin, Feathered Serpent, Atria (epic novel of family history, about five generations of Chinese women)

September 2008

Stéphane Audeguy, The Other Son, Harcourt (resurrects Jean-Jacques Rousseau's forgotten brother in a picaresque tale that brings to life the secret world of eighteenth-century Paris)

Lisa T. Bergren, The Blessed, Berkley (conclusion to the Gifted trilogy, religious thrillers set in 14th-century Europe)

Ian Buruma, The China Lover, Penguin Press (reimagining of the life of Yamaguchi Yoshiko, a Japanese starlet who portrayed Chinese beauties in WWII-era films)

Matt Bondurant, The Wettest Country in the World, Scribner (based on a true story involving the author's grandfather and two great-uncles who made up a notorious moonshining gang in rural Virginia during Prohibition)

Gyles Brandreth, Oscar Wilde and a Game Called Murder, Touchstone (in 1892, a dinner party game called "murder" turns badly, with the victims turning up dead, for real)

Emma Donoghue, The Sealed Letter, Harcourt (a spinster suffragette is is swept up in the intimate details of her friend's failing marriage; based on a scandalous divorce case that gripped England in 1864)

Carolly Erickson, The Tsarina's Daughter, St. Martin's Press (historical fiction about the last of the Romanovs)

David Fuller, Sweetsmoke, Hyperion (historical novel about a slave on a tobacco plantation in Virginia, whose quest for retribution for the murder of a free black woman leads him to Antietam)

Phillippa Gregory, The Other Queen, Touchstone (fictional view of Mary, Queen of Scots, set during her long imprisonment as the "guest" of the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury)

Leisha Kelly, Sarah's Promise, Revell (Country Road Chronicles #4)

Irmgard Keun, Child of All Nations, Overlook (themes of 1930s Europe refracted through the viewpoint of a child wise beyond her years; 1st English translation)

Julie Lessman, Passion Redeemed, Revell (Daughters of Boston #2)

Karen Maitland, Company of Liars, Delacorte (

Brendan McNally, Germania, Simon & Schuster (debut novel set during the
final days of the Third Reich)

Elizabeth Newark, Jane Eyre's Daughter, Sourcebooks Casablanca (sequel to the Bronte classic)

Christi Phillips, The Devlin Diary, Pocket

Abigail Reynolds, Impulse and Initiative, Sourcebooks Landmark (a Pride & Prejudice variation; what if Mr Darcy didn't take no for an answer?)

John Shors, Beside a Burning Sea, NAL (after a hospital ship is torpedoed during WWII, a wounded Japanese soldier saves an American nurse from death)

Padma Viswanathan, The Toss of a Lemon, Harcourt (literary generational saga, set in South India between the 1890s and the early 1960s)

October 2008

Susan Wittig Albert, The Tale of Briar Bank, Berkley Prime Crime (latest in Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter mystery series)

Derek Armstrong, The Last Quest: Song of Montsegur, Kunati (historical adventure based on the Cathar heresy and the Tarot)

Valerie Anand, The House of Allerbrook, Mira (sequel to The House of Lanyon, generational saga set on Exmoor in late medieval times)

Lynn Austin, Until We Reach Home, Bethany House (about three Swedish immigrant sisters who pass through Ellis Island and learn a new meaning of home)

Barbara Cleverly, Bright Hair About the Bone, Delta (2nd in Laetitia Talbot series of archaeological historical mysteries set in Crete of 1928)

Rebecca Ann Collins, The Ladies of Longbourn, Sourcebooks (4th in Pride and Prejudice series)

Christie Dickason, The Firemaster's Mistress, Harper (the real truth behind the infamous Gunpowder Plot of 1605)

B.J. Hoff, Rachel's Secret, Harvest House (romance and faith, first in new serires set in the rural Amish setting of Riverhaven in the pre-Civil War years)

Julianne Lee, A Question of Guilt, Berkley (was Mary Queen of Scots guilty of murder? Scottish-born Lady Janet de Ros, wife of an English merchant, seeks out the truth)

Siri Mitchell, A Constant Heart, Bethany House (love and treachery in the court of Elizabeth I; inspirational)

Sharon Kay Penman, Devil's Brood, Putnam (final volume in trilogy about Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine)

Keiichiro Ryu, The Blade of the Courtesans, Vertical (in which a young samurai-in-training finds himself in Tokyo's pleasure quarters, defending its denizens against ninjas - including one young woman)

Lauraine Snelling, Rebecca's Reward, Bethany House (Daughters of Blessing #4, inspirational fiction set on the Dakota prairie in the early 20th century)

November 2008

Laurel Corona, The Four Seasons, Hyperion/Voice (two sisters abandoned at Venice's Pieta escape the drudgery of their cloistered lives though the music of their mentor, Antonio Vivaldi)

Titania Hardie, The Rose Labyrinth, Atria (centers on a mystery that begins in 17th century England with Elizabeth I's royal astrologer and unravels to present-day London)

Robert Harris, Conspirata, Simon & Schuster (novel of ancient Rome)

C.C. Humphreys, Absolute Honour, Thomas Dunne (continuation of Humphreys' Jack Absolute series, swashbuckling fiction set in 18th century North America and Europe)

C.S. Harris, Where Serpents Sleep, Obsidian (4th in Sebastian St Cyr mystery series set in Regency England)

Judith James, Broken Wing, Medallion (historical adventure/romance set in England, France, and North Africa during the turbulent years of Napoleon's rise to power)

Kate Kingsbury, Ringing In Murder, Berkley Prime Crime (holiday mystery set at the Pennyfoot Hotel)

Juliet Marillier, Heir to Sevenwaters, Roc (Celtic historical fantasy set in the author's Sevenwaters universe)

Golden Keyes Parsons, In the Shadow of the Sun King, Thomas Nelson (first in four-book series about a Huguenot family who faces devastating persecution for their faith in Louis XV's France)

Pam Rosenthal, The Edge of Propriety, Signet Eclipse (sensual romance set in Regency England, about Countess Marina Wyatt, a novelist, and her art appraiser lover)

John Vernon, Lucky Billy, Houghton Mifflin (myth-busting novel about America's most infamous and beloved outlaw, Billy the Kid)

December 2008

Ella March Chase, The Virgin Queen's Daughter, Crown (about the illegitimate daughter of Elizabeth I and her life in the Tudor court)

Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore, The Blindspot, Spiegel & Grau (fictional stories of a Scottish portrait painter and notorious libertine, and a fallen woman from one of Boston’s most powerful families, set in Revolutionary-era Boston)

Elle Newmark, The Book of Unholy Mischief, Atria (a penniless orphan living in  Renaissance Venice becomes apprentice to the chef at the doge's palace and finds himself entangled in the search for an ancient tome containing powerful secrets)

Beverly Swerling, City of God: A Novel of Passion and Wonder in Old New York, Simon & Schuster (4th novel in Swerling's saga of early Manhattan)

Sandra Worth, The King's Daughter, Berkley (novel of Elizabeth of York, the first Tudor queen)

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