Forthcoming Books - 2004 Archive

This list of adult historical fiction titles has been compiled from publishers’ catalogs, publisher home pages, Publishers Weekly forecasts, and Amazon.com.  Titles and dates on this list are subject to change.

Publishers/Authors: for additions or corrections, or to inquire about an address to send catalogs, please contact Sarah Johnson.  We list mainstream and small press titles set in the 1950s and earlier. 

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View Archive: Historical Novels from 2003

January 2004

US Titles

Conrad Allen, Murder on the Marmora, St. Martin's Minotaur (latest mystery set on an ocean liner, en route to Egypt, early 20th century)

David Ball, Ironfire, Delacorte (historical adventure of the Knights of Malta and the last battle of the Crusades, set in the 16th century Mediterranean)

Bill Brooks, Bonnie and Clyde: A Love Story, Forge (lives of these famous outlaws)

T. Davis Bunn and Isabella Bunn, The Solitary Envoy, Bethany House (a young American comes to the Court of St. James in the late 18th century; continuation of Song of Acadia series)

Max Byrd, Shooting the Sun, Bantam (in the dawn of the technological age, in 1839, a free-spirited female astronomer invents a technique to photograph the sun)

Christian Cameron, Washington and Caesar, Delacorte (George Washington and Caesar - master and slave, fighting for freedom on opposite sides of the American Revolution in 1773)

Kim Caruso, Finding Barnes, Berkley Signature (in the logging camps of 1957 Idaho, a novel of sexual and moral awakening)

Catherine Cookson, Kate Hannigan, Simon & Schuster (reissue of this British saga, published first in 1950)

Charles Fleming, After Havana, St. Martin's Minotaur (explosive novel of Havana, Cuba, set in 1958)

Margaret Frazer, The Hunter's Tale, Berkley (latest Sister Frevisse set in medieval England)

Dorothy Garlock, Hope's Highway, Warner (romance set during the Great Depression)

Janet Gleeson, The Grenadillo Box, Simon & Schuster (first US release of this literary thriller set in 18th century England)

Alan Gordon, An Antic Disposition, St. Martin's Minotaur (latest in his medieval mystery series)

Henry Grunwald, A Saint, More or Less, Random House (a mysterious woman, a healer, arrives in Henry IV's France in the mid-1500s; novel about the role of power in religion)

Judith Healey, The Canterbury Papers, William Morrow (suspense novel featuring Eleanor of Aquitaine and her former ward, Alais of France)

Kathleen Hills, Hunter's Dance, Poisoned Pen Press (mystery set in 1950, Michigan's Upper Peninsula)

Kate Horsley, The Changeling of Finnistuath, Shambhala (historical novel of medieval Ireland)

Elmer Kelton, Texas Vendetta, Forge (fifth volume of Texas Rangers series)

Michael Kilian, The Shiloh Sisters, Berkley Prime Crime (5th Harrison Raines Civil War mystery)

Thomas Mallon, Bandbox, Pantheon (literary novel; captures the heart and soul of New York in the Jazz Age)

Nancy McKenzie, Prince of Dreams, Del Rey (fantasy about Tristan and Esyllte; latest in her Arthurian saga)

Alec Michod, The White City, St. Martin's Press (debut literary thriller set against the backdrop of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago

Anchee Min, Empress Orchid, Houghton Mifflin (the last Empress of China)

Michael Phillips, The Color of Your Skin Ain't the Color of Your Heart, Bethany House (two young women, one black and one white, during the US Civil War)

Jean Plaidy, The Thistle and the Rose, Three Rivers Press (reissue; novel of Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII)

Belva Plain, The Sight of the Stars, Delacorte (saga of an Irish/Jewish family spanning three generations and two world wars in the 20th century)

John Maddox Roberts, SPQR VIII: The River God's Vengeance, St. Martin's Minotaur (mystery of ancient Rome)

Karen Swee, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Murder, Bridge Works (mystery set during the US Revolutionary War in New Jersey)

Tommy Tenney, Hadassah: One Night with the King, Bethany House (Hadassah, a young Jewish girl, is chosen to become Queen of Persia; retelling of the story of Esther)

Anne Tyler, The Amateur Marriage, Knopf (from WWII to today, the story of a mismatched marriage and its consequences)

Steve Yarbrough, Prisoners of War, Knopf (In 1943 Mississippi, the story of wars both global and local, and the prisoners of each)

UK Titles

John le Carré, Absolute Friends, Hodder & Stoughton  (1947-present, spies, Europe)                          

Alberto Manguel, Stevenson under Palm Trees, Canongate (Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa)      

Gregory Norminton, Arts and Wonders, Hodder & Stoughton (Picaresque Italian Renaissance)

Brad Watson, Heaven of Mercury, Canongate (Mississippi 1917-present day)

John Wilcox, The Horns of the Buffalo, Headline (1870s S. Africa military adventure)

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February 2004

US Titles

Robert Barnard, A Cry from the Dark, Scribner (suspense novel; 1930s Australia to modern-day London)

Carrie Bebris, Pride and Prescience, Forge (new historical mystery series featuring hero and heroine from Pride and Prejudice)

Charles Rowan Beye, Odysseus: A Life, Hyperion (fictional biography of this legendary figure)

James Lee Burke, Handsome Harry, William Morrow (Harry Pierpont and John Dillinger)

Liam Callanan, The Cloud Atlas, Delacorte (love story surrounding Japan's decision to launch 10,000 bomb-laden balloons at North America during WWII; set in Alaska)

Javier Cercas, Soldiers of Salamis, Bloomsbury USA (heroism during the Spanish Civil War; truth and memory)

Stephanie Cowell, Marrying Mozart, Penguin (Wolfgang Mozart's romantic adventures with the Weber sisters of Mannheim)

William Dietrich, Hadrian's Wall, HarperCollins (novel of Roman Britain)

Martin Duberman, Haymarket, Seven Stories (Haymarket Affair, 1886 Chicago)

Clare Dudman, One Day the Ice Will Reveal All Its Dead, Viking (life of Alfred Wegener, German meteorologist and Arctic explorer)

Sarah Dunant, The Birth of Venus, Random House (love, art, religion, and power in Renaissance-era Florence; literary)

Charles Fleming, After Havana, Minotaur (Cuba in 1958)

Joseph Gangemi, Inamorata, Viking (spiritualism in 1920s Philadelphia)

Philippa Gregory, The Queen's Fool, Touchstone (sequel to The Other Boleyn Girl, set in Edward VI's reign in 1553)

Joanne Harris, Holy Fools, William Morrow (literary historical, early 17th century France)

Robert Holdstock, The Iron Grail, Tor (myths and legends of Britain and ancient Greece, featuring Merlin)

Torgny Lindgren, Hash, Overlook (novel of black comedy set in 1947 Sweden)

Vyvyane Loh, Breaking the Tongue, W.W. Norton (coming-of-age story set against the fall of Singapore to the Japanese during WWII)

Rett MacPherson, In Sheep's Clothing, St. Martin's Minotaur (150-year old diary reveals ancient murder)

Anchee Min, Empress Orchid, Houghton Mifflin (literary biographical novel of the last Empress of China)

Gilbert Morris, The Gates of Heaven, Bethany House (Biblical story of Jacob)

Bruce Murkoff, Waterborne, Knopf (literary novel set around the Great Depression and the building of the Hoover Dam)

Lilian Nattel, The Singing Fire, Scribner (two women and the child that unites them, in London's Jewish ghetto during the turn of the century)

Rebecca Pawel, Law of Return, Soho (historical mystery set in early 20th C Spain)

Tracie Peterson, Land of My Heart, Bethany House (romantic adventure set in Montana in the 1860s; inspirational)

Scott Phillips, Cottonwood, Ballantine (1872 Cottonwood, Kansas)

Julia Ross, The Wicked Lover, Berkley (intrigue and romance during the Regency period)

Simon Scarrow, When the Eagle Hunts, St. Martin's Press (adventure; Roman troops in Britain in AD 44)

Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, The Snow Fox, Norton (romance and tragedy in Heian Japan)

Bertrice Small, The Dragon Lord's Daughters, Kensington (historical romance)

Leslie Silbert, The Intelligencer, Atria (two interlocking mysteries: one involving Christopher Marlowe in the 16th century, one featuring a modern-day private eye)

Susan Vreeland, The Forest Lover, Viking (Canadian painter Emily Carr)

Swain Wolfe, Lake Dreams, St. Martin's Press (post-WWII love story between a local waitress and a drifter)

UK Titles

Rita Bradshaw, The Most Precious Thing, Headline (Depression & WWII saga)

Sylvian Hamilton, The Gleemaiden  , Headline (Medieval mystery series)

Anna Jacobs, Twopenny Rainbows, Hoddder & Stoughton (1860s Australia saga)

Andrea Levy, Small Island, Headline Review (Black immigrants in UK post -WWII)

Jude Morgan, Passion, Headline Review (Early 19thC romantic poets)

Anne Perry, The Shifting Tide, Headline (William & Hester Monk, C19 mystery series)

Rosemary Rowe, The Ghosts of Glevum (Roman Britain mystery series)

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March 2004

US Titles

Sheila Kay Adams, My Old True Love, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill (Civil War in North Carolina)

Lawana Blackwell, Leading Lady, Bethany House (romance set in Victorian England)

Carrie Brown, Confinement, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill (an Austrian Jew arrives in America after WWII; story of love and loss)

Frederick Busch, A Memory of War, Ballantine (multi-layered love story set around England's lake district in wartime)

Alden R. Carter, Bright Starry Banner, Soho (Civil War novel; Battle of Stone River, near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in 1862)

Jonatha Ceely, Mina, Delacorte (in 1850s England, an Irish servant girl must navigate the politics within an English country retreat)

Richard Croker, To Make Men Free, William Morrow (novel of the Battle of Antietam)

Jacqueline DeJohn, Antonio's Wife, ReganBooks/HarperCollins (an Italian immigrant in early 20th century NYC; romance, murder and betrayal)

William Dietrich, Hadrian's Wall, HarperCollins (a senator's daughter heads to an arranged marriage near Hadrian's Wall during the 3rd century AD)

Sara Douglass, God's Concubine, Tor (historical fantasy, latest in Troy Game)

Peter Esterhazy, Celestial Harmonies, Ecco/HarperCollins (novel chronicling the history of one of Europe's most prominent families, the Esterhazys, over 800 years)

Thomas Fleming, A Passionate Girl, Forge (classic novel of Irish American history and the Fenian invasion of the English colony of Canada)

Michael Curtis Ford, The Last King, St. Martin's Press (historical adventure about Mithraides the Great)

Hal Glatzer, A Fugue in Hell's Kitchen: A Katy Green Mystery, Daniel & Daniel (mystery set during the 1940s; swing music)

Louise M. Gouge, Ahab's Bride, RiverOak (the wife of Captain Ahab; religious fiction)

Posie Graeme-Evans, The Innocent, Atria (tale of forbidden love in 15th century England; Edward IV's affair with a shy servant girl.  First in a trilogy.)

Anne Harris, Inventing Memory, Tor (feminist novel about a slave in ancient Sumeria)

Conn Iggulden, Emperor: The Death of Kings, Delacorte (historical adventure starring Julius Caesar and Marcus Brutus; second of four volumes)

Jane Jakeman, In the Kingdom of Mists, Berkley Prime Crime (historical thriller set around Monet's visit to London in 1900)

Guy Gavriel Kay, The Last Light of the Sun, ROC (sweeping fantasy tale evocative of the Celtic and Norse cultures of the 9th and 10th centuries)

Laurie R. King, The Game, Bantam (latest Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes mystery)

Allen Kupher, The Journal of Professor Abraham Van Helsing, Forge (fictional reconstruction of the personal journal of the greatest vampire hunter of them all, Professor Abraham Van Helsing)

David Liss, A Spectacle of Corruption, Random House (sequel to A Conspiracy of Paper; thriller in 18th century England)

Bev Marshall, Right as Rain, Ballantine (in the rural south in the mid-20th century, twenty years of an unlikely friendship between two black women, alongside the white family who employs them)

Edward Marston, The Railway Detective, Allison & Busby

Gilbert Morris, God's Handmaiden, Zondervan

Juilene Osborne-McKnight, Bright Sword of Ireland, Forge (third in her retellings of classic Irish folktales)

Robin Paige, Death in Hyde Park, Berkley Prime Crime (latest in the Sheridan mystery series set in Victorian England)

Anne Perry, ed., Death by Dickens, Berkley Prime Crime (all new Dickens-inspired mystery stories)

Elizabeth Redfern, Auriel Rising, Putnam (literary thriller of 1609 London, and the quest to turn lead into gold)

Edward Rutherfurd, The Princes of Ireland: The Dublin Saga, Doubleday (epic saga of Dublin)

Joanna Catherine Scott, Cassandra, Lost, St. Martin's Press (novel of Cassandra Van Pradelles, lost at sea in 1815; her life during the French revolution, and her affair with pirate Jean Lafitte)

Beverly Swerling, Shadowbrook, Simon & Schuster (a novel of love and war, set in the Ohio Country in 1754)

Andrew Taylor, An Unpardonable Crime, Hyperion (literary thriller set in early 19th century England and featuring a young Edgar Allan Poe; US edition of the award-winning UK novel An American Boy)

Robert Vaughn, His Truth is Marching On, Thomas Nelson (inspirational WWII novel)

Jaclyn Weldon White, Distant Hearts, Mercer Univ Press (graduate student grieving for her late mother finds a Civil War diary with parallels to her own life)

Kate Wenner, Dancing with Einstein, Scribner (lasting effects of the fear of nuclear war on the woman whose father helped develop the atomic bomb)

UK Titles

Pamela Evans, Second Chance of Sunshine, Headline (1950s saga)

Jonathan Lunn, Killigrew’s Run, Headline (19thC adventure in Crimean War)

Santa Montefiore, Swallow & Hummingbird, Hodder & Stoughton (Post WW2 romance)

David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, Hodder & Stoughton Sceptre (1850s/1920s or 30s/present)

Kate Tremayne, Loveday Honour, Headline (5th in 18thC Cornish family saga)

Peter Tremayne, Whispers of the Dead, Headline (Sr Fidelma stories, Dark Age Ireland)

David Wishart, Parthian Shot, Hodder & Stoughton (1st C Roman mystery series)

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April 2004

US Titles

Boris Akunin, Murder on the Leviathan, Random House (followup to Winter Queen; thriller set in 1878 Paris)

Jerry Amernic, Gift of the Bambino, Thomas Dunne (coming-of-age novel; in 1914, a young boy meets Babe Ruth)

Michael Andre Bernstein, Conspirators, Farrar Straus & Giroux (literary historical set around the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire)

Jenna Blum, Those Who Save Us, Harcourt (in the present, a Minnesota woman uncovers her mother's past in Germany during WWII)

Claire Boylan, Emma Brown, Viking (completion of Charlotte Bronte's unfinished novel)

Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason, The Rule of Four, Delacorte (suspenseful novel of a 15th century manuscript and its legacy)

Francois Cheng, Green Mountain, White Cloud, St. Martin's Press (At the end of the Ming dynasty, story of rekindled passion about a nobleman’s wife and the man she met thirty years before and believed she had lost forever)

Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Escape, HarperCollins (latest in his Sharpe adventure series of the Napoleonic Wars)

James Dalessandro, 1906, Chronicle Books (San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake and fire)

Connie May Fowler, The Problem with Murmur Lee, Doubleday (four generations of women on a small Florida barrier island)

Kaye Gibbons, Divining Women, Putnam (domestic drama in Washington DC circa 1918)

C.L. Grace, A Feast of Poisons, St. Martin's Minotaur (latest Kathryn Swinbrooke mystery set in 15th century England)

John J. Gobbell, The Neptune Strategy, St. Martin's Press (fourth in Commander Todd Ingram series set during WWII)

Francisco Goldman, The Divine Husband, Atlantic Monthly (young woman travels through 19th C Central America and New York)

Cecelia Holland, The Witches' Kitchen, Forge (continuing the story of Corban Loosestrife, reluctant Viking warrior)

Jane Kirkpatrick, Hold Tight the Thread, WaterBrook (latest in the story of Marie Dorion, Ioway Indian woman, in 19th century Oregon)

Allen C. Kupfer, The Journal of Professor Abraham van Helsing, Forge

Micheline Aharonian Marcum, The Daydreaming Boy, Riverhead (refugees from the Armenian Genocide in the 1960s)

Lynn Morris and Gilbert Morris, The Moon by Night, Bethany House (latest in Cheney and Shiloh series; inspirational)

Anne Perry, The Shifting Tide, Ballantine (latest William Monk mystery, Victorian London)

Elizabeth Peters, Guardian of the Horizon, William Morrow (latest Egyptian mystery)

Lily Powell, The Devil in Buenos Aires, The Lyons Press (espionage novel about a female spy in WWII-era Buenos Aires)

Mary Reed and Eric Mayer, Five for Silver, Poisoned Pen Press (historical mystery; fifth adventure of John the Eunuch, Lord Chamberlin to Justinian I during the plague of 542 AD)

Laura Joh Rowland, The Perfumed Sleeve, St. Martin's Minotaur (9th in series featuring Sano Ichiro)

Ona Russell, O'Brien's Desk, Sunstone (based on true tale of political corruption in 1923 Ohio)

Sela Saterstrom, The Pink Institution, Coffee House Press (multigenerational saga about women of the Deep South, from post-Civil War days through modern-day trailer parks)

Manda Scott, Dreaming the Bull, Delacorte (book 2 in Boudica trilogy)

Lauraine Snelling, Pearl, Bethany House (continuing story of Ruby Torvald, set on the Dakotah prairie in the 19th century)

Neal Stephenson, The Confusion, William Morrow (part 2 of the Baroque Cycle)

Jeff Talarigo, The Pearl Diver, Doubleday/Nan A. Talese (in 1948, a Japanese pearl diver is ordered to the isolated island of Nagashima when it's discovered she has leprosy; her story to regain her freedom)

Judith Tarr, Queen of the Amazons, Tor (fantasy novel of Alexander the Great)

Catherine Texier, Victorine, Pantheon (In 1940 France, a woman - the author's great-grandmother - leaves her husband and children to join her lover in Indonesia)

Harry Turtledove, Settling Accounts: Return Engagement, Ballantine (alternate history of WWII, first in trilogy)

Elsa Watson, Maid Marian, Crown (retelling of the Robin Hood / Maid Marian legend)

Thomas Wheeler, The Arcanum, Bantam (historical thriller set in a 1919 New York City haunted by a series of grisly murders)

Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind, Penguin (a boy's quest through the shadows and secrets of post-WWII Barcelona for a mysterious author)

UK Titles

Paul Doherty, The Magician’s Death, Headline (Hugh Corbett medieval mystery)

Kerry Jamieson, The Golden Door, Hodder & Stoughton (1930s New York)

Charles Johnson, Dreamer, Canongate (Civil Rights era US)

Guy Gavriel Kay, The Last Light of the Sun, Simon & Schuster UK (sweeping fantasy tale evocative of the Celtic and Norse cultures of the 9th and 10th centuries)

Andrei Makine, A Hero’s Daughter, Hodder & Stoughton (Post-WWII Soviet Union)

Victor Pemberton, The Chandler’s Daughter, Headline (1937 saga)

Jessica Stirling, The Captive Heart, Hodder & Stoughton (1920s Glasgow saga)

Sally Worboyes, Time Will Tell, Hodder & Stoughton (1950s East End saga)

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May 2004

US Titles

Antoine Audouard, Farewell, My Only One, Houghton Mifflin (the romance of Heloise and Abelard in 12th century France)

Luther Blissett, Q, Harcourt (literary thriller set against the backdrop of the Reformation)

Gillian Bradshaw, The Alchemy of Fire, Severn House (Constantinople, 672 AD; a former concubine tries to hide the fact that her daughter is a royal princess)

Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason, The Rule of Four, Delacorte (two best friends at Princeton who decipher a famous Renaissance text and uncover a secret that has been hidden for centuries)

Edward Cline, Sparrowhawk Book III: Caxton, MacAdam/Cage (novel of the founding of America)

Don Coldsmith, The Pipestone Quest, Univ of Oklahoma Press (latest in Spanish Bit saga)

J.E. Fender, Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Hardscrabble Books (Geoffrey Frost series; the protagonist experiences a key battle of the Revolution)

Ashley Gardner, A Regimental Murder, Berkley Prime Crime (Regency mystery)

Marek Halter, Sarah, Crown (the story of Sarah from the Bible, first book in the Canaan trilogy)

Judith Hand, The Amazon and the Warrior, Tor (love story of the last great Amazon queen, set against the background of the Trojan War)

Ingrid Hill, Ursula, Under, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill ("grand saga of culture, history, and heredity" about the ancestry of a Finnish-Chinese girl, Ursula Wong, who tumbles down a mine shaft in early 20th century Michigan)

Christian Jacq, The War of the Crowns, Atria (novel of Queen Ahotep, Egypt's Joan of Arc; Queen Liberty trilogy #2)

Rebecca Kohn, The Gilded Chamber, Rugged Land (story of Queen Esther)

John May, Poe and Fanny, Shannon Ravenel/Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill (part literary history, part heartbreaking love story featuring doomed writer Edgar Allan Poe)

Larry McMurtry, Folly and Glory, Simon & Schuster (4th vol. of the Berrybender Narratives)

David Nevin, Meriwether, Forge (novel of Meriwether Lewis)

Patricia O'Brien, The Glory Cloak, Touchstone (reimagining of women's lives during the Civil War, featuring a friend of Louisa May Alcott)

Jean Plaidy, In the Shadow of the Crown, Three Rivers (novel of Mary, daughter of Henry VIII; reissue)

Jean Plaidy, Queen of This Realm, Three Rivers (novel of Elizabeth I; reissue)

Jonathan Raymond, The Half-Life, Bloomsbury USA (two friendships in two time periods - the Pacific Northwest of the 1800s and 1980s - share a common landscape)

Kenneth Robbins, City of Churches, NewSouth

Duncan Sprott, The Ptolemies, Knopf (the early years of the House of Ptolemy; ancient Egypt)

Grace Tiffany, Will, Berkley (novel of William Shakespeare)

Lily Tuck, The News from Paraguay, HarperCollins (unusual love story of 19th century Paraguay; story of Irish courtesan Ella Lynch, literary)

Harry Turtledove and Noreen Doyle, eds., The First Heroes: New Tales of the Bronze Age, Tor (historical fantasy)

Reba Young, Lamar, Missouri, Pelican (novel of the rural South)

Akira Yoshimura, Storm Rider, Harcourt (sea adventure set in the 1850s and 1860s, featuring a young Japanese man)

UK Titles

Thalassa Ali, Beggar at the Gate, Headline Review (British India 1838)

Irene Carr, Rachel, Hodder & Stoughton (1900s Newcastle saga)

Maggie Craig, The Dancing Days, Headline, (1930s Glasgow saga)

Audrey Howard, Distant Images, Hodder & Stoughton (1880s Lancs glassworks saga)

Michael Jecks, Tolls of Death, Headline, (Medieval Devon mystery series)

Neil Jordan, Shade, John Murray, (20thC childhood in N Ireland)

Freda Lightfoot, Girl from Poorhouse Lane, Hodder & Stoughton (saga)

Andrew Taylor, Call the Dying, Hodder & Stoughton (1950s Lydmouth mystery)

Janet Macleod Trotter, Return to Jarrow, Headline (1920s Tyneside saga)

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June 2004

US Titles

Mary Balogh, Slightly Dangerous, Delacorte (culmination of her Bedwyn saga; Regency historical)

Edward Cline, Sparrowhawk Book III: Caxton, MacAdam/Cage (Roots of the Revolutionary War, part three)

Randy Lee Eickhoff, And Not to Yield, Forge (novel of the life and times of Wild Bill Hickok)

Leslie Forbes, Waking Rafael, Bantam (an unspeakable secret lies hidden in one of Raphael's paintings)

Newt Gingrich and William Fortschen, Grant Comes East (alternative history of the US Civil War)

Kerry Greenwood, Murder in Montparnasse, Poisoned Pen Press (first Phryne Fisher mystery set in 1918 Australia and Paris)

Lian Hearn, Brilliance of the Moon, Riverhead (last volume of trilogy set in imaginary medieval Japan)

Barbara Hodgson, The Lives of Shadows, Chronicle (illustrated novel about a young Englishman who loses his heart to a house in Damascus in 1914)

Regina McBride, The Marriage Bed, Touchstone/S&S (in 1920s Ireland, two young girls head off to boarding school)

Judith Claire Mitchell, The Last Day of the War, Pantheon (love story of a Jewish girl and an Armenian-American soldier in Europe during World War I)

Diana L. Paxson, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Ancestors of Avalon: A Novel of Atlantis and the Ancient British Isles, Viking (continuation of MZB's Avalon series)

Mary Reed and Eric Mayer, Four for a Boy, Poisoned Pen Press (prequel to the John the Eunuch mystery series set in 6th century Byzantium; explains how John regained his freedom and set his boot on the ladder that led to his current high office)

John Shors, Beneath a Marble Sky, McPherson & Co (a novel of the Taj Mahal)

Julian Stockwin, Mutiny, Scribner (part of the Kydd naval saga set in 1797)

Colm Toibin, The Master, Scribner (biographical novel of Henry James; literary)

UK Titles

Nicholas Blincoe, Burning Paris, Hodder & Stoughton Sceptre (1870 Siege Paris/modern Mideast)

David Boyle, Blondel's Song, Viking. The capture, imprisonment and ransom of Richard Lionheart.

Sue Gee, The Mysteries of Glass, Headline Review (19thC literary love story)

Rosie Goodwin, The Bad Apple, Headline (1959 saga)

R.M. Lamming, As In Eden, Faber & Faber. Re-telling of ancient stories exploring the feminine side of spirituality.

Maile Meloy, Liars and Saints, John Murray (20thC generational)

James Nelson, Glory in the Name, Corgi. New novel about the Confederate Navy and the Battle for New Orleans.

Tim Severin, Viking II: Sworn Brother, Macmillan. Second in the Norse mythology series.

Stephanie Williams, Olga's Story, Viking. A story defined by war, revolution and exile.

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July 2004

US Titles

Rosanne Bittner, Into the Prairie: The Pioneers, Forge (part 3 of her 18th century frontier saga)

Adam Braver, Divine Sarah, William Morrow (novel of Sarah Bernhardt)

Robert Cort, Action!, Random House (1948: one family's dream of creating a movie empire in Hollywood)

Cathy Day, The Circus in Winter, Harcourt (story of the Great Porter Circus and the effect it had on the everyday lives of people in Lima, Indiana, from 1884 to 1939)

Colin Falconer, The Sultan's Harem, Crown (historical novel about Suleyman, Sultan of the Turks)

John Harwood, The Ghost Writer, Harcourt (modern-day librarian recovers ghost stories written by his mother; segues into a Victorian ghost story)

Esther Kreitman, Deborah, The Feminist Press at CUNY (autobiographical novel written by I.B. and J.B. Singer's sister; early 20th century Jewish life in Eastern Europe)

Van Reid, Fiddler's Green, Viking (5th escapade of the Moosepath League in 19th C Maine)

Helen Scully, In the Hope of Rising Again (life of a southern family from Reconstruction to the Great Depression)

Stephen Taylor, Caliban's Shore, W W Norton (wreck of the Grosvenor, an 1783 shipwreck off the African coast, and the fate of her survivors)

Adriana Trigiani, The Queen of the Big Time, Random House (a century of one Italian-American family's struggle to preserve its culture and unity in a foreign land)

UK Titles

Jacqueline Winspear,  Maisie Dobbs, John Murray (1920s detective, England)

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August 2004

US Titles

Reuben Bercovitch, The Snow Pit, Lyons (men and women of small-town Nebraska, 1941, are affected by the coming of WWII)

Elizabeth Chadwick, The Falcons of Montabard, St. Martin's Press (medieval England)

Ellen Cooney, Gun Ball Hill, Hardscrabble Books/Univ Press of New England (members of a Maine family in 1774 face the uncertainty of war)

Louis de Bernieres, Birds Without Wings, Knopf (small town in Anatolia in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire)

Barbara Hambly, Dead Water, Bantam (latest Benjamin January mystery set in 19th century New Orleans)

David Hewson, Lucifer's Shadow, Delacorte (two complex stories of intrigue and corruption set two centuries apart: one in 18th century Venice, the other in modern times)

Naguib Mahfouz, Voices from the Other World: Ancient Egyptian Tales, Anchor (collection of early tales of Egypt)

Takashi Matsuoka, Autumn Bridge, Delacorte (romantic tale moving from medieval Japan to modern San Francisco)

David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, Random House (combination of historical fiction, realism, satire, and science fiction connecting the 1850s, 1930s, 1950s, today, and the near future)

Bharati Mukherjee, The Tree Bride, Hyperion (an East Bengali woman transforms from a docile girl-child into an impassioned organizer of resistance against the British Raj)

Michael Pearce, A Cold Touch of Ice, Poisoned Pen Press (Mamur Zapt mystery set in 1912 Cairo)

Jean-Christophe Rufin, Brazil Red, W W Norton (adventure novel set during the French colonization of Brazil)

Harold Schechter, The Mask of Red Death, Ballantine (Edgar Allan Poe mystery set in Manhattan, 1845)

Mary Sharratt, The Real Minerva, Houghton Mifflin (feminist spirit changes the lives of three women in the small town of Minerva, MN)

Gus Weill, The Cajuns, Simon & Schuster (affectionate look at Cajuns in a 1950s small town)

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September 2004

US Titles

Rudolph Anaya, Serafina's Stories, Univ of NM Press (fable set in 17th century Santa Fe)

Ronan Bennett, Havoc, in its Third Year, Simon & Schuster (an unnerving narrative of early 17th C England, as the country heads toward civil war)

Sandra Birdsell, Katya, Milkweed Editions (A girl growing up in a pacifist Mennonite community on the Russian steppes witnesses the country's revolution; titled The Russlanders in Canada)

Win Blevins, Beauty for Ashes, Forge (continuing story of Sam Morgan, an 1820s mountain man)

T.C. Boyle, The Inner Circle, Viking (young man becomes an assistant to Dr. Alfred Kinsey in 1940)

T. Davis and Isabella Bunn, The Innocent Libertine, Bethany House (young woman in early 19th C London struggles with her Christian ideals and the plight of the poor)

Monique Charlesworth, The Children's War, Knopf (in 1939, a half-Jewish girl leaves Germany for Morocco, and then Paris under the Nazi threat)

Lindsay Clarke, The War at Troy, St. Martin's Press (retelling of Homer's Iliad; battle for the Bronze Age city of Troy)

Pamala-Suzette Deane, My Story Being This, Hardscrabble Books/University Press of New England (novel of Colonial Rhode Island and its vibrant early African American life and culture)

Sara Donati, Fire Along the Sky, Bantam (continuation of romantic epic set in early 19th century New York)

Emma Donoghue, Life Mask, Harcourt (Beau Monde of late 18th century England; lives on the brink of revolution)

Tricia Goyer, Night Song, Moody Press (against the backdrop of the orchestra started by prisoners in Hitler's Mauthausen death camp, tells the story of a beautiful member of the Austrian resistance and the American GI who loves her)

Kerry Greenwood, The Castlemaine Murders, Poisoned Pen Press (1920s Australian sleuth Phryne Fisher)

Roy Hoffman, Chicken Dreaming Corn, Univ of GA Press (A Romanian Jewish family sets up shop in 1916 Mobile, Alabama)

Jane Jakeman, Let There Be Blood, Berkley Prime Crime (first Lord Ambrose mystery set in 1830s England)

Daniela Kuper, Hunger and Thirst, St. Martin's Press (Chicago Jewish culture in the 1950s; family saga)

Robert N. Macomber, Honorable Mention, Pineapple Press (naval Civil War in Florida, third in series)

Philippa Morgan, Chaucer and the House of Fame, Carroll & Graf (historical mystery about Geoffrey Chaucer and a woman he used to love)

Rosalind Miles, The Lady of the Sea, Crown (conclusion of Tristan and Isolde trilogy; Celtic historical fantasy)

Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear, People of the Raven, Forge (new novel of prehistoric North America)

Cynthia Ozick, Heir to the Glimmering World, Houghton Mifflin (young woman enters a chaotic household of a 1930s German family)

Anne Perry, Shoulder the Sky, Ballantine (latest WWI mystery)

Tracie Peterson, To Dream Anew, Bethany House (historical western romance, Heirs of Montana series #3)

R. Garcia y Robertson, White Rose, Forge (conclusion to Roses Cycle trilogy about a modern woman transported to England during the Wars of the Roses)

Madeleine Robins, Petty Treason: A Sarah Tolerance Mystery, Forge (Regency mystery featuring a liberated female sleuth, second in a series)

Bodie and Brock Thoene, Third Watch, Tyndale House (in first century Jerusalem, citizens of the city wait for the Messiah to return)

Randall Wallace, Love and Honor, Simon & Schuster (historical epic set in Russia and America on the eve of the Revolutionary War)

Jack Whyte, The Lance Thrower, Forge (book six of the Camulod Chronicles)

Philip Lee Williams, A Distant Flame, St. Martin's Press (Civil War novel, seen through the eyes of a young sharpshooter from Georgia)

Walter Zacharias, Songbird, Atria (from the ghettos of Warsaw to the occupied streets of Paris, a woman relies on her remarkable strength of character to survive WWII)

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October 2004

US Titles

Bruce Cook, Young Will: The Confessions of William Shakespeare, Truman Talley Books (re-imagining of Shakespeare's early years in London and Stratford)

M. Allen Cunningham, The Green Age of Asher Witherow, Unbridled Books (follows the boom and bust years of an immigrant coal-mining town in 19th-century California)

Margaret Drabble, The Red Queen, Harcourt (intellectual on a grant at Oxford receives a memoir by a Korean crown princess written 200 years earlier)

Suzannah Dunn, The Queen of Subtleties, William Morrow (a novel of Anne Boleyn)

India Edghill, Wisdom's Daughter, St. Martin's Press (novel of Solomon & Sheba)

Beverly Lewis, The Prodigal, Bethany House (novel of an Amish family in the 1950s)

David Lodge, Author, Author, Viking (novel of Henry James)

Prince Michael of Greece, The White Night of St. Petersburg, Atlantic Monthly (fictional story of Nicholas Romanov, black sheep of the Russian imperial family)

Gilbert Morris, The Silent Harp, Bethany House (new House of Winslow novel set in 1937)

James L. Nelson, The Only Life That Mattered, McBooks (novel of Mary Read and Anne Bonny)

Diana Norman, Taking Liberties, Berkley Signature (during the early days of the American Revolution in Plymouth, England, two women come together in their search for missing loved ones)

Dan O'Brien, The Indian Agent, Lyons (Valentine McGillycuddy from The Contract Surgeon at the Massacre at Wounded Knee)

Patrick O'Brian, 21, Norton (final partial installment of the Aubrey/Maturin series)

Alan Parker, The Sucker's Kiss, St. Martin's Press (a pickpocket's picaresque odyssey throughout America, beginning in 1906 San Francisco)

Steven Pressfield, The Virtues of War, Doubleday (novel of Alexander the Great, told in his own words)

Luis J Rodriguez, Music of the Mill, HarperCollins (three generations of an American family who have built their lives around the decaying steel industry)

Philip Roth, The Plot Against America, Houghton Mifflin (alternate history of a Lindbergh presidency that proves dangerous for Jews)

Nina Schuyler, The Painting, Algonquin (In 1870s Japan, a woman avoids an arranged marriage by painting her memories of her lover and secretly sending them to a Parisian importer)

Bertrice Small, Philippa, New American Library (romantic romp through Henry VIII's England)

Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi, The Last Song of Dusk, Arcade (love, passion, and loss in 1920s India)

Neal Stephenson, The System of the World, William Morrow (volume 3 of Baroque Cycle set in 1714 England)

Penny Vincenzi, Something Dangerous, Overlook (continuation of the Lytton family saga, beginning in 1928 England)

Adam Williams, The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure, St. Martin's Press (Far Eastern epic in the tradition of James Clavell, beginning with the Boxer Rebellion in 1899)

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November 2004

US Titles

Lynn Austin, A Light to My Path, Bethany House (a house slave in the Civil War-era South discovers newfound freedom)

Jon R. Bauman, Santa Fe Passage, St. Martin's Press (novel of the early 1800s as two cultures collide on the Santa Fe trail)

Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter, Shoemaker & Hoard (novel of the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky, this time during the post-WWII years)

Hortense Callisher, Tattoo for a Slave, Harcourt

Anita Desai, The Zigzag Way, Houghton Mifflin (an American man's sojourn in Mexico reveals the country's history in the 20th century)

Roddy Doyle, Oh, Play That Thing, Viking (sequel to A Star Called Henry; immigrants and other "outsiders" in 1920s and Depression-era America)

Philippa Gregory, The Virgin's Lover, Touchstone (love triangle of Amy Robsart, Robert Dudley, and Queen Elizabeth I)

Elmer Kelton, Jericho's Road, Forge (continuing saga of the Texas Rangers)

Dewey Lambdin, The Captain's Vengeance, St. Martin's Press (new naval adventure featuring Captain Alan Lewrie)

Sharan Newman, The Witch in the Well, Forge (Catherine le Vendeur mystery in 12th century France)

Owen Parry, Strike the Harp! American Christmas Stories, William Morrow (five Yuletide stories spanning a century of American life)

Michael Pearce, A Dead Man in Trieste, Carroll & Graf (mystery set in the British embassies and consulates in the early 1900s)

Judith Pella, Homeward My Heart, Bethany House (continuation of Daughters of Fortune series set just after WWII)

Anne Perry, A Christmas Visitor, Ballantine (Henry Rathbone from the William Monk novels solves a case of his own; novella)

Jean Plaidy, Royal Road to Fotheringhay, Three Rivers (novel of Mary Queen of Scots; reprint)

Naomi Ragen, The Covenant, St. Martin's Press (multigenerational novel of love, friendship, and duty, beginning at Auschwitz in 1943, combined with a tale of modern terrorism)

David Roberts, The More Deceived, Carroll & Graf (latest Lord Edward Corinth/Verity Browne mystery set in 1937 England)

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead, Farrar Straus Giroux (In 1956, the Rev. John Ames writes to his son about his ancestors, who were split on the issue of abolition)

Caroline Roe, Consolation for an Exile, Berkley Prime Crime (part of Chronicles of Isaac of Girona, mystery series set in 14th century Spain)

Simon Scarrow, The Eagle and the Wolves, Thomas Dunne (latest military adventure set in ancient Rome of 44AD)

Jeff Shaara, To the Last Man, Ballantine (epic story of WWI in Europe, seen through the eyes of historical characters)

Danielle Steel, Echoes, Delacorte (young Jewish woman falls in love with a French officer along Lake Geneva in 1915)

Jane Stevenson, The Empress of the Last Days, Houghton Mifflin (scholarly pursuit leads to a young black scientist who may well be the rightful Queen of England)

H.N. Turteltaub, Owls to Athens, Forge (adventures in the ancient world with squabbling traders on the Aegean)

Harry Turtledove, Days of Infamy, New American Library (alternate history imagining a Japanese-occupied Hawaii after Pearl Harbor)

Richard S. Wheeler, An Obituary for Major Reno, Forge (biographical novel of Marcus Reno, survivor of Little Big Horn)

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December 2004

US Titles

Louis Auchincloss, East Side Story, Houghton Mifflin (rise of one uncommon New York family through the centuries)

Nella Bielski, The Year is '42, Pantheon (German officer receives unwanted attention from the Nazi party he despises)

Fiona Buckley, The Siren Queen, Scribner (latest Ursula Blanchard mystery set in Elizabethan England)

Edward Cline, Sparrowhawk Book Four: Empire, MacAdam/Cage (colonial America; precursors to the American Revolution)

Max Allan Collins, Road to Purgatory, William Morrow (gangster saga set in 1920s and 1940s)

Catherine Cookson, The Glass Virgin, Simon & Schuster (Edwardian romance set amongst the serving classes; reprint)

Martin Davies, Mrs. Hudson and the Spirits' Curse, Berkley Prime Crime (Sherlock Holmes mystery starring his housekeeper Mrs. Hudson)

Carole Nelson Douglas, Spider Dance, Forge ( Irene Adler tracks the most notorious woman of the 19th century, 1889 New York City)

Elmore Leonard, The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard, William Morrow (short fiction collection)

Jonathan Lowy, The Temple of Music, Crown (a portrait of America at the turn of the 20th century; sweeping novel of the Gilded Age)

Nicholas Nicastro, Empire of Ashes: A Novel of Alexander the Great, Signet

Elizabeth Palmer, The Distaff Side, Thomas Dunne (witty tale of duplicity among the British aristocracy during the years following WWI)

David L. Robbins, Liberation Road: A Novel of World War II and the Red Ball Express, Bantam (historical WWII thriller)

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