Category: Historical Fiction

All Men Are Mortal by Simone de Beauvoir

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Why have an existential crisis when you can read one instead?! ALL MEN ARE MORTAL is an Existentialist manifesto in the form of a centuries-spanning epic, narrated primarily by Fosca, an immortal man born in the 1200s who is now trying to begin yet another new life in 1900s Paris. The story is at turns chilling, gorgeous, infuriating, passionate, problematic, and profound. Existentialist philosophy argues that every human individual forges their own life’s meaning and value through their freely-chosen actions in the face of certain death and despite the incomprehensible nature of the universe. But without the threat of death, could life have meaning at all? Fosca struggles to answer this question through countless regimes, lovers, bloodlines, landscapes, wars, and ambitions, all the while increasingly mourning the inevitable loss of his humanity. Incredibly thought-provoking.



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Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Before continuing on with this review, I feel like I have to disclose that I am a person who knows a bit about Shakespeare. As a former English literature instructor, I’ve read Hamlet perhaps upwards of 30 times. It is my favorite play and one of my favorite works of literature for reasons that strangely enough are very personal and have little to do with the centuries’ worth of cache that has cemented the play in the human imagination.

So when I picked up HAMNET, it was for my love of Hamlet. And what I found there surprised me. I am in awe of Maggie O’Farrell’s ability to wholly inhabit an invented reality she has created in place of a complete historical record. This is by no means a story that attempts to replicate the most plausible sequence of events in the life of Shakespeare’s family. However, it is a book that is a testament to how imagination allows us live in and walk around in the idea of the past.

Many works of historical fiction really attempt to tell the story of an era, of a sweeping struggle, a wide-reaching moment in culture, and this book really does not do that. I respect that choice. Instead, O’Farrell tells the story of one house and one family, making their world feel hyperreal and all-consuming. This book intentionally refuses to illuminate much about the life of Shakespeare himself, in fact never naming him, but I do feel that it helped me understand things about the deep love that O’Farrell had for the possibilities, the pains, and the desires that surrounded him. Emotionally rigorous, extremely interior, and clearly written with respect for the dead, assuming the best of them, that they were capable, that they tried.



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River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


An accessible read inspired by the author’s academic research and personal ancestry. Focusing on the early years of emancipation in Barbados and other Caribbean islands, RIVER SING ME HOME explores the journey of a mother whose family was fractured by slavery. Through her journey to reunite with her children, we see the ways in which people fought to bring their freedom from name into reality at massive personal risk and cost.



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The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I understand why this book took the world by storm. Moving fictionalized account of the many personal wars within World War II being fought by the women who soldiers left behind at home… The novel is both treacly and horrific at the same time.

WWII reads are always tough for me. I hate thinking about the fact that all this unthinkable evil really happened to real people, scarring human history forever.



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Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I understand the sensational appeal. Despite its sometimes outright soapy-ness, the immersive quality of Owens’ writing is nothing less than seductive. The marsh is the true unforgettable character in this book, and the relateable pull of Kya’s loneliness would tug the coldest heart. The ending was not fully realized in my opinion, but this book deserves its place as a bestseller.



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Singing Lessons for the Stylish Canary by Laura Stanfill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I can’t pinpoint the exact origin of the magic by which Laura Stanfill creates her enchantment of a novel Singing Lessons for the Stylish Canary. It might be the delectably detailed knowledge of a little-known instrument’s history woven into the plot. It might be the sumptuous descriptions of Old Word France village life in the 1800s. It might be the is-it-or-isn’t-it? treatment of superstition and fate. It might be the determination to create a book that is both relentlessly positive and relentlessly real about the human heart. It’s probably all of this and more. If you’re looking for something to whisk you away–something entirely free of cell phones and instead draped with bobbin lace–this is it.



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