We sometimes forget that the descent in Dante’s Divine Comedy is a journey toward God. Jesmyn Ward’s portrayal of slavery is the profound manifestation of that possibility.
The Liberators is another resounding triumph for E.J. Koh: a brave exploration of the complexities of the human experience and the impossible task of making peace with the past.
Ye Chun personalizes both the fear and despair that pervaded the lives of 19th-century Chinese immigrants to the U.S. and the fortitude, hope and love that they cultivated anyway.
Tan Twan Eng’s eye for detail and understated storytelling bring a subtle edge to this thoughtfully written, atypical historical novel that searches for the emotional truth behind the facts.
The great gift of this stunning, mesmeric novel is that Blakemore never loses sight of the warm, thrumming humanity that is Tarare. He’s a man, he’s a monster, he’s a frightened boy, and he’s a living myth.
Set in Quebec, Joanna Goodman’s The Home for Unwanted Girls is a moving portrayal of family dynamics in the 1950s.
Echoing America’s dark history of settlers forcing their religion on Indigenous peoples, The End of Drum-Time will leave a lasting impression on all readers of historical fiction.
Aleksandar Hemon’s ambitious, elegantly wrought novel melds two love stories that play out amid the devastating global conflicts of the first half of the 20th century.
Rich in historical detail and told in tight, endearing prose, Essex Dogs is a historical fiction triumph for both longtime Jones fans and newcomers, and belongs on the reading list of every medieval history buff.
Kevin Jared Hosein Hosein captures Trinidad’s lush flora and fauna, as well as its explosive mix of cultures, races and religions, within a novel that slowly but steadily builds toward a climax of Shakespearean proportions.
Victory City is accessible in a way that suggests Salman Rushdie had fun writing it, but this is no lightweight novel.
Kimberly Duffy’s remarkable mother-daughter tale is set in the intriguing world of turn-of-the-century circus performers.
As Fiona McFarlane makes clear in this fine novel, the quest for contentment can be as elusive as a child lost in a dust storm.
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