Depression Historical Fiction

“Elegant and engrossing….Henderson is a talent to watch.” —Danielle Trussoni, author of Angelology “This is not a book you’ll soon forget.” —Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants The gripping debut novel from Litpark.com founder and Pushcart Prize-nominee Susan Henderson...

It is the Great Depression of the 1930s, and a passionate young man from Paterson, New Jersey, leaves home to find his fortune. What he finds, on a cold and lonely night in the Adirondack Mountains, is a vision of life so different from his own that it changes his destiny, leading him from the...

A coming-of-age middle grade novel about three best friends born in the wake of Hurricane Katrina who must confront storms of their own 12 years later, from a National Book Award winning author. Born in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Greer, Joya Mia, and Kiki are seventh graders and the best of...

Abandoned by her family, alone on the wrong side of the color line with little to call her own, Eliza Meeks is coming to terms with what she does have. It’s a gift for communicating with animals. To some, she’s a magical tender. To others, a she-devil. To a talent prospector, she’s a crowd-drawing oddity. And the Bacchanal Carnival is Eliza’s ticket out of the swamp trap of Baton Rouge. Among fortune-tellers, carnies, barkers, and folks even stranger than herself, Eliza finds a new home. But the Bacchanal is no ordinary carnival. An ancient demon has a home there too.

Carolyn Meyer's historical fiction, such as Marie, Dancing, is popular for its unique perspectives. Loving Will Shakespeare is the tale of Agnes Anne Hathaway. There are few details known about the girl who - though eight years his senior - would eventually become wife to the Bard. Meyer's imagining of her story will inspire listeners to learn more.

Hattie Barton’s life changes forever on October 24, 1929, the historic day of the New York stock market crash. She is suddenly forced to leave her palatial home in Calhoun, relocate to an apartment in her hometown in Greenville, and find work to support herself, her two young daughters Pauline and Alice, and her trusted housekeeper, Georgia. When she takes a job as secretary in a small insurance firm, a potential romance develops between Hattie and her boss, Seth Snoddy However, an unexpected turn causes her to reevaluate whether she can ever settle for a marriage of convenience.

“Absorbing...Eastman is a riveting...presence who demands to be loved and remembered.” —The Boston Globe An ambitious new novel set in the literary world of 1970s New York, following a washed-up writer in an errant quest to pick up the pieces of his life. One of Esquire's Best books of...

Set in Appalachia in the years before World War II, Velva Jean Learns to Drive is a poignant story of a spirited young girl growing up in the gold-mining and moonshining South. Before she dies, Velva Jean's mother urges her to "live out there in the great wide world." Velva Jean dreams of...

I am convinced that at birth the cake is already baked. Nurture is the nuts or frosting, but if you’re a spice cake, you’re a spice cake, and nothing is going to change you into an angel food. Tall, slender Violet Mathers is growing up in the Great Depression, which could just as well define...

Longlisted for the 2014 National Book Award From the winner of the Pulitzer Prize: a powerful, engrossing new novel—the life and times of a remarkable family over three transformative decades in America. On their farm in Denby, Iowa, Rosanna and Walter Langdon abide by time-honored values...

“A beautifully written novel, laced with history and music.” —Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven An uplifting novel about the families we create and the places we call home. It is 1904. When Frederick and Jette must flee her disapproving mother, where better to go than America...

On the morning of September 11, 2001, 16-year-old Kyle Donohue watches the first twin tower come down from the window of Stuyvesant High School. Moments later, terrified and fleeing home to safety across the Brooklyn Bridge, he stumbles across a girl perched in the shadows, covered in ash, and wearing a pair of costume wings.

Mary Patterson grew up in South Carolina during the US Great Depression in the early 1900s. She sacrificed for her brothers and sisters her education and her youth. She cared for, tended to, fed, and helped provide for her siblings.

Journey with a horseback librarian into the hidden crevices of Kentucky mountains. Feel her pain as she struggles not only to barely make ends meet, but as she also attempts to connect the pieces of her own life while her mom continues to make selfish decisions. Lena Davis is the daughter her mom never wanted. But she survived. Through stories. Because books didn’t judge. Books weren’t angry she was alive. Books never expected her to be anything but who she was.

Captain Scott Williams was a fisherman by birth, a devoted husband and became a hero to many during the Great Depression. During the fall of the stock market, millions were left with nothing, millions had lost hope. After losing his wife, Williams set out on his last fishing trip only to find comfort, not only on the open waters of the Atlantic, but in those he helped along the way. This is his story.

Swordsman, soldier, poet...and possessor of the biggest nose in all of France! Cyrano de Bergerac was all this and more, for behind his grotesque face beat the heart of a lover. And, being Cyrano, who could he fall in love with but the most beautiful woman in Paris?From this conflict of nose versus heart springs one of the most uproarious, tender, funny, painful, and action-packed stories of all time - a tale that has its roots in truth, for Cyrano de Bergerac really existed.