Best Historical Fiction

 Hercules was a cook to General Washington. He was a master chef, highly praised by Washingtons. But the story also reveals a darker side of the history. When “President George Washington came to serve his tenure in Philadelphia in 1790 bringing enslaved ‘servants’ with him from his household in Virginia. Most were eventually sent back to their estate, Mount Vernon, because the First Couple feared they would take advantage of Pennsylvania’s 1780 Gradual Abolition Act, which allowed for enslaved people to petition for freedom after six months of continuous residency. (…) He moved them out of Pennsylvania and into slave states to reset their tenure. (…) This rotation of enslaved people lasted throughout the Washington’s seven years in Philadelphia.” Philadelphia, 1793.  Once Hercules longed for the quiet Virginia countryside, but not anymore. He got to love the city of Philadelphia where a man couldn’t be whipped or chained. Hercules is confident in the kitchen and knows...

The book weaves two stories set in late 18th century and present time. The present time story is of a young woman, who comes across a letter suggesting a possibility of a missing manuscript of Jane Austen. This story in the first chapter has a slow start. However, it picks up in the following chapter, when she meets a young man whose father’s house could be a place where the lost manuscript was written. The search for it begins. The second story is of the lost manuscript written by Jane Austen; her seventh undiscovered book. It is about a father and his daughter, who find themselves in a situation where they have to leave the house they got to know as home and move to live with the relatives. This reads like a story written by Jane Austen. It transports the reader to the world of Jane Austen; the language, the well-mannered people, the world of the balls and engagements… The character of Jane Austen's story is presented as a smart caring woman, who lives during a time, wh...

There are many books about WWII and to make another book on the subject stand out it has to bring something unexplored. What this book brings is an “ownerless treasure” and encrypted messages to record what belongs to whom. Encrypted messages were also used by partisans, they had to be creative in finding new ways of communication, be it through stamps or words inserted in poems. (Explored in the book The Lost Letter by Jillian Cantor). “After the annexation of Austria in 1938, the Nazis began expropriating Austrian Jewish property to use for their war preparations. Many Nazi officials kept a portion of these assets for their own pockets.” The story is presented through three characters. Present day, Mount Vernon, Ohio. Callie Randall runs a bookstore with her sister and a blog for the store. She comes across a German edition of Bambi with owner’s name of Anika Knopf dated 1932, and with unique list inscribed on the pages. She makes a post on her blog in hopes of identifying th...