Best Historical Fiction

 This author is known for creating stories spanning for many centuries, rich in history, people, politics, and culture. This story is presented through four families who are divided by ethnicity but united in shaping the destiny of their land. The story starts with creation of the first village in Russia, Russka, and its first Great leaders, followed by Mongol invasions, and Great Khan rule over Russia. In result, making some natives of southern lands to move northward, “where the Tatar patrols did not bother to come” to take census and collect taxes; some headed toward “a small town called Moscow. Nothing much,” and some to the village of Russka. With time Tatars reach even the northern villages. In mid-16th century, the winning switches places. “Kazan: gateway to the empire once ruled by mighty Genghis Khan. Now it was Russian. (…) Moscow was then one of the greatest cities in all Europe – as big as sprawling London or powerful Milan.” Peasant oppression creates a new move ea...

 The story begins towards the end of WWII, when the Home Army (the dominant Polish resistance movement) in Poland fights against the crushing forces of Germany and Russia, with two main characters, Jakob, who takes part in destroying a German troop transport, but unscheduled train with Jews heading to Auschwitz reaches the bridge first. And six year old Gretl, who survives and Jakob finds himself taking care of her.  An endearing bond grows between those two characters. After an uprising in Warsaw, Jakob returns home to Czestochowa wounded and the roles switch, now Gretl takes care of him by feeding him and giving him his medicine.  After the war, life doesn’t get much easier. Poland is under Communist rule). People are being told what to farm. They can’t have pigs. They can’t smoke ham, because government decides when to eat ham. Under those strict rules and expending family at Jakob’s family farm house, Gretl needs to move out.  She is a bright girl of ten...

 Islam, the world’s second-largest religion, is the most misunderstood religion. This journey of the Prophet Muhammad offers a clear depiction and a better understanding of his life and how it shaped his mission. It gives a reader a chance to be better informed. Set in 6-7 AD, a time when “slaves were kept and cruelty abused. So were women and unwanted baby girls were routinely left to die on a mountainside after they were born.” Set mostly in Mecca, in a desert valley in western Saudi Arabia, (today, Islam’s holiest city). The seclusion provided by sands of desert gave Mecca a protection it needed from the invaders and a seclusion which gave birth to a new religion. Muhammad is orphaned by age of six. He grows up surrounded by cousins and extended family. At a young age, he makes a reputation for himself as a trusted merchant. He makes it through a desert leading safely a caravan for an older merchant, who was too weary to travel. He marries a rich widow almost twice his...

 Bernhard Riemann, German mathematician, in 1859 proposed the Riemann hypothesis, which remains unsolved to this day. “In fact, the Clay Institute is offering $1 million to the person who solves it first.” This story is about a young ambitious woman who tries to solve the Riemann hypothesis. Set during a time when only men studied science and only men were given positions as professors. Katherine, the protagonist, is being told repeatedly that she could achieve so much if only she were a man. Katherine grew up in the 1940s and 1950s in the small town of New Umbria, Michigan. Even as a young girl she understood the power of what her mother was telling her, “that numbers underlay the mysteries of nature. That if you could unlock their secrets, you could catch a glimpse of the order within.” Her father refused to talk about the war or his experience in it. Her mother avoided talk about China where she was from.  When it stormed, her curiosity led her to learn about prot...

 At a time when no other country, including US, UK, Australia, would open its doors to Jews fleeing the concentration camps, Shanghai had opened its doors to more than twenty thousand refugees fleeing Europe during WWII. “It was possible before 1940 to be released from a concentration camp if you had a valid passport, visa, permit to take up residency in another country, and proof of transport. Such release was always subject to the prisoner leaving Germany within a limited time.” Vienna, Nov. 1938: Young Romy can’t understand why Jews are so hated. “The synagogue’s library of rare books and manuscripts lay in a pile of smoldering cinders on the footpath.” Not able to obtain visas, her family is left with only one option where visas are not needed – Shanghai. In Shanghai, International Committee set up boarding houses for the Jewish refugees. The area is safe for Jews, but relations between Chinese and Japanese have been strained since 1931. As welcoming as Shanghai felt ...