Best Historical Fiction

 White Rose was a peaceful resistance group in the Third Reich led by a group of students including siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl at the University of Munich. The group mailed leaflets to random people picked from the phone book, appealing to the “blindness of German people” and spreading “words of resistance, struggle, and hope.” They were mailed from different cities to different cities to “allay suspicion from the home city of Munich and to make the group seem much larger than it was.” Munich, 1938. Sixteen year old Natalya Pertovich notices her Jewish friends disappearing from her life, hiding in their houses to avoid any attention. 1942. Numb to the horrors of war and feeling powerless, she then takes a step and heads to the Russian Front as a volunteer nurse for German Red Cross. There she makes friends, who back in Germany introduce her to the White Rose movement. “Everyone in the White Rose was chosen for their intelligence, their convictions, and their politics…” A...

 Set during a rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte. Desiree Clary was the first fiancé of Napoleon and later became the Queen of Sweden. Overshadowed by history, this book sheds a light on her life. Marseille, France, 1794: During the tumultuous times of the French Revolution, when in need, Desiree meets Joseph Bonaparte. He is interested in pursuing her, but when she meets his younger brother Napoleon, she is intrigued with the rough-mannered but well-read and brisk Napoleon rather than the handsome and funny Joseph. Credited with averting a civil war, Napoleon is appointed Commander of the Army of the Interior. As he rises through the leadership of the army in Paris, his letters to Desiree dwindle with each day. From a Parisian journal, she learns about Napoleon courting Josephine de Beauharnais. And if that wasn’t insulting enough, Napoleon corners Desiree to marry a much older man. Duphot proposal is simply jaw-dropping. “Was the man proposing marriage or discussing ...

 Martha Hughes Cannon (1857-1932) was a pioneer woman who knew what mattered to her and she pushed the limits to defy the odds. “Mattie” became one of the first female physicians and America’s first female state senator. She overcame tremendous odds. Wyoming, 1861. Mattie’s family journeys first from Wales and now across the mountains to Salt Lake City. During this journey, they lose Mattie’s sister and father. This experience gives Mattie fire to become a healer. 1873. With her heart racing and “books clutched against her chest” she rushes for her evening courses in chemistry at the University of Deseret. Her diligence and perseverance earn her a place at medical school in Michigan. After completing her medical program in Michigan and Philadelphia, she heads back to Utah to fulfill the meaning of her life – saving lives. She doesn’t want to bear a child after child as her mother did. She wants to save lives. Can polygamy be an answer to her life’s fulfillment? With her g...