Best Historical Fiction

 Based on “the true story of the Cheapside Hoard, dug up in a Cheapside cellar in 1912, (…) it is one of the most famous caches of jewels in the world, it is also the most mysterious. How could someone neglect to retrieve five hundred precious pieces of jewelry and gemstones?” This story is an imagined tale woven between the facts. Present day Boston. Kate Kirby, American jewelry historian, writing for an American magazine, receives a call about the Cheapside jewels. She flies to London, where at the London Museum, as the curator of the museum presents the jewels, a button catches her eye. She has seen similar button in her great-grandmother’s sketches. There is also a diamond ring. Now, she is off to India in hopes of tracing the history of the Golconda diamond set in the ring. London, 1912. Impoverished Irish immigrant Essie Murphy visits her brother at construction work, while a worker strikes through the floor finding a stash of treasure. Her brother sneaks in a small gold bu...

 This story brings a historical background of a city once prospering from textile mills and now facing union strikes. But for most of the part this is a moving story of a father, who after losing his wife, struggles to keep his family together. Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1911 is celebrating one hundred years of being America’s “largest cotton manufacturing city in the country.” The owners are very proud of it and pretty sure that the city will have another centennial celebration. Joseph Bartlett is one of the owners, which happened by accident. He sympathizes with labor, which doesn’t put him in a good position with other owners. Now, his wife passes away and at the same time his older son assaults a young woman. And later, he notices his younger son being diverted in the wrong direction by his friend’s daughter. On a sunny August day, Sarah Strong, a suffragist, approaches Joseph as he understands, unlike his peers, that the hardships at the mills don’t need to be endur...

 During WWII, forgers played important role in the Resistance. It was a network of “brave people who used their artistic ability and scientific ingenuity to produce convincing documents that allowed innocent people to survive.” Florida, 2005. Eva Traube, librarian, comes across an article talking about a book, which she thought had vanished forever. Paris, 1942. Eva is pursuing her doctorate in English literature. Her father, Polish-born Jew, is arrested. But before that he arranged with his employer for fake documents for Eva in order for her to escape to the free zone in Switzerland. Since she has to escape with her mother now, she is given blank documents and supplies to forge their own documents. From Paris, they travel east, toward the Alps and make a stop in Aurignon. Where, even though their papers are very legible looking, there is something else that gives them away. Now, a Catholic priest asks Eva for help in forging papers for Jewish children. He convinces her to d...

 Set in post-war Germany, this atmospheric story vividly explores the time period and involves a rush, time is precious, to uncover a network of spies and war criminals. And this involves a young British woman who fits a profile of being single, ordinary looking and with a college degree in German – a perfect material for a spy. London, 1945. Edith is a provincial schoolteacher and craves something more. Her friend Leo encourages her to apply for a position, which would involve her knowledge of German language to set up schools in Germany and have them running. But as it turns out this is just one part. She also gets recruited to be an agent, hunting down Nazis to bring them to justice. With her friend Dori, they need to come up with a code to send intercepted messages once she is in Germany. Dori is a spy. How did this happen? She is Hungarian who lived in Poland and fell in love with a British Flying Officer. When Germans robbed her of her adopted homeland, she wanted reven...