Best Historical Fiction

 It is heart-wrenching to see how one human being is capable of mistreating another human being. The wronged ones in order to survive need to keep their spirit alive. In this story, each person is allowed to keep one thing they value the most, and leave the rest behind. The spirit also comes through the story-telling, traditions, love for family and staying together. Ukraine, 1941. Hanna lives with her family in a Jewish community in a small town of Kwasova. She doesn’t understand why some people from her village are disappearing as her parents try to protect her from knowing the evil. They don’t tell her about the enormous taxes being levied on Jews. “Or of the consequences of practicing” their religion. When the actions get dramatic, removing Jews from their homes at nights, some get killed, the rest are taken to the camps. Hanna’s family is being warned, “Everyone is hungry now and a hungry man will do anything not to see his family starve.” Home is where family is. The forest b...

 The London Restoration – one might imagine it entails restoration of London after a devastation of war. Or maybe it’s about restoration of love in London. One young couple gets married at the beginning of the war, then pushed away from each other due to war, and now after the war trying to restore the love bond damaged by war. A beautiful love story. London, 1945. Diana Somerville is a woman of great intuition and ability to read hidden messages. Thus during the war she was recruited as a codebreaker. However, what her husband knows is that she was doing translation work. He on the other hand was a stretcher bearer in the Belgian trenches, and later Italian. Once the war ends, she disappears for five weeks without any word. When he needed her the most, she was gone. “Then there were the weeks of convalescence when his pain and flashbacks were secondary to his worry for her.” The story goes back in time to 1941 and reveals how she was enlisted as a codebreaker agent. And furt...

 “The exodus of Chinese universities and middle schools began in 1937, the official start of the Second Sino-Japanese War.” The purpose of schools relocating to China’s interior was about “safeguarding the nation’s intellectual legacy, so necessary for building the future.” China, 1937. Nineteen-year-old Hu Lian has been studying at Minghua University in Nanking. She comes from a humble family. She is one of only three students awarded scholarship. Now, due to Japanese bombing the city, the students are ordered to flee. Since most of China is illiterate, the university students are valued highly. Men are not allowed to enlist as soldiers. The students are evacuating to a wartime campus in Changtu. A journey which takes 1,000 miles is marked by constant aerial attack. They are also assigned to transport the Library of Legends – valued books of Chinese myths and folklore. Each student carries one book and they are assigned to read the stories as they travel. Even during the war, th...

 Story of the alleged affair, between the married Lydia Robinson and Branwell Bronte, her son’s tutor, illuminates “portrait of a courageous, sharp-witted woman who fights to emerge with her dignity intact.” It may not be a woman you’d sympathize with, but it gives voice to a woman who is voiceless and suffocating. She is a complex human character full of passion and worth of attention. Yorkshire, 1843. Lydia has lost her youngest daughter and mother within the same year. She is dealing with grief, rebelling teenage daughters, scrutinizing mother-in-love, and impassive husband. She craves enjoyment, her husband’s love, his touch, instead she receives coldness. Miss Anne Bronte is governess to her daughters and now Mr. Branwell Bronte joins the household to be her son’s tutor. With the appearance of Mr. Bronte, the temperature in the room rises. Once again, she starts feeling the music that she plays and sings. She yearns for something more. She’s been feeling lonely, with...