Best Historical Fiction

  I, Julian reimagines biography of Julian of Norwich, an English mystic and anchoress. Mid 14th century, Norwich, England. Julian (1343 – after 1416), at seven, loses her father to pestilence. She is in pain over his death. She doesn’t know how to process it and how to heal from it. That’s when the seed of her visions start. At ten, her mother teaches her to read. Later, Julian counts it as her greatest gift from her mother. At nineteen, her mother wants her to marry, but Julian doesn’t want to obey a man and bear children. She prefers solitude. Her mother insists on her meeting Martin, a wool merchant. Julian does and realizes that beneath his strong appearance there is tenderness. She thinks the city will be bearable when she is with him. Later, she is introduced to the lay sisters who transformed her mother. She also learns of such calling as anchoress. Upon some contemplations she picks a path that she feels is right for her. Once, she gets sick and being close to death, her visio

 The Tiffany Girls brings a fascinating story of everyday women who worked at workshop for Mr. Tiffany, and were required to remain single in order to work for him. But they were treated equally with male coworkers, receiving equal pay. NYC, 1899. The story weaves the paths of three ambitious women. Emilie Pascal, daughter of an art forger, leaves the shunned life in Paris, and arrives in NYC in hopes of working for the studio of Louis C. Tiffany. Grace Griffith admires Mr. Tiffany for hiring women, who make some of his most praised designs. She wishes she couldn’t be secretive about her dream job, which is being a cartoonist for journals and newspapers. Clara Driscoll is the manager of the women’s division at Tiffany, and she has her own ambition. She attempts to capture the essence of the flight of dragonflies into a lamp. Later, it becomes Tiffany’s signature design. As the stories of these women are woven, it is set against the atmospheric background of Tiffany’s workshop and their