In honor of Women's History Month, here are more historical fiction books in the library's collection that feature female characters or subjects, and are written by female authors:
The Dressmaker's War begins in 1939, and is about a talented English would-be modiste named Ada who makes some bad choices and is trapped by the Nazis into making dresses for German women at Dachau. Unfortunately, Ada continues to make some bad choices after the war ends and she returns home, but they are complicated by postwar conditions in England (that were particularly unfriendly to working-class women, as was the judicial system) and her not-supportive family. Mary Chamberlain's novel is compelling, and there is a historical note and acknowledgements at the end. This title is available as an e-book in our OverDrive collection.
Salt to the Sea is historical fiction based on some little-known real-life events and places - Operation Hannibal, the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, and the fate of the original Amber Room. The story takes place in January 1945, near the end of World War II, when the German navy launched Operation Hannibal to evacuate citizens and military wounded across the Baltic Sea ahead of the approaching Russian army. The Wilhelm Gustloff was a former cruise ship used in this evacuation. The Amber Room in the Catherine Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia, was looted by the Nazis, hidden, and never found again (it was later reconstructed in the palace). All play a part in the narrative.
The story is told by four first-person narrators:
- Joana, a Lithuanian woman around age 21 who has medical training,
- Emilia, a Polish 15-year-old,
- Florian, a 19-20-year-old Prussian trained in art restoration, and
- Alfred, a young German sailor.
Joana is traveling with a group of refugees that include a blind girl, a shoemaker, and a little orphan boy. Emilia is originally traveling alone, but is saved from an attack by a Russian soldier by Florian. The two of them meet up with Joana's group and eventually wind up in the port city of Gotenhafen (now known as Gdynia), where Alfred is helping to prepare the Gustloff for the evacuees.
Part of the intrigue of the book is that few people know about Operation Hannibal or the Gustloff, despite the immense disaster. The Amber Room is somewhat peripheral to the story - it provides the motivation for Florian's actions - but it is especially interesting given that amber is the national gem of Lithuania, where author Ruta Sepetys' father is from. This e-book is also available in our OverDrive collection.
The Translation of Love, by debut author Lynne Kutsukake, explores a little-used setting for historical fiction: post-World War II Japan, during its occupation by the United States. The story is told through five voices: twelve-year-old girls Fumi and Aya, their male teacher Kondo, Fumi's older sister Sumiko, and Cpl. Yoshitaka (Matt) Matsumoto. Aya is a Japanese-Canadian "repatriated" with her native Japanese father to his homeland after the war. Sumiko works as a bar girl, entertaining American occupation troops, to buy food and medicine for her family after her father's bookstore is bombed out. Kondo moonlights translating and writing letters in English, mostly for bar girls whose American boyfriends have gone home. And Matt, a Japanese-American whose family was interred in the war (despite his older brother earning a Purple Heart when killed in action in Europe), works for General Douglas MacArthur's office as a translator.
Sumiko goes missing and Fumi gets the English-speaking Aya to write a letter for her to MacArthur asking for his help finding her. The girls end up giving the letter to Matt, and he and an office typist, Nancy (another Japanese-American, but one still trapped in Japan since Pearl Harbor) decide to help the girls find Sumiko. Kondo gets pulled into their story as well.
In an article, the Japanese-Canadian Kutsukake said,
Nancy Wu is an appropriate narrator for the e-audiobook (available in our OverDrive collection), and makes the 12-year-olds sound just their ages. This was a great debut novel about a time-and-place setting few know much about.
The Dressmaker's War begins in 1939, and is about a talented English would-be modiste named Ada who makes some bad choices and is trapped by the Nazis into making dresses for German women at Dachau. Unfortunately, Ada continues to make some bad choices after the war ends and she returns home, but they are complicated by postwar conditions in England (that were particularly unfriendly to working-class women, as was the judicial system) and her not-supportive family. Mary Chamberlain's novel is compelling, and there is a historical note and acknowledgements at the end. This title is available as an e-book in our OverDrive collection.
Salt to the Sea is historical fiction based on some little-known real-life events and places - Operation Hannibal, the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, and the fate of the original Amber Room. The story takes place in January 1945, near the end of World War II, when the German navy launched Operation Hannibal to evacuate citizens and military wounded across the Baltic Sea ahead of the approaching Russian army. The Wilhelm Gustloff was a former cruise ship used in this evacuation. The Amber Room in the Catherine Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia, was looted by the Nazis, hidden, and never found again (it was later reconstructed in the palace). All play a part in the narrative.
The story is told by four first-person narrators:
- Joana, a Lithuanian woman around age 21 who has medical training,
- Emilia, a Polish 15-year-old,
- Florian, a 19-20-year-old Prussian trained in art restoration, and
- Alfred, a young German sailor.
Joana is traveling with a group of refugees that include a blind girl, a shoemaker, and a little orphan boy. Emilia is originally traveling alone, but is saved from an attack by a Russian soldier by Florian. The two of them meet up with Joana's group and eventually wind up in the port city of Gotenhafen (now known as Gdynia), where Alfred is helping to prepare the Gustloff for the evacuees.
Part of the intrigue of the book is that few people know about Operation Hannibal or the Gustloff, despite the immense disaster. The Amber Room is somewhat peripheral to the story - it provides the motivation for Florian's actions - but it is especially interesting given that amber is the national gem of Lithuania, where author Ruta Sepetys' father is from. This e-book is also available in our OverDrive collection.
The Translation of Love, by debut author Lynne Kutsukake, explores a little-used setting for historical fiction: post-World War II Japan, during its occupation by the United States. The story is told through five voices: twelve-year-old girls Fumi and Aya, their male teacher Kondo, Fumi's older sister Sumiko, and Cpl. Yoshitaka (Matt) Matsumoto. Aya is a Japanese-Canadian "repatriated" with her native Japanese father to his homeland after the war. Sumiko works as a bar girl, entertaining American occupation troops, to buy food and medicine for her family after her father's bookstore is bombed out. Kondo moonlights translating and writing letters in English, mostly for bar girls whose American boyfriends have gone home. And Matt, a Japanese-American whose family was interred in the war (despite his older brother earning a Purple Heart when killed in action in Europe), works for General Douglas MacArthur's office as a translator.
Sumiko goes missing and Fumi gets the English-speaking Aya to write a letter for her to MacArthur asking for his help finding her. The girls end up giving the letter to Matt, and he and an office typist, Nancy (another Japanese-American, but one still trapped in Japan since Pearl Harbor) decide to help the girls find Sumiko. Kondo gets pulled into their story as well.
In an article, the Japanese-Canadian Kutsukake said,
The idea came from a book called Dear General MacArthur, written by Japanese historian RinjirÅ Sodei. The book is a study of the letters written to General MacArthur during the occupation period...So I began thinking about what kind of person would write a letter to General MacArthur.... I wanted the person to be a 12-year-old because General MacArthur quite famously called Japan "a nation of 12-year-olds."
Nancy Wu is an appropriate narrator for the e-audiobook (available in our OverDrive collection), and makes the 12-year-olds sound just their ages. This was a great debut novel about a time-and-place setting few know much about.
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