Historical Fiction

Libertie Sampson is a free-born Black girl coming of age in 1860s Brooklyn. She is the daughter of the only Black woman doctor in the region and as such feels incredible pressure from her mother to follow in her footsteps. She's always known that her mother wants her to go to college and study medicine so that they can one day open a practice together. And to a point Libertie is willing to go along - mostly because this is all that she has ever imagined.

Sometimes I'm looking for a book that works as a total escape for me and that's just what I got with Stephen Hunter's WWII thriller.

Basil's War introduces British special agent Basil St. Florian who spends his off time drinking and sleeping with film stars and his work time being sent into Nazi-occupied France on secret missions during WWII. If all that sounds a bit flashy? It is. Basil's newest assignment is to enter occupied France and gain access to a manuscript kept in the archives in a Paris that swarms with the German military.

Alice Randall isn’t an author that typically is at the top of many readers’ lists, having written several solid quietly received novels in the past and a few nonfiction works. But her latest, Black Bottom Saints, proves that Randall deserves more attention and a place on to-read lists.

If you ask anyone they'd probably tell you that 2020 wasn't their best year. I won't get into all the ways in which it was not good and really it was probably not good for each of you in different ways. But what was good was the books that were published. It's really been a stellar year for reading as demonstrated by all the awesome "best" lists that are coming out. If you don't believe me - and I'll admit to being a bit biased as I was on a panel that helped select some of the titles on one of these lists - take a look at a few of the lists that have come out so far.**

Jane Austen (like Arthur Conan Doyle) has had her books and characters re-imagined more times then I could possibly count. And for me I think, the retellings and re-imaginings of Jane Austen's books and characters have more often been a miss then hit. The Other Bennet Sister is that rare thing for me, not only a hit, but one that has knocked it out of the park. The titular sister is the one most often overlooked, middle-sister Mary. Granted I've always had a soft spot for the socially awkward, stern Mary, so to say I was sympathetic from the start is fair.