Historical Fiction: Jul. 2022, Pt. 3 | Prepub Alert

From the Civil War and the Haitian Revolution to World Wars I and II. 

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Chiaverini, Jennifer. Switchboard Soldiers. Morrow. Jul. 2022. 464p. ISBN 9780063080690. $28.99. lrg. prnt. HISTORICAL/WORLD WAR I

Druart, Ruth. The Last Hours in Paris. Grand Central. Jul. 2022. 448p. ISBN 9781538735213. $28. Downloadable. HISTORICAL/WORLD WAR II

Kidd, Jess. The Night Ship. Atria. Jul. 2022. 384p. ISBN 9781982180812. $28. LITERARY/HISTORICAL

Martin, Madeline. The Librarian Spy: A Novel of World War II. Hanover Square: Harlequin. Jul. 2022. 336p. ISBN 9781335427489. $28.99; pap. ISBN 9781335426918. $16.99. HISTORICAL/WORLD WAR II

Lock, Norman. Voices in the Dead House. Bellevue Literary. Jul. 2022. 288p. ISBN 9781954276017. pap. $16.99. HISTORICAL/CIVIL WAR ERA

Riley, Vanessa. Sister Mother Warrior. Morrow. Jul. 2022. 384p. ISBN 9780063073548. $27.99. lrg. prnt. HISTORICAL/HAITI

Chiaverini’s Switchboard Soldiers chronicles the women of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, who weren’t even eligible to enlist in the army but helped facilitate communication on the battlefield as bombs fell around them and pandemic raged (150,000-copy first printing). French Resistance fighter Elise and German soldier Sebastian fall in love in Occupied Paris and face moral crisis at war’s end in Druart’s The Last Hours in Paris (45,000-copy first printing). In Kidd’s The Night Ship, sad-eyed young Gil is sent to live with his grandfather in a Western Australian fishing community and learns about the 1629 sinking of a ship whose passengers included the newly orphaned Mayken, sailing to what was then the Dutch East Indies (75,000-copy first printing). In Martin’s latest, Ava is The Librarian Spy, working undercover in World War II Lisbon to collect intelligence and finding connection through coded messages with Elaine, apprenticed at a press run by the Resistance in Occupied France (150,000-copy first printing). Lock continues his successful “American Novels” series with Voices in the Dead House, which braids together the experiences of Walt Whitman and Louisa May Alcott in Civil War–torn Washington, DC. In Sister Mother Warrior, celebrated Island Queen author Riley conveys the Haitian Revolution through the stories of two women: Marie-Claire Bonheur, the first empress of Haiti, and West African–born warrior Gran Toya (100,000-copy first printing).

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Barbara Hoffert

Barbara Hoffert (bhoffert@mediasourceinc.com, @BarbaraHoffert on Twitter) is Editor, LJ Prepub Alert; winner of ALA's Louis Shores Award for reviewing; and past president, awards chair, and treasurer of the National Book Critics Circle, which awarded her its inaugural Service Award in 2023.

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