Start the Year Off with a Look Back in Time

Start the year off with a look back in time: five historical fiction picks from the senior reference librarian, Rosemary Jerome at the .

Susan Abulhawa, Mornings in Jenin  (2010)

Abulhawa's debut novel is a powerful portrayal of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, from the viewpoint of Palestinian refugees uprooted in 1948 when Israel became a state. The story focuses on the Abulheja family who were forced from the village of Ein Hod to a refugee camp in Jenin. Twin brothers were separated when Ismael was kidnapped by an Israeli soldier and raised Jewish and Yousef joins the PLO.  As seen through the eyes of Amal, their sister born in Jenin in 1955, we travel through three decades of conflict, starting in June 1967 and the Six Days' War, during which Jenin is bombed. Amal is sent to an orphanage for Palestinian refugees in Jerusalem in 1969 and later receives a scholarship to Temple University in Philadelphia.  Amal returns to Jenin in 2002 with her daughter to show her where she grew up. Abulhawa is the daughter of refugees.

Ben Kane, Silver Eagle  (2010)

Kane's sequel to The Forgotten Legion continues his chronicle of life in the tumultuous Roman Republic. After four years as a prostitute, Fabiola becomes the lover of the powerful Decimus Brutus, a top lieutenant of Julius Caesar.  Her two obsessions are to track down her rapist father and to reunite with her brother, Romulus, a gladiator turned legionnaire captured by the Parthians at Carrahae.  Forced to serve in the Parthian army, Romulus dreams of returning to Rome. The siblings' parallel adventures unfold in alternating chapters filled with historical details, graphic combat sequences and strong characters.

Jessica Francis Kane, The Report  (2010)

Kane re-imagines a real-life civilian tragedy during World War II, when 173 people, fleeing an apparent air raid, were crushed to death in a stairwell in a newly built London Tube station. The Bethnal Green tragedy of March 3, 1943 was all the more terrible because there were no bombings over London that night. Kane, author of the story collection Bending Heaven, shows the catastrophe from different perspectives.  She focuses on Magistrate Laurence Dunne, appointed to investigate and to produce a detailed report that will explain the tragedy, calm fears, boost morale and place blame on someone.  This is Kane's first novel.

Vanitha Sankaran, Watermark:  A Novel of the Middle Ages (2010)

Born an albino in medieval France, Auda has her tongue amputated by a healer's apprentice who believes she has been cursed by the devil.  Unable to speak, she becomes an avid reader and writer who masters her father's craft as a paper-maker at a time when the Church tightly controls and monitors access to parchment.  When Auda gives voice to her passions through her poetry, both she and her father become victims of the Inquisition. This is Sankaran's debut novel.

Susan Holloway Scott, Countess and the King:  A Novel of the Countess of Dorchester and King James II   (2010)

Katherine Sedley, mistress of King James II, grew up among the wealthy and indulged by her libertine father, Sir Charles Sedley. Attracted to James, the married duke of York, Katherine embarks on an illicit relationship that continues after James becomes king, though he eventually feels compelled to end their scandalous affair which produced a son who died in infancy and a daughter.  Scott is the author of The French Mistress.