Historical sf/f. Steampunk. In the late 19th century, idealistic (but somewhat misguided) socialists from Europe and formerly enslaved people from North America purchase territory in what is now the Congo from the brutal colonial regime of Belgium’s King Leopold II, and join forces with those already living there (some of whom have mysterious access to …
Historical fiction. About slavery and Scotland. Built around the actual historical case that led in 1777 to the establishment of the principle that Scots law did not uphold slavery, at least domestically. Joseph Knight is the enslaved man at the centre of this case, originally kidnapped from west Africa and brought to Jamaica, and then …
Listed by some as young adult…but it doesn’t really read like it, for all that it’s about teens coming of age. Listed by others as historical fiction…but I refuse the idea that a book set when I would’ve been in Grade 10 belongs in such a category. Fantastical, certainly, and of a witchy bent, but …
YA historical fiction. I don’t read much historical fiction, but I’ve been a fan of this author since her first novel, the Cinderella retelling *Ash*, and I’ve followed her as she has worked her way across a range of genres. This book traces the story of a teen Chinese-American girl in 1950s San Francisco as …
Historical fiction with a dash of the fantasical. Set in the New York underworld of the ’30s and ’40s. Begins from the perspective of a light-skinned Black woman passing as white who has for years been working for a Manhattan mob boss as a killer. In doing so, she is making use of her version …