HISTORICAL FICTION: TARA HENLEY
The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding
By Jennifer Robson, William Morrow, 400 pages
$21
Given the tidal wave of interest in Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding, the timing couldn’t be better for Jennifer Robson’s latest offering. In this gem of a novel, the Toronto author revisits the nuptials of Queen Elizabeth — but from the perspective of the young seamstresses who sewed her gown at Norman Hartnell, a famed Mayfair fashion house. Set between 1947 London and 2016 Toronto, a recently unemployed Heather Mackenzie begins piecing together her late Nan’s past after she inherits a box of embroidered flowers. Inspired by conversations with the last surviving embroiderer of the real-life royal wedding dress, this delightful pageturner is rich with riveting detail. Sure to satisfy royal enthusiasts, fashion fiends and historical fiction fans alike.
Daughter of Moloka’i
By Alan Brennert, St. Martin’s Press, 320 pages
$36.50
It’s been 16 years since California novelist and screenwriter Alan Brennert (of “L.A. Law” fame) published his blockbuster novel “Moloka’i,” about Rachel, a girl who becomes infected with leprosy in 1890s Hawaii and is quarantined to a colony on the island of Moloka’i. After years of pleas for a followup book telling the story of her daughter Ruth, whom Rachel was forced to give up at birth, Brennert has happily obliged. “Daughter of Moloka’i” follows Ruth from her early years in a Honolulu orphanage to her adoption into a local Japanese family, a move to America and, finally, the pivotal day her past catches up with her. Packed with history on the Japanese internment during the Second World War, this is a stirring story that’s destined to join its predecessor on bestseller lists.
Into That Fire
By M.J. Cates, Random House Canada, 432 pages
$24.95
M.J. Cates is the pseudonym of an award-winning Canadian author who has lived in Toronto and Ottawa, and abroad in England. The debut novel under this nom de plume, “Into That Fire,” opens in 1916, at Rush College, a medical school in Chicago, where Imogen, a psychiatristin-training, has befriended Quentin, a sensitive poet. The pair couldn’t be closer, but Quentin longs for romance, and Imogen is set on staying friends, thereby crushing his hopes. The subsequent story chronicles their interwoven destinies, through the major movements of the era, from the seeds of the suffragette movement to the First World War. The portrait that Cates paints of the ghastly mental health treatments of the early 20th century is fascinating. But the impact of this novel is not just intellectual; it’s emotional too. A sweeping story that compels from start to finish.
The Light Over London By Julia Kelly, Gallery Books, 304 pages
$24.99
Britain-based American romance writer Julia Kelly knocks it out of the park with “The Light Over London,” an enthralling new historical fiction about the U.K.’s antiaircraft women’s unit, known as the “Gunner Girls,” in the Second World War. Set in both 2017 and 1941, a modern-day assistant to an antiques dealer, Cara, discovers a diary while clearing an estate.
Intrigued, she sets out to unravel the mystery of its author Louise and her wartime romance with an RAF pilot. Throughout, Cara is aided by her own love interest, a charming neighbour Liam. In the process of uncovering this long-buried story, newly single Cara learns much about herself as well. A wonderful read — and, with its theme of women’s empowerment, a timely one at that.