HISTORICAL FICTION
A chance meeting in 1917 at the Newberry Library in Chicago leads Grace Smith to a position at Riverbank Laboratories to work on a project intended to prove that Francis Bacon was the legitimate author of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. There she is introduced to cryptology and meets other geniuses including Robert Feldman. By 1921, they are seconded to Washington and the War Department. Soon Grace is hired to head the U.S. Coast Guard Cryptanalytic unit where she works with Eliot Ness to capture smugglers, bootleggers and mobsters during prohibition. In the Second World War, Grace decodes messages that lead to derailing Nazi spy networks in South America, while Robert — now her husband — is broken by the attack on Pearl Harbour. Based on the life of legendary cryptanalyst Elizebeth Smith Friedman, Alden’s novel is fascinating, full of compassion and emotionally true.
Secrets drive the narrative in this gripping debut that opens during Christmas week in 1968 Dublin. Twenty-something journalist Nicoletta Sarto, in line for editor of the newly established women’s pages with the Irish Sentinel, chases the story of discovered remains that may well be those of Julia Bridges, an actress who vanished in 1943. When a second corpse is found nearby, locals are reminded of midwife Gloria Fitzpatrick, who was sentenced to hang in 1956 for inducing a miscarriage, a charge later commuted to life imprisonment on the grounds of insanity. As the narrative threads dovetail, one issue is clear: women must fight for agency over their own bodies.
Schoolmates Arthur Barnes and Ernie Castlefrank have been altar boys for Father Ziperto in Glastonbury since they were eight. Now, in 1986, they are adolescents bonded by the shame and secrecy of being groomed by the priest. When Arthur slices a page out of “The Prophet” at his local bookshop, the proprietor gives him a chance at redemption. In exchange for writing one review per week, Arthur may borrow any book. Ernie, too, gets a chance to prove himself with a pawnshop owner introduced by his older brother Nathan: computer whiz Casper Fontaine. That connection leads to criminal work exploiting children for sexual predators. An unflinching exploration of the traumatic legacy of childhood sexual abuse that is rife with anger, but also offers hope of a way forward.
Victorian poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning seem destined to meet in 1845 London after his sister Sarianna receives volumes of Barrett’s poetry. She’s been an invalid in her controlling father’s home for decades, treated with opiates for mysterious ailments, yet when the two poets meet she is determined to get well to live a life on her own terms. An irresistible and exquisite tribute to true love.