May New Releases: Historical Fiction

May's new historical fiction includes a new release by the author of THE HELP and buzzy debuts you won't want to miss.
https://bookriot.com/new-historical-fiction-releases-may-2026/

#HistoricalFiction #PastTense

More here:

https://www.hhousebooks.com/books/first-of-december/

#outnow #newtitle #historicalfiction #bookstodon #books

Check out Megsheadinthepages review reel https://www.instagram.com/p/DXzeTyyMu43/

Thanks Meg!

First of December follows three people during the last week of November 1838, capturing an extraordinary time in the history of South Africa and colonialism, in this intensely human story.

More here: https://www.hhousebooks.com/books/first-of-december/

#outnow #newtitle #historicalfiction #bookstodon #books

✨️Woo-hoo! #ComingSoon:
COURAGE: Tales of History, Mystery and Hope

Pre-order May 25
🗓 Out June 25

Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the decision to face it.
Fifteen lives. Fifteen moments at the edge of fear. None turn back.

#Courage #HistoricalFiction #Anthology

#WritersCoffeeClub May 6 – Talk about something you've written which you expected would (or expect will) divide readers.

Oh, where to start? I have an upcoming podcast story based on an early Joseon-era historical record about a Crown Princess Consort's "affair" with an enslaved woman, Sossang. Sossang claimed the Princess sexually assaulted her. Sossang was dating another enslaved woman, Danji, and the Princess is alleged to have stalked the couple to keep them apart. I have translated and analyzed the record here: https://ljwrites.blog/posts/sossang-danji/

You know how this record is interpreted, right? Yeah, people generally handwave the sexual assault and stalking parts to make the Princess out to be a queer heroine 🙄 Like I get it, princesses are appealing and it's very easy to see her as a victim of character assassination by the patriarchy (which was very real and violently oppressive). Still. Why do we feel for princesses and disbelieve enslaved servants? What if Sossang spoke the truth?

That's the premise of my story, that the record is true, that maybe, just maybe, the victim wasn't lying. What a thought! And I didn't even try to write it in Korean because I know people won't like it, as with many of my stories about Korean history xD

#history #historicalFiction

"Jubilee" by Margaret Walker. My rating: 5 out of 5 stars. Paperback, 497 pages.

Book description: A 50th anniversary edition of Margaret Walker's best-selling classic with a foreword by Nikki Giovanni Jubilee tells the true story of Vyry, the child of a white plantation owner and one of his black slaves. Vyry bears witness to the South’s antebellum opulence and to its brutality, its wartime ruin, and the promises of Reconstruction. Weaving her own family’s oral history with thirty years of research, Margaret Walker’s novel brings the everyday experiences of slaves to light. Jubilee churns with the hunger, the hymns, the struggles, and the very breath of American history.

I absolutely loved this book. The times just danced out of the pages into my mind. I will be adding this title to my favorite books folder to revisit again.

#fiction #HistoricalFiction #history #CivilWar #books @bookstodon

Passing to Freedom, Chapter 28: Potiphar and Joseph?

Chapter 28

“Senator, sir, the expense of this thing might ruin you.”

Loving was wrong. He would not be ruined. It was his plan that had been ruined. By sheer incompetence. These fools. He would remedy this. He would remedy it all, and he would get her back, even if it took his very last Virginia penny. But it would certainly never come to that. His constituents would never consent to allow such an indignity to come to pass, and neither would his Commonwealth. They would not be disgraced by those subversives in Maryland and the damned Yankees in Pennsylvania. No, sir. He paid good money to that Yankee insurance racket, and he damned well would have the worth of it.

“Loving, what are you looking at!”

The man was still staring at him blankly, as if pinching a few pennies was going to solve this problem. Loving was usually competent, keeping the estates and holdings in good order. Like Potiphar to Joseph, the Senator prided himself on not having to look to anything under his man’s hand, but right now, his personal secretary was becoming an onerous burden.

“I have told you, Loving. This is my intention. You will write up the claim, as if written under my very own hand and seal, and you will file it with that Yankee company, that they may pay out my dead servants’ value, as they have agreed to by contract.”

“But, Senator, sir?”

Why was this so difficult for the man to comprehend?

“What is it now, Loving?”

“Sir, they, the company, that is, will send an investigator, and they will want more details-”

“I have told you what you are to say. That will have to do for them, and it will suffice.”

“But Senator, sir, if they open an investigation, and if a reporter gets wind of that investigation, then the scandal could reach you in the Senate. Sir, I-”

The Senator rose in indignation, picking up his cane to feel the comforting heft of it.

“There will be no investigation, Loving, and there will be no scandal! I have told you what to do, now you go and do it. You go and you see to it, or I will have your hide, do you hear me?”

His secretary had looked down at the floor, almost as if he were one of the damned darkies, and muttered some nonsense about acquiescence or something, before skulking out of the room.

He looked across the room, to where his new valet stood by waiting for orders, and gave an irritable snarl:

“Call Smith in here.”

The young darkie had given a barely tolerable bow as he left the room. He would need more disciplining, that one.

Smith had entered the room with his hat already in his hand for a change, which was about time. The man’s usual swaggering entrance, his hat still on, arrogantly sweeping it off as if he was some high and mighty thing, annoyed the Senator. Smith looked abashed, and he ought to have, thought the Senator. He has failed me, and he should pay the price. But then, Smith was one of his best men, and had served him faithfully for years, so the Senator decided to show him some Southern graciousness. But not too much.

“Senator, sir.”

The Senator looked Smith up and down, intending to send him a stern rebuke. There was a delicate balance with this man. The Senator knew Smith’s pride, and did not want to risk giving him too harsh a punishment. He needed this one too much. Of all his overseers, Smith was the only one he could trust to see that jobs got done. That was why he kept him on as head overseer, in spite of the man’s arrogance.

He glared at his hired man:

“Smith,”

“Yes, sir, Senator, sir?”

Good, the man was contrite. He had failed, he knew it, and he was admitting to it. Good man. The Senator went on, pleased:

“I am disappointed in you.”

He was even more pleased to see Smith almost stumble over himself, bowing so low he nearly fell to his knees.

“I will do better, Senator. I promise you, sir, we will find her. My two best boys are out there right now, looking, and the rest of the boys and the dogs are coming up from home, sir. I’ll get her back for you, sir, you can trust me.”

The Senator eyed his man suspiciously, and then relented.

“Alright, Smith, I will trust you. But only this one more time. You find her for me, and bring her back. I will stay right here in this inn until you do. You bring her to me, here.”

“Yes, sir, Senator, I will.”

“You had better.”

He nodded his head in dismissal, and his valet opened the door, waiting for Smith to make his bows and exit, before softly shutting the door with a barely audible click. Good, this one’s getting better. Very good.

He would have her back, and soon.

***

Passing to Freedom: Willow’s Story

a historical novel by D. Antonia Jones,

aka Nia

or Ni,

fka Shira Destinie A. Jones

Passing to Freedom, Chapter 27: Misdirection…

Chapter 27

I finally had what I hoped was a workable plan. I knew that I did not dispose of much time, here in the dark. I also knew that I hadn’t the slightest room for error. Moving to the wrong spot, or even to another well hidden spot, but with even the slightest bit of noise, I was liable to give away not only my own hiding place, but maybe even that of poor young Tilly, too. So I edged my head up, scanning for movement, straining my ears for every sound. I could still just make out noises which indicated one crucial thing. Smith and his leeches were still being held up by the good men of Pennsylvania. But the fact that I could hear them meant that they were dangerously close. Silence was the order of the day.

And for the moment, all was entirely silent. Not even the crickets were chirping. Of course, it was too cold for crickets. Empty-bellied as we were, Tilly, especially, would not be able to hold out long. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, the breeze helped me by moving the moon out from under the cloud cover. I was in a fairly wooded area, with many thickets all about me. Perhaps this was what Old Mary had been trained to run toward, when fleeing. I spied a likely seeming thicket of small trees, tolerably close to me. I could scuttle along, low to the ground, from here to there. As long as no local area dogs took it into their minds to make the rounds here, it might work.

I took a deep breath and crouched low. My tired legs were already starting to cramp. I had to stop several times to catch my breath, watching for prying eyes. It seemed to take an eternity, but I finally reached my intended destination. It seemed like the kind of spot where Anna would have chosen to hide, and that gave me some comfort. Once again, I scanned the area, seeking signs of young Tilly or of Old Mary. Not even a field mouse seemed to be stirring. Why? Had all of the racket, or maybe the fire, driven away the creatures that usually hung about at this time of night? Then something else occurred to me. I had seen no one working to put out the fire. Had the cut-throats from Virginia managed to set alight an abandoned building? Even then it would be a hazard to the surrounding buildings. Unless… Just then a terrible memory came to me. It was another of his victories the Senator had boasted about, for which he never missed an opportunity.

The Senator was not above using an insurance payout, something he had threatened, when I had run before. To cover the loan on a property he wished to purchase or, to order some kind of work done and then claim that he had improved it. Or on a dead slave. I often tried to keep him talking, using his vanity to keep his attentions away from my own person. The distraction never worked for very long, but I had gleaned what might now be an important piece of information. The means of extracting such a pay out from his insurance claims, as he had told me in excruciating detail, was to sacrifice one of his slaves of lesser value. He would order his secretary to write up a letter alleging an accident at one of his sites, or with one of his insured slaves, and demand the required payment upon the death of that particular slave. Most were deemed interchangeable with any number of others, for whom the Senator was careful to take out life insurance policies for the hazardous work done in certain of his enterprises. Ironically enough, the Beast had gone to great lengths to stress to me the name of this company. He tried to impress upon me the futility of running, proclaiming that even in New York, the very heart of the North, our lives were in his hand. And, he had equally stressed, there was nothing I could do, and nothing that even the laws could do. It was all very hideously legal. So, someone I cared for would always be made to pay, and that pay out would always accrue to the Senator’s benefit, if I tried to run. I nearly broke down in tears as I recalled his long tirade on this matter, immediately after little Sally and I had been forced to watch our friends whipped to bloody shreds after I had run, that first time. I did not have the luxury of time, this night, and so I mastered myself to focus on the task at hand. Why was that building still on fire, and why was no one trying to put the fire out? What did it mean for us? If the Senator had purchased the building here, which was currently being allowed to burn, then that might be the reason that no effort seemed to be made to put out the fire. The Senator wanted that building to burn. But why? It only distracted everyone in the area, to no good… unless that was precisely what the odious man wanted. A distraction so that his hired men would have a free hand to do as they saw fit, while all eyes were on the fire. If the Senator’s boasting had been true, then this fire might draw more local men, putting them at that hideous Smith’s disposal. Fortunately, they had evidently not counted on such firm opposition by the Constables to the use of the dogs.

Unfortunately, the fire might also be keeping Old Mary away. After all, it had been directly opposite the fire, where our mount had cut to the side of the road. It only now occurred to me that the north side was just about the only way that we could possibly have run. No one in his right mind would run toward such a fire. That meant Smith had intended for his lackeys to be searching on this side of the road. I must find Tilly, right now!

Where were her tracks? Now that I was about where I thought we had each come out of the saddle, I could see nothing. Old Mary certainly ought to have left imprints. As the minutes wore on, I feared that I was running out of time to find them. Surely there must be some evidence on the ground that even I could see.

How had our young Tilly managed to disappear without a trace, right under my nose? Had Old Mary come back for her, once again performing that circus trick of sidling right up under the child, who would be much easier to carry than I had been, and taken her off somewhere, further into the woods, perhaps, to relative safety?

“Where are you, child?”

Why had I not seen nor heard any sign of them, as close as they must have been to me? Or was I entirely mistaken, and looking for little Tilly in the wrong area altogether?

One thing was clear. Young Tilly, myself, and even Old Mary, were in terrible danger, and it was my solemn duty to get all three of us out of that danger. I had promised Anna that I would get the the three of us to our rendezvous point with her, no matter what the cost, and that was just what I intended to do. The first predawn light was beginning to shine upon the horizon. To my growing horror, I realized that not only was I going to quickly become a sitting duck, as the light began to grow, but worse, I could hear the sound of footsteps approaching. I ducked even lower, desperate to hide. As the footsteps died away, it hit me. I needed to know who was out and about. I screwed up my courage once more, ordering the churning in my stomach to be still. I peered up and over the low shrubs where I had been hiding.

What I saw gave me enough heart to risk coming out of my hiding place.

***

"The Secret Service hit every dead end. So the First Lady decided to find her daughter herself." 🇺🇸🕵️

An author interview, an excerpt, and a giveaway for FIRST DAUGHTER by MARLIE PARKER WASSERMAN are live on the blog today! This gripping work of historical crime fiction puts a mother's love and determination front and centre, as the most powerful woman in America takes matters firmly into her own hands. ⚡✨

@partnersincrimevbt #HistoricalFiction #Crime
https://archaeolibrarian.wixsite.com/website/post/first-daughter-by-marlie-parker-wasserman