Historical Novels

Debra Dean is the bestselling author of four critically acclaimed books that have been published in twenty-one languages. Her debut novel, The Madonnas of Leningrad, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a #1 Booksense Pick, a Booklist Top Ten Novel, and an American Library Association Notable Book of the Year. Her newest book, Hidden Tapestry, tells the remarkable true story of Belgian-American artist Jan Yoors – childhood vagabond, wartime resistance fighter, polyamorous New York bohemian – and the two women who agreed to share his life. New York Times bestselling author Ross King calls it “one of the most remarkable artistic stories of the twentieth century.” A native of Seattle, Debra and her husband live in Miami, where she teaches on the creative writing faculty at Florida International University.

Jennifer Cody Epstein is the author of the international bestseller The Painter from Shanghai, and The Gods of Heavenly Punishment, and winner of the 2013 Asian Pacific Association of Librarians Honor award for outstanding fiction. She has written for The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Self, Mademoiselle, and many others. She has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University and an MA in international affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. People calls her latest novel, Wunderland (Crown), “Searing . . . a heartbreaking page-turner.”  Things had never been easy between Ava Fisher and her estranged mother Ilse. Too many questions hovered between them: Who was Ava's father? Where had Ilse been during the war? Why had she left her only child in a German orphanage during the war’s final months? But now Ilse’s ashes have arrived from Germany, and with them, a trove of unsent letters addressed to someone else unknown to Ava: Renate Bauer, a childhood friend. As her mother’s letters unfurl a dark past, Ava spirals deep into the shocking history of a woman she never truly knew. An unflinching exploration of Nazi Germany and its legacy, Wunderland is at once a powerful portrait of an unspeakable crime history and a page-turning contemplation of womanhood, wartime, and just how far we might go in order to belong.

Mamta Chaudhry's fiction, poetry, and feature articles have been published in the Miami Review, I Illustrated Weekly of India, The Telegraph, The Statesman, Writer's Digest, and The Rotarian, among others. She lives with her husband in Coral Gables, Florida, and they spend part of each year in India and France. Haunting Paris (Nan A. Talese) is her first novel. Marilynne Robinson, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Gilead writes, "This book is a small parable, pondering the nature of civilization itself." In the summer of 1989, while all of Paris is poised to celebrate the bicentennial of the French Revolution, Sylvie mourns the loss of her lover, Julien. But when she accidentally dislodges an envelope concealed in Julien's desk, she finds an enigmatic note from a stranger and feels compelled to meet this woman who might hold the key to Julien's past. Sylvie's journey leads her deep into the secrets of Julien's past, shedding new light on the dark days of Nazi-held Paris and on the character of the man Sylvie loved.