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Blakemore, A.K. The Glutton. Scribner. Oct. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781668030622. $28. HISTORICAL

In 1798 France, a nun watches over a man dying from a monstrous appetite, and the unfolding story reveals that the excesses of the French Revolution drove him to excesses of his own. Thus does Blakemore, winner of the Desmond Elliot Prize for her sparkling The Manningtree Witches, reimagine a real-life figure, the Great Tarrare, the Glutton of Lyon.

Eekhout, Anne. Mary & the Birth of Frankenstein. HarperVia. Oct. 2023. 384p. ISBN 9780063256743. $30. CD. HISTORICAL

Award-winning Danish author Eekhout roots Mary Shelley’s creation of Frankenstein in Mary's experiences at age 14, when she visited the Baxter family in Dundee, Scotland. As she and young Isabella Baxter explore the nearby woods, dreaming up fantastical Scottish creatures, their feelings for each other flourish. Then they encounter a real monster, even as Isabella’s sinister brother-in-law follows their every move. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Griffith, Nicola. Menewood. MCD: Farrar. Oct. 2023. 736p. ISBN 9780374208080. $35. Downloadable. HISTORICAL

The eponymous heroine of Nebula/World Fantasy honoree Griffiths’s Hild returns, now 18 and married to the childhood love she was once denied. Though evidently no longer possessed of supernatural insight, she’s still a valued adviser to her king in seventh-century Britain, important in a time of regal and religious rivarly. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Morris, Heather. Sisters Under the Rising Sun. St. Martin’s. Oct. 2023. 416p. ISBN 9781250320551. $30. CD/downloadable. HISTORICAL

In 1942, the Japanese military bombed a merchant ship carrying fleeing expats from Singapore to Australia and took the survivors as prisoners of war, moving them from camp to camp until war’s end. Among them were nurse Nesta James and civilian Norah Chambers, whose friendship helped them survive. With a 250,000-copy first printing from the author of the multi-million-copy The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

Peters, Amanda. The Berry Pickers. Catapult. Oct. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781646221950. $27. HISTORICAL

In July 1962, a Mi’kmaq family travels from Nova Scotia to Maine to pick blueberries, and the four-year-old daughter disappears. Subsequently, little Norma grows up haunted by strange dreams she becomes convinced are memories as one family mourns, another hides secrets, and a mystery slowly unravels over 50 years. Of Mi’kmaq and settler ancestry, Peters won the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award for Unpublished Prose.

Salazar, Noelle. The Roaring Days of Zora Lily. Mira: Harlequin. Oct. 2023. 384p. ISBN 9780778305309. $30; pap. ISBN 9780778305200. $18.99. CD. HISTORICAL

In 2023, costume conservator Sylvia Early is unfolding the centerpiece gown of an exhibit she is readying for the Smithsonian National Museum of American History when she spots the name Zora Lily hidden beneath the designer label. The narrative then unfolds the story of Seattle-born Zora Hough from a poverty-shriveled childhood to Seattle’s Jazz Age speakeasies to the star-spangled couture houses of Hollywood. Best-selling Flight Girls author Salazar was inspired by the life of her own great grandmother; with a 175,000 paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing.

Tan Twan Eng. The House of Doors. Bloomsbury. Oct. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781639731930. $28.99. HISTORICAL

Broke, floundering creatively, and miserable in a marriage of convenience meant to hide his homosexuality, Somerset Maugham traveled to Malaya after World War I, where he met Lesley Hamlyn and her lawyer husband, Robert. Tan takes this real-life event and stitches together a narrative featuring Maugham’s bonding with Lesley and a secret she shares about events during the Chinese Revolution. From the Man Booker short-listed, Man Asia Prize–winning Tan.

Ye Chun. Straw Dogs of the Universe. Catapult. Oct. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781646220625. $27. HISTORICAL

In the midst of famine, 10-year-old Sixiang’s mother sells her to a human trafficker for a bag of rice and some coins, hoping that she will find a better life in 19th-century California. Once there, Sixiang sets out to find her railroad worker father in a country fraught with violence and anti-Chinese sentiment. Ye’s debut story collection, Hao, was long-listed for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.

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