Congrats to everyone who sent in details on their new books! If you’ve written a historical novel or nonfiction work published (or to be published) in April 2025 or after, send in the following details via our contact page by October 7: author, title, publisher, release date, and a blurb of one sentence or less. Please shorten your blurbs down to one sentence, as space is limited. Details will appear in the November 2025 issue of HNR. Submissions may be edited.
Despite its mean title, White Hell by Sean Tyler (Level Best/Historia, Jan. 21) is a love story at heart…though one loosely based on the Donner Party.
In Julie L. Brown’s Bend, Don’t Break (JAB Press, Feb. 4), drawing strength from the memory of their ancestor, Aisha, a slave born free on the west coast of Africa, seven generations of Black women across the sweep of American history will do anything to succeed—and will do even more to protect their daughters.
Blurb: In The Price of Eyes (Scotland Street Press, Feb. 14), fourth and final book in Janet McGiffin’s historically accurate series about the 8th-century Byzantine Empress Irini of Athens, the powerful empress tricks her emperor son into releasing her from house arrest and returning her to the throne of Constantinople where she manipulates him into divorcing and exiling his wife and daughters, leading to civil war and war between mother and son where neither can survive.
Born to Trouble (Independently published, Feb. 27), book 4 in Regan Walker’s The Clan Donald Saga, tells the story of Alexander of Islay, Lord of the Isles and Earl of Ross, who triumphed over a deceitful king to become one of Scotland’s ruling lords in the 15th century.
Charlotte Whitney’s A Tiny Piece of Blue (She Writes Press, Feb. 18) is a heartwarming novel following a homeless girl as she struggles to survive during the Great Depression while setting the traditions of rural Michigan against a backdrop of thievery, bribery, and child trafficking—a suspenseful yet tender tale.
Pawnee Prisoner: The Story of Jane Gotcher Crawford (Booklocker.com, Feb. 20) by Vivian McCullough is based on the true story of courage, determination and survival in 1830s Texas when the widow of an Alamo defender is taken captive along with three children.
In 1904 London, as unrest brews and a lord mysteriously vanishes from a gentleman’s club, young Prime Minister Felix Grey must confront buried secrets and mounting conspiracy to save a nation on the brink in Mario Theodorou’s Felix Grey and the Descendant (Neem Tree Press, Mar. 6).
In his quest to make gold, an alchemist in 1352 London, seeks the Key to the Philosopher’s Stone and, ultimately, divinity—a pursuit considered to be blasphemy in the eyes of the Church, in Through the Lion’s Gate, A Medieval Tale of Intrigue and Transmutation by Stuart Balcomb (Amphora Editions, May 1).
Unfamiliar Territory (mks publishing, May 3) by Mary Smathers is the gripping story of one woman’s journey through Gold Rush California to find her son, and herself.
At once an intimate love story and a multigenerational family drama inspired by a trove of politically charged, passionate love letters sent to his mother, Robert Kehlmann’s The Rabbi’s Suitcase (Koëhlerbooks, May 6) recounts his family’s 50-year migration odyssey from 1880s Lithuania to Ottoman, then Mandatory Palestine, to Depression Era America.
Jane Loeb Rubin’s Over There (Level Best/Historia, May 27), the third installment of the Gilded City trilogy, immerses readers in the gripping journey of four family members from Threadbare and In the Hands of Women, all dedicated doctors and nurses facing the daunting realities of The Great War.
Roger Hunt’s first novel, Vindicta (Troubadour, May 28), based closely on events of 1808/9, tells the remarkable story of a Scottish Benedictine monk who is sent on a secret mission to Germany.
A Tiger in the Garden by India Edghill (Talitho Press, June 1) is a sweeping tale of romance and politics set in the splendor of Victorian India.
In December 1971, as the Bangladesh War of Liberation faces its critical final battles, Doctor Meena struggles against the forces that threaten to undermine her commitment to the people she serves, as the full force of an army is unleashed against her and her community in the novel Niramaya: A Female Medic’s War Journey by Sean C. Ward (Troubador, June).
Enter the world of the 16th-century “Border Reivers” and ride with Fingerless Will Nixon as he carves his legend into the hills of Scotland’s Borderlands in The Legend of Fingerless Will Nixon: The Scottish Borderlands 1508-1509 by Richard Nixon (Amazon KDP, June 5).
In Daughter of Mercia by Julia Ibbotson (Archbury Books, June 6), medievalist Dr Anna Petersen is called to an archaeological dig to investigate mysterious runes on a seax hilt, but becomes fascinated by the strange burial of a 6th century body alongside that of modern remains, setting off a chain of events where past and present collide.
A Cruel Corpse (Holand Press, June 26), the first published novel of Reviews Editor Ben Bergonzi, takes place in Carlisle, northern England in 1747; a rebellion has been put down, but trouble persists for two soldiers in the government army: Jasper Greatheed is a man with a secret – as a ‘molly’ he could be hanged for sodomy; his friend is also living a lie – and Private Hayden Gray is in fact a woman, Grace Hayden. Their secrets unsuspected until now, they are part of the city garrison; when a vicious sergeant is murdered, Hayden comes under sharp suspicion, for her only alibi will wreck her masquerade, and if she is exposed, as her ‘dresser’ Jasper will also soon be unmasked. They set out to find the sergeant’s real murderer before time runs out – after all, the officer who is leading the official investigation has reason to hate Hayden.
Set in 1957 and 2018 Hollywood and Carmel-by-the-Sea, Meg Waite Clayton’s Typewriter Beach (Harper, July 1) is the story of an unlikely friendship between Leo and Iz—an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and a young actress whose studio intends to make her the new Grace Kelly if she can toe the line—and, sixty years later, a mysterious manuscript Leo’s granddaughter finds in a hidden safe in his Carmel cottage.
In Cathie Hartigan’s The Luthier’s Promise (Independently published Jul. 9), it’s 1595; Will promises to bring the celebrated, but wayward musician, John Dowland, safely home from Italy, but when love delays them, it is not only Will’s promise that’s in jeopardy, but also their lives.
In Catherine Kullmann’s latest Regency novel, Lord Frederick’s Return (Willow Books, July 22), after 18 years in India Lord Frederick Danlow returns to England, where his plans to find a wife and make a home for himself and his motherless daughter are disrupted by a huge family scandal.
In Secretary to the Socialite by Amanda McCabe (Oliver Heber Books, July 22), set in the glittering world of mid-century America, Millicent Rogers is a woman ahead of her time—Standard Oil heiress, fashion icon, patron of the arts, wife, mother, lover—but behind the scenes, she harbors secrets of ill health and loneliness that only one person knows: her secretary Violet Redfield.
There’s comedy and tragedy in The Players Act 1: All the World’s a Stage by NYT bestselling author Amy Sparkes (Sword and Fiddle Publishing, July 29th), in which a down-on-their-luck troupe of strolling players have one last chance to save their failing theatre company.
Angela Shupe’s In the Light of the Sun (WaterBrook, Oct. 7) is WWII-era historical fiction that follows the stories of two sisters, one in the Philippines and one in Italy, who find themselves caught up in the secrets, devastation, and intrigues of war – inspired by the true wartime experiences of the author’s mother and aunt, and by the life of her great-grandmother, who performed with Gran Compania de Opera Italiana.
From backstage to centre stage and theatres of war, Dance of the Earth by Anna M. Holmes (The Book Guild, Oct.) is a sweeping family saga set against the backdrops of London’s gilded Alhambra music hall, Diaghilev’s dazzling Ballets Russes, and the upheavals of the First World War, as Rose and her children, Nina and Walter, pursue their ambitions, loves, and dreams.
