Set in 1761 in colonial Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Sally Gunning’s novel The Widow’s War follows Lyddie Berry. When her husband is lost at sea, Lyddie faces the devastating realization that 18th-century law strips her of her independence, transferring control of her home and property to her overbearing son-in-law. Refusing to be cast aside or placed […]
Anita Shreve’s novel The Weight of Water, published in 1998, is a dual-narrative that intricately links a contemporary marriage in crisis with a notorious historical double murder. In the present day, magazine photographer Jean Janes travels to the desolate Isles of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire and Maine to shoot a photo essay
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Narrated by expatriate librarian John Wheelwright, John Irving’s poignant 1989 novel follows his lifelong bond with Owen Meany, a fiercely intelligent, mysteriously tiny boy with a permanent all-caps, high-pitched voice. Convinced he is an instrument of God, Owen foresees the exact date and heroic nature of his own death. The narrative elegantly alternates between 1987
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Julia Bryan Thomas‘s novel The Radcliffe Ladies’ Reading Club is a mid-1950s historical fiction about four college freshmen and a bookstore owner who bond over feminist literature while navigating the rigid social and patriarchal constraints of post-war America. Set in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1954, this 2023 novel begins when a newly divorced Chicago transplant named
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In the 2014 novel A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline, a middle-aged Christina Olson reflects on her life at her remote Maine farmhouse, which is both her sanctuary and prison. Suffering from an undiagnosed degenerative nerve disease, she finds purpose and an unexpected, enduring artistic legacy when she meets a young Andrew
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Set in remote Vermont, Howard Frank Mosher’s 2014 novel Northern Borders is a poignant, humorous coming-of-age novel. In 1948, six-year-old Austen Kittredge is sent to live on his grandparents’ hardscrabble hill farm in the wilderness of Lost Nation Hollow. There, he undergoes a remarkable education, spending his next twelve formative years coming of age. Austen’s
The Lioness of Boston by Emily Franklin was written in 2023 and details the fierce and unconventional life of Isabella Stewart Gardner. Facing the stifling restrictions of 19th-century society, Gardner overcame profound personal tragedy—the death of her only child—to rebel against upper-class norms. She forged her own path as a visionary art collector, reshaping Boston’s
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Beatriz Williams‘s The Beach at Summerly is a sweeping historical fiction and espionage novel, written in 2023 and set on the fictional Winthrop Island off the New England coast. Told across alternating timelines in 1946 and 1954, it follows the gripping story of Emilia Winthrop as she navigates class divides, dangerous Cold War secrets, and
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Set in early 19th-century Massachusetts, Anita Diamant’s The Last Days of Dogtown chronicles the decline of a hardscrabble settlement on Cape Ann. Once an inland farming community that eventually turned into a desolate ghost town, the area becomes a refuge for society’s castoffs and a poignant backdrop for a dying way of life. Dogtown, pejoratively
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In Jane Healey’s historical novel The Saturday Evening Girls Club, set in 1908 in Boston’s North End, four young female immigrants—two Italian Catholic and two Russian Jewish—strive to navigate traditional family expectations, romantic heartbreaks, and cultural prejudices. The real-life club serves as their refuge, empowering them to seek their versions of the American Dream. Caprice
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