In Anita Shreve’s 2017 historical novel, The Stars are Fire, Grace Holland is a young, pregnant homemaker living a stifling existence in a passionless marriage to her surveyor husband, Gene. Set on the coast of Maine in 1947, the narrative centers on Grace’s transformation from a subservient wife to an independent, self-reliant woman in the […]
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This Other Eden by Paul Harding is a lyrical and at times desturbing historical novel inspired by the real-life expulsion of a mixed-race island community from Malaga Island, Maine, in 1912. The 2023 novel blends historical fact with imaginative storytelling, the novel explores themes of belonging, prejudice, family, and the enduring power of memory. For
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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In Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline, a rebellious 17-year-old foster kid in Maine is sentenced to 50 hours of community service. She is assigned to help a reclusive 91-year-old woman clear out her attic. Through old keepsakes, the elderly widow reveals her deeply hidden past as an orphan who was relocated westward in the
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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John Irving’s 16th novel, Queen Esther (2025), is a multi-generational, historical saga that marks a triumphant return to the orphanage setting of The Cider House Rules. The narrative follows Esther Nacht, a Viennese-born Jewish orphan whose life is profoundly shaped by antisemitism and a fierce commitment to her namesake—the biblical Queen Esther—who protected her people.
This 2023 award-winning debut novel by Amanda Peters is an introspective examination of grief, family bonds, and the long-lasting trauma of Indigenous separation. The narrative spans nearly fifty years, following the aftermath of a devastating kidnapping that shatters a Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia. In July 1962, a Mi’kmaq family travels from Nova Scotia to Maine,
Carolyn Chute’s The Beans of Egypt, Maine (1985) is a raw, unflinching portrait of rural poverty. Set between 1960 and the early seventies, it follows the notorious Bean family—Reuben, Roberta, and Beal—as they struggle with violence, hunger, and societal disdain. Seen through the eyes of their neighbor Earlene Pomerleau, the story highlights Earlene’s strict, pious upbringing
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Ariel Lawhon’s The Frozen River is an intense and eye-opening piece of historical fiction set in the brutal winter of 1789, in the town of Hallowell, Maine. It’s a suspenseful mystery based on the real-life diary of Martha Ballard—a well-known and respected midwife, healer, and self-appointed community investigator. We appreciate novels that are meticulously researched
