Can't Wait To Read!
Did you miss us? We’ve switched Can’t Wait to Read to a monthly series. This week, author Alix Rickloff travels around the world via six works of historical fiction. Read more about Alix below. If you’re an author and would like to curate a list, reach out to susanna@spinemagazine.co.
I’ve always wanted to travel the world, but life has a way of making us put our dreams in their proper order, so until now most of my adventurous visits to far-flung countries have happened between the pages of books. Even now as my children grow older and opportunities to indulge my wanderlust increase, I still can’t help but browse the shelves for stories that whisk me away to distant lands and faraway times without a TSA pat-down or skimpy bag of airline peanuts. So here’s my list of around the world in six amazing historical fiction books that I can’t wait to read.
The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys
W. W. Norton & Company, 2002. I’m starting my book-inspired world tour in Europe during WWII, where a young woman flees the London bombs and becomes a Women’s Land Army volunteer out in the English countryside. As war rages, she discovers friendship, romance, and a forgotten overgrown garden waiting to be restored. I’m a sucker for this era in historical fiction—reading and writing it—so this one is right up my alley.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Knopf, 2016. Heading south across the Mediterranean, I’ve paused my tour in Ghana during the 18th century where two sisters find themselves traveling very different paths; one marries into wealth and privilege, the other is sold into slavery and bound for America. Author Yaa Gyasi follows their descendants down through the generations revealing their very different lives and experiences. This book has won or been shortlisted for numerous awards, and the small excerpt I’ve read makes me excited to read it for myself.
The Moon in the Palace by Weina Dai Randel
Sourcebooks Landmark, 2016. Heading east into Asia, I’ve made a stop in sixth-century China at the first book of a pair by Dai Randel chronicling the life of Empress Wu. Beginning as a pampered daughter before becoming a palace concubine, the young Mei is forced to confront political intrigue, dynastic ambitions, and forbidden love.
Park Avenue Summer by Renée Rosen
Berkley, 2019. Across the Pacific Ocean I go, landing in New York City during the swinging sixties. Renée Rosen’s books are always amazing reads and this one looks to be another hit. Alice is a young photographer who takes a job at Cosmopolitan magazine, headed by revolutionary editor-in-chief, Helen Gurley Brown. Alice is whisked into this glamorous cutthroat world while working for one of the most scandalous and pivotal figures in modern history. What’s not to like?
The Air You Breathe by Frances de Pontes Peebles
Riverhead Books, 2018. Heading south, I find myself on a sugarcane plantation in 1930s Brazil. Two girls, one a farmworker’s child and one the spoiled daughter of the owner, bond over their shared love of samba. This friendship eventually takes them to Rio de Janeiro and on to Hollywood where only one will ultimately find fame and fortune. It’s a story of family and friendship and the rivalries in love and career that shape these two women.
The Women in Black by Madeleine St. John
Originally published in 1993, Scribner publishing new run in February 2020. Back across the southern Pacific I go. I end my world historical book tour in Australia at Goode’s Department Store in the 1950s where Fay, Lisa, Patty, and Magda work the ladies department. Fay dreams of romance, Patty longs for a baby, Lisa wants to go to university and become a poet, while the Hungarian emigree Magda plans to open her own fashionable boutique someday. I adored the 2018 movie adaptation and immediately added the book to my TBR pile.
Critically acclaimed author of historical fiction Alix Rickloff’s family tree includes a knight who fought during the Wars of the Roses (his brass rubbing hangs in her dining room) and a soldier who sided with Charles I during the English Civil War (hence the family's hasty emigration to America). With inspiration like that, what else could she do but start writing her own stories? She lives in Maryland in a house that’s seen its own share of history so when she’s not writing, she can usually be found trying to keep it from falling down. THE WAY TO LONDON is her latest release.