Booklist (starred review) calls this "With language evocative of the South ('craggy as a shagbark stump') and taut, almost unbearable suspense, dramatized by characters readers will swear they know, this galvanizing historical portrait of courage, determination, and abiding love mesmerizes and shocks."

Meissner takes us back to the London Blitz through the eyes of two sisters. Fifteen-year-old Emmy Downtree dreams of becoming a fashion designer but her younger sister Julia needs her as they adjust to being evacuated from London and settling into their foster home in Cotswold. When the sisters get separated, one will carry a burden for the rest of her life, until she meets a young American scholar who is eager to learn her secrets. Enjoyable and moving. 

The author's working title (and desired title) for this work was Christina's World, named after the Andrew Wyeth painting so many of us fell in love with the first time we laid eyes on it. In this biographical novel, Kline upends the narrative, telling the story from the perspective of the portrait's subject, "middle-aged" spinster Christina Olson. This isn't a book that will make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. It IS probing, thought-provoking, and extremely discussable.

I loved this historical novel from the bestselling co-author of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. From the publisher: "Annie Barrows once again evokes the charm and eccentricity of a small town filled with extraordinary characters. Her new novel brings to life an inquisitive young girl, her beloved aunt, and the alluring visitor who changes the course of their destiny forever."

Taylor Jenkins Reid branches out with a new historical novel about a Hollywood starlet fashioned in the image of Elizabeth Taylor and Rita Hayworth.

I began this book knowing nothing about it, and it took me a while to get my bearings. Atkinson's creative (and sometimes, mind-bending) structure shows clearly how tiny choices in her protagonist's life (and the lives of those around her) lead to vastly different outcomes. Vastly. Ursula Todd dies before taking her first breath, while another Ursula Todd is born with a piercing wail. The rest of the book follows Ursula's unique life cycle from death to life and back again, as WWII approaches. Bonus: Atkinson's novel is packed with literary references that serious literary types will appreciate.

A finalist for the 2011 Man Booker Prize. Edugyan's historical fiction story spans WWII Paris and 1952 Berlin, but the vivid depiction of salons, cafés, and jazz clubs lands this novel on the Paris list. The Hot Time Swingers are about to make it big when the Nazis forbid them to play. Hieronymus Falk, their star trumpet player, is arrested and never heard from again. Falk was Black, a German citizen, and considered a musical genius at the age of 20. Years later, Falk's band members take a journey from Berlin to Paris, revealing the intricacies of the events leading up to Falk's arrest.

In 1948, the Empire Windrush arrived in Essex, London, carrying 492 Jamaican immigrants who were recruited by the British government to help rebuild the economy after WWII. In her debut novel, Louise Hare tells a fictional story about young love, prejudice, and home. Recent immigrant Lawrie Matthews works as a postman by day and a jazz musician by night. In between, he makes time to woo the girl next door. When Lawrie discovers something terrible on his way to work one day, he becomes the number one suspect, despite all evidence to the contrary. The community turns against him in a show of xenophobia and racism; his hopes seem all but dashed. His friends want to help but fear getting wrapped up in danger themselves, leaving it up to Lawrie's love interest to step in. Hare writes a mystery wrapped in a romance, with vibrant historical detail.

From Jessica Howard: "I like to say that Georgette Heyer is like Jane Austen, but funnier. She wrote more than sixty books in a variety of genres, but my favorite are her Regency romances. They’re clever, wordy, vivid depictions of 19th century life in the British upper class. Frederica is one of Heyer’s best heroines - resourceful, funny, and intelligent. And the way she and her cast of hilariously demanding younger siblings take down the bored Marquis of Alverstoke? Priceless. Watching him transform from a top-lofty dilettante into someone who cares deeply about Frederica and her family is irresistible."

From the publisher: "A rare and dazzling portrait of Jacqueline Bouvier’s college year abroad in postwar Paris, and the coming-of-age of an American icon – before the world knew her as Jackie. In September 1949 Jacqueline Bouvier arrives in postwar Paris to begin her junior year abroad. She’s twenty years old, socially poised but financially precarious, and all too aware of her mother’s expectations that she make a brilliant match. Before relenting to family pressure, she has one year to herself far away from sleepy Vassar College and the rigid social circles of New York, a year to explore and absorb the luminous beauty of the City of Light. Jacqueline is stunned to watch the rise of communism – anathema in America, but an active movement in France – never guessing she is witnessing the beginning of the political environment that will shape the rest of her life—and that of her future husband. Ann Mah brilliantly imagines the intellectual and aesthetic awakening of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, and illuminates how France would prove to be her one true love, and one of the greatest influences on her life."

Pride and Prejudice meets Downton Abbey: this is Austen's classic story, retold from the servant's perspective. You'll love it or you'll hate it. (But hey, polarizing books make for great discussion.) Book club discussion highlight: what Baker did with Mr. Wickham. (Shudder.)

In this timely coming-of-age story, set in 1963, a nine-year-old girl runs away from her Mississippi home, finds an unlikely friend, and sets out on a road trip that will change her life. Crandall writes gently but powerfully about what family really means, and how the most unlikely people can come to mean the most of us, despite race, class, or creed.