One would expect a novel that starts with the drowning of a child to be a tragic book. River, Cross My Heart is anything but. It takes place in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC in the 1920’s, and is based on stories the author was told by her family about living in the African-American community of Georgetown at that time. One hot summer day, 12-year-old Johnnie Mae disobeys her parents’ rule and decides to go swimming in the Potomac…
I suppose The Clan of the Cave Bear should be called “prehistorical fiction” rather than “historical fiction.” It takes place in humanity’s ancient past, before the invention of writing and historical records. The first in a series of six, this novel follows Ayla, a Cro-Magnon girl (an ancestor of modern Europeans), as she is adopted into a group of Neandertals. The Neandertals (which are either a subspecies of Homo sapiens, or a different species of Homo—experts aren’t sure) are destined…
Sigrid Undset, a Norwegian writer who lived during the first part of the 20th century, was fascinated by medieval Norway, where she set many of her novels. The Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, perhaps her most famous work, takes place in the first part of the 1300s and follows a Norwegian woman from young childhood to death. Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wreath is about Kristin’s life until her marriage at the age of about 20. From reading the back of the book, readers…