{"id":52514,"date":"2024-08-02T06:00:10","date_gmt":"2024-08-02T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=52514"},"modified":"2024-06-06T14:49:37","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T19:49:37","slug":"historical-fantasy-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/historical-fantasy-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Historical Fantasy Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a selector, I spend a lot of time researching genre trends. One that has caught my eye lately is historical fantasy because of the many different types of books that can fall under this broad umbrella. Historical fantasies combine elements of historical fiction and fantasy into a new genre of book! These books can take place in different time periods with the two most prominent being an alternate historical reality or a time past in our current reality. The fantasy comes through when magical creatures and magic pop up. Short version: fantasy elements in a more realistic historical world.<\/p>\n

All of these titles are owned by Davenport Public Library at the time of this writing. The descriptions are provided by the publishers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Heather Fawcett<\/p>\n

Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world\u2019s first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party\u2014or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, Shadow, and the Fair Folk to other people.<\/em><\/p>\n

So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, muddle Emily\u2019s research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.<\/em><\/p>\n

But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones\u2014the most elusive of all faeries\u2014lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she\u2019ll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all\u2014her own heart.<\/em> – Del Rey<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Rowenna Miller<\/p>\n

There is no magic on Prospect Hill\u2014or anywhere else, for that matter. But just on the other side of the veil is the world of the Fae. Generations ago, the first farmers on Prospect Hill learned to bargain small trades to make their lives a little easier\u2014a bit of glass to find something lost, a cup of milk for better layers in the chicken coop.<\/em><\/p>\n

Much of that old wisdom was lost as the riverboats gave way to the rail lines and the farmers took work at mills and factories. Alaine Fairborn\u2019s family, however, was always superstitious, and she still hums the rhymes to find a lost shoe and to ensure dry weather on her sister\u2019s wedding day.<\/em><\/p>\n

When Delphine confides her new husband is not the man she thought he was, Alaine will stop at nothing to help her sister escape him. Small bargains buy them time, but a major one is needed. Yet, the price for true freedom may be more than they\u2019re willing to pay.<\/em> – Redhook<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>The Familiar<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Leigh Bardugo<\/p>\n

Set in the Spanish Golden Age, during a time of high\u2011stakes political intrigue and glittering wealth, The Familiar follows Luzia, a servant in the household of an impoverished Spanish nobleman who reveals a talent for little miracles. Her social\u2011climbing mistress demands Luzia use her gifts to win over Madrid\u2019s most powerful players but what begins as simple amusement takes a dangerous turn. Luzia will need to use every bit of her wit and will to survive\u2014even the help of Guill\u00e9n Sant\u00e1ngel, an immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.<\/em> – Flatiron Books<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>The Fox Wife<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Yangsze Choo<\/p>\n

Manchuria, 1908.<\/em>
\nIn the last years of the dying Qing Empire, a courtesan is found frozen in a doorway. Her death is clouded by rumors of foxes, which are believed to lure people by transforming themselves into beautiful women and handsome men. Bao, a detective with an uncanny ability to sniff out the truth, is hired to uncover the dead woman\u2019s identity. Since childhood, Bao has been intrigued by the fox gods, yet they\u2019ve remained tantalizingly out of reach\u2014until, perhaps, now.<\/em><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a family who owns a famous Chinese medicine shop can cure ailments but can\u2019t escape the curse that afflicts them\u2014their eldest sons die before their twenty-fourth birthdays. When a disruptively winsome servant named Snow enters their household, the family\u2019s luck seems to change\u2014or does it?<\/em><\/p>\n

Snow is a creature of many secrets, but most of all she\u2019s a mother seeking vengeance for her lost child. Hunting a murderer, she will follow the trail from northern China to Japan, while Bao follows doggedly behind. Navigating the myths and misconceptions of fox spirits, both Snow and Bao will encounter old friends and new foes, even as more deaths occur.<\/em> – Henry Holt and Co.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>The Magician’s Daughter<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by H.G. Parry<\/p>\n

In the early 1900s, a young woman is caught between two worlds in H. G. Parry\u2019s cozy tale of magic, miracles, and an adventure of a lifetime.Off the coast of Ireland sits a legendary island hidden by magic. A place of ruins and ancient trees, sea salt air, and fairy lore, Hy-Brasil is the only home Biddy has ever known. Washed up on its shore as a baby, Biddy lives a quiet life with her guardian, the mercurial magician Rowan. A life she finds increasingly stifling.<\/em><\/p>\n

One night, Rowan fails to return from his mysterious travels. To find him, Biddy must venture into the outside world for the first time. But Rowan has powerful enemies\u2014forces who have hoarded the world\u2019s magic and have set their sights on the magician\u2019s many secrets.<\/em><\/p>\n

Biddy may be the key to stopping them. Yet the closer she gets to answers, the more she questions everything she\u2019s ever believed about Rowan, her past, and the nature of magic itself.<\/em> – Redhook<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Silver Nitrate<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Silvia Moreno-Garcia<\/p>\n

Montserrat has always been overlooked. She\u2019s a talented sound editor, but she\u2019s left out of the boys\u2019 club running the film industry in \u201990s Mexico City. And she\u2019s all but invisible to her best friend, Trist\u00e1n, a charming if faded soap opera star, though she\u2019s been in love with him since childhood.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then Trist\u00e1n discovers his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he can change their lives\u2014even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now the director wants Montserrat and Trist\u00e1n to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her, and Trist\u00e1n begins seeing the ghost of his ex-girlfriend.<\/em><\/p>\n

As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Trist\u00e1n may find that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies.<\/em> – Del Rey<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>A Sweet Sting of Salt<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>by Rose Sutherland<\/p>\n

When a sharp cry wakes Jean in the middle of the night during a terrible tempest, she\u2019s convinced it must have been a dream. But when the cry comes again, Jean ventures outside and is shocked by what she discovers\u2014a young woman in labor, drenched to the bone in the bitter cold and able to speak barely a word of English.<\/em><\/p>\n

Although Jean is the only midwife for miles around, she\u2019s at a loss for who this woman is or where she\u2019s from; Jean can only assume that she must be the new wife of the neighbor up the road, Tobias. And when Tobias does indeed arrive at her cabin in search of his wife, Muirin, Jean\u2019s questions continue to multiply. Why has he kept his wife\u2019s pregnancy a secret? And why does Muirin\u2019s open demeanor change completely the moment she\u2019s in his presence?<\/em><\/p>\n

Though Jean learned long ago that she should stay out of other people\u2019s business, her growing concern\u2014and growing feelings\u2014for Muirin mean that she can\u2019t simply set her worries aside. But when the answers she finds are more harrowing than she ever could have imagined, she fears she may have endangered herself, Muirin, and the baby. Will she be able to put things right and save the woman she loves before it\u2019s too late, or will someone have to pay for Jean\u2019s actions with their life?<\/em> – Dell<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>The Tainted Cup<\/a><\/em><\/strong> by Robert Jackson Bennett (Shadow of the Leviathan book 1)<\/p>\n

In Daretana\u2019s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead\u2014killed, to all appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire\u2019s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the leviathans works strange magical changes, it\u2019s a death both terrifying and impossible.<\/em><\/p>\n

Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times, and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside the walls of her home.<\/em><\/p>\n

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana\u2019s brilliance. Din is at turns scandalized, perplexed, and utterly infuriated by his new superior\u2014but as the case unfolds and he watches Ana\u2019s mind leap from one startling deduction to the next, he must admit that she is, indeed, the Empire\u2019s greatest detective.<\/em><\/p>\n

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the Empire itself, Din realizes he\u2019s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra\u2014and wonders how long he\u2019ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.<\/em> – Del Rey<\/p>\n

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Older Historical Fantasy Books<\/span><\/p>\n