Lawson’s book is about Martha Ballard, an American midwife who lived from 1735 to 1812. Ballard is a well-known figure. PBS made a film about her called A Midwife’s Tale; Laurel Thatcher Ulrich won the Pulitzer for her biography of the same name. Ballard, remarkably, kept a daily diary for the last three decades of her life, each entry beginning with the date and the weather. She personally delivered over 800 babies and attended the births of over 1000. She also testified in court cases during a time when women were still bound by the laws of coverture and rarely allowed a voice.
Lawson’s book is–in her words–inspired by real events as opposed to being based on them. It is fiction shaped by history and is a barn burner of a book. She takes the lives of real people–Martha, her extraordinary husband Ephraim, her six surviving children, the villainous Joseph North, and the people of Kennebec Valley and makes them come alive. Her versions of those long dead Americans may or may not be accurate–in general, we’ll never know–but they are gripping and ineluctable. The brutal world she pens is true to post-revolutionary America–you can feel the cold, taste the cider, and mourn the harshness of late 18th century life.
I want more books like this so, I ask you, what is the best historical fiction you’ve read lately?
This sounds excellent and I await the kindle edition with much anticipation.
My husband and I both read it while on a recent vacation with friends. I fear we bored them both because we kept talking about all we’d learned in The Frozen River.
I will say, it has made me sad for decades that the fabulous Hanna Trevor series, also loosely based on Ballard, is hard to come by. I am happy now readers will experience this world and woman in this book.
I read and liked the Margaret Lawrence books about Hanna Trevor, but I did come to feel that they were a bit too bleak for me. So much cold weather and so much murder……
They were super bleak. I read them when I was much younger and had a higher bandwidth for depressing books.
This book is not anywhere nearly as dark.
I just read and really enjoyed Band of Sisters by Lauren Willig (reviewed here). I read Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann as part of a community read and the story is tragic. The movie comes out next month and has some big stars in it. One book that has caught my eye is Jackie and Maria: A Novel of Jackie Kennedy & Maria Callas by Paul Gill.
Killers of the Flower Moon is an amazing, albeit tragic, story. The writing is wonderful, and it’s such an important and unspoken piece of history. I recommend it to everyone. If we are looking for non-fiction, I would also recommend the book Radium Girls by Kate Moore – in print. The narrator was not good for this text in the audio, but the printed novel is amazing. I can’t ever say enough about Isabell Wilkerson’s Caste – great in audio and print. Best non-fiction of the past decade, IMO. Band of Sisters is absolutely lovely, I adored Captain Biscuits!
My favorite this year has been The Midnight News by Jo Baker. Fantastic look at the war years in London.
Solomon’s Crown by Natasha Siegel. It is a retelling of the relationship between King Richard, while still Duke of Aquitaine) and King Philip, while not historically accurate (the author states this in the intro) it is certianly an excellent re-imagination of a real relationship (several historic sources discuss Richard and PHillip sharing a bed and basically everyone now agrees that Richard was likely gay and Philip bisexual. It is a fun, interesting read which will make you want to go read more about the 2 and the time they lived in.
The last one I read that I thought was really exceptional was We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian. The setting was a newpaper publishing firm in 1950’s NYC, and Sebastian nailed the period details and sense of place.
After reading a rave review this morning of Ken Follett’s upcoming books, I wondered if I should read him. Has anyone? Thoughts?
His Kingsbridge series is fantastic and was serialised a few years ago for TV. Pillars of the Earth was an amazing story of cathedral building and brought the middle ages to life. Sarum by Edmund Rutherford is also a story of cathedral building and, though I preferred it, the Kingsbridge series is definitely worth a go.
Thanks!
I share your preference for the Rutherford book. I also have read and enjoyed other Rutherford books. He dives deep into his subject and I like that.
I really enjoyed Pillars of the Earth and the sequel World without End (Kingsbridge series). His standalone Night Over Water (WWII) is also very good.
I really enjoyed the Matthew Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom, set during the reign of Henry the 8th. He’s a lawyer and gets involved with a murder mystery in the first book, Dissolution. Robert Harris is also really good, I enjoyed his story Pompeii (detailing a young Aquarius trying to figure out why the water has stopped flowing, 3 days before the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius), and Enigma (WWII codebreaker story). I’ve heard good things about Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall series but haven’t read them.
Kate Mosse’s Languedoc series also kept me glued to the pages.
I tried, years ago, the Sansom series and it just didn’t grab me. I should look at them again. I like Harris. I would love to be a Wolf Hall reader but they are just so dense.
One of my all-time favourite HF books is Sharon Penman’s The Sunne in Splendour, which is probably 35 years old by now. Her trilogies about the Welsh Princes and Henry II & Eleanor of Aquitaine are excellent, too. Elizabeth Chadwick is another favourite – I’ve fallen behind a bit with her new titles, but her series about William Marshall is terrific.
Sunne is my all-time favorite book, I reread it every couple of years. And There be Dragons comes on my annual trip to Europe with me.
One of the first HF books I read was Pope Joan by Donna W Cross. It completely drew me in from the first page.
Dabney, I know you want more recently published books, but sadly, I have nothing there that comes to mind. Thanks for the recommendation of Frozen River.
I CANT WAIT for The Frozen River! It sounds great and that’s one of my very favorite time periods. I haven’t read her other books. Which do you recommend?
My favorite HF I recently read is The President’s Wife by Tracey Enerson Wood. It was excellent
This is the first of hers I’ve read!
I’ll check out The President’s Wife. Thanks!
I recently read Jackie and Maria: A Novel of Jackie Kennedy and Maria Callas. It came out in 2020 and I saw an article on it a few weeks ago in our local paper. Now I see Angeline Jolie is playing Maria in a new movie, LaDivina (2024). She was a famous opera singer and Onassis’ mistress for many years.