Historical Fiction II: A Guide to the Genre by Sarah L. Johnson

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Synopsis

Historical fiction has surged in popularity in recent years, with new subgenres emerging (e.g. Viking romance, religious thrillers) and reader interest showing no signs of slowing down. This follow-up to Johnson's critically acclaimed guide published in 2005 covers new territory by focusing on English-language historical novels for adults published between mid-2004 and mid-2008, in particular those commonly found in American public library collections. The author's unique approach involves classifying titles by subgenres, rather than strictly by geography and chronology; thereby grouping read-alikes together. It gives users a deeper understanding of the genre, an update on new titles, and an easy way to identify read-alikes and book club selections for library patrons. More than 2700 historical fiction titles, about 2,000 new to this volume, are organized and described.

VOYA

Because of the prodigious territory that this genre covers, as well as the blurry lines between it and related genres, no such guide may be truly exhaustive, but this one comes very close. Arranged in a dozen broad categories—literary, romance, Christian, and so forth—individual titles are described both through annotation and arrangement in much more granular lists: there are two dozen titles described under "Frontier and Western" in the Historical Romances section, for instance. Annotations end in a cluster of key words that would allow the user to explore other indexes for related works by subject. A preliminary chapter provides a discussion of historical fiction's defining characteristics and reader appeal. A final chapter offers further resources, particularly useful to professional readers' advisors. The only shortcoming of this work is that the scope is mainly limited to works by British and American writers, although an entire section on historical fiction coming from other countries would be welcomed by and pertinent to some readers. Professionals working with readers interested in non-dominant culture history would have benefited greatly from this addition. Reviewer: Francisca Goldsmith

Biography

SARAH L. JOHNSON is Reference Librarian and Associate Professor at Booth Library, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois. A longtime reader and collector of historical novels, Johnson is the book review editor for the Historical Novels Review (a historical fiction review journal for the United States and Great Britain). She also writes readers' advisory articles for the NoveList database and reviews historical fiction for Booklist.