Roundup: 4 books of historical fiction that feature crowns, art, colonialism and invasion

Anangokaa

By Cameron Alam

Blackwater Press, 322 pages, $27.99

In this affecting debut, it’s 1804 and the MacCallum family emigrates from Scotland to Lord Selkirk’s Baldoon settlement in Upper Canada, hoping for a new beginning after being exiled from their home, persecuted by the English. Instead, they arrive at the height of malaria season and tragedy ensues.

Yet irrepressible adolescent protagonist, 14-year-old Flora, her sister Isobel and their brother Hugh work against all odds to survive in this seemingly inhospitable place. One day Flora meets Niigaani, the eldest son of a Chippewa chief from across the river, and their emerging friendship begins to slake the loneliness she feels. .

Alam’s vibrant prose and impeccable research breathe life into this little-known aspect of Canadian history.

The Lioness of Boston

By Emily Franklin

Godine, 400 pages, $37.99

In Golden Age Boston, early feminist Isabella Stewart Gardner (1841-1924) struggles to make her place in a man’s world, at a time when it’s challenging for an independent thinker to acclimatize to life as a young wife in elite circles.

She would much rather engage in discussions about literature and art with men, even though part of her aches to belong to polite society. She brushes up against celebrated artists of her time, including painters Cézanne, Monet and Singer Sargent, as well as writers Henry James, Oscar Wilde and Edith Wharton, all of whose work inspires and consoles her.

Ultimately, Isabella shapes a meaningful future by building an enviable collection of art and ephemera that becomes the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Gorgeous writing enhances this absorbing portrait of a fascinating woman ahead of her time.

Dust Child

By Nguyen Phan Que Mai

Algonquin Books, 352 pages, $35

Three narrative threads weave together the lives of Vietnamese sisters, a mixed-race son of a Black soldier and an American helicopter pilot from the height of the Vietnam War in 1969 through to 2016. All face trauma and pursue redemption.

Trang and Quynh, poor daughters of rice farmers, go to Sài Gòn to earn enough money to settle their parents’ debt by working as prostitutes in a bar catering to American soldiers; Phong, an Amerasian orphan, tries against all odds to acquire an American visa for himself and his family; American GI Dan suffers PTSD flashbacks and lives with the guilt of not telling his long-time infertile spouse about his former lover and their child, whom he abandoned when his tour of duty ended.

By addressing consequences of the American presence during the Vietnam War, this blistering novel illumines the resulting fractured lives of families.

Coronation Year

By Jennifer Robson

William Morrow, 400 pages, $24.99

It’s 1953 and postwar London is humming with excitement about the upcoming June coronation of 26-year-old Elizabeth.

Protagonist Edie Howard, proprietor of the Blue Lion, a little hotel that’s been in her family for 400 years, hopes that being on the coronation route will give her business the essential financial boost it needs to keep going after so much privation.

Photographer Stella Donati, a Holocaust survivor, and Royal Academy-trained painter Jamie Geddes, a Second World War bomb disposal veteran, take up residence at the hotel in the months leading up to the big event that they will both be covering, Stella for Picture Weekly and Jamie for a commissioned portrait.

Rife with emotional intelligence and compassion, this deft page-turner has memorable, winning characters and a pitch-perfect coda.

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