January 2026 Historical Fiction Releases
If you’re already craving fresh stories to kick off the new year, the January 2026 historical fiction new releases are coming in hot, y’all. This month is absolutely stacked with bold women, forgotten corners of history, atmospheric settings, and the kind of rich, character-driven storytelling that makes January reading feel extra cozy. I’ve pulled together the best new historical fiction books of January 2026, including books from favorite authors to buzzy historical debuts you’ll want on your radar. If you’re building your 2026 TBR or hunting for the top historical fiction releases, this list is your one-stop shop for everything worth reading.
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Tea & Alchemy
Sharon Lynn Fisher
January 1 | 47 North
A tea leaf reader in nineteenth-century England falls in love—and in danger—with a reclusive alchemist in an enthralling historical fantasy by the author of Salt & Broom and Grimm Curiosities.
Cornwall, 1854. The people of Roche have always whispered about the recluse in the black granite tower that looms above the moorland. But one young woman is driven to discover the truth behind the old tales.
Her life overshadowed by family tragedy, Mina Penrose escapes her lonely days by working at The Magpie, a cozy tearoom on the village’s edge. Lately she’s been seeing shapes in the sodden leaves that hint at the future. After one such omen, Mina stumbles upon a murdered man on the heath. Villagers immediately suspect Harker Tregarrick, a living, breathing mystery who never ventures beyond the bounds of his centuries-old estate.
Until the day after the murder, when the handsome and compelling recluse visits The Magpie…leading to a meeting that will change both their fates. Captivated by a man around whom danger and rumors of death swirl, Mina has never felt more alive. Can she uncover Harker’s heartbreaking history—and the truth about the murder—before tragedy strikes again?
The Star Society
Gabriella Saab
January 6 | Harper Muse
A new name, a new country, and a coveted title as Hollywood's newest rising star: by 1946, actress Ada Worthington-Fox has discarded the life she left in war-torn Arnhem, where she worked for the Dutch resistance before Gestapo imprisonment prompted her to flee after release. But that life is thrust back into the spotlight when Ingrid--the sister she believed dead--shows up on her doorstep.
Politically-minded Ingrid escaped the Nazi invasion of Arnhem and fled to Washinton, D.C. where she became a private investigator. Now, she has been sent to root out communist influences in Hollywood. Her target: Ada Worthington-Fox, the sister she long thought lost to her. Ingrid must hide her true purpose as she shields Ada from sneaky reporters, damaging rumors, and increasing threats, all while fighting to uncover which side her sister is truly on before Ingrid's efforts to help her are too late.
Yet, Ada has her own mission: locating the Gestapo agent who terrorized her hometown and bringing him to justice. But delving into her past would risk alerting the press to a life too personal to expose. As the rising fear of communism threatens everyone, she turns to her sister, believing Ingrid's ties to Washington may be her only hope for success.
But the connections between Ada's elusive Nazi and Ingrid's communist witch hunt might be stronger than they realize. Both sisters share the darkest secret of all, one that risks their very lives if ever exposed. As they come closer to identifying Ada's target and as Ingrid's investigation intensifies, they will need to decide what is more important: justice or safety, keeping silent or taking a stand, and, above all, if their loyalty to one another is worth risking the post-war lives they've fought to build.
Skylark
Paula McLain
January 6 | Atria
1664: Alouette Voland is the daughter of a master dyer at the famed Gobelin Tapestry Works, who secretly dreams of escaping her circumstances and creating her own masterpiece. When her father is unjustly imprisoned, Alouette's efforts to save him lead to her own confinement in the notorious Salpêtrière asylum, where thousands of women are held captive and cruelly treated. But within its grim walls, she discovers a small group of brave allies, and the possibility of a life bigger than she ever imagined.
1939: Kristof Larson is a medical student beginning his psychiatric residency in Paris, whose neighbors on the Rue de Gobelins are a Jewish family who have fled Poland. When Nazi forces descend on the city, Kristof becomes their only hope for survival, even as his work as a doctor is jeopardized.
A spellbinding and transportive look at a side of Paris known to very few—the underground city that is a mirror reflection of the glories above—Paula McLain’s unforgettable new novel chronicles two parallel journeys of defiance and rescue that connect in ways both surprising and deeply moving.
The Architect of New York
Javier Moro
January 6 | Catapult
A transportive work of historical fiction chronicling the life, loves, and iconic successes of Rafael Guastavino, the influential yet largely forgotten Spanish architect of New York’s Gilded Era
Iconoclast. Genius. Womanizer. Architect Rafael Guastavino’s signature vaulted tile ceilings revolutionized Gilded Age New York City. The Oyster Bar in Grand Central, the Prospect Park Boathouse, and the iconic Old City Hall subway station number among his masterpieces. But while his works continue to imbue the city with the glamour of a bygone era, the man himself has been largely forgotten.
Told through the eyes of Guastavino’s son and business partner, Rafael Jr., Javier Moro’s magnetic prose brings to life the remarkable rags-to-riches journey of this influential immigrant family. Guastavino was a stubborn man, enamored of his own sense of destiny, but he was also a deeply compassionate father, as committed to his family as he was to his work, and equally defined by his successes in the latter realm as by his failures in the former.
Set against historical events including the Chicago World's Fair and the sinking of the Titanic, The Architect of New York is a moving and entertaining father-son story filled with finely developed and deeply researched real-life characters (including such figures as Stanford White and Daniel Burnham) that captures the romance and drama while offering a timeless glimpse into the human heart.
Meet the Newmans
Jennifer Niven
January 6 | Flatiron
For two decades, Del and Dinah Newman and their sons, Guy and Shep, have ruled television as America’s Favorite Family. Millions of viewers tune in every week to watch them play flawless, black-and-white versions of themselves. But now it’s 1964, and the Newmans’ idealized apple-pie perfection suddenly feels woefully out of touch. Ratings are in free fall, as are the Newmans themselves. Del is keeping an explosive secret from his wife, and Dinah is slowly going numb—literally. Steady, stable Guy is hiding the truth about his love life, and the charmed luck of rock ‘n roll idol Shep may have finally run out.
When Del—the creative motor behind the show—is in a mysterious car accident, Dinah decides to take matters into her own hands. She hires Juliet Dunne, an outspoken, impassioned young reporter, to help her write the final episode. But Dinah and Juliet have wildly different perspectives about what it means to be a woman, and a family, in 1964. Can the Newmans hold it together to change television history? Or will they be canceled before they ever have the chance?
Funny, big-hearted, and deeply moving, Meet the Newmans is a rich family story about the dual lives we lead. Because even when our lives aren’t televised weekly, we all have a behind-the-scenes.
This Is Where the Serpent Lives
Daniyal Mueenuddin
January 13 | Knopf
Moving from Pakistan’s dazzling chaotic cities to its lawless feudal countryside, This Is Where the Serpent Lives powerfully evokes contemporary feudal Pakistan, following the destinies of a dozen unforgettable characters whose lives are linked through violence and tragedy, triumph, and love. Orphaned as a little boy and fending for himself in the city streets, Yazid rises to a place of responsibility and respect in the Lahore household of Colonel Atar, a powerful industrialist and politician, only to find that position threatened by conflicting loyalties and misplaced trust. Born on Colonel Atar’s country estate to a poor gardener, Saqib is entrusted with the management of a pioneering business, but he overreaches and finds himself an outlaw, confronting the violence of the corrupt Punjab Police. The colonel’s son competes with his cherished brother for the love of a woman and discovers that her choice colors his life with unexpected darkness as well as light.
In matters of power and money and the heart, Mueenuddin’s characters struggle to choose between paths that are moral and just and more worldly choices that allow them to survive in the systems of caste, capital, and social power that so tightly grip their culture. Intimate and epic, elegiac and profoundly moving, This Is Where the Serpent Lives is a tour de force destined to become a classic of contemporary literature.
The Last of Earth
Deepa Anappara
January 13 | Random House
1869. Tibet is closed to Europeans, an infuriating obstruction for the rapidly expanding British Empire. In response, Britain begins training Indians—permitted to cross borders that white men may not—to undertake illicit, dangerous surveying expeditions into Tibet.
Balram is one such surveyor-spy, an Indian schoolteacher who, for several years, has worked for the British, often alongside his dearest friend, Gyan. But Gyan went missing on his last expedition and is rumored to be imprisoned within Tibet. Desperate to rescue his friend, Balram agrees to guide an English captain on a foolhardy mission: After years of paying others to do the exploring, the captain, disguised as a monk, wants to personally chart a river that runs through southern Tibet. Their path will cross fatefully with that of another Westerner in disguise, fifty-year-old Katherine. Denied a fellowship in the all-male Royal Geographical Society in London, she intends to be the first European woman to reach Lhasa.
As Balram and Katherine make their way into Tibet, they will face storms and bandits, snow leopards and soldiers, fevers and frostbite. What’s more, they will have to battle their own doubts, ambitions, grief, and pasts in order to survive the treacherous landscape.
Fire Sword and Sea
Vanessa Riley
January 13 | William Morrow
The real Pirates of the Caribbean were Black, and women! From Vanessa Riley, acclaimed author of Queen of Exiles, comes a sweeping, immersive saga based on the life of the legendary seventeenth-century pirate Jacquotte Delehaye.
The Caribbean Sea, 1675. Jacquotte Delahaye is the mixed-race daughter of a wealthy tavern owner on the island of Tortuga. Instead of marriage, Jacquotte dreams of joining the seafarers and smugglers whose tall-masted ships cluster in the turquoise waters around Tortuga. She falls in love with a pirate, but when he returns to the sea, Jacquotte decides to make her own way. In Haiti she becomes Jacques, a dockworker, earning the respect of those around her while hiding her gender.
Jacquotte discovers that secret identities are fairly common in the chaotic world of seafaring, which is full of outsiders and misfits. She forms a deep bond with Bahati, an African-born woman who has escaped slavery and also disguises herself as a man to navigate the world. They join forces with Dirkje De Wulf, a fearless adventurer who also lives as a man at sea. As Jacques, Jacquotte falls in love with Lizzôa d'Erville, a beautiful courtesan who deals in secrets and sex. While others see their work clothes as a disguise, Lizzôa’s true self is as a woman.
For the next twenty years, Jacquotte raids the Caribbean, making enemies and amassing a fortune in stolen gold. When her fellow pirates decide to increase their profits by entering the slave trade, Jacquotte turns away from piracy and the pursuit of riches. Risking her life in one deadly skirmish after another, she instead begins to plot a war of liberation.
The Bookbinder's Secret
A. D. Bell
January 13 | St Martin's Press
A young bookbinder begins a hunt for the truth when a confession hidden beneath the binding of a burned book reveals a story of forbidden love, lost fortune, and murder.
Lilian ("Lily") Delaney, apprentice to a master bookbinder in Oxford in 1901, chafes at the confines of her life. She is trapped between the oppressiveness of her father’s failing bookshop and still being an apprentice in a man’s profession. But when she’s given a burned book during a visit to a collector, she finds, hidden beneath the binding, a fifty-year-old letter speaking of love, fortune, and murder.
Lily is pulled into the mystery of the young lovers, a story of forbidden love, and discovers there are more books and more hidden pages telling their story. Lilian becomes obsessed with the story but she is not the only one looking for the remaining books and what began as a diverting intrigue quickly becomes a very dangerous pursuit.
Lily's search leads her from the eccentric booksellers of London to the private libraries of unscrupulous collectors and the dusty archives of society papers, deep into the heart of the mystery. But with sinister forces closing in, willing to do anything for the books, Lilian’s world begins to fall apart and she must decide if uncovering the truth is worth the risk to her own life.
Graceless Heart
Isabel Ibañez
January 13 | Saturday Books
She was never meant to be seen. Now she’s a weapon the world can’t ignore.
As a sculptress, Ravenna Maffei has always shaped beauty from stone but she has a terrible secret. Desperate to save her brother, she enters a competition hosted by Florence’s most feared immortal family, revealing a dark power in a city where magic is forbidden.
Now a captive in the cutthroat city of Florence, Ravenna is forced into a dangerous task where failure meets certain death at the hands of Saturnino dei Luni, the immortal family's mesmerizing but merciless heir. But as he draws her closer, Ravenna realizes the true threat lies beyond Florence’s walls.
The Pope’s war against magic is closing in, and Ravenna is no longer just a prisoner but a prize to be claimed. As trusting the wrong person becomes lethal, Ravenna must survive the treacherous line between a pope's obsession and the seductive immortal who might be the end of her — or surrender her power to a city on the brink of war.
The Jilted Countess
Loretta Ellsworth
January 13 | Harper Perennial
The war stole Roza Meszaros’s dreams of becoming a ballerina and her aristocratic family’s fortune. But the penniless Hungarian countess’s fate takes a hopeful turn when she meets an American soldier named Joe, who promises to marry her and take her to the States. After two years of waiting to obtain the necessary money and paperwork to emigrate, Roza finally arrives in Minnesota—and discovers Joe has married someone else.
Determined to stay in America, Roza turns to popular newspaper columnist Cedric Adams to help her find a suitable husband. Sharing Roza’s story and her picture, Adams makes a special plea to his military readers. The response is overwhelming—nearly 1,800 World War II veterans bombard the paper’s offices with telegrams, flowers, candy, and cash, “a world-record” for marriage proposals, Adams tells Roza.
Like a 1948 version of The Bachelorette, Roza ultimately chooses Finn Erickson, a former soldier and railroad locomotive engineer. Putting aside her romantic ideals, she and her new husband settle into the small riverside town of Red Wing, Minnesota. But when Roza unexpectedly runs into her former fiancé, things quickly become complicated.
A captivating and unusual tale of love, loss, finding yourself, and creating your destiny, The Jilted Countess examines the meaning of marriage, the American dream, and what it takes to face our demons while searching for happiness.
When We Were Brilliant
Lynn Cullen
January 20 | Berkley
In 1952, Norma Jeane Baker follows documentary photographer Eve Arnold into a powder room on the night they first meet. She has a proposition for her. Norma Jeane created Marilyn Monroe to be photographed, and she wants Eve to do it. Eve is better than anyone she’s seen at revealing a person’s inner truth. Together they can help each other. Together, she says, they can make something brilliant.
Skeptical of this cipher of a young woman, Eve demurs. She’s looking for more serious subjects than this ambitious starlet. But she keeps getting drawn back into Marilyn’s orbit, and the women come to recognize something in each other—something fundamental. Nothing will get in the way of what they want, and when Marilyn’s star takes off to teetering heights, neither will ever be the same.
A lavish and transporting novel, When We Were Brilliant captures the halcyon days of an icon and the grit of women determining their own futures as it explores the exceptional and complicated friendship between Marilyn Monroe and Eve Arnold.
Rules of the Heart
Janice Hadlow
January 20 | Henry Holt
“When I love at all, it is with my whole soul—my heart must be torn to pieces before it can forget or resign the objects of its affections.”
England, 1794. Now in her thirties, Lady Harriet Bessborough, already the veteran of several liaisons, finds herself pursued by a much younger man. This isn’t unusual in her circle, where married women often take younger lovers. No one minds much, provided they follow the rules of the game: Don’t embarrass your husband, maintain complete discretion at all times, and never ever make the mistake of falling in love.
So when Harriet meets Lord Granville—brilliantly handsome, insistently ardent, and twelve years younger than her—she’s confident she can manage their affair. Until she finds herself falling uncontrollably under his spell.
As she’s plunged into an all-consuming passion, Harriet’s worldliness and sophistication desert her. With each besotted step, she finds herself edging ever closer to exposure and ruin. She knows she should leave Granville but can’t bring herself to do it—she loves him far too deeply now to escape the scandal that threatens to engulf her.
The Sea Child
Linda Wilgus
January 20 | Ballantine
England, early 1800s: Destitute and forced to leave her home in London, Isabel, a young widow of the Napoleonic Wars, returns to the village on the rugged Cornish coast where she was found as a small child, dripping wet and alone. Hoping to learn more about her enigmatic origins, she’s shocked to find herself at the center of a local legend claiming that she is the daughter of a sea spirit.
As Isabel adjusts to life in her rented cottage, the coast is rife with smugglers and the Revenue Officers who hunt them. One evening, a group of dangerous raiders arrives at her door, carrying their wounded captain, Jack. Remembering her late husband’s fatal injuries, Isabel decides to care for Jack and soon feels a powerful connection to him. Even after Jack recovers, Isabel finds herself unable to forget him. Meanwhile, the sea calls to her, and a Revenue Officer who likes to hang smugglers poses a threat in more ways than one. Before long, Isabel finds herself caught on the wrong side of the law, with violence and heartbreak looming.
From the coves of Cornwall to the wild coast of Brittany, during perilous raids at sea and society dinner parties, Isabel fights to understand her kinship with the ocean while seeking answers about her past. But when the threat catches up with them and Jack’s life hangs in the balance, she must draw on all her courage and delve deep into the mythical heart of the Cornish coast. For only a sea child can turn the tide . . .
The House of Barbary
Isabelle Schuler
January 20 | Bloomsbury
The captivating story of a young woman's pursuit of justice and her struggle with the moral complexities of revenge in seventeenth-century Switzerland.
Beatrice Barbary has been raised to believe that while education will set her mind free, there are some questions better left unanswered. But when her father, one of the most powerful men in Bern, is brutally murdered in their own home, she is left reeling, unprotected and vulnerable. Plunging headfirst into the mysteries surrounding her father and her own upbringing, Beatrice discovers The Order of St. Eve and the violent secrets they have been hiding her entire life.
Will she be able to right the wrongs of her father, or will the Order silence her first? Set in a city at breaking point, Beatrice's story toes the dangerously thin line between retribution and revenge, and the choice we must make when confronted by evil. A loose retelling of Bluebeard, The House of Barbary is a fierce, feminist novel perfect for readers of Sarah Penner and Jessie Burton.
Burn Down Master's House
Clay Cane
January 27 | Kensington
In the midst of the Civil War, another war brews among the enslaved who are living and enduring in the shadow of the plantations—imposing monuments to power and tyranny. Their interconnected journeys of rebellion and kinship unite them in a long-seething need for justice. In an ultimate act of revolution, they will get it.
Luke, intelligent and literate, and Henri, a man with a strong and defiant spirit, forge an unbreakable bond at Magnolia Row in Virginia. Both seek escape from unimaginable cruelty. And sure as the fires of hell, Luke and Henri will leave their mark, sparking future uprisings. Like Josephine, a young, sharp, and observant girl who wields silence as her greatest weapon. She listens, watches, waits. Her vow is clear: They gonna remember us. Also, Charity Butler has successfully fought for her freedom, but battles against a deeply unjust system and a future abolitionist. Then there is Nathaniel, a Black enslaver whose existence disturbs the very nature of bondage. His rule is both fragile and contradictory, setting off a collision of resistance that will shape their fates.
When these souls and those of others—oppressed and oppressors alike—collide, a visceral and indelible portrait of love, brutality, betrayal, and identity comes unsparingly to life. Inspired by the true stories of the profoundly courageous men and women who dared to fight back against the barbarism of the era, Burn Down Master’s House is a singular tour de force of a novel—breathtaking in scope, compassion, righteousness, and timely defiance.
The Scent of Oranges
Kathy George
January 27 | Harper 360
Nancy has spent her whole life on the vibrant and gritty streets of Victorian London, first as one of Fagin's child pickpockets and now on the arm of violent and mercurial Bill Sikes. Nancy does what she must to get by. She's attuned to the harsh realities of life, but also knows how to find moments of beauty amid the grime, even if it is only the scent and taste of an orange - its miraculous colour and form.
When she embarks on a relationship with enigmatic gentleman Mr Rufus, it awakens emotions she's never felt before, and makes a better life feel possible for the first time. But when she takes cherubic orphan Oliver Twist under her wing, something even more elusive and appealing seems to be within reach: redemption.
This captivating tale of love, sacrifice, and the battle between good and evil showcases the power of compassion in a world tainted by darkness.
The Case of the Murdered Muckraker
Book 2 of Harriet Morrow Investigates
Rob Osler
January 27 | Kensington
Chicago, 1898. In the midst of the Progressive Era, twenty-one-year-old junior detective Harriet Morrow is determined to prove she’s more than a lucky hire as the Prescott Agency’s first woman operative. But her latest challenge—a murder case steeped in scandal—could become a deadly setback . . .
As the Windy City thaws from a harsh winter, Harriet Morrow finds herself doubting her investigative skills when she’s assigned to solve a high-stakes murder case well above her pay grade. And there’s also a catch. Harriet must somehow blend in as an “unremarkable” young woman—one who feels confident in skirts, not men’s clothing—on a quest to infiltrate the immigrant community at the center of the grisly crime . . .
The mystery has more twists and turns than her morning bike commute, with a muckraker found murdered in a southside tenement building after obtaining evidence of a powerful politician’s corruption. While Harriet gains the trust of the tenement’s women residents to gather clues, the undercover mission reveals an innocent mother might have been framed for the crime—and exposes ties to another violent death . . .
Harriet soon realizes she has few allies as new dangers explode around her. Enlisting the help of Matthew McCabe, her only true confidante at the agency, and growing more protective of her budding relationship with the lovely Barbara Wozniak, Harriet will need to survive rising threats to assert her place in a world that’s quick to dismiss her—and out a killer who’s always one step ahead . . .
A Great Act of Love
Heather Rose
January 27 | Simon & Schuster
Van Diemen’s Land, 1839. A young woman of means arrives in Hobart, Australia, with a boy in her care. Leasing an old cottage next to an abandoned vineyard, Caroline Douglas must navigate an insular colony of exiles and opportunists and invent a new life on this island of extreme seasons and wild beauty. But Caroline is carrying a secret of such magnitude that it has led her to cross the world. It will take all she is made of to bring it into the light.
A Great Act of Love is a spellbinding story that soars from the French Revolution to London and New York on an epic voyage to Tasmania. Here is a story of a family with champagne in their blood, and an enterprising woman determined to rewrite their legacy. The lives of Caroline, her father, and the residents of the island will collide in devastating and profound ways.
Immensely beautiful with unforgettable characters, this heartrending family saga chronicles a father and daughter’s journey back to each other and captures the enduring power of familial love.
With Love from Harlem
ReShonda Tate
January 27 | William Morrow
Harlem, 1943. At just twenty-three, Hazel Scott is a woman on fire. A jazz prodigy, a glamorous film star, and a fierce advocate for civil rights, she’s breaking barriers and refusing to play by the rules. Then Adam Clayton Powell Jr. walks into her life. Harlem’s most electrifying preacher-turned-politician, Adam is as bold and unyielding as Hazel—charismatic, powerful…and married.
This kicks off a decades-long relationship that propels them into the center of a political and cultural revolution. As Hazel’s star rises, Adam takes the national stage in Congress and the couple becomes the toast of the country. But when their affair turns into a marriage, behind the glamorous façade is a battlefield of ego, ambition, and sacrifice. Forced to choose between her music and her family, Hazel must decide what she’s willing to lose—and what she refuses to give up.
Set against the pulsing backdrop of twentieth-century Harlem and featuring icons like Billie Holiday, Langston Hughes, and James Baldwin, With Love from Harlem is a sweeping, emotionally charged romantic drama, rich with historical detail. ReShonda Tate delivers a powerful portrait of love, art, and the price of being unforgettable.
This House Will Feed
Maria Tureaud
January 27 | Kensington
County Clare, 1848: In the scant few years since the potato blight first cast its foul shadow over Ireland, Maggie O’Shaughnessy has lost everything—her entire family and the man she trusted with her heart. Toiling in the Ennis Workhouse for paltry rations, she can see no future either within or outside its walls—until the mysterious Lady Catherine arrives to whisk her away to an old mansion in the stark limestone landscape of the Burren.
Lady Catherine wants Maggie to impersonate her late daughter, Wilhelmina, and hoodwink solicitors into releasing Wilhelmina’s widow pension so that Lady Catherine can continue to provide for the villagers in her care. In exchange, Maggie will receive freedom from the workhouse, land of her own, and the one thing she wants more than either: a chance to fulfill the promise she made to her brother on his deathbed—to live to spite them all.
Launching herself into the daunting task, Maggie plays the role of Wilhelmina as best she can while ignoring the villagers’ tales of ghostly figures and curses. But more worrying are the whispers that come from within. Something in Lady Catherine’s house is reawakening long-buried memories in Maggie—of a foe more terrifying than hunger or greed, of a power that calls for blood and vengeance, and of her own role in a nightmare that demands the darkest sacrifice . . .
Women of a Promiscuous Nature
Donna Everhart
January 27 | Kensington
The day Ruth Foster’s life changes begins the same way as many others—with a walk through her North Carolina hometown toward the diner where she works. But on this day, Ruth is stopped by the local sheriff, who insists that she accompany him to a health clinic. Women like Ruth—young, unmarried, living alone—must undergo testing in order to preserve decency and prevent the spread of sexual disease.
Though Ruth has never shared more than a chaste kiss with a man, by day’s end she is one of dozens of women held at the State Industrial Farm Colony for Women. Some, like 15-year-old Stella Temple, are brought in at their family’s request. For Stella, even the Colony’s hardships seem like a respite from her nightmarish home life.
Superintendent Dorothy Baker, convinced that she’s transforming degenerate souls into upstanding members of society, oversees the women’s medical treatment and “training” until they’re deemed ready for parole. Sooner or later, everyone at the Colony learns to abide by Mrs. Baker’s rule book or face the consequences—solitary confinement, grueling work assignments, and worse.
But some refuse to be cowed. Against Mrs. Baker’s dogged efforts and the punishing weight of authority, Ruth and other inmates find ways to fight back, resolved to regain their freedom at any cost . . .
The Winter Witch
Jennifer Chevalier
January 27 | Simon & Schuster
Élisabeth Jossard boards a bride ship to New France with her sister Marthe, forced to start a new life after a scandal in her village in Normandy. She’s harbouring a dark secret and hopes that by coming to Montreal—the holiest place in the world, she’s been told—the saints will hear her pleas and lift the curse that plagues her.
When Élisabeth’s prayers go unanswered and she is unable to banish the spirit she believes is tormenting her, Marthe encourages her to turn to a powerful witch for help, the enigmatic stowaway Jeanne Roy. But Jeanne has secrets of her own, and when she refuses to help, Élisabeth’s resentment kindles a dangerous fire.
Inspired by the tales of Canada’s Filles du Roi, The Winter Witch examines how lies, arrogance, and ignorance can lead to witch hunts in any society.
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