It takes a lot for me to read and love a novel about the US Civil War. The Jackal's Mistress exceeded my expectations in every way. It's not a thriller or a page-turner, really, and yet I couldn't put it down; I cared that much about the characters and what might happen to them. I love stories where "good" people are placed in excruciatingly impossible situations and forced to question their own humanity and morality, and this is one of those.
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER • #1 BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER • USA TODAY BESTSELLER • In this Civil War love story, inspired by a real-life friendship across enemy lines, the wife of a missing Confederate soldier discovers a wounded Yankee officer and must decide what she's willing to risk for the life of a stranger, from the New York Times bestselling author of such acclaimed historical fiction as Hour of the Witch and The Sandcastle Girls.
Virginia, 1864—Libby Steadman's husband has been away for so long that she can barely conjure his voice in her dreams. While she longs for him in…
This is another one where the characters far outshine the plot—there IS a plot here, about a secret that keeps two Ohio families bound together over three generations, but the characters in all their humanity and vulnerability are what kept me reading. You'll fall in love with them (or hate them, in some cases)—and I guarantee the ending of this will make you cry, in a good way.
One town. Two families. A secret that changes everything.
'Poignant, powerful' Independent 'Omniscient, sweeping, almost defiantly sentimental' New York Times 'It's not just a great Midwestern novel, it's a great novel, period' Financial Times
'I've been yearning for a novel that connects the American generations who dealt with our two Wars - one of Omaha Beach, the other of the Ia Drang Valley. Buckeye is that book, and it soars' TOM HANKS 'Funny and tender ... Patrick Ryan has long been one of my favourite writers' ANN PATCHETT 'I love this…
This was a year for great historical fiction. THE LISTENERS might have flown under the radar a bit, but I loved this quiet, deliberate story set in an exclusive hotel during WWII. The worldbuilding was wonderful and unexpected, but—again—the characters are the real stars here, and I loved the gentle romance between Tucker and June.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER· An Oprah Daily Best Summer Read of 2025 · A Christian Science Monitor Best Book of June
“A wonderfully observed—actually, flat-out wonderful—historical novel.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Richly imagined . . . Stiefvater's prose is as pungent as the sweetwater, with a snap that suggests the whimsy of a veteran storyteller.” —The New York Times
#1 New York Times bestselling novelist Maggie Stiefvater dazzles in this mesmerizing portrait of an irresistible heroine, an unlikely romance, and a hotel—and a world—in peril.
January 1942. The Avallon Hotel & Spa has always offered elegant luxury in the wilds of West…
By the winter of 1916, World War I has ravaged the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Eighteen-year-old Renata Zamoyska, Polish countess and doctor-in-training, has lost everything to the Russian occupation: her family, her home, her fiancé. But with the Russians in retreat and the Germans now in charge, life isn't much easier. Wounded soldiers keep arriving from the front, Renia’s house remains in ruins, and the scars of the occupation linger.
When two Polish deserters from the Russian army turn up on her doorstep just before a fierce blizzard, Renia finds herself trapped in her own home alongside people she's long considered enemies. Cut off from the outside world while the storm rages, Renia must fight to survive, grapple with her wartime scars, and decide what justice, freedom, and healing look like for her.
