Depression Historical Fiction

Imagine opening a long-forgotten trunk to find diaries written by your foremothers. Four generations of thoughts, heartaches, challenges and triumphs. What lessons did they write inside the yellowed pages? What lessons could they gift you now? THE LEGACY OF MAVIS MCCALL – Book Three of the Silver Cross Ranch Legacy It takes a bit of conniving and a few subtle lies, but Mavis finds what she’s been searching for when, against her father’s wishes, she’s accepted to study at the Colorado College of Agriculture. She can’t imagine how life could get any better. Halcyon days are filled ...

“A lump of coal-taking up space,” is how a fourth-grade nun describes ten-year-old William Chamberlain. Despite his struggle with dyslexia, a precocious and rebellious spirit and labeled dumb, William vows to have money one day; he won’t be poor like his parents. As he grows into adulthood, nothing, not his lack of education, The Great Depression, World War II, or a bad marriage can deter him from seeking his dream. William possesses the innocence, naivety, and warmness of heart of a Forest Gump. This story of William and his family spans nearly three decades.

It is the summer of 1929. Lou Trevelyan is a small-town girl with big dreams of becoming a writer. Then she meets the Cardew siblings: the bubbly Caitlin and her handsome, enigmatic brother, Robert. Lou is swept into their glittering whirlwind of moonlit parties, unrivaled glamour, and whispered secrets. As she falls deeper into the world of high society, Lou must find a way to stay true to herself...and her heart.

First Place Winner, Fall 2023 Book Fest Award: Family Saga Every wedding seems like the beginning of a fairy tale, but sometimes the prince is actually a frog, or the big bad wolf. When Mary McGinn lost her husband, she was the mother of twelve children, and her oldest sons worked to provide for the family. She was always grateful for the sacrifices her children had made for the sake of their family, but now she needed to go back to work so that they could go on and live their lives. But finding work in depression-stricken Maine would not be easy for anyone in 1935, perhaps even more so for...

Farway Gaius McCarthy was born outside of time. The son of a time-traveling Recorder from AD 2354 and a gladiator living in Rome in AD 95, Far's birth defies the laws of nature. Exploring history himself is all he's ever wanted, and after failing his final time-traveling exam, Far takes a position commanding a ship with a crew of his friends as part of a black market operation to steal valuables from the past. But during a heist on the sinking Titanic, Far meets a mysterious girl who always seems to be one step ahead of him.

After the death of their father, it’s up to Grace O’Connell and her twin brother Patrick to support their family as the Great Depression takes its toll on New York City. When Grace is laid off from her dancing gig and Patrick is injured at work on the construction of the Empire State Building, desperation leaves them only one solution: Grace must disguise herself as Patrick and take his place on the half-built skyscraper. She soon proves herself as capable as any man on the steel, and her affection for the loyal men around her—especially Italian immigrant Joe—grows by the day.

Ramadan, 2017. Yusuf wakes up in the middle of the night to pray. His routine is always the same, but something tells him that tonight is different. Yellow flames blur Yusuf’s vision, and the laughter of a small child echoes in his ears. But this time, the red, smoke-filled skies aren’t just in his memory. Miles away, Rubi is also awake. On the television, she watches reports of a devastating fire in London. She is already anxious when her parents send her to stay with her Grandpa Yusuf, whose conservative house rules are almost as unbearable as the loneliness she feels at home.

The Great Depression has hit Annie Mae Thompkins' family, and prize money from the county fair could really help them. But when Jonathan Mercer's pig destroys her quilt entry, she hunts for another prize to chase. A beauty pageant may be the ticket, until she learns Jonathan is a judge. Can these two set aside their differences and find the true prize of love?

Amanda Lawrence, a charming, sheltered New York socialite, falls in love with Jonathan Dartland, a part-Apache mining engineer who belongs to the vastness of the Arizona desert. Amanda responds to his strength and self-reliance, but has nothing and nobody to guide her when she follows him to the grim town of Lodestone.

A veteran of the Great War, Jesse Cole is grateful for the quiet life he now leads. But when his closest friend runs afoul of local criminals Frog and Squirrel Fenley, Jesse is forced to spin his moral compass and enter a violent and volatile underworld. There he encounters corrupt lawmen, hired assassins, and a dark family secret that will upend all he once knew. Complicating matters are Texas Ranger Amon Atkins—who arrives to investigate the Fenleys just as their empire is threatened by a deadly new competitor—and the green-eyed, raven-haired Adaline, a love Jesse thought he’d lost forever.

In the heart of the Great Depression, Rancho Las Moras, like everywhere else in Texas, is gripped by the drought of the Dust Bowl, and resentment is building among white farmers against Mexican Americans. All around town, signs go up proclaiming “No Dogs or Mexicans” and “No Mexicans Allowed.” When Estrella organizes a protest against the treatment of tejanos in their town of Monteseco, Texas, her whole family becomes a target of “repatriation” efforts to send Mexicans “back to Mexico”—whether they were ever Mexican citizens or not.

Rediscover the magic of Christmas in this heartwarming mystery. A little boy wanders into town and directly into Agnes Hancock’s heart, resurrecting feelings she’d thought long dead when she lost her son during the Great War. No one knows who the child is or where he comes from, but Agnes can’t turn her back on him. As the police begin their investigation, she brings the boy into her home and learns to love again. But will her new found happiness be destroyed when the police finally answer the question What Child Is This?

Legendary writer Trevanian brings readers his most personal novel yet: a funny, deeply felt, often touching autobiographical novel destined to become a classic American coming-of-age story.

In this brilliantly imagined novel, Amelia Earhart tells us what happened after she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared off the coast of New Guinea one glorious, windy day in 1937. And she tells us about herself.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, 16-year-old Kyle Donohue watches the first twin tower come down from the window of Stuyvesant High School. Moments later, terrified and fleeing home to safety across the Brooklyn Bridge, he stumbles across a girl perched in the shadows, covered in ash, and wearing a pair of costume wings.

Wingwalkers is one-part epic adventure, one-part love story, and, as is the signature for critically acclaimed author Taylor Brown, one large part American history. The novel braids the adventures of Della and Zeno Marigold, a vagabond couple that funds their journey to the West Coast in the middle of the Great Depression by performing death-defying aerial stunts from town to town, together with the life of the author (and thwarted fighter pilot) William Faulkner, whom the couple ultimately inspires during a dramatic air show—with unexpected consequences for all.

When the skies dried up, Gloria thought it was temporary. When the dust storms rolled in, she thought they would pass. But now the bank man’s come to take the family farm, and Pa’s decided to up and move to California in search of work. They’ll pick fruit, he says, until they can save up enough money to buy land of their own again.

Abbi Hope Goldstein is like every other teenager, with a few smallish exceptions: Her famous alter ego, Baby Hope, is the subject of internet memes, she has asthma, and sometimes, people spontaneously burst into tears when they recognize her. Abbi has lived almost her entire life in the shadow of the terrorist attacks of September 11. On that fateful day, she was captured in what became an iconic photograph: In the picture, Abbi (aka "Baby Hope") wears a birthday crown and grasps a red balloon; just behind her, the South Tower of the World Trade Center is collapsing.

The town of Wirrawee is emerging from war, slowly, like a flower after a cold snap. Businesses are starting to reopen, the school has re-commenced classes, and local farmers are gradually repossessing their land. But it's not the same Australia as before the war. A new nation exists just a few miles away, a new border that separates Australia from its invaders. Or does it?

Elizabeth has one goal in life—to go to college and become a teacher. But it is 1929 in Kuna, Idaho, and the small family farm doesn’t produce enough to send both Elizabeth and her twin brother to college. Just when it seems Elizabeth’s dreams might come true the stock market crashes and the devastating Great Depression engulfs the nation. Overnight Elizabeth’s anxiety over tuition payments is superseded by fear that her parents will lose the farm. Is this one disaster that even Elizabeth’s faith in hard work and God can’t overcome?