Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman - Alabama, 1931. A posse stops a freight train and arrests nine black youths. Their crime: fighting with white boys. Then two white girls emerge from another freight car, and fast as anyone can say Jim Crow, the cry of rape goes up. (April 2008)

Pinkerton's Secret by Eric Lerner - This romantic adventure conjures up the passionate life story of the Civil War era's legendary private eye, Allan Pinkerton, recounting dramatic exploits and his clandestine love affair with his female partner. (March 2008)

Draining the Sea by Micheline Aharonian Marcom - A striking literary exploration of the effects of political violence as it everberates through the Armenian Genocide of 1915, the Guatemalan civil conflict of the 1980s, and present-day Los Angeles-from award-winning novelist Micheline Aharonian Marcom. (March 2008)

Song Yet Sung by James McBride - McBride tells the mesmerizing story of Liz Spocott, a beautiful runaway slave with troubling dreams of the future, whose escape exposes the barely concealed racial and social fault lines on Maryland’s eastern shore a decade before the Civil War. (February 2008)

The Seduction of the Crimson Rose by Lauren Willig - Lauren Willig continues the exciting Pink Carnation series with her fourth novel. Determined to secure another London season without assistance from her new brother-in-law, Mary accepts a secret assignment from Lord Vaughn on behalf of the Pink Carnation: to infiltrate the ranks of the dreaded French spy, the Black Tulip, before he and his master can stage their planned invasion of England. (January 2008)

Life Class by Pat Barker - Barker returns to her most renowned subject: the human devastation and psychic damage wrought by World War One on all levels of British society. Her skill in relaying the harrowing experience of modern warfare is matched by the depth of insight she brings to the experience of love and the morality of art in a time of war. Previous Booker Prize winner. (January 2008)

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks - In 1996, Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, is offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, which has been rescued from Serb shelling during the Bosnian war. Priceless and beautiful, the book is one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images. When Hanna, a caustic loner with a passion for her work, discovers a series of tiny artifacts in its ancient binding she begins to unlock the book’s mysteries. (January 2008)

A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam - As young widow Rehana Haque awakes one March morning, she might be forgiven for feeling happy. Today she will throw a party for her son and daughter. In the garden of the house she has built, her roses are blooming, her children are almost grown, and beyond their doorstep, the city is buzzing with excitement after recent elections. Change is in the air. But none of the guests at Rehana's party can foresee what will happen in the days and months ahead. For this is 1971 in East Pakistan, a country on the brink of war. And this family's life is about to change forever. (January 2008)

Antony and Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough - Colleen McCullough turns her attention to the legendary romance of Antony and Cleopatra, and in this timeless tale of love, politics, and power, proves once again that she is the best historical novelist of our time. (December 2007)

Deadly Shoals by Joan Druett - The fourth seafaring mystery starring Wild Coffin is packed with period detail from top gallant to keel. (December 2007)

Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill - Abducted from Africa as a child and enslaved in South Carolina, Aminata Diallo thinks only of freedom—and of the knowledge she needs to get home. Sold to an indigo trader who recognizes her intelligence, Aminata is torn from her husband and child and thrown into the chaos of the Revolutionary War. In Manhattan, Aminata helps pen the Book of Negroes, a list of blacks rewarded for service to the king with safe passage to Nova Scotia. (November 2007)

Signed, Mata Hari by Yannick Murphy - In the cold October of 1917 Margaretha Zelle, better known as Mata Hari, sits in a prison cell in Paris awaiting trial on charges of espionage. The penalty is death by firing squad. As she waits, burdened by a secret guilt, she tells stories, Scheherazade-like to buy back her life from her interrogators. (November 2007)

The Air We Breathe by Andrea Barrett - In the fall of 1916, Americans debate whether or not to enter the European War. In an isolated community in the Adirondacks, the danger is barely felt. At Tamarack Lake the focus is on the sick-- wealthy tubercular patients live in private cure cottages; charity patients, mainly European immigrants, fill the large public sanitorium. An enterprising patient initiates a weekly discussion group. When his well-meaning efforts lead instead to a tragic accident and a terrible betrayal, the war comes home, bringing with it a surge of anti-immigrant prejudice and vigilante sentiment. (October 2007)

The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt - On a January morning in 1913, G. H. Hardy—eccentric, charismatic and, at thirty-seven, already considered the greatest British mathematician of his age—receives in the mail a mysterious envelope covered with Indian stamps. Inside he finds a rambling letter from a self-professed mathematical genius who claims to be on the brink of solving the most important unsolved mathematical problem of all time. (September 2007)

The Spanish Bow by Andromeda Romano-Lax - In a dusty, turn-of-the-century Catalan village, the bequest of a cello bow sets young Feliz Delargo on the unlikely path of becoming a musician. (September 2007)

First Wave by James R. Benn - Lieutenant Billy Boyle reluctantly accompanies Major Samuel Harding, his boss, in the first boat to land on the shores of Algeria during the Allied invasion. Their task is to arrange the surrender of the Vichy French forces. But there is dissension between the regular army, the local militia, and de Gaulle's Free French. American black marketeers in league with the enemy divert medical supplies to the Casbah, leading to multiple murders that Billy must solve while trying to rescue the girl he loves, a captured British spy. (September 2007)

Redemption Falls by Joseph O'Connor - O'Connor illuminates a slice of the Civil War and Reconstruction. The stories of Eliza Mooney and her younger brother, Jeremiah, are intertwined in this enthralling saga with those of General James O'Keefe and his wealthy wife, Lucia, through letters, personal accounts, transcripts, newspaper articles, and miscellany. As the bloody war ends, Eliza—worldly wise beyond her teenage years—sets out on foot from Baton Rouge to find her only remaining kin. (October 2007)

Dizzy City by Nicholas Griffin - a suspense-filled portrait of the darker - and more exciting- side of American capitalism on the eve of its entry into World War I. The year is 1916, Europe is at war, and American industrialists are getting rich. Englishman Benedict Cramb deserts the trench warfare of northern France and stows away on an outbound transatlantic ship. When he arrives in a city untouched and largely unaware of the horrors of war, he realizes New York City is the place to reinvent himself. In the process, he soon falls under the sway of the urbane and mysterious Julius McAteer. (August 2007)

A Hatred for Tulips by Richard Lourie - a stunning fictionalized account of the man who betrayed Anne Frank. (August 2007)

Swim to Me by Betsy Carter - Welcome to Weeki Wachee Springs, located in sunny Florida. The Springs and its mermaids have been attracting tourists since 1947, but now it must compete with the recently opened Walt Disney World Resort. In the tradition of Rebecca Wells, Betsy Carter writes of family, of chasing dreams, and of finding your way, conjuring up a time in America when anything was possible -- even mermaids from the Bronx. (August 2007)

The Whale Road by Robert Low - Set in 10th-century Europe, a sweeping tale of historical adventure, the sago of an oath-sworn pack of Viking raiders whose fate takes them from the fjords of Norway to the Russian steppes in search of the lost treasure of Attila. (August 2007)

Crusade by Robyn Young - The second volume in the Brethren trilogy, a gripping historical fiction that reads like tomorrow's headlines.(August 2007)

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney -The year is 1867. Winter has just tightened its grip on Dove River, a tiny isolated settlement in the Northern Territory, when a man is brutally murdered. (July 2007)

The Chess Machine by Robert Lohr - Based on a true story, The Chess Machine is the breathtaking historical adventure of a legendary invention that astounded all who crossed its path. (July 2007)

On Kingdom Mountain by Howard Frank Mosher - Set in northern Vermont in 1930, On Kingdom Mountain recounts the life and times of Miss Jane Hubbell Kinneson. Abounding with Howard Frank Mosher’s trademark action scenes, from daring bank robberies to outrageous comedy to a passionate and surprising love affair, On Kingdom Mountain is rooted deeply in Mosher’s own family history, in one of America’s last frontiers, and in a way of life on the brink of extinction. (July 2007)

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney -The year is 1867. Winter has just tightened its grip on Dove River, a tiny isolated settlement in the Northern Territory, when a man is brutally murdered. (July 2007)

Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay - An American journalist uncovers her French family's war-era secrets, in this page-turning, interconnected novel of modern-day Paris and occupied France. (June 2007)

North River by Pete Hamill -It is 1934, and New York City is in the icy grip of the Great Depression. With enormous compassion, Dr. James Delaney tends to his hurt, sick, and poor neighbors, who include gangsters, day laborers, prostitutes, and housewives. If they can't pay, he treats them anyway. But in his own life, Delaney is emotionally numb, haunted by the slaughters of the Great War... (June 2007)

The Shadow Catcher by Marianne Wiggins -The life of legendary photographer Edward S. Curtis is the basis for this resonant exploration of history and family, landscape and legacy. (June 2007)