Reading Ahead: March 2015, part 4

February is a short month, and there are SO many great titles being released in March, I'm actually running out of time to share them all with you! Get your lists ready!

The Cavendon Women, by Barbara Taylor Bradford. Cavendon Women, the stunning sequel to Barbara Taylor Bradford’s Cavendon Hall follows the Inghams’ and the Swanns’ journey from a family weekend in the summer of 1926 through to the devastation of the Wall Street crash of 1929.  It all begins on a summer weekend in July of 1926 when, for the first time in years, the earl has planned a family weekend.  As the family members come together, secrets, problems, joys, and sorrows are revealed.  As old enemies come out of the shadows and the Swanns’ loyalty to the Ingham gets tested in ways none of them could have predicted, it’s up to the Cavendon women to band together and bring their family into a new decade, and a new way of life.

Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule, by Jennifer Chiaverini. The prolific Chiaverini made her debut into historical fiction two years ago with Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker, with great success. She now turns her attention to another first lady, Julia Grant, wife to Ulysses S. Grant. In 1844, Missouri belle Julia Dent met dazzling horseman Lieutenant Ulysses S Grant. Four years passed before their parents permitted them to wed, and the groom’s abolitionist family refused to attend the ceremony. Since childhood, Julia owned as a slave another Julia, known as Jule. Jule guarded her mistress’s closely held twin secrets: She had perilously poor vision but was gifted with prophetic sight. So it was that Jule became Julia’s eyes to the world. The first novel to chronicle this unique relationship between these two women, this is sure to become a favorite among book clubs and historical fiction fans alike.

Sisters of Shiloh, by Kathy Hepinstall and Becky Hepinstall Hilliker. Joseph and Thomas are fresh recruits for the Confederate Army, daring to join the wild fray that has become the seemingly endless Civil War, sharing everything with their fellow soldiers—except the secret that would mean their undoing: they are sisters.  Before the war, Joseph and Thomas were Josephine and Libby. But that bloodiest battle, Antietam, leaves Libby to find her husband, Arden, dead. She vows vengeance, dons Arden’s clothes, and sneaks off to enlist with the Stonewall Brigade, swearing to kill one Yankee for every year of his too-short life. Desperate to protect her grief-crazed sister, Josephine insists on joining her. Surrounded by flying bullets, deprivation, and illness, the sisters are found by other dangers: Libby is hurtling toward madness, haunted and urged on by her husband’s ghost; Josephine is falling in love with a fellow soldier. She lives in fear both of revealing their disguise and of losing her first love before she can make her heart known to him. This is absolutely on my list, and I'm also recommending it to folks who liked Neverhome or Cold Mountain.