Chiaverini's Switchboard Soldiers chronicles the women of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, who weren't even eligible to enlist in the army but helped facilitate communication on the battlefield as bombs fell around them and pandemic raged during World War I (150,000-copy first printing). French Resistance fighter Elise and German soldier Sebastian fall in love in Occupied Paris and face moral crisis at war's end in Druart's The Last Hours in Paris (45,000-copy first printing). In Kidd's The Night Ship, sad-eyed young Gil is sent to live with his grandfather in a Western Australian fishing community and learns about the 1629 sinking of a ship whose passengers included the newly orphaned Mayken, sailing to what was then the Dutch East Indies (75,000-copy first printing). In Martin's latest, Ava is The Librarian Spy, working undercover in World War II Lisbon to collect intelligence and finding connection through coded messages with Elaine, apprenticed at a press run by the Resistance in Occupied France (150,000-copy first printing). Lock continues his successful "American Novels" series with Voices in the Dead House, which braids together the experiences of Walt Whitman and Louisa May Alcott in Civil War-torn Washington, DC. In Sister Mother Warrior, celebrated Island Queen author Riley conveys the Haitian Revolution through the stories of two women: Marie-Claire Bonheur, the first empress of Haiti, and West African-born warrior Gran Toya (100,000-copy first printing).

Riley follows up Island Queen with another sweeping, powerful historical novel based on two remarkable real women. Adbaraya Toya grows up in the West African Kingdom of Dahomey and becomes one of their feared women warriors. In 1758, a betrayal leads to her being sold into slavery and sent to the French colony of Saint-Domingue on Hispaniola (part of present-day Haiti). There she uses her healing and medicinal knowledge to survive and takes a maternal interest in young enslaved orphan Janjak, training him as a warrior in hopes of a better future. As Janjak grows up on Hispaniola, so too does Marie-Claire Bonheur, further south on the island. Marie-Claire, a free Black woman, has complicated relationships with her mother, aunt, and grandmother—all of whom have different experiences as women of color in late 18th-century Saint-Domingue. When Marie-Claire meets Janjak (who will later take the surname Dessalines and become the first ruler of an independent Haiti), their instant and strong bond forms the basis for a lifelong relationship that will be tested by time, distance, and the Haitian Revolution led by Janjak. VERDICT Riley has written a well-researched gripping novel about an enslaved people gaining freedom, with the emotional connections among the main players as its beating heart.—Jane Jorgenson

Riley follows up Island Queen with another sweeping, powerful historical novel based on two remarkable real women. Adbaraya Toya grows up in the West African Kingdom of Dahomey and becomes one of their feared women warriors. In 1758, a betrayal leads to her being sold into slavery and sent to the French colony of Saint-Domingue on Hispaniola (part of present-day Haiti). There she uses her healing and medicinal knowledge to survive and takes a maternal interest in young enslaved orphan Janjak, training him as a warrior in hopes of a better future. As Janjak grows up on Hispaniola, so too does Marie-Claire Bonheur, further south on the island. Marie-Claire, a free Black woman, has complicated relationships with her mother, aunt, and grandmother—all of whom have different experiences as women of color in late 18th-century Saint-Domingue. When Marie-Claire meets Janjak (who will later take the surname Dessalines and become the first ruler of an independent Haiti), their instant and strong bond forms the basis for a lifelong relationship that will be tested by time, distance, and the Haitian Revolution led by Janjak. VERDICT Riley has written a well-researched gripping novel about an enslaved people gaining freedom, with the emotional connections among the main players as its beating heart.—Jane Jorgenson