Black Historical Fiction to Read With Your Book Club

3 days ago 6

I know some people like to march to the beat of their own drum and aren’t really interested in what the current, popular books are. There are also people who like to keep current on the latest trends—not that they necessarily agree with them or automatically like them, but they just like to stay in the know. As professional book yappers, it’s our job to fall under the second category. If you, too, want to keep up with what the latest most popular books are, Danika Ellis does a weekly review of the most-read books on Goodreads each week.

I will say that the list is not without its faults. Goodreads lists tend toward the authors whose publishers have awarded them the largest marketing budgets. This results in a lack of diversity, not just in authors’ racial and gender identities, but in authors outright—there are a lot of authors who are repeated on the list each week (again, these are usually the ones whose publishers have dropped a cute coin on them).

Still, it’s interesting to see what others are reading, and it can be cool to incorporate a popular book into your book club reading every now and then. Plus, Danika always adds an indie or diverse author just to keep the selection fresh.

Speaking of fresh, the books I’ve rounded up below are just a few of the newest historical fiction releases featuring Black women and girls—from a real-life opera singer to the story of Queen Victoria’s Nigerian Princess goddaughter.

The Queen’s Spade by Sarah Raughley

As much as I love historical fiction and thrillers, I haven’t read many historical fiction/thriller mashups. Which is why this—with its promises of Count of Monte Cristo and Bridgerton realness—is so alluring. It’s set in 1862 in England, where Sarah Bonetta Forbes, or Sally, the Egbado clan princess in what is now known as Nigeria, lives basically as property of the British crown.
The good sis, understandably, wants revenge against everyone for her current predicament. That means the soldiers, political leaders, and yes, even her godmother who is literally Queen Victoria. To get her sweet revenge, she’ll end up getting into court politics, the Queen’s inner circle, and even within kissing range of a London crime lord. But the Queen is the Queen, which means she’s always on alert, and Sally might be found out before she’s able to get her get-back.

This is based on the very real West African goddaughter of Queen Victoria named Sarah Forbes Bonetta, who I somehow only recently learned about.

The Unexpected Diva by Tiffany L. Warren

Here’s another fictionalized story of a real historical figure. Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield was a Black woman born into slavery in Mississippi and adopted by a wealthy Quaker woman. It’s Elizabeth’s adoptive Quaker mother who educated her and encouraged her to pursue her musical interests. And she does, even when her mother’s white cousins contest her inheritance and leave her with few options once her mother dies. A random performance she does on a Buffalo, New York-bound steamboat leads to great opportunities for Elizabeth, and soon she’s on the path to becoming a history-making opera singer.

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Junie by Erin Crosby Eckstine

This coming-of-age novel takes place as the Civil War looms and has just a hint of Beloved by Toni Morrison. The titular Junie is just 16 and has only ever known a life being enslaved on Bellereine Plantation in Alabama. She works with her family tending to their white enslaver’s family while daydreaming of poetry and life in another world. Then wealthy guests from New Orleans arrive, and with them comes the possibility of the master’s daughter Violet being married. Since Junie tends to Violet, this would upend her life. So she does something out of desperation—something that lifts her older sister Minnie’s spirit up out of the grave. She wants to free her sister’s spirit from its earthly tethers and gets help from the wealthy guests’ coachman, but horrible truths and a ticking clock all converge on the young girl as she must decide what she is willing to sacrifice to love and be free.