The Lions of Fifth Avenue author Fiona Davis shares her historical fiction summer reading list

Fiona Davis, the bestselling author of The Chelsea Girls and the upcoming The Lions of Fifth Avenue, shares what the other historical fiction reads she'll be turning to this summer. 

Janey Everett is a photojournalist and war correspondent eager to get to the bottom of pilot Sam Mallory’s disappearance. She travels to Hawaii to meet who she believes to be Mallory’s former flight partner, but while there she discovers there is much more to the story than she could have imagined–including the nature of the flight partners’ relationship. (Now available) 

We Came Here to Shine is a story about unexpected friendship, bravery, and aspirations. It’s 1939 and New York’s World’s Fair is in full swing. Aspiring actress Vivi Holden and hardworking journalist Max are fighting to hurdle the barriers put in place by the men trying to control them. Their paths cross, and the two young women team up and are able to help each other prove to everyone the unique talents they carry. (Now available) 

The Book of Lost Names is inspired by the true story of a young woman who used her talent of forgery to help Jewish children safely escape France during WWII. To escape, these children needed new identities, but being too young to remember their birth names, Eva uses a forgery code to record them in a book she called The Book of Lost Names. A dual timeline guides readers between Eva’s life in 2005 when she rediscovers the book and 1942 when she used her bravery in the Resistance. In present day, Eva is faced with the challenge of revisiting past trauma to complete her original mission. (Now available) 

The stories of three women — each existing in separate centuries — are braided together to illustrate a shared battle unfazed by the passing decades: the unchanging expected role of women. Themes of motherhood, desire, and sex are explored in the lives of the Bible’s Queen Esther, the wife of a senator in the ‘70s, and a Brooklyn mother in 2016. (Now available)