New Books In Historical Fiction

Today I talked to Katherine Vaz about her new novel Above the Salt (Flatiron Books, 2023). In 1843-1846, on the Portuguese island of Madeira, five-year-old John Alves lived in jail and starved alongside his heretic mother, who was condemned to death for converting to Protestantism from Catholicism. Finally freed, John befriends young Mary Freitas, the adopted daughter of a wonderful botanist. Both families are forced to flee, and they end up in southern Illinois. John teaches signing to deaf children and Mary works as a gardener for a wealthy man who falls in love with her. She’s torn after she and John find each other again, but he’s off to fight in the Civil War. A mean-spirited trick keeps them away from each other and Mary accepts her boss’s marriage proposal. This is a rich and detailed love story based on the Portuguese community of Jacksonville, Illinois, historical characters, events, and flower cultivation, a courtship that took place in the home of rising politician Abraham Lincoln, and a sweeping v