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Book reviews & excerpts from exceptional books set mainly in the early 20th Century.

Early 20th Century

Recommended books found: 150

Early 20th Century is a members-only category, so your results have been limited to 12 books. If you are a member, please log in. If not, please consider joining today!.

The Original

A Novel

by Nell Stevens

Hardcover: Jul 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

In a grand English country house in 1899, an aspiring art forger must unravel whether the man claiming to be her long-lost cousin is an impostor.

Angel Down

A Novel

by Daniel Kraus

Hardcover: Jul 2025 | Paperback: May 2026

Critics' Consensus:

The critically acclaimed author of the "crazily enjoyable" (The New York Times) Whalefall returns with an immersive, cinematic novel about five World War I soldiers who stumble upon a fallen angel that could hold the key to ending the war.

Odessa

A Novel

by Gabrielle Sher

Hardcover: Apr 2026

Critics' Consensus:

In a powerfully imagined Russia at the height of the pogroms, a grief-stricken family turn to ancient magic to bring their daughter back from the grave.

Stag Dance

A Novel & Stories

by Torrey Peters

Hardcover: Mar 2025 | Paperback: Mar 2026

Critics' Consensus:

The kaleidoscopic follow-up to the bestselling Detransition, Baby.

One of Us

A Novel

by Dan Chaon

Hardcover: Sep 2025 | Paperback: Sep 2026

Critics' Consensus:

A playfully macabre and utterly thrilling tale about orphaned twins on the run from their murderous uncle who find refuge in a bizarre traveling carnival, from a master of literary horror.

The Empusium

A Health Resort Horror Story

by Olga Tokarczuk

Hardcover: Sep 2024 | Paperback: Sep 2025

Critics' Consensus:

The Nobelist's latest masterwork, set in a sanitarium on the eve of World War I, probes the horrors that lie beneath our most hallowed ideas.

The Warm Hands of Ghosts

A Novel

by Katherine Arden

Hardcover: Feb 2024 | Paperback: Jan 2025

Critics' Consensus:

During the Great War, a combat nurse searches for her brother, believed dead in the trenches despite eerie signs that suggest otherwise, in this hauntingly beautiful historical novel with a speculative twist, from the New York Times bestselling ...

The House of Doors

by Tan Twan Eng

Hardcover: Oct 2023 | Paperback: Oct 2024

Critics' Consensus:

From the bestselling author of The Garden of Evening Mists, a spellbinding novel about love and betrayal, colonialism and revolution, storytelling and redemption.

The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel

Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I

by Douglas Brunt

Hardcover: Sep 2023 | Paperback: Oct 2024

Critics' Consensus:

The hidden history of one of the world's greatest inventors, a man who disrupted the status quo and then disappeared into thin air on the eve of World War I - this book answers the hundred-year-old mystery of what really became of Rudolf Diesel.

Blackwater I: The Flood

by Michael McDowell

Paperback: Sep 2024

Critics' Consensus:

As the dark and menacing waters of the local river submerge Perdido, a small town in the south of Alabama, the Caskeys - a family of rich landowners - must confront the tide of damage caused by the flood.

A Disappearance in Fiji

by Nilima Rao

Hardcover: Jun 2023 | Paperback: May 2024

Critics' Consensus:

A charming and atmospheric debut mystery featuring a 25-year-old Indian police sergeant investigating a missing persons case in colonial Fiji

Where Coyotes Howl

by Sandra Dallas

Hardcover: Apr 2023 | Paperback: Apr 2024

Critics' Consensus:

Beautifully rendered, Where Coyotes Howl is a vivid and deeply affecting ode to the early twentieth century West, from master storyteller Sandra Dallas.

Early 20th Century is a members-only category, so your results have been limited to 12 books. If you are a member, please log in. If not, please consider joining today!

The reviewer of each book decides which categories it belongs in - but we're only human, mistakes happen. If you see a book that you think is in the wrong place, tell us!

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