Books like Fever by Mary Beth Keane

A 1930s wartime tale of a blind French girl and a German boy whose lives intersect in occupied France, weaving themes of survival, friendship, and the moral choices people make amid World War II.

Cora, a woman enslaved on a Georgia cotton plantation, partners with a new slave named Caesar to flee the South. Their daring escape follows a literal underground network of tunnels that mirrors the perilous journey of countless fugitive slaves toward freedom.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks follows the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black tobacco farmer whose cancer cells were taken in 1951 without her consent and later became the first immortal human cell line, HeLa, driving major scientific breakthroughs while raising questions of ethics, race, and medical exploitation.

Craig of the Mohicans, a frontier scout turns away from civilization, forming a bond with a Mohican warrior as they escort two sisters across the perilous wilderness of America's frontier.

Katey Kontent, a Wall Street secretary, meets a charismatic banker on New Year's Eve 1938 and is thrust into 1930s New York high society, forming ties with a shy millionaire, a rebellious elite, and a determined widow.

A runaway slave named Henry escapes his cruel master, joins abolitionist John Brown, and disguises himself as a girl to survive the 1859 Harpers Ferry raid in Kansas Territory.

A Chilean woman embarks on a quest to find her lover in 1840s California's goldfields, facing numerous challenges and adventures along the way.

Mario Puzo traces the rise of the Borgia family, revealing the intertwined forces of ambition, faith, and power that shaped one of Italy’s most notorious dynasties.

A fact‑based biography of Mary Mallon, the infamous "Typhoid Mary," using archival photos, primary documents, and scholarly analysis to examine her life, the legal and medical response to her, and the broader issues of disease, rights, and public health.

In the hard‑hit Texas Panhandle, Tike and Ella May Hamlin build a humble adobe house to fight drought, wind, and fire, yet larger forces—ranching conglomerates and banks—reproduce the barriers they must overcome to claim their land.

A thrilling historical spy novel set during the American Revolution, inspired by accusations of venality and featuring a common man wrongly suspected as a spy for the British, who refuses to accept payment for information vital to the Patriot's cause.

In this book, historian Judith Walzer Leavitt tells the remarkable story of Mary Mallon, the woman known as "Typhoid Mary." Combining social history with biography, Leavitt brings to life early-twentieth-century New York City, a world of strict class divisions and prejudice against immigrants and women. She re-creates the excitement of the early days of microbiology and explores the conflicting perspectives of journalists, public health officials, the law, and Mary Mallon herself. Mary Mallon was the first healthy carrier of typhoid to be carefully traced in North America, but there were other healthy carriers - over 400 in New York City alone by the 1930s - whose treatment was much less harsh. Why did Mallon's case turn out as it did? As Leavitt shows, the answers have to do with popular prejudices as well as with the legal dimensions of Mallon's case. By exploring the many contexts for Mallon's experience, Leavitt provides a rich and many-layered chronicle of a woman's personal tragedy and a society's dilemma. She also explores the continuing cultural significance of Typhoid Mary, describing the ways Mallon's story has been reinterpreted in fiction, drama, and historians' narratives up to the present.

A biographical historical novel that follows the budding friendship between a teenage Louise Brooks and a middle‑aged chaperone as they travel to New York City in 1922, showing how the journey reshapes their lives.