The House of Lincoln

This pallid historical from Horan (Under the Wide and Starry Sky) surveys Abraham Lincoln’s life from the perspective of Portuguese immigrant Ana Ferreira, who spent years serving in the Lincoln family’s home in Springfield, Ill. In 1854, Mary Lincoln hires 12-year-old Ana to assist with housework and child care. Horan rushes through the years as Ana grows up around the Lincoln family, watching Abe run unsuccessfully for the Senate before eventually being elected president. Along the way, Ana falls for a reporter assigned to cover the politician. Much of the narrative covers familiar ground including Lincoln’s assassination and its aftermath, though Horan offers something original in a later section chronicling a historical 1908 riot in Springfield, which targeted the city’s Black citizens. Still, the lackluster retreading of familiar terrain and clunky writing are tough to get past (on Mary Todd’s half sister: “like the South itself, Emelie had made her own bed, and now she had to lie in it”). This one’s for Lincoln obsessives only. Agent: Lisa Bankofff, Bankoff Collective. (June)