Biographical Fiction

Jacob's Room is a novel by Virginia Woolf, first published in 1922. It's considered one of her pioneering works in modernist literature. The novel follows the life of Jacob Flanders, from his childhood to his adulthood, primarily through the perspectives and memories of those who knew him. Woolf's experimental narrative style, characterized by stream-of-consciousness and shifting perspectives, creates a fragmented yet rich portrayal of Jacob's inner life and the world around him.

Born from young King Henry’s first marriage, his elder daughter, Princess Mary, is raised to be queen once it becomes clear that her mother, Katherine of Aragon, will bear no more children. However, Henry’s passion for Anne Boleyn has a devastating influence on the young princess’s future when, determined to sire a male heir, he marries Anne, has his marriage to Katherine declared unlawful, brands Mary illegitimate, and banishes them both from the royal court.

Into this fevered forum, a child is born. His mother is Agrippina, granddaughter of Emperor Augustus. But their imperial blood is no protection. The closer you are to the heart of the empire, the closer you are to power, intrigue, and danger. She faces soldiers, senators, rivals, silver-tongued pretenders, each vying for position. One mistake risks exile, incarceration, execution. Or, worst of all, the loss of her infant son.

A gifted raconteur, distinctive humorist, and irascible moralist, Mark Twain transcended the apparent limitations of his origins to become a popular public figure and one of America's best and most beloved writers.

Following seventy thousand years of undisturbed slumber, the vessel of a planetary empire that had followed its own predetermined path to destruction eons earlier had finally reawakened, bringing with her the potential to change everything. Embodying all that was benevolent and beautiful from innumerable long-forgotten cultures, this lifeform in suspended animation also possessed the power necessary to prevent her gifts from being corrupted by those who will eternally thirst for dominion over others.

Set against the backdrop of the antebellum South, this compelling work of historical fiction follows the harrowing journey of a young man, stolen from his family and thrust into the merciless world of slavery. The story unfolds with the abduction of IDI, a bright and resourceful young man who is cruelly torn from his family and homeland. His journey takes him to the American South, where he is subjected to the dehumanizing horrors of servitude. Driven by an unshakable determination to regain his freedom, David befriends a group of fellow slaves who share his longing for escape.

In the year 1526 King Henry VIII is facing a great personal crisis. He has been married to Queen Catherine of Aragon for seventeen years. But he has no son and the kingdom is without an heir. He has fallen in love with a maid of honor named Anne Boleyn. But she refuses to become his mistress and insists on being recognized as his lawful wife. The tragedy of “The King’s Great Matter” begins to unfold with terrible consequences for all concerned.

It's 1980 and Neil is a burned-out local musician whose band never made it. He has put his heart and soul into his music for a decade but now has little to show for it except a dozen of tapes of his original music that nobody has ever heard. He's getting ready to take a promotion at work and give up music forever when he gets a freak opportunity to go on tour.

A young boy from Shropshire named Will Somers has a special talent for entertaining. His gifts bring him all the way to the court of Henry VIII where he becomes a favoured servant and close companion of the king. In his role as the royal fool, he observes the life and times of Henry and his court. He witnesses the successive rise and fall of his queens, nobles and ministers. He is the only one whom Henry trusts with his true thoughts. “The Tudor Fool” tells the story of the unlikely relationship between a tyrannical king and his humble jester.

In the last days of World War I, Corporal Adolf Hitler was blinded by mustard gas, necessitating a month-long confinement in a military psychiatric hospital. Peculiarly, amid Germany's final days of World War I, the modest corporal was transported 700 kilometers from Ypres, Belgium, to northern German Pomerania, seeking the expertise of the nation's foremost neuropsychiatric physician.

At the end of 1954, just a handful of weeks after emigrating from a small village in Germany to Montreal Canada, Rosemarie Döderlein (Doederlein) just turned 14 years old when she vanished on the way to a bakery a few doors down from the family apartment, never to be seen or heard from again. After 68 years of fruitless searching and wondering, in 2022, Rosemarie's youngest sister Vera finally learned the truth of what happened to her. It is a remarkable story about unconditional love, DNA, and investigative genetic genealogy.

In 1828, the beautiful Rosina Wheeler married one of Victorian England’s most successful and prolific writers, Edward Bulwer-Lytton. What followed shocked and entertained the public for over thirty years. After their marriage broke down, Rosina refused to be silenced. She pursued her husband with a single-minded and very public crusade to prove she was in the right. She even interrupted her husband’s election campaign to denounce him to the assembled voters. Edward responded by threatening to have her committed to a lunatic asylum.

In my two previous books, "Emergency Landing—Based on a True Story" and "Emergency Landing—The Life of Carlos", I described my experience during my stay in Oregon and the flight back to Houston. During that flight, one of the passengers, Carlos Pérez, suffered two severe epileptic episodes halfway through the trip. The nurse, who was traveling as a passenger on the plane, and me had to provide first aid, I was playing the role of translator from English to Spanish and, at the same time, assisting and facilitating the nurse's work.

In Seventeen, Friendship, and Swimming, Colombe Schneck orchestrates a coming-of-age in three movements. Beautiful, masterfully controlled, yet filled with pathos, they invite the listener into a decades-long evolution of sexuality, bodily autonomy, friendship, and loss.

The Education of Joshua Chastain is a fictional memoir about a gay boy who grows up in a small Mormon community in northern Arizona, a kind of Mormon shtetl. The novel describes Josh's journey of self-discovery as he explores his sexuality, engages in various sexual relationships during his teenage years (including one with a Roman Catholic priest), and endures verbal and sometimes physical abuse from teachers and classmates.