Alternate Fiction

On a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to earth and obliterated much of the East Coast of the US, including Washington, DC. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render the Earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated effort to colonize space and requires a much-larger share of humanity to take part in the process. Elma York’s drive to become the first lady astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions of society may not stand a chance against her.

Ten years ago, the 20th century and the Bronze Age were tossed together by a mysterious Event. In the decade since, the Republic of Nantucket has worked hard to create a new future for itself, using the technological know-how retained from modern times to explore and improve conditions for the inhabitants of the past

Rin’s story continues in this acclaimed sequel to The Poppy War—an epic fantasy combining the history of twentieth-century China with a gripping world of gods and monsters. The war is over. The war has just begun. Three times throughout its history, Nikan has fought for its survival in the...

Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London. Britain has lost the Falklands War, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power, and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, two lovers will be tested beyond their understanding. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda's assistance, he co-designs Adam's personality.

In AD 60, Boudica, war leader of the Eceni, led her people in a final bloody revolt against the occupying armies of Rome. It was the culmination of nearly 20 years of resistance against an occupying force that sought to crush a vibrant, complex civilisation and replace it with the laws, taxes and slavery of the Roman Empire.

During a perfect spring evening on Nantucket, a violent storm erupts and a dome of crawling, colored fire blankets the island. When the howling winds subside and the night skies clear, the stars appear to have shifted. The mainland has become a wilderness of unbroken forest, where tools of bronze and stone litter the beaches, and primitive natives scatter in terror.

This novel spans the period between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I. With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.

At the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space carrying its famous golden record, a baby of unusual perception is born to a single mother in Philadelphia. Adina Giorno is tiny and jaundiced, but reaches for warmth and light. As a child, she recognizes that she's different: she possesses knowledge of a faraway planet. The arrival of a fax machine enables her to contact her extraterrestrial relatives, beings who have sent her to report on the oddities of earthlings.

From the grand master of the historical novel comes a dazzling, epic portrait of the City of Light Internationally bestselling author Edward Rutherfurd has enchanted millions of readers with his sweeping, multigenerational dramas that illuminate the great achievements and travails throughout...

A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of 2025 Both sweeping and intimate, a majestic novel of love and war that brilliantly evokes the drama and turbulence of medieval France Thierry Villar is a well-known—even notorious— tavern poet, familiar with the rogues and shadows of that world, but not at...

In an alternate history of Detroit, the Motor City was never surrendered to the US. Its residents deal with pollution, poverty, and the legacy of racism—and strange and magical things are happening: children rule over their own kingdom in the trees and burned houses regenerate themselves. When Gloria arrives looking for answers and her missing granddaughters, at first she finds only a hungry mouse in the derelict home where her daughter was murdered. But the neighbours take pity on her and she turns to their resilience and impressive gardens for sustenance.

Jasper Fforde's delightfully zany Thursday Next series shows no signs of slowing down with its seventh entry, The Woman Who Died a Lot. Despite being semihappily semi-retired from SpecOps, Thursday accepts the head librarian position at the Swindon library. But soon threats from a supreme Deity, a mnemonomorph, and the nefarious Goliath corporation press Thursday back into active duty.

For a thousand years, Doro has cultivated a small African village, carefully breeding its people in search of seemingly unattainable perfection. He survives through the centuries by stealing the bodies of others, a technique he has so thoroughly mastered that nothing on Earth can kill him. But when a gang of New World slavers destroys his village, ruining his grand experiment, Doro is forced to go west and begin anew. He meets Anyanwu, a centuries-old woman whose means of immortality are as kind as his are cruel. Now they begin a struggle that will last centuries.

It is 1941 and Germany has won the war. Britain is occupied, Churchill executed, and the King imprisoned in the Tower of London. At Scotland Yard, Detective Inspector Archer tries to do his job and keep his head down. But when a body is found in a Mayfair flat, what at first appears to be a routine murder investigation sends him into a world of espionage, deceit, and betrayal.

Two Bestselling Agatha Christie Novels in One Great Audiobook Poirot Investigates Poirot Investigates a host of murders most foul—as well as other dastardly crimes—in this intriguing collection of short stories from the one-and-only Agatha Christie. First there was the mystery of the film...

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER—for fans of All the Light We Cannot See and The Tattooist of Auschwitz! A BookBub Pick for Best Historical Fiction of Summer 2023 A heartwarming story about the power of books to bring us together, inspired by the true story of the underground library in WWII Warsaw, by...

Un jour, vous les humains, vous comprendrez que nous les chats devons prendre votre place. Alors moi, Bastet, je serai votre reine.

Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and Christie’s wildly unconventional investigator, Parker Pyne, all make appearances in The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories—a riveting collection of short stories featuring a host of murderous crimes of passion, pleasure, and profit. There's a body in a trunk...

The Narthani, a militant realm who believe their manifest destiny is to rule the entire planet, Anyar, plan to absorb Caedellium into their empire. Yozef Kolsko (a.k.a. Joe Colsco) works to find ways to increase the chances of resistance to the Narthani's planned conquest. The enemy is coming. The odds seem overwhelming, and it will take all Yozef can do, the courage of his new people, and luck, to survive.

It is the 14th century, and one of the most apocalyptic events in human history is set to occur - the coming of the Black Death. History teaches us that a third of Europe's population was destroyed. But what if the plague had killed 99 percent of the population instead? How would the world have changed? This is a look at the history that could have been - a history that stretches across centuries, a history that sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, a history that spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation.