Historical Biographical Fiction

1564: Devon sailor Francis Drake sets out on a journey of adventure. Drake learns of routes used to transport Spanish silver and gold, and risks his life in an audacious plan to steal a fortune.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1989, Jigsaw: An Unsentimental Education is a semi-autobiographical novel that tells the story of Billi, a girl growing up in Europe between the two World Wars. Upon the death of her German baron father, Billi moves from the family château to live with her vibrant and erratic English mother on the French Riviera. From there she is sent for schooling in England, where she lives an itinerant life, boarding among a bohemian crowd, attending galleries and public lectures, and reading some of the greatest books of the era.

"The Heroic Slave" is the only work of fiction by the eminent abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The narrative was inspired by Madison Washington, a slave on the Creole who led a rebellion on the ship in November 1841, and had it sail to Nassau in the Bahamas instead of New Orleans. The short story appeared in the collection Autographs for Freedom (1852).

Elizabeth of York, her life already tainted by dishonour and tragedy, now queen to the first Tudor king, Henry the VII. Joan Vaux, servant of the court, straining against marriage and motherhood and privy to the deepest and darkest secrets of her queen. Like the ravens, Joan must use her eyes and her senses, as conspiracy whispers through the dark corridors of the Tower.

England, 1873. Clara Blackstone has just been released after one year in a private asylum for the insane. Clara has two goals: to reunite with her husband, Henry, and to never - ever - return to the asylum. As she enters Durham, Clara finds her carriage surrounded by a mob gathered to witness the imprisonment of Mary Ann Cotton - England’s first female serial killer - accused of poisoning nearly 20 people, including her husbands and children.

Salisbury 1226. When a child of village outcasts disappears from Salisbury, the odious new sheriff doesn’t seem to care. Ela Longespée is determined to help the girl’s desperate parents and her investigation leads her into the thick of a human-trafficking ring in London. There, she vows to find the lost child, arrest the perpetrators, and convince the king to make her high sheriff of Wiltshire.

The year is 1143. Hildegard, already a well-known physician, has expanded her work to writing not just about medicine but on theological matters as well. Once again, the monks of St. Disibod are there to stop her, citing the biblical passages that admonish against "women teachers". Also, Abbot Kuno is aging, and it is only a matter of time before he is succeeded in the post by Prior Helenger, who wants nothing more than to see Hildegard permanently relegated to the convent's enclosure.

A shocking ancient secret. The origins of western civilization discovered. The Renaissance - our most fundamental age of technological and artistic advance, was built upon a secret passed down to a banking family in Florence - the Medici. 500 years ago that secret was buried. Florence, Italy, present day. A trove of letters belonging to the Medici family is discovered underground. Archaeologist Kat Cullen comes across a map that leads her to the Swiss Alps where her partner is murdered and she is left for dead.

Few wars have been fought by each side with greater intensity of conviction in the rightness of its cause or with more abundant personal heroism than the War Between the States. The story begins with a great responsibility falling on Vincent Wingfield, the teenage son of a widowed Virginia plantation owner. Vincent must decide what course of action he should take when a problem arises on the plantation.

Three generations (grandmother, mother, son) of polar bears are famous as both circus performers and writers in East Germany. They are polar bears who move in human society, stars of the ring and of the literary world. In chapter one, the grandmother matriarch in the Soviet Union accidentally writes a best-selling autobiography.

A Montevideo, Leonid Sednev, âgé de 91 ans, décide avant de mourir de révéler le secret de sa vie. Embauché en 1912 comme ramoneur au palais impérial de Russie grâce à sa tante Nina, ancienne femme de chambre de la tsarine, le petit Leonid sera jusqu'en 1918 le "témoin invisible" de l'intimité des Romanov et le seul survivant de l'épouvantable massacre d'Ekaterinbourg. Rien n'échappe à son regard tantôt ironique et curieux, tantôt amoureux et tendre, et plus d'une fois épouvanté.

John Knox, the Thundering Scott, lives a life of adventure and danger in turbulent, corrupt 16th-century Scotland. Finding himself a wanted man, Knox is besieged in a castle by French soldiers, seized, and made a galley slave. Yet he is unflinching in his stand for the gospel, even in the face of assassins and death, and even when his fiery preaching makes him an enemy of Mary, Queen of Scots. Told from the perspective of a young student resolved to protect Knox at any cost, Douglas Bond's thrilling biographical novel provides a look at the harrowing life story of a giant of the faith.

It’s October 1931. When Winnie Ruth Judd arrives at the Los Angeles train station from Phoenix, her shipping trunks catch the attention of a suspicious porter. By the time they’re pried open, revealing the dismembered bodies of two women inside, Ruth has disappeared into the crowd. The search for, and eventual apprehension of, the Trunk Murderess quickly becomes a headline-making sensation. Even the Phoenix murder house is a sideshow attraction.

Chicago, 1920s: Movie starlet Silver Dollar Tabor's glittering life shatters after a brutal attack awakens a hidden self. Plunging into the city's dangerous underworld of burlesque speakeasies, she blurs the lines between ambition and destruction, testing her love for screenwriter Carl. This Jazz Age, Prohibition-era tale explores the dark side of fame and the fragility of identity.

“This novel about Sarah Bernhardt, the iconic French actress, is both a riveting portrait of the artist as a passionate young woman and a luscious historical novel full of period detail.”—Melanie Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of Mistress of the Ritz and The Aviator’s...

Mariam knew she would marry Yeshua and was aware of the work expected of them. They both needed education to be able to fulfill their mission. Through her initiations at the university surrounding the Library of Alexandria and at Ephesus, she becomes a powerful and dangerous priestess. What has been chosen to be revealed, and what has been masterfully hidden, has made the biblical figure of Mary Magdalene even more alluring. Veiled in mystery and obscurity, this fascination has been amplified as more historical facts have come to light.

"Jenni L. Walsh captures the thrill of being on the court in a vivid and detailed portrayal of Alice Marble's rise to sporting greatness, as well as her struggles to fulfill her dreams both on and off the court. Ace, Marvel, Spy is a smashing success!" --Billie Jean King, sports icon and...

Even with her privileged life, Lady Hester Stanhope knows that claiming the adventurous life she truly wants will not be easy, thanks to her eccentric father's stifling grip. With the help of her renowned statesman uncle William Pitt the Younger, she takes on the glittering, treacherous heights of London Society. Her formidable intelligence, outspoken opinions, and headstrong determination gain the favor of the beau monde's leading taste-maker Beau Brummell—and she quickly learns to bend the rules of the ton to her own advantage.

Nowhere in Africa is the extraordinary tale of a Jewish family who flees the Nazi regime in 1938 for a remote farm in Kenya. Abandoning their once-comfortable existence in Germany, Walter Redlich, his wife Jettel, and their five-year-old daughter, Regina, each deal with the harsh realities of their new life in different ways. Attorney Walter is resigned to working the farm as a caretaker; pampered Jettel resists adjustment at every turn; while the shy yet curious Regina immediately embraces the country - learning the local language and customs.

Right before talking pictures slug Tinsel Town in the jaw, a luminous silent screen star converts her private estate into the Garden of Allah Hotel. The lush grounds soon become a haven for Hollywood hopefuls to meet, drink, and revel through the night. George Cukor is in the pool, Tallulah Bankhead is at the bar, and Scott Fitzgerald is sneaking off to a bungalow with Sheilah Graham while Madame Alla Nazimova keeps watch behind her lace curtains.