Historical Biographical Fiction

The Provincial Lady finds herself in London, looking for voluntary work to support the war effort, which proves an unexpectedly difficult thing to achieve. Her interactions with a varied host of companions, also caught up in a strange frenzy, reflect so clearly the mood and tension of the time, yet the account is witty, apposite - and so very English, with the stiff upper lip underpinning it all.

In 1918, a fearless 22-year-old arrives in bohemian San Francisco from the Northeast, determined to make her own way. Renaming herself Dorothea Lange, she is soon the celebrated owner of the city’s most prestigious and stylish portrait studio. By the early 1930s, determined to expose the horrific conditions of the nation’s poor, she takes to the road with her camera, creating images that inspire, reform, and define the era. And when the US enters World War II, Dorothea chooses to confront another injustice - the incarceration of thousands of innocent Japanese Americans.

Two decades after the Civil War, Josephine Marcus, the teenage daughter of Jewish immigrants, is lured west with the promise of marriage to Johnny Behan, one of Arizona's famous lawmen. She leaves her San Francisco home to join Behan in Tombstone, Arizona, a magnet for miners (and outlaws) attracted by the silver boom. Though united by the glint of metal, Tombstone is plagued by divided loyalties: between Confederates and Unionists, Lincoln Republicans and Democrats.

When AP political reporter Lorena Hickok - Hick - is assigned to cover Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1932 campaign, the two women become deeply involved. Their relationship begins with mutual romantic passion, matures through stormy periods of enforced separation and competing interests, and warms into an enduring, encompassing friendship documented by 3,300 letters.

In 1937 F. Scott Fitzgerald was a troubled, uncertain man whose literary success was long over. In poor health, with his wife consigned to a mental asylum and his finances in ruins, he struggled to make a new start as a screenwriter in Hollywood. By December of 1940, he would be dead of a heart attack. Those last three years of Fitzgerald's life, often obscured by the legend of his earlier Jazz Age glamour, are the focus of Stewart O'Nan's gorgeously and gracefully written novel.

The Little House books, which chronicled the pioneer adventures of Laura Ingalls Wilder, are among the most beloved books in the American literary canon. Lesser known is the secret, concealed for decades, of how they came to be. Now, best-selling author Susan Wittig Albert reimagines the fascinating story of Laura's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, an intrepid world traveler and writer who returned to her parents' Ozark farm, Rocky Ridge, in 1928.

Taking his inspiration from biographical facts, novelist Colum McCann tells the erotically charged story of the Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev through the cast of those who knew him. Spanning four decades and many worlds, from the horrors of the Second World War to the wild abandon of New York in the '80s, Dancer is peopled by a large cast of characters, obscure and famous: doormen and shoemakers, nurses and translators, Margot Fonteyn, Eric Bruhn, and John Lennon.

Andrew Haswell Green is dead, shot at the venerable age of eighty-three, when he thought life could hold no more surprises. The killing - on Park Avenue in broad daylight, on Friday the 13th - shook the city. Born to a struggling farmer, Green was a self-made man without whom there would be no Central Park, no Metropolitan Museum of Art, no Museum of Natural History, no New York Public Library. But Green had a secret, a life locked within him that now, in the hour of his death, may finally break free.

Oriana Fallaci was born a rebel. She fought beside her father at age fourteen in Italy's Resistance against the Nazis and overcame poverty, the lack of a university education, and relentless sexism in the newsroom. By 1973 when she moved to New York, Oriana Fallaci was hailed by Newsweek as the greatest interviewer of her day. She became famous for her courageous and hard-hitting interviews with Kissinger, Arafat, Meir, Khomeini, and other world leaders—not to mention the most prominent celebrities and artists of her day.

With the age of voyages of discovery in the 15th century, the curtain of history slowly came down on the late Middle Ages. Portuguese and Spanish seafarers set out to remeasure the dimensions of the earth. Numerous spices and fruits, which we would hardly be able to do without today, found their way to Europe for the first time. Columbus discovered America in 1492 on his quest for India. Six years later, it was left to Vasco da Gama to travel through the sea route to India sought by Columbus on the eastern route around Africa.

L.A. Woman is quintessential Babitz, the story of Sophie, a 20-something blonde Jim Morrison groupie gliding through a golden existence in L.A.; and Lola, a German immigrant who settles in Hollywood in the '20s to drive Pierce Arrows recklessly down Sunset Boulevard and who knows that Maybelline mascara cakes and that Rudolph Valentino is the essence of life. Sophie and Lola, like the many other women who move in and out of this electric saga, know that while L.A. is constantly changing, it is essentially eternal.

Elizabeth's parents warned her that Alexander Blackwell would not make a dependable husband, and only after eloping with him did she learn they may have been right... After their marriage, the couple finds lodgings in London. Alexander looks for work while Elizabeth learns engraving. Before long, though, Alexander is in the Marshalsea, the notorious debtors' prison, and she is left to fend for herself. Alone and penniless, she has a few things going for her: a skill, an idea, and an acquaintance.

Anya Seton's best-selling first novel, originally published in 1941, captures all the drama of the short life of Theodosia Burr (1783-1813). Her father, Aaron - Thomas Jefferson's vice president, most famous for his great duel with Alexander Hamilton - holds sway over young Theodosia's heart. But his arrogance forces her to choose between the man he insists she marry and her love for a young soldier, who will turn out to play a decisive role in her father's fate.

Inspired by the extraordinary true stories of World War II’s American Army nurses famously known as the Angels of Bataan and the unsung contributions of Filipinas of the resistance, this novel transports us to a remarkable era of hope, bravery, perseverance, and ultimately—victory.

The Willow Wren is based on the true story of a neurodivergent boy growing up in Nazi Germany, surviving bombing, the Hitler Youth, and Russian occupation before escaping to the west.

Margaret Douglas, daughter of a queen, niece of King Henry VIII, never did anything by half measures. When she was a young woman, she dared to love, knowing it could only end in heartbreak. Love was never meant for those so close to the throne. Still she went on believing that one day she would have it all.

"Sa robe caresse le sol. À cet instant, nous sommes comme les pierres des voûtes, immobiles et sans souffle. Mais ce qui raidit mes frères, ce n'est pas l'indifférence, car ils sont habitués à ne pas être regardés ; ni non plus la solennité de l'entretien - tout ce qui touche à Aliénor est solennel. Non, ce qui nous fige, à cet instant-là, c'est sa voix. Car c'est d'une voix douce, pleine de menaces, que ma mère ordonne d'aller renverser notre père." Aliénor d'Aquitaine racontée par son fils Richard Cœur de Lion.

No one could have been more surprised than our Provincial Lady to receive an invitation from her American agent to travel transatlantic and embark upon a programme of lectures and signings. She was particularly amazed because, having received an overture sometime before and feeling that she would rather stay in the English countryside, she requested that they meet quite a few ‘requirements’ before she would agree to go. They met every stipulation. ‘

The story opens on the day that the Western Roman Empire collapses finally in 470 AD, as the last emperor of Rome is encamped protected by the Nova Invicta Legion. All is lost in the space of a few minutes as a horde of Barbarians sweep through the camp in the fog, kill the Imperial family, and take the young emperor captive. The Roman Empire is in ruins. But all is not lost. From the dust of battlefields emerges a small team of invincible warriors: The Last Legion.

When Tiro, the confidential secretary of a Roman senator, opens the door to a terrified stranger on a cold November morning, he sets in motion a chain of events which will eventually propel his master into one of the most famous courtroom dramas in history.