Historical Fiction Classics

With one army defeated in a victory that will be remembered through the ages, now the Red Knight must fight again. For every one of his allies, there is a corresponding enemy. Spread across different lands and on sea, it will all come down to one last gamble. And to whether or not the Red Knight has guessed the foe's true intentions. With each throw of the dice, everything could be lost.

The Greatcoats have found the heir to the throne...but now they must keep her alive, against all the odds. Falcio Val Mond has completed the final task given to him by the late King Paelis: he has found the King's Charoites (well, one at least). But his task isn't over, and now he, Kest and Brasti must protect the girl from those who want her dead.

In this satirical faux autobiography, Moll Flanders, abandoned at birth, sets her rebellious heart on a life of independence in late 17th-century England. A strong-willed woman, she is determined to make a better life for herself, no matter what it takes: thievery, prostitution, seductions, marriages, or illicit liaisons. Born to a convicted felon in Newgate prison Moll learns to live off her wits, refusing to be a helpless victim and defying most traditional depictions of women of the era.

Completed six years after Dostoyevsky's own term as a convict, The House of the Dead is a semi-autobiographical account of life in a Siberian prison camp, and the physical and mental effects it has on those who are sentenced to inhabit it. Alexandr Petrovitch Goryanchikov, a gentleman of the noble class, has been condemned to 10 years of hard labor for murdering his wife.

Fitzwilliam Darcy is a powerful magician who controls fire, water, and wind. What he cannot control is his growing feelings for Miss Elizabeth Bennet. Elizabeth's sentiments towards Darcy are quite different. She detests his arrogance, and she fears he will expose her use of forbidden magic - forbidden to women, that is. He is the last man in the world she would choose to help her on a difficult and dangerous task. But when a magical war looms between the land of Faerie and their world, a Lord of Faerie demands that Darcy and Elizabeth serve together as his emissaries to make peace.

George MacDonald Fraser, author of the Flashman novels, praises this hearty saga as "one of the great unrecognized novels of the 20th century." Doctor Peter Blood's quiet life is shattered when he is convicted of treason for helping a wounded nobleman in the 1685 rebellion against King James II.

The Scarlet Letter is one of the great classics of American literature. Set in the harsh Puritan environment of 17th-century Boston, it describes the plight of Hester Prynne, an independent-minded woman who stands alone against society. Having given birth to a child after an illicit affair, she refuses to name the father and is forced to wear the letter "A", for Adulteress, embroidered on her dress.

They rode into town like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Four armed outlaws bringing their own brand of hell to Paris, Texas. First they rob the First National Bank. Then they take a woman hostage as insurance. When Perley Gates learns that local waitress Becky Morris is in the hands of these tough customers, he joins a posse with the Triple-G ranch hands to get her back. Problem is, the outlaws are heading toward Red River - straight into Indian Territory. That's where the ranch hands draw the line. But Perley won't give up.

Immerse yourself in the young adult historical fiction of "Emily Climbs" by L.M. Montgomery. Escaping the confines of her Aunt Ruth's control, Emily embarks on a journey of self-discovery as she finds solace in the art of storytelling. Set against the backdrop of envy and competition among her peers, Emily's striving for authenticity leads her to unexpected acclaim.

Year One-Knife, Tenochtitlan – the capital of the Aztecs. The end of the world is kept at bay only by the magic of human sacrifice. A priestess disappears from an empty room drenched in blood. Acatl, high priest, must find her, or break the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead. But how do you find someone, living or dead, in a world where blood sacrifices are an everyday occurrence and the very gods stalk the streets?

Set in the Dorset landscape familiar to Hardy novels, The Woodlanders concerns the fortunes of Giles Winterborne, whose love for the well-do-do Grace Melbury is challenged by the arrival of a dashing and dissolute doctor, Edred Fitzpiers. When the mysterious Mrs Charmond further complicates the romantic entanglements, marital choice and class mobility become inextricably linked.

In 1789 HMS Bounty under the command of Lieutenant William Bligh sailed off on a voyage to Tahiti in the South Pacific to obtain breadfruit trees for transplanting in the Caribbean. After a long, difficult voyage, in which a passage of Cape Horn had to be abandoned, the ship finally reached its destination. Within a few months, the Bounty was loaded with breadfruit plants and fresh provisions. But the return voyage never materialized.

Le Guépard est avant tout l'histoire d'un homme, Don Fabrizio, l'imposant prince de Salina, qui trouve refuge dans son observatoire pour s'élever au-dessus des querelles et converser avec les étoiles. Nous sommes en 1860, Garibaldi vient de débarquer à Palerme, le vent révolutionnaire du Risorgimento agite la Sicile. Don Fabrizio voit se défaire la rigueur de l'ordre ancien et assiste impassible à la ruine de sa classe.

In 1815, beneath the aegis of the Army of Occupation, Brussels is the gayest town in Europe. And the widow Lady Barbara Childe, renowned for being as outrageous as she is beautiful, is at the centre of all that is fashionable and light-hearted. When she meets Charles Audley, dashing aide-de-camp to the great Duke of Wellington himself, her joie de vivre knows no bounds - until the eve of the fateful Battle of Waterloo....

Mary Challoner must protect her sister at all costs. When she discovers that the notorious Marquis of Vidal is planning to run away with her little sister, Mary will not stand idly by. To save Sophia's reputation without destroying her own, Mary will take her sister's place - and once the Marquis sees through her disguise, he will be humiliated and forced to return her home. But the irresistible Marquis is a wilder rake than even Mary anticipated, and her growing feelings for him are proving an unexpected complication....

The year is 1928. On the outskirts of a large German city, three young men are earning a thin and precarious living. Fully armed young storm troopers swagger in the streets. Restlessness, poverty, and violence are everywhere. For these three, friendship is the only refuge from the chaos around them. Then the youngest of them falls in love and brings into the group a young woman who will become a comrade as well, as they are all tested in ways they can have never imagined.

The Brothers Karamazov is the final novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky and is generally considered the culmination of his life's work. Published in November 1880, Dostoevsky spent nearly two years writing the novel set in 19th-century Russia. Fydor Karamazov, a mean and disreputable landowner, has three sons, Dmitry, a profligate army officer; Ivan, a writer with revolutionary ideas; and Alexey, a religious novice.

In the vein of Wicked, The Woodcutter, and Boy, Snow, Bird, a luminous re-imagining of a classic tale, told from the perspective of Agnes, Cinderella’s "evil" stepmother. We all know the story of Cinderella. Or do we? As rumors about the cruel upbringing of beautiful newlywed Princess Cinderella roil the kingdom, her stepmother, Agnes, who knows all too well about hardship, privately records the true story...

A tempestuous acquaintance and disastrous marriage proposal makes it unlikely Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet will ever reconcile. Despairing of their own reunion, they attend with great energy to salvaging that of Darcy’s friend Mr. Bingley and Elizabeth’s sister Jane. People are rarely so easily maneuvered in and out of love, however, they follow a series of misunderstandings, both willful and unwitting, that complicates all four star-crossed lovers’ alliances more than ever before.

In the fourth audiobook in Anthony Trollope's series known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, the values of a Victorian gentleman, the young clergyman Mark Robarts, are put to the test. Though he lives a comfortable life, has a doting wife, children and a patroness in Lady Lufton, his ambitions stretch beyond the little village of Framley. Through a combination of naivety and social climbing, Robarts is compromised and brought to the brink of financial and social ruin by the disreputable politician, Sowerby.