Historical Fiction Library

This is the first complete English-language translation of a classic of Yiddish literature, one of the great comic novels of the 20th century. The Zelmenyaners describes the travails of a Jewish family in Minsk that is torn asunder by the new Soviet reality. Four generations are depicted in riveting and often uproarious detail as they face the profound changes brought on by the demands of the Soviet regime and its collectivist, radical secularism.

Certain the "smart" Steffington twin is the person who can help her recover her late husband's nearly priceless stolen Chaucer manuscript, Catherine Bexley tearfully persuades the scholar to assist her. A deal is struck. She's particularly pleased that the doctor of letters is not interested in seducing her because she's finished with men (owing to her late husband's multitude of unfortunate alliances with...doxies).

El Skippito is back! His doggy pals want to visit the Under Mundo - the underworld - where mummitos rest in peas. But they need El Skippito's brains and courage to answer the riddle of the Finx and enter the mummy's tomb. Our hero is up to the task, and he's in for another whirlwind adventure.

Her story begins...in Paris. The only daughter of the king's crown jeweler, Juliette marvels at the large, deep blue diamond Louis XIV has commanded her father to make shine like the sun. But Jean Pitau has never cut a diamond quite like this, and shaping it is a risky endeavor. As Jean spirals into depression, Juliette takes it upon herself to cut the stone and with every misstep brings her family closer to ruin.

Japan 1945. Taro is a talented violinist and a kamikaze pilot in the days before his first and only mission. He believes he is ready to die for his country, until he meets Hana. Hana hasn't been the same since the day she was buried alive in a collapsed trench during a bomb raid. She wonders if it would have been better to have died that day, until she meets Taro. A song will bring them together. The war will tear them apart. Is it possible to live an entire lifetime in eight short days?

When a 12-century Sicilian cat burglar snatches a sack of artifacts from the king's geographer's library, the tools and talismans of transmutation, and eternal life, are soon scattered all over the world. Nine hundred years later, a young Connecticut reporter finds evidence that someone is collecting them again.

Magician Leopold Kazsmer, the great enchanter, and his cadre of unusual friends, make the deadly journey to the Library of the Damned, a structure fluctuating between the worlds, filled with the archives of the centuries, to find a way to rescue Leopold’s father who is trapped in the darkest depths of Gehenna and to break the covenant Leo has made with the dread Unholy Hosts. They have suddenly called upon him to fulfill their agreement, and because he is bound to them, he has no hope but to obey. It seems that what they most desire is to destroy Leopold’s world.

Shut the hatches. It's time to roll out. You'll find yourself behind enemy lines with Clarence Smoyer and the 3rd Armored Division, the workhorse unit know as "Spearhead", the best in the tank armor ranks. You'll feel as if you are right beside Clarence and his fellow crew members - all formerly strangers from across America who have now become family to each other. You will be jarred by enemy fire, and then explore the other side, stepping into the boots of German tanker soldier, Gustav Schaefer, and his crew.

Mitra and her little brother, Babak, are beggars in the city of Rhagae, scratching out a living as best as they can with what they can beg for, or steal. But Mitra burns with hope and ambition, for she and Babak are not what they seem. They are of royal blood, but their father's ill-fated plot against the evil tyrant, King Phraates, has resulted in their father's death and their exile.

In a walled city of a mile-high iron guild towers, many things are common knowledge: No book in any of the city's libraries reveals its place on a calendar or a map. No living beasts can be found within the city's walls. And no good comes to the guilder or foundling who trespasses too far from their labors. Even on the tower rooftops, where Errol Thebes and the rest of the city's teenagers pass a few short years under an open sky, no one truly believes anything uncommon is possible within the city walls.

For as long as she can remember, Carmela Tofana has desperately wanted one thing: to be a part of La Tofana’s, her mother’s apothecary in Campo Marzio, Rome. When she finally turns sixteen, she’s allowed into the inner sanctum: the workroom where her mother and two assistants craft renowned remedies for their customers. But for every sweet-smelling flower extract in the workroom, there’s another potion requiring darker ingredients.

Inspired by the author's family history, Library for the War-Wounded transports listeners to the aftermath of World War II, uncovering the life of Helfer's father, Josef. Born with the stigma of illegitimacy, he found solace in books, and his education was eventually funded by the Catholic Church. Drafted into the Wehrmacht, he witnessed the horrors of the Eastern Front and returned from the war an amputee. He married his nurse and brought his family to the high, idyllic slopes of the Austrian Alps, where he took a position as manager of a convalescent home for war-wounded.

After months of travel, former maid Lottie Sprigg returns to Fortescue Manor in the rolling hills of Shropshire. Her arrival coincides with a celebratory dinner to mend a family feud. But the flow of champagne dwindles to a trickle when a body is found in the library. Who committed the atrocity? Suspicion falls on several characters: some above stairs and some below....

John Henry "Doc" Holiday and his team of a few good men are in the hunt of their lives. This time, the call of duty takes them from Savannah, Georgia, to the Bering Strait, to end the reign of terror of a dark army of Guardians, who cruelly engineer murders to look like suicides and procure trophies for the Forbidden Library of a diabolical mastermind known as the Keeper.

Best friends Mary Lennox, Sara Crewe, and Cedric Erroll are best friends. And thank goodness, since their boarding school is basically insufferable. When one of the friends suffers a personal tragedy, a plan—and a secret—change everything for the trio...for good.

Sixteen-year-old Bridey Corkill longs to leave her small island and see the world; the farther from the sea, the better. When Bridey was young, she witnessed something lure her granddad off a cliff and into a watery grave with a smile on his face. Now, in 1913, those haunting memories are dredged to the surface when a young woman is found drowned on the beach. Bridey suspects that whatever compelled her Granddad to leap has made its return to the Isle of Man. Soon, people in Bridey’s idyllic village begin vanishing, and she finds an injured boy on the shore.

París, 1939. La joven Odile Souchet lo tiene todo: un atractivo novio oficial de policía y un trabajo de ensueño en la Biblioteca Americana de París. Pero cuando estalla la guerra y los nazis marchan sobre París, Odile se expone a perder todo lo que le importa, incluida su querida biblioteca.

With the Confederate Army firing on Fort Sumter, the Civil War has begun - and an invasion of Washington, DC, from Secessionist Virginia seems imminent. As the population evacuates, the president is in desperate need of men to defend the capital. Lincoln's trusted aide, Adam Speed Quinn, and Senator Jim Lane hastily assemble a motley crew and garrison them in the East Room at the White House. As dawn breaks with no Rebel strike, a single act of violence intrudes within the White House. One of the Frontier Guard lies dead in the oval library, throat slit ear to ear. There is a murderer among them.

In 1465 a simple pocketful of herbs could get you burned at the stake, but Luccia Alimenti, daughter of one of the legendary women doctors called Salernistas, travels Europe secretly distributing medical texts to midwives and herbalists. Despite dodging the Inquisition and battling the Plague with her beloved Irish godmother, Luccia finds love as well as heartbreak. Pushed to the edge, however, she must use her skill as an archer to rescue women being taken to the pyre.

King Richard is dead, and John is king, a ruler ever-ready for more money in his treasury whether it comes there honestly or not. When the Baron Eric mysteriously disappears, the moody Sir Basil, distant relative and heir, has taken over the castle - and would not be pleased if Eric should ever return. In an unguarded moment of genuine gratitude, Sir Basil invites young Martin to come to the castle as a page and squire. Martin is swiftly drawn into Rosamund's troubles and into a few of his own before the tale reaches its dramatic climax.