Historical Fiction World History

Over the course of history, famous people made mistakes that were so monumental they could never escape them, no matter how brilliant their successes! Ferdinand Magellan is credited as the first man to sail around the world...but he only actually made it halfway. His terrible treatment of everyone he met cut his life journey short. Queen Isabella of Spain is remembered for financing Columbus' expeditions - and for creating the Spanish Inquisition.

ONE OF TIME'S 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2024 "An evocative, touching, and--in multiple senses--moving portrait of Zambian life and politics at a moment of great transformation. And in the tradition of Zambian storytelling, it shows us, it teaches us, how ordinary people like Grace, in extraordinary...

“The innocence of childhood collides with the stark aftermath of war in this wrenching and ultimately redemptive tale of family, seemingly impossible choices, and the winding paths to destiny, which sometimes take us to places far beyond our imaginings.” – Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times...

Kimiâ Sadr fled Iran at the age of 10 in the company of her mother and sisters to join her father in France. Now 25 and facing the future she has built for herself, as well as the prospect of a new generation, Kimiâ is inundated by her own memories and the stories of her ancestors, which come to her in unstoppable, uncontainable waves.

Germany, late summer 1945. The war is over, but the country is in ruins. Millions of refugees and holocaust survivors strive to rebuild their lives in displaced persons camps. Millions of German soldiers and SS men are held captive in primitive conditions in open-air detention centres. Everywhere, civilians are desperate for food and shelter. No one admits to having voted Nazi, yet many are unrepentant. Adolf Hitler is said to have killed himself in his Berlin bunker. But no body was found - and many people believe he is alive.

Le 13 juillet 1131, le destin de la monarchie capétienne et du royaume de France a pris un tour tragique. Alors qu'il chevauchait avec quelques compagnons dans un faubourg de Paris, le jeune prince Philippe, fils aîné du roi Louis VI le Gros et héritier du trône déjà sacré et couronné, fit une grave chute de cheval et mourut quelques heures plus tard. Le cheval n'est pas en cause dans cet accident. Un autre animal se trouve être responsable de la chute, un animal gyrovague, remplissant en ville un rôle d'éboueur : un vulgaire cochon domestique.

WINNER OF THE 2022 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE “A triumph of literature.”—Financial Times “Echoes of James Joyce, Jorge Luis Borges, Isabel Allende and Leo Tolstoy. . . . An enchanting ride.”—BookPage “A breath of fresh air.”—Guardian A playful, feminist, and utterly original...

In the first months of 1936, Adolf Hitler risked everything by ordering his untrained military to reoccupy the Rhineland. It was a bluff. The Germans would have been forced to retreat if the French or British had offered the slightest opposition. But the bluff succeeded. History changed decisively. Hitler quieted the opposition at home, and marched the world relentlessly on, to the edge of destruction and beyond.

A riveting new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winner that traverses the intimate landscape of one woman’s life, from the 1880s to World War II. Margaret Mayfield is nearly an old maid at twenty-seven in post–Civil War Missouri when she marries Captain Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early. He’s...

When Henry Forester is shot down during a bombing run over France, the World War II pilot finds himself trapped behind enemy lines. In constant danger of discovery by German soldiers, Henry begins a remarkable journey to freedom. Relying on the kindness of strangers, Henry moves from town to town-traveling by moonlight, never asking questions or even the names of the people who help him along the way. Each day brings him closer to home, yet every step in enemy territory invites new dangers.

“A riveting adventure for the soul . . . just the kind of evocative historical fiction I love.”—Sara Gruen, author of At the Water’s Edge and Water for Elephants An epic, inspiring novel about one woman’s survival in the hardscrabble Italian countryside and her determination to...

March 1942: Adolf Hitler is dead at the hands of the Royal Air Force. A vengeful Luftwaffe has exacted the Third Reich’s revenge on Great Britain, and London lies in flames. With the Royal Family fleeing to Canada and Great Britain’s Pacific colonies being ceded to Imperial Japan, the United States faces a stark, dangerous future alone. With a broad cast of characters underpinned by historical research, Acts of War examines the terrifying “What if…” of a German victory in Europe followed by upheaval in the Court of St. James.

Shortlisted for the Whitbread Award, award-winning author of the Elric series Michael Moorcock offers a captivating and immersive portrait of London from World War II through the 1980s through the eyes of three outpatients from a mental hospital. In this masterful exploration of the human...

Ochenta años después de la muerte de Alberto Yarini, ocurrida por motivos pasionales en 1910, en el barrio de San Isidro, un joven historiador visita la tumba del legendario chulo para cumplir la promesa contraída con un amigo.

Inspired by true events, a breathtaking WWII historical novel about the brave American women who trained the British Royal Air Force, by New York Times bestselling author Lorraine Heath. 1941. A talented flier, Jessie Lovelace yearns for a career in aviation. When the civilian flight school in...

The 10th installment in the Aubrey/Maturin series The War of 1812 continues, and Jack Aubrey sets course for Cape Horn on a mission after his own heart: intercepting a powerful American frigate outward bound to play havoc with the British whaling trade. Stephen Maturin has fish of his own to fry...

Marie Antoinette was a child of fourteen when her mother, the Empress of Austria, arranged for her to leave her family and her country to become the wife of the fifteen-year-old Dauphin, the future King of France. Coming of age in the most public of arenas, she warmly embraces her adopted nation...

NASA’s race with the Russians to land a man on the moon. The meteoric rise of the Beatles, considered by many to have revolutionized the music industry. In the postwar era, each stood as an unprecedented cultural watershed. Together they captured the heady zeitgeist of the 1960s, and ignited the imagination of - just about everyone on the planet.

A Best Book of the Year: Barack Obama · NPR · The Washington Post · The Philadelphia Inquirer · Esquire · Kirkus Reviews · Chicago Public Library · Electric Literature Malala Yousafzai’s Fearless Book Club Pick for Literati ""Dazzling...Riveting."" —New York Times Book Review...

Count Hamnet Thyssen is a minor noble of the drowsy old Raumsdalian Empire. Its capital city, Nidaros, began as a mammoth hunters camp at the edge of the great Glacier. But that was centuries ago, and as everyone knows, its the nature of the great Glacier to withdraw a few feet every year. Trasamund, a clan chief of the mammoth-herding Bizogots, the next tribe north, has come to town with strange news. A narrow gap has opened in what they'd always thought was an endless and impregnable wall of ice.