Historical Fiction World Literature

A classic medieval-gothic love story complete with ghostly wanderings, a spooky castle, and a damsel in distress.... In the Dark Ages on a remote coast of Cornwall, there was a legend of a wicked lord who was burned to death for his deeds. Everyone in Cornwall knows to avoid Baiadepaura Castle because of the ghostly happenings, said to be the spirit of Lord de Paura, who has returned to seek revenge for his grisly death.

In 1932 Berlin, Bertie, a trans man, and his friends spend carefree nights at the Eldorado Club, the epicenter of Berlin’s thriving queer community. An employee of the renowned Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld at the Institute of Sexual Science, Bertie works to improve queer rights in Germany and beyond, but everything changes when Hitler rises to power. The institute is raided, the Eldorado is shuttered, and queer people are rounded up. Bertie barely escapes with his girlfriend, Sofie, to a nearby farm. There they take on the identities of an elderly couple and live for more than a decade in isolation.

The Overland Trail, 1853: Naomi May never expected to be widowed at 20. Eager to leave her grief behind, she sets off with her family for a life out West. On the trail, she forms an instant connection with John Lowry, a half-Pawnee man straddling two worlds and a stranger in both. But life in a wagon train is fraught with hardship, fear, and death. Even as John and Naomi are drawn to each other, the trials of the journey and their disparate pasts work to keep them apart.

1444 A.D.: She's a mercenary, a tough lady warrior known as the Lady of the Moon. Samarra le Brecque is hired by the father of a reluctant groom to take his son to the Caves of St. Agnes in Cornwall, where the groom's intended will be waiting. According to local legend, if a man and a woman touch the red stains upon the walls of the cave, said to be left by doomed lovers, then the man and woman shall fall in love forever. But the situation doesn't go as planned.

Sam Carlson is a projectionist in small-town Minnesota, where fantasies unspool in glorious black and white—for him and for his sweetheart, college-bound math whiz Sarah Haber. When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Sam is sent to the Philippines and captured as a POW. Brutalized but unbroken by the Bataan Death March and POW camps, Sam is one of eighteen hundred starved and weakened prisoners herded into the cargo hold of a barbaric hell ship called the Arisan Maru, his survival doubtful.

They call him the Great Defender. As Richard the Lionheart's most powerful general, Sir Juston de Royans is as moody as he is skilled. Reminiscent of the ancient warrior Achilles, Juston fights when it is necessary, instead choosing to command the powerful men beneath him. Never wrong in action or command, he has never lost a battle, and when he finds himself in the midst of a terrible siege at Bowes Castle, he predictably emerges the victor, with the lady of the keep as his prize.

En 1945, la guerre est terminée et Auschwitz est enfin libéré. À 16 ans, Tasha franchit les grilles du camp en route vers la liberté. Elle se retourne pour regarder une dernière fois ce lieu qui lui a volé son enfance en se demandant comment elle a pu survivre à cet enfer alors que tant d'autres n'y sont pas parvenus. Mais la joie d'être enfin libre est ternie par l'absence de sa mère. Quelques semaines plus tôt, elle lui a été arrachée des bras par un officier nazi... Où a-t-il emmené sa mère ? Est-elle encore en vie ?

Yorkshire, 1943. Lily Baines, a bright young debutante increasingly ground down by an endless war, has traded in her white gloves for a set of headphones. It’s her job to intercept enemy naval communications and send them to Bletchley Park for decryption. One night, she picks up a transmission that isn’t code at all—it’s a cry for help.

1939. Seventeen-year-old Nora Jennings has spent her life secure in the certainty of a bright, happy future - until one night of passion has more catastrophic consequences than she ever could have anticipated. Labelled a moral defective and sectioned under the Mental Deficiency Act, she is forced to endure years of unspeakable cruelty at the hands of those who are supposed to care for her.

France, 1939. Dans le village de Carriveau dans la Loire, Vianne Mauriac fait ses adieux à son mari qui part au front et se retrouve seule avec sa fille. Elle ne peut imaginer que les nazis vont envahir le pays. Pourtant, lorsqu'un capitaine allemand réquisitionne sa maison, elle est forcée d'accueillir un officier sous son toit. Et fait le choix de protéger sa fille avant la liberté de son pays.

Margaret of Anjou, queen of England, cannot give up on her husband - even when he slips into insanity. And as mother to the House of Lancaster's last hope, she cannot give up on her son - even when England turns against them. This gripping tale of a queen forced to stand strong in the face of overwhelming odds is, at its heart, a tender tale of love. Award-winning author Susan Higginbotham will once again ask listeners to question everything they know about right and wrong, compassion and hope, duty to one's country, and the desire of one's own heart.

Summer 1940: In German-occupied Paris, Inspector Henri Lefort has been given just five days to solve the murder of a German major that took place in the Louvre Museum. Blocked from the crime scene but given a list of suspects, Henri encounters a group of artists, including Pablo Picasso, who know more than they're willing to share. With the clock ticking, Henri must uncover a web of lies while overcoming impossible odds to save his own life and prove his loyalty to his country.

Sophia Alexander, the beautiful daughter of a famous surgeon in Berlin, has had to grow up faster than most young women. When her mother falls ill, Sophia must take charge of her younger sister Theresa, look after her father and the household, while also volunteering at his hospital after school. Meanwhile, Hitler's rise to power and the violence in her very own town have Sophia concerned, but only her mother is willing to share her fears openly. After tragedy strikes and her mother dies, Sophia becomes increasingly involved in the resistance.

An epic story of loss, love and redemption. The Lady Peyton de Fluornoy is as resistant to marriage as Alec is, but she gradually begins to warm to the man who has given up on life. Alec comes to know a lady of spirit, beauty and intelligence. Before their marriage can happen, however, Alec's father is blackmailed by a neighbor who wants Peyton for his own son. Now deeply in love, Alec elopes with Peyton and an entirely new world of danger and passion opens up for them both.

Paris, 1943. The scent of fresh baguettes hangs in the air as Coralie unbolts the door to her bakery with trembling fingers. She must get out of the city. Hiding her precious leather recipe book inside her coat, she promises never to let the secret locations of the people she worked tirelessly to save fall into German hands… Present day. Raven is unhappy about being shipped off to the other side of the country for the summer to stay with the mysterious French grandmother she barely knows.

Elianna is a young girl crushed by guilt. After her only brother is killed while in her care, Elianna tries to earn forgiveness by working for her father's textile trade and caring for her family. When another tragedy places Elianna in sole charge of the business, her talent for design brings enormous success but never the absolution she longs for. As her world unravels, she breaks off her betrothal to the only man she will ever love. Then illness strikes, isolating Elianna from everyone, stripping everything she has left.

It’s the 1960s in North Carolina, and Lorraine Delford has it all—an upstanding family, a perfect boyfriend, and an idyllic home complete with a white picket fence. Yet every time she looks through her father’s telescope, she dreams of leaving it all behind to go to space. It’s ambitious, but Lorraine has always been exceptional.

De l'édification du mur de Berlin à l'effondrement de l'Union soviétique, la grande aventure du XXe siècle telle que personne ne l'a jamais racontée. 1961. Les Allemands de l'Est ferment l'accès à Berlin-Ouest. La tension entre les États-Unis et l'Union soviétique s'exacerbe pour atteindre un point culminant l'année suivante avec la crise des missiles de Cuba. Le monde scindé en deux blocs se livre une guerre froide qui risque de devenir une guerre nucléaire.

A daring mission in the depths of the Norwegian forest awaits Commander Tony Romella in the fall of 1942. Tasked by the British Special Operations Executive to gather intelligence relative to Hitler's race for a secret weapon, Tony leads a team of radio intelligence operators on a harrowing Top Secret mission. But the return trip to London proves just as dangerous as the mission itself. Tony quickly finds that being back in London does not guarantee safety, and soon he is entangled in the search for dangerous spies operating in the heart of the Allies' intelligence community.

The story is set in the Ptolemaic era of ancient Egyptian history and revolves around the survival of a dynasty bloodline protected by the priesthood of Isis. The main character, Harmachis (the living descendant of this bloodline), is charged by the priesthood with overthrowing the supposed impostor - Cleopatra - driving out the Romans, and restoring Egypt to its golden era.