Historical Literary Fiction Saga

As the world slips into the throes of war in 1939, nine-year-old Maciek's once closeted existence outside Warsaw is no more. When Warsaw falls, the orphaned Maciek escapes with his sharp-tongued aunt Tania. Posing as Catholic Poles to hide their Jewish identity, they endure the war together - running, hiding, changing their names, forging documents to secure their temporary lives - as the insistent drum of the Nazi march moves ever closer to them and to their secret wartime lies.

Billy Phelan, small-time bookie, pool hustler, and poker player, becomes an unlikely go-between in the 1938 kidnapping of an Albany, New York, political boss' son.

In the late 19th century, Newport, Rhode Island, was a cauldron of money, excess, and unapologetic greed, where reputations were made and lost in a whirlwind of parties and fancied slights. But amid the glamour of yacht races, tennis matches, and costume balls raged undeclared class warfare, scandalous doings, even madness. In 1893, railroad mogul Sam Driver, one of the few surviving robber barons of the lawless years after the Civil War, knocks on the door of fabled Newport with his daughter, Jenny.

On their farm in Denby, Iowa, Rosanna and Walter Langdon abide by time-honored values that they pass on to their five wildly different children: from Frank, the handsome, willful first born, and Joe, whose love of animals and the land sustains him, to Claire, who earns a special place in her father’s heart.

Paris, 1921. Lorsque Valentine se marie avec l'héritier de la prestigieuse maison de fourreurs, la Maison Fontenoy, elle est loin de se douter de la vie qui l'attend. Malgré l’amour que lui porte son mari André et la naissance de ses deux enfants - Camille et Maxence -, Valentine s'enfonce dans un profond ennui et la frustration la gagne peu à peu. Lassée par ce quotidien et ce rôle d'épouse et de mère qui ne la comble pas, elle décide de partir pour assouvir ses aspirations.

Rhoda Middleton suspects her husband Peter is having an affair. But when Rhoda tracks the mysterious woman down, she finds she is not his lover after all, but the wife of his wartime best friend, Archie Foster. There is only one problem - Rhoda has never even heard of Archie Foster.

Hofmiller, un oficial de la caballería austrohúngara, es invitado a una fiesta en la casa de un rico terrateniente Kekesfalva, lo que le lleva a un mundo completamente distinto del de su rutina cuartelaria habitual: se encuentra en un entorno glamuroso, donde el vino fluye libremente y acaba estimulándole, a pedir a la bella hija de su anfitrión que baile con el. Sin embargo para su horror descubre que la joven es inválida. Esta torpeza inconsciente va a ser el comienzo de la pérdida del respeto hacia sí mismo.

"A Tale of Two Cities" is set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 million copies sold, it ranks among the most famous works in the history of fictional literature. The novel depicts the plight of the French peasantry demoralized by the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, the corresponding brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats in the early years of the revolution.

When a chance for freedom arrives will she dare to take it? Odilie Rutherford is known in the small Scottish town of Lauriston for two things - her beauty, and her father, Canny. As a self-made man, Canny has the wealth he dreamed of but not the status and hatches a plan to marry his daughter to local bachelor of note, the Duke of Maudesley. Yet Odilie cannot bear the thought of a life with the ill-mannered Duke, and when the annual summer fair arrives in town for three days she seizes a chance to enjoy the freedom she craves.

Ostpreußen 1920: Frederike verbringt eine glückliche und unbeschwerte Kindheit auf dem Gut ihres Stiefvaters in der Nähe von Graudenz. Bis sie eines Tages erfährt, dass ihre Zukunft mehr als ungewiss ist: Ihr Erbe ist nach dem großen Krieg verloren gegangen, sie hat weder Auskommen noch Mitgift. Während ihre Freundinnen sich in Berlin vergnügen und ihre Jugend genießen, fühlt sich Frederike ausgeschlossen.

1920. La vie de la jeune Xénia Ossoline bascule : contrainte de partir de Saint-Pétersbourg par la révolution bolchevique, elle abandonne sa vie de riche aristocrate et fuit vers Paris pour protéger sa famille. Véritable pilier pour ses proches survivants, Xenia se démène pour sortir sa famille de la misère et tente de reconstruire sa vie face à l'adversité. Repérée par un grand créateur, elle découvre le monde de la haute couture et son milieu effervescent.

Augsburg, 1913. Die junge Marie tritt eine Anstellung als Küchenmagd in der imposanten Tuchvilla an, dem Wohnsitz der Industriellenfamilie Melzer. Während das Mädchen aus dem Waisenhaus seinen Platz unter den Dienstboten sucht, sehnt die Herrschaft die winterliche Ballsaison herbei, in der Katharina, die hübsche, jüngste Tochter der Melzers, in die Gesellschaft eingeführt wird. Nur Paul, der Erbe der Familie, hält sich dem Trubel fern und zieht sein Münchner Studentenleben vor - bis er Marie begegnet...

Esteban Trueba, ein Mann aus einfachsten Verhältnissen, kommt zu Vermögen und Macht. Seine Verlobte Rosa del Valle verstirbt in jungen Jahren. Ihre übersinnlich begabte Schwester Clara besitzt die Fähigkeit, Katastrophen vorherzusehen. Estebans Tochter Blanca verliebt sich hoffnungslos in Pedro, den Sohn des Vorarbeiters. Durch ihre Augen sehen wir, wie Chile sich von den 1920er Jahren bis zur Militärdiktatur um 1970 entwickelt: Persönliche Dramen und politische Umbrüche prägen das Bild einer Familie und eines Landes über vier Generationen hinweg.

Drawn from the author’s own family history, this powerful, moving multigenerational saga from National Book Award finalist Martha McPhee masterfully explores the stories we tell ourselves, and what we leave out. As Isadora, a novelist, and two of her sisters sift through the artifacts of their forebears’ lives, trying to decide what to salvage and what to toss, the story shifts to a winter day in 1910 at a train station in Ohio.

Verona, 2001. Anna, ventinove anni, è una ragazza ingenua, ricca e viziata dall’adorato padre, un facoltoso imprenditore. Dopo la laurea in medicina Anna vuole specializzarsi in chirurgia plastica per aprire uno studio estetico, sposarsi e avere una famiglia. Quando però un ictus colpisce il padre e un misterioso amico gli fa visita, Anna inizia un’indagine sul passato in guerra del padre. Le tracce la conducono nell’Italia del 1944, nel pieno della furia omicida delle SS in fuga, quando le truppe scelte di Hitler trucidarono per vendetta almeno quindicimila civili.

Dans une Europe meurtrie par la Seconde guerre, deux femmes, Livia Grandi, une Vénitienne et Hanna Wolf, une Allemande doivent à tout prix survivre dans un monde en ruines dominé par les hommes. À Murano, Livia est l’héritière des célèbres Verreries Grandi. Elle possède le carnet rouge qui fait d’elle la seule détentrice du secret du verre chiaroscuro.

Conciliando sapientemente fantasia e realtà storica, con "La banda Gordon" Marco Dell'Omo firma un romanzo irresistibile, che affonda le radici in un Abruzzo di metà Novecento, sospeso fra le follie del regime fascista e la Seconda Guerra Mondiale. La storia prende le mosse da un anziano generale in pensione, Piero Vinci, che a distanza di molti anni ripercorre la sua adolescenza ai tempi del Duce.

Francis Arrowsmith is a man without a country, a soldier-of-fortune in search of a war. An English orphan raised in France by exiled Jesuits, he hopes to make a quick pile out of his rare skills in building and operating artillery. Little does he know that when he joins a Portuguese expedition to aid the decadent and corrupt Ming dynasty in its fight against the Manchu invaders, he is embarking on a journey that will merge his destiny with the fate of China itself.

As the nineteenth century draws to a close, the struggle for women’s suffrage has finally reached New Zealand. But when the tide of change rolls in, it threatens to engulf two young women from very different backgrounds, who are coming of age amid the tumult.

June 1939. Francis Dempsey and his shell-shocked brother Michael are on an ocean liner from Ireland bound for their brother Martin's home in New York City, having stolen a small fortune from the IRA. During the week that follows, the lives of these three brothers collide spectacularly with big-band jazz musicians, a talented but fragile heiress, a Jewish street photographer facing a return to Nazi-occupied Prague, a vengeful mob boss, and the ghosts of their own family's revolutionary past.