Historical Sagas

Lubji Hoch escapes from the Nazis, moves to Berlin and changes his name to Richard Armitage. After a successful career in the British Army, he takes over a struggling newspaper and with unrivalled ruthlessness begins building his media empire. Meanwhile, Keith Townsend, the son of a millionaire and Oxford educated, returns to Australia from London to take over his father's newspaper with similar ambitions. As both men move their quest for power to the world stage, they realise they are more than a match for one another's brilliance and ambition.

Bombay was the city everyone came to in the early decades of the 19th century: among them, the Goans and the Mangaloreans, looking for safe harbour, livelihood, and a new place to call home. Communities congregated around churches and markets, sharing lord and land with the native East Indians. The young among them were nudged on to the path of marriage, procreation and godliness, though noble intentions were often ambushed by errant love and plain and simple lust. As in the story of Annette and Benji (and Joe) or Michael and Merlyn (and Ellena).

Makine's most ambitious, complex, and uncompromising work is a three-generation epic set against the wide canvas of Russia's turbulent last eighty years, from Czarist times to the fall of Communism. We follow Nicholas, the protagonist's grandfather, from the brutal battle between the Reds and the Whites in the 1920s to the moment when Pavel, his grandson, is recruited by the KGB as a spy.

In which Daniel Waterhouse, fearless thinker and courageous Puritan, pursues knowledge in the company of the greatest minds of Baroque-era Europe -- in a chaotic world where reason wars with the bloody ambitions of the mighty, and where catastrophe, natural or otherwise, can alter the political landscape overnight.

In this new adventure, Hornblower is overjoyed to discover his next task is to serve aboard the mighty HMS Renown. After witnessing some unsettling scenes however, he soon finds himself struggling to serve under the captain, James Sawyer, whose unsound mind leads him to treat his crew with extreme suspicion and contempt.

Centaine de Thiry Courtney has not only survived but thrived. A successful woman with two sons of her own: Shasa Courtney, the Courtney heir, and Manfred de la Rey, Shasa's half brother, her secret child raised solely by his father. At the time of the Great Depression, Centaine must make difficult decisions to ensure the security of her family - decisions that will affect Manfred and his father, Lothar de la Rey, a man Centaine once loved. But the world is changing, and conflicts greater than any the world has seen before are looming.

Robinswood, Co. Waterford, 1939. The once grand house is home to two very different families. Despite delusions of grandeur, Lord and Lady Kenefick and their adult children live a life of decayed opulence as the money needed to keep such a large house and grounds ever dwindles. Meanwhile, the Murphy family, Dermot, Isabella and their three almost grown-up girls, live and work on the estate and do their best to keep everything running smoothly.

Ashok Vadal was once a member of the highest caste in all of Lok. As a Protector, he devoted his life to upholding the Law, rooting out those who still practiced the old ways and delivering justice with his ancestor blade Angruvadal. None was more merciless than he in stamping out the lingering belief in gods and demons among the casteless. His brutality was legendary and celebrated. But soon Ashok learned that his life to that point had been a lie. He himself, senior member of the Protector Order, was casteless. He had been nothing more than an unwitting pawn in a political game.

War and Peace is one of the greatest monuments in world literature. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, it examines the relationship between the individual and the relentless march of history. Here are the universal themes of love and hate, ambition and despair, youth and age, expressed with a swirling vitality which makes the book as accessible today as it was when it was first published in 1869.

In 1867, a good-natured Bavarian priest is sent by God and mad King Ludwig to the wilds of North America. Soon the backwoods are transformed into a parish and the settlers into a congregation, and Joseph Becker, a woodcarver, meets his future wife. Several decades later, Joseph Becker teaches his astounding carving skills to his grandchildren. One of them, Klara, shows exceptional talent and has a surfeit of what the local nuns call "a fondness for men's work". Untamed, she falls in love with Eamon O'Sullivan, an Irish boy, only to have him leave to fight in the Great War.

At the start of the twentieth century, on the edge of the Russian empire, a family prospers. It owes its success to a delicious chocolate recipe, passed down the generations with great solemnity and caution. A caution which is justified: this is a recipe for ecstasy that carries a very bitter aftertaste....

In the compelling conclusion to the New York Times best-seller Her Mother’s Hope, Christy Award-winning author Francine Rivers explores the sorrow that can tear families apart and the grace that can heal the deepest wounds. Just as Carolyn had formed a stronger bond with her Oma Marta than with her mother, so Carolyn’s daughter is drawn to her grandma more than to a mom who’s caught up in the 1960s counterculture....

As the war rages on in the summer of 1943, causing massive destruction and widespread fear, the King and Queen choose to quietly send their youngest daughter, Princess Charlotte, to live with a trusted noble family in the country. Despite her fiery, headstrong nature, the princess' fragile health poses far too great a risk for her to remain in war-torn London.

From America's master storyteller and writer of historical fiction comes the dramatic conclusion to the North and South saga. The Civil War has ended, but the Hazards and Mains have yet to face their greatest struggles. Even as the embers of old hatreds continue to burn in the heart of a nation torn apart by war, a new future in the West awaits a new generation of Americans seeking a life of their own - and a place to call their own.

1333. Edward III is at war with Scotland. Nineteen-year-old Sir Harry de Lyon yearns to prove himself and jumps at the chance when a powerful English baron, William Montagu, invites him on a secret mission with a dozen elite knights. They ride north, to a crumbling Scottish keep, capturing a feral, half-starved boy within and putting the other inhabitants to the sword. But nobody knows why the flower of English knighthood snuck over the border to capture a savage, dirty teenage boy. Montagu gives the boy to Harry as his squire, with only two rules.

"La légende veut que les premiers Maoris arrivèrent en pirogue depuis la Polynésie. La première image qu'ils eurent de la Nouvelle-Zélande fut cette île enveloppée d'un long nuage blanc. D'où le nom qu'ils lui donnèrent." Londres, 1852. Helen, préceptrice de deux enfants dans une riche famille, répond à une annonce qui propose à des jeunes femmes de partir épouser des Britanniques installés en Nouvelle-Zélande.

"A book about oil and water, rangers and outlaws, Anglos and Hispanics, frontier and settlement, money and power...James Michener is something rare and valuable: an honorable craftsman doing honorable work....He manages to make history vivid and palatable to the reader." THE BOSTON GLOBE Texas...

Tehran, Iran 1979: Simmering religious tensions explode and the Shah is forced to flee Iran. A British helicopter company—secretly owned by the Noble House of Hong Kong—with a fleet of helicopters registered in Iran faces bankruptcy if their copters are claimed or destroyed by the uprising. The pilots need to escape, but they’ve built lives in Iran, some even have families. Finnish pilot Erikki Yokkonen has married Azadeh, an Iranian woman of noble birth, whose family is caught up in the political situation exploding around them.

In this acclaimed classic novel, James A. Michener sweeps readers off to the Caribbean, bringing to life the eternal allure and tumultuous history of this glittering string of islands. From the 1310 conquest of the Arawaks by cannibals to the decline of the Mayan empire, from Columbus’s...

Having escaped capture in London, Bridget and Cormac flee to Ireland with their daughter, Emily. Their homecoming is bittersweet as they embark upon the daunting task of searching for Cormac’s family, who have been missing for over seven years. Their journey takes them back to the familiar surroundings of the Oakleigh Estate in Carlow, but their childhood home has become a different place to the one they remember. As they confront the consequences of Bridget’s embittered mother’s actions, they must also come to terms with an agonizing choice between family and duty.