Historical Sagas

In 1943, when a frail old white woman shows up in Red Clay, Alabama, at the home of a Black former slave—on the morning following his funeral—his family hardly knows what to expect after she utters the words “… a lifetime ago, my family owned yours.” Adelaide Parker has a story to tell—one of ambition, betrayal, violence, and redemption—that shaped both the fate of her family and that of the late Felix H. Parker. But there are gaps in her knowledge, and she’s come to Red Clay seeking answers from a family with whom she shares a name and a history that neither knows in full.

As the daughter of a respected general, Elizabeth Schuyler is accustomed to socializing with dignitaries and soldiers. But no visitor to her parents' home has affected her as strongly as Alexander Hamilton, a charismatic, ambitious aide to George Washington. They marry quickly, and despite the tumult of the American Revolution, Eliza is confident in her brilliant husband and in her role as his helpmate. But it is in the aftermath of war, as Hamilton becomes one of the country's most important figures, that she truly comes into her own.

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

One of history's most complex and alluring women, Anne Boleyn was irresistible to kings and commoners alike. Daughter of an ambitious country lord, Anne was sent to France to marry well and raise the family's fortunes. She soon surpassed even their greatest expectations when King Henry VIII swore he would put aside his loyal queen to make Anne his wife.

Ian Dunross, the current tai-pan of the illustrious yet financially troubled Struan empire, is racing to undo the damage his predecessor left behind and to once again stand on stable ground. And he’ll do whatever it takes—including striking a hard-fought deal with an American millionaire. But his rival, Quillan Gornt, has other plans. Suddenly caught in a dubious plot involving Soviet spies, Hong Kong’s criminal underground, and the hostile takeover of his company, Dunross holds nothing back in the fight for the Noble House.

Hrald, Jarl of Four Stones, has forfeited the golden treasure of his wife, Pega, the richest heiress in Mercia. The shrewd and powerful Lady Æthelflaed, daughter of Ælfred, King of Wessex, knows just what to do with that gold, and with the young woman to whom it belongs. She moves with swift decision. Hrald must undertake a startling penance for the harm he has caused. The one reward at the end will be his right to again wed Dagmar, the daughter of the late King of the Danes in Angle-land. If he survives.

The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, a devout and resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known...of Tom, the mason who becomes his architect - a man divided in his soul...of the beautiful, elusive Lady Aliena, haunted by a secret shame...and of a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state, and brother against brother.

The secret of her divine heritage revealed, Freya finds herself on a path that will see thousands of lives lost to the magic in her blood. Desperate to avoid this dark fate, she risks an alliance with Skaland’s greatest enemy to seek answers from the seer who foretold her future—the same seer who sent Bjorn to kill her. While Freya still seethes with rage over Bjorn’s betrayal, the blood oaths that bind her demand that she keep him close as she hunts for a way to avert the looming war.

After Englishman John Blackthorne is lost at sea, he awakens in a place few Europeans know of and even fewer have seen—Nippon. Thrust into the closed society that is seventeenth-century Japan, a land where the line between life and death is razor-thin, Blackthorne must negotiate not only a foreign people, with unknown customs and language, but also his own definitions of morality, truth, and freedom. As internal political strife and a clash of cultures lead to seemingly inevitable conflict, Blackthorne’s loyalty and strength of character are tested by both passion and loss.

Abigail was the last keeper of the house, the last to know the Howland family's secrets. Now, in the name of all her brothers and sisters, she must take her bitter revenge on the small-minded Southern town that shamed them, persecuted them, but could never destroy them.

On the eve of a popular rebellion, the Chinese government starts to crack down in cities across the country. Fleeing the turmoil, Wang Yuan, the son of a famous general and grandson of the patriarch of The Good Earth, leaves for America to study agriculture. When he returns to China six years later, he encounters a nation still in the grip of violent uprisings. Unprepared for the social upheaval, Wang is torn by the tensions between old traditions and new ways and by his formidable family, whose struggles he hopes to solve.

Occupied France is a dangerous place for Luke and Christine, especially when they are the children of a French mother and a British father. Desperate to escape, the two teenagers embark on a perilous journey back to England to the safety of their grandparents. But there are eyes everywhere.

In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger. When she discovers she is pregnant–and that her lover is married–she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations. Profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty.

Thomas McNulty, having fled the Great Famine in Ireland and now barely 17 years old, signs up for the US Army in the 1850s and with his brother in arms, John Cole, goes to fight in the Indian Wars - against the Sioux and the Yurok - and, ultimately, in the Civil War. Orphans of terrible hardships themselves, they find these days to be vivid and alive, despite the horrors they see and are complicit in. Moving from the plains of Wyoming to Tennessee, Sebastian Barry's latest work is a masterpiece of atmosphere and language.

The main character is born in 1894. The book contains her memoir, so the action goes back and forth in time, including Emmeline's childhood, through World War One and World War Two and up to "present day," which is 1968-1969.

Early one morning in 1929, Mary Seneca Steele spontaneously packs a suitcase, gathers up her son and daughter, and drives away in her abusive and dissolute husband’s brand-new Auburn Phaeton automobile, leaving her privileged life in Charleston behind. It is the beginning of a journey of enlightenment that leads Mary “Sen” to the mountains and mysteries of Appalachia, where she will learn unexpected family secrets, create a new life for herself and her children, and finally experience love and happiness before tragedy will once again test her.

After Englishman John Blackthorne is lost at sea, he awakens in a place few Europeans know of and even fewer have seen—Nippon. Thrust into the closed society that is seventeenth-century Japan, a land where the line between life and death is razor-thin, Blackthorne must negotiate not only a foreign people, with unknown customs and language, but also his own definitions of morality, truth, and freedom. As internal political strife and a clash of cultures lead to seemingly inevitable conflict, Blackthorne’s loyalty and strength of character are tested by both passion and loss.

Without the protection of his father, Kip Guile will face a master of shadows as his grandfather moves to choose a new Prism and put himself in power. With Teia and Karris, Kip will have to use all his wits to survive a secret war between noble houses, religious factions, rebels, and an ascendant order of hidden assassins called The Broken Eye.

Bengtsson's hero, Red Orm-canny - courageous and above all lucky - is only a boy when he is abducted from his Danish home by the Vikings and made to take his place at the oars of their dragon-prowed ships. Orm is then captured by the Moors in Spain, where he fights for the Caliph of Cordova. Escaping from captivity, Orm washes up in Ireland, where he marvels at those epicene creatures, the Christian monks, and from which he then moves on to play an ever more important part in the intrigues of the various Scandinavian kings and clans and dependencies.

In 1558 the ancient stones of Kingsbridge Cathedral look down on a city torn apart by religious conflict. As power in England shifts precariously between Catholics and Protestants, high principles clash bloodily with friendship, loyalty, and love. Ned Willard wants nothing more than to marry Margery Fitzgerald. But when the lovers find themselves on opposing sides of the religious divide sweeping across the country, Ned goes to work for Princess Elizabeth. When she becomes queen, all Europe turns against England.