Southern Historical Fiction

Southern Mozambique, 1894. Sergeant Germano de Melo is posted to the village of Nkokolani to oversee the Portuguese conquest of territory claimed by Ngungunyane, the last of the leaders of the state of Gaza, the second-largest empire led by an African. Ngungunyane has raised an army to resist colonial rule and with his warriors is slowly approaching the border village. Desperate for help, Germano enlists Imani, a 15-year-old girl, to act as his interpreter. She belongs to the VaChopi tribe, one of the few who dared side with the Portuguese.

From the ashes of war, can an ember of love still burn? The final chapter of this sweeping tale finds Josephine Wright Montgomery reeling from the devastation and loss around her. Stunned, she has never felt so helpless and alone. The life she has known is gone forever. Through her courage and strength, she is determined to hold onto Magnolia Bluff, but there is more working against her than the war raging. US Navy Lieutenant Cullen Smythe has distinguished himself with his bravery and valor in the hard fought campaigns at New Orleans and Mobile. Time and battles have done little to expunge the demons that haunt him. Nevertheless when he receives news he has long feared, he has no choice. He follows his heart back to Josephine...but will it be too late?

When Cornelius Allen gives his daughter Clarissa’s hand in marriage, he presents her with a wedding gift: the young slave she grew up with, Sarah. Sarah is also Allen’s daughter and Clarissa’s sister, a product of his longtime relationship with his house slave, Emmeline. When Clarissa’s husband suspects that their newborn son is illegitimate, Clarissa and Sarah are sent back to her parents, Cornelius and Theodora, in shame, setting in motion a series of events that will destroy this once-powerful family.

Josephine Buchanan Wright is forced apart from the man she loves. She has chosen the path of honor and duty, denying her heart its desire. Unaware of a growing threat against her, she strives to make her dying father's wish a reality. Cullen Smythe returns to Philadelphia and tries to pick up the pieces of his shattered heart...forget her and make a life for himself - alone. But fate has other plans for once more Josephine enters his world. Can their love be rekindled against the forces against them?

In 1850s South Carolina, ladies with ambition and a penchant for wearing trousers are rare indeed. But that’s Charlotte Whitney all over. Not only does Charlie yearn to resurrect her late father’s newspaper, she wants to be its editor. That position, however, has been handed to Richmond newspaperman Adam Chase. Undeterred, Charlie convinces Adam to teach her the journalism trade. In doing so, she teaches him how to open his heart.

The tie that bound the cousins, Cullen Smythe and Wade Montogmery, together has been strained and stretched to the breaking point, and there is nothing Josephine can do. The bond once shared, once so strong, has been lost in the turmoil surrounding their lives. The war will force the brothers to choose sides. Each will defend their beliefs and loyalties with courage and valor, but each will stand against each other. The world that once was will be no more.

Natchez is a stunning saga by NY Times bestselling author, Pamela Jekel, the second in her Southern trilogy. Spanning four generations of proud, strong-willed women, Natchez tells the story of hardships of frontier life, the glitter and opulence of plantation balls, the ravages of the Civil War, and the Great Flood of 1885.

From the Cajun swamp cabins to the great river plantations of the Mississippi and the glittering night spots of Jazz Age New Orleans, Bayou sweeps listeners into the mysterious and fascinating Louisiana delta and into the hearts and lives of four indomitable women: Olivia, a headstrong Cajun beauty, Celisma, a fiercely loyal mulatto slave, Manon, the toast of New Orleans, and Zoe, a convent-bred Creole who seeks and finds her destiny on her own terms.

In a world of pageantry and show, the Montgomery family accepts the way of life that has been Antebellum Charleston for over 100 years. Two cousins, the handsome and debonair Wade Montgomery and the bold and brooding Cullen Smythe, were born to be brothers. Raised as Southern gentlemen, their character could never be questioned - loyalty, honor, duty to one's country, God, and family. It was the tie that binds until their bond is threatened, not only by the cry for secession but by a woman.

During the Great Depression, the U.S. government illegally deported more than a million Mexican-American citizens to make room on the welfare rolls and alleviate unemployment for white Americans. Carlos Moreno is a young man who has known only hardship and poverty, chasing rumors of work across Texas during the 1920s. Pursued by a renegade Texas ranger who thinks he holds the key to a secret, Carlos takes refuge in “Little Mexico,” Houston’s colorful, boisterous barrio. He picks the worst possible time to fall in love.

Después de derrotar al ejército cristiano, las tropas almohades se abren paso a sangre y fuego arrasando todo lo que encuentran en su camino. Diego de Malagón, el humilde hijo de un posadero, es testigo horrorizado del asesinato de su padre y del secuestro de sus hermanas. A duras penas consigue huir a lomos de su inseparable yegua Sabba y alcanzar la ciudad de Toledo donde conoce a Galib, un veterinario mudéjar.

Jasper Perry has a home, a family - everything he thought was lost to him forever after war broke out. With Clara's love, Jasper believes he has everything he has ever wanted. As he awaits marriage to Clara, he finds himself overcome with homesickness. When a Confederate militia kidnaps him, determined to punish him for his defection, Jasper has a choice: to give up the loyalty he once held to the Confederacy and fight to get back to Clara; or leave his new home behind, and return to all that is familiar.

Sentiments are running high following the battle of Gettysburg, and although the draft has not yet come to Knox, "Bloody Knox" will claim lives the next year as citizens attempt to avoid the Union draft. Clara's brother Solomon is missing, and Clara has been left to manage the family's farm, caring for her mother and her younger sister, Cecelia.

The war is over, and America is trying to heal, but Clara can take no joy in it. Even as the farm prospers and her family is once more at peace, Clara faces unimaginable grief: she has been unable to carry a child to term, and the loss of her children has nearly destroyed her. She has tried to remain strong for the sake of her family, but now, pregnant again, Clara finds herself consumed with fear - if she loses this baby as well, she is not sure she can go on.

Jody Luther is a 15 year-old White girl battling insanity at home and hate-filled 1970 Jackson, Mississippi, leading to the Jackson State Massacre. Jody has landed in Jackson with her alcoholic mother and younger sister, Willie. The book not only deals with racial issues, but police-forced integration leading up to the murder of two young black students.

It’s 1962, and Violet Romero, a young woman searching for peace after a horrible tragedy, finds herself in an unexpected place—managing funerals at Berwick, an antebellum mansion-turned-mortuary in Lexington, Kentucky. Her employer, Henry Pendleton, a botany-obsessed mortician, seems harmless, but Violet believes that he is hiding something. Following her instincts, Violet discovers a hidden room in Berwick that offers a glimpse into the mansion’s dark past. Violet soon understands that a reckoning is coming to Henry’s life, and she is caught in the rising tide of revenge.

It’s 1953 when Memory Feather and her mother, Virginia, are welcomed back home to the Mississippi Gulf Coast community of Belle Cote by Virginia’s childhood friend Mac McFadden, whose verve and energy buoy the recently divorced Virginia to embrace this new chapter. Memory (“Mem”) is unlike other girls: she is attuned to the voices of plants and animals and is missing two fingers on her twisted left hand. The three of them knit their lives together and become a close, though unconventional, family.

In 19th-century America, making sense of mysterious events often perplexed citizens of the small Southern town of Juniper, South Carolina. Especially the three Chadwick households. Brothers Laurence, Brodie, and Angus Chadwick lost their parents shortly after sailing from England to the New World. Each young man, in turn, would meet the woman of his dreams. Lacey. Fiona. Guinevere. Beautiful, intelligent, sensitive creatures all. And yet, despite their noble virtues, the three Chadwick women are cursed, it seems, for reasons only the occult can provide.

The death of Donald Ray in a freak car accident becomes the catalyst for the release of passions, needs, and hurts. Clayton’s discovery of dead Donald Ray upends his longtime emotional numbness. Darlene, the seventeen-year-old widow, struggles to reconnect with her late husband while proving herself still alive. Soon Clayton and Darlene’s bond of loss and death works its magic, drawing them into an affair that brings the loneliness in Clayton’s marriage to a crisis. When Aurilla Cutter, Clayton’s mother-in-law, learns about the affair, her own memories are set loose.

Aurora Haverwood has loved Zachery Saberton for as long as she can remember. Her dreams of being his wife are cruelly dashed when the American Civil War draws to a close with news that Zach is missing and presumed dead. Refusing to believe he will never return, she sets out to find the truth. Captain Zach Saberton, notorious blockade runner for the Confederate Navy, has outfoxed the Yankee War Department once too often. To save his neck, Zach agrees to go undercover in London to help the Union recover a million dollars’ worth of gold missing from the failed Confederate Treasury.