Showing titles in Biographical Fiction

Built on the backs of those who fell before it, Julius Caesar's imperial dynasty is only as strong as the next person who seeks to control it. In the Roman Empire, no one is safe from the sting of betrayal: man, woman - or child. As a boy Nero's royal heritage becomes a threat to his very life, first when the mad emperor Caligula tries to drown him, then when his great-aunt attempts to secure her own son's inheritance. Faced with shocking acts of treachery, young Nero is dealt a harsh lesson: It is better to be cruel than dead.

Grace knows what people see. She’s the Cinderella story. An icon of glamor and elegance frozen in dazzling Technicolor. The picture of perfection. The girl in white gloves. But behind the lens, beyond the panoramic views of glistening Mediterranean azure, she knows the truth. The sacrifices it takes for an unappreciated girl from Philadelphia to defy her family and become the reigning queen of the screen

When Princess Diana died in Paris's Alma tunnel, she was 37 years old. Had she lived, she would turn 50 on July 1, 2011. Who would the beloved icon be if she were alive today? What would she be doing? And where? One of the most versatile and bold writers of our time, Monica Ali has imagined a different fate for Diana in her spectacular new novel, Untold Story.

Fervente ambassadrice de la chanson québécoise, Monique Leyrac a chanté Vigneault, Leclerc et Léveillée sur les scènes du monde entier. Elle a joué Molière, Racine, Feydeau et a conquis tous les publics avec son incarnation flamboyante de Sarah Bernhardt. Conceptrice d'un type de spectacle jusque-là inédits, elle a célébré Nelligan, Baudelaire, Brecht et tant d'autres. Bref, en 50 années de carrière, elle a marqué son époque.

Already translated into twenty languages, The End of Eddy captures the violence and desperation of life in a French factory town. It is also a sensitive, universal portrait of boyhood and sexual awakening. Like Karl Ove Knausgaard or Edmund White, Édouard Louis writes from his own undisguised experience, but he writes with an openness and a compassionate intelligence that are all his own. The result - a critical and popular triumph - has made him the most celebrated French writer of his generation.

Une femme se raconte en sept nuits : de la première alors qu'elle veille sa mère qui va mourir et que lui revient le souvenir de ses 7 ans à Berlin en 1943 quand avec cette mère jeune, belle et intrépide elle traverse la ville en ruines pour rencontrer dans une prison ce père qu'elle ne connaissait pas, à la presque dernière ce sont des nuits nourries par la passion, l'attente ou le désespoir, il lui faudra la dernière pour connaître l'apaisement. Une initiation en sept étapes, un roman porté par un souffle de poésie et une interrogation profondément contemporaine.

With opportunities for black men limited in post-World War II London, Rick Braithwaite, a former Royal Air Force pilot and Cambridge-educated engineer, accepts a teaching position that puts him in charge of a class of angry, unmotivated, bigoted white teenagers whom the system has mostly abandoned. When his efforts to reach these troubled students are met with threats, suspicion, and derision, Braithwaite takes a radical new approach. He will treat his students as people poised to enter the adult world.

La novela que influenció toda una generación. El Lobo estepario es una de las grandes novelas del premio Nobel de 1946 Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), por tratar en forma profunda el tema del antagonismo entre las dos naturalezas de un individuo, en este caso Harry Haller, una persona desilusionada de la vida, que alterna la que se considera naturaleza bondadosa del ser humano con la ferocidad que caracteriza al lobo estepario.

Married to Emperor Franz Joseph, Elisabeth—fondly known as Sisi—captures the hearts of her people as their “fairy queen,” but beneath that dazzling persona lives a far more complex figure. In mid-nineteenth-century Vienna, the halls of the Hofburg Palace buzz not only with imperial waltzes and champagne but with temptations, rivals, and cutthroat intrigue. Feeling stifled by strict protocols and a turbulent marriage, Sisi finds solace at her estate outside Budapest, where she rides her beloved horses and enjoys visits from a man with whom she’s unwittingly become enamored.

Agnes is sent to wait out her final months on the farm of district officer Jón Jónsson, his wife and their two daughters. Horrified to have a convicted murderer in their midst, the family avoid contact with Agnes. Only Tóti, the young assistant priest appointed Agnes’s spiritual guardian, is compelled to try to understand her. As the year progresses and the hardships of rural life force the household to work side by side, Agnes’s story begins to emerge and with it the family’s terrible realization that all is not as they had assumed.

"Давным-давно, на исходе прошлого тысячелетия, я переступила порог – жизненный, судьбинный: уехала в другую страну, оказавшись, как Робинзон Крузо, на острове иной жизни. И принялась его обживать – сурово, мужественно и отчаянно; временами – растерянно. Остров назывался Израиль.

When Cricket Lopez, assistant to one of the most notorious celebrity stylists, revamps her old fashion Instagram account and turns it into a source for celebrity gossip on a drunken whim, she never thinks it will become anything. It's just a way to blow off steam after a terrible, terrible day at work where her nightmarish boss screams at her and blames her for some 18-year-old influencer's screw-up. But when the account grows overnight and, even wilder, when she starts getting gossip from fans and insiders —juicy gossip—she has to face facts: her Instagram is now famous. She is now famous.

355: The Women of Washington's Spy Ring chronicles the lives of three remarkable women who use daring, skill, and, yes, a bit of flirtation, to help liberate America.

Marie Tussaud has learned the secrets of wax sculpting by working alongside her uncle in their celebrated wax museum, the Salon de Cire. From her popular model of the American ambassador Thomas Jefferson to her tableau of the royal family at dinner, Marie's museum provides Parisians with the very latest news on fashion, gossip, even politics. Her customers hail from every walk of life, and word even arrives that the royals themselves are coming to see their likenesses....

Why Mummy Swears is the much anticipated new novel from Gill Sims, author of the hilarious Why Mummy Drinks and online sensation Peter and Jane. It’s every parents’ nightmare - the start of the school holidays - and instead of sitting in the sun, reading a book over a cold, crisp glass of Pinot Grigio, Mummy has two bored moppets to attend to. After frantically booking sports camps, child minder slots, not to mention time off work, Mummy is exhausted. But this is only the beginning....

Like The Last Temptation of Christ, Saint Francis is a fictionalized biography of a widely venerated Christian figure: Francis of Assisi, whose renunciation of his young man’s life of leisure and founding of a religious order dedicated to living in poverty and sharing the Gospels with all living things profoundly influence the ways in which Christians the world over worship and give service to their god even today.

The blood and violence never ends - it only stops long enough for Melena to relax her guard, to think she might actually survive. For the past year, she has worked hard to pick up the pieces of her life. The supernaturals in Fairbanks are tolerating her, the angels are shielding her from her enemies, and she's getting stronger as her body changes into . . . something else. If not for the man she loves being locked away in Purgatory, she might even believe she could be happy.

Mary Tudor, the headstrong younger sister of the ruthless King Henry VII, has always been her brother's favorite—but now she is also an important political bargaining chip. When she is promised to the elderly, ailing King Louis of France, a heartbroken Mary accepts her fate, but not before extracting a promise from her brother: When the old king dies, her next marriage shall be solely of her choosing. For Mary has a forbidden passion, and is determined, through her own cunning, courage, and boldness, to forge her own destiny.

Spring 1152. Once she was a Queen, and will become so again... Eleanor of Aquitaine has escaped her marriage to Louis of France, as well as various lords bent on capturing her and forcing her into marriage with them, and is safe in her homeland once more. Sending a message to Henry, Duke of Normandy, Eleanor arranges her second marriage, this time to a lord of her choosing, a man already in possession of an empire of his own, an heir to the English throne about to take back the crown stolen from his mother, the Empress Matilda.

This year Christmas will be PERFECT. This is the year when all dreams come true, carol singers will carol the Wassail would Wass, or possibly Sail, children will frolic, extended family will get on and behave normally and not fall out and just eat the effing mince pies without questioning their organic/ gluten free/ vegan/ fairtrade status. Everyone will be delighted by their thoughtfully chosen presents and not surreptitiously rifle through the wrapping paper looking for the gift receipt, and the dogs will give the impression that Ellen is in charge of them and not the other way around.