Civil War Fiction

Few events have sparked more legends and stories of the supernatural than America's Civil War. The accounts of gallantry and heroism have spread far and wide. Nancy Roberts grew up listening to her father's stories of the War Between the States, and she trekked over many battle sites with him during her childhood. After reading about General Joshua Chamberlain's supernatural experience at the Battle of Gettysburg, Roberts began to collect tales of the blue and gray and write them down.

When Grace Wheaton's former professor calls to warn her that there have been a rash of thefts at various historical sites, Grace isn't surprised, because Marshfield Manor has been targeted, too. She wonders if it has something to do with the film crew roaming the grounds, digitally immortalizing the manor, but then she gets distracted by an incident much more dire: the shooting of one guest and the murder of another.

Since the revolution-turned-civil war in Syria began in 2011, over 500,000 civilians have been killed and more than 12 million Syrians have been displaced. Rania Abouzeid, one of the foremost journalists on the topic, follows two pairs of sisters from opposite sides of the conflict to give listeners a firsthand glimpse of the turmoil and devastation this strife has wrought.

En el último carnaval de la Segunda República, Fidel Ruiz, el chirigotero más admirado de la tacita de plata, se alza con el primer premio en el concurso de agrupaciones. Nadie sospecha que detrás de su exquisito talento se encuentra María, su asistenta. Para continuar alcanzando la gloria carnavalera, el arrogante y maquiavélico señorito no dudará en manipularla y sacar tajada del amor incondicional que ella le profesa.

Meet Endurance Proudfoot, the bonesetter’s daughter: clumsy as a carthorse, with a tactless tongue and a face she’s sure only a mother could love. Durie only wants one thing in life—to follow her father and grandfather into the family business of bonesetting. It’s a physically demanding job, requiring strength, nerves of steel and discretion—and not the job for a woman. But Durie isn’t like other women.

Badger Kershaw was becoming a familiar figure on the frontier after the War between the States. Riding an Appaloosa with Lobo, his dog-wolf hybrid, often by his side, he was feared by most outlaws on the dodge on whom there was a bounty. It was not a savory profession, perhaps, but Kershaw was honest about what he did. Frontier lawmen for the most part were accustomed to dealing with Kershaw. When the fugitive was willing to surrender, Kershaw would bring in an outlaw alive, but it was not an option he encountered very often.

Powerful, epic, and compelling, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen shines light on a nearly forgotten figure in history. Cathy Williams was born and lived a slave - until the Union army comes and destroys the only world she’s known. Separated from her family, she makes the impossible decision - to fight in the army disguised as a man with the Buffalo Soldiers. With courage and wit, Cathy must not only fight for her survival and freedom in the ultimate man’s world, but never give up on her mission to find her family, and the man she loves.

New York Times best-selling author Jennifer Chiaverini delights fans by transforming true events into riveting historical fiction. Set during the Civil War, The Spymistress introduces little-known Elizabeth Van Lew, a Virginia woman who used a vast spy network to steal Confederate secrets for the Union. But her next mission would prove the ultimate test of her mettle: infiltrate the infamous Confederate Libby Prison and orchestrate a daring escape.

On a struggling Texas plantation, six enslaved women slip from their sleeping quarters and gather in the woods under the cover of night. The Lucys—as they call the plantation owners, after Lucifer himself—have decided to turn around the farm’s bleak financial prospects by making the women bear children. They have hired a “stockman” to impregnate them. But the women are determined to protect themselves.

No one knows where the term Underground Railroad came from - there were no trains or tracks, only "conductors" who helped escaping slaves to freedom. Including real stories about "passengers" on the "railroad", this audiobook chronicles slaves' close calls with bounty hunters, their exhausting struggles on the road, and what they sacrificed for freedom.

All for the Union is the astonishing and eloquent diary of Elisha Hunt Rhodes, the Union soldier featured in Ken Burns' highly acclaimed PBS television documentary The Civil War. Enlisting as a private in the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry, Rhodes fought in every major campaign waged by the Army of the Potomac, from Bull Run to Appomattox. Here, in his own powerfully moving words, Rhodes reveals why he was willing to die to preserve his beloved Union.

MacKinlay Kantor, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and master storyteller, shows us how the South could have won the Civil War, how two small shifts in history (as we know it) in the summer of 1863 could have turned the tide for the Confederacy. What would have happened: to the Union, to Abraham Lincoln, to the people of the North and South, to the world?

Shay O’Donnell traveled across the Atlantic to escape the famine and poverty in Ireland. Sold into servitude by her father, she has little chance for freedom or marriage in the new land. She never expected a stolen kiss could turn her entire life upside down and give her hope for the future.

Sitting in a jail cell on the eve of his hanging, April 1, 1875, freedman Persimmon "Persy" Wilson wants nothing more than to leave some record of the truth - his truth. He may be guilty but not of what he stands accused: the kidnapping and rape of his former master's wife. In 1860 Persy had been sold to Sweetmore, a Louisiana sugar plantation, alongside a striking light-skinned house slave named Chloe. Their deep and instant connection fueled a love affair and inspired plans to escape their owner, Master Wilson, who claimed Chloe as his concubine.

Three years after the Undead virus / parasite infected the world, civilization struggles on. The United States is scraping by as a nation by the skin of its teeth, with forty million people crammed into the Pacific Northwest, living in squalid refugee camps. Army units have made inroads into the ruins of the rest of America, working on clearing the major cities.

As racial injustice proliferates and lines are drawn, a civil war looms on the horizon. Charles Williams is a Los Angeles City police officer and a man of strong ethics and integrity. His longtime partner, Rick despite the occasional crass comment, has always seemed like a stand-up guy. However, shortly after unearthing Rick's true colors, Charles abruptly changes partners, igniting his colleagues' scrutiny.

October, 1859. The United States reels in the wake of another attempted slave uprising; this time in the sleepy village of Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. With a presidential election looming, long-festering social and political divisions threaten to split the Union in two. Elsewhere in Virginia, Senator John Roscoe and his family appear to be perfect in every way. But as states secede and the Union unravels, the Roscoe dynasty’s dysfunction is laid bare through the unearthing of old wounds and family secrets.

The incidents of the book are real ones, drawn in part from the writer's personal experiences and observations as a soldier of the Union during that war. He is also indebted to many comrades for reminiscences of battle and prison life. The perilous escape of Jed and Dick, from Andersonville down the Flint and Apalachicola Rivers, to the Gulf of Mexico, is in substance the narrative of a comrade whom the writer knew at Andersonville, and afterwards met when the war had closed. The descriptions of the prison are especially truthful, for in them the author briefly tells what he saw.

The War Between the States is synonymous with romance, tragedy, bravery, and lost causes. The terrible war nearly tore the nation apart. The United States survived, though at a terrible cost. Today, more than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, people are still fascinated by this pivotal point in history. Writers, too, find this a fruitful period to investigate. In Civil War Fantastic, some of science fiction’s finest writers take us back to this turbulent time with their own special visions of what might have been.

Well past his prime, Robert Fallon now fights the battles of politics to save the country he cherishes from civil war. It is 1832, and the high tariffs that protect northern industry are crippling the South. President Andrew Jackson thinks force is the answer to the South's threats of secession. Robert must pay a final-hour visit to Washington, as an appeal to Jackson and Congress to pass a compromise tariff before the country is torn apart.