English Historical Fiction

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.

Lady Douglass de Clifford is reticent about marrying an English soldier who holds a Scottish castle for their king. Ater all, she doesn’t really believe the English should be battling the Scots for their own land. When she arrives in Dumfries, their party is unexpectedly ambushed. Besieged by rebel Scots, she is tossed from her horse, only to be saved by a Highland warrior who promises safety even as he absconds with her. She vows to run away, until his tender kiss makes her doubt everything she has ever known.

Madeleine Talmage Force is just 17 when she attracts the attention of John Jacob "Jack" Astor. Jack's mother was the Mrs. Astor, American royalty and New York's most formidable socialite. Despite their 29-year age difference and the scandal of Jack's recent divorce, Madeleine falls headlong into love. On their honeymoon in Egypt, the newlyweds finally find a measure of peace away from photographers and journalists. Madeleine feels truly alive for the first time - and is happily pregnant. The couple plans to return home in the spring of 1912, aboard an opulent new ocean liner.

With the enemy growing bolder and Lady Maureen Huxley contemplating marriage to another man, Henry Thorpe, known to society as the affable Earl of Dunston, is caught in the crossfire between his mission to catch his father's murderer and his heart. Any move could exact a devastating cost. But losing the woman he loves is one price he refuses to pay.

Successful New York editor Jen Gibbs is at the top of her game with her new position at Vida House Publishing - until a mysterious manuscript from an old slush pile appears on her desk. Turning the pages, Jen finds herself drawn into the life of Sarra, a mixed-race Melungeon girl trapped y dangerous men in turn-of-the-century Appalachia.

Recent college grad Emma Damon knows the Rose Room in Hartley Hall is off limits, which is exactly why she can't wait to get inside. Once she enters the forbidden room, Emma learns more about the history of the museum than she ever intended to know. Waking up confused and shocked in 1816, all Emma wants is to return to her cozy home with flushing toilets and disposable razors. But when she's mistaken for someone else, Emma must pretend to be everything she's not.

Written in the winter of 1849, The Scarlet Letter unfolds the story of Hester Prynne, a young woman branded as an adulteress in the harsh Puritan world of 17th-century New England. As Hester calls on her inner strength to transcend her shame, the scarlet letter ceases to be a stigma and finally becomes Hester's symbol of self-affirmation. This dramatic reading heightens the sense of lyric poetry that permeates every line of Nathaniel Hawthorne's great novel.

Purple. The foundation of an influential trade in a Roman world dominated by men. One woman rises up to take the reins of success in an incredible journey of courage, grit, and friendship. And along the way, she changes the world. But before she was Lydia, the seller of purple, she was simply a merchant's daughter who loved three things: her father, her ancestral home, and making dye. Then unbearable betrayal robs her of nearly everything.

American heiress Sophia Wilson leaves Old New York for a Season in London. Her goal: to marry into the English aristocracy and help improve her family's social standing in America. Sophia knows her marriage will be a business transaction - her father will provide a generous financial settlement in exchange for a title - but secretly, what she desires most of all is to marry for love.

As the daughter of the richest man in England, Allegra Morgan attracts a number of fortune hunters willing to overlook her flawed pedigree to gain her enormous wealth. Her most ardent suitor is the arrogant but impoverished Quinton Hunter, duke of Sedgwick, who has little to offer a prospective wife except his grand title. Allegra decides that if she must marry, she might as well be a duchess. So she agrees to the match with one condition: her husband must never ask for her love. She has seen the misery love can cause and has vowed to give her heart to no man.

Toby never meant to be a highway robber, but needs must. He didn’t plan to impersonate a top London valet either, but when the chance comes to present himself as the earl of Arvon’s new gentleman's gentleman, he grabs it. Unfortunately, the earl is the man he seduced and robbed on the road to get here. Oops.

Rescued from a pandemic’s wreckage and raised by the eccentric surgeon Dr. Horace Croft, orphan Nora Beady cares little for Victorian conventions. While other young ladies busy themselves with needlework and watercolors, Nora perfects her sutures and anatomical illustrations. Women face dire consequences if caught practicing medicine, but in Croft’s private clinic, Nora is his most trusted - and secret - assistant. That is, until the new surgical resident, Dr. Daniel Gibson, arrives.

Young, beautiful, and idealistic, Tennessee Bennett longs to marry, but only for love. Unfortunately, her father intends to marry her off to the first wealthy man who will have her in order to pay his gambling debts. When his plan takes a murderous turn, Tennessee finds herself alone and penniless on the streets. Best friends James Carr and Jonah Wells have watched and wanted Tennessee for two years. Gentlemen to their bones, they have done the right thing, waiting for her to grow into a woman old enough to wake to their touch.

Geesje de Jonge crossed the ocean at age 17 with her parents and a small group of immigrants from the Netherlands to settle in the Michigan wilderness. Fifty years later, in 1897, she's asked to write a memoir of her early experiences as the town celebrates its anniversary. Reluctant at first, she soon uncovers memories and emotions hidden all these years, including the story of her one true love.

Eloisa James, the acclaimed author of Potent Pleasures, returns to Regency England with an unforgettable new heroine - a genteel but naughty innocent who gets more than she bargains for when she finally says yes to love. To her legions of adoring suitors, it comes as quite a shock when Lady Sophie York rejects an offer of marriage from the dashing, rakish Patrick Foakes in favor of amiable but dull Braddon Chatwin. He may be an earl, but it is Patrick's stolen kisses that sear her lips.

The Woodfall and Hayes families have been bitter rivals for nearly a century. Now, after eight years, Kenneth returns home and realizes his underlying love for Miss Moira Hayes. For her, he is willing to forget the past. But can she?

Stranded together in a rustic country inn, Lucius Marshall, who is the Viscount Sinclair, and Frances Allard share a night of glorious, unforgettable passion. But Frances knows her place, and it is far from the privileged world of the sensual aristocrat. Due to begin her teaching position at Miss Martin's School in Bath, Frances must try to forget that one extraordinary night - and the man who touched her with such exquisite tenderness and abandon.

Katherine Woodville's sister never gave her a choice. A happy girl of modest means, Kate hardly expected to become a maker of kings. But when her sister impulsively marries King Edward IV in secret, Katherine's life is no longer hers to control....

Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli. By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Elsa must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.

A collection of stories from the most famous Western author of all time! Desert Death-Song is a compilation of some of Louis L’Amour’s greatest stories, many of which might otherwise be difficult to find. Whether he was writing under his early pen name, Jim Mayo, or his own, L’Amour’s stories are unforgettable, touching on rough and rugged American ideals, and set in the untamable frontier of the Western United States.