Historical Biographical Fiction

The further adventures of "Dr. Gonzo" as he defends the "cucarachas" - the Chicanos of East Los Angeles. Before his mysterious disappearance and probable death in 1971, Oscar Zeta Acosta was famous as a Robin Hood Chicano lawyer and notorious as the real-life model for Hunter S. Thompson's "Dr. Gonzo" a fat, pugnacious attorney with a gargantuan appetite for food, drugs, and life on the edge.

Acclaimed historical novelist Vanessa Riley is back with another novel based on the life of an extraordinary Black woman from history: Haiti’s Queen Marie-Louise Coidavid, who escaped a coup in Haiti to set up her own royal court in Italy during the Regency era, where she became a popular member of royal European society.

An internationally best-selling author, Anchee Min draws upon her Chinese heritage to pen lush historical epics. Here she transports listeners to the Far East for a fictionalized account of acclaimed author Pearl Buck’s youth. Arriving in late 19th-century China with her missionary parents, Buck is soon fascinated by her new home and strikes up a friendship with a young Chinese girl named Willow. The two become inseparable, even as civil war, failed relationships, and world conflicts threaten all they hold dear.

Mary and Sarah grow up amid Puritan superstition and piety, busy with their household chores, one imagining a life different from her mother's and the other eager to marry and bear sons. They spend their married lives in the villages of Springfield and Northampton, where a youthful disagreement festers into a reason to hate and then to fear. As the years pass, one accuses the other of murder by witchcraft, prompting a trial before the Court of Assistants in Boston—17 years before the infamous Salem Witch Trials.

Mary Howard is the dutiful daughter of the infamous Duke of Norfolk. Protected by her prestigious family and wealth, she is swept up in Anne Boleyn’s glittering court. Charmed by talented poets and flirtatious knights, it’s easy to forget that someone is watching her every move. The court grows wilder as the world changes around them. Everything seems possible, even marrying for love. All Mary can think of is her poetry, but then she gets involved in her uncle’s affairs. Soon her world of privilege and safety are torn away. But she’s not a Howard girl for nothing.

En 1935, Edmond Charlot a vingt ans et il rentre à Alger avec une seule idée en tête : ouvrir une librairie. Placée sous l'égide de Giono, sa minuscule boutique est baptisée Les Vraies Richesses. Et pour inaugurer son catalogue, il publie le premier texte d'un inconnu : Albert Camus. Charlot exulte, ignorant encore que vouer sa vie aux livres, c'est aussi la sacrifier aux aléas de l'infortune et de l'Histoire. Car la révolte gronde en Algérie en cette veille de Seconde Guerre mondiale.

This incredible story is based on true events concerning young Betsy Roberts: how she was kidnapped, abused, but survived America's first serial killers - the evil Harpe brothers - how she outlived and ultimately profited using her wits and sheer determination. Betsy Roberts, a young woman from Kentucky, is brutally kidnapped by notorious outlaws Micajah and Wiley Harpe who abuse, then exploit her. The novel describes how Betsy uses her wits and courage to survive, and then ultimately prospers despite the most appalling conditions and treatment she suffers.

Paris, 1940. The Nazis have occupied the city - and the Ritz. The opulent old hotel, so loved by Parisians, is now full of swaggering officers, their minions and their mistresses. For American Olivia Olsen, working as a chambermaid at the hotel means denying her nationality and living a lie, every day bringing the danger of discovery closer. When Hitler’s right-hand man moves in and makes her his pet, she sees an opportunity to help the Resistance - and draw closer to Jack, her contact, whose brusque instructions may be a shield for something more....

Connie Fitzwalter never imagined that her passion for music would lead her into a world of danger and intrigue. When her old family friend, Stephen, who works for the foreign office, tells Connie the true scale of the violence against Jewish people in Germany and Austria, she can stand aside no longer. Together, Stephen and Connie devise a daring mission to help families escape the clutches of Nazi persecution. Under their cover as music enthusiasts traveling to high-society concerts in Europe, Connie and her sister Dottie begin by smuggling money and valuables for families over the border.

Edyth, wife of King Harold of England, disappeared forever on the day of the great Battle of Hastings in 1066, taking with her the legitimate heirs to the thrones of England and Wales. This is the story of that amazing woman, who loved and married the King of Wales and then the man who would be King of England, only to witness his historic defeat by the light of Halley's Comet.

When little Ruthie and her mother are taken to Belzec Extermination Camp in the midst of World War II, Ruthie's mother knows that her daughter's life is in grave danger. Desperate, she will do anything to save her from the terrible fate that awaits her, even at the cost of her own life. But she will have to act fast if she wants to give her daughter a chance of survival. Years later, Ruthie's daughter, Noga, delves into the untold mysteries of her mother's past, on a quest to heal their fragmented relationship.

New Orleans, 1853. A young exile named Benito Juárez disembarks at a fetid port city at the edge of a swamp. Years later, he will become the first indigenous head of state in the postcolonial Americas, but now he is as anonymous and invisible as any other migrant to the roiling and alluring city of New Orleans. Accompanied by a small group of fellow exiles who plot their return and hoped-for victory over the Mexican dictatorship, Juárez immerses himself in the city, which absorbs him like a sponge.

A captivating novel that explores the little-known romance of a beloved American icon.

Helen Keller has long been a towering figure in the pantheon of world heroines, yet the enduring portrait of her in the popular imagination comes from The Miracle Worker, which ends when Helen is seven years old. Rosie Sultan’s debut novel imagines a part of Keller’s life she rarely spoke of or wrote about: the man she once loved.

Pamela Binnings Ewen’s newest novel reveals the story of Émilienne, once the most beautiful, sought-after woman in Paris during the Belle Époque, the era of peaceful years just before World War I. As a girl, Émilienne fights her way through poverty in Montmartre, drawn to the lights of Paris below. Soon, she stars at the Folies Bergère, mistress of kings and princes, known as the most beautiful woman in Europe.

This is the story of Katherine Plantagenet, self-proclaimed “daughter, sister, and aunt of kings,” who endures extraordinarily traumatic reversals of fortune, as her life swings through wealth and adversity. A glittering future as an English princess is swept away by the untimely death of her father, Edward IV, and the usurpation of her brother Edward V's throne. Surrounded by murderous intrigue, conspiracy and ambition, Katherine and her sisters fear what lies in store.

Peculiar weather settles over a bustling Texas sea port, a city made prosperous off the cotton trade and thick with racial inequality. The sky above Galveston, Texas, darkens to the sickly green of a healing bruise, the sea turns black, and the inhabitants of the city have no idea the force of the hammer about to drop on them. On September 8, 1900, a hurricane ripped apart Galveston, Texas, killing nearly 8,000 people and nearly obliterating the town. Lansdale's story brings dimension to many who lost their lives that day, and a few who survived.

Gracianna is inspired by true events in the life of Trini Amador’s great-grandmother, Gracianna Lasaga. As an adult, Amador was haunted by the vivid memory of finding a loaded German Luger tucked away in a nightstand while wandering his great-grandmother’s home in Southern California. He was only four years old at the time. Decades later, Amador would delve into the remarkable odyssey of his Gracianna’s past, a road that led him to an incredible surprise. In Gracianna, Amador weaves fact and fiction to tell his great-grandmother’s story.

Née à Strasbourg en 1761, la jeune Marie Grosholz, future madame Tussaud, est employée dès son plus jeune âge comme apprentie par un sculpteur sur cire. Lorsque le duo devient célèbre à Paris pour ses réalisations, Marie a pour modèles les plus grandes personnalités de l'époque : Voltaire, Rousseau, Benjamin Franklin, etc. Bientôt elle est accueillie à la Cour où elle prodigue des leçons de sculpture à la princesse Élisabeth, sœur du roi. En 1789, la capitale entre en ébullition, la foule exige des têtes.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1989, Jigsaw: An Unsentimental Education is a semi-autobiographical novel that tells the story of Billi, a girl growing up in Europe between the two World Wars. Upon the death of her German baron father, Billi moves from the family château to live with her vibrant and erratic English mother on the French Riviera. From there she is sent for schooling in England, where she lives an itinerant life, boarding among a bohemian crowd, attending galleries and public lectures, and reading some of the greatest books of the era.

Buckingham Palace, 1981. Her engagement to Prince Charles is a dream come true for Lady Diana Spencer, but marrying the heir to the throne is not all that it seems. Alone and bored in the palace, she resents the stuffy courtiers who are intent on instructing her about her new role as princess of Wales. But when she discovers a diary written in the 1800s by Princess Charlotte of Wales, a young woman born into a gilded cage so like herself, Diana is drawn into the story of Charlotte’s reckless love affairs and fraught relationship with her father, the prince regent.