Historical Biographical Fiction

It is the spring of 1527. Henry VIII has come to Hever Castle in Kent to pay court to Anne Boleyn. He is desperate to have her. For this mirror of female perfection he will set aside his queen and all Cardinal Wolsey's plans for a dynastic French marriage. Anne Boleyn is not so sure. She loathes Wolsey for breaking her betrothal to the Earl of Northumberland's son, Harry Percy, whom she had loved. She does not welcome the king's advances; she knows that she can never give him her heart.

Twenty-five-year-old Jane Seymour wants nothing more than to become a nun. But her ambitious father has forced her to live at court as lady-in-waiting to Queen Katherine of Aragon, a fellow Catholic whom she soon comes to love and admire. So Jane is appalled when King Henry shunts Katherine aside in his lustful pursuit of Anne Boleyn, but even more so when he takes Anne's life in his rush to wed - Jane herself!

Legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel is revered for her sophisticated style - the iconic little black dress - and famed for her intoxicating perfume Chanel No. 5. Yet behind the public persona is a complicated woman of intrigue, shadowed by mysterious rumors. The Queen of Paris, the new novel from award-winning author Pamela Binnings Ewen, vividly imagines the hidden life of Chanel during the four years of Nazi occupation in Paris in the midst of WWII - as discovered in recently unearthed wartime files.

Margaret George's novel brings into focus the larger-than-life King Henry VIII, monarch of prodigious appetites for wine, women, and song.

This novel allows the unscrupulous and proud Queen of the Nile to recount her own tale. A masterful recreation of history.

Eul’blond est l’expression préférée du grand gnou pour nommer son fils, son gaou. Ce surnom étant un savant mélange d’avertissements et de recadrage, il est aussi le cri hiérarchique du géniteur envers sa progéniture. Et ce, même si son prolongement n’est pas blond, mais plutôt brun. La grande migration des gnous de 1980 se prépare à Montréal. Eul’blond a douze ans et s’apprête, sans le savoir, à entrer dans le rituel de passage propre à sa race.

In the glittering and ruthlessly competitive world of opera, Maria Callas was known simply as la divina: the divine one. With her glorious voice, instinctive flair for the dramatic and striking beauty, she was the toast of the grandest opera houses in the world. But her fame was hard won: raised in Nazi-occupied Greece by a mother who mercilessly exploited her golden voice, she learned early in life to protect herself from those who would use her for their own ends.

Elisabeth Eidenbenz left Switzerland in 1937 to aid children orphaned during the Spanish Civil War. Now, her work has led her to France, where she's determined to provide expectant mothers and their unborn children a refuge amid one of the worst humanitarian crises of the twentieth century. Desperate to escape the invasion of Franco's Fascist troops, Isabel Dueñas becomes one of many Spanish patriots fleeing their country. She leaves behind her husband as he fights for democracy, and she seeks asylum in a refugee camp across the border in France.

In the pre-dawn hours of August 24th, 1305, in London's Smithfield Prison, the outlaw William Wallace - hero of all the Scots and deadly enemy of King Edward of England - sits awaiting the dawn, when he is to be hanged and then drawn and quartered. This brutal sundering of his body is the revenge of the English. Wallace is visited by a Scottish priest who has come to hear his last confession, a priest who knows Wallace like a brother. Wallace's confession - the tale that follows - is all the more remarkable because it comes from real life.

Jackie Kennedy is beautiful, sophisticated, and contemplating leaving her ambitious young senator husband. When she's offered a holiday on the luxurious yacht owned by billionaire Ari Onassis, she says yes...to a meeting that will ultimately change her life. Maria Callas is at the height of her operatic career and widely considered to be the finest soprano in the world. And then she's introduced to Aristotle Onassis, the world's richest man and her fellow Greek. Little by little, Maria's and Jackie's lives began to overlap, until everything they know about the world changes on a dime.

From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women. Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world - and it is now the newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.

Mary is queen of Scotland, but she has been forced to flee her land and take refuge in an England that is ruled by her cousin, Elizabeth. But England, precarious in its Protestant state, set against the mighty powers of Spain, France and Rome, doesn't need a charismatic Catholic figurehead at large. So Elizabeth's chief advisor, Cecil, devises a plan in which Mary will live under guard with his trusted accomplice: Bess of Hardwick.

In the long hot summer of 1939, Britain is preparing for war, but on a riverside farm in Suffolk there is excitement of another kind. Mrs. Pretty, a widowed farmer, has had her hunch proved correct that the strange mounds on her land hold buried treasure. As an archaeological dig proceeds against a background of mounting national anxiety, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary find, and the discovery leads to a host of jealousies and tensions.

Set in the vibrant fourteenth century of Chaucer and the Black Death, the story features knights fighting in battle, serfs struggling in poverty, and the magnificent Plantagenets—Edward III, the Black Prince, and Richard II—who rule despotically over a court rotten with intrigue. Within this era of danger and romance, John of Gaunt, the king’s son, falls passionately in love with the already-married Katherine. Their affair persists through decades of war, adultery, murder, loneliness, and redemption.

Though she was born into poverty, Inés Suárez, a seamstress in 16th-century Spain, embodies the same restless hope and opportunism that fuels her nation’s conquest of the Americas. Learning that her shiftless husband has vanished, Inés uses his disappearance to embark on her own adventure. It is a journey will lead her to Pedro de Valdivia - a conquistador who becomes the first royal governor of Chile - and to a love that not only changes her life but the course of history.

The year is 1853, and the Habsburgs are Europe's most powerful ruling family. With his empire stretching from Austria to Russia, from Germany to Italy, Emperor Franz Joseph is young, rich, and ready to marry.

She was an all-American girl who became a legend of unparalleled stature. She inspired the adoration of millions, and her life has beguiled generations of fans and fellow artists. The story of Norma Jeane Baker, better known by her studio name, Marilyn Monroe, has been dissected for more than three decades, but never has it been captured in a narrative as breathtaking and transforming as Blonde.

1135, England: Matilda, daughter of Henry I, knows that there are those who will not accept her as England's queen when her father dies. But the men who support her rival, and cousin, Stephen do not know the iron will that drives her. She will win her inheritance against all odds, and despite all men. Adeliza, Henry's widowed queen and Matilda's stepmother, is now married to a warrior who is fighting to keep Matilda off the throne. But Adeliza knows that Britain's crown belongs to a woman this time. Both women will stand and fight for what they know is right for England's royalty.

Paris, 1938. Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli are fighting for recognition as the most successful and influential fashion designer in France, and their rivalry is already legendary. They oppose each other at every turn, in both their politics and their designs: Chanel's are classic, elegant, and practical; Schiaparelli's bold, experimental, and surreal. When Lily Sutter travels to Paris to visit her brother, Charlie, he insists on buying her a couture dress for her birthday - a Chanel. Lily reluctantly agrees but wants a Schiaparelli, not a Chanel.

Ned Kelly's name resonates in Australia the same way the name Jesse James does in America. Was he a crusading folk hero or murderous horse thief and bank robber? Who was the real Ned Kelly? As the impoverished son of an Irish convict, Kelly was cheated, lied to, and abused by the English. Committed to fighting back against oppression, Kelly and his gang of outlaws eluded police for nearly two years.