Historical Biographical Fiction

Growing up in the Depression, Tom thinks his southern Indiana life is perfect, until the day the green beans burn on the stove and he cannot find his mother. As an adult, Tom determines he will never forgive God for taking the most important person in his life. Not even the prestige of working in the White House under President Eisenhower and in the CIA under President Kennedy can ease his bitterness. Then, through an unexpected voice and an unpretentious Amish man, Tom Kirkman is forever changed.

In the tradition of Schindler's List comes a thrilling novel based on the heroic true story of Fritz Kolbe, a widowed civil servant in Adolf Hitler's foreign ministry. Recognizing that millions of lives are at stake, Kolbe uses his position to pass information to the Americans - risking himself and the people he holds most dear - and embarks on a dangerous double life as the Allies' most important spy.

1461. Through blood and battle Edward has gained England’s throne – king by right and conquest – eighteen years old and unstoppable. Cecily has piloted his rise to power and stands at his shoulder now, first to claim the title King’s Mother. But to win a throne is not to keep it and war is come again. As brother betrays brother, and trusted cousins turn treacherous, other mothers rise up to fight for other sons. Cecily must focus her will to defeat every challenge. Wherever they come from. Whatever the cost. For there can be only one King, and only one King’s Mother.

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.

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.

She was the small-town southern beauty transformed into a Hollywood love goddess. He was the legendary crooner whose voice transfixed the world. They were Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra. Separately they were irresistible; together they were an explosive combination. Ava’s star is rising just as Frank’s career—and public image as a family man—is taking a hit. Gone are the days of the screaming bobbysoxers and chart-topping hits. Ava, however, finds herself gracing the front page of every tabloid in America. Jealousy and cheating abound.

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.

As a Maid of Honor at the Court of King Henry VIII, beautiful Alice Petherton receives her share of admirers. But when the powerful, philandering Sir Richard Rich attempts to seduce her, she knows she cannot thwart his advances for long. She turns to the most powerful man in England for protection: the King himself. As beautiful as she is intelligent, Alice easily captures the King's interest. He takes her to bed on the day of his son Edward's birth.

When AP political reporter Lorena Hickok - Hick - is assigned to cover Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1932 campaign, the two women become deeply involved. Their relationship begins with mutual romantic passion, matures through stormy periods of enforced separation and competing interests, and warms into an enduring, encompassing friendship documented by 3,300 letters.

In seventeenth-century Rome, an arrogant and reckless artist named Caravaggio drinks and brawls his way through his violent, insatiable life, all while painting some of the world’s greatest religious works of art. But it is his bitter feud with Giovanni Roero, a brutal knight in the Maltese Order of St. John, that is his fatal error. Now, in the village of Monte Piccolo, a priest claims to have discovered a lost painting by the famed artist in the storage room of an orphanage. Retired professor A. R. Richman believes it’s a delusional dream.

In 1761, a tiny, odd-looking girl named Marie is born in a village in Switzerland. After the death of her parents, she is apprenticed to an eccentric wax sculptor and whisked off to the seamy streets of Paris, where they meet a domineering widow and her quiet, pale son. Together, they convert an abandoned monkey house into an exhibition hall for wax heads, and the spectacle becomes a sensation. As word of her artistic talent spreads, Marie is called to Versailles, where she tutors a princess and saves Marie Antoinette in childbirth. But outside the palace walls, Paris is roiling....

Deeply moving and illuminating, Trouble the Water reveals the little-known real-life story of Robert Smalls. Born enslaved before the Civil War, Smalls witnesses great privilege and immense suffering alongside his owner's daughter. When the war erupts and his cotton steamer becomes a confederate warship, Robert attempts a harrowing escape to freedom for himself and the people he loves. Robert Smalls is one of America's great unsung heroes, and Trouble the Water finally brings his story into the light.

The only legitimate child of Lord Byron, the most brilliant, revered, and scandalous of the Romantic poets, Ada was destined for fame long before her birth. Estranged from Ada's father, who was infamously "mad, bad, and dangerous to know", Ada's mathematician mother is determined to save her only child from her perilous Byron heritage. Banishing fairy tales and make-believe from the nursery, Ada's mother provides her daughter with a rigorous education grounded in mathematics and science.

Mia madre era una strega. O almeno così dissero quando la trascinarono via. Ma per me era vera solo una cosa: lei era il centro del mio universo. Avevo nove anni e la mia vita cominciò quel giorno. Inghilterra, 1573: in un mondo già illuminato dalla luce del Rinascimento, ma in cui ancora si dà la caccia alle streghe, la piccola Rose è figlia di una madre accusata di stregoneria, e per lei la vita sembra avere in serbo solo povertà e amarezza.

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.

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.

Diana: A Spencer in Love is a novel that spans the first extraordinary year of Princess Diana’s royal life. As a novel, it tells the story from Diana’s own point of view - this is her voice telling us what happened in the early ’80s. Everyone knows the bare facts about Lady Diana Spencer, but no one has told the story of what this remarkable young woman was thinking, feeling, and experiencing during this incredible time.

Rome, 1520. The Eternal City is in mourning. Raphael Sanzio, beloved painter and national hero, has died suddenly at the height of his fame. His body lies in state at the Pantheon. At the nearby convent of Sant'Apollonia, a young woman comes to the Mother Superior, seeking refuge. She is Margherita Luti, a baker's daughter from a humble neighborhood on the Tiber, now an outcast from Roman society, persecuted by enemies within the Vatican. Margherita was Raphael's beloved and appeared as the Madonna in many of his paintings. But now that Raphael is gone, the convent is her only hope.

England, 1873. Clara Blackstone has just been released after one year in a private asylum for the insane. Clara has two goals: to reunite with her husband, Henry, and to never - ever - return to the asylum. As she enters Durham, Clara finds her carriage surrounded by a mob gathered to witness the imprisonment of Mary Ann Cotton - England’s first female serial killer - accused of poisoning nearly 20 people, including her husbands and children.