Historical Biographical Fiction

17th Century Holland. When Griet becomes a maid in the household of Johannes Vermeer in the town of Delft, she thinks she knows her role: housework, laundry and the care of his six children. But as she becomes part of his world and his work, their growing intimacy spreads tension and deception in the ordered household and, as the scandal seeps out, into the town beyond.

Mare Internum, año 75 a. C. Un barco mercante navega rumbo a la isla de Rodas. A bordo, Julio César acompañado sólo por su fiel Labieno. Obligado por sus enemigos a exiliarse de Roma, se dirige al encuentro con el maestro Apolonio para aprender oratoria y de este modo, a su regreso, iniciar una feroz pugna para ingresar en el Senado y enfrentarse allí al temido Cicerón.

In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure. The narrator of Caleb's Crossing is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless and curious, she yearns after an education that is closed to her by her sex....

Gibran's Jesus: The Son of Man is a portrayal of Christ through the eyes of His contemporaries - men and women who knew him as an enemy, friend, teacher, and Son.

The characters, including Mary Magdalen, Simon Peter, Pontius Pilate, and Barabbas are brought to life against the social, political, and religious realities of Palestine and Rome at that period.

When We Cease to Understand the World is a book about the complicated links between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction. Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger - these are some of the luminaries into whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut thrusts the listener, showing us how they grappled with the most profound questions of existence.

England, 1840. For the two decades following the death of her beloved sister, Jane, Cassandra Austen has lived alone and unwed, spending her days visiting friends and relations and quietly, purposefully working to preserve her sister’s reputation. Now in her 60s and increasingly frail, Cassandra goes to stay with the Fowles of Kintbury, family of her long-dead fiancé, in search of a trove of Jane’s letters. Dodging her hostess and a meddlesome housemaid, Cassandra eventually hunts down the letters and confronts the secrets they hold.

Mon prénom, Bào Vi, illustrait l'intention de mes parents de "protéger la plus petite". Si l'on traduit littéralement, je suis "Précieuse minuscule microscopique". Comme dans la plupart des cas au Vietnam, je n'ai pas su être à l'image de mon nom. Souvent, les filles qui s'appellent "Blanche" ou "Neige" ont le teint très foncé, et les garçons nommés "Puissance" ou "Fort" craignent les grandes épreuves. Quant à moi, je grandissais sans cesse, dépassant de loin la moyenne et, du même élan, me projetant en dehors des normes.

April 1897: A young nanny arrives at Sandringham, ancestral estate of the Duke and Duchess of York. She is excited, exhausted - and about to meet royalty. So begins the unforgettable story of Charlotte Bill, who would care for a generation of royals as their parents never could. Neither Charlotte - LaLa, as her charges dub her - nor anyone else can predict that eldest sons David and Bertie will each one day be king. LaLa knows only that these children, and the four who swiftly follow, need her steadfast loyalty and unconditional affection.

An exhaustively researched novel weaves both historical fact and plausible fiction in bringing the story of Mary Queen of Scots to life.

China, December 1941. Having left an unhappy life in England for a teaching post at a missionary school in northern China, Elspeth Kent is now anxious to return home to help the war effort. But as she prepares to leave China, a terrible twist of fate determines a different path for Elspeth, and those in her charge. Ten-year-old Nancy Plummer has always felt safe at Chefoo School, protected by her British status.

Was Mary Magdalene a prostitute, a female divinity figure, a church leader, or all of those? Biblical references to her are tantalizingly brief, but we do know that she was the first person to whom the risen Christ appeared - and the one commissioned to tell others the good news, earning her the ancient honorific "Apostle to the Apostles". Today, Mary continues to spark controversy, curiosity, and veneration. In a vivid re-creation of Mary Magdalene's life story, Margaret George convincingly captures this renowned woman's voice.

The Lioness of Boston is a portrait of what society expected a woman's life to be, shattered by a courageous soul who rebelled and was determined to live on her own terms.

Of all the glamorous stars of New York high society, none blazes brighter than Babe Paley. Her flawless face regularly graces the pages of Vogue, and she is celebrated and adored for her ineffable style and exquisite taste, especially among her friends - the alluring socialite Swans Slim Keith, C. Z. Guest, Gloria Guinness, and Pamela Churchill. By all appearances, Babe has it all. But beneath this elegantly composed exterior dwells a passionate woman - a woman desperately longing for true love and connection.

Here is an extraordinary portrait of one of the most complicated - and misunderstood - figures among the Founding Fathers. In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him. In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many. But he is determined to tell his own story, and he chooses to confide in a young New York City journalist. Burr is the first novel in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series.

The year is 1853, and Princess Elisabeth “Sisi” of Bavaria has been very clear: She will wait for the head-over-heels love the poets speak of, or she will have no love at all. Just because her older sister, Helene, is eagerly heeding their mother’s advice and preparing to marry Emperor Franz of Austria does not mean Sisi must also subject herself to such a dutiful existence. Sisi knows there is more to life than luncheons and corsets—if only someone would let her experience it all firsthand.

In 1831, Charles Darwin set off in HMS Beagle under the command of Captain Robert Fitzroy on a voyage that would change the world. This is the story of a deep friendship between two men and the twin obsessions that tear them apart, leading one to triumph and the other to disaster.

In 1573, Countess Erzsébet Báthory gives birth to an illegitimate child. Secretly taken to a peasant family living in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, the infant girl is raised as their own. Years later, a young woman called Boróka—ignorant of her true history—is sent to join the Countess’s household. Terrified of the Countess’s murderous reputation and the brutally cruel women who run the castle, Boróka struggles to find her place. Then plague breaches the castle’s walls, and a tentative bond unexpectedly forms between the girl and the Countess.

To the world, she was Princess Victoria, daughter of a queen, wife of an emperor, and mother of Kaiser Wilhelm. Her family just called her Vicky...smart, pretty, and self-assured, she changed the course of the world. January 1858: Princess Victoria glides down the aisle of St. James Chapel to the waiting arms of her beloved, Fritz, Prince Frederick, heir to the powerful kingdom of Prussia.

Born a veritable great lion of God to a devout Jewish family, Saul of Tarsus is raised by his parents to embrace their love of humanity. Dogged by what he perceives as a lack of true faith, he embarks on a journey to save his people from sacrilege. But on the road to Damascus a vision of the resurrected Jesus changes the course of his life. Converting to Christianity, the newly christened Paul transforms from persecutor of blasphemers into apostle to the gentiles, becoming one of the supreme influences on the Catholic Church and the Western world.

Hanson joins the Green Berets fresh out of college. Carrying a volume of Yeats's poems in his uniform pocket, he has no idea of what he's about to face in Vietnam - from the enemy, from his fellow soldiers, or within himself. In vivid, nightmarish, and finely etched prose, Kent Anderson takes us through Hanson's two tours of duty and a bitter, ill-fated return to civilian life in-between, capturing the day-to-day process of war like no writer before or since.