Historical Family Saga

Shanghai, 1912. Violet Minturn is the privileged daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. But when the Ching dynasty is overturned, Violet is separated from her mother in a cruel act of chicanery and forced to become a "virgin courtesan." Half-Chinese and half-American, Violet grapples with her place in the worlds of East and West - until she is able to merge her two halves, empowering her to become a shrewd courtesan who excels in the business of seduction and illusion, though she still struggles to understand who she is.

1940: As the Germans advance upon Paris, young seamstress Estella Bissette is forced to flee everything she's ever known. She's bound for New York City with her signature gold dress, a few francs, and a dream: to make her mark on the world of fashion. Present day: Fabienne Bissette journeys to the Met's annual gala for an exhibit featuring the work of her grandmother - a legend of women's fashion design. But as Fabienne begins to learn more about her beloved grandmother's past, she uncovers a story of tragedy, heartbreak, and family secrets that will dramatically change her own life.

Elegant, secretive Sabina may be empress of Rome, but she still stands poised on a knife's edge. She must keep the peace between two deadly enemies: her husband, Hadrian, Rome's brilliant and sinister emperor; and battered warrior Vix, who is her first love. But Sabina is guardian of a deadly secret: Vix's beautiful son, Antinous, has become the emperor's latest obsession.

New York City/Paris, 1942: When American model Jessica May arrives in Europe to cover the war as a photojournalist for Vogue, most of the soldiers are determined to make her life as difficult as possible. But three friendships change that. Journalist Martha Gellhorn encourages Jess to bend the rules. Captain Dan Hallworth keeps her safe in dangerous places so she can capture the stories that truly matter. And most important of all, the love of a little orphan named Victorine gives Jess strength to do the impossible. But her success will come at a price....

1987: Thirteen-year-old Jade Armbruster lives with her parents and older sister on the family’s vintage oil farm—a decrepit property built by her ancestor. As her parents fight about whether to sell the land and their failing business, Jade struggles to avoid her best-friend-turned-nemesis and vies for the attention of the enigmatic farmer boy. Meanwhile, the oil swirling beneath her family’s home provokes erratic behaviors and offers murky revelations about her family’s history on this land.

In 1918, after four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia to take a job as the lighthouse keeper on remote Janus Rock. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes only four times a year and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Three years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel is tending the grave of her newly lost infant when she hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up on shore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

Alors que les années 1960 tirent à leur fin, bonheurs et chagrins continuent de se multiplier à la Place des Érables. Agathe, la coiffeuse du quartier, tente de surmonter les pénibles conséquences des frasques de son Rémi et de limiter les commérages à son sujet. Autant essayer de calmer les poules dans une basse-cour!

The tangled lives of three generations evoke a vanished world in this, the first volume of the Cazalet Chronicle. Home Place, Sussex, 1937. The English family at home.... For two unforgettable summers they gathered together, safe from the advancing storm clouds of war. In the heart of the Sussex countryside these were still sunlit days of childish games, lavish family meals and picnics on the beach.

In the second book in number one New York Times best selling author Sandra Brown’s beloved Texas! trilogy, listeners meet another son of the troubled Tyler clan - Chase Tyler, a man hardened by life and desperately trying to outrun the sorrows of his past. Chase Tyler has been the object of Marcie Johns’s desire since grade school. But when it came time to settle down, the handsome, laconic cowboy chose another woman to be his bride. Life was good for Chase - until things took an abrupt and tragic turn.

With a will of steel, Polish immigrant Florentyna Rosnovski is indeed Abel's daughter. She shares with her father a love of America, his ideals, and his dream for the future. But she wants more to be the first female president. Golden boy Richard Kane was born into a life of luxury. The scion of a banking magnate he is successful, handsome, and determined to carve his own path in the world - and to build a future with the woman he loves. With Florentyna's ultimate goal only a heartbeat away, both are about to discover the shattering price of power as a titanic battle of betrayal and deception.

The mid-1800s is a time of great change for James McGrother and his family. Friendship and loyalty draw the Irish fisherman into a world he would rather stay away from. Choices must be made that could bring the wrath of an old enemy upon James' head. How many fresh starts should a person have to make in their lifetime? Why is it that just when you think your boat has reached the shore, the tide turns and sweeps you back out to a stormy sea?

Alors que se prépare l’Expo, ça grouille de vie à la Place des Érables. Le beau pharmacien manifeste de plus en plus d’intérêt pour Mado, l’exubérante serveuse du casse-croûte. Cependant, il n’aura pas les coudées aussi franches qu’il le souhaiterait pour la conquérir. En face, chez les Picard, Arthur est très amoureux de la belle Anna et, à seize ans, semble voir une éclaircie à son avenir. Son ami Daniel et sa chérie n’ont pas la même chance.

Kate Atkinson's dazzling Life After Life explored the possibility of infinite chances, following Ursula Todd as she lived through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. Her new novel tells the story of Ursula Todd's beloved younger brother, Teddy - would-be poet, RAF bomber pilot, husband, and father - as he navigates the perils and progress of the 20th century. For all Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge is facing the difficulties of living in a future he never expected to have.

1740s France and England - the age of hedonism and enlightenment. Renard, Duke of Roxton, is wealthy beyond measure. Arrogant and self assured, his heart remains his own. Optimistic and headstrong, Antonia Moran is determined to flee the Court of Versailles with the Duke's unwitting assistance. Roxton is an unlikely savior - arrogant, promiscuous, and sinister. Antonia's unquestioning belief in him may just be his salvation, and her undoing.

It is 1685 and England is on the brink of a renewed civil war. King Charles II has died without an heir and his brother James is to take the throne. But the people are bitterly divided, and many do not welcome the new king or his young queen. Ned Ferryman cannot persuade his sister, Alinor, that he is right to return from America with his Pokanoket servant, Rowan, to join the rebel army. Instead, Alinor and her daughter Alys, have been coaxed by the manipulative Livia to save the queen from the coming siege. The rewards are life-changing.

The first novel in The Century Trilogy, it follows the fates of five interrelated families - American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh - as they move through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage.

Charleston, South Carolina, 1860. For nine long years, Clare Stratford has struggled to understand her mother's final choice. The truth comes at a devastating price. Clare's lifelong love, Dr. David Lazare, risks everything to heal her wounded body. But only the medicine of David's Cheyenne brother, Ésh, can mend Clare's shattered soul.

Infamous for his wild, sensual needs, Lazarus Huntington, Lord Caire, is searching for a savage killer in St. Giles, London's most notorious slum. Widowed Temperance Dews knows St. Giles like the back of her hand-she's spent a lifetime caring for its inhabitants at the foundling home her family established. Now that home is at risk.....

Ever since running away at the age of fourteen, Paul-Edward, the son of a white landowner and a black slave, has had one dream: to own land every bit as good as his daddy's. While growing up, Paul-Edward loved, and feared, his father, but he loved the land unconditionally. Then, after a rash act of youthful rebellion, he leaves his family behind and vows to succeed on his own. However, for anyone black coming of age in 1880's Mississippi, this is no simple goal.

1916: Betty O’Fogarty is proud and clever. Spurred on by Betty's belief in her husband Seamus’s talent as a violin-maker and her desire to escape rural life, the couple elopes to Dublin. As Dublin is plunged into chaos as the Easter Rebellion of 1916, Betty gives birth to her first child to the sound of gunfire and shelling. A hundred years later, secrets churn their way to the surface, and Betty’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren uncover both Betty’s ruthlessness and her unique brand of heroism.