Historical Fiction American Literature

Jobless with a PhD, Lee Lien returns home to her Chicago suburb from grad school, only to find herself contending with issues she's evaded since college. But when her brother disappears, he leaves behind an object from their mother's Vietnam past that stirs up a forgotten childhood dream: a gold-leaf brooch, abandoned by an American reporter in Saigon back in 1965, that might be an heirloom belonging to Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Suite au décès de M. Dashwood, sa veuve et ses trois filles se voient contraintes de quitter le Sussex et le domaine familial de Norland. Elles se réfugient dans le Devon, à l'invitation d'un généreux parent, où une nouvelle vie, plus modeste les attend. Les sœurs aînées, Elinor et Maria, l'une plus raisonnable, l'autre plus sentimentale vont vivre leur premiers émois amoureux non sans quelques revers.

Barcelona, 1957. Daniel Sempere y su amigo Fermín, los héroes de La Sombra del Viento, regresan de nuevo a la aventura para afrontar el mayor desafío de sus vidas. Justo cuando todo empezaba a sonreírles, un inquietante personaje visita la librería de Sempere y amenaza con desvelar un terrible secreto que lleva enterrado más de dos décadas en la oscura memoria de la ciudad.

Luz “Little Light” Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, is left to fend for herself after her older brother, Diego, a snake charmer and factory worker, is run out of town by a violent white mob. As Luz navigates 1930s Denver, she begins to have visions that transport her to her Indigenous homeland in the nearby Lost Territory. Luz recollects her ancestors’ origins, how her family flourished, and how they were threatened. She bears witness to the sinister forces that have devastated her people and their homelands for generations.

After his brother took his throne and exiled him, Tiglath Ashur finds himself wandering the ancient world of the Mediterranean to outrun the killers sent after him, but Tigalth knows that staying away from his home won't be an option forever in the sequel novel to The Assyrian.

Newport, R.I. 1880 - American débutante Sara Swan Whiting has been trained for one purpose: to marry well into society. Together with her friends, Carrie Astor, and Edith Jones (Wharton) Sara débuts into society and is introduced to the bachelor’s of New York’s wealthiest families, hoping to find the perfect marriage. ‘Ethereally beautiful’ and ‘the spirit of the ball’, Sara garners many suitors. But none steal her heart, until destiny steps in and she is introduced to Oliver Belmont, the handsome son of financier August Belmont.

Mark Franklin came from the American West to Edwardian England with two long-barrelled .44s in his baggage and a fortune in silver in the bank. Where he had got it and what he was looking for no one could guess, although they wondered - at Scotland Yard, in city offices, in the glittering theatreland of the West End, in the highest circles of society (even King Edward was puzzled) and in the humble pub at Castle Lancing.

On a struggling Texas plantation, six enslaved women slip from their sleeping quarters and gather in the woods under the cover of night. The Lucys—as they call the plantation owners, after Lucifer himself—have decided to turn around the farm’s bleak financial prospects by making the women bear children. They have hired a “stockman” to impregnate them. But the women are determined to protect themselves.

Searching for an inn, the enigmatic traveler Hans stops in a small city on the border between Saxony and Prussia. The next morning, Hans meets an old organ-grinder in the market square and immediately finds himself enmeshed in an intense debate - on identity and what it is that defines us - from which he cannot break free. Indefinitely stuck in Wandernburg until his debate with the organ-grinder is concluded, he begins to meet the various characters who populate the town, including a young freethinker named Sophie.

Luli Wei is beautiful, talented, and desperate to be a star. Coming of age in pre-Code Hollywood, she knows how dangerous the movie business is and how limited the roles are for a Chinese American girl from Hungarian Hill—but she doesn't care. She’d rather play a monster than a maid. But in Luli's world, the worst monsters in Hollywood are not the ones on screen. The studios want to own everything from her face to her name to the women she loves, and they run on a system of bargains made in blood and ancient magic, powered by the endless sacrifice of unlucky starlets like her.

After leaving Uncle Chester's homestead claim, orphan Hattie Brooks throws a lasso around a new dream, even bigger than the Montana sky. She wants to be a reporter, knowing full well that a few pieces published in the Arlington News will not suffice. Real reporters must go to Grand Places, and do Grand Things, like Hattie's hero Nellie Bly. Another girl might be stymied by this, but Hattie has faced down a hungry wolf and stood up to a mob of angry men. Nothing can squash her desire to write for a big city newspaper.

Known throughout Tennessee as "Old Kate", the Bell Witch took up residence with John Bell's family in 1818. It was a cruel and noisy spirit, given to knocking and gnawing sounds before finding its own voices. With these voices and supernatural acts, the Bell Witch tormented the Bell family. The extraordinary tale recounts the only documented case in U.S. History when a spirit "actually caused a man's death".

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.

The Lindsay family has come west hoping to help the father, John, recover from an illness. When they arrive, they are induced to purchase Spanish Peaks Ranch, an abandoned United States military post surrounded by mountains. It seems like a perfect place to settle into their new life as ranchers. As they soon find out, though, this deserted fort is equally suited for both protection and imprisonment.

Kaya knows in her heart that her beautiful Appaloosa mare, Steps High, is the fastest horse in the herd. But when boasting leads to a daring bareback race, Kaya pushes Steps High too hard. She puts herself and the horse in danger and earns a terrible nickname for being untrustworthy. Kaya vows to be a girl her horse and her people can trust. When enemy raiders storm Kaya’s village, she tries to save Steps High but gets taken captive herself, along with her sister. All Kaya can think of is escape, but how?

A mother and daughter negotiate the Oregon Trail with grisly results; an elementary teacher watches the carnage of the Challenger explosion spill over into her own classroom. A possible prospector traveling west is drawn to an isolated inn where no one walks away hungry; a 1950s housewife shares the gruesome repertoire of behavior expected of a proper lady. Prohibition and women’s suffrage, the Civil War and the Vietnam War, the JFK assassination conspiracy and the Y2K hysteria.

The year is 1729, and Resolute Talbot and her siblings are captured by pirates, taken from their family in Jamaica and brought to the New World. Resolute and her sister are sold into slavery in colonial New England and taught the trade of spinning and weaving. When Resolute finds herself alone in Lexington, Massachusetts, she struggles to find her way in a society that is quick to judge a young woman without a family. As the seeds of rebellion against England grow, Resolute is torn between following the rules and breaking free.

On the Flathead Indian Reservation, summer is ending, and Louise White Elk is determined to forge her own path. Raised by her Grandmother Magpie after the death of her mother, Louise and her younger sister have grown up into the harsh social and physical landscape of western Montana in the 1940s, where Native people endure boarding schools and life far from home. As she approaches adulthood, Louise hopes to create an independent life for herself and an improved future for her family—but three persistent men have other plans.

Margaret of Anjou, queen of England, cannot give up on her husband - even when he slips into insanity. And as mother to the House of Lancaster's last hope, she cannot give up on her son - even when England turns against them. This gripping tale of a queen forced to stand strong in the face of overwhelming odds is, at its heart, a tender tale of love. Award-winning author Susan Higginbotham will once again ask listeners to question everything they know about right and wrong, compassion and hope, duty to one's country, and the desire of one's own heart.

In Berkeley, California, in 1944, Homicide Detective Al Sullivan has just left the swanky Claremont Hotel after a drink in the bar when a presidential candidate is assassinated in one of the rooms upstairs. A rich industrialist with enemies among the anarchist factions on the far left, Walter Wilkinson could have been targeted by any number of groups. But strangely, Sullivan’s investigation brings up the specter of another tragedy at the Claremont, ten years earlier: the death of seven-year-old Iris Stafford, a member of the Bainbridge family, one of the wealthiest in all of San Francisco.