Historical Fiction American Literature

Korea, 1943. Hana has lived her entire life under Japanese occupation. As a haenyeo, a female diver of the sea, she enjoys an independence that few other Koreans can still claim. Until the day Hana saves her younger sister from a Japanese soldier and is herself captured and transported to Manchuria. There she is forced to become a "comfort woman" in a Japanese military brothel. But haenyeo are women of power and strength. She will find her way home.

It is a time of troubles. In Cahokia, the corn crop is failing again and a warchief - and the warrior woman he may never possess - are disgusted by their Chief's lust for tribute. Now even the gods have turned their faces, closing the underworld to the seers. If the gods have abandoned the people, there is no hope - unless it comes in the form of a young girl who is learning to Dream of Power.

1549. Convinced he’s destined to fulfill a whispered prophecy, Friar Diego de Landa labors to convert the Maya of the Yucatán Peninsula. Discovering a brutal Spanish landowner persecuting the native population, Friar Diego determines to protect them and punish the cruel man. 2010. Cortez Vuscar is convinced his father will return if he can grow their church’s congregation. Certain he’s found his true love, Cortez sets out to win her from her wealthy, unfaithful boyfriend. But his fascination with the literature she’s reading infects his mind with a deadly descent into madness.

The glaciers of the Sierra Nevada are melting, destroying the habitat of the mastodons, creating the rich land that will become California. The coastal people struggle to understand the changing world around them: Their seer Sunchaser has lost his way to the Spirit World and mammoths continue to disappear. When a beautiful woman arrives, fleeing from her abusive husband, the people know what they must do - for if the Spirits are already taking the animals away, what will happen if they shelter a stranger?

Alaina MacGaren is forced to flee the devastation of her homeland in the guise of a young boy, only to find sanctuary in the arms of an enemy. Cole Latimer is a dashing Yankee surgeon who has served the Union faithfully, and his tender heart compels him to help a ragged, innocent "lad" in need—never suspecting the rags conceal a bewitching belle suspected of being a rebel spy.

Tracks is a tale of passion and deep unrest. Over the course of ten crucial years, as tribal land and trust between people erode ceaselessly, men and women are pushed to the brink of their endurance—yet their pride and humor prohibit surrender. The listener will experience shock and pleasure in encountering characters that are compelling and rich in their vigor, clarity, and indomitable vitality.

The moment orphaned American heiress Titania "Tansy" Danforth arrives on English shores she cuts a swath through Sussex, enslaving hearts and stealing beaux. She knows she's destined for a spectacular titled marriage - but the only man who fascinates her couldn't be more infamous...or less interested. A hardened veteran of war and inveterate rogue, Ian Eversea keeps women enthralled, his heart guarded and his options open: why should he succumb to the shackles of marriage when devastating good looks and Eversea charm make seduction so easy?

In a time before history, in a harsh and beautiful land near the top of the world, womanhood comes cruelly and suddenly to beautiful, young Chagak. Surviving the brutal massacre of her tribe, she sets out across the icy waters off Ameria's northwest coast on an astonishing odyssey that will reveal to Chagak powerful secrets of the earth and sky...and the mysteries of love and loss.

It was two hundred years before Columbus. The spirits of nature walked the earth…And the people of the American Southwest lived in intimate harmony with the land, the sky, and the seasons. Here the beautiful, blue eyed Kwani, gifted with magical vision, and Tolonqua, Hunting Chief of the Towa, joined in a passion that defied all taboos. Here Tolonqua fought to build a great fortress city to protect his clan against the dread Pawnee and other foes.

February 1913: seventeen-year-old Leda, carrying only a small trunk and her father's cherished violin, leaves her Italian village for a new home, and a new husband, in Argentina. Arriving in Buenos Aires, she discovers that he has been killed, but she remains: living in a tenement, without friends or family, on the brink of destitution. Still, she is seduced by the music that underscores life in the city: tango, born from lower-class immigrant voices, now the illicit, scandalous dance of brothels and cabarets.

In this sweeping, enthralling biography, acclaimed historian David Hackett Fischer brings to life the remarkable Samuel de Champlain - soldier, spy, master mariner, explorer, cartographer, artist, and Father of New France. We remember Champlain mainly as a great explorer. On foot and by ship and canoe, he traveled through what are now six Canadian provinces and five American states. Over more than 30 years he founded, colonized, and administered French settlements in North America.

At once fiercely immediate and complex in their implications, “The Shawl” and “Rosa” succeed in imagining the unimaginable: the horror of the Holocaust and the emptiness of its aftermath. They were written in 1977 but were first published in the early 1980s in The New Yorker. Both “The Shawl” and “Rosa” won first prize in the O. Henry Prize Stories and were chosen for Best American Short Stories.

Mammoths, mastodons, and giant lions have become extinct, and Rain Bear, the chief of Sandy Point Village, knows his struggling Raven People may be next. One day a beautiful red-haired woman, Evening Star, stumbles into his council lodge and begs him for sanctuary. He soon learns that she's an escaped slave from the North Wind People, a Caucasoid race and the Raven People's mortal enemies.

A solid marriage, a thriving business, and the esteem of their close-knit Alabama community - Joyce and Odell Watson have every reason to count their blessings. Their marriage has given well-off Joyce a chance at the family she's always wanted - and granted Odell a once-in-a-lifetime shot to escape grinding poverty. But all that respectability and status comes at a cost. Just once, Joyce and Odell want to break loose and taste life's wild side, without consequences.

Rapidly rising romance star Julie Anne Long is making an indelible mark with her smart, sensual, richly emotional love stories, especially her unforgettable Pennyroyal Green novels. The sixth delectable Pennyroyal Green affair, Long's How the Marquess Was Won is the story of a beautiful orphan from the streets of Regency London, now refined, who inadvertently bewitches the dashing nobleman whom England's scandal sheets have dubbed "Lord Ice." Julie Anne Long is certain to win the hearts and eternal devotion of dedicated romance fans with How the Marquess Was Won.

What could possibly make a proper gentleman come completely undone? What if Elizabeth Bennet accepted the proposal of another before she met Mr. Darcy again? In Abigail Reynolds' bold and playful retelling of the Austen classic, a devastated Mr. Darcy must decide how far he is willing to go to win the woman he loves. Consumed by jealousy, he knows that winning her will throw them both into scandal and disgrace, but losing her is unbearable. Mr. Darcy is going to have to fight for his love, and his life. . .

Absalom, Absalom! tells the story of Thomas Sutpen, the enigmatic stranger who came to Jefferson township in the early 1830s. With a French architect and a band of wild Haitians, he wrung a fabulous plantation out of the muddy bottoms of the north Mississippi wilderness. Sutpen was a man, Faulker said, "who wanted sons and the sons destroyed him". His tragedy left its impress not only on his contemporaries but also on men who came after, men like Quentin Compson, haunted even into the 20th century by Sutpen's legacy.

After struggling for years to have a child, Claire Rasmussen, 34, turns to adoption, only to find new obstacles on the path to motherhood. Then, she gets an unlikely phone call and soon learns that a distant uncle possesses the secrets of time travel. Within weeks, Claire, husband Ron, and brother David find themselves on a train to Tennessee and 1945, where adoptable infants are plentiful and red tape is short. For a time, they find what they seek. Then, a beautiful stranger enters their lives, the navy calls, and a simple, straightforward mission becomes a race for survival.

Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa church - the only available shelter from the rain - and ignites a romance and a debate that will reshape her life. She becomes the wife of a minister, John Ames, and begins a new existence while trying to make sense of the life that preceded her newfound security. Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and brought up by her in a hardscrabble childhood.

Running into a long-ago friend sets memories from the 1970s in motion for August, transporting her to a time and a place where friendship was everything - until it wasn't. For August and her girls, sharing confidences as they ambled through neighborhood streets, Brooklyn was a place where they believed that they were beautiful, talented, brilliant - a part of a future that belonged to them.