Historical Fiction American Literature

Mac knows he's a dead man. His only hope is to join another cattle drive on the Goodnight-Loving Trail, deep in New Mexico Territory. The journey ahead is even deadlier than the hired guns behind him. His trail boss is an ornery cuss. His crewmate is the owner's spoiled son. And the route is overrun with kill-crazy rustlers and bloodthirsty Comanche. To make matters worse, Mac's would-be killers are closing in fast. But when the cattle owner's son is kidnapped, the courageous young cook has no choice but to jump out of the frying pan - and into the fire....

For more than 17 years, Lin Kong has been in love with an educated, modern woman, Manna Wu. But back in the traditional world of his home village lives the wife his family chose for him when he was young - a touchingly loyal woman, whom he repeatedly visits in order to ask for a divorce. In a culture in which the ancient ties of tradition and family still hold sway and where adultery discovered by the Party can ruin lives forever, Lin's love is stretched taut by the passing years.

The Battles of Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, the Declaration of Independence, Washington crossing the Delaware, Saratoga, and the final surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown - these are the scenes that stir the soul of many an American. But to an Englishman, they do no such thing. This Henty novel retells these stirring tales, but from a different perspective, helping listeners learn how the other side viewed this miraculous triumph of freedom that inspires millions throughout the world still today.

It's the last chance for Cynthia Brightly, the town's most bewitching belle. Driven out of London by a secret scandal, she must find a grand husband at the Redmonds' house party before word of her downfall spreads all over England. Unfortunately, someone at Pennyroyal Green is already privy to the whispers of broken engagements and dueling lovers: Miles Redmond, renowned explorer and - thanks to his brother's disappearance - heir to the family's enormous fortune.

Susie King Taylor, born a slave in 1848, would learn to read at secret schools and go on to teach countless others to read and write. Follow the course of the Civil War in her own words as she remembers her work as a nurse and teacher with an Army troop of African-American soldiers.

Two young women go missing decades apart. Both are fearless, both are lost. And both will have their revenge. Build Your House Around My Body takes us from colonial mansions to ramshackle zoos, from sweaty nightclubs to the jostling seats of motorbikes, from ex-pat flats to sizzling back-alley street carts. Spanning more than fifty years of Vietnamese history and barreling toward an unforgettable conclusion, this is a time-traveling, heart-pounding, border-crossing fever dream of a novel that will haunt you long after the last minute.

All heroes have fatal flaws and a moment of defining hubris, but few rise from the ashes to achieve greater heights. In 1884 Deputy US Marshal Bass Reeves was arrested for murder and placed among his own prisoners in Hell on the Border, the infamous federal jail in Fort Smith, Arkansas. It was the single greatest setback of his illustrious career, but it wouldn't be his last mistake or trial by fire. In The Forsaken and the Dead we meet Reeves again. In the 1890s, past his prime, Reeves proceeds through the valleys and shadows of Indian and Oklahoma Territories.

A gripping, fact-based story of how Daniel Morgan and his courageous riflemen played a crucial role in George Washington's victory in the American Revolution.... They wore hunting shirts, deer-skin leggins and moccasins. Each had a tomahawk and a scalping knife in their belts and carried "long rifles" in their hands. Every rifleman was a Patriot volunteer, a tracker, and a hunter. And they could kill a redcoat from 250 yards.

Balthazar and his siblings are living the good life in the utopian community of Canoga, New York, where they have a degree of sexual and intellectual freedom few men—and even fewer women—have ever known. But sadly, all good things must come to an end. When their father dies, the Hale siblings discover two disheartening truths. First, they have an older brother none of them knew existed. Second, this stranger is not only the heir to an English dukedom, he's also their new legal guardian.

In the tradition of In the Time of the Butterflies and The Kite Runner, a tender, evocative novel about the years leading up to the Sri Lankan civil war. On the day the Herath family moves in, Sal Mal Lane is still a quiet street, disturbed only by the cries of the children whose triumphs and tragedies sustain the families that live there. As the neighbors adapt to the newcomers in different ways, the children fill their days with cricket matches, romantic crushes, and small rivalries.

At 26, Bushrod Carter is already an old soldier, a veteran of all his regiment's campaigns since Shiloh. Now, on an Indian summer afternoon in 1864, Bushrod finds himself in the line of battle once again, on a plain below the obscure village of Franklin, Tennessee. The dark flower of his destiny is opening in the twilight, just as it has on other fields, and Bushrod must pass once again under its shadow if he is to see tomorrow.

A Rainbow of Blood continues the epic, exciting story that began in Peter G. Tsouras’s previous alternate history, Britannia’s Fist. The Great War accelerates during a few desperate weeks in October 1863. From the bayous of Louisiana to the green hills of the Hudson Valley, from Chicago in flames to the gates of Washington itself, the conflict uncoils in ropes of fire. French and British armies are on the march, and heavy reinforcements have put to sea.

When his jet malfunctions, Captain Ward Millar makes a last-second decision to eject over enemy territory in North Korea before his plane explodes. His parachute barely opens before impact, saving his life, but the hard landing snaps both of his ankles. Unable to walk, Captain Millar is easily captured by North Korean and Chinese soldiers. His captors interrogate, threaten, and starve him in an attempt to extract strategic wartime information. He stalls the inevitable by feeding the enemy false information, but it’s only a matter of time before they discover his lies.

A Charleston belle with slavery on her conscience. A slave with rebellion in her heart. In South Carolina in 1858, no friendship could be more dangerous.

Confronting loss, historical intersections with race and family, and the threshold between childhood and adulthood, Smith gathers courage and direction from the many disparate selves encountered in these poems, until, as she writes, "I was anyone I wanted to be."

Powerful, epic, and compelling, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen shines light on a nearly forgotten figure in history. Cathy Williams was born and lived a slave - until the Union army comes and destroys the only world she’s known. Separated from her family, she makes the impossible decision - to fight in the army disguised as a man with the Buffalo Soldiers. With courage and wit, Cathy must not only fight for her survival and freedom in the ultimate man’s world, but never give up on her mission to find her family, and the man she loves.

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.

The most fearsome enemy he ever faced. Of all the enemies that our hero has shrunk away from, there was one he feared above them all. By his own admission they gave him nightmares into his dotage. It was not the French, the Spanish, the Americans, or the Mexicans. It was not even the more exotic adversaries such as the Iroquois, Mahratta, or Zulus. While they could all make his guts churn anxiously, the foe that really put him off his lunch were the Ashanti.

Does time heal all wounds? Or do some last forever? Pennsylvania, 1971: Graham Davidson is a young man with survivor’s guilt after the death of three siblings. Estranged from his father and seeking a direction in his life, Graham learns about vision quests from a Crow Indian. He secures seasonal employment in Yellowstone National Park and embarks on a spiritual journey. Wyoming Territory, 1871: Under a full moon at a sacred thermal area, Graham finds himself in Yellowstone a century earlier - one year before it was established as a national park.

Best-selling writing team and archaeologists W. Michael and Kathleen O’Neal Gear offer this compelling second novel in their Battle for America series. In 1539, Black Shell, his wife Pearl Hand, and their fellow exiles try to make a stand against the invasion of the Kristianos and their leader Hernando de Soto. But de Soto doesn’t plan to back down easily.