Historical Fiction Girl

In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Lydia Bennet runs away from Brighton with George Wickham, but this adaptation of Lydia’s adventures is not your typical story about this brash couple. Mr. Wickham, proving he is no gentleman, does the unthinkable and casts Lydia out of a second-rate coach. Filthy, exhausted, and penniless, Lydia is just facing the beginning of her ordeal!

1950, New York. Viviana Valentine—Girl Friday turned partner to New York’s top investigator, Tommy Fortuna—is drawn into a sordid new case when Buster Beacon, a wealthy man of science, beckons them to a party at his mansion north of the city. There, Buster entertains blue-blooded friends as well as investors keen to make a dollar on the many advancements made in his home laboratory, but he’s been hearing strange noises in the night coming from his expansive estate, and he doesn’t know who to trust.

When we came to America, we brought anger and socialism and hunger. We also brought our demons. In Burning Girls and Other Stories, Veronica Schanoes crosses borders and genres with stories of fierce women at the margins of society burning their way toward the center. This debut collection introduces listeners to a fantasist in the vein of Karen Russell and Kelly Link, with a voice all her own.

An oceanfront estate in the beautiful New England town of Twin Oaks is the ideal setting for Isabelle Walsh and her close-knit group of friends to celebrate their annual girls’ weekend in 1953. While off to a promising start, the weekend quickly goes awry as murder interrupts the fun and the hostess is accused of the shocking crime. Izzy quickly realizes it is up to her to save her innocent friend and bring the murderer to light. Keen intuition and quick wit are Izzy’s only tools. She must use them to find the dark truth before the killer brings her investigation to a dead stop…

London, 1942. Charlotte Fenimore is back home on a week's leave from the Women's Auxiliary Airforce. She had planned for a week of rest and recuperation. She hadn't planned to fall deeply in love with an irascible detective called Dan Chalmers, a wounded hero of Dunkirk who believed no woman would ever look at him again.

Harper Curtis is a killer who stepped out of the past. Kirby Mazrachi is the girl who was never meant to have a future. Kirby is the last shining girl, one of the bright young women, burning with potential, whose lives Harper is destined to snuff out after he stumbles on a House in Depression-era Chicago that opens on to other times. At the urging of the House, Harper inserts himself into the lives of these shining girls, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

It’s Giselle Aubry’s first time at court in Versailles. At 16, she is one of Marie Antoinette’s newest wardrobe ladies in awe of the glamorous queen and her opulent palace life. A budding designer, it’s a dream come true to work with the beautiful fabrics and jewels. Every few weeks she returns home to visit her family in Paris where rumors of revolution are growing.

Two childhood friends are reunited at a Jewish settlement in Czechoslovakia, the camp promised as a safe place to wait out the war, and each sees the other as a means to save what they love most. Hannah and Hilde were friends long ago, but when fate brings them back together at Theresienstadt, they are adversaries. At this so-called model ghetto, the Nazis plan to make a propaganda film to convince the world that the Jewish people are living well in Nazi-run camps. But Hannah and her fellow prisoners have other ideas.

All eyes are on those closest to the dearly departed: her mischievous sister, Diana, now the family's only hope for redemption; New York's most notorious cad, Henry Schoon-maker, the flame Elizabeth never extinguished; the seductive Penelope Hayes, poised to claim all that her best friend left behind including Henry; even Elizabeth's scheming former maid, Lina Broud, who discovers that while money matters and breeding counts, gossip is the new currency.<

When Sacagawea's son asks her about her life, she isn't sure where to begin. Does she start with her birth as a Shoshoni? Her kidnapping by an enemy tribe at age 11? Or her role as the famous guide for the Lewis and Clark expedition? She's seen and experienced more in her young life than most people ever will. Told from Sacagawea's point of view, this historical novel shares the ordeals of her youth along with the memory of her long, arduous journey west with Lewis and Clark.

New beginnings. Shocking revelations. Unexpected endings. As spring turns into summer, Elizabeth relishes her new role as a young wife, while her sister, Diana, searches for adventure abroad. But when a surprising clue about their father's death comes to light, the Holland girls wonder at what cost a life of splendor comes.

When Nazis break down the front door of 18-year-old Trudi’s home and seize the Jewish couple hiding in her attic, she’s devastated, and is suddenly solely responsible for their two innocent children. The whispered rumours about the resistance are her only hope. A man called Frans and his cousin Piet risk their lives every day helping scared and abandoned Jewish children escape into the countryside. Under the cover of night, she races to beg for their help.

Through the alternating voices of 12-year-old Morning Girl and her younger brother Star Boy, we step into the extraordinarily rich lives of an indigenous family on a Bahamian Island in 1492, just as their paradise is about to be discovered and a new world order begins to take shape.

1949, County Durham. When Angie marries her sweetheart Quentin and moves into Cuthford Manor to begin their new life together, she feels like the luckiest woman in the world. But Quentin falls victim to a tragic accident and Angie's life is left devastated. Now, along with the prospect of rebuilding her life, she is faced with an impossible choice that will have far-reaching consequences for herself and those she loves most. Only with the help of her family, the community of Cuthford Manor and her old friends from the Shipyards, will Angie draw on the inner strength to find happiness again.

Lucia and her twin brother Dinu have always been inseparable, but their bond is threatened when Gero, the son of close family friends in America, arrives in their village. Although she finds herself developing feelings for him, Lucia worries about Gero’s dangerous connections and their influence on her brother. As the chaos of World War II closes in, Lucia must navigate love and loyalty to make a difficult choice. Will she risk that the consequences of her decision could bring untold horrors and affect her family for decades to come?

Rome, 1943: University student Marina Tozzi is on her way home when she finds out that her father has been killed for harboring a Jewish artist in their home. Fearful of the consequences, Marina flees to Villa I Tatti, the Florence villa of her father’s American friend Bernard Berenson and his partner Belle da Costa Greene, the famed librarian who once curated J.P. Morgan’s library.

Two months after Elizabeth Holland's dramatic homecoming, Manhattan eagerly awaits her return to the pinnacle of society. When Elizabeth refuses to rejoin her sister Diana's side, however, those watching New York's favorite family begin to suspect that all is not as it seems behind the stately doors of No. 17 Gramercy Park South.

Jo, the firstborn, The General to her 11 sisters, is the only thing the Hamilton girls have in place of a mother. She is the one who taught them how to dance, the one who gives the signal each night, as they slip out of their father's townhouse and into cabs that will take them to the speakeasy. Together they elude their controlling father. Meanwhile, they continue to dance, until one night when they are caught in a raid, separated, and Jo is thrust face-to-face with someone from her past: a bootlegger named Tom whom she hasn't seen in almost 10 years.

One of six sisters, Dortchen Wild lives in the small German kingdom of Hesse-Cassel in the early 19th century. She finds herself irresistibly drawn to the boy next door, the handsome but very poor fairy-tale scholar Wilhelm Grimm.

Mary is a driver for the ATA and although she yearns to fly a Spitfire, she fears her humble background will hold her back. After all, glamorous Angela is set to be the next ‘Atta Girl’ on recruitment posters. Bobbie learned to fly in her father’s private plane, and Jean was taught the queen’s English at grammar school before joining the squad. Dedicated and resilient, the three girls rule the skies: weathering storms and dodging enemy fire. Mary can only dream of joining them - until she gets the push she needs to overcome her self-doubt.