Historical Fiction Girl

When the Berlin Wall goes up, Karin is on the wrong side of the city. Overnight, she’s trapped under Soviet rule in unforgiving East Berlin and separated from her twin sister, Jutta. Karin and Jutta lead parallel lives for years, cut off by the Wall. But Karin finds one reason to keep going: Otto, the man who gives her hope, even amidst the brutal East German regime.

It’s 1938, and a young woman selling face cream out of a New York City beauty parlor is determined to prove she can have it all. Her name is Estée Lauder, and she’s about to take the world by storm, in this dazzling new novel from the USA Today bestselling author of The Social Graces and Park Avenue Summer.

A woman in the British Horticultural Society! The very idea horrifies everyone, including ardent horticulturalist Lavinia Harlow, whose own name has been put forth for membership by the provoking Marquess of Huntly. He does it as a joke, of course, to get back at her for an imagined slight - well, to be fair, she had insulted his writing -and Vinnie, older sister to the infamous Harlow Hoyden, is far too sensible to rise to his ridiculous challenge. Determined to head off further scandal, Vinnie dashes off a polite note refusing the honor - which she has every intention of sending.

When Tai Choi leaves her home in the Zhejiang province of China, she believes she’ll be visiting her grandmother. But in truth, despite her mother’s opposition, her father has sold her to pay his gambling debts. Alone and afraid, Tai Choi is put on a ship headed for San Francisco, known among the Chinese as Gold Mountain. When she arrives, she is forced to go by the new name listed on her paper documents: Tien Fu Wu. Her new life as a servant at a gambling den is hard. And if she is to survive, Tien Fu must persevere, and learn who to trust.

Fourteen-year old Sophronia is the bane of her mother's existence. More interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper etiquette at tea - and god forbid anyone see her atrocious curtsy - Mrs. Temminnick is desperate her daughter become a proper lady. She enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But little do Sophronia or her mother know that this is a school where ingenious young girls learn to finish all right - but it's a different kind of finishing.

The Industrial Revolution has escalated into all-out warfare. Sixteen years have passed since the Heterodyne Boys, benevolent adventurers and inventors, disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Today, Europe is ruled by the Sparks, dynasties of mad scientists ruling over - and terrorizing - the hapless population with their bizarre inventions and unchecked power, while the downtrodden dream of the Heterodynes’ return. At Transylvania Polygnostic University, a pretty, young student named Agatha Clay seems to have nothing but bad luck.

When Kieran Ransome’s latest antics result in a massive scandal, his father issues an ultimatum: find a respectable wife or inherit nothing. But as one of London’s most inveterate scoundrels, Kieran doesn’t know any ladies who fit the bill. Or does he? Celeste Kilburn is a society darling, beloved by influential members of the ton. But keeping a spotless reputation leaves little room for adventure and she longs to escape her gilded cage, especially with her impending engagement to a stuffy earl.

An expert in etiquette, Emma takes her pristine reputation most seriously. But the devilish Lord Marlowe is determined to prove that some rules of proper behavior are made to be broken....

Seven months ago, Edda was on the World War I front lines as one of two hundred “Hello Girls,” female switchboard operators employed by the US Army. She spent her nights memorizing secret connection codes to stay ahead of spying enemies, and her days connecting vital calls between platoons and bases and generals, all trying to survive—and win—a brutal war. Their lives were in Edda’s hands, and one day, in fateful seconds, everything went wrong.

Six-year-old Gretl Schmidt is on a train bound for Auschwitz. Jakób Kowalski is planting a bomb on the tracks. As World War II draws to a close, Jakób fights with the Polish resistance against the crushing forces of Germany and Russia. They mean to destroy a German troop transport, but Gretl's unscheduled train reaches the bomb first. Gretl is the only survivor.

Germany, 1939: When Rosa Herzelfeld boards the SS St Louis, she doesn’t believe its promise of freedom. Surely there can be no escape from the Nazis, not even on the other side of the world. Besides, she knows that no matter how far she travels, there is no escaping her past....

Nineteen-year-old Libby moves to Berlin to escape her suffocating family - but instead of offering freedom, the city is under siege by the Nazis. Jewish books are burned, storefronts smashed and every day innocent people vanish into thin air. Libby cannot - will not - turn a blind eye. When Libby meets Harro, she knows there’s more to him than his dazzling smile and cornflower-blue eyes. The whip marks on his back, scars from the SS, tell his true story: He is a resistance fighter.

At the heart of Dover's Market Square lies the Castle's Café. A bustling, homely place run by the formidable Nellie Castle and her six children. Since the scandalous birth of her beloved son 10 years before, Marianne, Nellie's eldest daughter, has preferred to stay in the kitchen, hidden away from the town gossips. Overcome with shame, Marianne has never revealed the name of Donny's father - not even to her own mother. But with World War II just around the corner, Marianne's past catches up with her. And suddenly the lives of the Castle family become a lot more complicated.

France, 1939: When Jewish refugee Hannah Lerner and her beloved younger sister Lotte arrive in a small French town alone, with no family to turn to, Hannah takes her sister’s trembling hands in hers and promises they will not be separated, no matter what… But when a children’s home offers refuge to Lotte, Hannah has no choice. To keep her sister safe, she has to let her go. And as she leaves Lotte weeping at the gates, she vows that one day they will be together again. Terrified and alone, Hannah is soon rescued by Michel, a charming Frenchman who welcomes her into his home.

From the author of The Walled City comes a fast-paced and innovative novel that will leave you breathless. Her story begins on a train. The year is 1956, and the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan rule. To commemorate their Great Victory, they host the Axis Tour: An annual motorcycle race across their conjoined continents. The prize? An audience with the highly reclusive Adolf Hitler at the Victor's ball in Tokyo. The resistance has given Yael one goal: Win the race and kill Hitler.

Ricardo ve cumplido, a una edad muy temprana, el sueño que en su Lima natal alimentó desde que tenía uso de razón: vivir en París. Pero el rencuentro con un amor de adolescencia lo cambiará todo. La joven, inconformista, aventurera, pragmática e inquieta, lo arrastrará fuera del pequeño mundo de sus ambiciones.

Acclaimed author Elise Hooper explores the gripping, real-life history of female athletes, members of the first integrated women’s Olympic team, and their journeys to the 1936 summer games in Berlin, Nazi Germany. In the 1928 Olympics, Chicago’s Betty Robinson competes as a member of the first-ever women’s delegation in track and field. Destined for further glory, she returns home feted as America’s golden girl until a nearly fatal airplane crash threatens to end everything.

A beautifully controlled and powerful story of love and conscience, will and desire which begins when a mysterious young girl arrives to take up a post at the seedy H-tel du Lion d'Or in a small French town in the mid-1930s. The Girl at the Lion d'Or is the first book in Sebastian Faulks' French trilogy of novel. Birdsong and Charlotte Gray are also available from Random House Audio Books, read by Samuel West.

Miss Alice Wright should be content. After all, her knowledge of herbal lore helps so many in her village. Yet she longs for more. For Alice dreams of becoming a famed parfumier in London, celebrated for her fine scents . . . even as her family's past warns her of the perils of ambition. But when Alice collides—quite literally—with a charismatic gentleman in a field of lavender, her perfume-filled dream is suddenly within reach.

He's a rake, a scoundrel, a duke, and a former soldier...and he'll fight to the death for the woman he loves.