Historical Fiction Library

In 1924, 18-year-old college students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb made a decision: they would commit the perfect crime by kidnapping and murdering a child they both knew. But they made one crucial error: As they were disposing of the body of young Bobby Franks, whom they had bludgeoned to death, Nathan's eyeglasses fell from his jacket pocket. Multi-award-winning author Candace Fleming depicts every twist and turn of this harrowing case.

Things have changed for Samantha. She leaves quiet Mount Bedford for the bustle of New York City and the company of Aunt Cornelia's ten-year-old twin sisters. Agnes and Agatha are good at getting into mischief—and at bringing Samantha with them. When the three girls visit Grandmary's summer home, an adventure leads to danger on Goose Lake—the same lake where Samantha's parents drowned! Then word comes that Nellie and her sisters are in serious trouble. It's up to Samantha to save her friends before it's too late.

A storm and flash flood hit the ranch hard, and many animals are lost. But Josefina and her sisters are determined to save the family business. Their aunt, Tía Dolores, wants to try some bold new ideas. Josefina likes learning to weave and play the piano, but she’s not so sure about learning to read and write. She’s afraid all these changes could make her forget Mamá. Unexpectedly, Mamá herself gives Josefina the answer. By facing the changes, can Josefina find her courage—and discover the truth about love?

Isla de Wight, 1334. Al ver próxima su muerte, el abad Felix, superior de la abadía de Vectis, deja constancia en una epístola de un secreto terrorífico y de los extraños acontecimientos relacionados con una orden muy singular: la Orden de los Nombres. Los monjes clarividentes que la componen han dedicado toda su vida a consignar sin descanso en unos libros la fecha de nacimiento y muerte de toda la humanidad...

When nineteen-year-old Belle King turns herself in for murder, the last thing she expects to see is her abusive husband standing outside her Dodge City jail cell, impossibly alive. He was the first man she ever meant to kill, but certainly not the last. She’s since woven a bloody tapestry across the Midwest—tearing the hearts out of men who couldn’t imagine her as more than a lamb.

Fiercely romantic and hugely influential, The Scarlet Letter is the tale of Hester Prynne, imprisoned, publicly shamed, and forced to wear a scarlet for committing adultery and bearing an illegitimate child, Pearl. In their small Puritan village, Hester and her daughter struggle to survive. In this searing study of the tension between private and public existence, Hester Prynne’s inner strength and quiet dignity secure her place as one of the first great heroines of American fiction.

What would happen if someone had a time-warping book he got from his uncle who was a magician, and he took it to the local YMCA pool while he played Marco? Polo! with his best friends? In the 16th adventure of the Time Warp Trio, it happens to Joe (and Fred and Sam). And what happens is sandstorms, desert bandits, a smelly camel, strange horoscopes, the emperor of all China, and one very famous explorer. If the explorer is Marco Polo, this must be 13th century China!

When her cousin Ana’s family needs money to leave Russia, Rebecca puts on a sidewalk show, but all she earns is a scolding. Once Ana arrives in New York, Rebecca shares her room and her clothes and helps her cousin learn English. But when Ana is assigned to sing with her in a school program, Rebecca’s heart sinks. Ana’s Russian accent will ruin the show! Rebecca realizes her performance is one thing she does not want to share with her cousin. But how can she explain that to Ana?

En 1890 la mayoría de chicas serían felices con la vida de la joven de 19 años de edad Animant Crumb: una madre dedicada a vestirla con la mejor ropa y a buscarle un marido perfecto. Pero a Ani todo eso no le importa nada, ella ama los libros cuyas historias le han enseñado a soñar en grande. La vida cotidiana de Ani da un giro sorprendente cuando recibe la propuesta inesperada de un viaje a Londres para trabajar en una maravillosa y antigua biblioteca. Allí, Ani conoce a Thomas Reed.

When Julie finds out that her new school has a basketball team, life starts looking up—until the coach tells her girls aren’t allowed to play. Julie decides to fight for a place on the team, and almost loses her best friend in the process. Meanwhile, a school project forces her to face some hard truths about her family—and herself. Growing up in San Francisco in the 1970s, Julie begins to realize that sometimes the best way to cope with change is to make a few changes of her own.

Lady Zenobia "Zia" Osborn, a duke’s daughter, is frustrated that her entire life has been predetermined. What good is skill or intelligence if one is forced to suffocate it because of one’s sex? She’d much rather make her mark on the world than bat her eyelashes for the ton. Zia only comes alive in the Lady Knights, a clandestine social club for rebellious girls. In it, she is free to compose music, fence, read controversial literature, and save orphans from destitution by any means necessary. Aside from her closest confidantes, no one knows about Zia’s indecorous other life. . . .

Twelve-year-old Ann Maria Weems works from sunup to sundown, wraps rags around her feet in the winter, and must do whatever her master or mistress orders—but she has something that many plantation slaves don't have. She has her wonderful family around her. To Ann, her teasing brothers, her older sister, and her protective and loving parents are everything. And then one day, they are gone. Separated from her family by her master and shipped off as a housemaid, Ann learns something about independence and about love before the opportunity for escape arrives.

Libby has always been inexplicably drawn to the old Victorian house on Mulberry Lane. So much so that when she sees a For Sale sign go up in the front yard, Libby uses all the money her grandmother left her to pay for college to buy the house instead, determined to fix it up herself—even though she knows her parents will be furious.

When Felix Robbins gets a crush on Lily Goldstein, a classmate who is adopted from China, he decides to try to take her back in time so that she can see the country where she was born. Maisie discovers his plot, and foils it. But the twins end up in a small village on the Yangtze River, where they meet a girl named Pearl Buck in the days just before the Boxer Rebellion. With bandits chasing them, will they ever find safety . . . and return home?

The year is 1915 and the world is at war. Marta and her father are passengers on the Lusitania, desperately trying to get back home to Germany. While aboard, they must keep their identities hidden or risk being mistaken for enemy spies. Then the Lusitania is attacked by a German submarine. They just make it off the sinking ship, but her father is discovered and detained. Marta suddenly finds herself alone in enemy land. To survive, Marta must draw upon a deep well of bravery she never knew she had.

Every day, more and more people fleeing war in the north show up at Kyung Tak and her family’s house on the southeastern shore of Korea. With nowhere else to go, the Taks' home is these migrants' last chance of refuge “before falling into the sea,” and the household quickly becomes crowded, hot, and noisy. Then war sirens cry out over Kyung's city too, and her family and their guests take shelter underground. When the sirens stop, Kyung is upset—she wishes everything could go back to the way it was before: before the sirens, before strangers started coming into their home.

For as long as she can remember, Carmela Tofana has desperately wanted one thing: to be a part of La Tofana’s, her mother’s apothecary in Campo Marzio, Rome. When she finally turns sixteen, she’s allowed into the inner sanctum: the workroom where her mother and two assistants craft renowned remedies for their customers. But for every sweet-smelling flower extract in the workroom, there’s another potion requiring darker ingredients.

As school begins in 1963, Cooper Dale wrestles with what it means to “shine” for a black girl in a predominantly white community near Pittsburgh. Set against the historic backdrop of the Birmingham church bombing, the Kennedy assassination, and Beatlemania, Radiant is a finely crafted novel in verse about race, class, faith, and finding your place in a loving family and a complicated world.

Someone is planning to kill George Washington, and young Phoebe Fraunces is trying to save his life. Phoebe gets a job as George Washington's housekeeper, but her real job is to work as a spy. She listens and watches very carefully, and she meets her father every day to tell him what she has learned. One day Phoebe's father tells her that Washington is planning to leave town in a few days, and the person plotting against him will act before then. Phoebe is very frightened, but she is determined to figure out who is after Washington before it's too late. . . .

Now that the twins have begun to settle into their new lives at Elm Medona, they delve deeper into The Treasure Chest and uncover more about the Pickworth family, including the disappearance of their great-uncle Thorne and the theft of priceless family artifacts. In this adventure, The Treasure Chest transports Felix and Maisie to tropical St. Croix in 1772. There they meet a young man named Alexander Hamilton who is about to embark on a journey to New York.