Historical Fiction Library

In a walled city of a mile-high iron guild towers, many things are common knowledge: No book in any of the city's libraries reveals its place on a calendar or a map. No living beasts can be found within the city's walls. And no good comes to the guilder or foundling who trespasses too far from their labors. Even on the tower rooftops, where Errol Thebes and the rest of the city's teenagers pass a few short years under an open sky, no one truly believes anything uncommon is possible within the city walls.

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.

Britain and Germany are at war and Sexton Blake is in the thick of it. As the battle for the Western Front rages, adventuring detective Sexton Blake pits his intellect and physical prowess against the machinations of the Kaiser. A band of intrepid allies join Blake to take on the forces of evil in three classic stories, collected here for the first time. From uncovering secret German naval bases to dangling from zeppelins, fighting atop moving trains and escaping firing squads, Blake moves through war-torn Europe solving mysteries and fighting against tyranny.

Alice is 11 years old, and it is wartime. She is on a train with no seats, no lights, and no sanitary facilities. Her parents and her grandmother are missing, and Alice doesn't know where she is going. Maybe she will get to play outside again, maybe she will see her parents. But as the train rolls on, Alice begins to realize that just when you think things can't possibly get any worse, they do.

In 17th century England, a terrible accident forces orphaned Philip Marsham to flee London in fear for his life. Bred to the sea, he signs on with the Rose of Devon, a dark frigate bound for the quiet shores of Newfoundland.Philip's bold spirit and knowledge of the sea soon win him his captain's regard. But when the Rose of Devon is seized in mid-ocean by a devious group of men plucked from a floating wreck, Phlip is forced to accompany these "gentlemen of fortune" on their murderous expeditions. Like it or not, Philip Marsham is now a pirate - with only the hangman awaiting his return to England.With its bloody battles, brutal buccaneers, and bold, spirited hero, this rousing tale will enthrall all listeners in search of seafaring adventure.

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. . . .

Inspired by the author's family history, Library for the War-Wounded transports listeners to the aftermath of World War II, uncovering the life of Helfer's father, Josef. Born with the stigma of illegitimacy, he found solace in books, and his education was eventually funded by the Catholic Church. Drafted into the Wehrmacht, he witnessed the horrors of the Eastern Front and returned from the war an amputee. He married his nurse and brought his family to the high, idyllic slopes of the Austrian Alps, where he took a position as manager of a convalescent home for war-wounded.

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?

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.

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.

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.

While exploring The Treasure Chest, Felix and Maisie are transported to a Massachusetts farm in 1836. Disappointed that they have not landed in their beloved New York City, they wonder why they were brought to Massachusetts to meet a young girl named Clara Barton. Perhaps Clara has a message for the twins? Or maybe they have one for her?

Written in a hospital tent to the sound of gunfire and shells falling, Cicely Hamilton drew on her experiences working in France during WW1 to tell the story of William Tully and his new bride Griselda, who are wrenched away from their all-consuming interests – socialism and votes for women – and plunged into the almost dream-like horror of war. As brutal tragedy strikes, their attitude to both pacifism and patriotism is altered and their lives are changed forever.

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.

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.

Barrio Logan, one of San Diego’s oldest Chicane neighborhoods, once brimmed with families and stretched all the way to the glorious San Diego Bay. But in the decades after WWII, the community lost their beach and bayfront to factories, junkyards, and an interstate that divided the neighborhood and forced around 5,000 people out of their homes. Then on April 22, 1970, residents discovered that the construction crew they believed was building a park—one the city had promised them years ago—was actually breaking ground for a police station.

When brutal, mysterious deaths start plaguing the countryside and whispers of a beast in the mountains reach the quiet French hamlet of Mende, most people believe it’s a curse—God has sent a beast to punish them for their sins. But to sixteen-year-old Joséphine and her best friend, Clara, the beast isn’t a curse.

On a snowy night in February in a penthouse high above Fifth Avenue, Delphine's mystical talent leads to a tragedy between two brothers. Devastated and disconsolate, Delphine renounces her gift and returns to her old life in the south of France, where Picasso, Matisse, and the Fitzgeralds are summering. There, Delphine comes to question everything and everyone she loves - her art, her magick, her family, and Mathieu....

After months of travel, former maid Lottie Sprigg returns to Fortescue Manor in the rolling hills of Shropshire. Her arrival coincides with a celebratory dinner to mend a family feud. But the flow of champagne dwindles to a trickle when a body is found in the library. Who committed the atrocity? Suspicion falls on several characters: some above stairs and some below....