Historical Fiction Renaissance

It’s the fifteenth century and only heretics are curious about the universe. Germany, 1494. Born under a rare alignment of the stars, Johann Georg Gerlach, "the lucky one" to his mother - is fated for greatness. But Johann’s studies and wonder at the sky have made him suspect. Especially in wake of the child disappearances that have left the God-fearing locals trembling and his one true love trapped in terrified catatonia. Her only words: "I have seen the devil..."

England. 1535. Jane Seymour is 27 years old and increasingly desperate to marry and secure her place in the world. When the court visits Wolf Hall, the Seymour ancestral manor, Jane has the perfect opportunity to shine: her diligence, efficiency, and newfound poise are sure to finally attract a suitor. Meanwhile, King Henry VIII is 45 and increasingly desperate for an heir. He changed his country's religion to leave his first wife, a princess of Spain, for Anne Boleyn—but she, too, has failed to provide a son.

Neva Friezland is born into a world of trickery and illusion, where fortunes can be won and lost on the turn of a card. She is also born with an extraordinary gift. She can predict the weather. In Regency England, where the proper goal for a gentlewoman is marriage and only God knows the weather this is dangerous. It is also potentially very lucrative.

Beatrice is the convent's librarian. For years, she has shunned the company of her sisters, finding solace only with her manuscripts. Then, one carnival night, two women, bleeding and stricken, are abandoned outside the convent's walls. Moments from death, one of them presses something into Beatrice's hands: a bewitching book whose pages have a dangerous life of their own.

Montpellier in 1566 - only fools walk the streets at night unarmed while a profession of faith in the wrong company can lead to a knife in the back. Not even this proud city of philosophers is safe from the menaces that endanger the peace of France. The city militia are struggling to contend with the lawlessness and religious hatred that threaten to tear the whole country in two.

Les aventures du Chevalier de Pardaillan sont celles que l'on dévore sans voir passer les heures, pour retrouver, confus et enthousiaste le bouillonnement d'une épopée traversée par la générosité d'un héros qui se place aux côtés de d'Artagnan et de Cyrano de Bergerac.

France, 1562. Les tensions entre catholiques et protestants montent, le royaume se déchire. Le prince de Condé et le duc de Guise se livrent un combat sans merci. Les huguenots sont persécutés, les massacres se succèdent. À Carcassonne, Marguerite Joubert, une jeune libraire catholique, fait la connaissance de Piet, un protestant converti dont la vie est en danger.

Forcibly seduced by George Villiers, duke of Buckingham and the king's favourite, doctor's daughter Hester was cast aside to raise her illegitimate son, Rafe, alone and in secret. She hopes never to see his father again. Melis's visions cause disquiet and talk. She sees what others can't - and what has yet to be. She'd be denounced as a witch if Hester wasn't so carefully protective. Young Hope's beauty marks her out, drawing unwelcome attention to the family. Yet she cannot always resist others' advances. And her sisters cannot always be on their guard.

During the sweltering Roman summer of 1492, Rodrigo Borgia has risen to power as pope. Rodrigo’s eldest son Cesare, forced to follow his father into the church and newly made the Archbishop of Valencia, chafes at his ecclesiastical role and fumes with jealousy and resentment at the way that his foolish brother has been chosen for the military greatness he desired. Maddalena Moretti comes from the countryside, where she has seen how the whims of powerful men wreak havoc on the lives of ordinary people. But now, employed as a servant in the Vatican Palace, she cannot help but be entranced by Cesare Borgia.

Giulia Tofana never wanted to be a nun, but she is determined to atone for her past misdeeds by making her new monastery a success. When an unexpected disaster closes the convent, Giulia is forced to turn to her old friend, Fabio Pasello, for help. Giulia still has intense feelings for Fabio, and Fabio’s passion for her has never diminished. But they are not the same people they were before. Giulia has taken her vows, and Fabio is apprenticed to Gianlorenzo Bernini, the famous sculptor, and has become one of Bernini’s rakish libertines.

Après avoir découvert son château pillé et dévasté par les troupes du Grand Condé, qu'elle aime depuis toujours, Isabelle, duchesse de Châtillon, est déterminée à obtenir réparation. Mais elle ne résistera pas longtemps aux sentiments qu'il lui avoue. Ce pourrait être le bonheur. Ce sera la fin d'une paix relative pour Isabelle. La Fronde du Parlement et des Parisiens se termine, celle des Princes commence.

Harlem, 1927. Twenty-seven-year-old Louise Lloyd has found the perfect job! She is the new manager of the Dove, a club owned by her close friend Rafael Moreno. There Louise meets Nora Davies, one of the girls she was kidnapped with a decade ago. The two women—along with Rafael and his sister, Louise’s girlfriend, Rosa Maria—spend the night at the Dove, drinking and talking. The next morning, Rosa Maria wakes up covered in blood, with no memory of the previous night. Nora is lying dead in the middle of the dance floor.

Louise Lloyd is finally living the quiet life she’d longed for, working in a parfumerie by day and spending time with her new friends every night at the Aquarius club in Paris. When a desperate mother asks for help locating her artist daughter, Louise initially refuses to keep her hard-won but fragile peace intact. But the woman comes with a letter of introduction from an old friend in Harlem, and Louise realizes she has no choice but to do what she can to find the missing young woman.

Each night, after dark, men flock to Bankside seeking girls of easy virtue, prostitutes known as the Winchester Geese. Joanie Toogood has worked the streets of Southwark since childhood, but her path is changed forever by an encounter with Francis Wareham, a spy for the King’s secretary, Thomas Cromwell. Meanwhile, across the river, at the glittering court of Henry VIII, Wareham also sets his cap at Evelyn and Isabella Bourne, members of the Queen’s household and the girls, along with Joanie, are drawn into intrigue and the shadow of the executioner’s blade.

Elle Newmark's richly seductive prose brings to life the color and scandal of 15th-century Venice. Through Luciano, a street urchin apprenticed to a great chef in the palace of the doge, Newmark tells a wicked tale of political and papal intrigue. In Venice where every whisper is a secret or a lie, Luciano's initiation into the chef's spicy world makes for deliciously suspenseful listening.

Florence, 1497 - Bûcher des vanités. Ce matin, des bandes d'enfants ont terrorisé la rue pour confisquer tous les objets incarnant la richesse ou le plaisir. Savonarole peut compter sur son "armée des anges". Le feu qui consumera tout à l'heure le paganisme et l'impiété sera son triomphe. Songeur, Sandro Botticelli observe l'une de ses plus belles œuvres se faire dévorer par les flammes, quand une main se pose sur son épaule. Léonard de Vinci, son vieil ami, son plus grand ami est revenu en terre florentine !Mais l'artiste apporte une triste nouvelle : sa mère, Caterina, est morte, lui laissant pour tout héritage une étrange lettre indéchiffrable.

A shocking ancient secret. The origins of western civilization discovered. The Renaissance - our most fundamental age of technological and artistic advance, was built upon a secret passed down to a banking family in Florence - the Medici. 500 years ago that secret was buried. Florence, Italy, present day. A trove of letters belonging to the Medici family is discovered underground. Archaeologist Kat Cullen comes across a map that leads her to the Swiss Alps where her partner is murdered and she is left for dead.

Elisabetta longs for romance, though she thinks she's too plain. Then, on a visit to Florence, she catches the eye of the great Leonardo da Vinci and falls for a boy, Giuliano de Medici. It's a dangerous time to be involved with a Medici. As tragedy and chaos threaten their happiness, Elisabetta faces the bittersweet truth of love.

In seventeenth-century Rome, an arrogant and reckless artist named Caravaggio drinks and brawls his way through his violent, insatiable life, all while painting some of the world’s greatest religious works of art. But it is his bitter feud with Giovanni Roero, a brutal knight in the Maltese Order of St. John, that is his fatal error. Now, in the village of Monte Piccolo, a priest claims to have discovered a lost painting by the famed artist in the storage room of an orphanage. Retired professor A. R. Richman believes it’s a delusional dream.

Raised by her aunt and uncle amidst the rolling hills of the Tuscan countryside, young orphan Virginia Tacci has always harbored a deep love for horses - though she knows she may never have the chance to ride. As a shepherdess in sixteenth-century Italy, Virginia's possibilities are doubly limited by her peasant class and her gender.