Historical Fiction Science History

After their fateful adventure in China, Captain Will Laurence of His Majesty’ s Aerial Corps and his extraordinary dragon, Temeraire, are waylaid by a mysterious envoy bearing urgent new orders from Britain. Three valuable dragon eggs have been purchased from the Ottoman Empire, and Laurence and Temeraire must detour to Istanbul to escort the precious cargo back to England. Time is of the essence if the eggs are to be borne home before hatching.

Perfect for fans of Philippa Gregory, Alison Weir, and Showtime’s The Tudors, The Boleyn Deceit is the captivating new novel set in the imagined Tudor court of King Henry IX, son of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, who must navigate a terrain rife with palace intrigue, impending war, and unbridled passions.

In 1941 the European war ended in the Farthing Peace, a rapprochement between Britain and Nazi Germany. The balls and banquets of Britain's upper class never faltered, while British ships ferried undesirables across the Channel to board the cattle cars headed east. Peter Carmichael is commander of the Watch, Britain's distinctly British secret police. Its his job to warn the Prime Minister of treason, to arrest plotters, and to discover Jews.

Tragedy has struck His Majesty's Aerial Corps, whose magnificent fleet of fighting dragons and their human captains valiantly defends England’s shores against the encroaching armies of Napoleon Bonaparte. An epidemic of unknown origin and no known cure is decimating the noble dragons’ ranks—forcing the hopelessly stricken into quarantine. Now only Temeraire and a pack of newly recruited dragons remain uninfected—and stand as the only means of an airborne defense against France's ever bolder sorties.

Karl Cohen, a chemist and mathematician who is part of the Manhattan Project team, has discovered an alternate solution for creating the uranium isotope needed to cause a chain reaction: U-235. After convincing General Groves of his new method, Cohen and his team of scientists work at Oak Ridge, preparing to have a nuclear bomb ready to drop by the summer of 1944 in an effort to stop the war on the western front. What ensues is an altered account of World War II in this taut thriller.

Roma Victrix. The Republic of Rome is on a relentless march to create an empire - an empire built on the backs of the conquered, brought back to Rome as slaves. Attia was once destined to rule as the queen and swordmaiden of Thrace, the greatest warrior kingdom the world had seen since Sparta. Now she is a slave, given to Xanthus, the Champion of Rome, as a sign of his master’s favor.

Anne Frank is a cultural icon whose diary painted a vivid picture of the Holocaust and made her an image of humanity in one of history’s darkest moments. But she was also a person - a precocious young girl with a rich inner life and tremendous skill as a writer. In this masterful new novel, David R. Gillham explores with breathtaking empathy the woman - and the writer - she might have become.

April 1294. With David returned from Ireland and Anna from Avalon, the time has come to confront the traitors who sought to assassinate David and take his throne. But before that can happen, David is tested yet again by his inability to account for everything or everyone in his life - and especially the magic that surrounds him.

The final work of fiction from Norman Mailer, a defining voice of the postwar era, is also one of his most ambitious, taking as its subject the evil of Adolf Hitler. The narrator, a mysterious SS man in possession of extraordinary secrets, follows Adolf from birth through adolescence and offers revealing portraits of Hitler's parents and siblings. A crucial reflection on the shadows that eclipsed the 20th century, Mailer's novel delivers myriad twists and surprises along with characteristically astonishing insights into the struggle between good and evil that exists in us all.

It's 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma's reception there is a chilly one.

Sudden Death begins with a brutal tennis match that could decide the fate of the world. The bawdy Italian painter Caravaggio and the loutish Spanish poet Quevedo battle it out before a crowd that includes Galileo, Mary Magdalene, and a generation of popes who would throw Europe into the flames. In England, Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII behead Anne Boleyn, and her crafty executioner transforms her legendary locks into the most sought-after tennis balls of the time.

They're an iconic part of history's most celebrated birth. But what do we really know about the Three Kings of the Nativity, besides the fact that they followed a star to Bethlehem bearing strange gifts? The Bible has little to say about this enigmatic trio. But leave it to Seth Grahame-Smith, the brilliant and twisted mind behind Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to take a little mystery, bend a little history, and weave an epic tale.

Acclaimed fantasist Mary Robinette Kowal has enchanted many fans with her beloved novels featuring a Regency setting in which magic--known here as glamour--is real. In Valour and Vanity, master glamourists Jane and Vincent find themselves in the sort of a magical adventure that might result if Jane Austen wrote Ocean's Eleven. After Melody's wedding, the Ellsworths and Vincents accompany the young couple on their tour of the continent. Jane and Vincent plan to separate from the party and travel to Murano to study with glassblowers there, but their ship is set upon by Barbary corsairs while en route. It is their good fortune that they are not enslaved, but they lose everything to the pirates and arrive in Murano destitute.

There’s a certain kind of silence when you wake in the deep of night, in a strange bed, knowing that someone else is in the room. And seventeen-year-old May has just awoken to...what? A ghost girl. A girl with May’s face, hair, and complexion. A ghostly twin named Cristofana. And this twin wants a favor of May: Come to Old Florence; come to the year 1348. In modern-day Florence for the summer, May is soon seduced into saying yes. And when she encounters a brooding medieval painter, her curiosity about the past explodes into desire.

The War of Spanish Succession is over, many sailors are out of work, and the thriving American colonies are quickly becoming the place of opportunity. For Sam Bellamy it is the opportunity to become the captain of his own ship.

It is 1889 and The Scottish Play is coming home. But before the darling couple of London theatre, Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, take their acclaimed Macbeth to the Edinburgh stage terror treads the boards. A grisly message found smeared across the cobbles in blood, foretelling someone's demise. As the bloody prophecies continue to appear Edinburgh's own beloved pair - Detective 'Nine-Nails' McGray and Inspector Ian Frey - enter the scene.

Mary Robinette Kowal stunned readers with her charming first novel, Shades of Milk and Honey, a loving tribute to the works of Jane Austen in a world where magic is an everyday occurrence. This magic comes in the form of glamour, which allows talented users to form practically any illusion they can imagine. Shades debuted to great acclaim and left readers eagerly awaiting its sequel. Glamour in Glass continues following the lives of beloved main characters Jane and Vincent, with a much deeper vein of drama and intrigue.

In 17th-century London, two forces rule the people: the color powers and the Stone Plague. Brown masks can manipulate wood. Black masks control the night. And red mask...well, red is the color of blood. Thomas Fawkes needs a gray mask so he can remove the stone that has invaded his body and will ultimately take his life. But when he fails his color test, his only hope is to track down his father, the infamous Guy Fawkes, and demand his color mask.

Maria Isabella Boyd's success as a Confederate spy has made her too famous for further espionage work, and now her employment options are slim. Exiled, widowed, and on the brink of poverty, she reluctantly goes to work for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in Chicago. Adding insult to injury, her first big assignment is commissioned by the Union Army. In short, a federally sponsored transport dirigible is being violently pursued across the Rockies, and Uncle Sam isn't pleased.

Germany, late summer 1945. The war is over, but the country is in ruins. Millions of refugees and holocaust survivors strive to rebuild their lives in displaced persons camps. Millions of German soldiers and SS men are held captive in primitive conditions in open-air detention centres. Everywhere, civilians are desperate for food and shelter. No one admits to having voted Nazi, yet many are unrepentant. Adolf Hitler is said to have killed himself in his Berlin bunker. But no body was found - and many people believe he is alive.