Historical Fiction World Literature

En 1911, les grandes puissances vivent leurs derniers instants d'insouciance. Bientôt la guerre va déferler sur le monde... De l'Europe aux États-Unis, du fond des mines du pays de Galles aux antichambres du pouvoir soviétique, en passant par les tranchées de la Somme, cinq familles vont se croiser, s'unir, se déchirer, au rythme des bouleversements de l'Histoire. Passions contrariées, rivalités et intrigues, jeux politiques et trahisons... Cette fresque magistrale explore toute la gamme des sentiments humains à travers le destin de personnages exceptionnels, visionnaires et ambitieux.

At 97 years old, Winnifred Ellis knows she doesn’t have much time left, and it is almost a relief to realize that once she is gone, the truth about her shameful past will die with her. But when her great-grandson Jamie, the spitting image of her dear late husband, asks about his family tree, Winnifred can’t lie any longer, even if it means breaking a promise she made so long ago....

The new novel in Bernard Cornwell's number one best-selling series The Warrior Chronicles, on the making of England and the fate of his great hero, Uhtred of Bebbanburg. Alfred the Great is dead and Edward his son reigns as king. Wessex survives but peace cannot hold. The Danes in the north, led by Viking Cnut Longsword, stand ready to invade and will never rest until the emerald crown is theirs.

A Discovery of Witches introduced Diana Bishop, Oxford scholar and reluctant witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont. Shadow of Night and The Book of Life carried Deborah Harkness's series to its spellbinding conclusion, and the trilogy has now sold more than two million copies in the United States and appeared in 38 editions around the world. All Souls fans have been captivated from the start by the many sources of inspiration Harkness draws on in her novels. Here, with her signature historian's touch, she offers an encyclopedic look at the series.

Benjamín Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World electrified a global readership. A Booker Prize and National Book Award finalist, and one of the New York Times’ Ten Best Books of the Year, it explored the life and thought of a clutch of mathematicians and physicists who took science to strange and sometimes dangerous new realms. In The MANIAC, Labatut has created a tour de force on an even grander scale.

The island of Tarawa, a tiny spit of sand out in the middle of the Pacific, teemed with five hundred pillboxes filled with artillery pieces and highly motivated Japanese soldiers. Their commanding officer encouraged his troops, saying, “It would take one million men one hundred years” to conquer Tarawa. They were convinced that the Americans would be slaughtered before they ever got ashore.

The Pyrénées, France, 1939. Twenty-year-old Sylvie Laget has found the one she wants to be with forever. With war looming, she pledges her heart to a young man on a neighboring farm and rebels against her religious upbringing by consummating their relationship. But when her lover leaves to fight the Nazis, her joy is shattered by heartache. Burying her pain by posing as a nun to work with the resistance (the Maquis) and help Allied forces, Sylvie is devastated by news of her beloved’s death.

Stockholm, 1913. Agneta ne peut que retenir ses larmes quand elle apprend que son père est décédé sans qu'elle ait pu le revoir. Sommée de retourner dans la demeure qu'elle avait fuie pour étudier l'art et vivre libre, loin des carcans imposés par son sexe, elle est désormais la seule héritière du domaine de Löwenhof et se doit de reprendre la gestion du haras familial.

As the dutiful daughter of a high-ranking Nazi officer, Hetty Heinrich is keen to play her part in the glorious new Thousand Year Reich. But she never imagines that all she believes and knows about her world will come into stark conflict when she encounters Walter, a Jewish friend from the past, who stirs dangerous feelings in her. Confused and conflicted, Hetty doesn’t know whom she can trust and where she can turn to, especially when she discovers that someone has been watching her.

Atretes, a German barbarian who has won his freedom in the Roman arena, finds his life changed forever by an encounter with a young Christian woman. Atretes vows to move heaven and earth to find his son--the baby he thought was dead, and take him back to Germany. Only one thing stands in his way: Rizpah, the Christian widow who has cared for the child since his birth.

Berlin, 1930—When a wave of change sweeps a radical political party to power, Sofie von Meyer Rhodes’s academic husband benefits from the ambitions of its newly elected chancellor. Although Sofie and Jürgen do not share the social views growing popular in Hitler’s Germany, Jürgen’s position with its burgeoning rocket program changes their diminishing fortunes for the better. But as Sofie watches helplessly, her beloved Berlin begins to transform, forcing her to consider what they must sacrifice morally for their young family’s security, and what the price for their neutrality will be.

When the daughter of a prominent Roman general meets a disinherited Jewish immigrant, neither one can dream of God's plan to transform them into the most influential couple of the early church. Nor can they anticipate the mountains that will threaten to bury them. Their courtship unwittingly shadowed by murder and betrayal, Priscilla and Aquila slowly work to build a community of believers, while their lives grow increasingly complicated thanks to a shaggy dog, a mysterious runaway, and a ruthless foe desperate for love.

Born Kathleen to an immigrant Irish farming family in southern Ontario, Kit McNair has been a troublesome changeling since, at ten, they fell through the river ice and drowned—only to be nursed back to life by their mother's Celtic magic. A daredevil in boy's clothes, Kit chafes at every aspect of a farmgirl's life, driving that same mother to distraction with worry about where Kit will ever fit in. When Rebekah Kromer, an elegant German-Canadian doctor's daughter, moves to town with her parents in April 1939, Rebekah has no doubt as to who 19-year-old Kit is.

Bastard’s Eve is a night of celebration for most residents in the canal city of Lodi - but not for sorcerer Learned Penric and his Temple demon Desdemona, who find themselves caught up in the affairs of a shiplost madman, a dangerous ascendant demon, and a very unexpected saint of the fifth god.

From the author of The Lost Girls of Paris comes a riveting tale of courage and unlikely friendship during World War II - now a New York Times best seller.

Juin 1940. Les Allemands entrent dans Paris. Partout, le couvre-feu est de rigueur, sauf au grand hôtel Ritz. Avides de découvrir l’art de vivre à la française, les occupants y côtoient l’élite parisienne, tandis que derrière le bar œuvre Frank Meier, le plus grand barman du monde. S’adapter est une question de survie. Frank Meier se révèle habile diplomate, gagne la sympathie des officiers allemands, achète sa tranquillité, mais aussi celle de Luciano, son apprenti, et de l’énigmatique et troublante Blanche Auzello.

Georgian mansion Wharton Park was a place of childhood solace for Julia Forrester, spending summers in the Norfolk countryside with her beloved grandfather. So after tragedy strikes, she finds herself seeking comfort at Wharton and the allure of its hothouse, once home to exotic flowers from all corners of the globe but now lying abandoned. There she meets the new owner, the charming and magnetic Kit Crawford, whose own past is shrouded in sadness and mystery.

In 1997, Werner Herzog was in Tokyo to direct an opera. His hosts asked him, Whom would you like to meet? He replied instantly: Hiroo Onoda. Onoda was a former soldier famous for having quixotically defended an island in the Philippines for decades after World War II, unaware the fighting was over. Herzog and Onoda developed an instant rapport and met many times, talking and unraveling the story of Onoda’s long war.

A group of young women from Smith College risk their lives in France at the height of World War I in this sweeping novel based on a true story - a skillful blend of Call the Midwife and The Alice Network - from New York Times best-selling author Lauren Willig.

From the author of the “engrossing” (People) and “poignant” (Booklist) international best seller The Room on Rue Amélie comes a remarkable and moving story of love, danger, and betrayal: two women in France in the darkest days of World War II and another in present-day America on a quest to uncover the secret that connects them.