Historical House Fiction

1939. Ansel Luxford has everything a person could want—a comfortable career, a brilliant spouse, a beautiful new baby. But he is obsessed by a belief that Europe is on the precipice of a war that will grow to consume the world. The United States is officially proclaiming neutrality in any foreign conflict, but when Ansel is offered an opportunity to move to Washington, D.C., to join a clandestine project within the Treasury Department that is working to undermine Nazi Germany, he uproots his family overnight and takes on the challenge of a lifetime.

Thanks to house tamer Hulda Larkin, the mischief infesting Whimbrel House has calmed. But if Hulda’s job is done, what does that mean for Merritt Fernsby, inheritor of the remote Narragansett Bay estate, who’s only now coming to terms with his enchanted place in the world? Merritt has realized his own burgeoning powers, which draw the thoughts of every plant, insect, and dog. His nights are sleepless, with an uncontrollable cacophony of voices that compel a long-overdue search into his uncanny bloodline. It’s not the only puzzle uniting Merritt and his ex-housekeeper, Hulda.

After disgracing themselves at a high society New Year's Eve party in Philadelphia in 1944, Madeline Hyde and her husband, Ellis, are cut off financially by his father, a former army colonel who is already ashamed of his son’s inability to serve in the war. Ellis and his best friend, Hank, decide that the only way to regain the colonel's favor is to succeed where the colonel very publicly failed - by hunting down the famous Loch Ness monster.

Under the direction of famed explorer Porter Stone, an archaeological team is secretly attempting to locate the tomb of an ancient pharaoh who was unlike any other in history. Stone believes he has found the burial chamber of King Narmer, the near mythical god-king who united upper and lower Egypt in 3200 B.C., and the archaeologist has reason to believe that the greatest prize of all - Narmer's crown - might be buried with him. No crown of an Egyptian king has ever been discovered, and Narmer's is the elusive crown of the two Egypts.

Czechoslovakia, 1935: Viktor Kosárek, a newly trained psychiatrist who studied under Carl Jung, arrives at the infamous Hrad Orlu Asylum for the Criminally Insane. The facility is located in a medieval mountaintop castle surrounded by forests, on a site that is well known for concealing dark secrets going back many centuries. The asylum houses six inmates - the country's most treacherous killers - known to the terrified public as the Devil's Six. Viktor intends to use a new medical technique to prove that these patients share a common archetype of evil, a phenomenon he calls The Devil Aspect.

Set in the prewar Indochina of Marguerite Duras's childhood, this is the haunting tale of a tumultuous affair between an adolescent French girl and her Chinese lover. In spare yet luminous prose, Duras evokes life on the margins of Saigon in the waning days of France's colonial empire, and its representation in the passionate relationship between two unforgettable outcasts.

Trent came to Idaho seeking solitude. He built a cabin, broke a few wild horses, and quietly put his past behind him. Then King Bill Hale began laying claim to all the land around Cedar Bluff. When Hale's son kills one of Trent's neighbors, Trent quickly steps forward to lead the fight. Their property had been legally filed on, but Bill Hale has the men, money, and political power to steal it from them. What Hale doesn't realize is that Trent also has connections. With evidence that can ruin Hale's scheme, Trent must find a way past Hale's gang of thugs to the men who can help him.

En plena Guerra Civil española, el joven médico Víctor Dalmau, junto a su amiga pianista Roser Bruguera, se ven obligados a abandonar Barcelona, exiliarse y cruzar los Pirineos rumbo a Francia. A bordo del Winnipeg, un navío fletado por el poeta Pablo Neruda que llevó a más de dos mil españoles rumbo a Valparaíso, embarcarán en busca de la paz y la libertad que no tuvieron en su país.

Charity Evans wants nothing more than to leave her troubled past behind and start afresh. The teacher at a London school for orphans is encouraged to have her memories blocked by hypnotist Samuel Gladstone, but when they experience visions with an unknown third person, they realize the past can never be truly erased. And now that past is returning to haunt Charity all over again. Samuel is determined to help her, but how can a woman who trusts no man trust a hypnotist?

Oceans and circumstances have forced families apart. For the banished French Acadians drifting in exile, the shore means safety - though it is a safety at a terrible price. For the lonely British nobleman, the shore holds a single chance to secure his legacy. For Andrew and Catherine Harrow, the shore marks a tragic separation. An extraordinary set of journeys awaits them all, each as intricate and perilous as the coastline itself.

Against a vivid backdrop of war and thrilling innovation, Danielle Steel breathes life into history, weaving an intensely human story that spans three decades, of two tremendously different people, who in spite of themselves, are irrevocably woven into the fabric of each other's lives. More Steel.

On a spring morning in 1951, 11-year-old chemist and aspiring detective Flavia de Luce gathers with her family at the railway station, awaiting the return of her long-lost mother, Harriet. Yet upon the train’s arrival in the English village of Bishop’s Lacey, Flavia is approached by a tall stranger who whispers a cryptic message into her ear. Moments later, he is dead, mysteriously pushed under the train by someone in the crowd. Who was this man, what did his words mean, and why were they intended for Flavia? Back home at Buckshaw, the de Luces’ crumbling estate, Flavia puts her sleuthing skills to the test.

Lord Guy Carlton, late of His Majesty’s regiment and weary from the war in France, has only wine, women, and song in mind when he rents Number 67 Clarges Street. He certainly has no desire for a serious attachment! Then his merry eyes spot the lovely but very proper Miss Esther Jones. Though Esther’s business acumen has made her one of the richest women in England, her innocence could make her a victim of the wild ways of the ton - unless the downstairs staff at Clarges Street devise a campaign to reform the rake who is laying siege to her heart.

A bomb explodes in the desk drawer of a top TV executive. Was it intended for him or the man who opened the drawer? They each had enemies enough to die a dozen times over. Was it the jealous wife or the ambitious partner? The secretary who got passed around like an inter-office memo? Or the man who couldn’t wash the blood off his hands? Nero Wolfe didn’t want any part of it - but he was up to his neck in the toughest case of his career!

A brand new collection from Louis L'Amour, the legendary New York Times best-selling master of the short story. Here in Off the Mangrove Coast are fast-moving, historically detailed stories of the travails of extraordinary men and women struggling to break free, to capture fortune and fame, or find love. Here are the characters and the great tales that have made Louis L'Amour one of the world's most popular authors. Here are the works of a master craftsman which will live forever in the listeners' imaginations.

Roma, año 77 a.C. El cruel senador Dolabela va a ser juzgado por corrupción, pero ha contratado a los mejores abogados, ha comprado al jurado y, además, es conocido por usar la violencia contra todos los que se enfrentan a él. Nadie se atreve a ser el fiscal, hasta que de pronto, contra todo pronóstico, un joven patricio de tan solo veintitrés años acepta llevar la acusación, defender al pueblo de Roma y desafiar el poder de las élites. El nombre del desconocido abogado es Cayo Julio César.

England, 1942. The Nazis' relentless Blitz may have paused, but London's nightly blackouts continue. Now, under the cover of darkness, a madman is brutally killing and mutilating young women in eerie and exact re-creations of Jack the Ripper's crimes. What's more, he's targeting women who are reporting for duty to be Winston Churchill's spies and saboteurs abroad. The officers at MI5 quickly realize they need the help of Special Agent Maggie Hope to find the killer dubbed "the Blackout Beast". A trap is set.

An exhaustively researched novel weaves both historical fact and plausible fiction in bringing the story of Mary Queen of Scots to life.

At the end of the Second World War, Matthew Wallingham returns home, blinded and uncertain about his future. Worse yet, his father is ill, and his mother is obviously unhappy, while his younger brother, who has made a success of running the farm on the family’s estate in the war years, is resentful of Matthew’s desire to help him. The only person Matthew feels he can talk to is his grandmother, but the rest of the family regards her as a holy terror.

From within the hopelessness and terror of China's Cultural Revolution, Dai Sijie has fashioned a beguiling and unexpected story about the resilience of the human spirit, the wonder of romantic awakening, and the magical power of storytelling. "An unexpected miracle," raves the Los Angeles Times Book Review, "a delicate, and often hilarious, tale."