Historical Letters

Arthur Hart-Synnot, a third-generation British officer, was sent to Japan in 1904 to learn the language of Britain's newest ally. Masa Suzuki, a beautiful Japanese woman scorned because of an early divorce, worked at the Tokyo Officers' Club. The two fell immediately in love and conceived a son before Arthur was whisked away by the military during World War I. Though Arthur would only see Masa little, he supported his Japanese family and kept alive the hope that he and Masa could live together blissfully.

Über seine Mutter Gertrud schrieb der Künstler Einar Schleef einen Roman. Er nannte ihn "Gertrud" und versuchte darin, ihre ostdeutsche Gedankenwelt nachzuempfinden, von der er seit seiner Flucht in den Westen getrennt war. Mit ihr schrieb er sich auch Briefe. Die Angst der Mutter, die Unbedenklichkeit des Sohnes, die Anhänglichkeit und die Unabhängigkeit - es sind Kräfte, die sich anziehen und gleichzeitig abstoßen.

The war took him away. Is their love strong enough to bring him home? From family tragedy, the war, to undying love, this compelling story spans three generations.

Two great loves. One shattering betrayal. A war that changes everything. Harriet and Mae Grafton are 20-year-old identical twins born from a scandalous affair. They grew up in India slighted by gossip and ostracised from polite society. They had each other and that was enough. But when their wealthy benefactor sends them to Singapore, they meet the mysterious Alex Blake and their relationship fractures with devastating consequences. Ivy Harcourt is posted to wartime Singapore amid the looming threat of Japanese invasion. Ivy knows the island will be a far cry from war-torn London, but she is totally unprepared for what awaits her....

A mysterious stone of black obsidian holds a magical grip over a rural French clan ripped apart by an ancient curse. The Nazis covet the relic as a weapon of immense power that will lead their armies to victory in the West. The Allies fear rumors of the stone mask a deadly weapon that threatens the invasion of Fortress Europe. The resistance risks annihilation to recover it. The French police and the Gestapo will destroy all in their path to possess it.

As Nazi-occupied France collapsed under the Allied onslaught in 1944, Gela Pientka defiantly kept a bloody truth that could topple governments and destabilize world currencies. To protect her family, she took the frightening secret to her grave. Gala's journal, however, exposes a stunning discovery - a corrupt "money train," supported by murder and slavery, fueled by the foul stench of greed. Powerful international forces seek to destroy the last evidence of their treason by silencing everyone who discovers the secret.

A storm explodes on German streets in November, 1938 - The Night of Broken Glass. The Holocaust has begun - and the world has changed forever. The little girls Rabbi Shalev calls his "Three Angels" flee their burning orphanage in terror, fearing for their lives. Hunted by an obsessed Gestapo captain, the best friends are torn apart and cast in the violent maelstrom of occupied Europe. No government can help them. No army will come to their rescue. Corruption and greed stalk them at every turn

Dear Mr Bigelow is an enchanting selection of weekly 'pen-pal' letters written between 1949 and 1961 from an unmarried woman working at the Pier Approach Baths in Bournemouth, to a wealthy American widower, living on Long Island, New York. Frances Woodsford and Commodore Paul Bigelow never met, and there was no romance - she was in her forties when he died aged ninety-seven - yet their epistolary friendship was her lifeline.

Robert E. Lee is remembered by history as a tragic figure, stoic and brave but distant and enigmatic. Using dozens of previously unpublished letters as departure points, Pryor produces a stunning personal account of Lee's military ability, his beliefs, and his time, shedding new light on every aspect of the complex and contradictory general's life story.

For three years, Penny Ercanbeck has been opening other people's mail. Dead ends are a reality for clerks at the Dead Letter Office. Still, she dreams of something more - a bit of intrigue, a taste of romance, or at least a touch less loneliness. When a letter from a brokenhearted man to his one true love falls into her hands, Penny seizes this chance to do something heroic. It becomes her mission to place this lost letter into the hands of its intended recipient.

In this novella collection, three renowned Christian historical fiction authors trace generations of wartime romances through a wedding dress with love sewn into its seams.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) är en av de stora amerikanska författarna. Han har skrivit ett flertal romaner, noveller och biografier. Hawthorne växte upp i Nya England i USA och bodde senare i Massachusetts. Berättelsen handlar om Hester Prynne, en ung kvinna som begår ett av de värsta möjliga brotten i 1600-talets Nya England: äktenskapsbrott. Som straff tvingas hon bära ett stort rött A (= adultress, äktenskapsbryterska) på bröstet på sin klänning.

Anisette Durande holds the destiny of a free Brittany in her hands, desperate to keep the Madonna Rosa from the Germans as the Nazi onslaught rolls across defenseless France in 1940. She is La Guardienne - the last of a line of women descended from a lone survivor of a terrible slaughter, blessed to protect the ancient Madonna carved from the crucifix of the Christian martyrs of Roman Lyon. Her only hope is a chance encounter with a young British soldier on the road, himself fleeing the Germans toward an evacuation port on the Brittany coast.

The stables stood since Elizabethan times on the grounds of Castle Whitstable in Kent. There was a time when the trumpets of war sounded the stables’ grooms fitted the castle mounts for battle. That was before the Great War, and before machine guns, mustard gas, and aeroplanes. It was a glorious time, at least in the myths woven to disguise the blood and screams of men and horses dying in battle.

Lenora Fletcher is settling into her new role as Duchess of Blackmoore, after having put the ghost of her husband’s first wife to rest. But when her ne-er-do-well brother-in-law is accused of murder, only Lenora can help him. Using her ability to communicate with the dead, Lenora must contact the deceased sailor and determine who his real killer is in order to clear Edwin’s name. But will her involvement cause the killer to end another life? And will that life be her own?

Cultural and familial fireworks flare when the headstrong teenage daughter of a wealthy New Yorker falls passionately in love with a young man from New Orleans, and from a very different background indeed. What makes this story sizzle and soar are its time and place - the United States during the Civil War and Victorian England - and a couple of key facts about the protagonists.

As fresh and poignant today as when they were written, these touching letters capture the heart of everyday life during the Civil War. Set both at home in Florida and on the front, the letters were written by two generations of families whose members included radical secessionists, moderates, and even a few Unionists.

Duik in de meeslepende wereld van Nathaniel Hawthorne's "De scharlaken letter." Deze tijdloze klassieker speelt zich af in het puriteinse Nieuw-Engeland en onderzoekt thema's als zonde, schuld en verlossing. Het verhaal volgt Hester Prynne, een vrouw die gebrandmerkt is met de scharlaken letter "A" van overspel, terwijl ze de complexiteiten van maatschappelijk oordeel en persoonlijke verlossing doorstaat. Hawthorne's prachtige proza en rijke symboliek brengen de personages tot leven en onderzoeken de menselijke conditie met diepgaand inzicht.

Rose Pepper has kept her wartime past a secret for decades. Forty years ago, she fled communist Prague and left behind the love of her life. Now in her sixties and with two daughters, Rose discovers a bundle of unopened letters sent to her by her lost love. Confronted with the possibility of facing up to her past, she decides it’s finally time to go back to where her story began and uncover the truth that has been buried for so long…

In this book's introduction, an autobiographical account of the author's years as an American Custom House official, Hawthorne describes how he came across a parchment from which fell a fraying piece of fabric, fantastically embroidered and inscribed with the scarlet letter A. He found himself compelled to tell the story of its owner, Hester Prynne, a young English woman who had lived in 17th-century Boston at the time when Puritan extremism - that which led to the infamous witch trials of Salem - was at its height.