Historical Letters

Claire arrives at her new job as researcher at a grand English country house, nursing a broken heart. But tucked into the back of a long-forgotten drawer she finds a letter written in an elegant hand. It tells of a wartime secret about the beautiful Lady Violet – whose passionate affair with an Italian prisoner of war scandalised the village and ended in tragedy. Captivated, Claire promises to find Violet’s daughter, Tabitha, and reunite her with a priceless piece of her mother’s jewellery. With only the name of an Italian bakery, Pasticceria Mancini, to guide her, and the help of her handsome neighbour Jim, Claire travels to Tabitha’s last known location – Florence.

There's no such thing as privacy in the tiny village of Birdswing. Everywhere Dr. Benjamin Bones turns, someone is spying from a window, listening through a wall, or gossiping over a garden fence. "The birds sing in Birdswing," says the vicar, Father Cotterill; and in February 1940, this is more true than ever. Waiting for Hitler to make his move and turn this "Phony War" into the real thing, Ben's fellow villagers are desperate for a distraction.

Carl Brooke, a scholar of ancient Near Eastern languages, now spends his twilight years chronicling the adventures of his youth as a leading member of the Agora Society, a society dedicated to the betterment of man. Fans of Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot will enjoy Carl Brooke and his Agora Society in these five very different cases.

"England, 1940. Dearest Ruby, you must have heard the news by now. The very worst has happened. Our countries are at war. What can I do? How can I stop this nightmare from happening? One day soon we’ll be together again. I swear. I love you. E. x". Ruby Summers is a tapestry of memories, her ninety-six years laced with both love and loss. The echoes of a wartime Norfolk summer, where young Ruby's heart entwined with Edmondo's under orchard skies, are as vivid as ever. Yet a single, haunting secret - born from a love tested by war and a betrayal that shattered her - remains locked within her.

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.

Becky Nelson fled her childhood home and risked irreparable damage to her relationship with her only sister for an independent life in Kansas. The bookish bachelorette had no sooner settled in the Sunflower State when her path crossed with Henry, a ruggedly handsome farmer. The draft selects the seemingly untouchable Henry, and the couple rushes to make their union permanent before the war carries him to far-off lands. As the days turn to months, their letters give Becky and Henry the strength to go on as he serves his country, and she shares their home with an unlikely guest.

Germany, 1930s. In the peaceful village of Dachau, Ariana lives with her family, ordinary German citizens, during the Third Reich. Ariana and her sister Renate come of age amidst the growing horrors. Munich, 2012. Hard-nosed ex-cop Jack Bailey is determined to locate Ariana Schröder, who wrote a WWII wartime love letter to his father, decades ago. Jack and his brother think that the letter may hold the key to his past drunken abusiveness.

Treasure hunters Peter Fallon and Evangeline Carrington are heading for adventure in Washington, D.C., the sleek, modern, power-hungry capital of America...and the crowded, muddy, intrigue-filled nexus of the Civil War. Their prize? A document of incredible historical importance and incalculable value: Abraham Lincoln’s diary. What if Lincoln recorded his innermost thoughts as he moved toward the realization that he must free the slaves? And what if that diary slipped from his fingers in 1862?

It is 1890. In the twilight of his years, Carl Brooke records his reminiscences as a member of the Agora Society. Each letter describes the society's involvement in solving a crime, often coming to the aid of Captain Barnwell of the Boston police.

In 1642, a pregnant Hester Prynne is found guilty of adultery, shunned by her neighbors, and forced to wear a scarlet letter 'A' on her dress. Meanwhile, Hester's husband - long thought to be lost at sea - has returned to Boston under the assumed name 'Roger Chillingworth' and plots to uncover her lover's identity. After her daughter Pearl is born, Hester is frequently visited by both Reverend Dimmesdale and Chillingworth, but always refuses to name her lover.

These letters were arranged in two volumes by Albert Bigelow Paine, Samuel L. Clemens's literary executor, as a supplement to Mark Twain, A Biography, which Paine wrote. They are, for the most part, every letter written by Clemens known to exist at the time of their publication in 1917. They begin with a fragment of a letter from teenaged Sam Clemens to his sister, Pamela, and conclude with a letter to his attorney two weeks before his death. These letters give us some degree of insight into the evolution of Twain's style of speech and prose over the period of his lifetime.

1891: Living separately for three years, 14-year-old twins Katherine and Tommy Arthur have done their best to make each boarding house feel like home. But unrest grows as they are driven to questionable actions just to survive. Meanwhile, their desperate mother is confronted with breaking yet another promise to her children. Then a miracle descends. Hope rises on a cold, rainy night and changes everything. If Jeanie could just get word to Katherine and Tommy, she knows she can set their lives right again.

Miss Arabella Leeds, the teenage daughter of a prominent New York family, and Aubrey Paxton, the pampered "high-yellow" house servant of wealthy New Orleans slaveholders, are destined to meet and fall in love. But before their paths can cross, and their romance commence in London, each must forsake complacency and comfort, the familial and familiar, for a journey toward self-discovery and the allure of the forbidden. Arabella must abandon the gentlewoman's prescribed path and redefine her convictions - particularly those regarding her own sexuality.

Letters discovered in a tin box hidden in the foundation of a small cottage in Normandy reveal a terrible secret, a desperate whisper between the lines. Antoine's world was collapsing. His beautiful Marianne, his precious daughter Ariéle, missing. The lives of hundreds - perhaps thousands - of allied soldiers preparing to storm Juno Beach on D-Day literally are in his hands.

London, 1941. Keen to do her bit in the war, Connie Allinson joins the WRNS and is posted as a letter censor. Her task: to read and alter correspondence to ensure no sensitive information crosses enemy lines. At first, she is not sure she's up to it, but is soon drawn in by the letters she reads, and their secret... Doncaster, 1967. Bored of her domestic life, Connie wants a job, but her controlling husband Arthur won't hear of it. Looking for an escape and plagued by memories of letters she read during the war, she makes a bid for freedom and starts secretly tracking down their authors.

It's 1942 and war is raging in Europe and slowly, London is coming undone at the seams. Life as Claire knew it is falling apart all around her. But she's determined to live a full life, to flirt and have fun as if nothing is wrong. And then she meets Thomas, the handsome American soldier, and with him comes the thrill of secrecy and a whirlwind love that sucks her in. She will wait for him forever, if that's what it takes.

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.

Letters to a Savage follows the epic tale of Spanish conquistador, Rodrigo Diaz, during the fall of the Aztec Empire. Rodrigo becomes disillusioned with the Spanish cause and falls in love with Atzi, a beautiful young Aztec woman.

Two hundred years later, on the anniversary of the Battle of Saratoga, thousands arrive from Europe and the US to celebrate the event, including descendants from the war. One young American, Abby, meets the offspring of a British soldier. When she is threatened, Abby turns to the only person she knows at the event: her British ally. Can she trust him with her life? Or will he betray her in the same way Loyalist spies betrayed her ancestors?

We are all a bit broken, and Katherine is no different. She spent her life searching to understand why her father had walked out the door and had never returned. After his disappearance, she spent the rest of her childhood in two different parts of a racially divided town, and soon discovered she belonged in both.