Historical Literary Fiction Saga

Richard Sharpe believes that his soldiering days are over, but his retirement is interrupted by a request from Donna Louisa Vivar for Sharpe to discover the truth about the disappearance of her husband, the Captain-General of Chile. Sharpe's quest takes him to St Helena and an encounter with Napoleon, and on to Chile where he soon finds himself caught up in the rebellion against Spanish rule and fighting alongside the flamboyant rebel admiral, Lord Thomas Cochrane.

In the tumultuous aftermath of the Trojan War, a young man battles to save his home and his inheritance. Setting out to find his father, he ends up discovering himself. Telemachus' father, Odysseus, went off to war before he was born...and never came back. Aged 16, Telemachus finds himself abandoned, his father's house overrun with men pursuing his beautiful mother, Penelope, and devouring the family's wealth. Telemachus determines to leave Ithaca, his island home, and find the truth.

In the charnel house that was Europe in the Second World War, there were few instances of shining moral courage, let alone secular sainthood. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian and Nazi resister, was the exception. This emblematic figure risked his life, and finally lost it, through his participation in a failed plot to assassinate Hitler and topple his regime.

Lala has lived a dazzling life. Born in Poland just after the First World War and brought up to be a perfect example of her class and generation, Lala is an independent woman who has survived some of the most turbulent events of her times. As she senses the first signs of dementia, she battles to keep her memories alive through her stories, telling her grandson tales of a life filled with love, betrayal and extraordinary acts of courage. Sweeping from 19th-century Kiev to modern-day Poland, this enthralling family saga is a celebration of a beautiful life well lived.

For Alexander Kidd, the sea is no place for a lady. Pursued by deadly enemies from every direction, Alex won't rest until he claims the bounty of riches left to him by his father, the notorious Captain Kidd. A stowaway will not be tolerated - no matter how beautiful. But fighting his desire for Trina soon becomes his toughest battle yet, and he will have to make an agonizing choice: sacrifice his quest or lose the woman who has stolen his heart.

It is 1898, and groups of starving Puerto Ricans, los hambrientos, roam the parched countryside and dusty towns begging for food. Under the yoke of Spanish oppression, the Caribbean island is forced to prepare to wage war with the United States. Up in the mountainous coffee region of Utuado, Vicente Vega and Valentina Sanchez labor to keep their small farm from the creditors. When the Spanish-American War and the great San Ciriaco Hurricane of 1899 bring devastating upheaval, the young couple is lured, along with thousands of others, to the sugar plantations of Hawaii.

Sivakami was married at 10, widowed at 18, and left with two children. According to the dictates of her caste, her head is shaved and she puts on widow's whites. From dawn to dusk, she is not allowed to contaminate herself with human touch, not even to comfort her small children. Sivakami dutifully follows custom, except for one defiant act: She moves back to her dead husband's house to raise her children. There, her servant Muchami, a closeted gay man who is bound by a different caste's rules, becomes her public face.

In 1943, LSD is synthesized in Basel. Two decades later, a coterie of grad students at Harvard are gradually drawn into the inner circle of renowned psychologist and psychedelic drug enthusiast Timothy Leary. Fitzhugh Loney, a psychology PhD student, and his wife, Joanie, become entranced by the drug’s possibilities such that their “research” becomes less a matter of clinical trials and academic papers and instead turns into a freewheeling exploration of mind expansion, group dynamics, and communal living.

Rhoda Middleton suspects her husband Peter is having an affair. But when Rhoda tracks the mysterious woman down, she finds she is not his lover after all, but the wife of his wartime best friend, Archie Foster. There is only one problem - Rhoda has never even heard of Archie Foster.

Young Dorothy is trapped in a life of poverty and heartache. Abandoned by a mother who never loved her, she is forced to live with grandparents who care even less for her than they do for their own bratty children. Dorothy must persevere and hold on to the distant memory of her loving father with only a tin of letters and a small toy soldier to remind her of her former life of wealth and privilege. Just when Dorothy thinks life has nothing left to offer, a letter arrives, inviting her to visit her father in London. Will this be the opportunity Dorothy has been waiting for?

Queenie is only 14 and has been deserted by her mother. Set in Liverpool and Wales at the outbreak of World War II, this story explores themes of female friendship and betrayal from the perspective of a group of women of widely different ages.

In the winter of 1897, a trio of killers descends upon an isolated farm in upstate New York. Midwife Elspeth Howell returns home to the carnage: her husband and four of her children, murdered. Before she can discover her remaining son, Caleb, alive and hiding in the kitchen pantry, another shot rings out over the snow-covered plains. Twelve-year-old Caleb nurses his mother back to health, cleaning her wounds and keeping her fed, before they leave their home to seek retribution on the men who committed this heinous crime.

Bold, professional, and determined, Richard Sharpe embarks on a desperate mission. He must recover the treasure, vital to the success of the war, now hidden behind enemy lines.

As opulent and passionate as the 18th century it celebrates, Through a Glass Darkly will sweep you away to the splendors of a lost era. From aristocrats to scoundrels, its rich, vivid characters create their own immortality. Here is the story of a great family ruled by a dowager of extraordinary power; of a young woman seeking love in a world of English luxury and French intrigue; and of a man haunted by a secret that could turn all dreams to ashes.

Missionary Julia Foster loves working alongside her parents, but when the family must return to England due to illness, she readily accepts the burden for her parents' financial support. Taking on a job at Highland Hall as governess, she quickly finds that teaching her four ill-mannered charges at a grand estate is more challenging than expected.

Guerreros y eremitas, boyardos y siervos, héroes y heroínas románticos, ancianas damas ricas, buscadores de fortuna y exiliados... Los personajes de Rusia habitan en un mundo contradictorio de bosques, estepas, iconos y hachas, fe ortodoxa y persecución a los judíos, hermosas iglesias, palacios magníficos y pueblos miserables; de arte popular ruso y operas suntuosas, de Tolstói y Lenin, Chaikovsky y Rasputín.

Born in the Hispanic barrio of Los Angeles, Gregory Reeves grew up in poverty, survived the killing fields of Vietnam, and is now a lawyer in San Francisco. Though he has successfully survived this hard journey, Gregory’s life has suddenly gone off the rails thanks to an illusory and wrongheaded quest that has left him feeling lost and listless. To find what he is missing and what his heart truly wants, he must return to his roots. Only by excavating the past can he see the way to his future.

Caín pone de manifiesto lo que hay de moderno y sorprendente en la prosa de Saramago: la capacidad de hacer nueva una historia que se conoce de principio a fin. Una reflexión acerca del origen del poder y de las manipulaciones que las distintas religiones y sus aliados temporales han ejercido sobre las conciencias de los hombres para evitar que el pensamiento sea libre y el uso de la voluntad independiente de criterios religiosos.

Finally available as an audiobook, Joyce Carol Oates' lost classic: a satirical, often surreal, and beautifully plotted Gothic romance that follows the exploits of the audacious Zinn sisters, whose 19th-century pursuit of adventurous lives turns a lens on contemporary American culture.

The Leung family leads a life of secluded luxury in Hong Kong. But in December 1941, the Empire of Japan invades the colony. The family is quickly dragged into a spiral of violence, repression, and starvation. To survive, they entomb themselves and their friends in the Leung mansion. But this is only a temporary reprieve, and the Leungs are forced to send their children away. The youngest boy, Chung-Man, escapes with some of his siblings, and together they travel deep into the countryside to avoid the Japanese invaders.