Historical Literary Fiction Saga

Tall, slender Violet Mathers is growing up in the Great Depression, which could just as well define her state of mind. Abandoned by her mother as a child, mistreated by her father, and teased by her schoolmates ("Hey, Olive Oyl, where's Popeye?"), the lonely girl finds solace in artistic pursuits. Only when she's hired by the town's sole feminist to work the night shift in the local thread factory does Violet come into her name, and bloom.

Claire de Beaulieu est une jeune et belle aristocrate, fiancée au duc de Bligny, un homme superficiel et dépensier, mais qu'elle aime malgré tout. Alors qu'une demande en mariage officielle doit être faite auprès de sa famille, le duc disparaît, préférant épouser Athénaïs Moulinet, la plus farouche ennemie de Claire, une fille sans titres, mais détentrice d'une immense fortune.

East Texas in the 1960s is not the worst place to have grown up, but for narrator Jake of The Jugheads, it was a minefield. Describing clearly and courageously first jobs and first kisses, family vacations and family fights, Jake takes us through a wild coming-of-age ride, in an ordinary American family that he believes is as violent and dysfunctional as they come. By turns hilarious and moving, The Jugheads is a compelling return to form for a master of the underside of the American psyche.

Maine, 2012. An old man is dying with the weight of a plundered necklace on his conscience. As an US Army Captain in 1946 Salburg, guarding the 'Hungarian Gold Train' full of looted Jewish treasure, he fell in love with camp survivor and helped her escape to Israel. Now, as his granddaughter sets out to repatriate the necklace, secrets buried in the past are uncovered, stories of love and deceit linked to that beautiful, peacock-shaped pendant and to a priceless, long-lost painting.

It is 1919. On a summer’s night in Normandy, a new-born baby is left in a basket outside the home of Albert and Jeanne Arnaud. The childless couple take the foundling in, name him Jean, and decide to raise him as their own, though his parentage remains a mystery. Though Jean’s life is never dull, he grows up knowing little of what lies beyond his local area. Until the day he sets off on his bicycle to discover the world, and encounters a Europe on the threshold of interesting times...

Winner of an Academy Award in Literature, a pair of National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction, Jayne Anne Phillips is a master storyteller. Her first novel in nine years concerns a West Virginia family facing the spectre of the Korean War.

A sheltered son from an intellectual family in Shanghai, Benfu spends 1966 anticipating a promising violinist career and an arranged marriage. On the other side of town lives Pony Boy, a member of a lower-class family - but Benfu's best friend all the same. Their futures look different but guaranteed...until they're faced with a perilous opportunity to leave a mark on history.

In den Wirren der 1940er Jahre verschlägt es die junge Jasna mit ihrer Schwester Luzyna nach Persien. Als sie Aufnahme in Neuseeland erhalten sollen, keimt Hoffnung in Jasna auf. Doch nur eine der jungen Frauen wird für die Verschickung ausgewählt. Zur gleichen Zeit bricht James McKenzie aus Neuseeland auf. Gegen den Willen seiner Eltern will der wagemutige Flieger in Europa für die Ideale der Freiheit kämpfen. Das Schicksal führt James' und Jasnas Wege zusammen.Doch gibt es für sie eine gemeinsame Zukunft? Ein Juwel von Spiegel-Bestsellerautorin Sarah Lark.

A Young Wife follows the unforgettable journey of Minke Van Aisma across three continents - from a life of opulence in Amsterdam during the 1900s, to rough living on the Argentine coast, to fighting poverty as an immigrant in New York City. She is forced to leave behind a kidnapped son in Argentina, but sets upon the arduous task of struggling to find the child and taking revenge on the people who orchestrated his abduction.

Hull, 1874. Clara had always wondered about the beautiful, mysterious Jewel Newmarch, who was adopted as a baby and turns heads wherever she goes - her exotic looks point to her origins far away from the streets of Hull. Even at her twin sister Elizabeth’s wedding, Clara knows that Jewel is the belle of the ball. And as Jewel looks on at the happy, newly-married couple she feels a restlessness and intense longing to know her own roots.

After his experiences as a young naval officer in battles off Okinawa, Philip Bowman returns to America and finds a position as a book editor. It is a time when publishing is still largely a private affair - a scattered family of small houses here and in Europe - a time of gatherings in fabled apartments and conversations that continue long into the night. In this world of dinners, deals, and literary careers, Bowman finds he fits in perfectly. But despite his success, love eludes him.

At the height of China's Cultural Revolution, a powerful general fathered two sons. Tan was born to the general's wife and into a life of comfort and luxury. His half brother, Shento, was born to the general's mistress, who threw herself off a cliff in the mountains of Balan only moments after delivering her child.

In 1944, 20-year-old Marlene visits her older cousin, Eva Braun - Adolf Hitler's mistress - at the Fuhrer's Bavarian mountain retreat. There, Marlene finds herself in a strange paradise. The two women skinny-dip in a nearby lake, watch films in a private cinema, and flirt with the SS officers at the dinner table. But soon a mission of mercy forces Marlene to question her allegiance to both her cousin and her country - and to face the chilling reality that exists outside her sheltered world.

A precisely observed, superbly crafted novel, The End of the Point by Elizabeth Graver charts the dramatic changes in the lives of three generations of one remarkable family, and the summer place that both shelters and isolates them. Ashaunt Point, Massachusetts, has anchored life for generations of the Porter family, who summer along its remote, rocky shore. But in 1942, the U.S. Army arrives on the Point, bringing havoc and change.

It is 1904. When Frederick and Jette must flee her disapproving mother, where better to go than America, the land of the new? Originally set to board a boat to New York, at the last minute, they take one destined for New Orleans instead ("What's the difference? They're both new."), and later find themselves, more by chance than by design, in the small town of Beatrice, Missouri. Not speaking a word of English, they embark on their new life together.

From Jamie Ford, author of the beloved Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, comes a much-anticipated second novel. Set against the backdrop of Depression-era Seattle, Songs of Willow Frost is a powerful tale of two souls—a boy with dreams for his future and a woman escaping her haunted past—both seeking love, hope, and forgiveness.

1849. Léonie, fille de modestes résiniers, grandit blessée par le désamour de sa mère, qui, un jour, lui assène : "Tu n'es pas faite pour le bonheur, tout comme ta dernière fille". Elle deviendra ramasseuse de sangsues. Sa benjamine, Margot, refuse cette existence de labeur et de honte : à elle la Ville d'Hiver, à elle le choix d'une autre vie. Par amour, un homme bâtira pour elle la Maison du Cap... Se poursuit au fil des décennies et des tumultes de l'histoire une grande saga d'héroïnes.

In 1794, Johnny Watkins returns to America from Barbados, intent on becoming a great statesman. Even his hero, John Adams, believes the gifted boy will go far. There's just one catch: Johnny must learn to pass for white. He finds a spirited and lovely confidante in Kate, one of the few who knows that Johnny's father had been born a slave. But as he moves closer toward the new city of Washington, Johnny leaves Kate behind, falling instead for a prominent Maryland heiress who may not have his best interests at heart.

They called her Auld Nally, the local moneylender in one of Glasgow's roughest areas. But once she'd been Alice McInally, beautiful and loved by her childhood sweetheart. She hadn't anticipated the outcry when they announced their betrothal; he was Catholic and she was Protestant.

The son of Maya Angelou, Guy Johnson is a critically acclaimed author and poet in his own right. Echoes of a Distant Summer is the story of Jackson St. Clair Tremain, a San Francisco civil servant who thought he had left his old life far behind. In 1982, Jackson is summoned to Mexico to confer with his dying grandfather, the brutal hustler King Tremain. When King dies, Jackson inherits $50 million - and the unwanted attentions of a malevolent bayou crime lord named Pug DuMont.