Historical Sagas

In 1950s Dublin, life is hard and jobs are like gold dust. Nineteen-year-old Nell Flynn is training to be a nurse and planning to marry her boyfriend, Liam Connor, when her mother dies, leaving her younger sisters destitute. To save them from the workhouse, Nell returns to the family home - a mere two rooms at the top of a condemned tenement. Nell finds work at a biscuit factory and, at first, they scrape through each week.

The only member of the original mission to the planet Rakhat to return to Earth, Father Emilio Sandoz has barely begun to recover from his ordeal when the Society of Jesus calls upon him for help in preparing for another mission to Alpha Centauri. Despite his objections and fear, he cannot escape his past or the future.

Once again, Fannie Flagg gives us a story of richly human characters, the saving graces of the once-maligned middle classes and small-town life, and the daily contest between laughter and tears. Fannie truly writes from the heartland, and her storytelling is, to quote Time, "utterly irresistible."

Tehran, Iran 1979: Simmering religious tensions explode and the Shah is forced to flee Iran. A British helicopter company—secretly owned by the Noble House of Hong Kong—with a fleet of helicopters registered in Iran faces bankruptcy if their copters are claimed or destroyed by the uprising. The pilots need to escape, but they’ve built lives in Iran, some even have families. Finnish pilot Erikki Yokkonen has married Azadeh, an Iranian woman of noble birth, whose family is caught up in the political situation exploding around them.

Hannah Bond has always been a bookworm, which is why she fled Florida - and her unstable, alcoholic mother - for a quiet life leading Jane Austen-themed tours through the British countryside. But on New Year’s Eve, everything comes crashing down when she arrives back at her London flat to find her mother, Marla, waiting for her. Marla’s brought two things with her: a black eye from her ex-boyfriend and an envelope. Its contents? The deed to an apartment in Paris, an old key, and newspaper clippings about the death of a famous writer named Andres Armand.

Helsingør, Denmark, 1943. In the midst of the German occupation during World War Two, Inger Bredhal joins the underground resistance and risks her life to save members of Denmark’s Jewish community and help them escape to Sweden. Copenhagen, 2018. Inger’s granddaughter Cecilie Lund is mourning her death when a mysterious discovery while cleaning out Inger’s flat leads past and present to intersect. As long-held secrets finally see the light of day, Cecilie learns the story of her grandmother’s courage and bravery.

Living deep within the mysterious southern forests, the spiritual Ninkuraaja people are being hunted to the brink of extinction by bloodthirsty raiders known only as Woves. Nobody knows better than a Ninkuraa that a Wove deserves only death.

Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last. This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized first sentences in literature - along with "Call me Ishmael." And Una Spenser, the transcendent hero at the center of Ahab's Wife may well become every bit as memorable as Ahab. Inspired by a brief passage in Moby Dick, Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe - an epic-scale, enthralling, and compelling saga, spanning a full, rich, eventful, and dramatic life. In the "soprano voice" whose absence critics lamented in Moby Dick - the strong, intelligent voice of a woman whose life is dominated by the sea - Naslund tells many stories.

Gold fever swept the world in 1897. The chance for untold riches sent thousands of dreamers on a perilous trek toward their fortunes, failures, or deaths. Follow four English aristocrats and their Irish servant as they misguidedly haul their dreams across cruel Canadian terrain toward the Klondike gold fields.

Skye O'Malley's magnificent daughter Velvet embarks on her own adventures in this sensuous best seller. Now, in this journey into pure sensual delight by Bertrice Small, Velvet proves she's every inch her mother's daughter. When Alexander Gordon arrives from the Scottish Highlands to claim Velvet as his bride, he must woo her body and soul before he can win her heart. When the Grande Mughal of India receives the beautiful Velvet as a gift, he must win her heart with his patience before he can teach her every trick at his command.

It is the year 871, when England was Angle-Land. Of seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, five have fallen to the invading Vikings. No trait is more valued than loyalty, and no possession more precious than one's steel. Across this war-torn landscape travels 15-year-old Ceridwen, now thrust into the lives of the conquerors.

War and Peace is one of the greatest monuments in world literature. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, it examines the relationship between the individual and the relentless march of history. Here are the universal themes of love and hate, ambition and despair, youth and age, expressed with a swirling vitality which makes the book as accessible today as it was when it was first published in 1869.

Warleggan is the fourth novel in Winston Graham's sweeping series of Cornwall, Poldark. Cornwall 1792. Ross plunges into a highly speculative mining venture which threatens not only his family's financial security but also his turbulent marriage to Demelza. When Ross and Elizabeth's old attraction rekindles itself, Demelza retaliates by becoming dangerously involved with a handsome Scottish cavalry officer. With bankruptcy an increasingly real possibility, the Poldarks seem to be facing disaster on all fronts.

In the summer of 1986 in a small Chinese village, 10-year-old Junie receives a momentous letter from her parents, who had left for America years ago: Her father promises to return home and collect her by her 12th birthday. But Junie’s growing determination to stay put in the idyllic countryside with her beloved grandparents threatens to derail her family’s shared future.

Francis Phelan, ex-ballplayer, part-time gravedigger, full-time drunk, has hit bottom. Years ago he left Albany in a hurry after killing a scab during a trolley workers' strike; he ran away again after accidentally – and fatally – dropping his infant son. Now, in 1938, Francis is back in town, roaming the old familiar streets with his hobo pal, Helen, trying to make peace with the ghosts of the past and the present.

All is not well at Castle's Café. Since the fatal shooting, customers have been staying away, and now Nellie finds herself in debt to the sinister Terence Carter. But when a deadly attack strikes close to home, these troubles pale into insignificance. Meanwhile, Jimmy Castle's relationship with family friend Reenie Turner has deepened, and in the aftermath of the attack that could so easily have killed them, they decide to get married. But the return of an old friend threatens to expose a long-held secret, leaving the wedding teetering on the brink of disaster.

In the fourth audiobook in Anthony Trollope's series known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, the values of a Victorian gentleman, the young clergyman Mark Robarts, are put to the test. Though he lives a comfortable life, has a doting wife, children and a patroness in Lady Lufton, his ambitions stretch beyond the little village of Framley. Through a combination of naivety and social climbing, Robarts is compromised and brought to the brink of financial and social ruin by the disreputable politician, Sowerby.

London, 1822: In dem Waisenhaus, in dem sie aufwuchs, kümmert die junge Tara sich um einsame Kinder. Die Welt außerhalb ist ein Mysterium für Tara – so ist sie völlig unvorbereitet, als Duke Arkcraig, der Gönner des Heims, sie auf sein Schloss in Schottland beordert. Dort angekommen stellt sie fest, dass sie nicht seine Bedienstete sein soll, sondern seine Braut! Ehe sie es sich versieht findet Tara sich mitten in einem Konflikt zwischen den verfeindeten Clans McCraig und Kildonnon wieder, über denen ein dunkler Fluch zu hängen scheint.

New York Times best-selling author Conn Iggulden's Genghis Khan novels are infused with action, adventure, and rich historical details further fleshing out the great warlord's world. Having risen from his tribal upbringing, Genghis now leads a horde of fellow countrymen on a mission of conquest throughout Asia. Escaping the Gobi Desert, he faces his greatest challenge, overtaking the empire of the Chin - a land protected by a massive, impenetrable wall.

Cornwall, 1818. We continue the tale of Ross and Demelza; of the wayward Valentine Warleggan, whose existence keeps open the old wounds of the feud between Ross and George; of Bella, the Poldarks' youngest daughter, whose precocious talent as a singer is encouraged by her old flame, Christopher Havergal, and by a distinguished French conductor who has more in mind than Bella's music; of Clowance, the Poldarks' widowed daughter, who considers remarriage to one of two rival suitors; and of a murderer who stalks the villages of West Cornwall.