Historical Women

Early in the Great War, men left Britain’s factories in droves to enlist. Struggling to keep up production, arsenals hired women to build the weapons the military urgently needed. “Be the Girl Behind the Man Behind the Gun,” the recruitment posters beckoned. Thousands of women—cooks, maids, shopgirls, and housewives—answered their nation’s call. These “munitionettes” worked grueling shifts often seven days a week, handling TNT and other explosives with little protective gear.

In 1692, Bridget Bishop was hanged as a witch. Two hundred years later, her legacy lives on in the scions of two very different lines: one dedicated to using their powers to heal and help women in need; the other, determined to grasp power for themselves by whatever means necessary. This clash will play out in the fate of Annis, a young woman in Gilded Age New York who finds herself a pawn in the family struggle for supremacy. She'll need to claim her own power to save herself - and resist succumbing to the darkness that threatens to overcome them all.

This season, all eyes are on the Earl of Worthington's spirited, beautiful sister, Lady Louisa Vivers. Many gentlemen are vying for her attention in and around the ton. Yet, Louisa longs for someone who can take her beyond the ballroom-a man who is worldly, adventurous, and passionate. She won't settle for just any suitor. She wants her true soul mate-and she'll know him when she sees him. Is Gideon, the Duke of Rothwell, him? The moment he and Louisa meet, they share a powerful attraction.

Harriet Tubman is one of the giants of American history - a fearless visionary who led scores of her fellow slaves to freedom and battled courageously behind enemy lines during the Civil War. And yet in the century since her death, next to nothing has been written about this extraordinary woman aside from juvenile biographies. The truth about Harriet Tubman has become lost inside a legend woven of racial and gender stereotypes.

After Grand-mere Ursule gives her life to save her family, their magic seems to die with her. Even so, the Orchires fight to keep the old ways alive, practicing half-remembered spells and arcane rites in hopes of a revival. And when their youngest daughter comes of age, magic flows anew. The lineage continues, though new generations struggle not only to master their power, but also to keep it hidden. But when World War II looms on the horizon, magic is needed more urgently than ever.

The Great War is over - but in Ireland, in the wake of the bloody 1916 Easter Rising, anyone who served in France is now considered a traitor, including Nurse Eileen Flynn and former soldier Michael Sullivan, who only want to be married in the small, isolated village where she grew up. Even her grandmother is against it, and Eileen’s only protection is her cousin Terrence, who was a hero of the Rising and is still being hunted by the British.

Emily's fight for women's suffrage is put on hold and her life transformed when Wash, the chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, is injured on the job. Untrained for the task, but under his guidance, she assumes his role, despite stern resistance and overwhelming obstacles. Lines blur as Wash's vision becomes her own, and when he is unable to return to the job, Emily is consumed by it. But as the project takes shape under Emily's direction, she wonders whose legacy she is building - hers or her husband's.

London, 1889. Veronica Speedwell and her natural historian beau Stoker are summoned by Sir Hugo Montgomerie, head of Special Branch. He has a personal request on behalf of his goddaughter, Euphemia Hathaway. After years of traveling the world, her eldest brother, Jonathan, heir to Hathaway Hall, was believed to have been killed in the catastrophic eruption of Krakatoa a few years before. But now a man matching Jonathan’s description and carrying his possessions has arrived at Hathaway Hall with no memory of his identity or where he has been.

She'll light the fire of resistance—but she may get burned … 1942. Though she survived the bomb that destroyed her home, Yvonne Rudellat’s life is over. She’s estranged from her husband, her daughter is busy with war work, and Yvonne—older, diminutive, overlooked—has lost all purpose. Until she’s offered a chance to remake herself entirely …

When Lydia's father tells her he's obtained a husband for her, Mr. Thornton, she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. She'd only met the man once before, and he'd immediately left her stranded in a ballroom after asking her to dance. How could she marry a man who already deemed her forgettable? Edward Thornton has succumbed to the allure of gambling one too many times, to the point where he loses his house in a game of cards. But when the man who won his house offers him a deal he can't refuse, he agrees to marry the man's daughter in exchange for a chance to redeem himself.

In the summer of 1925, Thelma Morgan arrives at the Paris Ritz still stinging from the heartache and humiliation of her failed marriage. Her twin sister, Gloria, newly and blissfully wedded to Reginald Vanderbilt and with a baby in tow, has invited her to spend the summer - and though romance is the last thing on Thelma’s mind, she can’t deny that Reggie’s friend Duke Furness is as charming and dapper as he is keen to win her affection.

In The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice into an enthralling story of love, adventure and discovery. Spanning much of the 18th and 19th centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker - a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia.

1939: Fourteen-year-old Hazel and five-year-old Flora evacuate their London home for a rural village to escape the horrors of the Second World War. Living with the Aberdeen family in a charming stone cottage, Hazel distracts her young sister with a fairy tale about a magical land, a secret place they can escape to that is all their own: Whisperwood. But the unthinkable happens when Flora suddenly vanishes after playing near the banks of the River Thames. Shattered, Hazel blames herself for her sister’s disappearance, carrying the guilt into adulthood.

On April 15, 1945, Brigadier H. L. Glyn Hughes entered Bergen-Belsen for the first time. Waiting for him were 10,000 unburied, putrefying corpses and 60,000 living prisoners, starving and sick. One month earlier, 15-year-old Rachel Genuth arrived at Bergen-Belsen; deported with her family from Sighet, Transylvania, in May of 1944, Rachel had by then already endured Auschwitz, the Christianstadt labor camp, and a forced march through the Sudetenland.

Ten years have passed since Joe Lakota left Laurel Creek, Oregon, for the allure of the big city and a career in professional football. Now a single father, Joe returns to Laurel Creek hoping to rekindle his romance with Marilee Nelson. But their separation was painful, and Marilee is wounded deeper than anyone knows. Her head tells her to resist Joe's advances, but can she ignore her deepest desires?

New York, 1898. The only thing more shocking than Arthur Stanhope III’s unexpected death is the revelation that his will bestows his company—and most of the vast fortune that goes with it—to the nearest male heir, leaving his mother, wife, and daughter nearly impoverished. His widow, Sylvia, quickly realizes she must set aside her grief to ensure their daughter, Adelaide, is launched into society as soon as the appropriate mourning period passes.

Emmy Award winner Rita Mae Brown and her felicitous feline Sneaky Pie craft the 17th entry in the mega-selling Mrs. Murphy mystery series. When murder befouls the idyllic winter wonderland of Crozet, Virginia, amateur sleuth Harry Haristeen takes up the investigation. Also on the scent are Harry's intrepid, four-legged friends - who never met a mystery they couldn't solve.

Late summer, 1270. Although the Simon de Montfort rebellion is over, the smell of death still hangs over the land. In the small priory of Tyndal, the monks and nuns of the Order of Fontevraud long for a return to routine. Their hopes are dashed, however, when the young and inexperienced Eleanor of Wynethorpe is appointed their new prioress. Only a day after her arrival, a brutally murdered monk is found in the cloister gardens, and Brother Thomas, a young priest with a troubled past, arrives to bring her a more personal grief.

At 97 years old, Winnifred Ellis knows she doesn’t have much time left, and it is almost a relief to realize that once she is gone, the truth about her shameful past will die with her. But when her great-grandson Jamie, the spitting image of her dear late husband, asks about his family tree, Winnifred can’t lie any longer, even if it means breaking a promise she made so long ago....

When a set of bound manuscripts written on magician-made paper is brought to the Glass Library, Sylvia and the professor send the owner away. After all, the library collects books about magic, not containing it. But the murder of the bookbinder who bound them sees the books returned to the library, along with Gabe in his role as consultant for Scotland Yard. When his investigation uncovers a link to Sylvia’s past, they’re even more determined to find the murderer. But they’re not the only ones searching for answers.