Historical Women

Twin sisters Dot and Dash Wilson share many things: a birthday, a best friend named Gus, and a secret shorthand based on Morse code, a language their father, a WWI veteran, taught them as children. But that’s where their similarities end. While Dot’s nose is always in a book, preferably the latest by Agatha Christie, Dash is a social butterfly and spends her evenings out dancing. Despite their differences, the sisters have a close bond—until one develops romantic feelings for Gus.

On a snowy day in December 1946, Lane Winslow - a former British intelligence agent who’s escaped to the rural Canadian community of King’s Cove in pursuit of a tranquil life - is introduced to the local hot springs. While there, she overhears nearby patrons speaking Russian. When one of those patrons is found dead in the change room, Lane’s linguistic and intelligence experience is of immeasurable value to the local police force in solving the murder.

American Ella Durran has had the same plan for her life since she was 13: study at Oxford. At 24, she’s finally made it to England on a Rhodes Scholarship when she’s offered an unbelievable position in a rising political star’s presidential campaign. With the promise that she’ll work remotely and return to DC at the end of her Oxford year, she’s free to enjoy her Once in a Lifetime Experience. That is until a smart-mouthed local who is too quick with his tongue and his car ruins her shirt and her first day.

New York City, 1899. When it comes to show business, Gilded Age opera singer Ella Shane wears the pants. The unconventional diva breaks the mold by assuming "trouser roles"-male characters played by women - and captivating audiences far and wide with her travelling theater company. But Ella's flair for the dramatic takes a terrifying turn when an overacting Juliet to her Romeo drinks real poison during the final act of Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi.

Montgomery, Alabama, 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend intends to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she hopes to help women shape their destinies, to make their own choices for their lives and bodies.

One afternoon in 1839, Emily Lowry’s husband vanishes from Wreckers’ Cay, an isolated island off the coast of Key West where he tends the lighthouse. As days stretch into months, Emily has no choice but to take charge of Wreckers’ Cay and her husband’s duties tending the light to support her three children - and a fourth on the way. Unexpected help arrives when a runaway slave named Andrew washes up on their beach. At first, Emily is intensely wary of this strange, charming man, whose very presence there is highly illegal. But Andrew proves himself an enormous help and soon wins the hearts of the Lowry family.

When shy Miss Eliza Balfour married the austere Earl of Somerset, twenty years her senior, it was the match of the season--no matter that he was not the husband Eliza wanted. Now, ten years later, Eliza is widowed. Suddenly, she is left titled, rich, and, for the first time in her life, utterly in control of her own future. She’s always lived by society’s conventions, but now, Eliza has resolved to do as she wants. And what she wants is to head to Bath with her cousin Margaret, pursue painting, learn to drive, and flirt with Bath’s most alluring new resident, the infamous Lord Melville.

A warm June afternoon in King’s Cove is interrupted by an explosion. Following the sound, Lane goes to investigate. Up a steep path she discovers a secluded cabin and, hiding nearby, a young Japanese girl injured and mute, but very much alive. At the Nelson Police Station, Inspector Darling and Sergeant Ames, following up on a report of a nighttime heist at the local jeweler’s, discover the jeweler himself dead in his office, apparently bludgeoned, and a live wire hanging off the back of the building.

Lymstock is a town with more than its share of shameful secrets - a town where even a sudden outbreak of anonymous hate mail causes only a minor stir. But all that changes when one of the recipients, Mrs. Symmington, commits suicide. Her final note says "I can’t go on", but Miss Marple questions the coroner's verdict of suicide. Soon nobody is sure of anyone - as secrets stop being shameful and start becoming deadly.

Oklahoma, 1909. Eleven-year-old Olive Augusta Radley knows that her stepfather doesn’t have good intentions toward the two Choctaw girls boarded in their home as wards. When the older girl disappears, Ollie flees to the woods, taking six-year-old Nessa with her. Together they begin a perilous journey to the remote Winding Stair Mountains, the notorious territory of outlaws, treasure hunters, and desperate men. Along the way, Ollie and Nessa form an unlikely band with others like themselves, struggling to stay one step ahead of those who seek to exploit them . . . or worse.

1992: French Canadian factions renew Quebec’s fight to gain independence, and wild, beautiful Véronique Fortin, daughter of a radical separatist convicted of kidnapping and murdering a prominent politician in 1970, has embraced her father’s cause. So it is a surprise when she falls for James Phénix, a journalist of French Canadian heritage who opposes Quebec separatism.

As Europe buckles under Nazi occupation, Maisie Dobbs investigates a possible murder that threatens devastating repercussions for Britain's war efforts in this latest installment in the New York Times best-selling mystery series.

Passionate, earthy, deeply affecting, The Red Tent combines rich storytelling with a valuable contribution to modern fiction: a vibrant new perspective of female life in the age that shaped present day civilization and values.

If you like The Red Tent, try The Harlot by the Side of the Road, a recounting of some of the most startling and explicit writings from The Old Testament.

For eight weeks in 1945, as Berlin fell to the Russian army, a young woman kept a daily record of life in her apartment building and among its residents. The anonymous author depicts her fellow Berliners in all their humanity, as well as their cravenness, corrupted first by hunger and then by the Russians. A Woman in Berlin tells of the complex World War II relationship between civilians and an occupying army and the shameful indignities to which women in a conquered city are always subject—the mass rape suffered by all, regardless of age or infirmity.

The year 1924. After six months in Hollywood, young British widow Emma Blackstone has come to love her new employer, glamourous movie-star Kitty Flint — even if her late husband’s sister is one of the worst actresses she’s ever seen. Looking after Kitty and her three adorable Pekinese dogs isn’t work academically minded Emma dreamed of, but Kitty rescued her when she was all alone in the world. Now, the worst thing she has to worry about is the shocking historical inaccuracies of the films Kitty stars in.

Railway magnate Tom Severin is wealthy and powerful enough to satisfy any desire as soon as it arises. Anything - or anyone - is his for the asking. It should be simple to find the perfect wife - and from his first glimpse of Lady Cassandra Ravenel, he’s determined to have her. But the beautiful and quick-witted Cassandra is equally determined to marry for love - the one thing he can’t give.

The New York Times best-selling authors of The Glass Ocean and The Forgotten Room return with a glorious historical adventure that moves from the dark days of two World Wars to the turbulent years of the 1960s, in which three women with bruised hearts find refuge at Paris’ legendary Ritz hotel. The heiress...the Resistance fighter...the widow...three women whose fates are joined by one splendid hotel.

In the summer of 1951, Miranda Schuyler arrives on elite, secretive Winthrop Island as a schoolgirl from the margins of high society. When her beautiful mother marries Hugh Fisher, Miranda’s catapulted into a heady new world of pedigrees and cocktails. Isobel Fisher, Miranda’s new stepsister is eager to draw Miranda into the arcane customs of Winthrop society. But there are really two clans: the summer families with their steadfast ways and quiet obsessions, and the working class of Portuguese fishermen and domestic workers. Then Miranda is caught in a catastrophe and banished....

Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro grow up as the best of friends despite their differences. Elisabetta is a feisty beauty who dreams of becoming a novelist; Marco the brash and athletic son in a family of professional cyclists; and Sandro a Jewish mathematics prodigy, kind-hearted and thoughtful, the son of a lawyer and a doctor. Their friendship blossoms to love, with both Sandro and Marco hoping to win Elisabetta's heart.

After her foray into murder investigation, Lady Kiera Darby must journey to Edinburgh with her family so that her pregnant sister can be close to proper medical care. But the city is full of many things Kiera isn't quite ready to face: the society ladies keen on judging her, her fellow investigator (and romantic entanglement) Sebastian Gage, and ultimately, another deadly mystery.