Renaissance Fiction

Anne, Duchess of Brittany, is the love of King Louis XII of France's life. Too bad he's already married. While his annulment proceedings create Europe's most sensational scandal of 1498, Anne returns to Brittany to take back control of her duchy that her late husband, Charles VIII, King of France, had wrested from her. At age 21, Anne is sovereign ruler of Brittany as well as Europe's most wealthy widow. But can she maintain Brittany's independence from France if she accepts Louis's offer to make her Queen of France once more?

1589. Scottish housemaid Geillis and Danish courtier Margareta lead opposite lives, but they both know one thing: when a man cries “witch”, no woman is safe. Yet when the marriage of King James VI and Princess Anna of Denmark brings Geillis and Margareta together, everything they supposed about good, evil, men, and women, is cast in a strange and brilliant new light. For the first time in history, could black magic – or rumours of it – be a very real tool for women’s political gain?

What would you think if, in your old age, the doctors tell you that you only have a couple years left to live, and even ultra-modern medical technology is powerless to help? Some may spend their remaining years at the bottom of a bottle, others may choose to spend it quietly, with family...But there are also those who are ready to leave everything behind. Volper is one of those who has decided to have one last hurrah and immerse himself in a virtual reality.

With Bonaparte held to a stalemate in Europe, the race to empire is now resumed. Britain's ambitions turn to the Spice Islands, the Dutch East Indies, where Admiral Pellew has been sent to confront the enemy's vastly rich holdings in these tropical islands. Captain Sir Thomas Kydd joins reinforcements to snatch these for the British Crown. The two colonial masters of India and the East Indies face each other in mortal striving for the region—there can be only one victor to hold all the spoils.

I met Nazareth Armstrong when I was eighteen years old. From the beginning, my brother warned me to stay away from him. Told Naz to stay away from me. Our hearts didn’t listen. I shared one magical night under the stars with my brother's rival, thinking it was the start of a once-in-a-lifetime something. But one awful moment ended it all.

"Il y a cinquante ans, quelques hommes innocents, condamnés à une vie de détention, ont refusé le destin d'esclaves que leur promettait Staline et se sont évadés. Ils préféraient les dangers de la traque à l'indignité du servage. Pour recouvrer la liberté, ils n'avaient d'autre choix que de faire route vers le sud. Sans vivres, sans carte, sans assistance, ils devaient franchir à pied les taïgas, les steppes mongoles, le désert de Gobi, le Tibet, l'Himalaya, les jungles du Bengale. 6000 kilomètres d'étendues hostiles. (...)

Artemisia Gentileschi dreams of becoming a great artist. Motherless, she grows up among a family of painters - men and boys. She knows she is more talented than her brothers, but she cannot choose her own future. She wants to experience the world, but she belongs to her father and will belong to a husband. As Artemisia patiently goes from lesson to lesson, perfecting her craft, she also paints in private, recreating the women who inspire her, away from her father's eyes. Until a mysterious tutor enters her life.

Il est des regards qui abîment, d'autres qui réparent... À la faveur du comptoir d'un bistrot et du hasard, un homme et une femme font connaissance. Rebecca est une romancière en mal d'inspiration qui voit sa vie lui échapper. Lino, un artisan passionné d'histoire de l'art, rongé par son passé et sa quête d'absolu. Enclin aux confidences, il se livre à elle avant de disparaître dans la nuit. Fascinée par son histoire, elle se lance sur ses traces avec le projet fou de faire de lui le héros de son prochain roman.

Florence, 1500 - a city that glitters with wealth and artistic genius is also a place of fierce political intrigue, walled off from the unrest in the surrounding Tuscan countryside. In this moment, a peasant girl finds herself alone after her father is killed and her mother disappears. Young Beatrice must dare to enter the city to sell her family’s olive oil in order to survive, but also to search the streets and opium dens for her missing, grieving mother.

England. 1535. Jane Seymour is 27 years old and increasingly desperate to marry and secure her place in the world. When the court visits Wolf Hall, the Seymour ancestral manor, Jane has the perfect opportunity to shine: her diligence, efficiency, and newfound poise are sure to finally attract a suitor. Meanwhile, King Henry VIII is 45 and increasingly desperate for an heir. He changed his country's religion to leave his first wife, a princess of Spain, for Anne Boleyn—but she, too, has failed to provide a son.

Les sentiments d'Emma pour Julian, son parabatai, font obstacle à sa mission. Pourtant, la jeune Carstairs l'a appris à ses dépens : leur amour est interdit, et pire ! il pourrait les détruire tous les deux. La Chasseuse d'Ombres sait qu'elle devrait fuir... Pourtant, alors que l'étau se resserre dangereusement autour des Blackthorn, Emma ne peut se résoudre à les abandonner. Leur dernière chance est cachée entre les pages d'un grimoire aux terribles pouvoirs : le Livre Noir. Mais tous souhaitent s'en emparer. La guerre n'a jamais été aussi près d'éclater.

When Theodora Tenpenny spills a bottle of rubbing alcohol on her late grandfather's painting, she discovers what seems to be an old Renaissance masterpiece underneath. That's great news for Theo, who's struggling to hang on to her family's 200-year-old townhouse and support her unstable mother on her grandfather's legacy of $463. There's just one problem: Theo's grandfather was a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and she worries the painting may be stolen.

Le roman Les Borgia fait partie de la saga historique "Les Crimes célèbres", une série de romans d'Alexandre Dumas, parus entre 1839 et 1840. Chaque roman prend son origine dans un contexte historique différent, couvrant une période allant de la Renaissance à l'époque contemporaine de Dumas. César Borgia, fils du pape Alexandre VI, domine cette famille illustre qui va se construire un royaume dans l'Italie de la Renaissance, éliminant par le fer ou le poison ses principaux rivaux. Il est le frère de Lucrèce Borgia qui a marqué son époque comme protectrice des arts et des lettres.

The Agents of the Crown - the “rollicking new historical thriller” (The New York Times Book Review) series - returns with this riveting novel following the original MI6 agent as he is assigned a dangerous mission to recreate a weapon from antiquity.

Chi se non Paolo Poli poteva calarsi nei panni di Don Abbondio e della Monaca di Monza, dando una voce inconfondibile a ciascuno dei memorabili personaggi manzoniani e tirandoci dentro nelle vicende umane e storiche del grande romanzo? Il libro di tutti e per tutti, in una lettura che è un vero spettacolo!

A pretend relationship gives two friends more than they bargained for in a Renaissance Faire rom com filled with flower crowns, kilts, corsets, and sword fights.

"I promessi sposi" è un capolavoro della letteratura Italiana scritto nel XIX secolo da Alessandro Manzoni e uno dei romanzi storici più importanti del mondo. La storia si svolge nella Milano del XVII secolo e narra della vita e delle avventure di una coppia di giovani contadini lombardi, Renzo e Lucia, che non possono sposarsi a causa delle mire di un vizioso e prepotente tiranno locale e della codardia del parroco del loro villaggio.

Une écriture d'une beauté inouïe, portée par la voix de Marie Bouvet. C'est un grand jour à Ferrare. On y célèbre les noces du duc Alfonso et de Lucrèce de Médicis. La fête est extravagante et la foule n'a d'yeux que pour le couple. La mariée a quinze ans. Rien ne l'avait préparée à ce rôle. Elle n'était que la troisième fille du grand duc de Toscane, la discrète, la sensible, celle dont ses parents ne savaient que faire. Mais le décès soudain de sœur aînée a changé son histoire.

À la fois roman historique et thriller, 1542: La colonie maudite s’inspire d’un fait réel aussi fascinant que méconnu : l’expédition Cartier-Roberval. Bien qu’aux prises avec la montée des troubles religieux en France, François 1er doit assurer son emprise en Amérique. Il ordonne donc à Jacques Cartier et au Sieur de Roberval d’aller fonder une colonie en Nouvelle-France. Un étonnant amalgame de catholiques et de protestants, ainsi que de repris de justice et d’aristocrates, s’embarque alors pour une formidable épopée.

When Walt Whitman self-published "Leaves of Grass" in 1855, he rocked the literary world and forever changed the course of poetry. In subsequent editions, Whitman continued to revise and expand his poems - but none matched the raw power and immediacy of the first edition. This volume presents the 1855 "Leaves of Grass" in its entirety, unchanged, along with Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous letter to Whitman.