Books with category 🕯️ Historical Drama
Displaying books 1-48 of 170 in total

Alamut

2038

by Vladimir Bartol

Alamut is set in 11th Century Persia, within the fortress of Alamut. Here, the self-proclaimed prophet Hasan ibn Sabbah orchestrates a mad and brilliant plan to dominate the region using a select group of elite fighters, known as his "living daggers." By crafting a virtual paradise at Alamut, replete with beautiful women, lush gardens, wine, and hashish, Sabbah persuades his young warriors that they can attain paradise by adhering to his commands.

Drawing parallels to modern figures like Osama bin Laden, Alamut narrates how Sabbah instilled fear in the ruling class by assembling a small, devoted army ready to kill, and be killed, to reach paradise. Embracing the supreme Ismaili motto, “Nothing is true, everything is permitted,” Sabbah sought to manipulate religious devotion for his political gain, exploiting the stupidity and gullibility of people and their penchant for pleasure and selfish desires.

The novel chronicles Sabbah as he reveals his plan to his inner circle and focuses on two young followers: the beautiful slave girl Halima, who arrives at Alamut to join Sabbah's earthly paradise, and young ibn Tahir, Sabbah's most talented fighter. As both Halima and ibn Tahir grow disillusioned with Sabbah's vision, their lives take unforeseen turns.

Originally penned in 1938 as an allegory to Mussolini's fascist state, Alamut became a cult favorite in Tito's Yugoslavia during the 1960s and was later read as an allegory of the Balkan's War strife in the 1990s, achieving bestseller status in Germany, France, and Spain.

The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau

2025

by Kristin Harmel

Kristin Harmel, the New York Times bestselling author, returns with an electrifying new novel about two jewel thieves, a priceless bracelet that disappears in 1940s Paris, and a quest for answers in a decades-old murder.

Colette Marceau has been stealing jewels for nearly as long as she can remember, following the centuries-old code of honor instilled in her by her mother: take only from the cruel and unkind, and give to those in need. Never was their family tradition more important than during the Second World War, when Annabel and Colette worked side by side in Paris to fund the French Resistance.

But one night in 1942, it all went wrong. Annabel was arrested by the Germans, and Colette’s four-year-old sister, Liliane, disappeared in the chaos of the raid, along with an exquisite diamond bracelet sewn into the hem of her nightgown for safekeeping. Soon after, Annabel was executed, and Liliane’s body was found floating in the Seine—but the bracelet was nowhere to be found.

Seventy years later, Colette—who has “redistributed” $30 million in jewels over the decades to fund many worthy organizations—has done her best to put her tragic past behind her, but her life begins to unravel when the long-missing bracelet suddenly turns up in a museum exhibit in Boston. If Colette can discover where it has been all this time—and who owns it now—she may finally learn the truth about what happened to her sister. But she isn’t the only one for whom the bracelet holds answers, and when someone from her childhood lays claim to the diamonds, she’s forced to confront the ghosts of her past as never before. Against all odds, there may still be a chance to bring a murderer to justice—but first, Colette will have to summon the courage to open her own battered heart.

The Listeners

New York Times bestselling novelist Maggie Stiefvater dazzles in this mesmerizing portrait of an irresistible heroine, an unlikely romance, and a hotel—and a world—in peril.

JANUARY 1942. The Avallon Hotel and Spa offers elegance and sophistication in an increasingly ugly world. Run with precision by June Hudson, the hotel’s West Virginia born-and-bred general manager, the Avallon is where high society goes to see and be seen, and where the mountain sweetwater in the fountains and spas can wash away all your troubles.

June was trained by the Gilfoyles, the hotel’s aristocratic owners, and she has guided the Avallon skillfully through the first pangs of war. Now, though, the Gilfoyle family heir has made a secret deal with the State Department to fill the hotel with captured Axis diplomats. June must convince her staff—many of whom have sons and husbands heading to the frontlines—to offer luxury to Nazis. With a smile.

She also must reckon with Tucker Minnick, the FBI agent whose coal tattoo hints at their shared past in the mountains, and whose search for the diplomats’ secrets disrupts the peace June is fighting so hard to maintain. Hers is a balancing act with dangerous consequences; the sweetwater beneath the hotel can threaten as well as heal, and only June can manage the springs.

As dark alliances and an elusive spy crack the polished veneer of the Avallon, June must calculate the true cost of luxury.

One Good Thing

2025

by Georgia Hunter

From the New York Times–bestselling author of We Were the Lucky Ones, comes an unforgettable novel of remarkable bravery and perseverance, about a Jewish woman navigating through war-torn Italy during the Holocaust.

1941, Italy. Lili and Esti have been best friends since meeting at the university in Ferrara. When Esti gives birth to the adorable Theo, they become as close as sisters. But when Germany invades northern Italy, they soon find themselves in occupied territory.

Esti, always the fiercer of the two, convinces Lili to flee to a convent in Florence, where they’ll be responsible for guarding war orphans and forging identification papers with the Resistance in the dead of night. When a brutal gang descends on the convent, a critically wounded Esti asks Lili to take a much bigger step: Go on the run with Theo. Protect him while Esti can’t. Terrified to travel without her brave friend, Lili sets out on a harrowing journey through the bombed-out villages and cities of Italy, doing everything she can to keep Theo safe.

A tale of friendship, motherhood, survival, and unexpected romance, in One Good Thing, Lili will learn how love for another person can be a reason to stay alive.

People of Means

2025

by Nancy Johnson

From the acclaimed author of The Kindest Lie, comes a propulsive novel about a mother and daughter each seeking justice and following their dreams during moments of social reckoning—1960s Nashville and 1992 Chicago—perfect for readers of Brit Bennett and Tayari Jones.

Two women. Two pivotal moments. One dream for justice and equality.

It’s 1959, and Freda Gilroy has just arrived at Nashville’s Fisk University, eager to begin her studies and uphold the tradition of Black Excellence instilled in her by her parents back home in Chicago. Coming from an upper-middle-class lifestyle where Black and white people lived together in relative harmony, Freda is surprised to discover the menace of racism down South. When a chance encounter with an intriguing young man draws her into the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement, Freda finds herself caught between two worlds, and two loves, and must decide how much she's willing to sacrifice in the name of justice, equality, and the advancement of her people.

In 1992 Chicago, Freda’s daughter Tulip is an ambitious PR professional on track for a big promotion, if workplace politics and racial microaggressions don’t get in her way. With the ruling in the Rodney King trial weighing heavily on her, Tulip feels increasingly agitated and decides she can no longer stay quiet. Called to action by a series of glaring injustices, Tulip makes an irreversible professional misstep as she seeks to uplift her community. Will she find the courage to veer off the “safe” path and follow her heart, just as her mother had three decades prior?

Insightful, evocative, and richly imagined with stories of hidden history, People of Means is an emotional tour de force that offers a glimpse into the quest for racial equality, the pursuit of personal and communal success, and the power of love and family ties.

Isola

2025

by Allegra Goodman

An unforgettable epic saga of a French noblewoman deserted on an island where her survival will depend on the power of her faith and love.

Heir to a chateau with its own village and lands, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and Jean Francois de la Rocque de Roberval—an enigmatic and volatile older man Marguerite has never met—becomes her guardian, controlling her future. He sells her property to pay his debts, leaving her destitute, and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France.

Isolated and afraid, Marguerite befriends Roberval’s servant and the two begin meeting secretly aboard the ship, drawn together by an intense attraction. But when Roberval discovers Marguerite’s deception, his rage is all-consuming. As punishment, he maroons her and her lover on a small island, condemning them to certain death.

Once a child of privilege who dressed in gowns and laced pearls in her hair, Marguerite is now at the mercy of the elements. Without food or shelter, she must learn to hunt and live in a cave. As the weather turns, blanketing the island in ice, survival becomes nearly impossible. Marguerite despairs; has everyone and everything she once held dear abandoned her?

A riveting portrait inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, and a gorgeous celebration of the power of the natural world, Isola is the timeless story of a woman realizing her true strength.

Junie

A young girl must face a life-altering decision after awakening her sister’s ghost, navigating truths about love, friendship, and power as the Civil War looms.

Sixteen years old and enslaved since she was born, Junie has spent her life on Bellereine Plantation in Alabama, cooking and cleaning alongside her family, and tending to the white master’s daughter, Violet. Her daydreams are filled with poetry and faraway worlds, while she spends her nights secretly roaming through the forest, consumed with grief over the sudden death of her older sister, Minnie.

When wealthy guests arrive from New Orleans, hinting at marriage for Violet and upending Junie’s life, she commits a desperate act—one that rouses Minnie’s spirit from the grave, tethered to this world unless Junie can free her. She enlists the aid of Caleb, the guests’ coachman, and their friendship soon becomes something more. Yet as long-held truths begin to crumble, she realizes Bellereine is harboring dark and horrifying secrets that can no longer be ignored.

With time ticking down, Junie begins to push against the harsh current that has controlled her entire life. As she grapples with an increasingly unfamiliar world in which she has little control, she is forced to ask herself: When we choose love and liberation, what must we leave behind?

The JFK Conspiracy

From the New York Times bestselling authors of The Nazi Conspiracy and The Lincoln Conspiracy comes a true, little-known story about the first assassination attempt on John F. Kennedy, right before his inauguration.

Kennedy, the thirty-fifth president of the United States, is often ranked among Americans’ most well-liked presidents. Yet what most Americans don’t know is that JFK’s historic presidency almost ended before it began—at the hands of a disgruntled sociopathic loner armed with dynamite.

On December 11, 1960, shortly after Kennedy’s election and before his inauguration, a retired postal worker named Richard Pavlick waited in his car—a parked Buick—on a quiet street in Palm Beach, Florida. Pavlick knew the president-elect’s schedule. He knew when Kennedy would leave his house. He knew where Kennedy was going. From there, Pavlick had a simple plan—one that could’ve changed the course of history.

Written in the gripping, page-turning style that is the hallmark of Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch’s bestselling series, this is a slice of history vividly brought to life. Meltzer and Mensch are at the top of their game with this brilliant exploration of what could’ve been for one of the most compelling leaders of the 20th century.

The Sunflower House

2024

by Adriana Allegri

Family secrets come to light as a young woman fights to save herself, and others, in a Nazi-run baby factory—a real-life Handmaid's Tale—during World War II.


In a sleepy German village, Allina Strauss’s life seems idyllic: she works at her uncle’s bookshop, makes strudel with her aunt, and spends weekends with her friends and fiancé. But it's 1939, Adolf Hitler is Chancellor, and Allina’s family hides a terrifying secret—her birth mother was Jewish, making her a Mischling.


One fateful night after losing everyone she loves, Allina is forced into service as a nurse at a state-run baby factory called Hochland Home. There, she becomes both witness and participant to the horrors of Heinrich Himmler’s ruthless eugenics program.


The Sunflower House is a meticulously-researched debut historical novel that uncovers the notorious Lebensborn Program of Nazi Germany. Women of “pure” blood stayed in Lebensborn homes for the sole purpose of perpetuating the Aryan population, giving birth to thousands of babies who were adopted out to “good” Nazi families. Allina must keep her Jewish identity a secret in order to survive, but when she discovers the neglect occurring within the home, she’s determined not only to save herself, but also the children in her care.


A tale of one woman’s determination to resist and survive, The Sunflower House is also a love story. When Allina meets Karl, a high-ranking SS officer with secrets of his own, the two must decide how much they are willing to share with each other—and how much they can stand to risk as they join forces to save as many children as they can. The threads of this poignant and heartrending novel weave a tale of loss and love, friendship and betrayal, and the secrets we bury in order to save ourselves.

By Any Other Name

2024

by Jodi Picoult

Two women, centuries apart—one of whom is the real author of Shakespeare’s plays—are both forced to hide behind another name to make their voices heard.

In 1581, Emilia Bassano—like most young women of her day—is allowed no voice of her own. But as the Lord Chamberlain’s mistress, she has access to all theater in England, and finds a way to bring her work to the stage secretly. And yet, creating some of the world’s greatest dramatic masterpieces comes at great cost: by paying a man for the use of his name, she will write her own out of history.

In the present, playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano. Although the challenges are different four hundred years later, the playing field is still not level for women in theater. Would Melina—like Emilia—be willing to forfeit her credit as author, just for a chance to see her work performed?

Told in intertwining narratives, this sweeping tale of ambition, courage, and desire asks what price each woman is willing to pay to see their work live on—even if it means they will be forgotten.

The Seventh Veil of Salome

A young woman wins the role of a lifetime in a film about a legendary heroine — but the real drama is behind the scenes in this sumptuous historical epic from the author of Mexican Gothic.

1950s Hollywood: Every actress wants to play Salome, the star-making role in a big-budget movie about the legendary woman whose story has inspired artists since ancient times.

So when the film’s mercurial director casts Vera Larios, an unknown Mexican ingenue, in the lead role, she quickly becomes the talk of the town. Vera also becomes an object of envy for Nancy Hartley, a bit player whose career has stalled and who will do anything to win the fame she believes she richly deserves.

Two actresses, both determined to make it to the top in Golden Age Hollywood—a city overflowing with gossip, scandal, and intrigue—make for a sizzling combination.

But this is the tale of three women, for it is also the story of the princess Salome herself, consumed with desire for the fiery prophet who foretells the doom of her stepfather, Herod: a woman torn between the decree of duty and the yearning of her heart.

Before the curtain comes down, there will be tears and tragedy aplenty in this sexy Technicolor saga.

Shelterwood

2024

by Lisa Wingate

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours comes a sweeping novel inspired by the untold history of women pioneers who fought to protect children caught in the storm of land barons hungry for power and oil wealth.

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 rugged 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.

Oklahoma, 1990. Law Enforcement Ranger Valerie Boren O’dell arrives at Horsethief Trail National Park seeking a quiet place to balance a career and single parenthood. But no sooner has Valerie reported for duty than she’s faced with local controversy over the park’s opening, a teenage hiker gone missing from one of the trails, and the long-hidden burial site of three children deep in a cave. Val’s quest to uncover the truth wins an ally among the neighboring Choctaw Tribal Police but soon collides with old secrets and the tragic and deadly history of the land itself.

In this emotional and enveloping novel, Lisa Wingate traces the story of children abandoned by the law and the battle to see justice done. Amid times of deep conflict over who owns the land and its riches, Ollie and Val traverse the wild and beautiful terrain, each leaving behind one life in search of another.

All We Were Promised

A housemaid with a dangerous family secret conspires with a wealthy young abolitionist to help an enslaved girl escape, in volatile pre-Civil War Philadelphia.

The rebel . . . the socialite . . . and the fugitive. Together, they will risk everything for one another in this beguiling story of friendship, deception, and women crossing boundaries in the name of freedom.

Philadelphia, 1837. After Charlotte escaped from the crumbling White Oaks plantation down South, she’d expected freedom to feel different from her former life as an enslaved housemaid. After all, Philadelphia is supposed to be the birthplace of American liberty. Instead, she’s locked away playing servant to her white-passing father, as they both attempt to hide their identities from slavecatchers who would destroy their new lives.

Longing to break away, Charlotte befriends Nell, a budding abolitionist from one of Philadelphia’s wealthiest Black families. Just as Charlotte starts to envision a future, a familiar face from her past reappears: Evie, her friend from White Oaks, has been brought to the city by the plantation mistress, and she’s desperate to escape. But as Charlotte and Nell conspire to rescue her, in a city engulfed by race riots and attacks on abolitionists, they soon discover that fighting for Evie’s freedom may cost them their own.

The Mayor of Maxwell Street

When a rich Black debutante enlists the help of a low-level speakeasy manager to identify the head of an underground crime syndicate, the two are thrust into the dangerous world of Prohibition-era Chicago.

The year is 1921, and America is burning. A fire of vice and virtue rages on every shore with Chicago at its beating heart.

Twenty-year-old Nelly Sawyer is the daughter of the alleged “wealthiest Negro in America,” a Kentucky horse breeder whose wealth and prestige catapults his family to the heights of the exclusive, elite Black society. After the unexpected death of her brother—the family’s presumed heir—Nelly goes from being virtually unknown to a premier debutante overnight. But Nelly has aspirations beyond society influence and marriage. For the past year, she has worked undercover as an investigative journalist for the Chicago Defender, sharing the achievements and tribulations of everyday Black people living in the shadow of Jim Crow. Now, her latest assignment thrusts her into the den of a dangerous vice, the so-called Mayor of Maxwell Street.

Charming and mysterious, Jay Shorey strives to balance his connection to the Chicago underworld with his desperate yearning for the refinement and protection of high society. Born to a murdered bi-racial couple in rural Alabama, he knows firsthand what it means to be denied a chance at the American dream. When a tragic turn of fate gave Jay a rare path out, he took it without question. He washed up on Chicago’s storied shores and never looked back, until now.

When Nelly’s and Jay’s paths cross, she recruits him to help expose the Mayor and bring about a lasting change in a corrupted city. Trapped between the monolith of Jim Crow, the inflexible world of the Black upper class, and the violence of Prohibition-era Chicago, Jay and Nelly work together and stoke the flames of a love worth fighting for. And yet, as with all things in America, there is a price to be paid. What risk is Nelly willing to take for a young man willing to risk it all?

Trespasses

2022

by Louise Kennedy

Set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, a shattering novel about a young woman caught between allegiance to community and a dangerous passion.

Amid daily reports of violence, Cushla lives a quiet life with her mother in a small town near Belfast. By day she teaches at a parochial school; at night she fills in at her family's pub. There she meets Michael Agnew, a barrister who's made a name for himself defending IRA members. Against her better judgment - Michael is not only Protestant but older, and married - Cushla lets herself get drawn in by him and his sophisticated world, and an affair ignites.

Then the father of a student is savagely beaten, setting in motion a chain reaction that will threaten everything, and everyone, Cushla most wants to protect.

Trespasses is a heart-pounding, heart-rending drama of thwarted love and irreconcilable loyalties, in a place where what you come from seems to count more than what you do, or whom you cherish.

Amor de Perdição

Amor de Perdição é uma obra-prima de Camilo Castelo Branco, retratando uma das mais arrebatadoras histórias de amor da literatura portuguesa. Ambientado no século XIX, este romance narra o trágico amor entre Simão Botelho e Teresa de Albuquerque, jovens provenientes de famílias inimigas que enfrentam todos os obstáculos para viver sua paixão.

Através de uma narrativa intensa e emocionante, Castelo Branco explora temas universais como o amor proibido, o destino e o sacrifício, tecendo um drama que é ao mesmo tempo pessoal e profundamente enraizado nas convenções sociais da época.

Amor de Perdição é mais do que um simples romance; é um estudo sobre a natureza humana, a luta contra as convenções sociais e a força indomável do amor. Com personagens memoráveis e uma trama que captura a essência do romantismo, Camilo Castelo Branco cria uma obra que transcende seu tempo, oferecendo reflexões sobre o amor, a honra e a tragédia que continuam a ressoar com os leitores contemporâneos.

Descubra este clássico eterno, um convite a refletir sobre o poder transformador do amor e as escolhas que definem nosso destino.

Independent People

This magnificent novel—which secured for its author the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature—is at last available to contemporary American readers. Although it is set in the early twentieth century, it recalls both Iceland's medieval epics and such classics as Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter. And if Bjartur of Summerhouses, the book's protagonist, is an ordinary sheep farmer, his flinty determination to achieve independence is genuinely heroic and, at the same time, terrifying and bleakly comic.

Having spent eighteen years in humiliating servitude, Bjartur wants nothing more than to raise his flocks unbeholden to any man. But Bjartur's spirited daughter wants to live unbeholden to him. What ensues is a battle of wills that is by turns harsh and touching, elemental in its emotional intensity and intimate in its homely detail. Vast in scope and deeply rewarding, Independent People is simply a masterpiece.

Females of Valor

2020

by Widad Akreyi

The beautiful and willful medieval doctor, Vesta, bears the unbearable. Her sufferings are innumerable: intimidation, humiliation, gang-rapes, loss of loved ones, enforced miscarriage, psychological and emotional abuse, multiple surgeries, purificatory baths, self-quarantine, and isolation – this Kurdish woman has seen it all.

The bloodthirsty fanatics who ruthlessly attacked her home seem to disappear without a trace or sufficient evidence to aid in her search for justice. Reality is too painful for her husband, Ivar, to handle. He drowns himself in infidelity and alcohol, which alters his physical and mental state.

In the midst of personal and national tragedies, Vesta is desperate to save her marriage, leave the past behind, and give her brutally murdered children a legacy beyond her grief. But in the city of Miafarqin, the potential for disaster is constantly present, and females often get trampled underfoot.

Told in a poetic narrative, "The Viking’s Kurdish Love" is a compelling love story with captivating characters, stunning plot twists, and thought-provoking themes, such as love, hate, pleasure, pain, identity, family, loyalty, betrayal, survival, guilt, revenge, and forgiveness.

Parade's End

2019

by Ford Madox Ford

Parade's End is an acclaimed masterpiece by Ford Madox Ford, who endeavored to capture the essence of his era as a historian of his own time. The novel's subject is the world as it culminated in war, a backdrop that frames the story of Christopher Tietjens, an officer and gentleman often described as the last English Tory.

Ford intricately follows Tietjens from the secure, orderly world of Edwardian England into the chaotic madness of the First World War. Amidst the backdrop of war, Ford explores the complex sexual warfare between Tietjens and his faithless wife, Sylvia. This narrative is a work of truly amazing subtlety and profundity.

Parade's End stands as a testament to Ford's literary prowess, offering a gripping study of character and a vivid portrayal of a world at war.

When Nietzsche Wept

2019

by Irvin D. Yalom

In nineteenth-century Vienna, a drama of love, fate, and will is played out amid the intellectual ferment that defined the era. Josef Breuer, one of the founding fathers of psychoanalysis, is at the height of his career. Friedrich Nietzsche, Europe's greatest philosopher, is on the brink of suicidal despair, unable to find a cure for the headaches and other ailments that plague him. When he agrees to treat Nietzsche with his experimental “talking cure,” Breuer never expects that he too will find solace in their sessions. Only through facing his own inner demons can the gifted healer begin to help his patient.

In When Nietzsche Wept, Irvin Yalom blends fact and fiction, atmosphere and suspense, to unfold an unforgettable story about the redemptive power of friendship.

The Ragged Edge of Night

2019

by Olivia Hawker

The Ragged Edge of Night is an emotionally gripping and beautifully written historical novel set during the darkest times of World War II. It tells the story of extraordinary hope and redemption through the journey of Anton Starzmann, a Franciscan friar in Germany, 1942.

Stripped of his place when his school is seized by the Nazis, Anton relocates to a small German hamlet to enter a marriage of convenience with Elisabeth Herter, a widow seeking help to raise her three children. Anton, seeking atonement for failing to protect his young students from the Nazis, finds his life intertwined with Elisabeth's in unexpected ways.

As Anton struggles with his new roles as husband and father, he learns about the Red Orchestra, an underground network plotting to assassinate Hitler. Despite Elisabeth’s reservations, Anton joins this army of shadows. When the SS discovers his schemes, Anton embarks on a final act of defiance, risking everything for the family he has come to love.

The Storyteller's Secret

2018

by Sejal Badani

From the bestselling author of Trail of Broken Wings comes an epic story of the unrelenting force of love, the power of healing, and the invincible desire to dream.

Nothing prepares Jaya, a New York journalist, for the heartbreak of her third miscarriage and the slow unraveling of her marriage in its wake. Desperate to assuage her deep anguish, she decides to go to India to uncover answers to her family’s past.

Intoxicated by the sights, smells, and sounds she experiences, Jaya becomes an eager student of the culture. But it is Ravi—her grandmother’s former servant and trusted confidant—who reveals the resilience, struggles, secret love, and tragic fall of Jaya’s pioneering grandmother during the British occupation.

Through her courageous grandmother’s arrestingly romantic and heart-wrenching story, Jaya discovers the legacy bequeathed to her and a strength that, until now, she never knew was possible.

La catedral del mar

Siglo XIV. La ciudad de Barcelona se encuentra en su momento de mayor prosperidad; ha crecido hacia la Ribera, el humilde barrio de los pescadores, cuyos habitantes deciden construir, con el dinero de unos y el esfuerzo de otros, el mayor templo mariano jamás conocido: Santa María de la Mar.

Una construcción que es paralela a la azarosa historia de Arnau, un siervo de la tierra que huye de los abusos de su señor feudal y se refugia en Barcelona, donde se convierte en ciudadano y, con ello, en hombre libre.

El joven Arnau trabaja como palafrenero, estibador, soldado y cambista. Una vida extenuante, siempre al amparo de la catedral de la mar, que le iba a llevar de la miseria del fugitivo a la nobleza y la riqueza. Pero con esta posición privilegiada también le llega la envidia de sus pares, que urden una sórdida conjura que pone su vida en manos de la Inquisición...

La catedral del mar es una trama en la que se entrecruzan lealtad y venganza, traición y amor, guerra y peste, en un mundo marcado por la intolerancia religiosa, la ambición material y la segregación social. Todo ello convierte esta obra no sólo en una novela absorbente, sino también en la más fascinante y ambiciosa recreación de las luces y sombras de la época feudal.

Los asesinos del emperador

En la tempestuosa Roma del siglo I d.C., los atemorizados ciudadanos intentan sobrevivir al reinado de Domiciano, un emperador dispuesto siempre a condenar a muerte a cualquiera que pudiera hacerle sombra. En este ambiente turbulento se fragua una conspiración para asesinarlo.

La conjura es complicada de trazar y muy peligrosa para todos los implicados, entre los que se encuentran Trajano y Domicia, la emperatriz, pieza clave en esta conspiración. Las mayores dificultades estriban en burlar la guardia pretoriana. Pero un grupo de gladiadores sin nada que perder, serán los encargados de encontrar la fisura.

Trajano, primer emperador hispano de la Historia, es conocido sobre todo por conducir al Imperio romano a su máxima extensión. Lo que no se suele conocer tanto es su heroicidad más valiosa: la capacidad de Trajano para sobrevivir al reinado de Tito Flavio Domiciano, un emperador débil y paranoico siempre dispuesto a condenar a muerte a cualquiera que destacara en el ejército o en la política.

Pero ¿qué ocurrió para que Roma aceptara por emperador a alguien no nacido en la misma Roma, sino a alguien proveniente de las lejanas y agrestes tierras de Hispania? Modificar el curso de la Historia es prácticamente imposible. Sólo unos pocos se atreven a intentarlo y sólo uno entre millones, siempre de forma inesperada para todos, es capaz de conseguirlo.

Bienvenidos al mundo de Marco Ulpio Trajano.

Beneath a Scarlet Sky

Based on the true story of a forgotten hero, Beneath a Scarlet Sky is the triumphant, epic tale of one young man’s incredible courage and resilience during one of history’s darkest hours.

Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior. In an attempt to protect him, Pino’s parents force him to enlist as a German soldier—a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious and powerful commanders.

Now, with the opportunity to spy for the Allies inside the German High Command, Pino endures the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation by fighting in secret, his courage bolstered by his love for Anna and for the life he dreams they will one day share.

Fans of All the Light We Cannot See, The Nightingale, and Unbroken will enjoy this riveting saga of history, suspense, and love.

Lilac Girls

Inspired by the life of a real World War II heroine, this debut novel reveals a story of love, redemption, and secrets that were hidden for decades.

New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate and a new love on the horizon. But Caroline’s world is forever changed when Hitler’s army invades Poland in September 1939—and then sets its sights on France.

An ocean away from Caroline, Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish teenager, senses her carefree youth disappearing as she is drawn deeper into her role as courier for the underground resistance movement. In a tense atmosphere of watchful eyes and suspecting neighbors, one false move can have dire consequences.

For the ambitious young German doctor, Herta Oberheuser, an ad for a government medical position seems her ticket out of a desolate life. Once hired, though, she finds herself trapped in a male-dominated realm of Nazi secrets and power.

The lives of these three women are set on a collision course when the unthinkable happens and Kasia is sent to Ravensbrück, the notorious Nazi concentration camp for women. Their stories cross continents—from New York to Paris, Germany, and Poland—as Caroline and Kasia strive to bring justice to those whom history has forgotten.

Pădurea spânzuraţilor

2016

by Liviu Rebreanu

Pădurea spânzuraţilor is a profound exploration of the psychological and moral dilemmas faced by individuals during the tumultuous times of World War I. Authored by Liviu Rebreanu, this novel delves into the tragic condition of the Transylvanian intellectual forced to fight under a foreign flag against his own people.

The narrative is a realistic and objective portrayal of the war, emphasizing the internal conflicts and national identity crises experienced by the characters. The novel is often described as a "monograph of harrowing uncertainty", capturing the essence of the human psyche caught in the throes of war.

Rebreanu is celebrated as an analyst of consciousness, skillfully depicting the chaos of thoughts and tyrannical obsessions that plague individuals. The book is a testament to the enduring spirit of those who listen to the call of blood and choose to stand by their own.

The Master Butchers Singing Club

2016

by Louise Erdrich

From National Book Award-winning, New York Times-bestselling author Louise Erdrich, comes a profound and enchanting novel: a richly imagined world “where butchers sing like angels.”

Having survived World War I, Fidelis Waldvogel returns to his quiet German village and marries the pregnant widow of his best friend, killed in action. With a suitcase full of sausages and a master butcher's precious knife set, Fidelis sets out for America.

In Argus, North Dakota, he builds a business, a home for his family—which includes Eva and four sons—and a singing club consisting of the best voices in town. When the Old World meets the New—in the person of Delphine Watzka—the great adventure of Fidelis's life begins. Delphine meets Eva and is enchanted. She meets Fidelis, and the ground trembles.

These momentous encounters will determine the course of Delphine's life, and the trajectory of this brilliant novel.

Gone to Soldiers

2015

by Marge Piercy

Gone to Soldiers is a sweeping New York Times bestseller that captures the most captivating and engrossing stories from World War II. This epic novel by Marge Piercy encompasses a wide range of people and places marked by the Second World War. Each of her ten narrators has a unique and compelling story that powerfully depicts their personality, desires, and fears.

Special attention is given to the women of the war effort, like Bernice, who rebels against her domineering father to become a fighter pilot, and Naomi, a Parisian Jew sent to live with relatives in Detroit, whose twin sister, Jacqueline—still in France—joins the resistance against Nazi rule.

The horrors of the concentration camps; the heroism of soldiers on the beaches of Okinawa, the skies above London, and the seas of the Mediterranean; the brilliance of code breakers; and the resilience of families waiting for the return of sons, brothers, and fathers are all conveyed through powerful, poignant prose that resonates beyond the page.

Gone to Soldiers is a testament to the ordinary people, with their flaws and inner strife, who rose to defend liberty during the most extraordinary times.

For the Love of Armin

In September of the year 9 A.D., the young Germanic warrior known as Armin to his friends and Arminius to his Roman enemies, successfully took on and defeated three entire Roman legions. This resulted in the deaths of over twenty thousand Roman soldiers. This in turn resulted in the Roman emperor called Tiberius recalling all Roman military units from Germania. The Germanic tribes would associate for their common good, often meeting and forming up for offensive or defensive war, but they were always separate and very independent.

Armin knew that the best way to ensure that his country was not bothered by outside invaders again was to become a single country complete with it own army and navy. In this he crossed swords with the independent temper of his own people. They did not want any king from anywhere telling them what to do. In due course, this resulted in even the members of his own family taking up arms against him in order to make sure that the tribes of Germania remained independent and free. Such was the concern of the ancient Germanic tribesmen that this might not be the case, that Armin was murdered by the members of his own family.

The Sicilian

2015

by Mario Puzo

After Mario Puzo wrote his internationally acclaimed The Godfather, he has often been imitated but never equaled. Puzo's classic novel, The Sicilian, stands as a cornerstone of his work—a lushly romantic, unforgettable tale of bloodshed, justice, and treachery.

The year is 1950. Michael Corleone is nearing the end of his exile in Sicily. The Godfather has commanded Michael to bring a young Sicilian bandit named Salvatore Giuliano back with him to America. But Giuliano is a man entwined in a bloody web of violence and vendettas. In Sicily, Giuliano is a modern-day Robin Hood who has defied corruption—and defied the Cosa Nostra.

Now, in the land of mist-shrouded mountains and ancient ruins, Michael Corleone's fate is entwined with the dangerous legend of Salvatore Giuliano: warrior, lover, and the ultimate Siciliano.

The Kitchen House

"In 1790, Lavinia, a seven-year-old Irish orphan with no memory of her past, arrives on a tobacco plantation where she is put to work as an indentured servant with the kitchen house slaves. Though she becomes deeply bonded to her new family, Lavinia is also slowly accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. As time passes she finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds and when loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare and lives are at risk."--Publisher's description.

The Paying Guests

2014

by Sarah Waters

It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned; the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa—a large, silent house now bereft of brothers, husband, and even servants—life is about to be transformed as impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.


With the arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the “clerk class,” the routines of the house will be shaken up in unexpected ways. Little do the Wrays know just how profoundly their new tenants will alter the course of Frances’s life—or, as passions mount and frustration gathers, how far-reaching, and how devastating, the disturbances will be.


A love story, a tension-filled crime story, and a beautifully atmospheric portrait of a fascinating time and place, The Paying Guests is Sarah Waters’s finest achievement yet.

All the Truth That's in Me

2014

by Julie Berry

Four years ago, Judith and her best friend disappeared from their small town of Roswell Station. Two years ago, only Judith returned, permanently mutilated, reviled and ignored by those who were once her friends and family.

Unable to speak, Judith lives like a ghost in her own home, silently pouring out her thoughts to the boy who’s owned her heart as long as she can remember—even if he doesn’t know it—her childhood friend, Lucas.

But when Roswell Station is attacked, long-buried secrets come to light, and Judith is forced to choose: continue to live in silence, or recover her voice, even if it means changing her world, and the lives around her, forever.

This startlingly original novel will shock and disturb you; it will fill you with Judith’s passion and longing; and its mysteries will keep you feverishly turning the pages until the very last.

Euphoria

2014

by Lily King

Inspired by the true story of a woman who changed the way we understand our world. In 1933, three young, gifted anthropologists are thrown together in the jungle of New Guinea. They are Nell Stone, fascinating, magnetic, and famous for her controversial work studying South Pacific tribes; her intelligent and aggressive husband, Fen; and Andrew Bankson, who stumbles into the lives of this strange couple and becomes totally enthralled.

Within months, the trio are producing their best ever work, but soon a firestorm of fierce love and jealousy begins to burn out of control, threatening their bonds, their careers, and, ultimately, their lives...

Burial Rites

2014

by Hannah Kent

A brilliant literary debut, inspired by a true story: the final days of a young woman accused of murder in Iceland in 1829. Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution. Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard.

Riveting and rich with lyricism, Burial Rites evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?

A Time to Love and a Time to Die

From the quintessential author of wartime Germany, A Time to Love and a Time to Die echoes the harrowing insights of his masterpiece All Quiet on the Western Front. After two years at the Russian front, Ernst Graeber finally receives three weeks’ leave. But since leaves have been canceled before, he decides not to write his parents, fearing he would just raise their hopes.

Then, when Graeber arrives home, he finds his house bombed to ruin and his parents nowhere in sight. Nobody knows if they are dead or alive. As his leave draws to a close, Graeber reaches out to Elisabeth, a childhood friend. Like him, she is imprisoned in a world she did not create. But in a time of war, love seems a world away. And sometimes, temporary comfort can lead to something unexpected and redeeming.

The Guardian of Secrets and Her Deathly Pact

2013

by Jana Petken

A historical family saga spanning four generations, from 1912, Kent, England, to Spain and its 1936-39 civil war. Celia and Ernesto's two sons march under opposing banners, whilst their daughters take different paths, one to the Catholic Church and the other to the battlefields, and in the shadow of war, an evil ghost from the past watches and waits for an opportunity to destroy the entire family. In exile, Celia and Ernesto can only wait and pray for their children and their safe return home.

The Lady of the Rivers

The Lady of the Rivers tells the captivating story of Jacquetta, the daughter of the Count of Luxembourg, who is kinswoman to half the royalty of Europe. Married to the great Englishman John, Duke of Bedford, uncle to Henry VI, she finds herself widowed at the tender age of 19. Taking an extraordinary risk, Jacquetta marries a gentleman of her household for love, defying convention to carve out a new life for herself.

Her journey takes her into the heart of the English court, where she becomes a close friend to Queen Margaret of Anjou and a supporter of the House of Lancaster. Amidst the backdrop of the Hundred Years' War and the rising tensions of the Wars of the Roses, Jacquetta's life is rich with passion, legend, and loyalty.

Gifted with second sight and linked to the mythical Melusina, Jacquetta navigates the treacherous waters of royal intrigue, fighting for her king, her queen, and her daughter, Elizabeth Woodville. Her story is one of courage, love, and a dramatic change of fortune, as her daughter becomes entwined with the rival House of York.

This sweeping, powerful tale draws on years of research to bring to life the real-life mother of the White Queen, offering a unique perspective on a complex, treacherous era.

The Plum Tree

The Plum Tree is a deeply moving and masterfully written story of human resilience and enduring love. It follows a young German woman through the chaos of World War II and its aftermath.

“Bloom where you’re planted,” is the advice Christine Bolz receives from her beloved Oma. But seventeen-year-old domestic Christine knows there is a whole world waiting beyond her small German village. It’s a world she’s begun to glimpse through music, books—and through Isaac Bauerman, the cultured son of the wealthy Jewish family she works for.

Yet the future she and Isaac dream of sharing faces greater challenges than their difference in stations. In the fall of 1938, Germany is changing rapidly under Hitler’s regime. Anti-Jewish posters are everywhere, dissenting talk is silenced, and a new law forbids Christine from returning to her job—and from having any relationship with Isaac.

In the months and years that follow, Christine will confront the Gestapo’s wrath and the horrors of Dachau, desperate to be with the man she loves, to survive—and finally, to speak out.

Set against the backdrop of the German home front, this is an unforgettable novel of courage and resolve, of the inhumanity of war, and the heartbreak and hope left in its wake.

Mistress of Rome

2012

by Kate Quinn

First-century Rome: A ruthless emperor watches over all—and fixes his gaze on one young woman...

Thea is a slave girl from Judaea, purchased as a toy for the spiteful heiress Lepida Pollia. Now she has infuriated her mistress by capturing the attention of Rome's newest and most savage gladiator—and though his love brings Thea the first happiness of her life, their affair ends quickly when a jealous Lepida tears them apart.

Remaking herself as a singer for Rome's aristocrats, Thea unwittingly attracts another admirer: the charismatic Emperor of Rome. But the passions of an all-powerful man come with a heavy price, and Thea finds herself fighting for both her soul and her sanity.

Many have tried to destroy the Emperor: a vengeful gladiator, an upright senator, a tormented soldier, a Vestal Virgin. But in the end, the life of Domitian lies in the hands of one woman: the Emperor's mistress.

We Are All Welcome Here

2012

by Elizabeth Berg

Elizabeth Berg, bestselling author of The Art of Mending and The Year of Pleasures, has a rare talent for revealing her characters' hearts and minds in a manner that makes us empathize completely.

It is the summer of 1964. In Tupelo, Mississippi, the town of Elvis's birth, tensions are mounting over civil-rights demonstrations occurring ever more frequently—and violently—across the state. But in Paige Dunn's small, ramshackle house, there are more immediate concerns.

Challenged by the effects of the polio she contracted during her last month of pregnancy, Paige is nonetheless determined to live as normal a life as possible and to raise her daughter, Diana, in the way she sees fit—with the support of her tough-talking black caregiver, Peacie.

Diana is trying in her own fashion to live a normal life. As a fourteen-year-old, she wants to make money for clothes and magazines, to slough off the authority of her mother and Peacie, to figure out the puzzle that is boys, and to escape the oppressiveness she sees everywhere in her small town. What she can never escape, however, is the way her life is markedly different from others'. Nor can she escape her ongoing responsibility to assist in caring for her mother.

Paige Dunn is attractive, charming, intelligent, and lively, but her needs are great—and relentless. As the summer unfolds, hate and adversity will visit this modest home. Despite the difficulties thrust upon them, each of the women will find her own path to independence, understanding, and peace. And Diana's mother, so mightily compromised, will end up giving her daughter an extraordinary gift few parents could match.

Winter of the World

2012

by Ken Follett

Winter of the World picks up right where the first book left off, as its five interrelated families—American, German, Russian, English, Welsh—enter a time of enormous social, political, and economic turmoil, beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, through the Spanish Civil War and the great dramas of World War II, up to the explosions of the American and Soviet atomic bombs.

Carla von Ulrich, born of German and English parents, finds her life engulfed by the Nazi tide until she commits a deed of great courage and heartbreak. American brothers Woody and Chuck Dewar, each with a secret, take separate paths to momentous events, one in Washington, the other in the bloody jungles of the Pacific. English student Lloyd Williams discovers in the crucible of the Spanish Civil War that he must fight Communism just as hard as Fascism. Daisy Peshkov, a driven American social climber, cares only for popularity and the fast set, until the war transforms her life, not just once but twice, while her cousin Volodya carves out a position in Soviet intelligence that will affect not only this war—but the war to come.

These characters and many others find their lives inextricably entangled as their experiences illuminate the cataclysms that marked the century. From the drawing rooms of the rich to the blood and smoke of battle, their lives intertwine, propelling the reader into dramas of ever-increasing complexity.

The Son

2012

by Philipp Meyer

The acclaimed author of American Rust, returns with The Son: an epic, multigenerational saga of power, blood, and land that follows the rise of one unforgettable Texas family from the Comanche raids of the 1800s to the border raids of the early 1900s to the oil booms of the 20th century.

Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part unflinching portrait of the bloody price of power, The Son is an utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American West through the lives of the McCulloughs, an ambitious family as resilient and dangerous as the land they claim.

Spring, 1849. The first male child born in the newly established Republic of Texas, Eli McCullough is thirteen years old when a marauding band of Comanche storm his homestead and brutally murder his mother and sister, taking him captive. Brave and clever, Eli quickly adapts to Comanche life, learning their ways and language, answering to a new name, carving a place as the chief's adopted son, and waging war against their enemies, including white men—complicating his sense of loyalty and understanding of who he is.

But when disease, starvation, and overwhelming numbers of armed Americans decimate the tribe, Eli finds himself alone. Neither white nor Indian, civilized nor fully wild, he must carve a place for himself in a world in which he does not fully belong—a journey of adventure, tragedy, hardship, grit, and luck that reverberates in the lives of his progeny.

Intertwined with Eli's story are those of his son, Peter, a man who bears the emotional cost of his father's drive for power, and JA, Eli's great-granddaughter, a woman who must fight hardened rivals to succeed in a man's world.

Philipp Meyer deftly explores how Eli's ruthlessness and steely pragmatism transform subsequent generations of McCulloughs. Love, honor, children are sacrificed in the name of ambition, as the family becomes one of the richest powers in Texas, a ranching-and-oil dynasty of unsurpassed wealth and privilege. Yet, like all empires, the McCoulloughs must eventually face the consequences of their choices.

Harrowing, panoramic, and vividly drawn, The Son is a masterful achievement from a sublime young talent.

Gaza

Matilde y Eliah han vuelto a separarse. En el Congo, sus esperanzas de una vida juntos se desvanecieron al ritmo de los celos, las circunstancias hostiles y las bajezas.

Matilde, cirujana pediátrica, se refugia en su pasión: el trabajo humanitario que lleva a cabo para la organización Manos Que Curan. Su nuevo destino es la Franja de Gaza, el territorio más densamente poblado del mundo, donde la consigna diaria es sobrevivir.

Eliah Al-Saud se impone olvidar a Matilde y acabar con la obsesión que lo ata a ella.

En Bagdad, por su parte, Saddam Hussein da los últimos retoques para alcanzar su sueño: convertir a Irak en una potencia nuclear. Y en esta carrera diabólica, Matilde y Eliah se convertirán en piezas clave, debiendo emplearse a fondo no sólo para evitar una catástrofe mundial sino también para salvar la propia vida.

A un ritmo frenético y con giros inesperados, Florencia Bonelli pone fin a su exitosa trilogía Caballo de fuego, una apasionante historia donde el espíritu humano trata de imponerse en un mundo presa de la violencia y el terrorismo, aunque también lleno de bondad y solidaridad.

Exit Unicorns

2012

by Cindy Brandner

In this sweeping and powerful epic, the journey begins in the 'terrible beauty' of Northern Ireland during a time when conflict reigns and no one is spared from tragedy and sorrow, the time known as The Troubles.

It is the spring of 1968 in Belfast and James Kirkpatrick has just lost his father under suspicious circumstances. Casey Riordan is released from prison after five years, and Pamela O'Flaherty has crossed an ocean and a lifetime of memories to find the man she fell in love with as a little girl. All three lives are on a collision course with each other against the backdrop of the burgeoning civil rights movement and a nation on the brink of revolution.

They come from disparate backgrounds:

  • Jamie, a wealthy aristocrat whose life is like an imperfect but multi-faceted jewel—brilliant, flawed, and with a glitter that is designed to distract the observer.
  • Casey, a card-carrying member of the Irish Republican Army, who must face the fact that five years away has left him a stranger, a misfit in his own neighborhood where not everyone is sympathetic to a convicted rebel.
  • Pamela, who has come to Ireland in search of a memory and a man who may not have existed in the first place.

Through it all runs the ribbon of a love story: love of country, the beginning love of two people unable to resist the pull of each other regardless of the cost to themselves and those around them, and the selfless love of one man who no longer believes himself capable of such emotion.

It is an electrifying tale of a people divided by religion and politics, a tale of love and danger, of triumph and tragedy. Ultimately, it is the story of that 'terrible beauty' herself—Ireland—and how nation is bound to one's identity, woven into the weft of all we become.

The Hunger Angel

2012

by Herta Müller

It was an icy morning in January 1945 when the patrol came for seventeen-year-old Leo Auberg to deport him to a camp in the Soviet Union. Leo would spend the next five years in a coke processing plant, shoveling coal, lugging bricks, mixing mortar, and battling the relentless calculus of hunger that governed the labor colony: one shovel load of coal is worth one gram of bread.

In her novel, Nobel laureate Herta Müller calls upon her unique combination of poetic intensity and dispassionate precision to conjure the distorted world of the labor camp in all its physical and moral absurdity. She has given Leo the language to express the inexpressible, as hunger sharpens his senses into an acuity that is both hallucinatory and profound.

In scene after disorienting scene, the most ordinary objects accrue tender poignancy as they acquire new purpose—a gramophone box serves as a suitcase, a handkerchief becomes a talisman, an enormous piece of casing pipe functions as a lovers' trysting place. The heart is reduced to a pump, the breath mechanized to the rhythm of a swinging shovel, and coal, sand, and snow have a will of their own.

Hunger becomes an insatiable angel who haunts the camp day and night, but also a bare-knuckled sparring partner, delivering blows that keep Leo feeling the rawest connection to life. Müller has distilled Leo's struggle into words of breathtaking intensity that take us on a journey far beyond the Gulag and into the depths of one man's soul.

Sliding on the Snow Stone

2011

by Andy Szpuk

It is astonishing that anyone lived this story. It is even more astonishing that anyone survived it. Stefan grows up in the grip of a raging famine. Stalin’s Five Year Plan brings genocide to Ukraine – millions of people starve to death. To free themselves from the daily terrors of Soviet rule, Stefan and his friends fight imaginary battles in nearby woods to defend their land. The games they play are their only escape.

Sliding on the Snow Stone is the true story of Stefan's extraordinary journey across a landscape of hunger, fear and devastating loss. With Europe on the brink of World War Two, Stefan and his family pray they'll survive in their uncertain world. They long to be free.

In 1932-33, as part of their drive towards industrialisation, the Soviet Union demanded impossibly high requisitions of grain from rural areas in Ukraine. In a deliberate act of genocide, Ukrainian smallholdings were stripped of food, and the population began to perish, with some estimates as high as 10 million deaths, from starvation. In Ukraine, this atrocity became known as the Holodomor (death by hunger). The following years saw Soviet purges and terrors resulting in the elimination of academics and intellectuals, or of anyone who spoke out against Soviet rule. When World War Two arrived on Ukraine’s doorstep, many people viewed the Nazis as liberators – a view that was quickly proved wrong. Sliding on the Snow Stone is Stefan’s personal account of a historical period drenched in the blood of a nation, and of his yearning for freedom.

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