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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Dovekeepers is Alice Hoffman's most ambitious and mesmerizing novel, a tour de force of imagination and research, set in ancient Israel. In 70 C.E., nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event, Hoffman's novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path.

Yael's mother died in childbirth, and her father, an expert assassin, never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker's wife, watched the murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her young grandsons, rendered mute by what they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior's daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah, born in Alexandria, is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power. The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets—about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love.

Freshly minted infantryman, twenty-year-old Wylie Cypher, arrives in war-torn Korea in 1952. Every indication is that he has limited chances for survival. As an enemy bomber looms overhead, he prays that he can survive a sixteen-month tour of duty without, as his sergeant says, getting his ass shot off.

Wylie is recruited to join the staff of a Division Public Information Office (PIO) where he reports on many aspects of the conflict. He uses his infantry training in bloody combat, makes many colorful new friends, learns how to maneuver through the military system, finds love and loss, and grows up in the turmoil of combat and the war’s aftermath.

The story is based on the author’s experiences, careful historical research, and the 300 letters he sent his future wife from Korea. He touches on prisoner of war experiences on both sides of the DMZ, the armistice, realistic scenes of combat, the many United Nations forces engaged in the war, and poignant and funny aspects of military service. The second edition of the book includes recently disclosed information, and scenes and observations drawn from the comments of many veteran readers.

The book is dedicated to the dwindling number of men and women who risked their lives to preserve democracy in South Korea.

In her most powerful novel yet, acclaimed author Lisa See returns to the story of sisters Pearl and May from Shanghai Girls, and Pearl’s strong-willed nineteen-year-old daughter, Joy.

Reeling from newly uncovered family secrets, Joy runs away to Shanghai in early 1957 to find her birth father—the artist Z.G. Li, with whom both May and Pearl were once in love. Dazzled by him, and blinded by idealism and defiance, Joy throws herself into the New Society of Red China, heedless of the dangers in the Communist regime.

Devastated by Joy’s flight and terrified for her safety, Pearl is determined to save her daughter, no matter the personal cost. From the crowded city to remote villages, Pearl confronts old demons and almost insurmountable challenges as she follows Joy, hoping for reconciliation.

Yet even as Joy’s and Pearl’s separate journeys converge, one of the most tragic episodes in China’s history threatens their very lives.

This international bestseller is a sweeping portrait of motherhood, loss, and redemption in war-torn Sarajevo. Filled with memories of the four-year siege of Sarajevo, Gemma reluctantly boards a flight from her native Rome to that war-scarred city with her sixteen-year-old son, Pietro. She hopes to teach her son about the city of his birth and about Diego, the father he never knew.

Once there, Gemma is caught between the present and the past, reliving her love affair with Diego, their determination to start a family, and their deep connection to Sarajevo even as the threat of war loomed. In this haunting and sophisticated novel, Mazzantini masterfully probes the startling emotional territory of what makes a family—particularly what makes a mother.

As the fate of Sarajevo converges with Gemma's all-consuming desire to have a child, we see how far she is driven, in a stunning revelation that is both heartbreaking and cathartic. Brought to life by an unforgettable cast of characters, Twice Born is a tale of the acts of brutality and generosity that war can inspire.

Blonde is a fictional recreation of the life of the iconic Marilyn Monroe. This novel recounts the tale of her rise to stardom, offering a unique perspective from Marilyn's own point of view.

Joyce Carol Oates boldly reimagines the inner, poetic, and spiritual life of Norma Jeane Baker—the child, the woman, the fated celebrity, and idolized blonde the world came to know as Marilyn Monroe. In a voice startlingly intimate and rich, Norma Jeane tells her own story of an emblematic American artist—intensely conflicted and driven—who had lost her way.

A powerful portrait of Hollywood’s myth and an extraordinary woman’s heartbreaking reality, Blonde is a sweeping epic that pays tribute to the elusive magic and devastation behind the creation of the great 20th-century American star.

Spanning the 20th century, the story of Roses takes place in a small East Texas town against the backdrop of the powerful timber and cotton industries, industries controlled by the scions of the town's founding families.

Cotton tycoon Mary Toliver and timber magnate Percy Warwick should have married but unwisely did not, and now must deal with the deceit, secrets, and tragedies of their choice and the loss of what might have been—not just for themselves but for their children, and children's children.

With expert, unabashed, big-canvas storytelling, Roses covers a hundred years, three generations of Texans, and the explosive combination of passion for work and longing for love.

Brother turns on brother. The throne of England is at stake. The deadly Wars of the Roses have begun...

They ruled England before the Tudors, and now internationally bestselling author Philippa Gregory brings the Plantagenets to life through the dramatic and intimate stories of the secret players: the indomitable women.

Elizabeth Woodville, a woman of extraordinary beauty and ambition, secretly marries the newly crowned boy king. While she rises to the demands of her exalted position and fights for the success of her family, her two sons become the central figures in a famous unsolved mystery that has confounded historians for centuries: the lost princes in the Tower of London.

Philippa Gregory brings the artistry and intellect of a master writer and storyteller to a new era in history and begins what is sure to be another bestselling classic series.

Ayn Rand's first published novel, We the Living, is a timeless story that explores the struggles of the individual against the state in Soviet Russia. First published in 1936, it portrays the impact of the Russian Revolution on three human beings who demand the right to live their own lives and pursue their own happiness. It tells of a young woman’s passionate love, held like a fortress against the corrupting evil of a totalitarian state.

We the Living is not a story of politics, but of the men and women who have to struggle for existence behind the Red banners and slogans. It is a picture of what those slogans do to human beings. What happens to the defiant ones? What happens to those who succumb? Against a vivid panorama of political revolution and personal revolt, Ayn Rand shows what the theory of socialism means in practice.

Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried, and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. Like her mother, young Sarah Carrier is bright and willful, openly challenging the small, brutal world in which they live.

Often at odds with one another, mother and daughter are forced to stand together against the escalating hysteria of the trials and the superstitious tyranny that led to the torture and imprisonment of more than 200 people accused of witchcraft. This is the story of Martha's courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by the daughter who survived.

Kathleen Kent is a tenth-generation descendant of Martha Carrier. She paints a haunting portrait, not just of Puritan New England, but also of one family's deep and abiding love in the face of fear and persecution.

The House at Riverton is a breathtaking debut novel set in England between World War I and World War II. Perfect for fans of Downton Abbey, it unfolds the story of an aristocratic family, a mysterious death, and a bygone way of life, all seen through the eyes of a woman who experienced it firsthand.

As a young girl, Grace Bradley starts working at Riverton House, becoming deeply intertwined with the Hartford family, especially the daughters, Hannah and Emmeline. During a grand society party in the summer of 1924, a young poet commits suicide, an event only witnessed by Hannah, Emmeline, and Grace—who harbors the truth.

Years later, in 1999, as Grace nears the end of her life at ninety-eight, a young director seeks her out for a film about that fateful summer, reigniting her memories. The narrative, rich in flashbacks, captures the essence of Grace's youth amidst the final days of Edwardian aristocracy, the vibrant twenties, and the sweeping changes that followed, leading to the disappearance of an entire way of life.

This novel is laden with secrets—some revealed, others forever concealed, echoing the romantic suspense of Daphne du Maurier. It is also a contemplation on memory, the ravages of war, and a beautifully portrayed glimpse into a captivating period in history.

Cornovaglia, 1783. Ross Poldark, figlio di un piccolo possidente morto da poco, torna a casa, esausto e provato, dopo aver combattuto per l’esercito inglese nella Rivoluzione americana. Ora è un uomo maturo, non più l’avventato ed estroverso ragazzo che aveva dovuto abbandonare l’Inghilterra per problemi con la legge.

Desidera soltanto lasciarsi il passato alle spalle e riabbracciare la sua promessa sposa, la bella Elizabeth. La sera stessa del suo arrivo, però, scopre che, anche a causa di voci che lo davano per morto, Elizabeth sta per convolare a nozze con un altro uomo. Non solo: Nampara, la casa avita, si trova in uno stato di abbandono, cui ha contribuito anche una coppia di vecchi servi, fedeli ma ubriaconi.

Devastato dalla perdita del suo grande amore, Ross decide di rimettere in sesto Nampara e di concentrarsi sugli affari che il padre ha lasciato andare a rotoli, tornando a coltivare le terre e lanciandosi nell’apertura di una nuova miniera.

Nella terra ventosa di Cornovaglia – aspra quanto la vita dei suoi minatori, percorsa dai fremiti di nuove sette religiose e afflitta da contrasti sociali – si intrecciano i destini dei membri della famiglia Poldark e di Demelza che, diventata una bellissima donna, è determinata a conquistare il cuore dell’uomo che le ha cambiato la vita.

Pretty girls in pretty dresses, partying until dawn. Irresistible boys with mischievous smiles and dangerous intentions. White lies, dark secrets, and scandalous hookups. This is Manhattan, 1899. Beautiful sisters Elizabeth and Diana Holland rule Manhattan's social scene. Or so it appears. When the girls discover their status among New York City's elite is far from secure, suddenly everyone--from the backstabbing socialite Penelope Hayes, to the debonair bachelor Henry Schoonmaker, to the spiteful maid Lina Broud--threatens Elizabeth's and Diana's golden future.

With the fate of the Hollands resting on her shoulders, Elizabeth must choose between family duty and true love. But when her carriage overturns near the East River, the girl whose glittering life lit up the city's gossip pages is swallowed by the rough current. As all of New York grieves, some begin to wonder whether life at the top proved too much for this ethereal beauty, or if, perhaps, someone wanted to see Manhattan's most celebrated daughter disappear...

In a world of luxury and deception, where appearance matters above everything and breaking the social code means running the risk of being ostracized forever, five teenagers lead dangerously scandalous lives. This thrilling trip to the age of innocence is anything but innocent.

Evacuated from Blitz-battered London, shy and genteel Elizabeth White is sent to stay with the boisterous O'Connors in Kilgarret, Ireland. It is the beginning of an unshakeable bond between Elizabeth and Aisling O'Connor, a friendship which will endure through twenty turbulent years of change and chaos, joy and sorrow, soaring dreams and searing betrayals...

Writing with warmth, wit and great compassion, Maeve Binchy tells a magnificent story of the lives and loves of two women, bound together in a friendship that nothing could tear asunder - not even the man who threatened to come between them forever.

Rhett Butler's People is the astonishing and long-awaited novel that parallels the Great American Novel, Gone With The Wind. Fully authorized by the Margaret Mitchell estate, this work marks a major cultural event.

Through the storytelling mastery of award-winning writer Donald McCaig, the life and times of the dashing Rhett Butler unfold. Through Rhett’s eyes, we meet the people who shaped his larger-than-life personality as it sprang from Margaret Mitchell’s unforgettable pages. There's Langston Butler, Rhett’s unyielding father; Rosemary, his steadfast sister; Tunis Bonneau, Rhett’s best friend and a former slave; and Belle Watling, the woman for whom Rhett cared long before he met Scarlett O’Hara at Twelve Oaks Plantation, on the fateful eve of the Civil War.

Of course, there is Scarlett. Katie Scarlett O’Hara, the headstrong, passionate woman whose life is inextricably entwined with Rhett’s: more like him than she cares to admit; more in love with him than she’ll ever know.

Brought to vivid and authentic life by the hand of a master, Rhett Butler’s People fulfills the dreams of those whose imaginations have been indelibly marked by Gone With The Wind.

On the brink of a life-changing decision, Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her mother's past. But Sofia has never spoken of it. All she admits to is growing up in a small Cretan village before moving to London. When Alexis decides to visit Crete, however, Sofia gives her daughter a letter to take to an old friend, and promises that through her she will learn more.

Arriving in Plaka, Alexis is astonished to see that it lies a stone's throw from the tiny, deserted island of Spinalonga - Greece's former leper colony. Then she finds Fotini, and at last hears the story that Sofia has buried all her life: the tale of her great-grandmother Eleni and her daughters and a family rent by tragedy, war and passion. She discovers how intimately she is connected with the island, and how secrecy holds them all in its powerful grip...

In seventeenth-century China, three women find themselves emotionally entangled with The Peony Pavilion, a famed opera rumored to cause lovesickness and even death. Among them is Peony, the cloistered daughter of a wealthy scholar who falls under the opera's spell.

As a young girl betrothed to a suitor she has never met, Peony's longings resonate with the lyrics of the opera. In the garden of the Chen Family Villa, amidst the scent of ginger, green tea, and jasmine, a small theatrical troupe performs scenes from this epic opera—a live spectacle few females have ever seen.

Like the heroine in the drama, Peony is trapped like a good-luck cricket in a bamboo-and-lacquer cage. Raised to be obedient, she harbors dreams of her own. Her mother opposes her attendance at the production, believing "Unmarried girls should not be seen in public." However, her father ensures proprieties are maintained, allowing the women to watch from behind a screen.

Through the screen's cracks, Peony glimpses an elegant, handsome man with hair as black as a cave, and her heart is immediately stirred. Thus begins Peony's unforgettable journey of love and destiny, desire and sorrow.

Lisa See's haunting novel, based on historical events, transports readers back to a time when the Manchus seized power and the Ming dynasty fell. Steeped in traditions and rituals, the story brings to life the intricate realm of the afterworld—a vividly imagined place where one's soul is divided into three, ancestors offer guidance, misdeeds are punished, and hungry ghosts wander the earth.

Peony in Love beautifully explores the many manifestations of love and addresses universal themes: the bonds of friendship, the power of words, and the age-old desire of women to be heard.

I am now a condemned traitor . . . I am to die when I have hardly begun to live.

Historical expertise marries page-turning fiction in Alison Weir’s enthralling debut novel, breathing new life into one of the most significant and tumultuous periods of the English monarchy. It is the story of Lady Jane Grey—“the Nine Days’ Queen”—a fifteen-year-old girl who unwittingly finds herself at the center of the religious and civil unrest that nearly toppled the fabled House of Tudor during the sixteenth century.

The child of a scheming father and a ruthless mother, for whom she is merely a pawn in a dynastic game with the highest stakes, Jane Grey was born during the harrowingly turbulent period between Anne Boleyn’s beheading and the demise of Jane’s infamous great-uncle, King Henry VIII. With the premature passing of Jane’s adolescent cousin, and Henry’s successor, King Edward VI, comes a struggle for supremacy fueled by political machinations and lethal religious fervor.

Unabashedly honest and exceptionally intelligent, Jane possesses a sound strength of character beyond her years that equips her to weather the vicious storm. And though she has no ambitions to rule, preferring to immerse herself in books and religious studies, she is forced to accept the crown, and by so doing sets off a firestorm of intrigue, betrayal, and tragedy.

Alison Weir uses her unmatched skills as a historian to enliven the many dynamic characters of this majestic drama. Along with Lady Jane Grey, Weir vividly renders her devious parents; her much-loved nanny; the benevolent Queen Katherine Parr; Jane’s ambitious cousins; the Catholic “Bloody” Mary, who will stop at nothing to seize the throne; and the Protestant and future queen Elizabeth. Readers venture inside royal drawing rooms and bedchambers to witness the power-grabbing that swirls around Lady Jane Grey from the day of her birth to her unbearably poignant death.

Innocent Traitor paints a complete and compelling portrait of this captivating young woman, a faithful servant of God whose short reign and brief life would make her a legend.