Publio Cornelio Escipión, conocido por el apodo de Africanus, era considerado por muchos el heredero de las cualidades militares atribuidas a su padre y a su tío. Pero de ellos no sólo había recibido estos magníficos atributos, sino también algunos enemigos, entre otros Asdrúbal, el hermano de Aníbal, y el general púnico Giscón, quienes harían lo posible por acabar con su enemigo y masacrar sus ejércitos.

Los enemigos también acechaban en Roma, donde el senador Quinto Fabio Máximo, en una jugada maestra, obliga a Escipión a aceptar la demencial tarea de liderar las legiones V y VI que permanecían desde hacía tiempo olvidadas en Sicilia. Así, según creía el senador, lograría deshacerse del último de los Escipiones.

Pero otro era el destino de las legiones malditas que, de la mano de Africanus, lograrían cambiar un capítulo de la historia.

Cyrla's neighbors have begun to whisper. Her cousin, Anneke, is pregnant and has passed the rigorous exams for admission to the Lebensborn, a maternity home for girls carrying German babies. But Anneke's soldier has disappeared, and Lebensborn babies are only ever released to their father's custody—or taken away.

A note is left under the mat. Someone knows that Cyrla, sent from Poland years before for safekeeping with her Dutch relatives, is Jewish. The Nazis are imposing more and more restrictions; she won't be safe there for long. And then in the space of an afternoon, life falls apart. Cyrla must choose between certain discovery in her cousin's home and taking Anneke's place in the Lebensborn—Cyrla and Anneke are nearly identical. If she takes refuge in the enemy's lair, can Cyrla fool the doctors, nurses, guards, and other mothers-to-be? Can she escape before they discover she is not who she claims?

Mining a lost piece of history, Sara Young takes us deep into the lives of women living in the worst of times. Part love story and part elegy for the terrible choices we must often make to survive, MY ENEMY'S CRADLE keens for what we lose in war and sings for the hope we sometimes find.

Joseph Vaughan's life has been dogged by tragedy. Growing up in the 1950s, he was at the center of a series of killings of young girls in his small rural community. These girls were taken, assaulted, and left horribly mutilated. Barely a teenager himself, Joseph becomes determined to try to protect his community and classmates from the predations of the killer.

Despite banding together with his friends as 'The Guardians', he was powerless to prevent more murders—and no one was ever caught. Only after a full ten years did the nightmare end when one of his neighbors is found hanging from a rope, with articles from the dead girls around him. Thankfully, the killings finally ceased.

But the past won't stay buried—for it seems that the real murderer still lives and is killing again. And the secret of his identity lies in Joseph's own 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.

The Day of Battle is the second volume of Rick Atkinson's epic trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II. This narrative delves into the harrowing story of the campaigns in Sicily and Italy.

Following the events in An Army at Dawn, this book chronicles the strengthening American and British armies as they invade Sicily in July 1943. It captures their relentless, bloody march north toward Rome.

The outcome of the Italian campaign was fraught with uncertainty. Roosevelt, Churchill, and their military advisers engaged in heated debates about the invasion of the so-called soft underbelly of Europe. Yet, the commitment to liberate Italy from the Nazis remained steadfast, despite the high cost.

The battles at Salerno, Anzio, and Monte Cassino were particularly difficult, yet the Allied forces continued to push the Germans up the Italian peninsula. Under the leadership of Lieutenant General Mark Clark, the American forces became increasingly determined and proficient.

With the liberation of Rome in June 1944, ultimate victory began to seem inevitable. Atkinson draws on a wide array of primary sources, providing a narrative history of the first rank.

From the author of the beloved #1 national bestseller Crow Lake comes an exceptional new novel of jealousy, rivalry, and the dangerous power of obsession.

Two brothers, Arthur and Jake Dunn, are the sons of a farmer in the mid-1930s, when life is tough and another world war is looming. Arthur is reticent, solid, dutiful, and set to inherit the farm and his father’s character; Jake is younger, attractive, mercurial, and dangerous to know – the family misfit. When a beautiful young woman comes into the community, the fragile balance of sibling rivalry tips over the edge.

Then there is Ian, the family’s next generation, and far too sure he knows the difference between right and wrong. By now it is the fifties, and the world has changed—a little, but not enough. These two generations in the small town of Struan, Ontario, are tragically interlocked, linked by fate and community but separated by a war which devours its young men—its unimaginable horror reaching right into the heart of this remote corner of an empire.

With her astonishing ability to turn the ratchet of tension slowly and delicately, Lawson builds their story to a shocking climax. Taut with apprehension, surprising us with moments of tenderness and humour, The Other Side of the Bridge is a compelling, humane, and vividly evoked novel with an irresistible emotional undertow.

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 1942, eleven-year-old Milada is taken from her home in Lidice, Czechoslovakia, along with other blond, blue-eyed children, to a Lebensborn center in Poland. There, she is trained to be a "proper German" for adoption by a German family. All the while, she struggles to remember her true identity and her real name.

This poignant story reveals the harrowing experiences of young Milada as she navigates the challenges of maintaining her identity amidst the chaos of World War II. Her journey is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the enduring power of memory and self-discovery.

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.

What would you die for? That's the question suddenly thrust upon a small band of women and children in Bosnia at the close of World War II. When a group of bitter soldiers stumble upon their peaceful village, they suddenly face an insidious evil and the ultimate test.

It is then, in the midst of chaos and pain, that The Martyr's Song is first heard. It is then that the window into heaven first opens. It is then that love and beauty are shown in breathtaking reality.

You have in your hands the story and the song that changed... everything.

The year is 53 B.C. Fresh from victory in Gaul, Julius Caesar leads battle-hardened legions across the Rubicon river–threatening Rome herself. Even the master strategist Pompey is caught unprepared by the strike, and forced to abandon his city. The armies of Rome will face each other at last in civil war, led by the two greatest generals ever to walk the seven hills.

Thus begins Conn Iggulden’s towering saga of Julius Caesar as he approaches his final destiny—a destiny that will be decided not by legions but by his friend Brutus and an Egyptian queen named Cleopatra, who will bear his only son.... For Caesar, the campaign against Pompey will test his military genius and his appetite for glory to their limits, as the greatest fighting machine the world has ever seen divides against itself in a bloody conflict that will set brother against brother until victory or death.

But for Caesar, another kingdom beckons—a world of ancient mysteries and languid sensuality, where a beautiful, bewitching woman waits to snare his heart. The Gods of War follows Julius Caesar through politics and passion, ruthless ambition and private grief, and into the corruption of power itself. Those he has loved will play a part in his triumphs—as will the jealousy and hatred of his enemies.

From the spectacles of the arena to the whispered lies of conspirators, Conn Iggulden brings to life a world of monumental drama. And at its heart is one extraordinary friendship—marked by fierce loyalty and bitter betrayal, with dark events shrouded in noble ideals.

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.

Nineteen-year-old Emma Bau has been married only three weeks when Nazi tanks thunder into her native Poland. Within days, Emma's husband, Jacob, is forced to disappear underground, leaving her imprisoned within the city's decrepit, moldering Jewish ghetto.

But then, in the dead of night, the resistance smuggles her out. Taken to Krakow to live with Jacob's Catholic aunt, Krysia, Emma takes on a new identity as Anna Lipowski, a gentile. Emma's already precarious situation is complicated by her introduction to Kommandant Richwalder, a high-ranking Nazi official who hires her to work as his assistant.

Urged by the resistance to use her position to access details of the Nazi occupation, Emma must compromise her safety—and her marriage vows—in order to help Jacob's cause. As the atrocities of war intensify, so does Emma's relationship with the Kommandant, building to a climax that will risk not only her double life, but also the lives of those she loves.

واحة الغروب هي رواية تأخذنا إلى نهايات القرن التاسع عشر، وبداية الاحتلال البريطاني لمصر. يعود بهاء طاهر في روايته الجديدة والبديعة إلى هذه الفترة الزمنية المليئة بالأحداث.

تدور أحداث الرواية حول ضابط البوليس المصري محمود عبدالظاهر، الذي كان يعيش حياة لاهية بين الحانات وبنات الليل، ويُرسل إلى واحة سيوة لشك السلطات في تعاطفه مع الأفكار الثورية لجمال الدين الأفغاني وأحمد عرابي. يصطحب معه زوجته الأيرلندية كاثرين، الشغوفة بالآثار، والتي تبحث عن مقبرة الإسكندر الأكبر.

ينغمس كلاهما في عالم جديد شديد الثراء والخصوصية يجبرهما وأهل الواحة على مواجهة أنفسهم في زمن اختلطت فيه الانتهازية والخيانة والرغبة بالحب والبطولة.

تعكس الرواية مزجًا إبداعيًا بين الماضي والحاضر، والموضوعي والتاريخ والواقع، حيث تعبر عن هموم الوطن وتقدم تجربة العلاقة بين الشرق والغرب على المستويين الإنساني والحضاري بما فيها من صراع وتوافق.

The war of Troy is looming, and all the kings of the Great Green are gathering, friends and enemies, each with their own dark plans of conquest and plunder.

Into this maelstrom of treachery and deceit come three travelers: Piria, a runaway priestess nursing a terrible secret, Kalliades, a warrior with a legendary sword, and Banokles, who will carve his own legend in the battles to come.

Shield of Thunder takes the reader back into the glories and tragedies of Bronze Age Greece, reuniting the characters from Lord of the Silver Bow: the dread Helikaon and his great love, the fiery Andromache, the mighty Hektor, and the fabled storyteller, Odysseus.

Shirley is set in the industrializing England of the Napoleonic wars and the Luddite revolts of 1811-12. It tells the story of two contrasting heroines.

Caroline Helstone is a shy young woman trapped in the oppressive atmosphere of a Yorkshire rectory. Her life symbolizes the plight of single women in the nineteenth century.

Shirley Keeldar, on the other hand, is vivacious and inherits a local estate. Her wealth liberates her from societal conventions.

This novel combines social commentary with the private preoccupations seen in Jane Eyre. It demonstrates the full range of Brontë's literary talent and is considered her most feminist novel.

Shirley is a revolutionary tale that imagines a new form of power for women—equal to that of men—through a confident young woman accustomed to thinking for herself.

When Tiro, the confidential secretary (and slave) of a Roman senator, opens the door to a terrified stranger on a cold November morning, he sets in motion a chain of events that will eventually propel his master into one of the most suspenseful courtroom dramas in history. The stranger is a Sicilian, a victim of the island's corrupt Roman governor, Verres. The senator is Marcus Cicero—an ambitious young lawyer and spellbinding orator, who at the age of twenty-seven is determined to attain imperium—supreme power in the state.

Of all the great figures of the Roman world, none was more fascinating or charismatic than Cicero. And Tiro—the inventor of shorthand and author of numerous books, including a celebrated biography of his master (which was lost in the Dark Ages)—was always by his side. Compellingly written in Tiro's voice, Imperium is the re-creation of his vanished masterpiece, recounting in vivid detail the story of Cicero's quest for glory, competing with some of the most powerful and intimidating figures of his—or any other—age: Pompey, Caesar, Crassus, and the many other powerful Romans who changed history.

Robert Harris, the world's master of innovative historical fiction, lures us into a violent, treacherous world of Roman politics at once exotically different from and yet startlingly similar to our own—a world of Senate intrigue and electoral corruption, special prosecutors and political adventurism—to describe how one clever, compassionate, devious, vulnerable man fought to reach the top.

A lush, seductive novel of the legendary beauty whose face launched a thousand ships. Daughter of a god, wife of a king, prize of antiquity's bloodiest war, Helen of Troy has inspired artists for millennia.

Now, Margaret George, the highly acclaimed bestselling historical novelist, has turned her intelligent, perceptive eye to the myth that is Helen of Troy. Margaret George breathes new life into the great Homeric tale by having Helen narrate her own story. Through her eyes and in her voice, we experience the young Helen's discovery of her divine origin and her terrifying beauty.

While hardly more than a girl, Helen married the remote Spartan king Menelaus and bore him a daughter. By the age of twenty, the world's most beautiful woman was resigned to a passionless marriage until she encountered the handsome Trojan prince Paris. And once the lovers flee to Troy, war, murder, and tragedy become inevitable.

In Helen of Troy, Margaret George has captured a timeless legend in a mesmerizing tale of a woman whose life was destined to create strife and destroy civilizations.

Francis Chisholm is a compassionate and humble priest whose individuality and directness make him unpopular with other clergy. Considered a failure by his superiors, he is sent to China to maintain a mission amid desperate poverty, civil war, plague, and the hostility of his superiors.

In the face of this constant danger and hardship, Father Chisholm finds the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Recognized as A. J. Cronin’s best novel, The Keys of the Kingdom is an enthralling, fast-moving, colorful tale of a deeply spiritual man called to do good in an imperfect world.

Beware of Pity is the only novel published during the lifetime of the great Austrian writer, Stefan Zweig. Zweig was a master anatomist of the deceitful heart, and in this powerful narrative, he uncovers the seed of selfishness within even the finest of feelings.

The story revolves around Hofmiller, an Austro-Hungarian cavalry officer stationed at the edge of the empire. Invited to a party at the home of a rich local landowner, Hofmiller finds himself a world away from the dreary routine of his barracks. The surroundings are glamorous, wine flows freely, and the exhilarated young Hofmiller asks his host's lovely daughter for a dance, only to discover that sickness has left her painfully crippled.

This seemingly minor blunder sets off a chain of events that will ultimately destroy his life, as pity and guilt gradually implicate him in a well-meaning but tragically wrongheaded plot to restore the unhappy invalid to health.

Beware of Pity is an almost unbearably tense and powerful tale of unrequited love and the danger of pity, set against the backdrop of the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is a devastating depiction of the torment of the betrayal of both honour and love.

Empress is a ravishing historical novel about one of China's most controversial figures: its first and only female emperor, Empress Wu, who emerged during the Tang Dynasty and ushered in a golden age.

In seventh-century China, within the great Tang dynasty, a young girl from the humble Wu clan entered the imperial gynaecium, which housed ten thousand concubines. Inside the Forbidden City, she witnessed seductions, plots, murders, and brazen acts of treason. Propelled by a shrewd intelligence, an extraordinary persistence, and a friendship with the imperial heir, she rose through the ranks to become the first Empress of China.

On one hand, she was a political mastermind who quelled insurrections, eased famine, and opened wide the routes of international trade. On the other, she was a passionate patron of the arts who brought Chinese civilization to unsurpassed heights of knowledge, beauty, and sophistication.

And yet, from the moment of her death to the present day, her name has been sullied, her story distorted, and her memoirs obliterated by men taking vengeance on a woman who dared to become Emperor. For the first time in thirteen centuries, Empress Wu flings open the gates of her Forbidden City and tells her own astonishing tale—revealing a fascinating, complex figure who in many ways remains modern to this day.

Lisboa, 1938. En una Europa recorrida por el fantasma de los totalitarismos, Pereira, un periodista dedicado durante toda su vida a la sección de sucesos, recibe el encargo de dirigir la página cultural de un mediocre periódico.

Pereira tiene un sentido un tanto fúnebre de la cultura y prefiere la literatura del pasado. Necesitado de un colaborador, contacta con el joven Monteiro Rossi. Y la intensa relación que se establece entre el viejo periodista, Monteiro y su novia Marta cristalizará en una crisis personal, una maduración interior y una dolorosa toma de conciencia que transformará profundamente la vida de Pereira.

The prizewinning writer Luis Alberto Urrea's long-awaited novel is an epic mystical drama of a young woman's sudden sainthood in late 19th-century Mexico. It is 1889, and the civil war is brewing in Mexico. Sixteen-year-old Teresita, illegitimate but beloved daughter of the wealthy and powerful rancher Don Tomas Urrea, wakes from the strangest dream - a dream that she has died.

Only it was not a dream. This passionate and rebellious young woman has arisen from the dead with the power to heal - but it will take all her faith to endure the trials that await her and her family now that she has become the Saint of Cabora.

The Hummingbird's Daughter is a vast, hugely satisfying novel of love and loss, joy and pain. Two decades in the writing, this is the masterpiece that Luis Alberto Urrea has been building up to.

Set in Italy during the dramatic finale of World War II, this novel by the bestselling author of The Sparrow and Children of God is both ambitious and engrossing. It is September 8, 1943, and fourteen-year-old Claudette Blum is learning Italian with a suitcase in her hand. She and her father are among the thousands of Jewish refugees scrambling over the Alps toward Italy, where they hope to be safe at last, now that the Italians have broken with Germany and made a separate peace with the Allies.

The Blums will soon discover that Italy is anything but peaceful, as it becomes an open battleground among the Nazis, the Allies, resistance fighters, Jews in hiding, and ordinary Italian civilians trying to survive. Through the lives of a handful of fascinating characters—a charismatic Italian Resistance leader, a priest, an Italian rabbi’s family, a disillusioned German doctor—Mary Doria Russell tells the little-known story of the vast underground effort by Italian citizens who saved the lives of 43,000 Jews during the final phase of World War II.

A Thread of Grace puts a human face on history, weaving a tale of courage and resilience that is both hauntingly beautiful and utterly unforgettable. This captivating story of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary times is full of drama, warmth, nobility, and hope.

The Constant Princess is a splendid and sumptuous historical novel from Philippa Gregory, telling of the early life of Katherine of Aragon. Born Catalina, the Spanish Infanta, to parents who are both rulers and warriors, she is betrothed at age four to Arthur, Prince of Wales, and raised to be Queen of England. She never doubts her destiny to rule that far-off, wet, cold land.

Her faith is tested when she arrives in her new country to a great insult from her prospective father-in-law; Arthur seems little better than a boy; the food is strange and the customs coarse. However, she slowly adapts to the first Tudor court, and life as Arthur's wife grows ever more bearable.

But when Arthur dies, Katherine is left to make her own future. How can she now be queen and found a dynasty? Only by marrying Arthur's young brother, the sunny but spoilt Henry. Despite opposition from his father and grandmother, and her powerful parents proving little use, Katherine's fighting spirit is strong. She will do anything to achieve her aim, even if it means telling the greatest lie, and holding to it.

Philippa Gregory proves again that behind the apparently familiar face of history lies an astonishing story: of women warriors influencing the future of Europe, of revered heroes making deep mistakes, and of an untold love story which changes the fate of a nation.

Brilliance of the Moon is the third book in the Tales of the Otori series by Lian Hearn. Set in the beautifully imagined medieval Japan, this thrilling follow-up to Grass for His Pillow and Across the Nightingale Floor delves deeper into the complex loyalties that bind its characters from birth.

Filled with adventure and surprising twists of plot and fortune, this final volume travels beyond the Three Countries, exploring the outside influences that threaten to intrude upon this isolated realm. Join Lord Otori Takeo and Lady Shirakawa Kaede as they navigate the challenges posed by the corrupt Otori lords, the newly-risen lord, and the Tribe, who have honed their supernatural skills to see Takeo defeated.

It is a climactic end to the trilogy, as painful and beautiful as all the rest. Experience the magic and intrigue of the Otori clan in this captivating tale.

In this masterful book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence - when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper.

Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is a powerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the King's men, the British commander, William Howe, and his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known.

At the center of the drama, with Washington, are two young American patriots, who, at first, knew no more of war than what they had read in books - Nathaniel Green, a Quaker who was made a general at thirty-three, and Henry Knox, a twenty-five-year-old bookseller who had the preposterous idea of hauling the guns of Fort Ticonderoga overland to Boston in the dead of Winter.

But it is the American commander-in-chief who stands foremost - Washington, who had never before led an army in battle. Written as a companion work to his celebrated biography of John Adams, David McCullough's 1776 is another landmark in the literature of American history.

In the year 1605, a young woman, hiding from her past, takes up the veil becoming Soeur Auguste. Five years later, the past has found her, and to protect herself and her beloved child, she'll have to perform one last act of dazzling daring more audacious than any she has previously attempted.

With her internationally bestselling novels like Chocolat, Blackberry Wine, Five Quarters of the Orange, and Coastliners, Joanne Harris has woven intoxicating spells that celebrate the sensuous while exposing the passion, secrets, and folly beneath the surface of rustic village life. In Holy Fools, her most ambitious and accomplished novel to date, she transports us back to a time of intrigue and turmoil, of deception and masquerade.

In the year 1605, a young widow, pregnant and alone, seeks sanctuary at the small Abbey of Sainte Marie-de-la-mer on the island of Noirs Moustiers off the Brittany coast. After the birth of her daughter, she takes up the veil and a new name, Soeur Auguste. But the peace she has found in remote isolation is shattered five years later by the events that follow the death of her kind benefactress, the Reverend Mother.

When a new abbess—the daughter of a corrupt noble family elevated by the murder of King Henri IV—arrives at Sainte Marie-de-la-mer, she does not arrive alone. With her is her personal confessor and spiritual guide, Père Colombin, a man Soeur Auguste knows all too well. For the newcomer is Guy LeMerle, a charlatan and seducer now masquerading as a priest, and the one man she fears more than any other.

Soeur Auguste has a secret. Once she was l'Ailée, "The Winged One," star performer of a troupe led by LeMerle, before betrayal forced her to change her identity. But now the past has found her. Before long, thanks to LeMerle, suspicion and debauchery are breeding like a plague within the convent's walls—fueled by dark rumors of witchcraft, part of the false priest's brilliantly orchestrated scheme of revenge.

To protect herself and her beloved child, l'Ailée will have to perform one last act of dazzling daring more audacious than any she has previously attempted.

Empress Orchid sweeps readers into the heart of the Forbidden City to tell the fascinating story of a young concubine who becomes China’s last empress. The novel introduces the beautiful Tzu Hsi, known as Orchid, and weaves an epic of a country girl who seizes power through seduction, murder, and endless intrigue.

When China is threatened by enemies, she alone seems capable of holding the country together. This is a novel of high drama and lyricism, providing an extraordinary look inside the Forbidden City during its last days of imperial glory. It breathes life into one of the most important women in history.

Richly detailed and completely gripping, this story portrays a flawed yet utterly compelling woman who survived, and ultimately dominated, a male world. Through her life, readers are introduced to the world of the Chinese court and the sexual and political lives of the royal concubines.

In August 1938, Hitler’s Brownshirts conquer Czechoslovakia. German Jews are deported in cattle cars to Poland, the country of earlier pogroms. Other Jews flee to Palestine, the Promised Land of their dreams... only to be imprisoned behind barbed wire upon their arrival.

Musicians Shimon and Leah Feldstein, two of the “lucky ones,” are allowed to disembark from their rusting ship. Yet even in the Holy City, darkness lurks. The Muslim Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Adolf Hitler secretly join forces to eradicate the Jews from the earth.

Is there no place that’s safe for Shimon and Leah? For the esteemed Rabbi Lebowitz and his family? For the Jew Eli Sachar and Muslim Victoria Hassan—in love but separated by the highest walls of religion and tradition?

Munich Signature opens in the year 1936, amidst the ominous rise of Nazi terrorism sweeping through central Europe. This gripping tale is the third installment in the Zion Covenant series, where courage and conviction are tested against the backdrop of Hitler's Third Reich.

The story follows 800 Jewish refugees as they embark on a perilous journey aboard a battered freighter, facing the heart-wrenching reality of having no harbor willing to offer them sanctuary. It's a tale of desperation, hope, and the relentless quest for freedom.

Experience the breathtaking drama that continues from Vienna Prelude and Prague Counterpoint, as the characters strive to stand against tyranny and find a place to call home.

Prague Counterpoint opens in 1936, set against the backdrop of central Europe on the brink of World War II. Elisa Lindheim, a courageous heroine, finds herself caught in the heart of the turmoil as Hitler's ominous plans begin to unfold.

As the Nazi regime's deceitful power spreads, Elisa takes a bold stand, risking everything to rescue two small boys and challenge the growing tide of terrorism. Her journey is a compelling tale of bravery and resilience, offering a poignant look at the human spirit in the face of overwhelming danger.

Join Elisa and other brave souls in the Zion Covenant series as they confront the darkness with courage and hope.

Hortense Joseph arrives in London from Jamaica in 1948 with her life in her suitcase, her heart broken, her resolve intact. Her husband, Gilbert Joseph, returns from the war expecting to be received as a hero, but finds his status as a black man in Britain to be second class. His white landlady, Queenie, raised as a farmer's daughter, befriends Gilbert, and later Hortense, with innocence and courage, until the unexpected arrival of her husband, Bernard, who returns from combat with issues of his own to resolve.

Told in these four voices, Small Island is a courageous novel of tender emotion and sparkling wit, of crossings taken and passages lost, of shattering compassion and of reckless optimism in the face of insurmountable barriers---in short, an encapsulation of the immigrant's life.

Bestselling author Bernard Cornwell takes us back four thousand years, to a vibrant world of ritual and sacrifice that is at once timeless and wholly original. This historical novel unlocks the mystery of Britain's most haunting and puzzling structure and tells a tale of three brothers—fierce rivals—who are uneasily united in their quest to create a temple to their gods.

Lengar, the eldest brother, kills his own father to become chief of his tribe. Camaban, the illegitimate middle brother, is determined to have a massive temple built in his own honor. And Saban, the youngest, who actually builds Stonehenge, must act as mediator between the other two.

Stonehenge is the enthrallingly dramatic story of patricide, betrayal, and murder; of bloody brotherly rivalry; and of the never-ending quest for power, wealth, and spiritual fulfillment.

Insecure siblings fighting for their parents’ attention; bickering spouses who can’t stand to be together or apart; adultery and sexual experimentation; even the struggle to balance work and family: These are themes as much at home in our time as they were in the twelfth century.

In James Goldman’s classic play The Lion in Winter, domestic turmoil rises to an art form. Keenly self-aware and motivated as much by spite as by any sense of duty, Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine maneuver against each other to position their favorite son in line for succession.

By imagining the inner lives of Henry, Eleanor, and their sons, John, Geoffrey, and Richard, Goldman created the quintessential drama of family strife and competing ambitions, a work that gives visceral, modern-day relevance to the intrigues of Angevin England.

Combining keen historical and psychological insight with delicious, mordant wit, the stage play has become a touchstone of today’s theater scene.

In the summer of 1856, three companies of handcarts were outfitted and sent west from Iowa to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. All went well, and they arrived without undue incident. But two additional companies - one captained by James G. Willie, and the other by Edward Martin - left England late in the season. When they arrived at Iowa City, they were long past the time for safe departure across the plains. By the time they left Florence, Nebraska, with still more than a thousand miles to go, it was near the end of August. As if that were not serious enough, President Brigham Young thought that the arrival of the third company ended the migration for that season and ordered the resupply wagons back to Salt Lake.

Fire of the Covenant is the story of those handcart pioneers and their exodus to the Salt Lake Valley. Author Gerald N. Lund has used the same techniques present in The Work and the Glory series to blend fictional characters into the tapestry of actual historical events, making this a story filled with all the elements of great drama - tragedy, triumph, pathos, courage, sacrifice, surrender and faith.

You believe me, don't you, Nathan. It was not a question, but a statement, filled with wonder. It stunned Nathan. You believe it all. I can see it on your face. For a moment, time seemed suspended as Nathan probed the inward recesses of his soul. There was still the incredulousness, still the sense of hearing something that couldn't possibly be true. And yet he knew it was. He knew without the least shadow of doubt that everything Joseph was telling him was true. And so, finally, with a wonder of his own, he said, Yes, Joseph, I believe you.

Pillar of Light — the first volume in the series The Work and the Glory — begins the epic story of the Benjamin Steed family. In the 1820s, they move from Vermont to Palmyra Township in upstate New York in search of better farmland. There they meet a young man named Joseph Smith and are thrown into the maelstrom of conflict and controversy that swirls around him. Did he really see the Father and the Son in a pillar of light? Has he truly been visited by angelic messengers? What is all this talk about gold plates and new scripture? In short, is he a prophet and seer or a monumental fraud? The answers each one gives to these questions — intensely personal, potentially divisive — will dramatically affect the lives of the Steeds forever after.

Author Gerald N. Lund masterfully weaves together historical reality and high-powered fiction. This combination seems to make the reader an eyewitness to the early scenes of the Restoration, thus deepening one's understanding and appreciation of those momentous events. The well-drawn plot and fictional characters present a moving, gripping story. Meet Benjamin and Mary Ann Steed, devoted to each other as man and wife, yet at odds over religion; Joshua, their volatile son, who rebels and heads for trouble; the sensitive Nathan, their second son, in whom Joseph Smith's message strikes a responsive chord; and the beautiful Lydia McBride, who captures the hearts of both Joshua and Nathan.

This book skillfully explores the inmost motivations of Joseph Smith and his early followers and the responses of typical contemporary families to the claims he made. These people come to life in this powerful historical novel, a story that captures both the heartache and the happiness that came in the wake of Joseph's experience with the pillar of light.

The Fixer (1966) is Bernard Malamud's best-known and most acclaimed novel—one that makes manifest his roots in Russian fiction, especially that of Isaac Babel. Set in Kiev in 1911 during a period of heightened anti-Semitism, the novel tells the story of Yakov Bok, a Jewish handyman blamed for the brutal murder of a young Russian boy. Bok leaves his village to try his luck in Kiev, and after denying his Jewish identity, finds himself working for a member of the anti-Semitic Black Hundreds Society. When the boy is found nearly drained of blood in a cave, the Black Hundreds accuse the Jews of ritual murder. Arrested and imprisoned, Bok refuses to confess to a crime that he did not commit.

What becomes of this man under pressure, for whom acquittal is made to seem as hopeless as conviction, is the subject of a terrifying masterpiece of twentieth-century fiction.

Hannah thinks tonight's Passover Seder will be the same as always. But this year, she will be mysteriously transported into the past, where only she knows the unspeakable horrors that await.

Hannah resents the stories of her Jewish heritage until time travel places her in the middle of a small Jewish village in Nazi-occupied Poland. As she experiences the horrors of a concentration camp, she learns why she—and we—need to remember the past.

This critically acclaimed novel from the multi-award-winning author Jane Yolen adds much to understanding the effects of the Holocaust, which will reverberate throughout history, today and tomorrow. Readers will come away with a sense of tragic history that both disturbs and compels.

Winter, 1553. Pursued by the Inquisition, Hannah Green, a fourteen-year-old Jewish girl, is forced to flee with her father from their home in Spain. But Hannah is no ordinary refugee; she has the gift of “Sight,” the ability to foresee the future, priceless in the troubled times of the Tudor court.

Hannah is adopted by the glamorous Robert Dudley, the charismatic son of King Edward’s protector, who brings her to court as a “holy fool” for Queen Mary and, ultimately, Queen Elizabeth. Hired as a fool but working as a spy; promised in wedlock but in love with her master; endangered by the laws against heresy, treason, and witchcraft, Hannah must choose between the safe life of a commoner and the dangerous intrigues of the royal family that are inextricably bound up with her own yearnings and desires.

Teeming with vibrant period detail and peopled by characters seamlessly woven into the sweeping tapestry of history, The Queen’s Fool is a rich and emotionally resonant gem from a masterful storyteller.

Dancer takes its inspiration from the life of the legendary Russian dancer, Rudolf Nureyev. Through a tapestry of voices, Colum McCann weaves the story of this enigmatic figure. From his humble beginnings, rescued by his first ballet teacher, Anna Vasileva, to the complexities of his relationships with the ambitious Yulia and the streetwise Victor, this novel spans four decades and multiple worlds.

Set against the backdrop of World War II and the vibrant chaos of 1980s New York, the narrative is populated by a diverse cast of characters, both obscure and renowned, including Margot Fonteyn, Eric Bruhn, and John Lennon. At the heart of this epic tale stands Nureyev himself, a man driven by an insatiable desire for perfection.

McCann's storytelling captures the essence of a life lived in pursuit of artistic mastery, exploring the passion and drive that defined one of the greatest dancers of the century.

İnce Memed 1 is a captivating tale that unfolds over a span of thirty-two years, telling the story of Memed, a man who rises against tyranny, and the vibrant life, nature, and colors of Çukurova. In the words of Yaşar Kemal, it is the novel of a man born with the 'worm of rebellion' inside him, a 'compelled man.'

Forced to leave his village due to the oppression of Abdi Ağa, Memed rescues Hatçe, who is about to be married off to the Ağa's nephew. After wounding Abdi Ağa and killing his nephew, Memed joins the bandit Deli Durdu, but soon parts ways due to Durdu's cruelty. Transforming from an ordinary village boy into a bandit for the oppressors and a savior for the villagers, Memed's journey is both epic and transformative.

This book brilliantly portrays a way of life and the portrait of a people, making it an unforgettable and exceptional read.

102 Minutes tells the dramatic and moving account of the struggle for life inside the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001, when every minute counted.

At 8:46 am, 14,000 people were inside the twin towers—reading e-mails, making trades, eating croissants at Windows on the World. Over the next 102 minutes, each would become part of a drama for the ages, one witnessed only by the people who lived it—until now.

New York Times reporters Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn have taken a revealing approach. Reported from the perspectives of those inside the towers, 102 Minutes captures the little-known stories of ordinary people who took extraordinary steps to save themselves and others.

Dwyer and Flynn rely on hundreds of interviews with rescuers, thousands of pages of oral histories, and countless phone, e-mail, and emergency radio transcripts. They cross a bridge of voices to go inside the infernos, seeing cataclysm and heroism, one person at a time, to tell the affecting, authoritative saga of the men and women—the nearly 12,000 who escaped and the 2,749 who perished—as they made 102 minutes count as never before.

Richard II, written in 1595, occupies a significant place in the Shakespeare canon. It marks the transition from the earlier history plays dominated by civil war and stark power to a more nuanced representation of the political conflicts of England's past where character and politics are inextricably intertwined. It is the first of four connected plays—including 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, and Henry V—generally considered Shakespeare's finest history plays.

The drama of Richard II centers on the power struggle between the grandiloquent King Richard and the plain-spoken, blunt Henry Bolingbroke, who is banished from Britain at the beginning of the play. But when Henry's father John of Gaunt dies, Richard confiscates his property with no regard to his son's rights. Bolingbroke returns to confront the king, who surrenders his crown and is imprisoned in Pomfret Castle, where he is soon murdered.

This new edition in the acclaimed Oxford Shakespeare series features a freshly edited version of the text. The wide-ranging introduction describes the play's historical circumstances, both the period that it dramatizes (the start of the wars of the roses) and the period in which it was written (late Elizabethan England), and the play's political significance in its own time and our own. It also focuses on the play's richly poetic language and its success over the centuries as a play for the stage. Extensive explanatory notes help readers at all levels understand and appreciate the language, characters, and dramatic action.

Sons of Fortune is a compelling tale of fate and destiny by the bestselling author Jeffrey Archer. In the late 1940s, in Hartford, Connecticut, a set of twins is parted at birth. Nat Cartwright goes home with his parents, a schoolteacher and an insurance salesman. Meanwhile, his twin brother, Fletcher Andrew Davenport, begins his days as the only son of a multi-millionaire and his society wife.

As the years unfold, the two brothers grow up unaware of each other's existence. Nat leaves college to serve in Vietnam, returning as a war hero, finishing school, and becoming a successful banker. Fletcher, on the other hand, graduates from Yale University, distinguishing himself as a criminal defense lawyer before being elected to the Senate.

Even when Nat and Fletcher fall in love with the same girl, they remain unaware of each other. Their separate paths eventually lead to a dramatic confrontation when they are selected to stand against each other for governor of the state. In the tradition of Jeffrey Archer's most popular books, Sons of Fortune is as much a chronicle of a nation in transition as it is the story of two remarkable men who come to discover the truth—and its extraordinary consequences.