Books with category 🏛 Historical Fiction
Displaying books 193-240 of 677 in total

TransAtlantic

2013

by Colum McCann

Newfoundland, 1919. Two aviators—Jack Alcock and Arthur Brown—set course for Ireland as they attempt the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, placing their trust in a modified bomber to heal the wounds of the Great War.


Dublin, 1845 and '46. On an international lecture tour in support of his subversive autobiography, Frederick Douglass finds the Irish people sympathetic to the abolitionist cause—despite the fact that, as famine ravages the countryside, the poor suffer from hardships that are astonishing even to an American slave.


New York, 1998. Leaving behind a young wife and newborn child, Senator George Mitchell departs for Belfast, where it has fallen to him, the son of an Irish-American father and a Lebanese mother, to shepherd Northern Ireland's notoriously bitter and volatile peace talks to an uncertain conclusion.


These three iconic crossings are connected by a series of remarkable women whose personal stories are caught up in the swells of history. Beginning with Irish housemaid Lily Duggan, who crosses paths with Frederick Douglass, the novel follows her daughter and granddaughter, Emily and Lottie, and culminates in the present-day story of Hannah Carson, in whom all the hopes and failures of previous generations live on. From the loughs of Ireland to the flatlands of Missouri and the windswept coast of Newfoundland, their journeys mirror the progress and shape of history. They each learn that even the most unassuming moments of grace have a way of rippling through time, space, and memory.

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

2013

by Anthony Marra

A brilliant debut novel that brings to life an abandoned hospital where a tough-minded doctor decides to harbor a hunted young girl, with powerful consequences.

In the final days of December 2004, in a small rural village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa hides in the woods when her father is abducted by Russian forces. Fearing for her life, she flees with their neighbor Akhmed—a failed physician—to the bombed-out hospital, where Sonja, the one remaining doctor, treats a steady stream of wounded rebels and refugees and mourns her missing sister. Over the course of five dramatic days, Akhmed and Sonja reach back into their pasts to unravel the intricate mystery of coincidence, betrayal, and forgiveness that unexpectedly binds them and decides their fate.

With The English Patient's dramatic sweep and The Tiger's Wife's expert sense of place, Marra gives us a searing debut about the transcendent power of love in wartime, and how it can cause us to become greater than we ever thought possible.

Life After Life

2013

by Kate Atkinson

What if you could live again and again, until you got it right? On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war. Does Ursula's apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can - will she?

The Light Between Oceans

2013

by M.L. Stedman

Australia, 1926. After four harrowing years fighting on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns home to take a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day's journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby's cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby. Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom's judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.

M. L. Stedman's mesmerizing, beautifully written debut novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel's decision to keep this "gift from God." And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another's tragic loss.

Mary Coin

2013

by Marisa Silver

Mary Coin takes inspiration from Dorothea Lange’s iconic "Migrant Mother" photograph, weaving a story of two women—one famous and one forgotten—and their remarkable chance encounter.


In 1936, a young mother resting by the side of a road in Central California is spontaneously photographed by a woman documenting the migrant laborers who have taken to America’s farms in search of work. Little personal information is exchanged, and neither woman has any way of knowing that they have produced what will become the most iconic image of the Great Depression.


Three vibrant characters anchor the narrative of Mary Coin. Mary, the migrant mother herself, emerges as a woman with deep reserves of courage and nerve, harboring private passions and carefully-guarded secrets. Vera Dare, the photographer, wrestles with creative ambition and makes the choice to leave her children to pursue her work. Walker Dodge, a present-day professor of cultural history, discovers a family mystery embedded in the picture.


In luminous, exquisitely rendered prose, Silver creates an extraordinary tale from a brief moment in history, reminding us that although a great photograph can capture the essence of a moment, it only scratches the surface of a life.

An Inquiry Into Love and Death

In 1920's England, a young woman searches for the truth behind her uncle’s mysterious death in a town haunted by a restless ghost… Oxford student Jillian Leigh works day and night to keep up with her studies—so to leave at the beginning of the term is next to impossible. But after her uncle Toby, a renowned ghost hunter, is killed in a fall off a cliff, she must drive to the seaside village of Rothewell to pack up his belongings.

Almost immediately, unsettling incidents—a book left in a cold stove, a gate swinging open on its own—escalate into terrifying events that convince Jillian an angry spirit is trying to enter the house. Is it Walking John, the two-hundred-year-old ghost who haunts Blood Moon Bay? And who beside the ghost is roaming the local woods at night? If Toby uncovered something sinister, was his death no accident?

The arrival of handsome Scotland Yard inspector Drew Merriken, a former RAF pilot with mysteries of his own, leaves Jillian with more questions than answers—and with the added complication of a powerful, mutual attraction. Even as she suspects someone will do anything to hide the truth, she begins to discover spine-chilling secrets that lie deep within Rothewell…and at the very heart of who she is.

Brideshead Revisited

2012

by Evelyn Waugh

Brideshead Revisited is the most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, looking back to the golden age before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmain family, a world of privilege that is rapidly disappearing.

Enchanted first by Sebastian at Oxford, and then by his doomed Catholic family, Charles is particularly captivated by his remote sister, Julia. Through his connections to the Marchmains, Charles experiences the heights of privilege, but he eventually comes to recognize the spiritual and social distance that separates him from them.

The Forgotten Garden

2012

by Kate Morton

A foundling, an old book of dark fairy tales, a secret garden, an aristocratic family, a love denied, and a mystery. The Forgotten Garden is a captivating, atmospheric and compulsively readable story of the past, secrets, family and memory from the international best-selling author Kate Morton.

Cassandra is lost, alone and grieving. Her much loved grandmother, Nell, has just died and Cassandra, her life already shaken by a tragic accident ten years ago, feels like she has lost everything dear to her. But an unexpected and mysterious bequest from Nell turns Cassandra’s life upside down and ends up challenging everything she thought she knew about herself and her family.

Inheriting a book of dark and intriguing fairytales written by Eliza Makepeace—the Victorian authoress who disappeared mysteriously in the early twentieth century—Cassandra takes her courage in both hands to follow in the footsteps of Nell on a quest to find out the truth about their history, their family and their past; little knowing that in the process, she will also discover a new life for herself.

The Paris Wife

2012

by Paula McLain

A deeply evocative novel of ambition and betrayal that captures the love affair between two unforgettable people, Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley—from the author of Love and Ruin and When the Stars Go Dark.

"A beautiful portrait of being in Paris in the glittering 1920s—as a wife and as one’s own woman."—Entertainment Weekly

Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking, fast-living, and free-loving life of Jazz Age Paris. As Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history and pours himself into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises, Hadley strives to hold on to her sense of self as her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Eventually they find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage—a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they’ve fought so hard for.

A heartbreaking portrayal of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant because we know that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley.

Clockwork Angel

2012

by Cassandra Clare

Clockwork Angel is the first installment in Cassandra Clare's internationally bestselling Infernal Devices trilogy, which serves as a prequel to the Mortal Instruments series set in Victorian London.

When Tessa Gray arrives in England in search of her brother, she is thrown into the dark and perilous world of the Downworld, where supernatural beings like vampires and warlocks roam the gaslit streets. Kidnapped by the enigmatic Pandemonium Club, Tessa discovers that she possesses a rare ability: the power to transform into another person.

Amidst the chaos, the Shadowhunters, a group of warriors committed to banishing demons from the world, offer Tessa sanctuary. While seeking her brother, Tessa is drawn to two best friends, James and Will, whose complex natures captivate and confound her. But as Tessa is implicated in a dangerous conspiracy that could spell the end for the Shadowhunters, she must confront a dilemma: save her brother or help her new friends save the world?

As Tessa grapples with her feelings and her choices, she comes to realize that love may indeed be the most potent and perilous magic of all.

The Name of the Star

2012

by Maureen Johnson

Jack the Ripper is back, and he's coming for Rory next... Louisiana teenager Rory Deveaux arrives in London to start a new life at boarding school just as a series of brutal murders mimicking the horrific Jack the Ripper killing spree of more than a century ago has broken out across the city. The police are left with few leads and no witnesses. Except one. Rory spotted the man believed to be the prime suspect. But she is the only one who saw him - the only one who can see him. And now Rory has become his next target...unless she can tap her previously unknown abilities to turn the tables.

The Last Sunset

2012

by Bob Atkinson

The year… 1746.

Around Fort William, the Scottish Highlanders are in revolt and the Redcoats are coming…

Suddenly… time shifts… people from different eras are dumped at this one turning point in history.

In the future, Nuclear Armageddon has caused this powerful blast through time, but why?

Can history be changed?

Or is the future doomed to witness…

The Last Sunset?

Burning Bright

2012

by Ron Rash

Burning Bright is a masterful collection of short stories by the acclaimed author Ron Rash. This collection captures the eerie beauty, stark violence, and rugged character of Appalachia, weaving together tales that span from the Civil War to the present day.

In this collection, Rash brings to life unforgettable characters, each etched from the haunting landscapes of Appalachia. Through these stories, readers will find themselves immersed in a world that is both raw and alluringly melancholy.

One standout story in the collection is "Back of Beyond," where a pawnshop owner profits from stolen goods, including those of his own nephew, and finds himself embroiled in family tensions. In "Lincolnites," a pregnant wife of a Lincoln sympathizer finds herself in Confederate territory and takes drastic measures to protect her family. The title story, "Burning Bright," follows a small-town woman who marries an outsider, only for her husband to become a suspect in a series of arson attacks.

These stories not only explore a previously hidden territory but also reveal the dark yet lyrical heart of Rash's characters and their home.

The Iliad

Dating to the ninth century B.C., Homer's timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amidst devastation and destruction, as it moves inexorably to the wrenching, tragic conclusion of the Trojan War.

Renowned classicist Bernard Knox observes in his superb introduction that although the violence of the Iliad is grim and relentless, it coexists with both images of civilized life and a poignant yearning for peace.

Combining the skills of a poet and scholar, Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, brings the energy of contemporary language to this enduring heroic epic. He maintains the drive and metric music of Homer's poetry, and evokes the impact and nuance of the Iliad's mesmerizing repeated phrases in what Peter Levi calls "an astonishing performance."

The Prisoner of Heaven

Barcelona, 1957. It is Christmas, and Daniel Sempere and his wife Bea have much to celebrate. They have a beautiful new baby son named Julian, and their close friend FermĂ­n Romero de Torres is about to be wed. But their joy is eclipsed when a mysterious stranger visits the Sempere bookshop and threatens to divulge a terrible secret that has been buried for two decades in the city's dark past. His appearance plunges FermĂ­n and Daniel into a dangerous adventure that will take them back to the 1940s and the dark early days of Franco's dictatorship. The terrifying events of that time launch them on a journey fraught with jealousy, suspicion, vengeance, and lies, a search for the truth that will put into peril everything they love and ultimately transform their lives.

Full of intrigue and emotion, The Prisoner of Heaven is a majestic novel in which the threads of The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game converge under the spell of literature and bring us toward the enigma of the mystery hidden at the heart of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a collection of lost treasures known only to its few initiates and the very core of Carlos Ruiz ZafĂłn's enchanting fictional world.

Samarkand

2012

by Amin Maalouf

Accused of mocking the inviolate codes of Islam, the Persian poet and sage Omar Khayyam fortuitously finds sympathy with the very man who is to judge his alleged crimes. Recognising genius, the judge decides to spare him and gives him instead a small, blank book, encouraging him to confine his thoughts to it alone. Thus begins the seamless blend of fact and fiction that is Samarkand.

Vividly re-creating the history of the manuscript of the Rubaiyaat of Omar Khayyam, Amin Maalouf spans continents and centuries with breathtaking vision: the dusky exoticism of 11th-century Persia, with its poetesses and assassins; the same country's struggles nine hundred years later, seen through the eyes of an American academic obsessed with finding the original manuscript; and the fated maiden voyage of the Titanic, whose tragedy led to the Rubaiyaat's final resting place - all are brought to life with keen assurance by this gifted and award-winning writer.

Between Shades of Gray

2012

by Ruta Sepetys

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously—and at great risk—documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.

A Week to Be Wicked

2012

by Tessa Dare

When a devilish lord and a bluestocking set off on the road to ruin . . . time is not on their side. Minerva Highwood, one of Spindle Cove's confirmed spinsters, needs to be in Scotland. Colin Sandhurst, Lord Payne, a rake of the first order, needs to be . . . anywhere but Spindle Cove. These unlikely partners have one week: to fake an elopement to convince family and friends they're "in love" to outrun armed robbers to survive their worst nightmares to travel four hundred miles without killing each other All while sharing a very small carriage by day and an even smaller bed by night. What they don't have time for is their growing attraction. Much less wild passion. And heaven forbid they spend precious hours baring their hearts and souls. Suddenly one week seems like exactly enough time to find a world of trouble. And maybe . . . just maybe . . . everlasting love.

Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window

This engaging series of childhood recollections tells about an ideal school in Tokyo during World War II that combined learning with fun, freedom, and love. This unusual school had old railroad cars for classrooms, and it was run by an extraordinary man--its founder and headmaster, Sosaku Kobayashi--who was a firm believer in freedom of expression and activity.

In real life, the Totto-chan of the book has become one of Japan's most popular television personalities--Tetsuko Kuroyanagi. She attributes her success in life to this wonderful school and its headmaster. The charm of this account has won the hearts of millions of people of all ages and made this book a runaway bestseller in Japan, with sales hitting the 4.5 million mark in its first year.

Parnassus on Wheels

Parnassus on Wheels is a delightful tale by Christopher Morley, featuring the spirited and adventurous Helen McGill.

Helen, a middle-aged spinster, has devoted her life to taking care of her brother Andrew and their successful traveling bookshop, known as Parnassus. However, she longs for adventure and freedom.

Her life takes an unexpected turn when the intriguing and quirky book salesman Roger Mifflin arrives at her door with an offer to buy Parnassus. Concerned that her brother is squandering his life on the road, Helen decides to sell the bookstore and embark on her own creative journey.

As she meets new people and navigates the world of bookselling, Helen quickly discovers that life on the road is both thrilling and challenging. Alongside Roger, she forms an unusual and heartwarming friendship, discovering not only literary delights but also the joys of companionship.

This heartwarming story is a must-read for book lovers, with its simple yet beautiful writing style and a strong, relatable protagonist.

The Traitor in the Tunnel

2012

by Y.S. Lee

Get steeped in suspense, romance, and high Victorian intrigue as Mary goes undercover at Buckingham Palace - and learns a startling secret at the Tower of London.

Queen Victoria has a little problem: there's a petty thief at work in Buckingham Palace. Charged with discretion, the Agency puts quickwitted Mary Quinn on the case, where she must pose as a domestic while fending off the attentions of a feckless Prince of Wales. But when the prince witnesses the murder of one of his friends in an opium den, the potential for scandal looms large.

And Mary faces an even more unsettling possibility: the accused killer, a Chinese sailor imprisoned in the Tower of London, shares a name with her long-lost father. Meanwhile, engineer James Easton, Mary's onetime paramour, is at work shoring up the sewers beneath the palace, where an unexpected tunnel seems to be very much in use.

Can Mary and James trust each other (and put their simmering feelings aside) long enough to solve the mystery and protect the Royal Family? Hoist on your waders for Mary's most personal case yet, where the stakes couldn't be higher — and she has everything to lose.

Deathless

Deathless is a collision of magical history and actual history, of revolution and mythology, of love and death, which will bring Russian myth back to life in a stunning new incarnation. Catherynne M. Valente presents a modernized and transformed take on the legend of Koschei the Deathless, a menacing figure from Russian folklore equivalent to the devils or wicked witches of European culture.

The story unfolds in a mysterious version of St. Petersburg during the first half of the 20th century, following the life of Marya Morevna. She evolves from a clever child of the revolution to becoming Koschei's beautiful bride and ultimately, his undoing. Valente's tale is filled with Stalinist house elves, magical quests, secrecy, bureaucracy, and games of lust and power. Deathless is a fierce story set against the backdrop of the history of Russia in the twentieth century and is, quite simply, unforgettable.

L'Assommoir

2012

by Émile Zola

L'Assommoir (1877), the seventh novel in the Les Rougon-Macquart cycle, is a poignant story of a woman's struggle for happiness in working-class Paris. At the heart of this narrative is Gervaise, who begins with the dream of a better life by starting her own laundry business, achieving success for a while. However, her husband's addiction to the local drinking spot, the Assommoir, leads them down a path of poverty and despair.

This novel not only became a contemporary bestseller but also sparked a fierce debate about the scope of modern literature. It outraged conservative critics with its unflinching portrayal of the harsh realities faced by the working poor, capturing both the brutality and the pathos of its characters' lives.

Indian Horse

Saul Indian Horse is a child when his family retreats into the woods. Among the lakes and the cedars, they attempt to reconnect with half-forgotten traditions and hide from the authorities who have been kidnapping Ojibway youth. But when winter approaches, Saul loses everything: his brother, his parents, his beloved grandmother—and then his home itself. Alone in the world and placed in a horrific boarding school, Saul is surrounded by violence and cruelty.

At the urging of a priest, he finds a tentative salvation in hockey. Rising at dawn to practice alone, Saul proves determined and undeniably gifted. His intuition and vision are unmatched. His speed is remarkable. Together they open doors for him: away from the school, into an all-Ojibway amateur circuit, and finally within grasp of a professional career.

Yet as Saul's victories mount, so do the indignities and the taunts, the racism and the hatred—the harshness of a world that will never welcome him, tied inexorably to the sport he loves. Spare and compact yet undeniably rich, Indian Horse is at once a heartbreaking account of a dark chapter in our history and a moving coming-of-age story.

China Blues

2012

by Ki Longfellow

The Roaring Twenties, Chinatown, San Francisco: back-street blues and bathtub gin… hardball mobsters and hardheaded cops… seductive speakeasies and sizzling scandals. As the young Louis Armstrong blows his horn in the infamous Blue Canary, impetuous Nob Hill Socialite Elizabeth Stafford Hamilton plunges into a reckless affair with mysterious Li Kwan Won. Unknown to Lizzie, Li is the overlord of the city’s vast bootlegging empire—and archenemy of her powerful husband, the San Francisco district attorney. Suddenly Lizzie’s privileged, upper-crust life is shadowed by danger and intrigue—as she’s trapped between her lover and her husband while they battle for control of the city.

Eio Books has reissued Ki Longfellow's first novel, published by Harper Collins in England in 1989.

Code Name Verity

2012

by Elizabeth Wein

Set against the backdrop of World War II, Code Name Verity is a compelling tale of friendship, bravery, and sacrifice. After a British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France, the story unfolds through the eyes of a survivor who is caught by the Gestapo. Facing the threat of execution, she must decide whether to reveal her mission or protect her secrets at all costs.

Through her confession, we learn about her intense bond with the pilot Maddie, and the events that led to their fateful flight. Elizabeth Wein delivers a story that explores the depths of human courage and the unbreakable spirit of two young women determined to survive in a world at war.

The Orchardist

2012

by Amanda Coplin

The Orchardist is a highly original and haunting debut novel set in the untamed American West, where a makeshift family is shaped by violence, love, and an indelible connection to the land.


At the turn of the twentieth century, in a rural stretch of the Pacific Northwest, a solitary orchardist named Talmadge tends to his beloved apples, apricots, and plums. His life is a tapestry of solitude and dedication to the land, filled with the quiet, steady rhythm of nature.


One day, two teenage girls appear and steal his fruit at the market. Feral, scared, and very pregnant, they take refuge on Talmadge's land. With deep compassion, he offers them shelter and care, and a fragile trust begins to form between them.


However, this fragile peace is shattered when men with guns arrive, leading to a tragedy that forces Talmadge to confront the ghosts of his past and embark on a journey of protection and redemption.


Amanda Coplin writes with breathtaking precision and empathy, weaving a story that is both intimate and epic, evocative and atmospheric. The Orchardist is a novel about the disruption of a lonely harmony and the transformative power of opening one's heart to the world.

The Red Badge of Courage

2011

by Stephen Crane

Henry Fleming has joined the Union army because of his romantic ideas of military life, but soon finds himself in the middle of a battle against a regiment of Confederate soldiers. Terrified, Henry deserts his comrades. Upon returning to his regiment, he struggles with his shame as he tries to redeem himself and prove his courage.

The Red Badge of Courage is Stephen Crane’s second book, notable for its realism and the fact that Crane had never personally experienced battle. Crane drew heavy inspiration from Century Magazine, a periodical known for its articles about the American Civil War. However, he criticized the articles for their lack of emotional depth and decided to write a war novel of his own. The manuscript was first serialized in December 1894 by The Philadelphia Press and quickly won Crane international acclaim before he died in June 1900 at the age of 28.

Chess Story

2011

by Stefan Zweig

Chess Story, also known as The Royal Game, is the Austrian master Stefan Zweig's final achievement, completed in Brazilian exile and sent off to his American publisher only days before his suicide in 1942. It is the only story in which Zweig looks at Nazism, and he does so with characteristic emphasis on the psychological.

Travelers by ship from New York to Buenos Aires find that on board with them is the world champion of chess, an arrogant and unfriendly man. They come together to try their skills against him and are soundly defeated. Then a mysterious passenger steps forward to advise them and their fortunes change. How he came to possess his extraordinary grasp of the game of chess and at what cost lie at the heart of Zweig's story. This new translation of Chess Story brings out the work's unusual mixture of high suspense and poignant reflection.

Clockwork Prince

2011

by Cassandra Clare

In the magical underworld of Victorian London, Tessa Gray has at last found safety with the Shadowhunters. But that safety proves fleeting when rogue forces in the Clave plot to see her protector, Charlotte, replaced as head of the Institute. If Charlotte loses her position, Tessa will be out on the street—and easy prey for the mysterious Magister, who wants to use Tessa's powers for his own dark ends.

With the help of the handsome, self-destructive Will and the fiercely devoted Jem, Tessa discovers that the Magister's war on the Shadowhunters is deeply personal. He blames them for a long-ago tragedy that shattered his life. To unravel the secrets of the past, the trio journeys from mist-shrouded Yorkshire to a manor house that holds untold horrors, from the slums of London to an enchanted ballroom where Tessa discovers that the truth of her parentage is more sinister than she had imagined. When they encounter a clockwork demon bearing a warning for Will, they realize that the Magister himself knows their every move—and that one of their own has betrayed them.

Tessa finds her heart drawn more and more to Jem, but her longing for Will, despite his dark moods, continues to unsettle her. But something is changing in Will—the wall he has built around himself is crumbling. Could finding the Magister free Will from his secrets and give Tessa the answers about who she is and what she was born to do?

As their dangerous search for the Magister and the truth leads the friends into peril, Tessa learns that when love and lies are mixed, they can corrupt even the purest heart.

My Brilliant Friend

Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Ferrante’s four-volume story spans almost sixty years, as its protagonists, the fiery and unforgettable Lila, and the bookish narrator, Elena, become women, wives, mothers, and leaders, all the while maintaining a complex and at times conflictual friendship. Book one in the series follows Lila and Elena from their first fateful meeting as ten-year-olds through their school years and adolescence.

Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her protagonists.

Ferrante is one of the world’s great storytellers. With My Brilliant Friend she has given her readers an abundant, generous, and masterfully plotted page-turner that is also a stylish work of literary fiction destined to delight readers for many generations to come.

The Lost Stories

2011

by John Flanagan

Unconfirmed accounts of a group of Araluen warriors - tales of adventure, battle, and triumph over evil - have spread for centuries throughout the known world. Most notable is a clan shrouded in mystery, phantom warriors known as the Rangers.

Two names pass the lips of every storyteller: Halt, and his apprentice, Will. They and their comrades in arms are said to have traveled throughout the kingdom and beyond its borders, protecting those who needed it most. If true, these rumors can be only part of the story.

Only now, centuries after these men and women walked the earth, do we have confirmation of their existence. Behold The Lost Stories, Book 11 in the Ranger's Apprentice epic.

The Jewel in the Crown

2011

by Paul Scott

The Jewel in the Crown is the first of Paul Scott’s renowned historical novels that “limn the Anglo-Indian world with its lovers, friends, family servants, soldiers, businessmen, murderers and suicides—all involved in one another’s fate” (The New York Times). It opens in 1942 as the British fear both Japanese invasion and Indian demands for independence. On the night after the Indian Congress Party votes to support Gandhi, riots break out and an ambitious police sergeant arrests a young Indian for the alleged rape of the woman they both love.

“What has always astonished me about The Raj Quartet is its sense of sophisticated and total control of its gigantic scenario and highly varied characters . . . The politics are handled with an expertise that intrigues and never bores, and are always seen in terms of individuals.” —New Republic

“Paul Scott’s vision is both precise and painterly.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Few people have written about India quite as seductively, or as intelligently, with a sense of loss but also a sense of responsibility and fallibility.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

The Book of Negroes

2011

by Lawrence Hill

Based on a true story, The Book of Negroes tells the story of Aminata, a young girl abducted from her village in Mali aged 11 in 1755. Following a deathly journey on a slave ship where she witnesses the brutal repression of a slave revolt, Aminata is sold to a plantation owner in South Carolina, who rapes her. She is brought to New York, where she escapes her owner, and finds herself helping the British by recording all the freed slaves on the British side in the Revolutionary War in The Book of Negroes (a real historical document that can be found today at the National Archives at Kew).

Aminata is sent to Nova Scotia to start a new life, but finds more hostility, oppression, and tragedy. Separated from her one true love, and suffering the unimaginable loss of both her children who are taken away from her, she eventually joins a group of freed slaves on a harrowing odyssey back to Africa, and ends up in London as a living icon for Wilberforce and the other Abolitionists.

The Song of Achilles

2011

by Madeline Miller

A thrilling, profoundly moving, and utterly unique retelling of the legend of Achilles and the Trojan War from the bestselling author of Circe.

A tale of gods, kings, immortal fame, and the human heart, The Song of Achilles is a dazzling literary feat that brilliantly reimagines Homer’s enduring masterwork, The Iliad. An action-packed adventure, an epic love story, a marvelously conceived and executed page-turner, Miller’s monumental debut novel has already earned resounding acclaim from some of contemporary fiction’s brightest lights—and fans of Mary Renault, Bernard Cornwell, Steven Pressfield, and Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series will delight in this unforgettable journey back to ancient Greece in the Age of Heroes.

Wildflower Hill

Emma Blaxland-Hunter, a prima ballerina from London, faces a pivotal moment when an injury ends her dancing career. At her mother's urging, she returns to Sydney and discovers that her beloved grandmother, Beattie Blaxland, has left her an unusual inheritance: Wildflower Hill, an old sheep farm in Tasmania.

As Emma begins to sort through the remnants of her grandmother's life, she finds a photograph of Beattie with a mysterious child. This discovery leads Emma on a journey through time, unraveling the secrets of her family's past.

Spanning three generations and set against the backdrop of the Australian wilderness, Wildflower Hill is a story of love, secrets, and the courage to start over. Emma learns from Beattie's life lessons, realizing the importance of keeping her heart open to love and the magic of new beginnings.

This novel is about taking risks, embracing change, and believing in oneself, capturing the essence of what it means to find one's true path.

Rules of Civility

2011

by Amor Towles

In the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society—where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.

Elegant and captivating, "Rules of Civility" turns a Jamesian eye on how spur of the moment decisions define life for decades to come.

The Devil All the Time

Set in rural southern Ohio and West Virginia, The Devil All the Time follows a cast of characters from the end of World War II to the 1960s.

There’s Willard Russell, a tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific, who can’t save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from an agonizing death by cancer, no matter how much sacrificial blood he pours on his “prayer log.”

There’s Carl and Sandy Henderson, a husband-and-wife team of serial killers, who troll America’s highways searching for suitable models to photograph and exterminate.

There’s the spider-handling preacher Roy and his crippled virtuoso-guitar-playing sidekick, Theodore, running from the law.

Caught in the middle of all this is Arvin Eugene Russell, Willard and Charlotte’s orphaned son, who grows up to be a good but also violent man in his own right.

Blood in the Skies

2011

by G.D. Falksen

G.D. Falksen's steampunk epic launches with Blood In The Skies. In 1908, the world ended in fire. Humanity, always bad at following orders, refused to die. Now, two hundred years later, what remains is divided between civilized order and lawless frontier. For the citizens of the Commonwealth, the brave pilots of the Air Force are all that stand between them and the dreaded pirate lords of the Badlands. For generations, the two forces have struggled back and forth in an endless cycle of invasion and reprisal. Now that is about to change, and flying ace Elizabeth Steele is about to find herself dragged into a web of intrigue aimed at the downfall of the civilized world. Nothing that a clever girl with a trusty aeroplane and a charming spy at her side can't handle.

The Soldier's Wife

2011

by Margaret Leroy

As World War II draws closer and closer to Guernsey, Vivienne de la Mare knows that there will be sacrifices to be made. Not just for herself, but for her two young daughters and for her mother-in-law, for whom she cares while her husband is away fighting. What she does not expect is that she will fall in love with one of the enigmatic German soldiers who take up residence in the house next door to her home. As their relationship intensifies, so do the pressures on Vivienne. Food and resources grow scant, and the restrictions placed upon the residents of the island grow with each passing week.

Though Vivienne knows the perils of her love affair with Gunther, she believes that she can keep their relationship and her family safe. But when she becomes aware of the full brutality of the Occupation, she must decide if she is willing to risk her personal happiness for the life of a stranger.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

2011

by Ransom Riggs

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. A horrific family tragedy sends sixteen-year-old Jacob on a journey to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.

As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow, impossible though it seems, they may still be alive.

A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, this novel will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows.

Hidden

2011

by Shalini Boland

Hidden is a paranormal romance that spans the centuries from modern England to 19th century Paris and ancient Cappadocia.

Madison Greene is in foster care until one day she inherits a fortune, a house, and a cellar full of danger.

Alexandre Chevalier lives in 19th century Paris. On an archaeological expedition, he discovers a lost underground city where his life changes forever. Their lives entwine, but this is only the beginning...

Doc

The year is 1878, peak of the Texas cattle trade. The place is Dodge City, Kansas, a saloon-filled cow town jammed with liquored-up adolescent cowboys and young Irish hookers. Violence is random and routine, but when the burned body of a mixed-blood boy named Johnnie Sanders is discovered, his death shocks a part-time policeman named Wyatt Earp. And it is a matter of strangely personal importance to Doc Holliday, the frail twenty-six-year-old dentist who has just opened an office at No. 24 Dodge House.

Beautifully educated, born to the life of a Southern gentleman, Dr. John Henry Holliday is given an awful choice at the age of twenty-two: die within months in Atlanta or leave everyone and everything he loves in the hope that the dry air and sunshine of the West will restore him to health. Young, scared, lonely, and sick, he arrives on the Texas frontier just as an economic crash wrecks the dreams of a nation. Soon, with few alternatives open to him, Doc Holliday is gambling professionally; he is also living with Mária Katarina Harony, a high-strung Hungarian whore with dazzling turquoise eyes, who can quote Latin classics right back at him. Kate makes it her business to find Doc the high-stakes poker games that will support them both in high style. It is Kate who insists that the couple travel to Dodge City, because “that’s where the money is.”

And that is where the unlikely friendship of Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp really begins—before Wyatt Earp is the prototype of the square-jawed, fearless lawman; before Doc Holliday is the quintessential frontier gambler; before the gunfight at the O.K. Corral links their names forever in American frontier mythology—when neither man wanted fame or deserved notoriety.

Authentic, moving, and witty, Maria Doria Russell’s fifth novel redefines these two towering figures of the American West and brings to life an extraordinary cast of historical characters, including Holliday’s unforgettable companion, Kate. First and last, however, Doc is John Henry Holliday’s story, written with compassion, humor, and respect by one of our greatest contemporary storytellers.

Gone with the Wind

Gone with the Wind is the tale of Scarlett O'Hara, the beautiful, spoiled daughter of a well-to-do Georgia plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of the poverty she finds herself in after Sherman's March to the Sea. The story is set against the dramatic backdrop of the American Civil War and Reconstruction periods.

Scarlett is determined to salvage her plantation home despite the genteel life she has been accustomed to being swept away by the war. Her journey of survival is marked by her tumultuous relationship with the charming and daring Captain Butler, whom she initially dislikes due to his arrogance. However, their fates become intertwined as they navigate the challenges of their time.

Margaret Mitchell's monumental epic of the South not only won a Pulitzer Prize but also inspired one of the most popular motion pictures of our time. This beloved American saga remains a revered literary work and continues to captivate readers worldwide.

Phantom

2011

by Susan Kay

In this novel, Susan Kay reimagines Gaston Leroux's famous novel The Phantom of the Opera in greater depth and detail. Phantom begins with a young widow giving birth to her only child. The child's face is severely deformed, and despite the signs of genius he shows from his early days, she cannot bring herself to love him. The child, Erik's, childhood is spent longing for the love of a mother whose only gift to him was a mask.

Eventually Erik runs away and joins a circus freak show. The cruel owners capitalize off his hideous face and his hauntingly beautiful singing. After leaving the circus, Erik becomes an apprentice to a stone mason, and experiences an adolescent crush on the mason's daughter, but after his appearance inadvertently causes a terrible tragedy, he escapes once again, this time to Persia, and the queen's court. Finally, tired of the world's rejection, Erik helps to design the Paris Opera House, complete with a cavernous and labyrinthine basement, where he intends to live out the rest of his days. It is here that he encounters, Christine, a young soprano with whom he falls in love.

Tatiana and Alexander

2011

by Paullina Simons

Tatiana is eighteen years old, pregnant, and widowed when she escapes war-torn Leningrad to find a new life in America. But the ghosts of her past do not rest easily. She becomes consumed by the belief that her husband, Red Army officer Alexander Belov, is still alive and needs her desperately.

Meanwhile, oceans and continents away in the Soviet Union, Alexander barely escapes execution, and is forced to lead a battalion of soldiers considered expendable by the Soviet high command. Yet Alexander is determined to take his men through the ruins of Europe in one last desperate bid to escape Stalin's death machine and somehow find his way to Tatiana once again.

The Help

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.


Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.


Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.


Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.


Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.


In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women, mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends, view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.

Vespers Rising

The Cahills aren't the only family searching for the Clues...

The Cahills thought they were the most powerful family the world had ever known. They thought they were the only ones who knew about Gideon Cahill and his Clues. The Cahills were wrong.

Powerful enemies — the Vespers — have been waiting in the shadows. Now it’s their time to rise and the world will never be the same.

In Vespers Rising, a brand new 39 Clues novel, bestselling authors Rick Riordan, Peter Lerangis, Gordon Korman and Jude Watson take on the hidden history of the Cahills and the Vespers, and the last, terrible legacy Grace Cahill leaves for Amy and Dan.

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