Showing results for "The Book" in Biographical Fiction

Lady Anne Seymour knows that her family hangs by a thread. If her sister-in-law Jane Seymour cannot give the King a son, she will be executed or set aside, and her family with her. Anne throws herself into the deadly and intoxicating intrigue of the Tudor court, determined to pay any price to see the new queen's marriage succeed and the Seymour family elevated to supreme power. But Anne's machinations will earn her a reputation as a viper, and she must decide if her family's rise is worth the loss of her own soul.

In death, she would become infamous, yet in life passed often unseen. Jane Parker, daughter of the scholar Lord Morley, leaves her home at a tender age, embarking on a career in the dangerous Tudor Court. From the halls of her father's house to the palaces of London, from England to Calais and the Field of the Cloth of Gold Jane will travel, seeing much of this world, and others.

THE New York Times BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE MULTI-MILLION-COPY-SELLING The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wings 'Superlative . . . From a writer at the top of her game . . . A practically perfect historical novel' New York Journal of Books 'A bold, imaginative reworking'...

An awkward misfit, nine-year-old Fulke FitzWarin leaves his family for the household of Joscelin de Dinan, Lord of Ludlow. Once there, he begins to learn the knightly arts which he desperately hopes will free him from the shadows of his past. Joscelin’s youngest daughter, Hawise, befriends Fulke when he most needs it. But as the years pass, an enemy to Ludlow changes their friendship unalterably, forcing them onto opposite sides of a cruel divide.

When they are girls, Cibi, Magda and Livia make a promise to their father - that they will stay together, no matter what. Years later, at just 15 years old, Livia is ordered to Auschwitz by the Nazis. Cibi, only 19 herself, remembers their promise and follows Livia, determined to protect her sister or die with her. In their hometown in Slovakia, 17-year-old Magda hides, desperate to evade the barbaric Nazi forces. But it is not long before she is captured and condemned to Auschwitz.

A NEW YORKER “ESSENTIAL READ” “Just as awe-inspiring as the Nobel judges claimed.” – The Washington Post “Olga Tokarczuk is one of our greatest living fiction writers. . . This could well be a decade-defining book akin to Bolaño’s 2666.” –AV Club “Sophisticated and ribald...

12th century, England: A penniless young knight with few prospects, William Marshal is plucked from obscurity when he saves the life of Henry II's formidable queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. In gratitude, she appoints him tutor to the heir to the throne, the volatile and fickle Prince Henry. But being a royal favorite brings its share of danger and jealousy as well as fame and reward.

In England, the Middle Ages are a time for ambitious men to prosper. Before he becomes the father of William Marshal, John FitzGilbert is a man of honor and loyalty, sworn to royal service. When the old king dies, his successor rewards the handsome and ambitious John with castles and lands. But King Stephen has a tenuous hold on his reign over medieval England. In these unstable times, John's loyalty to the British king comes at great cost. So, when jealous rivals at court seek to destroy John, he takes matters into his own hands.

After the untimely death of his older brother, six-year-old Prince Amenhotep IV becomes the unlikely heir to the Egyptian throne, the most powerful kingship in the ancient world. By the time he becomes pharaoh over a decade later, the growing influence of the wealthy and corrupt Amun priesthood threatens to undermine his sovereignty. Desperate to maintain power, Amenhotep outlaws the Amun religion, renames himself Akenaten, and proclaims himself the living incarnation of a single, all-powerful deity - the Aten, or sun.

Zoe Ball's BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick. Mesmerising and haunting, Emma Flint's Other Women is a devastating story of fantasy, obsession inspired by a murder that took place almost a hundred years ago. 'A pitch-perfect historical mystery' – The Guardian 'Bloody brilliant' – Dinah Jefferies...

Thirteenth-century Bohemia is a dangerous place for a girl, especially one as odd as Mouse, born with unnatural senses and an uncanny intellect. Some call her a witch. Others call her an angel. Even Mouse doesn't know who - or what - she is. But she means to find out. When young King Ottakar shows up at the Abbey wounded by a traitor's arrow, Mouse breaks church law to save him and then agrees to accompany him back to Prague as his personal healer.

The Queen identifies the 70 year-old victim, Edward St Cyr, from his signet ring. But the search for his killer is not so straightforward. Suspects include the Queen's horse groom, a shady land agent, an aristocrat neighbour, as well as the victim's many cousins and relations. The investigation leads the Queen - and her trusted assistant, Rozie - to a local pigeon racing club, back to London, and to the ancient, moated Godwick Hall. But how do the seemingly disparate pieces of the puzzle fit together? And who is the next victim?

My Struggle: Book One introduces American listeners to the audacious, addictive, and profoundly surprising international literary sensation that is the provocative and brilliant six-volume autobiographical novel by Karl Ove Knausgaard. It has already been anointed a Proustian masterpiece and is the rare work of dazzling literary originality that is intensely, irresistibly readable.

Mummy dreams of a quirky rural cottage with roses around the door and chatty chickens in the garden. Life, as ever, is not going quite as she planned. Paxo, Oxo and Bisto turn out to be highly rambunctious rather than merely chatty, and the roses have jaggy thorns. 

From the day he was crowned, Henry V was determined to prove the legitimacy of his house. His father's usurpation weighed heavily on his mind, and he needed a grand gesture to capture the respect of his own countrymen and the rest of Europe. What better way than to follow in his great-grandfather Edward III's footsteps, and recover the territory lost in France over the previous fifty years? Better yet, why not go for the crown? Poor, deranged Charles VI couldn't manage his own barons.

Daughter of the nobility, cousin to a fallen Queen, Catherine Howard rose from the cluttered ranks of courtiers at the court of Henry VIII to become the King's fifth wife. But hers is a tale that starts long before the crown was placed on her head. A tale of tragedy and challenges, predators and prey; the story of a young girl growing up in a perilous time, facing dangers untold. The fifth wife of Henry VIII would end her life on the block, like her cousin Anne Boleyn...but where did her story begin?

William Marshal’s prowess and loyalty as a knight in the English royal household has been rewarded by marriage to Isabelle de Clare, heiress to great estates in England, Normandy and Ireland. But their contentment and security is shattered when King Richard dies and is succeeded by his brother John, who takes the Marshals’ sons hostage and seizes their lands.

The Two Roberts is a fictional reimagining of the lifelong love between working-class artists Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun. They met as students at Glasgow School of Art in 1933. They fell in love almost immediately and rarely left each other’s side - meeting great success and bitter failure but always staying committed to art and each other. They were at the heart of a social set that included Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Elizabeth Smart - living an out Bohemian life, whatever the consequences.

Jewish refugee Felix Wolff believes he has found safety in England, but he is arrested and thrown into a British internment camp as a suspected Nazi spy. To clear his name and join the fight against Hitler, he must break free of a system that mistakes him for the very evil he fled. Fresh off his ruthless campaign in Poland, Sicherheitsdienst agent Karl Vogt is sent on a chilling mission: to devise a system for controlling the growing Jewish population within the Reich. His cold efficiency lays the groundwork for a coming horror the world has yet to comprehend.

Paris, 1940: Madeline tries to scream, but she can’t breathe. A German soldier is working to free her from the rubble–but if he reaches her, he will find the books hidden beneath her clothes… When the Germans seize Paris, its peaceful streets fill with terror overnight, and nowhere is safe. Desperate to help her friends, Parisian bookseller Madeline Valette turns her bookshop into a sanctuary for those in hiding, but she knows it’s only a matter of time before she’s found out.