Showing results for "The Door" in Historical Fiction

It is 1921 and at Cassowary House in the Straits Settlements of Penang, Robert Hamlyn is a well-to-do lawyer and his steely wife Lesley a society hostess. Their lives are invigorated when Willie, an old friend of Robert's, comes to stay. Willie Somerset Maugham is one of the greatest writers of his day. But he is beleaguered by an unhappy marriage, ill-health and business interests that have gone badly awry. He is also struggling to write. The more Lesley's friendship with Willie grows, the more clearly she see him as he is—a man who has no choice but to mask his true self.

Award-winning novelist Val McDermid and Geographer Royal Professor Jo Sharp bring Scotland’s greatest historical catastrophe vividly to life. The Darien Venture was the singular event at the end of the seventeenth century that fundamentally altered Scotland's future. It took place on the other...

In a sprawling mansion filled with peculiar treasures, January Scaller is a curiosity herself. As the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, she feels little different from the artifacts that decorate the halls: carefully maintained, largely ignored and utterly out of place. But her quiet existence is shattered when she stumbles across a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page reveals more impossible truths about the world, and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own. 

When Alexander Flora Chisholm inherited a centuries-old Inn, the Wayfarers Tavern, on the edge of a beautiful Loch in the Scottish Highlands, she had no idea what being its custodian would entail. The Tavern changes her life from the dreary drudge of 1990s London, to the turbulent times of 18th-century Scotland, leading up to the Jacobite rising of 1745, and beyond. Follow her heroic adventures alongside a whole cartload of newly acquired family members of Clan Chisholm. How does a young 20th-century lassie cope with 18th-century life and the struggle to stay alive?

The onslaught of Modred's forces may have been temporarily halted, but danger lurks around every corner for Myrddin and Nell. Not only do they face treachery on the part of their enemies, but allies - and even family too - cannot be trusted. Only by joining forces can they succeed in averting the terrible fate that threatens their king, their country, and their own lives.

The true story behind the world's most beloved children's book is a story the world was never supposed to know. In June 1940, as Hitler's armies closed on Paris, two German-Jewish refugees fled the city on makeshift bicycles assembled from junkyard scrap. Strapped to a luggage rack, wrapped in oilcloth, was a five-pound manuscript about a mischievous, tailless monkey — the book the world would come to know as Curious George.

A classic in the black literary tradition, The Spook who Sat by the Door is both a comment on the civil rights problems in the United States in the late 1960s and a serious attempt to focus on the issue of black militancy. Dan Freeman, the "spook who sat by the door", is enlisted in the CIA's...

The life of a courtesan in Pompeii is glittering, yet precarious... Amara has escaped her life as a slave in the town's most notorious brothel, but now her existence depends on the affections of her patron: a man she might not know as well as she once thought. At night she dreams of the wolf den...

Retired police detective inspector Thomas Maitland has rented a house in Cornwall; he's going to paint his way to recovery from the experiences of the spring. A local woman with an intriguingly expensive collection of modern art wants to put on a show of his work. But Maitland's next door...

When Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy find themselves locked together in the library during the Netherfield Ball, they face compromise and scandal. Elizabeth’s startling solution to the problem causes Fitzwilliam Darcy to discover something profound—the lady he ardently admires thoroughly despises him. Darcy resolves to do everything in his power to change her mind about him. With gossip and slander flowing throughout Meryton, this is not an easy task, but Darcy has never backed down from difficulty.

All Hallow’s Eve, 1144. The savaged body of Durand Wuduweard, the solitary and unpopular keeper of the King’s Forest of Feckenham, is discovered beside his hearth, his corpse rendered barely identifiable by sharp teeth. Whispers of a wolf on the prowl grow louder, and Sheriff William de Beauchamp’s men, Hugh Bradecote and Serjeant Catchpoll, are tasked with cutting through the clamour....

A haunted room. An unbroken seal. A murder victim whose very identity is an enigma. And then, a second death in a house surrounded by untrodden snow. Both crimes defy reason—but master detective Dr. Alan Twist reveals that even the most baffling mysteries have rational explanations.

Brought to you by Penguin. The masterful second novel in Pat Barker's classic 'Regeneration' trilogy - from the Booker Prize-winning and Women's Prize-shortlisted author of The Silence of the Girls WINNER OF THE 1993 GUARDIAN FICTION PRIZE London, 1918. Billy Prior is working for Intelligence in...

The new generation of the family are growing up quickly - Philip and Phoebe are spending time together and Maureen has ambitions to become a model. A local company wants to take over Adams Fashions and Boots and Sammy have difficult decisions to make. Rosie and Matt are thinking about selling the farm but worry their workers. While Felicity has resigned herself to never regaining her sight, Polly sees a familiar face that she can't place - a mysterious stranger who is being sheltered in Walworth. Anneliese encounters someone she never wished to see again and turns to Boots for help.

The manor's rumored one-hundredth door may conceal secrets hidden as deep as the estate's bookshelves extend high … but the haunted past has a way of ensnaring curious souls. In 1888, Minnie Tipton finds herself beset by the dark superstitions that envelop the Pennsylvania mansion her father...

Marianne Findlay lives next door to the Earl of Latteridge’s York townhouse. Though she has never met him, it was his mother who sealed her fate years before - and drove her from polite society. Now she and Aunt Effie take in boarders and live a modest life, which is soon disrupted by the handsome earl, his scapegrace younger brother, his charming and determined sister - and that vengeful mother of his.

“An immersive tale of betrayal and injustice that reverberates with a howl of anguish three centuries old.”—Chris Brookmyre, author of The Cracked Mirror From internationally bestselling author Val McDermid and Geographer Royal of Scotland Jo Sharp, a heart-wrenching novella about an...

'One of Britain's most visionary writers', David Peace ‘That uniquely valuable writer and independent film-maker Chris Petit’, Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian 'A tale for our feverish times ... It's fascinating to wander round Petit's baroque imagination.' The Times THE FINAL DAYS OF ADOLF...

All her short life, 11-year-old Rose Webster has encountered closed doors. Growing up in the slums of London with her siblings, trying to avoid their violent, drunken father, she develops an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and becomes convinced that she and her loved ones deserve better. All Rose has is a quick mind and the will to survive. Can she open that door and seize the chance to make something of herself?

Poland, 1943. 'We owe you our lives.' The elderly woman clasps my hands before climbing the attic ladder to hide with her family. I am filled with anger, sadness and fear, but I can't give in to my tears now. Not when this isn't the only secret I'm keeping from the German soldiers next door... When German soldiers take over the neighbouring farm in her little village, Aneta tries to pretend life with her four-year-old son, Janek, is continuing as normal. No one can ever know about the Jewish doctor's family she's hiding.