Showing results for "roger may" in Historical Fiction

The Persian Boy traces the last years of Alexander's life through the eyes of his lover, Bagoas. Abducted and gelded as a boy, Bagoas is sold as a courtesan to King Darius of Persia, but finds freedom with Alexander the Great after the Macedon army conquers his homeland. Their relationship sustains Alexander as he weathers assassination plots, the demands of two foreign wives, a sometimes mutinous army, and his own ferocious temper.

Alexander's beauty, strength and defiance were apparent from birth, but his boyhood honed those gifts into the makings of a king. His mother, Olympias, and his father, King Philip of Macedon, fought each other for their son's loyalty, teaching Alexander politics and vengeance from the cradle. His love for the youth Hephaistion taught him trust, while Aristotle's tutoring provoked his mind and Homer's Iliad fuelled his aspirations.

Alexander the Great died at the age of thirty-three, leaving behind an empire that stretched from Greece and Egypt to India.After Alexander's death in 323 B.C. his only direct heirs were two unborn sons and a simpleton half-brother. Every long-simmering faction exploded into the vacuum of power. Wives, distant relatives and generals all vied for the loyalty of the increasingly undisciplined Macedonian army. Most failed and were killed in the attempt.

1812. On the eve of the invasion of Russia, half-French, half-English Matthieu Carrey finds himself in the ranks of Napoleon's five hundred thousand strong army. With Tsar Alexander seemingly ill-prepared, a French victory seems certain. The Grande Armée will obliterate everything in its path. Carrey's purpose is less clear. Blackmailed into becoming a spy in the emperor's army, he hopes to follow his lover, a French actress who has gone to work in the Moscow theatre. As supplies grow scarce and temperatures plummet, the Grande Armée begins to crumble

When Hubert Larnaudie invites some fellow residents of his Parisian apartment building to drink an exceptional bottle of 1954 Beaujolais, he has no idea of its special properties. The following morning, Hubert finds himself waking up in 1950s Paris, as do antique restorer Magalie, mixologist Julien, and Airbnb tenant Bob from Milwaukee, who's on his first trip to Europe. After their initial shock, the city of Edith Piaf and An American in Paris begins to work its charm on them.

Through the story of George Winterbourne, a young soldier disillusioned by the horrors of World War I, The Death of a Hero offers a raw and unflinching look at the realities of combat and the emotional scars it leaves behind. With vivid prose and an unrelenting perspective, Aldington challenges the myths of heroism and the price of sacrifice.

Unpublished at the time of her death, The Professor is the first novel written by Charlotte Brontë, and the seed of her later books, Jane Eyre and Villette. The narrator of the tale, William Crimsworth, tells a story of courage and ambition among jealousy and envy: Orphaned from a young age, William rejects life in the clergy, and then as a tradesman, to the chagrin of his cruel uncles and elder brother. Instead he pursues a career in education and ends up in Brussels where he meets student/teacher Francis Evans Henri, with whom he falls in love.

1963, France: A farmer reports a truck ramming into a car near Picardie, followed by gunfire. A group of Englishmen are brought in after a bar fight. A tramp's body is discovered in a burnt out truck. All this occurring after multiple attempts on the President's life. Inspector Lucas Rocco knows there's a connection somewhere, and is recruited by Colonel Saint-Cloud to assist with the President's Security.

Norway, 1880. In the secluded village of Butangen at the end of the valley, headstrong Astrid dreams of a life beyond marriage, hard work and children. And then Pastor Kai Schweigaard comes into her life, taking over the 700-year-old stave church with its carvings of pagan deities. The two church bells were forged by her forefather in the 16th century in memory of conjoined sisters Halfrid and Gunhild Hekne and are said to have supernatural powers. But now the pastor wants to tear it down, to replace it with a modern, larger church.

A priceless gem, a diamond from India imbued with religious significance, is stolen on the very night it is given as an eighteenth birthday present to a captivating heiress; and so the mystery begins. The rules for the golden age of crime novels are formed in The Moonstone – an English country house, a complex cast of characters, the bungling local constabulary, a celebrated sleuth and the reconstruction of the crime.