Showing titles in Biographical Fiction

Katherine Woodville's sister never gave her a choice. A happy girl of modest means, Kate hardly expected to become a maker of kings. But when her sister impulsively marries King Edward IV in secret, Katherine's life is no longer hers to control....

The New York Times bestselling author of the The Paris Library returns with a powerful, moving new novel based on the extraordinary true story of Jessie Carson, the American librarian determined to bring books to the children of war-torn France. 'This is hands down my book of 2024. A rich...

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.

Mary Tudor watches her elder brother become King of England and wonders what the future holds for her. Born into great privilege, Mary has beauty and intelligence beyond her years and is the most marriageable princess in Europe. Henry plans to use her marriage to build a powerful alliance against his enemies. Will she dare risk his anger by marrying for love? Meticulously researched and based on actual events, this 'sequel' follows Mary's story from book three of the Tudor Trilogy and is set during the reign of King Henry VIII.

Michael Frayn's classic is set in the crossword and nature notes department of an obscure national newspaper during the declining years of Fleet Street, where John Dyson dreams wistfully of fame and the gentlemanly life—until one day his great chance of glory at last arrives.

1522, England. Anne Boleyn has lived an adventurous youth in the glittering courts of Europe, now, promised in marriage to a man she knows nothing of, Anne has been called home by her ambitious father. She will enter the English Court, to find many admirers courting her. Anne finds potential for love in three men, but there is one... more unexpected than all the others, who claims her heart. The beginning of a love which would change the course of English history, and shake the foundations of the Church... The courtier's daughter who captured the heart of a king, Anne Boleyn.

His companions, scattered, are making for Malarkoi—the city of the Mistress, the Master's most powerful enemy. Hoping to find welcome there, or at least safety, they find neither... and instead become embroiled in a life and death struggle against assassins, demi-gods, and the cunning plans of the Mistress.

A Treacherous Paradise sees Henning Mankell turn his talents for writing gripping thrillers to a world where power and powerlessness meet and passion is a dangerous commodity. Hanna Lundmark escapes the brutal poverty of rural Sweden for a job as a cook onboard a steamship headed for Australia...

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.

Karl Ove Knausgaard writes about his childhood and teenage years, his infatuation with rock music, his relationship with his loving yet almost invisible mother and his distant and unpredictable father and his bewilderment and grief on his father’s death. When Karl Ove becomes a father himself, he must balance the demands of caring for a young family with his determination to write great literature. Knausgaard has created a universal story of the struggles, great and small, that we all face in our lives.

John von Neumann was a titan of science. A Hungarian wunderkind who revolutionized every field he touched, his mathematical powers were so exceptional that Hans Bethe—a Nobel Prize-winning physicist—thought he might represent the next step in human evolution. After seeking the foundations of mathematics during his youth in Germany, von Neumann emigrated to the United States, where he became entangled in the power games of the Cold War; he designed the world's first programmable computer, invented game theory, pioneered AI and digital life, and helped create atomic bombs.

1431 is a dangerous time for a woman to be defiant. England has been fighting France for 100 years. At home, power-hungry men within a corrupt government manipulate a weak king - and name Cecily's husband, York's loyal duke, an enemy. As the king's grasp on sanity weakens, plots to destroy York take root. It will take all of Cecily's courage and cunning to save her family. But when the will to survive becomes ambition for a crown, will she risk treason to secure it?

"- Tu seras un héros, tu seras général, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Ambassadeur de France - tous ces voyous ne savent pas qui tu es ! Je crois que jamais un fils n'a haï sa mère autant que moi, à ce moment-là. Mais, alors que j'essayais de lui expliquer dans un murmure rageur qu'elle me compromettait irrémédiablement aux yeux de l'Armée de l'Air, et que je faisais un nouvel effort pour la pousser derrière le taxi, son visage prit une expression désemparée, ses lèvres se mirent à trembler, et j'entendis une fois de plus la formule intolérable, devenue depuis longtemps classique dans nos rapports : - Alors, tu as honte de ta vieille mère ?"

From the acclaimed author of The Birth of Venus and In the Company of the Courtesan comes a vibrant exploration of the Italian Renaissance through the character of Isabella d’Este, the first female art collector and patron of her time. Her famed collection has long since dispersed or been lost, but what remains is her correspondence–thousands of letters preserved in a deconsecrated church and convent in the archive of Mantua.

Brought to you by Penguin. An electrifying novel about the Nazi who reinvented himself, Albert Speer ‘Which is the most seductive, truth or fiction?’ This is the story of Albert Speer: The protégé. The ‘good Nazi’. The star. The mythmaker. In 1969 Speer, Hitler’s favourite architect...

Smart, diligent and a bit plain, that’s the general consensus. Then Hillary goes to college and her star rises. At Yale Law School, she continues to be a leader - and catches the eye of driven, handsome and charismatic Bill. But when he asks her to marry him, Hillary gives him a firm 'no'. The rest, as they say, isn’t history. How might things have turned out for them, for America, for the world itself, if Hillary Rodham had really turned down Bill Clinton? 

Kathryn Janeway reveals her career in Starfleet, from her first command to her epic journey through the Delta Quadrant leading to her rise to the top as vice-admiral in Starfleet Command. Discover the story of the woman who travelled further than any human ever had before, stranded decades from home, encountering new worlds and species.

A book of unparalleled scope and vision, Your Name Here is a spectacular honeycomb of books-within-books. In this death-defying feat of ambition, collaborators Helen Dewitt and Ilya Gridneff weave together America’s “War on Terror,” countless years of literary history, authorial sleight of hand, Scientology, dream analysis, multiple languages, emails, images, graphs, into something wondrous and unique.

Brendan Behan is widely remembered as a hard-drinking, wise-cracking writer who turned up roaring drunk for interviews and cared little for authority. But he was more than just a hell-raising celebrity. His wit, expressive use of language and understanding of human nature made his writing famous around the world, and his masterpieces The Quare Fellow, Borstal Boy and The Hostage rank among the greatest works of 20th century Irish literature. Dramatisations of all three appear here, alongside a short interview with Behan himself and a fascinating biographical programme celebrating his genius.

Brought to you by Penguin. Villa Diodati, Lake Geneva, 1816. The dark summer that birthed a monster . . . Eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley has fled London with her lover, Percy Shelley, and her sister, Claire. Tormented by Shelley’s betrayals, haunted by the loss of their baby and suspicious of...