Showing results by publisher "Highbridge Audio" in Historical Fiction

Vienna-June 1804. At the glittering debut of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony, a Spanish diplomat meets with Captain Thomas Grey, agent of His Majesty's Secret Service. In exchange for a gigantic bribe, the Spaniard discloses Spain's most closely-held secret, the terms of its San Ildefonso Treaty with France. Spain's neutrality in Napoleon's war on Britain is only a ruse to keep the British navy from attacking the last great treasure-armada, now gathering in South America.

With her family in fragments and hopes for a relationship with the charming Lord Braedon in peril, death and heartache cling to Lady Ravenna Birchfield like a shadow. Yet, life must go on in her charity work and in providing a home and guidance for her abandoned niece. When Lord Franklin Thornley is murdered at a charity gala and a precious black opal known as the Widow's Fire goes missing, one of Ravenna's closest friends becomes the focus of the investigation. Determined to keep her friend out of prison, Ravenna searches for the killer.

An island republic goes to insane lengths to canonize its most famous resident.

Millionaire Howard Hughes likes his secrets. He likes to keep them - and he definitely doesn't like having them stolen. Hollywood PI Toby Peters has a rep for being discreet. So when the film tycoon and aviation magnate needs a detective to very privately investigate the theft of top-secret blueprints taken from his home during one of his fabulous parties, he summons Peters. But what starts as counter-espionage intrigue turns into a triple murder, and Peters soon finds himself bait for a killer. 

Leaving behind tragedies surrounding their wedding at Morrington Hall, travel-worn Stella and Lyndy arrive at the grand Majestic Hotel in York to more misfortune-their stately honeymoon suite has been given away to Horace Wingrove, owner of England's largest confectionery. Stella refuses to let an innocent booking mistake spoil the mood, but her optimism vanishes when Horace suffocates in the room where she and Lyndy should have stayed . . .

Taking on the responsibilities that come with being Lady Lyndhurst, Stella is eager to embrace yuletide traditions in the Edwardian English countryside and use her strong social influence for good. Her world becomes so consumed with starting a horse farm charity for the holidays that she barely notices the usual oddities attached to her upper crust lifestyle. At least, not until items vanish from her bedroom and maligned housekeeper, Mrs. Nelson, becomes seriously ill—only to be found dead in the cold on Mistletoe Lane.

Los Angeles, 1920s: Socialite Mirielle West's days are crowded with shopping, luncheons, and prepping for the myriad glittering parties she attends with her actor husband, Charlie. She's been too busy to even notice the small patch of pale skin on the back of her hand. Other than an occasional overindulgence in gin and champagne, which helps to numb the pain of recent tragedy, Mirielle is the picture of health. But her doctor insists on more tests, and Mirielle reluctantly agrees. The diagnosis - leprosy - is devastating and unthinkable. 

Following a whirlwind engagement to Viscount "Lyndy" Lyndhurst, Stella Kendrick is finding her footing within an elite social circle in picturesque rural England. Except tea time with refined friends can be more dangerous than etiquette faux pas - especially in the company of Lady Philippa, the woman Lyndy was once set to marry, and her husband, the ostentatious Lord Fairbrother....                  

London, 1941. Britain has endured the relentless bombing campaign of the Blitz and emerged, scarred but unbroken. Caitrin, too, strives to weather each challenge that comes her way, though her ever-ready banter belies deep heartbreak and loss. But now the war has entered another phase. Instead of indiscriminate bombing, the Luftwaffe is pinpointing historic targets, including cathedrals and ancestral homes. It's as if Germany plans to erase Britain's very essence and culture, destroying morale as it does so.

The year is 1095. Thousands of men, including many of the leaders of the Christian world, have assembled in a meadow in France near Clermont. Pope Urban appeals for the liberation of Jerusalem and the people shout, Deus lo volt! The cry is taken up, echoes forth, is carried on. The crusades have begun. Wave upon wave of Christian pilgrims assault the growing power of the Muslims in the Holy Land, and will do so for the next 200 years.

It's the summer of '74 . . . Richard Nixon has resigned from office, CB radios are the hot new thing, and in the great state of Texas two cousins hatch a plan to drive $1 million worth of stolen weed to Idaho, where some lunatic is gearing up to jump Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered motorcycle. But with a vengeful sheriff on their tail and the revered and feared marijuana kingpin of Central Texas out to get his stash back, Chuck and Dean are in for the ride of their lives—if they can make it out alive . . .

An utterly unique, Victorian-era mystery with a clever play on the famous Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde tale, where the monster becomes the hero, and lines are crossed along the way. Unbeknownst even to himself, the kind, gentle, quietly brilliant Dr. Jekyll has created an alter ego—his polar...

Rosalind Thorne's quick wits and discretion have proved invaluable to London's haut ton. Success has at last brought her financial stability and a new home, which she shares with her best friend, Alice Littlefield. But now trouble has infiltrated Rosalind's sanctuary, and the reputations in danger include her own.

1940: Weeks after the evacuation of Dunkirk, Germany is poised to invade a near-defenseless Britain. To safeguard the Crown Jewels from the Nazis, Winston Churchill devises a daring gamble to have them shipped overseas. The priceless artifacts will be secretly removed from the Tower of London and driven north to Scotland by two operatives posing as a young married couple, to be taken from there to Canada.

Martin Simmond’s father tells him, “Never trust a musician when he speaks about love.” The advice comes too late. Martin already loves Dovidl Rapoport, an eerily gifted Polish violin prodigy whose parents left him in the Simmonds’s care before they perished in the Holocaust. For a time the two boys are closer than brothers. But on the day he is to make his official debut, Dovidl disappears. Only 40 years later does Martin get his first clue about what happened to him.

At once fiercely immediate and complex in their implications, “The Shawl” and “Rosa” succeed in imagining the unimaginable: the horror of the Holocaust and the emptiness of its aftermath. They were written in 1977 but were first published in the early 1980s in The New Yorker. Both “The Shawl” and “Rosa” won first prize in the O. Henry Prize Stories and were chosen for Best American Short Stories.

In 1943, Charlie Chaplin is far from the most popular man in America. His communist sympathies and romantic indiscretions with young women have enraged everyone from right-wing radicals and the Ku Klux Klan to furious fathers. But when a knife-wielding intruder breaks into his house one night, the maniac isn't talking politics. He demands Chaplin stop making his latest black comedy about a man who murders wealthy women for their money - and specifically tells him to stay away from one Fiona Sullivan.

Basil St. Florian is an accomplished agent in the British Army, tasked with dozens of dangerous missions for crown and country across the globe. But his current mission, going undercover in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, might be his toughest assignment yet. He will be searching for an ecclesiastic manuscript that doesn't officially exist, one that genius professor Alan Turing believes may hold the key to a code that could prevent the death of millions and possibly even end the war. 

In Kentucky, back in 1933, Carol's daddy lost his 13-year-old daughter in a game of cards. Award-winning author Simon Van Booy's spellbinding novel spans decades as he tells the story of Carol and the people in her life. Incidents intersect and lives unexpectedly change course in this masterfully interwoven story of chance and choice that leads home again to a night blessed with light.

August 1901: A fundraiser for a new Rhode Island Audubon Society brings Emma to Vinland, the Viking-themed seaside home of her relative, Florence Vanderbilt Twombly, where the guest of honor is Edith Roosevelt, wife of Vice President Theodore Roosevelt. Emma's observation of harmless philanthropy is proven wrong the following morning when one of Mrs. Twombly's houseguests from the luncheon becomes mysteriously and dangerously ill. Accompanying police detective Jesse Whyte, Emma discovers a box of petit fours supposedly sent by Mrs. Roosevelt.