Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Historical Fiction

May, 1941. Meet the Air Raid Girls: three young women keen to do their bit during the Yorkshire blitz. Connie's life has taken an unexpected turn since her husband died - she's living at home and working in the family bakery - but night shifts as an ARP warden give her a firm sense of purpose. Her younger sister, Lizzie, is eager to play her part, too, perhaps as an ambulance driver. Twenty-year-old Pamela has led a sheltered life, but when her family's home is destroyed in a raid, she must learn to stand on her own two feet - helped by new friends. 

The only question which hangs over the life of Sir Richard Wyndham, notable whip, dandy and Corinthian, is one of marriage. On the eve of making the most momentous decision of his life, he is on his way home, a little worse for drink, when he chances upon a beautiful young fugitive climbing out of a window by means of knotted sheets - and so finds a perfect opportunity for his own escape.

Adam Deveril, the new Viscount Lynton and a hero at Salamanca, returns from the Peninsula War to find his family on the brink of ruin and the broad acres of his ancestral home mortgaged to the hilt. It is Lord Oversley, father of Adam's first love, who tactfully introduces him to Mr Jonathan Chaleigh, a city man of apparently unlimited wealth with no social ambitions for himself, but with his eyes firmly fixed on a suitable match for his one and only daughter.

The Forgotten Legion fought against almighty odds at the very edge of the known world - and lost. Now Brennus the Gaul, Tarquinius the Etruscan soothsayer and Romulus, bastard son of a Roman nobleman, are prisoners of Parthia. They dream of escape, but in the brutal fighting which lies ahead, only two will survive. Meanwhile, Fabiola, Romulus's twin sister, is caught up in the vicious eddies of Roman politics. Hunted by slave catchers she flees, hoping to find her lover, Brutus, bound for Alexandria with Caesar. Ben Kane's brilliant second novel plunges his characters into a cauldron of war....

Stepping into the wrong carriage at a Sussex village, Elinor Rochdale is swept up in a thrilling and dangerous adventure. Overnight the would-be governess becomes mistress of a ruined estate and partner in a secret conspiracy to save a family's name. By midnight, she is a bride, by dawn, a widow. 

A dashing Regency romance from the legendary Georgette Heyer, founder of the genre. Captain John Staple's exploits against Napoleon's armies in the Iberian Peninsula have earned him the nickname 'Crazy Jack' amongst his comrades in the Dragoon Guards - but once the Battle of Waterloo brings the curtain down once and for all on the Napoleonic Wars, the boisterous, adventure-loving captain finds life in peacetime intolerably dull. 

It is AD 367, and Roman Britain has fallen to the vast barbarian horde which has invaded from the north. Towns burn, the land is ravaged and the few survivors flee. The army of Rome - once the most effective fighting force in the world - has been broken, its spirit lost and its remaining troops shattered. Yet for all the darkness, there is hope. And it rests with one man. His name is Lucanus, whom they call the Wolf. He is a warrior, and he wears the ancient crown of the great war leader Pendragon, and he wields a sword bestowed upon him by the druids. 

On Valentine's Day, 1989, Vina Apsara, a famous and much-loved singer, disappears in a devastating earthquake. Her lover, the singer Ormus Cama, cannot accept that he has lost her and so begins his eternal quest to find her and bring her back. His journey takes him across the globe and through cities pulsating with the power of rock 'n' roll, to Bombay, London and New York.

Londinium, AD 211. Zuleika is a modern girl living in an ancient world. She's a back-alley firecracker, a scruffy Nubian babe with tangled hair and bare feet - and she's just been married off to a fat old Roman. Life as a teenage bride is no joke but Zeeks is a born survivor. She knows this city like the back of her hand: its slave girls and drag queens, its shining villas and rotting slums. She knows how to get by. Until one day she catches the eye of the most powerful man on earth, the Roman Emperor, and her trouble really starts....

Mary Challoner must protect her sister at all costs. When she discovers that the notorious Marquis of Vidal is planning to run away with her little sister, Mary will not stand idly by. To save Sophia's reputation without destroying her own, Mary will take her sister's place - and once the Marquis sees through her disguise, he will be humiliated and forced to return her home. But the irresistible Marquis is a wilder rake than even Mary anticipated, and her growing feelings for him are proving an unexpected complication.... 

When Sophy is sent to stay with her London relatives, she finds her cousins in quite the tangle. Cecilia is besotted with an attractive but feather-brained poet, Hubert has fallen foul of a money-lender and the ruthlessly handsome Charles is engaged to a pedantic bluestocking who seems to bring out the worst in him. Fortunately, Sophy has arrived just in time to sort them all out - but Charles is eager to rid his family of her meddlesome ways. Has the grand Sophy finally met her match?

Slumped on a seat under an oak tree is old Sampson Warrenby, with a bullet through his brain. He is discovered by his anxious niece, Mavis, who is just one of the 10 people in the village in the running for chief suspect, having just cause to dislike Warrenby intensely. Only Chief Inspector Hemingway can uncover which of the 10 has turned hatred into murder. 

A Lilly's Library Book Club Pick! “A sparkling debut.”—Emily Giffin, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author From a compelling new voice in women's fiction comes a mother-daughter story about three generations of women who struggle to define themselves as they pursue their dreams. Simran...

A dark midwinter’s night in an ancient inn on the Thames. The regulars are entertaining themselves by telling stories when the door bursts open on an injured stranger. In his arms is the drowned corpse of a little child. Hours later the dead girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life. Is it a miracle? Is it magic? Or can it be explained by science? An exquisitely crafted multilayered mystery brimming with folklore, suspense and romance as well as with the urgent scientific curiosity of the Darwinian age.

William the Bastard, base-born son of the Duke of Normandy, must fight the king of France to regain his Duchy. Spurned in love by the lovely Princess Matilda, the fighting duke dares to take a whip to her in her own father's palace, before making her his bride. Thwarted by the Saxon Earl Harold of a promise of the throne of England, William the Conqueror sails to Hastings to claim the king's crown and sceptre for his own.

Jezebel. You’ve heard the name. But you’ve never heard her story. "Historical fiction at its finest," (Louisa Morgan) this propulsive novel is a stunning reimagining of the story of a fierce princess from Tyre and her infamous legacy Jezebel was born into the world howling. She intends to...

It is no ordinary Christmas at Lexham Manor. Six holiday guests find themselves the suspects of a murder enquiry when the old Scrooge, Nathaniel Herriad, who owns the substantial estate, is found stabbed in the back. Whilst the delicate matter of inheritance could be the key to this crime, the real conundrum is how any of the suspects could have entered the locked room to commit this foul deed. For Inspector Hemingway of Scotland Yard, 'tis the season to find whodunit. 

In April 1942, Hitler and Mussolini plan the huge offensive on the Eastern Front that will culminate in the greatest battle in human history. Hundreds of miles away, Pyotr Vavilov receives his call-up papers and spends a final night with his wife and children in the hut that is his home. As war approaches, the Shaposhnikov family gathers for a meal: despite her age, Alexandra will soon become a refugee, Tolya will enlist in the reserves, Vera, a Nurse, will fall in love with a wounded pilot and Viktor Shtrum will receive a letter from his doomed mother which will haunt him forever. 

As the Japanese begin their assault on Singapore, Sarah Fuller is forced to leave her parents and fiancé, Philip, behind. The long journey to England is fraught with danger, and Sarah and her sister Jane don’t even know if their great-aunt is alive, let alone waiting for them. They arrive in Cliffehaven, on the south coast of England, and here Sarah must find work to support them both. When the Women's Timber Corps takes over the local estate, Sarah enlists as a lumberjill.

After having travelled west for weeks, the party of pioneers comes to a crossroads. It is time for their leader, George Donner, to make a choice. They face two diverging paths which lead to the same destination. One is well-documented, the other untested but rumoured to be shorter. Donner’s decision will shape the lives of everyone travelling with him. The searing heat of the desert gives way to biting winds and a bitter cold that freezes the cattle where they stand.