Showing titles in Historical Fiction

November 1911. Lady Emily Hardcastle is celebrating her birthday by seeing a play at the Duke’s Theatre in Bristol with her maid and confidante, the inimitable Flo. Act One is a triumph. Then Act Two opens with a body on stage—a real one. One of the cast has been brutally murdered during the interval. When other matters get in the way of Inspector Sunderland overseeing the case himself, he asks the ever-resourceful Lady H to keep a watchful eye on the suspects—and his police colleagues.

Believers in the theory of nominalism have set some Cambridge colleges at the throats of those who believe them to be heretics, and Michael, the senior proctor, has his work cut out to keep the peace. When a nominalist is murdered during a riot, Michael is certain he will easily find the killer amongst the Dominicans, but before he can get any sense out of them his junior proctor, Walcote, is found hanged, and he discovers that his trusted ally had arranged secret meetings at the St Ragelund Convent....

Mr. Darcy is not in want of a wife. Determined to avoid a loveless marriage, he devises a clever plan to protect his heart from fortune-hunters and relentless matchmakers. Elizabeth Bennet heartily agrees to join him in feigning a courtship, believing it will allow her to escape her mother’s matchmaking schemes. As their deception spirals into a whirlwind of unexpected complications, both Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy begin to discover a deep connection neither of them anticipated.

Echoes in the Stone, written by Joshua Bish. Some places do not need ghosts. The walls remember them. When freelance journalist Ellie Glass enters the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, she believes she’s chasing a forgotten chapter of West Virginia history, a trail of vanished patients, missing records, and whispered rumors buried beneath the stone. What she finds instead is something far older than the hospital’s crumbling halls… and far hungrier than the dead who never left. The deeper Ellie searches, the more the asylum changes around her. Corridors shift. Shadows breathe.

Minalan the Spellmonger has a problem: Mycin Amana, the undead consort of Korbal the Necromancer, is not only occupying one of the largest castles in the kingdom; she’s also occupying the recently-dead body of his former lover, rapist, and mother of his children, Isily of Greenflower. As the crises in the heart of the kingdom grows, Minalan is tasked to force the so-called Witch Queen of Darkfaller from her new stronghold using any means necessary. Unfortunately, the castle belongs to his rival in the royal court and future monarch Prince Tavard, whose ideas are doomed to failure.

Mercia, 878 AD—Witch-warrior Niamh discovers a new order called the Hidden Ones is seeking to establish a foothold in Lunden. Her people have already been scarred by Viking raiders, bloody wars, and clashing cultures. Determined to protect what remains of her homeland, she infiltrates this new group to discover whether they stand with her … or against her.

And now, her uncle wants to marry her off to the fallen son of her arch-enemy. But Jael is a battle-hardened warrior, trained to kill since she was 10-years-old. She doesn’t plan on being anyone’s wife. Eadmund Skalleson is drunk. His father is threatening him with a wife again. And this time he’s given him an ultimatum. Marry Jael Furyck or your brother returns from exile. But if Eadmund was ever going to choose a wife, it wouldn’t be Jael Furyck. Not her. Not ever.

In 1350 the people of Cambridge are struggling to overcome the effects of the Black Death - and with a high mortality rate among priests and monks, the townsfolk are vulnerable to sinister cults that have sprung up. At Michaelhouse, Matthew Bartholomew is training new physicians when the body of a friar is found in the massive chest that the university uses to store precious documents. While investigating, Bartholomew stumbles across a derelict church being used as a meeting place for the mysterious sect he believes is at the heart of a web of blackmail.

Occupied France, 1942: Psychiatrist Dr. Adélaïde Hautval is arrested for defending a Jewish family. When she’s deported to Auschwitz and assigned to the women’s infirmary, she’s ordered to assist with sterilization experiments under SS doctors—including the infamous Josef Mengele. As the line between healing and harm blurs, Adélaïde makes a choice that could cost her everything. London, 1964: Two decades later, one of the Nazi doctors is on trial—and Adélaïde is the key to exposing the truth.

The Naval Service of the Honorable East India Company, popularly known as the Bombay Marine, operated in romantic areas in perilous times. From the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea, from Calcutta to Canton, the Company ships were famous for their speed and daring. The "Bombay Buccaneers" who sailed them were the stuff of legend. For Percival Merewether, 1806 would be a year to remember.

London, 1941. Miss Jane Treen is faced with another mysterious disappearance within her Secret Detective Agency’s team. Tabitha Moore, a government typist, was on her way to meet Jane with vital information about some secret codes. But she didn’t turn up for work and has seemingly vanished without trace. Then Jane and her colleague, handsome codebreaker Arthur Cilento, receive a call: a body has been found, and it matches Tabitha’s description…

In 1808, Elizabeth Bennet is young, curious, and in possession of an invitation to a London party which she ought not to attend. Unable to resist the temptation, Elizabeth indulges her wish to see a party of the beau monde and finds herself in a dangerous situation. She is saved from a desperate fate by Mr. Darcy of Pemberley, but relief is short-lived. Mr Gardiner arrives and demands satisfaction on behalf of his young niece’s honor.

April 1284. As a newly widowed lady-in-waiting to the very pregnant Queen Eleanor of England, Catrin never expected to return to Wales again. She was definitely unprepared to be confronted with murder when she got there - or to find herself face-to-face with Rhys, the childhood friend she lost 20 years before. Rhys had never intended to return home either, but a lifetime of war has deposited him right back where he started - impoverished and owing service to Catrin's older brother.

The Archers is the first book of an exciting saga of action and adventure set in medieval England. In this compelling tale, an Englishman rises to become the captain of a company of archers and leads its survivors back to England from King Richard's crusade.

From the author of the bestselling Seven Sisters series, Lucinda Riley's Hothouse Flower is a moving story of love, heartbreak and, above all, hope. Read by Stephanie Racine (Daisy Darker) Georgian mansion Wharton Park was a place of childhood solace for Julia Forrester, spending summers in the...

"Marry me, and I'll let your father live." Princess Caliane is convinced she'll die. Her castle's gates are torn open, her father, the king, bound and gagged on his throne, and in his throne room stands the tyrant. His skin is gray, his teeth sharp, his hands tipped with black claws. When he smiles like a predator scenting prey, her stomach roils with terror. The monster forces her to choose: her father's life for her hand in marriage.

Bombay, 1921: Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father's law firm, becoming one of the first female lawyers in India. Armed with a law degree from Oxford, Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes her especially devoted to championing and protecting women's legal rights. Mistry Law has been appointed to execute the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen is going through the paperwork, she notices something strange.

Winter, 1920. Amateur sleuth Lady Eleanor Swift is feeling festive. She is playing host to the entire village at Henley Hall. She’s also purchased perfect presents for each of her household - not forgetting the biggest bone in the butcher’s shop for her partner in crime, Gladstone the bulldog - and is looking forward to celebrating her first English country Christmas. As snowflakes fall, Eleanor is cheering on contestants in the traditional Christmas fun run in the grounds of the hall. But tragedy strikes when one of the runners drops dead at the finish line.

Legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel is revered for her sophisticated style - the iconic little black dress - and famed for her intoxicating perfume Chanel No. 5. Yet behind the public persona is a complicated woman of intrigue, shadowed by mysterious rumors. The Queen of Paris, the new novel from award-winning author Pamela Binnings Ewen, vividly imagines the hidden life of Chanel during the four years of Nazi occupation in Paris in the midst of WWII - as discovered in recently unearthed wartime files.

A year has passed since the Sheridans fled the plague in England, but a new crisis tears Valerie and Louisa apart once again, with dire consequences. As the stranded Whitfields desperately try to return home to the 17th century, the Sheridans face a threat of a different nature. The past rarely stays in the past, and a shocking murder brings things to a head as Kit is accused of the crime, and shameful secrets are brought into the open.