Showing titles in Historical Fiction

This hugely engaging story of murder, superstition, religious politics and drama in a medieval monastery was one of the most striking novels to appear in the 1980s. The Name of the Rose is a thrilling story enriched with period detail and laced with tongue-in-cheek allusions to fictional characters, the most striking of which is the Franciscan friar William of Baskerville, who displays many characteristics of Sherlock Holmes.

Having survived a long and desperate adventure in the Great South Sea, Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin return to England to very different circumstances. For Jack it is a happy homecoming, at least initially, but for Stephen it is disastrous: his little daughter appears to be autistic, incapable of speech or contact, while his wife, Diana, unable to bear this situation, has disappeared, her house being looked after by the widowed Clarissa Oakes.

Brought to you by Penguin. THE TIKTOK FANTASY SENSATION THAT'S SOLD OVER HALF A MILLION COPIES, PERFECT FOR FANS OF SARAH J. MAAS AND JENNIFER L. ARMENTROUT 'It scares me - what I did that night. Because I don't know my own power . . . But that's been the problem all along, hasn't it?' My life...

From the Orange Prize-winning, internationally best-selling author of The Song of Achilles comes the powerful story of the mythological witch Circe, inspired by Homer's Odyssey. In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe has neither the look nor the voice of divinity and is scorned and rejected by her kin. Increasingly isolated, she turns to mortals for companionship, leading her to discover a power forbidden to the gods: witchcraft.

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER THE EPIC NEW EAGLES OF THE EMPIRE NOVEL FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR SIMON SCARROW The city of Rome. The most dangerous place in the Empire. The fates of military heroes Macro and Cato lie in Emperor Nero's bloody hands . . . AD 62. Under the reckless and...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2026 SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025 A moment is all it takes to shatter a family. The echoes last a lifetime... One evening, ten-year-old Louisa and her father, Serk, take a walk out on the breakwater. They are spending the summer in a coastal...

'Jodi Taylor is quite simply the Queen of Time' C. K. MCDONNELL The nail-bitingly tense, rib-crackingly funny new TIME POLICE mission from the million-copy bestselling author of THE CHRONICLES OF ST MARY'S. The Time Police don't think twice about jumping to the past. But, this time, the past has...

*SHARPE’S COMMAND, the brand new novel in the global bestselling series, is available to pre-order now* Lieutenant Richard Sharpe and a detachment of riflemen join the assault of a strong French force holding the Holy City of Santiago de Compostela. Lieutenant Richard Sharpe and a detachment...

The story of the Gunbus. First Lieutenant Bill Harsker and his squadron come up against the deadly Fokker monoplane. While many other squadrons are decimated, the Gunbuses give the fledgling RFC hope. When a new commanding officer takes over the squadron and imposes impossible rules, lives are lost and Bill has to face a court martial. All of the gains they have made are threatened by a martinet. The novel spans the end of 1915 and the start of 1916. It shows the harsh realities of life on the Western Front, in the air and the problems of the civilians back home.

Born in Colombo, Judith Dunbar spends her teenage years at boarding school while her beloved mother and younger sister live abroad with her father. When her new friend, Loveday Carey-Lewis, invites Judith home for the weekend to Nancherrow, the Carey-Lewises' beautiful estate on the Cornish coast, it is love at first sight.

Persuasion, Jane Austen's last novel, is a tale of love and marriage told with irony and insight. Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth have met and seperated years before. Their reunion, after the passage or irrecoverable years of their youth, forces a recognition of the false values that drove them apart.

‘Sharpe and his creator are national treasures.' Sunday Telegraph India, December 1803 The British army are closing in on enemy troops in western India and Ensign Richard Sharpe, freshly promoted yet unsure of his position, finds himself vulnerable: he’s unwelcome among the officers, yet...

'One of the greatest storytellers of our time' Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing 'A story of love, family, unbreakable bonds, bravery and hope' Christy Lefteri, author of The Beekeeper of Aleppo The Four Winds, an instant New York Times number one bestseller and Richard and Judy...

Brought to you by Penguin. Cold War Moscow is a place smouldering with secrets. Gabriel Dax has been tasked with delivering a mysterious Blanco drawing to celebrated defector Kit Caldwell. But Caldwell is convinced the KGB suspects him of treachery, and he wants out now. When Gabriel is ordered...

Brought to you by Penguin. The latest novel in the smash-hit Plated Prisoners by Sunday Times bestselling author Raven Kennedy 'Find me in another life. Find me in them all' It all ends now. . . But Every end is also a beginning. I was supposed to die. If it weren’t for Slade, I would have...

When the body of a renowned British archeologist is found inside a sarcophagus he was bringing back from a dig in Egypt, Redmond and Haze must determine who aboard the Sea Witch had reason to want him dead. The method of murder suggests it was someone familiar with the funerary rites of the Ancient Egyptians, casting suspicion on members of the expedition, but there were others aboard the vessel who might have harbored a grudge against Blake Upton for reasons unconnected to the dig.

My father called them messengers. He once told me they walked among us and that somewhere in this dark and godless city, there shined a faint sliver of hope. I had only to look for the signs. Well, I’ve spent my whole life investigating the inexplicable and all I've found are the unsettling vestiges of iniquity—the evidence of another world shrouded by the obscure. Purgatory to some, where depravity hides in shadows, and girls like me are little more than delicious bites of temptation. Others call it Nightshade.

July 1910. Lady Hardcastle and her tireless sidekick Flo have finally embarked on a long-overdue seaside break. But just as they’re wavering between ice creams and donkey rides, their fellow guests start to go missing - and the duo find themselves with a hysterical hotel manager and a case to solve. The first to disappear is Dr Goddard, a scientist doing something terribly top-secret for the government.

The call comes at dawn. Three words. Come to Pompeii. Marcus Russo has spent his career excavating the past. He has never been afraid of what he might find—until now. The chamber shouldn't exist. Neither should what's painted on its walls. The seven-petaled rose. The geometric cross. The unmistakable iconography of Rosicrucian tradition, preserved beneath two millennia of volcanic ash—etched into Roman plaster nearly fifteen centuries before the brotherhood claims to have been born. The discovery doesn't just rewrite history. It destroys a myth that powerful men have killed to protect.

AN IMPOSSIBLE MISSION. A QUEST FOR THE TRUTH. ONLY SHE HAS WHAT IT TAKES . . . 1943, America SOE's Saffron Courtney is back in New York, but even as she recovers from her mission to Washington, events on the other side of the Atlantic are making her return to England inevitable. The War Office...