Collection: Historical Fiction

For fans of HBO's The Gilded Age, explore the dark side of the alluring world of America's 19th century elite in this gripping series of riveting mysteries... For Newport, Rhode Island's high society, the summer of 1896 brings lawn parties, sailboat races...and murder. Having turned down the proposal of Derrick Andrews, Emma Cross has no imminent plans for matrimony-let alone motherhood. But when she discovers an infant left on her doorstep, she naturally takes the child into her care. Using her influence as a cousin to the Vanderbilts and a society page reporter for the Newport Observer, Emma launches a discreet search for the baby's mother. One of her first stops is a lawn party at Mrs. Caroline Astor's Beechwood estate. But an idyllic summer's day is soon clouded by tragedy. During a sailboat race, textile magnate Virgil Monroe falls overboard. There are prompt accusations of foul play-and even Derrick Andrews falls under suspicion. Deepening the intrigue, a telltale slip of lace may link the abandoned child to the drowned man. But as Emma navigates dark undercurrents of scandalous indiscretions and violent passions, she'll need to watch her step to ensure that no one lowers the boom on her...

Inspired by the true story of how the Grand Mosque of Paris saved the lives of hundreds of Jews during World War II, Hiba Noor Khan weaves a breathtaking tale of suspense, compassion, and courage, starring an extraordinary young heroine readers will never forget.

Safiyyah loathes the brutal Nazi occupation of Paris, even though her Muslim identity keeps her safe--or, at least, safer than her Jewish neighbors. Violence lurks in the streets, her best friend has fled, and even her place of refuge--the library--has turned shadowy and confusing, as the invaders fear the power of books.

Safiyyah longs to fight back and hates feeling powerless to help her Jewish friends. Worse yet, her father--who taught her to always do the right thing--is acting strangely and doing nothing to help them either.

Or is he?

Unravelling the mystery of her father's odd behavior draws Safiyyah deep in the heart of the perilous underground resistance to the Nazis, where her bravery is put to the ultimate test...

When the ancient scriptures are uttered.....you never know what might happen under the blinding light of a full moon.

She was born in darkness, under the shadow of a full moon during a solar eclipse, with a mysterious black dagger at her side. As a child, Olivia James witnessed her mother's gruesome murder. As an adult, her godfather has trained her to be a skilled fighter. But when Olivia's boyfriend betrays her and threatens her life, setting off a string of events that catapults her back in time from 21st century Seattle into 3rd century Rome, the secrets of her past begin to unravel. The discovery that she is a Timeborne, one with the ability to travel across time, is just the beginning.

Soon Olivia finds herself under the protection of--and owned by--Roman Alexander, a former gladiator and bodyguard to the emperor. Torn between his duty to his emperor, a desire for vengeance, and a longing to search for his lost twin brother, Roman now has the added complication of protecting this strange woman from the depravity of ancient Rome. Worse, he finds himself falling for her, despite accusations that she is an enemy spy.

But even Roman is no match for the dark shadow that has pursued Olivia into the past. A fighter in her own right, she's forced to work with Roman to find a way back to her own time. Do the ancient scriptures on her dagger hold the key? Can she trust Roman with her secrets? And can she fight her enemies and protect her heart at the same time?

Timeborne is the first book in the Blade of Shadows series. Begin your adventure now!

Amateur sleuth Flavia de Luce, along with her pestilent younger cousin, investigates the murder of a former public hangman and uncovers secrets that bring the greatest shock of her life.

Flavia de Luce has taken on the mentorship of her odious, moon-faced cousin Undine, who has come to live at Buckshaw following the death of her mother. Undine's main talent, aside from cultivating disgusting habits, seems to be raising Flavia's dander, although in her best moments she shows potential for trespassing, trickery, and other assorted mayhems.

When Major Greyleigh, a local recluse and former hangman, is found dead from a breakfast of poisonous mushrooms, suspicion falls on the de Luce family's longtime cook, Mrs. Mullet. After all, wasn't it she who picked the mushrooms, cooked the omelette, and served it to Greyleigh in the moments before his death? "I have to admit," says Flavia, an expert in the chemical nature of poisons, "that I'd been praying to God for a jolly good, old-fashioned mushroom poisoning. Not that I wanted anyone to die, but why give a girl a gift such as mine without giving her the opportunity to use it?"

But Flavia knows the beloved Mrs. Mullet is innocent. Together with Dogger, estate gardener and partner-in-crime, and the obnoxious Undine, she sets out to find the real killer and clear Mrs. Mullet's good name. Little does she know that following the case's twists and turns will lead her to a most surprising discovery--one with the power to upend her entire life.

The thrilling prequel to Dragon Age: Origins, the hit role-playing video game from award-winning developer BioWare!

Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne

After his mother, the beloved Rebel Queen, is betrayed and murdered by her own faithless lords, young Maric becomes the leader of a rebel army attempting to free his nation from the control of a foreign tyrant.

His countrymen live in fear; his commanders consider him untested; and his only allies are Loghain, a brash young outlaw who saved his life, and Rowan, the beautiful warrior maiden promised to him since birth. Surrounded by spies and traitors, Maric must find a way to not only survive but achieve his ultimate destiny: Ferelden's freedom and the return of his line to the stolen throne.

In the 1500s, a ship of seafaring navigators run afoul of a lost world where there is only one king, the King of the Monsters!

Before humanity had successfully traveled the entire globe, it was believed that monsters ruled the oceans just beyond the horizon. "Here there be dragons..." was written on maps to denote the areas people dared not go.That is, until Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the seas, visiting foreign lands and collecting treasure. That's what history tells us, at least, but history does not have the full tale.

Monsters did lurk yonder, living on an island that still doesn't appear on any map, and among them was the king of them all...Godzilla! From Frank Tieri and Inaki Miranda, the incredible team behind Old Lady Harley, comes a Godzilla adventure like no other. Collects the five-issue series.

What happens when a steamy duke who has never lost in battle meets the innocent young lady determined to conquer his heart?

When Lady Henley Killigrew's father dies and his title of earl passes to a not so friendly cousin who wants her and her two younger sisters out of their elegant London townhouse, she takes them to Moonstone Cottage, a lovely manor house they inherited from a maiden aunt in the Cornwall seaside village of Moonstone Landing. But their funds are limited, and the new earl is a stingy guardian who will not loosen the purse strings to allow her to properly maintain herself and her sisters in their new home. The only way to save them all is for her to marry, for that is the only way to claim her trust fund. Would her neighbor, Cain St. Austell, the brooding and reclusive Duke of Malvern, consider a marriage of convenience?

Cain St. Austell, the Duke of Malvern, has returned home now that Napoleon is defeated. But those grueling war years have left him scarred both physically and in his soul, for he lost too many friends and is not certain how or why he ever survived. Knowing he needs time away from London society and the madness of the Marriage Mart in order to heal, he has acquired a property in the quiet village of Moonstone Landing. Marriage is the last thing on his mind, until his neighbor, the beautiful and slightly eccentric, Lady Henley Killigrew, appears on his doorstep with a startling proposal...and he accepts.

In fact, Cain is the one who does the proposing because when the heart knows, it knows.

Moonstone Landing

The Moonstone Duke

The Moonstone Marquess

The Moonstone Major

Novellas:

Moonstone Landing

Moonstone Angel

Winner of the 2021 City of Victoria Children's Book Prize

It's the summer of 1978 and most people think Elvis Presley has been dead for a year. But not eleven-year-old Truly Bateman - because she knows Elvis is alive and well and living in the Eagle Shores Trailer Park. Maybe no one ever thought to look for him at on the Eagle Shores First Nation on Vancouver Island.

It's a busy summer for Truly. Though her mother is less of a mother than she ought to be, and spends her time drinking and smoking and working her way through new boyfriends, Truly is determined to raise as much money for herself as she can through her lemonade stand ... and to prove that her cool new neighbour is the one and only King of Rock 'n' Roll. And when she can't find motherly support in her own home, she finds sanctuary with Andy El, the Salish woman who runs the trailer park.

USA Today bestelling author Naomi Rawlings returns to Eagle Harbor for the second novel of her fan favorite Eagle Harbor Series.

He knows how to save drowning sailors, but can he save the woman he loves from the biggest mistake of her life...?

Fisherman Elijah Cummings regularly braves the dangerous waves of Lake Superior to rescue shipwrecked sailors, but when his long-time enemy returns to Eagle Harbor, Elijah finds himself swimming through uncharted waters. He learned the importance of being kind and living peaceably with his neighbors as a child, but as a grown man, just how hard does he need to try to make peace with his enemy? Especially when his enemy seems bent on ruining him... and is planning to marry the woman he's loved for fifteen years?

Victoria Donnelly is happy to be back in the small, quiet town where she grew up. But she's not in Eagle Harbor to enjoy beautiful sunrises, friendly neighbors, and peaceful walks along the beach. She's there because she's made a mistake, and she needs to fix it. Yet she's finding it harder and harder to ignore the feelings she has for her childhood friend, Elijah Cummings. And that's a pretty big problem, because shipping barons' daughters don't marry fishermen's sons, no matter how kind and attentive those sons might be.

But when Victoria and Elijah end up caught in a feud that pits the good of the town against the desires of a few wealthy businessmen, they face choices that test their faith, both in each other, and in God. To what lengths should Christians go to make peace with those around them-and what if Elijah's and Victoria's hearts can't survive the choices they each must make?

Over 450,000 copies sold in the series!

A thirteen-year-old medical genius gives a boy on death row a chance at life after death!

David Douglas wishes he'd never been born. What's the point of a slum boy enduring a miserable existence and ending up on death row? Victoria Frankenstein, a thirteen-year-old medical doctor, offers him a change of fate. Together they can help people and prove the worth of Victoria's invention: the electric coffin. After David becomes Eins, what kind of life will this second chance offer?

The stirring and dramatic story of one young woman who must find a way to overcome her deepest fears in order to unlock the secret that will help America and the Allies to victory as World War II rages on.

Seventeen-year-old Eleanor is nothing like her hero Eleanor Roosevelt. She is timid and all together uncertain that she has much to offer the world. And as World War II rages overseas, Eleanor is consumed with worry for her Jewish relatives in Europe. When a chance encounter proves her to be a one-in-a-generation math whiz--a fact she has worked hard all her life to hide--Eleanor gets recruited by the US Army and entrusted with the ultimate challenge: to fine-tune a top-secret weapon that will help America defeat its enemies in World War II and secure the world's freedom. This could be her chance to help save her family in Poland.

Soon, she's swept from the basement of an Ivy League engineering school, to the desert of California, to an Army Air Corps base at Pearl Harbor, and finally she takes to the skies above the South Pacific.

But before she can solve this complicated problem, she must learn to unlock a bigger mystery: herself.

Critically acclaimed author of The Poetry of Secrets, Cambria Gordon weaves an extraordinary story of remarkable courage and the will to unearth our deepest secrets, based on previously undiscovered true events.

Advance praise for TRAJECTORY:

"Cambria Gordon's careful attention to setting and detail brings an unknown and surprising history vividly to life--and draws thought-provoking parallels to the present." --Amanda McCrina, author of Traitor and The Silent Unseen

"Hidden Figures meets Code Name Verity in Trajectory, a richly detailed historical novel about Eleanor, a gifted female mathematician under pressure to get the results of her calculations right at the height of World War II. With members of her own Jewish family suffering a terrible fate in Europe, Eleanor is determined to make a difference--even if it means facing her fears head-on. I couldn't put this down!" --Kip Wilson, award-winning author of White Rose and The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin

"Well-paced and immersive, Trajectory takes readers on an exciting journey from Philadelphia to the California desert to the skies over the Pacific theater in the Second World War. Equally powerful is Eleanor's journey from timid high school senior hiding her math ability to problem solver unafraid to stand up to superiors and skeptics in pursuit of the Allies' victory. Gordon's novel honors the long-ignored women who helped make that victory happen." --Lyn Miller-Lachmann, author of Torch, winner of the 2023 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for YA Literature.

Professor Claus Eisenstadt, a refugee from Nazi Germany, and a brilliant mathematician, disappears from Columbia University one day. After the police have given up the search, mathematics graduate student Judy Carter, compelled to solve puzzling problems-both in science and in real life-becomes intrigued with his sudden disappearance. As she tries to learn more about the whereabouts and welfare of the professor, Judy begins to suspect his unexpected absence may have something to do with his earlier days in Germany. Judy follows up on some of her theories about Professor Eisenstadt's mysterious disappearance, but she is forced to give up without a solution.

Years later, Judy has herself become a professor. While on sabbatical in Germany, she decides to look further into Eisenstadt's disappearance, and begins to understand more about him, but is unable to find the answer to the puzzle of his vanishing. When Judy returns home to the US, she finds a thick envelope waiting for her, which contains an unusual request. She is surprised to find that it concerns Eisenstadt. Could this unexpected package be the link that helps Judy finally learn what happened to Claus and why he vanished?

As the story unfolds, the novel travels between student days in prewar Germany and postwar America, which were impacted by prewar anti-Semitism and postwar guilt. The reader is allowed a glimpse into the work of scientific researchers and the interplay of that work with their personal lives.

Maria von Trapp. You know the name and the iconic songs, but do you know her real story? This dramatic novel, based on the woman glamorized in The Sound of Music, brings Maria to life as never before.

In the 1950s, Oscar Hammerstein is asked to write the lyrics to a musical based on the life of a woman named Maria von Trapp. He's intrigued to learn that she was once a novice who hoped to live quietly as an Austrian nun before her abbey sent her away to teach a widowed baron's sickly child. What should have been a ten-month assignment, however, unexpectedly turned into a marriage proposal. And when the family was forced to flee their home to escape the Nazis, it was Maria who instructed them on how to survive using nothing but the power of their voices.

It's an inspirational story, to be sure, and as half of the famous Rodgers & Hammerstein duo, Hammerstein knows it has big Broadway potential. Yet much of Maria's life will have to be reinvented for the stage, and with the horrors of war still fresh in people's minds, Hammerstein can't let audiences see just how close the von Trapps came to losing their lives.

But when Maria sees the script that is supposedly based on her life, she becomes so incensed that she sets off to confront Hammerstein in person. Told that he's busy, she is asked to express her concerns to his secretary, Fran, instead. The pair strike up an unlikely friendship as Maria tells Fran about her life, contradicting much of what will eventually appear in The Sound of Music.

A tale of love, loss, and the difficult choices that we are often forced to make, Maria is a powerful reminder that the truth is usually more complicated--and certainly more compelling--than the stories immortalized by Hollywood.

Patrick O'Brian's twenty-one-volume Aubrey/Maturin series has delighted generations of devoted fans, inspired a blockbuster film, and sold millions of copies in twenty-four languages. These five omnibus volumes, beautifully produced and boxed, contain 7,000 pages of what has often been described as a single, continuous narrative. They are a perfect tribute for such a literary achievement, and a perfect gift for the O'Brian enthusiast.

With his beloved Gothic tales, Washington Irving is said to have created the genre of the short story in America. Though Irving crafted many of the most memorable characters in fiction, from Rip Van Winkle to Ichabod Crane, his gifts were not confined to the short story alone. He was also a master of satire, essay, travelogue, and folktale, as evidenced in this classic collection.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, "Every reader has a first book.... which, in early youth, first fascinates his imagination, and at once excites and satisfies the desires of his mind. To me, this first book was The Sketch Book of Washington Irving... The charm of The Sketch Book remains unbroken; the old fascination still lingers about it."

Alive with the magic of Amsterdam, the enchanting new historical novel from the author of the sensational New York Times bestseller The Miniaturist, which has sold more than two million copies.

In 1705 Amsterdam, Thea Brandt is coming of age, trying to grapple with her family's secrets and her own identity as a young Dutch-African woman. She's drawn to the theater and an artistic life, but with her family in serious financial decline, pressure is on Thea to marry up in society.

As her father and Aunt Nella work desperately to save the family home and catastrophe threatens to engulf them, Thea seeks refuge in the arms of her secret lover, Walter, the chief set-painter at her favorite theater. But the thrill of their romance is shadowed by another secret she keeps close: Her birthday marks the day her mother, Marin, died in labor. Thea's family refuses to share the details of the story, just as they seem terrified to speak of the shadowy artist from their past whose tiny figurines seem to capture the things most carefully hidden away. Aunt Nella believes the solution to Thea's problems is to find her a husband, and an unexpected invitation to Amsterdam's most exclusive ball seems like a golden opportunity. But when a miniature figure of Walter turns up on Thea's doorstep, it becomes clear that someone out there has another fate in mind for the family- and that perhaps the new beginning Thea seeks won't depend on a man.

A feat of sweeping, magical storytelling, The House of Fortune is an unputdownable novel about love and obsession, family and loyalty, and the fantastic power of secrets.