Showing titles in Historical Fiction

There are always rules... I am the Dream Master. Not you. What I say goes. And I say this dream is gone, so beat it.’ There are good dreams and there are rotten dreams, but once they’re over, they’re over. Or are they? For one morning, as Cy is about to wake up from a terrific dream about Ancient Egypt, he discovers that he can get back into his dream world. There’s just one problem: the Dream Master, who isn’t used to stroppy boys standing up to him and wanting to break all the rules.

Australian Greek girl Nandi travels to her ancestors’ home in Ithaca, and discovers—through a friendship with an extremely unusual flying fish—the extraordinary story of her great-aunt, Elena; of how she fell in love, in the hardest of times, and how of how she became an unsung hero of World War Two. But Elena has gone missing, and Nandi has to find her. In her search, she will discover that Elena was an even greater hero than she thought—and still is....

February 1948. Ruth has been whisked off to the lonely Rook Farm to investigate the discovery of long-buried treasure with her mother. But at the farmhouse, she finds secrets lurk around every corner. Joe, the farmer's son, is hiding something about the treasure, while land girl Audrey watches their every move. But before Ruth can find out more, the treasure is stolen. With a storm coming, Ruth must race to uncover the secrets of the treasure keepers before all their lives are changed forever.

War has forced Omar and his mother to leave their home in Afghanistan and venture across the sea to Europe. When their boat sinks, and Omar finds himself alone, with no hope of rescue, it seems as if his story has come to an end. But it is only just beginning. Because in the end, a little hope makes a big difference....

When the dogs on Flavia's street start dying, she is determined to find out who is killing them and why. Set in a Roman city, this fast-paced mystery paints a vivid picture of life in ancient times.

Missing maids, suspicious teachers and a snow storm to die for.... For a fearless girl called Justice Jones, super-smart super-sleuth, it's just the start of a spine-tingling first term at Highbury House Boarding School for the Daughters of Gentlefolk. For fans of Robin Stevens, Katherine Woodfine and Enid Blyton. When Justice's mother dies, her father packs her off to Highbury House Boarding School for the Daughters of Gentlefolk. He's a barrister - specialising in murder trials - and he's just too busy to look after her alone.

Cymbeline Igloo is bored. Bored of home learning, bored of lockdown, bored of not being able to do anything. And to make things even worse, his mum accidentally gave away his favourite football shirt. But then Mrs Stebbings, the beloved school cook, is taken into hospital, and suddenly coronavirus seems much closer to home. When Cym starts a project all about Mrs Stebbings’ childhood in World War II, he can’t know that it’s the beginning of something incredible and even dangerous.

In 1896, in a pilgrim church in the Alps, an abandoned baby girl is found by a cook and a housemaid. They take her home, and Annika grows up in the servants' quarters of a house belonging to three eccentric Viennese professors. She is happy there but dreams of the day when her real mother will come to find her. One day a glamorous stranger arrives at the door.

Boston, 1891. Sophia Tims comes from a family of explorers and cartologers who, for generations, have been traveling and mapping the New World - a world changed by the Great Disruption of 1799, when all the continents were flung into different time periods. Eight years ago, her parents left her with her uncle Shadrack, the foremost cartologer in Boston, and went on an urgent mission. They never returned. Life with her brilliant, absent-minded, adored uncle has taught Sophia to take care of herself.

Jack can't wait for the school trip to the D-Day landing beaches. It's his chance to learn more about the war heroes he has always admired – brave men like his dad, who is a reserve soldier. But when his dad is called up to action and things at home spiral out of control, everything Jack believes about war is thrown into question. Finding comfort only in the presence of his loyal dog, Finn, Jack is drawn to the heart-wrenching true story of one particular D-Day paratrooper.

Archibald is a risk-averse boy with quirks that earn him plenty of eye-rolls, especially from his older sister, Hailee. Things get worse when his parents move the family from London to his grandmother’s creepy manor in the English countryside. Now he has to deal with hairless dolls in the library, weird stone creatures on the roof, and a spooky forest at the edge of the backyard. But these turn out to be the least of Archibald's problems.

The little settlement that weathered the long, hard winter of 1880-81 is now a growing town. Laura is growing up, and she goes to her first evening social. Mary is at last able to go to a college for the blind. Best of all, Almanzo Wilder asks permission to walk home from church with Laura. And Laura, now 15 years old, receives her certificate to teach school.

The first Magic Tree House® Super Edition - and Jack and Annie's most dangerous mission ever in the scariest time the world has ever known: World War II. With a longer story and additional facts, this is a thrilling adventure no listener will want to miss!

London, 1665. Fourteen-year-old Christopher Rowe is apprenticed to master apothecary Benedict Blackthorn. In Blackthorn's shop, Christopher learns the delicate secrets of transforming simple ingredients into powerful medicines, potions and weapons. His beloved master guides him with a firm, steady hand - instilling him with confidence and independence that prove increasingly vital as Christopher learns of a mysterious cult preying on the most learned men in London.

Margaret Thursday was named after the day she was found on the church steps as a baby. But she isn’t really an orphan – each year a bag of gold coins is left at the church for her keep. When the money suddenly stops, her guardians have no choice but to send her away to an orphanage. The orphanage is worse than they could have imagined. Vowing to protect her new friends, Peter and Horatio, Margaret plans their daring escape...but she’ll have to outwit Matron at every turn.

In the aftermath of World War One, everyone is trying to rebuild their lives. If Ben is to avoid being sent back to the orphanage, he needs to find his brother Sam, wounded in action and is now missing. Lotti's horrible aunt and uncle want to send her away to boarding-school (when she has just so successfully managed to get expelled from her last one!). And Clara, their young teacher, is waiting for news of her missing fiancé.

The second instalment in the Taylor and Rose Secret Agents series from best-selling children’s author Katherine Woodfine. With Sophie still missing in action after their explosive mission in Paris, Lil decides to take matters into her own hands. On a new mission for the Secret Service Bureau, can Lil find Sophie in misty, mysterious St Petersburg? Can they uncover the identity of their true enemy and can they trust anyone - even the Bureau? It's time for Sophie and Lil to put their spy skills to the test.

Charley has grown up behind the curtain in London's West End; she has even begun taking a turn on stage. But her dreams of being a performer are shattered when she is sent off to boarding school, a place where the girls are forced to do unpaid work in order to fill the pockets of the owners. When she discovers that her theatre home is in peril, Charley decides to escape, and make a dangerous journey along the coast in order to get back to – and save – all that she loves.

It’s 1944. Twelve-year-old Grace Devine lives at Blacksod Lighthouse and weather station in County Mayo with her parents and little brother. When a German plane crashes nearby, she and her best friend Sibby risk their lives to save the young pilot. Grace’s family take him in, but their neighbours are horrified at having an ‘enemy’ in their midst.

From the million-copy-selling author of The Roman Mysteries comes a nail-biting time-travel adventure in Roman London - where past meets present. Billionaire Solomon Daisy is obsessed with the skeleton of a blue-eyed girl from Roman London. He has managed to invent a time machine so that he can go and find her, but it's estimated that for each hour spent in the past, the time traveller's life will be shortened, so Solomon recruits a potential child time traveller: Alex Papas, a 12-year-old boy who knows a smattering of Greek and Latin.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatization of Rosemary Sutcliff's The Eagle of the Ninth. Around 117 AD, the Roman Ninth Legion was ordered to put down an uprising among the Caledonian tribes. Four thousand men vanished without a trace into the swirling mists of the north of Roman Britain. Many years after their disappearance, a young centurion, Marcus Aquila, sets out to discover the truth about what happened to the legion and to its First Cohort Commander - his father.

When Enola learns of a missing left-handed artist, she uses a series of clever disguises to brave lurking dangers and follow cryptic clues that lead to the young Lady Cecily.

At the outbreak of World War I, Joey, young Albert's beloved horse, is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France. He's soon caught up in enemy fire, and fate takes him on an extraordinary odyssey, serving on both sides before finding himself alone in no man's land. But Albert cannot forget Joey and, still not old enough to enlist, he embarks on a treacherous mission to the trenches to find him and bring him home.

The Second World War has ended, but Henry is fighting his own battles. He misses his father, who died a war hero, and his only distraction is the cinema. But everything is about to change. When Henry develops an old camera film he uncovers a mystery and events spiral until his life resembles the drama of the big screen. Like a bomb waiting to explode, Henry's discovery will shatter his world. A powerful, gripping and truly epic story that won the Costa Children's Book Award 2008.

A Clue found in Book 3 sends Amy and Dan jetting off to find out just what's behind the fierce rivalry between the Tomas and Ekaterina branches of the Cahill family. Was a Clue stolen from the Tomas branch? Where is it now? And most important, can Amy and Dan get their hands on it before their rivals do? It's a wild race that will take Amy and Dan deep into the bowels of the earth... and right into the hands of the enemy.

It's 1918, and the Great War is entering its final phase. In Northern France, young Aimee has just found out that her mother is part of a spy network working with the British. After reluctantly befriending Marius, a German boy who has been left behind by his countrymen, she must try to help him get back behind German lines while evading traitor she has helped to discover.

En vacker vårdag upptäcker Nils Holgersson, till sin stora förvåning, en liten tomte på gården där han bor. Han bestämmer sig för att spela tomten ett spratt och fångar honom med en gammal håv. Men när tomten till sist släpps fri är han mer än missnöjd och bestämmer sig för att straffa Nils Holgersson. Nils tuppar av och när han vaknar inser han att han har krympt och blivit lika liten som en pyssling. Snart inser han att han kan förstå och tala med gårdens alla djur och när han stöter på tamgåsen Mårten börjar äventyret på riktigt ...

The story is told by Coriander, daughter of a silk merchant in 1650s London. Her idyllic childhood ends when her mother dies and her father goes away, leaving Coriander with her stepmother, a widow who is in cahoots with a fundamentalist Puritan preacher. She is shut away in a chest and left to die, but emerges into the fairy world from which her mother came, and where time has no meaning. When she returns, charged with a task that will transform her life, she is seventeen.

Amy and Dan must steal a Clue guarded by thousands of the world’s best-trained soldiers. With their enemies closing in, the brother and sister are separated. Now how will they stand a chance?

One of the finest storytellers of her time, Joan Aiken wrote over 100 books for both adults and children. Among her best-known works are the 'Wolves Chronicles', a sequence of novels set in an alternate 19th-century England ruled by Stuart kings. Included here are three tales from that magical, wolf-infested world - The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Black Hearts in Battersea and The Story of Is.