Showing titles in Historical

1855, New Hampshire. Lucy Blunt is set to hang for a double murder. Murderess or victim? Only Lucy knows the truth. In the shadow of the gallows, Lucy reflects on the events that led to her bitter downfall - from the moment she arrived at the rambling Burton mansion looking for work and a better life to the grisly murders themselves.

Between his bullying father and dissolute brother, Percival Endicott Whyborne has quite enough problematic family members to deal with. So when his sister returns to Widdershins asking for help solving the mystery of a derelict ship, Whyborne is reluctant to get involved. Until, that is, a brutal murderer strikes, leaving Whyborne and his lover Griffin no choice but to take the case. The investigation leads them deep into a conspiracy of blackmail, murder, and darkest sorcery.

The American Civil War creates enemies of lifelong friends and allies of strangers, but no relationship is more unlikely than that of a passionate Northern Unionist and a loyal Virginia sympathizer. Actress and Northerner Jordan Colfax is hired to spy on behalf of the Union. When she meets Confederate sympathizer Laura St. Clair, whose father is military aide to Jefferson Davis, the perfect opportunity presents itself. But when the truth about Jordan's real intentions is discovered, their love is put to the ultimate test.

England during the early 1820s was a hostile place for unmarried women without family or home. After losing upper class standing because of her father's gambling habit and scandalous suicide, Annalee Stewart believes her fortunes improved when she is hired as companion to the young but sickly and frail Lady Lenore Blackstone. Although the adjustment from being a member of the wealthy class to finding oneself suddenly in service to it promises to be difficult, Annalee has no choice but to accept where fate has thrown her.

Intelligent but isolated recent physics graduate Annie Fisk feels an undeniable pull toward space. Her childhood memories dimmed by loss, she has left behind her home, her family, and her first love in pursuit of intellectual fulfillment. When she finally lands a job as a NASA secretary during the Apollo 11 mission, the work is everything she dreamed, and while she feels a budding attraction to one of the engineers, she can’t get distracted. Not now.

As his family falls apart day by day, Robin finds himself pulling away from the unquestioned, unexamined life that has been carefully laid out for him. Small acts of rebellion lead to larger questions of what it means to stand on his own. Falling into a fevered triangle with two other outcasts, Todd Spicer and Scott Schatz, Robin embarks on an explosive odyssey of sexual self-discovery that will take him beyond the spring-green lawns of suburbia, beyond the fraying fabric barely holding together his quickly unraveling family, and into a complex future, beyond the world of normal boys.

Three years after Whiskey War, Dax and Rose live the high life at the Foster House, running the poshest speakeasy on the west coast. Half Moon Bay is about to claim its place as the top tourist destination in Northern California, with a second club and the remodeled Seaside Hotel under Grace Parsons's ownership and Dax's management. Repeal of Prohibition is on the horizon with the prospect of making their illegal liquor businesses legitimate. Dax's fractured friendship with Charlie Dawson is the only blowback from her battle with Frankie Wilkes

Best-selling author Nevada Barr delights contemporary mystery fans with novels like Deep South and Blood Lure. In Bittersweet, she departs the mystery genre for a touching story of hardship, perseverance, and love in the old West.

Wealthy playboy Brett Sheridan thinks he knows the score when he hires tough guy private eye Neil Patrick Rafferty to find a priceless stolen folio of Shakespeare's The Tempest. Brett's convinced his partner-in-crime sister is behind the theft - a theft that's liable to bring more scandal to their eccentric family, and cost Brett his marriage to society heiress Juliet Lennox. What Brett doesn't count on is the instant and powerful attraction that flares between him and Rafferty.

It is summer 1956 when 15-year-old Bridget first meets Isabella. In their conservative Connecticut town, Isabella is a breath of fresh air. She is worldly, alluring and brazen: an enigma. When they receive an offer to study at the Academy in Italy, Bridget is thrilled. This is her ticket to Europe and - better still - a chance to spend nine whole months with her glamorous and unpredictable best friend. There, lodged in a convent of nuns who have taken a vow of silence, the two girls move towards a passionate but fragile intimacy.

In 1931, Gregory Hemingway's life begins in Kansas City, Missouri. The third and favourite son of an overbearing father, Greg is a paragon: a star athlete, a crack shot, bright and handsome and built like a pocket battleship. In 2001, Gloria Hemingway's life ends in a Miami women's correctional institution. Enduring heartache, disapproval and countless electroshock treatments, their existence has been a miracle. Inspired by true events and spanning seventy years of the last century, this is the story of a single, extraordinary life.

Young Micah "Mike" Cordett's privileged life explodes when he is caught naked with a schoolmate. Running away from disgrace, he blunders into a trap in a seamy part of London and endures months of abuse before escaping. But with the help of the Andrews family, he's begun to climb out of his fear. Yet, when a reminder of his happier past erupts into his life in the form of Lucas Spring, Mike's not certain he's ready to face the remnants of the charmed life he'd once enjoyed. He's certainly not ready for love.

When Sir Alan Watleigh goes searching for sex, he never imagines the street rat he brings home for one last bit of pleasure in his darkest hour will be the man who hauls him back from the edge of the grave. A single night of meaningless sex turns into an offer of permanent employment. Jem acts as Alan's valet, but offers him so much more than polished boots and starched cravats.

Will Andrews wishes to escape the craziness of his bohemian family and create some order in his life. Hiding his eccentric theater background and presenting false letters of recommendation, he interviews for a position at a legal aid society. The last thing he expects is to fall hard for his genteel employer, Hugh St. John. When Hugh needs a secretary, one magnetic candidate draws him. Will Andrews shares his vision for the Society and is also the most attractive man he's ever met.

In 1899 two women from very different backgrounds are about to embark on a journey together - one that will take them from the Old World to the New, from the 19th century into the 20th, and from the comfort and familiarity of England to the rigors of Western Canada, where challenges await at every turn. The journey begins simply for Kicker Stuart when she leaves her home village to take employment as hostler and farrier at Grindleshire Academy for Young Ladies. But when Kicker falls in love with a teacher, Madelyn Bristow, it radically alters the course of her tranquil life.

In AD 107, after a grueling campaign against Rome's fierce enemy, the kingdom of Dacia, Gaius Fabius, returns home in triumph. With the bloody battles over, the commander of the Lucky Fourth Legion now craves life's simple pleasures. On a whim, he purchases a spirited young Dacian captive and unwittingly sparks a fresh outbreak of the Dacian war; an intimate struggle between two sworn enemies with love and honor at stake.

Can two outcasts find refuge in one another's hearts? Dr. Vance Phelps lost everything in the War Between the States - her career and her faith in herself. Mae is a frontier madam, used to standing and fighting alone. She guards the well-being of the lost young women who come under her care - she just never expected one of them to be a doctor. A bold story of redemption amidst the wild landscape of the heart, where lost promises find new hope.

1553: deeply divided England rejoices as the rightful heir, Mary Tudor, sweeps to power on a tide of populist goodwill. But the people should have been careful what they wished for: Mary's mission is to turn back time to an England of old. Within weeks there is widespread rebellion in favour of her heir, her half-sister, Princess Elizabeth, who is everything that Mary isn't. From now on, Elizabeth will have to use her considerable guile just to stay alive.

Japan, 1825: Low-ranking samurai Uchida Tomonosuke is a devotee of the way of manly love, but he has never pledged himself to another man. Until one day he accidentally crosses paths with Ichi, a beautiful blind masseur who challenges everything he thought he knew about love between men. Ichi is independent and confident, but his blindness means he is considered a non-person in the rigid social hierarchy.

My father once told me, above all else...Live and die for Sparta. Honor. Loyalty. Duty. These were the things that mattered most. And then Axios came into my life, teaching me other lessons: Humility, brotherhood...love. There were moments when the brutal training stripped me of my humanity, where it turned me into a mindless beast of flesh and muscle set to destroy everything in my way. But then Axios stood in my way, ever vigilant, never failing to bring me back to myself. Love had no place in Sparta, they said. It made you weak. So why did I feel stronger with him by my side?