Showing titles in Historical Fiction

Miss Marple is told that her old friend, Carrie, is in danger and she goes to stay with her at Stoneygates, a home for maladjusted adolescents. While she is there, tragedy strikes as Carrie's step-son, Christian Gulbrandsen, is shot dead. There are at least seven suspects and two more murders follow. But the man with the obvious motive has a cast-iron alibi, as he could hardly be in two places at once - or could he? June Whitfield once again stars as the indomitable amateur detective.

In every life there is a turning point. A moment so tremendous, so sharp and breathtaking, that one knows one’s life will never be the same. For Michael Stirling, London’s most infamous rake, that moment came the first time he laid eyes on Francesca Bridgerton. After a lifetime of chasing women, of smiling slyly as they chased him, of allowing himself to be caught but never permitting his heart to become engaged, he took one look at Francesca Bridgerton and fell so fast and hard into love it was a wonder he managed to remain standing.

Between 1947 and 1957, Ealing Studios produced a series of immensely popular, darkly funny film comedies that made the West London borough famous throughout the world. Almost 50 years later, four of these timeless films were recreated for BBC Radio 4, and are now collected together for the first time.

A Falcon Flies is the first best-selling novel in Wilbur Smith's epic tale of Africa, The Ballantyne Novels. In search of a father they barely remember, Zouga and Dr Robyn Ballantyne board Mungo St John's magnificent clipper to speed them to Africa. But long before they sight that mighty continent, Robyn knows that she and Mungo will battle with all the fury of natural enemies - and love with all the desperation of those unable to evade the commands of fate.

1946. Three years after a cataclysmic event that tore their lives apart, a mother and daughter flee Poland for Paris, shame and fear at their heels, not knowing how hard it is to escape your past. Nearly 80 years later, Gretel Fernsby lives a life that is a far cry from her traumatic childhood. When a couple moves into the flat below her in her London mansion block, it should be nothing more than a momentary inconvenience. However, the appearance of their nine-year-old son, Henry, brings back memories she would rather forget.

Set in the Dorset landscape familiar to Hardy novels, The Woodlanders concerns the fortunes of Giles Winterborne, whose love for the well-do-do Grace Melbury is challenged by the arrival of a dashing and dissolute doctor, Edred Fitzpiers. When the mysterious Mrs Charmond further complicates the romantic entanglements, marital choice and class mobility become inextricably linked.

In Berlin, Kurt Müller, an Abwehr signalman, discovers a colleague lying dead at his radio receiver. The criminal police dismiss the death as suicide, but Kurt is not convinced. Kurt follows a trail of mysteries, witnessing several atrocities that expose the Nazi regime for what it truly is. When the trail leads him to the German resistance, he faces the most difficult choices of his life. He must choose between his duty and his conscience, between his country and his family, between love and death.

After enjoying London's sophisticated society and the attentions of wealthy suitors, Lilly returns home to help her ailing dad. Determined to resurrect his apothecary business, Lilly labors tirelessly - praying her family's secrets and her rivals' schemes won't cloud her future.

The first book in a brand-new series, The Last Kingdom is set in England during the reign of King Alfred. Uhtred is an English boy, born into the aristocracy of ninth-century Northumbria. Orphaned at 10, he is captured and adopted by a Dane and taught the Viking ways. Yet Uhtred's fate is indissolubly bound up with Alfred, King of Wessex, who rules over the only English kingdom to survive the Danish assault. The struggle between the English and the Danes and the strife between christianity and paganism is the background to Uhtred's growing up.

RITA Award finalist and Christy Award winner Julie Klassen delivers historical romances brimming with the eloquence and intensity of Jane Austen. In an abandoned gatehouse on an old estate, Mariah Aubrey lives in seclusion. She supports herself by writing novels in secret—at a time when such writing is considered improper and unladylike. Soon the wealthy and ambitious Captain Bryant leases the estate and is intrigued by the beautiful girl in the gatehouse.

There is no ancient evil to defeat, no orphan destined for greatness, just two guys in the wrong place at the wrong time. Royce Melborn, a skilled thief, and his mercenary partner, Hadrian Blackwater, make a profitable living carrying out dangerous assignments for conspiring nobles until they become the unwitting scapegoats in a plot to murder the king. Sentenced to death, they have only one way out...and so begins this tale of treachery and adventure, sword fighting and magic, myth and legend. Avempartha is the second of a six book series entitled the Riyria Revelations.

Gaius Petrius Ruso is a divorced and down-on-his-luck army doctor who has made the rash decision to seek his fortune in an inclement outpost of the Roman Empire, namely Britannia. After a 36-hour shift at the army hospital, he succumbs to a moment of weakness and rescues an injured slave girl, Tilla, from the hands of her abusive owner. And before he knows it, Ruso is caught in the middle of an investigation into the deaths of prostitutes working out of the local bar.

In 1919, Kathryn Wombacher finds a lonely-hearts ad placed by one Walter Andrew: "Would be pleased to correspond with a refined young lady or widow. Object, matrimony.” Kathryn and Walter fall in love and marry within weeks. What Kathryn doesn’t know...is that her new husband is really James “Bluebeard” Watson, a notorious West Coast serial killer who catfished and married 22 women, murdering 10.

Is there a secret terrible enough that it should never be revealed, not even if it was tearing a family apart? For more than five decades, Emma Bauer has kept one - carefully guarding it with all her strength, and for more than five decades, that choice has haunted her life and also the lives of her daughters and granddaughter. Is it too late for wrongs to be righted? Does Emma even have the strength to let the healing power of truth work in her family?

Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed one chance at love – and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man. But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care.

When historian Fluke Kelso learns of the existence of a secret notebook belonging to Josef Stalin he is determined to track it down, whatever the consequences. From the violent political intrigue and decadence of modern Moscow he heads north - to the vast forests surrounding the White Sea port of Archangel, and a terrifying encounter with Russia's unburied past.

Gracie Thompson has a job, a loving family, a twin brother who drives her insane and a great friend. A chance meeting introduces her to the love of her life. But the storm clouds are gathering, Europe is teetering on the verge of war and threatening to destroy everything Gracie holds dear. When war arrives her family are split up, her younger siblings evacuated, her brothers join up to serve, her boyfriend, Charlie, is in daily danger and her life is threatened.

58 AD, Rome. Agricola, teenage son of an impoverished yet distinguished noble family, has staked all his resources and reputation on a military career. His reward? A posting as tribune in the far-off northern province of Britannia. Serving under renowned general Suetonius Paulinus, Agricola soon learns the brutality of life on the very edges of the empire, for the Celtic tribes of Britannia are far from vanquished. To take control of the province, the Romans must defeat the ancient might of the druids.

Everyone blamed Emily's accident on a rubber ball left on the stairs by her frisky terrier. But the more she thought about her fall, the more convinced she became that one of her relatives was trying to kill her.

On the blood-soaked borders of Angland, Leo dan Brock struggles to win fame on the battlefield and defeat the marauding armies of Stour Nightfall. He hopes for help from the crown. But King Jezal's son, the feckless Prince Orso, is a man who specialises in disappointments. Savine dan Glokta - socialite, investor and daughter of the most feared man in the Union - plans to claw her way to the top of the slag-heap of society by any means necessary. But the slums boil over with a rage that all the money in the world cannot control.