Showing results by publisher "Oakhill Publishing" in Historical Fiction

King Henry II reigns over a vast empire, but he is aging, and his ambitious sons are restless. Henry’s third son, Richard of Aquitaine, is developing a fearsome reputation as a ruthless warrior and he earns the name Richard Lionheart for his bravery and brutality on the battlefield. After the deaths of his brothers, Richard’s impatience to take the throne leads him to form an alliance with France. And so, Richard begins his bloody quest to return the Holy Land to Christian rule.

Hana is 17 when her husband goes to war. When enemy soldiers attack her house she flees to the Yoshiwara, Tokyo's pleasure quarter, where she becomes a courtesan. Yozo returns to Japan to discover that the world he left behind has been destroyed. Travelling north to join his rebel comrades, he is captured but escapes making his way south-to the Yoshiwara. There the battered fugitive meets the beautiful courtesan.

Yesterday was Alice’s wedding day. She is thousands of miles away from home when she wakes to see a wave on the horizon,taller than her guest house on Kanyakumari beach. Her husband is nowhere to be seen. On the other side of the world is Alice’s mother, Violet. Forced to leave the idyllic Wiltshire village, Imber, after it was requisitioned by the army, Violet is haunted by the shadow of the man she loved and the home that lies in ruins.

It is 1914, and while battles rage across Europe, three empires fight for dominance in the Middle East. In the midst of the chaos is Kingdom Lock. Working for the British Intelligence Service, Lock is sent to Persia by the Australian Infantry Force. His mission: to prevent a German spy from inciting rebellion among the Muslim tribes and from seizing control of the oilfields. But before then, having recently rescued Amy Townshend, the daughter of a British officer, he now finds that he must save her from the clutches of death once more.

Fourteenth century England.The country is in turmoil.The King is in debt to the City,and the old order had broken down.The King's mistress,Alice Perrers,becomes the virtual ruler of the country. Dislaked and despised by the Black Prince, her strong connections to the merchants make her a natural ally for the King's ambitious second son,John of Gaunt. Together, they create a powerfull position for one of his henchmen, Geoffrey Chaucer.

June 1940, and newly qualified teacher Phyllis Saunders is evacuated with her school to Dorset. Here she encounters prejudice and suspicion, but she is determined to make the best of life for herself and the children in her care. All the while her fiancé, submariner Sammy, is facing danger out at sea. On a visit to London, Phyllis gets caught up in the Blitz but manages to escape. Shaken but alive, she returns to the relative peace of the countryside - but soon she is nursing a secret she can tell no-one about.

Wimbledon, England, 1889. When Theodore Crozier is found dead the neighbourhood hopes the cause may be suicide, if only to spare further pain for both his dutiful wife, Laura, and beloved brother, Titus. However, there is more to the matter - a whisper of murder.... Inspector John Joseph Lintott of Scotland Yard is sent in to investigate, and the further he delves into the mystery the more tangled it becomes. Is Laura the pious, meek wife she appears to be? Could the rumours be true about her unnatural relationship with Titus? Was Theodore Crozier murdered by someone in his household?

1611, after 10 years in the Orient, Celia Lamprey and her husband Paul Pindar have returned to England, bringing with them a legendary diamond despite the curse that surrounds it. An army of carpenters, gardeners and footmen have been summoned to restore Pindar's great house Bishopsgate to its former splendour, but all is not as it seems.

May 1915. Kingdom Lock and his faithful sidekick, Siddhartha Singh are gunned down on the streets of Basra and suspicion falls on German spy, Wilhelm Wassmuss. Major Ross believes Wassmuss is behind the assassination of a Turkish officer, the death of whom has been blamed on Lock. Meanwhile, Lock has discovered that Amy Townshend is pregnant and that the child is his. But the general's daughter stubbornly refuses to break off her engagement.

1842. Stranded on Deception Island in the South Atlantic, her whaling captain husband lost at sea, Karina is destitute and desperate. Disguised as a cabin boy, she stows away on a British ship. But Karina is about to get a nasty surprise. As she grows closer to ship's surgeon Joseph Hooker, Karina and the rest of the crew find themselves pushed to the limits both physically and emotionally as conditions worsen on board.

Violet Dimond, the Holy Terror, has delivered many of the town children in her capacity as handywoman. But Violet’s calling is dying out with medicine’s advances. Grace, Violet’s adopted daughter, is a symbol of change herself. In the place where she has grown up and everyone knows her, she is accepted, though most of the locals never before saw a girl with skin that colour. For Violet and Grace the coming war will bring more upheaval: can they endure it, or will they be swept aside by history’s tide?

In February 1918, as the First World War was still being bitterly fought, Lady Northcliffe appealed to the women of Britain and the Empire to give a pearl from their necklaces to make a new string which could be sold in aid of the British Red Cross. Nearly 4,000 pearls poured in, from priceless heirlooms - one had survived the sinking of the Titanic - to treasured trinkets. Working with Christie's and the International Fundraising Committee of the British Red Cross, Rachel Trethewey weaves the touching story of a generation of women who gave what they had to aid the war effort and commemorate their losses.

As a child, writer Maggie Wadey was aware her mother was different from her father and his family, and that the difference was do with her Irishness, but she knew nothing of her Tipperary background. Then, before she died, Agnes Kavanagh began to talk about the past. Gradually, Maggie began to piece together her mother’s early life. But it was only after Agnes's death that she discovered another story - a life and a secret hidden in layers of silence.

Who wanted him? What for? Why was Roger Farrar (if that was his name) on the run in Dublin? Was he a traitor and deserted? The innocent target of a kidnap plot? Or a lonely persecuted paranoiac? One thing is certain: he is likely to suffer a fate worse than death if he is caught by the gross villain who specialises in brain-washing.

Vienna, 1939. Professor Speckstein's dog has been brutally killed and he wants to know why. When an unexpected house call leads Doctor Beer to Speckstein's apartment, he finds himself in the bedroom of Zuzka, the professor's niece. Wide-eyed, flirtatious, and not detectably ill, Zuzka leads the young doctor to her window and opens up a view of their apartment block that Beer has never known. Does one of these enigmatic neighbours have blood on their hands?

Since she was found as a baby, floating in the Thames one foggy night, the web-toed Pearl has been brought up in a brothel known as the House of Mermaids. Cosseted and pampered there, it is only when her 14th birthday approaches that Pearl realises she is to be sold to the highest bidder. Meanwhile, the orphaned twins, Lily and Elijah, have shared an idyllic childhood, raised in a secluded country house with their grandfather. But when Lily and Elijah go on a visit to London, a chance meeting with Pearl will have repercussions for all of them, binding their fates together in a dark and dangerous way....

1925. London's fashionable Bright Young Things have descended on Wychbourne Court, the Kentish stately home of Lord and Lady Ansley, for an extravagant fancy dress ball and midnight Ghost Hunt. Chef Nell Drury knows she's in for a busy weekend - but she doesn't expect to encounter sudden, violent death. When a body is discovered in the minstrels' gallery during the Ghost Hunt, Nell is determined to unmask the killer among them. Could the Wychbourne Ghosts hold the key to the mystery?

Roman servant girl Minna has run away to the big city on her beloved horse, Silva. Hopelessly in love with the courageous commander Theo, her only thought is to gain his admiration - whatever it takes. Spying a magnificent horse stolen from the Roman army, she sees her chance: steal back the stallion and win Theo’s heart. But the horse is guarded by a wild band of thieves led by a ruthless warrior, and when Minna puts her plan into action, she sparks a deadly chain of events from which there can be no turning back.

Welcome to Salonika in 1916, once one of the jewels in the Ottoman crown. It is now suddenly Greek. A city nominally neutral, but teeming with French, British and Serbian armies, to hold it against the Austro-German forces to the north, with their Bulgarian allies.

January, 1981. Jim Dowd and Maureen O'Brien, special forces soldiers, enter a bitterly divided Belfast on an undercover mission to infiltrate one of the city's most dangerous Catholic neighbourhoods and help change the course of a war that nobody is winning. The Ardoyne is a perilous world, where a hint of their true identities would prove fatal. But it is also full of courage and loyalty. Jim admires this community - and feels guilt at their deception.