O, the oprah magazine “wonderfully detailed and keenly researched, it is a moving portrait of a courageous woman caught between a disastrous affair with a charismatic revolutionary and the draconian laws of the land that would put her to death because of it. Kathleen kent, author of The Traitor’s Wife.
But when rachel’s “bastard” infant is found hidden in the woods, Rachel is arrested. The question that has brought rachel to trial for murder is: why? now drawn into rachel’s circle is the married lover she is loathe to reveal; a fiercely compassionate mother who lost her own children to smallpox; a prosecutor hell-bent on making an example of Rachel; and the criminal investigator, increasingly reluctant to build his case against the condemned young woman—all of them brought to reckon for this one life.
At once a remarkable love story and a breathtaking thriller based on true events, Accidents of Providence is “heart-poundingly vivid and intellectually provocative . . . Historical fiction at its best” Kirkus Reviews, starred review.
The Pure Land
Not merely an engaging and vivid historical novel, but also a meditative work of art that is as finely honed as a samurai’s sword” The Times, London. Thomas glover is a gutsy eighteen-year-old in Aberdeen who grasps the chance of escape to foreign lands and takes a posting as a trader in Japan. The year is 1858.
Yet beneath glover’s astonishing success lies a man cut to the heart. Part thrilling adventure, the pure land spans the feudal and the atomic ages, and characterized by Spence’s pure vision”, part lyrical reflection, East and West, global history and the private passions of the Scottish merchant-turned-Nagasaki tycoon and hero Sunday Herald.
Within ten years he amasses a great fortune, and, on the other side of the law, plays a huge role in modernizing Japan, brings about the overthrow of the shogun. A “lively and epic . . .
Mary, Mrs. A. Lincoln: A Novel
She was a political strategist, a supporter of emancipation, and a mother who survived the loss of three children and the assassination of her beloved husband. The wife of abraham Lincoln is one of history’s most misunderstood and enigmatic women. A novel about the life of mary todd lincoln, narrated by the First Lady herself, a USA Today choice for Best Historical Fiction of the Year.
She also ran her family into debt, held seances in the White House, and was committed to an insane asylum—which is where Janis Cooke Newman’s debut novel begins. A los angeles times Book Prize Finalist .
A Case of Curiosities: A Novel Harvest Book
Publishers weekly in france, on the eve of the Revolution, a young man named Claude Page sets out to become the most ingenious and daring inventor of his time. A case of Curiosities . . . Over the course of a career filled with violence and passion, Claude learns the arts of enameling and watchmaking from an irascible, defrocked abbé, then apprentices himself to a pornographic bookseller and applies his erotic erudition to the seduction of the wife of an impotent wigmaker.
Kurzweil now does for the late 18th century. San francisco Chronicle. Like a joint effort by henry fielding and john barth” Chicago Tribune, this “captivating novel” San Francisco Chronicle marked the debut of one of the finest literary artists of our time. But it is claude’s greatest device—a talking mechanical head—that both crowns his career and leads to an execution as tragic as that of Marie Antoinette, and far more bizarre.
Really is brilliant.
The Half Wives: A Novel
Before long, the four will be drawn to the same destination—the city cemetery on the outskirts of San Francisco—where the collision of lives and secrets leaves no one unaltered. A former lutheran minister, many years ago; his wife, he lost his faith after losing his infant son, Jack, Marilyn, remains consumed by grief.
A finalist for the townsend prize “the developing San Francisco of the 1890s becomes a rich background for these three as they play out their messy, somber, intertwined fates. The new york times book review “a poignant, beautifully crafted, always gripping tale of loss and love, sometimes heart-rending, and the human need to try to set things right.
Kevin baker, author of the big Crowd “Pelletier’s writing is moving and enthralling . . . Lucy must rescue the intrepid Blue, who has fallen in a saltwater well. Henry needs to talk his way out of the police station, where he has spent the night for disorderly conduct.
River Thieves: A Novel
Years later, when a second expedition to the Beothuk’s winter camp mounted by the Peytons leads to the kidnapping of an Indian woman and the murder of her husband, Buchan returns to investigate. As the officer attempts to uncover what really happened at the Red Indian’s lake, the delicate web of obligation and debt that holds together the Peyton household—and the community of settlers on the northeastern shore—slowly unravels.
His closest ally, John Peyton Jr. Maintains an uneasy balance between duty to his father—a domineering patriarch with a reputation as a ruthless persecutor of the Beothuk—and his troubled conscience. An impressive first novel” of a crisis between natives and colonists in Newfoundland, based on historical events Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
In 1810, a naval officer, or “red indians, david buchan, ” the aboriginal inhabitants of Newfoundland, arrives in the Bay of Exploits with orders to establish contact with the Beothuk, who are facing extinction. Cassie, walks a precarious line of her own between the unspoken but obvious hopes of the younger Peyton, the fiercely self-reliant and secretive woman who keeps the family house, her loyalty to John Senior, and a steadfast refusal to compromise her independence.
When buchan approaches the area’s most influential white settlers, for advice and assistance, the Peytons, he enters a shadowy world of allegiances and old grudges that he can only dimly apprehend.
The Sea Beggars: A Novel
”. A sixteenth-century family joins with pirates and William of Orange to fight the Spanish Inquisition in this novel of the Dutch Revolt by “a first-class storyteller” People. Consistently ranked among the top authors of historical fiction, along with Mary Renault, Phillipa Gregory, Mary Stewart, and Diana Gabaldon, the great Cecelia Holland now transports readers to the sixteenth-century Netherlands in an exciting tale of resistance and rebellion against cruel Spanish oppressors that combines unforgettable fictional characters with real historic personages.
No one was safe from religious persecution in the dutch low Countries when the “conqueror king, ” Phillip II of Spain, dispatched the Catholic Church’s Inquisition to the Netherlands in the late 1500s. Now their children, jan and hanneke, must survive on their own by any means necessary as fate carries them down separate but equally dangerous paths.
But young hanneke soon realizes there can be no escape or safe haven anywhere as long as her country is in chains, and she vows to dedicate her life to the perilous cause of freedom. A sweeping and epic historical novel rich in color and stunning period detail, Holland’s The Sea Beggars is an enthralling, action-packed adventure that interweaves fact with brilliant invention.
Jan’s destiny is on the high seas—and ultimately in the royal court of England’s Queen Elizabeth—as he and his uncle Pieter boldly retake the old man’s captive ship and join the infamous pirates known as the Sea Beggars in their quest to drive the enemy invaders from Dutch waters. Strong, and independent, courageous, she embarks on a harrowing journey to Germany in the company of refugee ruler William of Orange ahead of the impending terror of Spain’s sadistic Duke of Alva.
Meadowlands
They will encounter hardship, danger, and wonderfully sharp attention to detail” Booklist, heartache—and unexpected love—in a saga filled with “compelling characters, interesting historical facts, realistic situations, starred review. August, lady adelaide, 1914: the silver wedding celebrations of Sir George Barsham, MP, and his wife, have been overshadowed by the declaration of war with Germany.
Over the following months, as the male estate workers head for the front and the maids disappear to work in the newly opened munitions factory, the Barsham family’s comfortable, aristocratic lifestyle is set to change forever. During the course of the war, as devastating losses mount, the strength of character of the four Barsham siblings will be tested as never before.
. To lady adelaide’s dismay, her younger daughter, Millie, learns to drive an ambulance: a most unladylike skill. Determined to do his bit for king and country, Polly, leaving Lady Adelaide’s maid, James Barsham enlists as an officer and heads for Flanders, devastated.
The Turquoise: A Novel
Filled with color, excitement, foxfire, this is a stirring historical saga from the author of Katherine, and starring an unforgettable heroine, and rich period detail, and many other novels. At seven years old, she would also lose her father. Shortly thereafter, a navajo shaman recognized psychic power in the orphan girl, and gave her a turquoise pendant as a keepsake.
Seton, has a gaudy vitality all her own, at her best, and a sure sense of theatre. For “fey, ” life is made up of violent contrasts: the rough wagon that brings her East and the scented carriages waiting before her own Fifth Avenue mansion; the glittering world of the Astors and a dreary cell in the Tombs.
This turquoise, the indian symbol of the spirit, will dominate her life—even after she leaves the simple beauty of her native New Mexico to search for happiness in the glamorous New York of the 1870s. In 1850, as her mother lay dying and a priest stood by, Santa Fe Cameron was named by her Scottish father after the town in which she had just been born.
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The Forgotten Queen
The “excellent, desire, fast-paced story” of a woman torn between duty, and loyalty—and the legacy she seeks to leave for those she loves Historical Novel Society. Barely out of girlhood, margaret is married by proxy to James IV and travels to Edinburgh to become queen of Scotland. And when her husband falls in battle, she falls prey to the attentions of the ambitious Earl of Angus—a move that brings Scotland to the brink of anarchy.
And while jamie is an affectionate husband, he is not a faithful one. From her earliest days, Margaret Tudor knows she will not have the luxury of choosing a husband. Exquisitely detailed and poignant, the forgotten Queen vividly depicts the life and loves of an extraordinary woman who helped shape the fate of two kingdoms—and in time, became the means of uniting them.
As daughter of henry VII, her duty is to gain alliances for England.
The Chapel: A Novel
Elizabeth benedict, bestselling author of Almost. Vividly entertaining. Publishers weekly the tour elizabeth berman is on is better suited to her late husband, a Dante scholar who’d masterminded the itinerary as a surprise for their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary before leaving her a widow. Combines art, art history, and Italian allure into a cerebral romance .
. . Then, in the arena chapel, she comes face to face with the first documented painting of a teardrop in human history—and in the presence of that tearful mother, and the arresting company of the renowned and anonymous women painted by Giotto, she wakes up to the possibility that she is not lost .
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