Historical Fiction Classics

On her 40th birthday, Madame Wu carries out a decision she has been planning for a long time: she tells her husband that after 24 years their physical life together is now over and she wishes him to take a second wife. The House of Wu, one of the oldest and most revered in China, is thrown into an uproar by her decision, but Madame Wu will not be dissuaded and arranges for a young country girl to come take her place in bed.

English magicians were once the wonder of the known world, with fairy servants at their beck and call; they could command winds, mountains, and woods. But by the early 1800s they have long since lost the ability to perform magic. They can only write long, dull papers about it, while fairy servants are nothing but a fading memory.

In this, the final Horatio Hornblower adventure, C.S. Forester throws his hero into one of the most challenging missions yet. Upon discovering highly confidential papers dispatched by Bonaparte, Hornblower sets off to enlighten the Admiralty about his game-changing, new findings. Troubled after having been informed of Pierre-Charles Villeneuve's escape into Spain, they welcome Horatio's news and send him off on a high-priority assignment that they believe will lead to England's victory over Napoleon.

Four lesbian pulp fiction classics, scandalous and salacious novels in their day, back-in-print for the first time in sixty years! FIRST PERSON, THIRD SEX - Sloane Britain It's 1959. Janet and Paula meet as teaching students and decide to move in together when they get jobs at a school in the same small town. Their friendship develops into something deeper and more intimate for them both.. Paula has been romantically involved with women before, but this same-sex attraction is new, exciting and unsettling for Janet. It's a relationship that leads them both to discoveries and challenges they ...

There’s only one way for Professor George Edward Challenger to prove that dinosaurs still roam the earth. He invites skeptical journalist Edward Malone to accompany him and a group of adventurers to see the creatures with his own eyes. But when they arrive at the fantastic volcanic plateau in the Amazon where time stands still, their expedition quickly becomes one of survival. With its cliff-hanging escapes, rousing humor, and nailbiting suspense, The Lost World is a pioneering work of fantasy-adventure that paved the way for every thrill ride to follow.

This trilogy about World War II, largely based on his own experiences as an army officer, is the crowning achievement of Evelyn Waugh's career. Its central character is Guy Crouchback, head of an ancient but decayed Catholic family, who at first discovers new purpose in the challenge to defend Christian values against Nazi barbarism, but then gradually finds the complexities and cruelties of war too much for him.

Two years ago, October “Toby” Daye believed she could leave the world of Faerie behind. She was wrong. Now she finds herself in the service of Duke Sylvester Torquill, sharing an apartment with her Fetch, and maintaining an odd truce with Tybalt, the local King of Cats. It’s a delicate balance - one that’s shattered when she learns that an old friend is in dire trouble. Lily, Lady of the Tea Gardens, has been struck down by a mysterious, seemingly impossible illness, leaving her fiefdom undefended. Struggling to find a way to save Lily and her subjects, Toby must confront her own past....

When he falls ill on his way home from school, 15-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover--then she inexplicably disappears. When Michael next sees her, he is a young law student, and she is on trial for a hideous crime. As he watches her refuse to defend her innocence, Michael gradually realizes that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murder.

Roosevelt was a cowboy, a boxer, a politician, a war hero, a father, a devoted husband, and most of all, a real human being. I hope you will listen to this book in his own words and get to know one of America's presidents, and I hope that you will come to appreciate him as much as I have.

The Chuzzlewits are a family divided by money and selfishness; even young Martin, the eponymous hero, is arrogant and self-centred. He offends his grandfather by falling in love with the latter’s ward, Mary, and sets out to make his own fortune in life, travelling as far as America - which produces from Dickens a savage satire on a new world tainted with the vices of the old. Martin’s nature slowly changes through his bitter experience of life and his enduring love for Mary.

Jodi Taylor’s best-selling series The Chronicles of St. Mary is back with a bang…St. Mary’s has been rebuilt, and it’s business as usual for the history department. But first there’s the little matter of a 17th-century ghost that only Mr. Markham can see. Not to mention the minor inconvenience of being trapped in the Great Fire of London…and an unfortunately timed comfort break at Thermopylae, leaving the fate of the Western world hanging in the balance.

A few weeks after marrying an attractive widow, Gordon Cloade is tragically killed by a bomb blast in the London blitz. Overnight, the former Mrs. Underhay finds herself in sole possession of the Cloade family fortune. Shortly afterward, Hercule Poirot receives a visit from the dead man's sister-in-law who claims she has been warned by "spirits" that Mrs. Underhay's first husband is still alive. Poirot has his suspicions when he is asked to find a missing person guided only by the spirit world.

In this brilliant, multi-layered novel, a young Southerner, Stingo, wants to become a writer. In Brooklyn, he meets Nathan, a brilliant Jewish intellectual involved in a turbulent love-hate affair with Sophie, a beautiful Polish woman. She has a terrible wound in her past, one that impels both Sophie and Nathan toward destruction.

Beautiful Sorcha is the courageous young woman who risked all to save her family from a wicked curse and whose love shattered generations of hate and bridged two cultures. It is from her sacrifice that Sorcha's brothers were brought home to their ancestral fortress Sevenwaters, and her life has known much joy. But not all the brothers were able to fully escape the spell that transformed them into swans, and it is left to Sorcha's daughter, Liadan, to help fulfill the destiny of the Sevenwaters clan. Beloved child and dutiful daughter, Liadan embarks on a journey that shows her just how hard-won was the peace that she has known all her life.

A brand-new, unabridged recording of Baroness Orczy's classic tale of adventure, read by Julian Rhind-Tutt. Paris, 1792. The Terror has begun. Every day, scores of the French nobility are delivered to the guillotine. Trapped in the capital, they have no way of escape. But rumours abound of a league of young English gentlemen who are risking their lives to spirit French aristocrats away to safety across the Channel. Led by a man known only as the 'Scarlet Pimpernel', they leave no trace behind them save a single note.

HAPPILY MARRIED for over a year and more in love than ever, Darcy and Elizabeth can’t imagine anything interrupting their bliss-filled days. Then an intense snowstorm strands a group of travelers at Pemberley, and terrifying accidents and mysterious deaths begin to plague the manor. Everyone seems convinced that it is the work of a phantom—a Shadow Man who is haunting the Darcy family’s grand estate. Darcy and Elizabeth believe the truth is much more menacing and that someone is attempting to murder them. But Pemberley is filled with family guests as well as the unexpected travelers...

A Western Adventure by Ronnie Ashmore "Ashmore creates fierce characters with confidence and authority. A fresh and welcome Western narrative." -Best-Selling Author Ralph Cotton The Vengeance Trail The past year and a half have been a test of wills and hard lessons learned for the bounty hunter John Riley. Now feeling he needs to set things right by capturing the one outlaw he let get away, he rides into the town he last saw the outlaw. He soon finds he has ridden into a race war involving his friends and a dangerous group of men. He’s not the same unsure boy he was when he was last in ...

A sequel faithful to Jane Austen's beloved masterpiece, Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy have been married for almost a year, and their heated arguments are a thing of the past. All that passion is now directed into more satisfying pursuits. But how long can the honeymoon last? The Darcys of Pemberley is the tale of two romances: the continuation of Darcy and Elizabeth's story, and the courtship of Miss Georgiana.

This reissue of the 1919 classic combines the immortal stories from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey into one glorious saga of heroism and magical adventure. Beloved by generations, Padraic Colum's masterful retelling of these epic adventures is remarkably fresh, consistently spellbinding, and unmatched for its richness and poetry.

COMANCHE MOON In the lands of the Comanche only strength prevails. Returning from trail bossing a cattle drive, Nate Carlton was looking to hole up for the winter, working his ranch in South Texas. The Uvalde valley was a peaceful basin, recovering from the Civil War and fighting its way back to prosperity. Deep in Comanche territory the spectre of an Indian attack was ever present, but so far they had lived in peace. Then everything changed, the peaceful valley was ripped apart to the sound of Comanche war cries: the powerful Comanche nation are seemingly well supplied with new guns and ...