Historical Fiction England

Puritans. Quakers. Pirates. Mohawks. Witches. And a brutal war.... If you thought New England was dull in the 1670s, get ready for a history lesson. In the critically acclaimed My Father's Kingdom, debut author James W. George transported his listeners to 1671 New England and the world of Reverend Israel Brewster. Four years later, Brewster is a disgraced outcast residing in Providence and working as a humble cooper, but despite his best efforts, King Philip's War has begun.

Mr Edgar Finchley, unmarried clerk, aged 45, is told to take a holiday for the first time in his life. He decides to go to the seaside. But Fate has other plans in store...From his abduction by a cheerful crook, to his smuggling escapade off the south coast, the timid but plucky Mr Finchley is plunged into a series of the most astonishing and extraordinary adventures. His rural adventure takes him gradually westward through the English countryside and back, via a smuggling yacht, to London.

1075 and Dowager Queen Edith has died. Her niece Gunnhild longs to leave Wilton Abbey, but is her suitor, Breton knight Count Alain of Richmond, interested in her inheritance as the daughter of King Harold and Edith Swan-Neck, or does he love her for herself? Is her own love for Count Alain an enduring love, or has she made a terrible mistake? The Swan Daughter is woven around a true 11th-century tale of elopement, love and courage.

Caught in the midst of England's War of the Roses, young Dick Shelton's loyalties are torn between a guardian who betrays him and the leader of the secret fellowship, "The Black Arrow".

When the Duke of Barningforde was told by his second son, Alastair, that he had married an actress in Paris without his approval, he exiled Alastair from England with only a very small allowance. His wife, Grace, actually came from a good Scottish family and was not an actress, but had a very fine soprano voice and sang with a famous French orchestra. But the Duke would not listen and Alastair and Grace never again set foot in their homeland.

Echoing Hillsby Steven Detmers is a historical fiction novel set in the picturesque landscapes of 19th century New England. This evocative tale explores themes of ambition, faith, and the enduring strength of family bonds. Carlin, a determined young man, dreams of escaping the confines of his impoverished life through higher education. Supported by his loving grandmother and mentored by the kind-hearted clergyman Mr. Hays, Carlin's journey is fraught with obstacles. His inspiration comes from Karen, the clergyman’s gentle and introspective daughter, who faces her own struggles with ...

1936. Civil war is tearing Spain apart, and the world is on the brink of chaos... Twenty-one-year-old Lucy is frustrated with her constrained life in Hertfordshire, teaching and keeping house for her domineering father. But she is happy to be living next door to Tom and Jamie, two brothers she has known since childhood, and whom she loves equally. But everyone's lives are turned upside down when Tom, the younger, decides to join the Republican cause in the bloody war in Spain.

In stories that are more personal than any that she's written before, Alice Munro transforms her family's history into gloriously imagined fiction.

Cornwall, 1854. The people of Roche have always whispered about the recluse in the black granite tower that looms above the moorland. But one young woman is driven to discover the truth behind the old tales. Her life overshadowed by family tragedy, Mina Penrose escapes her lonely days by working at The Magpie, a cozy tearoom on the village’s edge. Lately she’s been seeing shapes in the sodden leaves that hint at the future. After one such omen, Mina stumbles upon a murdered man on the heath.

A heartbreaking and deeply compelling debut, Mrs. Sinclair’s Suitcase is a compulsive pause-resister about thwarted love, dashed hopes, and family secrets - book-club fiction at its best. Roberta, a lonely 34-year-old bibliophile, works at The Old and New Bookshop in England. When she finds a letter inside her centenarian grandmother’s battered old suitcase that hints at a dark secret, her understanding of her family’s history is completely upturned.

The year is 1742. Goody Brown, saved from drowning and adopted when just a babe, has grown up happily in the smuggling town of Winchelsea. Then, when Goody turns sixteen, her father is murdered in the night by men he thought were friends. To find justice in a lawless land, Goody must enter the cut-throat world of her father's killers. With her beloved brother Francis, she joins a rival gang of smugglers. Facing high seas and desperate villains, she also discovers something else: an existence without constraints or expectations, a taste for danger that makes her blood run fast.

In this delightful double bill, narrator Alison Larkin's AudioFile Earphones award-winning recording of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice are followed by songs from Regency England to give listeners a sense of what after dinner family entertainment might have sounded like in Jane Austen's time.

Iceland, AD 1000: Freya knows that her people are doomed. Warned by the Fates of an impending disaster, she must embark on a journey to find a magnificent gold necklace, one said to possess the power to alter the course of history. But even as Freya travels deep into the mountains of Iceland, the country is on the brink of war. The new world order of Christianity is threatening the old ways of Iceland's people, and tangled amidst it all are two star-crossed lovers who destiny draws them together.

Miss Marigold Manners may be steeped in the etiquette of her old-money Boston family, but she is also an accomplished, modern woman and an avid student of archaeology who can handle any situation with poise. When the death of her parents leaves her too destitute to pursue her academic career and she receives a letter from a distant relative on Great Misery Island, Marigold decides she must do what any person of superior sense and greater-than-average curiosity would: she mounts her trusty bicycle and heads up the craggy, fog-shrouded coast of New England for a date with fate.

On November 13th 1002 A.D. the English, King Æthelred the Unready orders the massacre of all free Danes living in England. His actions set in motion the rise of Sweyn Forkbeard a powerful Viking warlord. We follow the journey of Thomas, an orphaned Viking farm boy sold into slavery. He yearns for his freedom and craves revenge. To get it he must escape and join the largest Viking horde ever assembled. But what was once his homeland is now a prison, his neighbors now his captors. He has sworn an oath of vengeance and will not rest until English fields run red and all England burns.

A classic English murder fiction novel set in the rural village of Peakshire during the early 1920s. Step into the mysterious world of Bellingham, a seemingly serene country village where quiet lanes and picturesque countryside hide dark secrets and twisted plots. Follow Dennis Skubal, a keen criminologist and writer, as he unravels the chilling web of deceit surrounding the sudden and brutal murder of Sir Marcus Alexander. *Dark Waters* unfolds in the hauntingly beautiful yet eerie landscape of Peakshire, where every character harbors a secret, and nothing is quite as it seems. Trouble ...

When street urchin Tom Cantry trades places with Edward VI, Prince of Wales, he thinks everything's going to be easy. But young Tom finds himself caught in the trappings of a Prince, while possessing the heart of a beggar. The Prince and the Pauper is one of the more famous stories in children's literature, as well as one of the greatest "trading places" story of all time, showcasing Twain's satirical wit and acute sense of political irony.

Published after his death, Dickens brilliantly brings to life a broad cast of colorful characters in the never solved mysterious disappearance of one Edwin Drood, all set in the rural hamlet of Cloisterham around the Cathedral close. Against a background of opium dens, nocturnal graveyard visits, and moldering monastic crypts, Dickens weaves a tightly knit plot centered on the ominous disappearance of young Edwin Drood.

The Archer's Castle is the second book in an exciting action-packed saga set in medieval England during the days of King Richard and King John, prior to the Magna Carta. It is the tale of an English serf who rises to become the captain of a company of archers and leads its survivors as they fight their way back to dangerous and brutal feudal England after King Richard suddenly abandons his crusade - and what happens to him and his archers when they return. Most of the archers do not return as a result of intense fighting, but some of the former serfs and free men do return.

In the snowbound valleys of 1912 in Bansfield, Massachusetts, love dares to bloom where it should never take root. Winter is no stranger to suffering. A housemaid with fiery red curls and haunting blue eyes, she keeps to herself, hiding a past that could cost her everything. Hunted by shadows and secrets, she’s learned to trust no one—until Ethan. Ethan is a quiet farmer shackled in a loveless, manipulative marriage. Bound by duty and a sense of right, his days are marked by hardship and guilt. But when Winter arrives to assist his petulant wife something buried long ago begins to stir...