Historical Humor

Edi and Ash have been best friends for over forty years, a bond formed by a lifetime of memories. Since childhood they have seen each other through life's milestones: stealing vodka from their parents, REM concerts, unexpected Scottish wakes, marriages, infertility, children. As Ash notes, 'Edi's memory is like the back-up hard drive for mine.' When Edi is diagnosed with the final stages of terminal ovarian cancer, she makes the painstaking decision to leave behind her husband and son to move to a hospice down the road from Ash.

Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in a provincial town with a bizarre but seductive proposition for local landowners. He proposes to buy the names of their serfs who have died but who are still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them. But what collateral will Chichikov receive for these "souls"?

Is true love eternal, even if you suspect the one you loved the most turned you into a ghost? Irene Ferguson thinks she’s found her forever love with Wyatt Martin, the charismatic heir to Monaco Martin Estates. But their whirlwind romance ends in tragedy with Irene’s body hidden in a bourbon barrel. Fifty years later, whispers of Irene’s restless spirit linger in the mash-scented air. Despite her death, Irene’s love for Wyatt endures, transcending time and her spectral state. When a new engineer with the ability to see ghosts arrives at the historic distillery, Irene seizes her ...

"Witty dialogue peppers a plot full of delectable details exposing the foibles and follies of the age… another playfully perfect Regency-era romp.” -- Publishers Weekly Starred Review Five years in the past, Morgan Drummond, Marquis of Westham, deserted London after his curst temper nearly ended his best friend’s life. But now Morgan has beaten down his devils, assured himself he is rehabilitated enough to return to the city, intent on finding a suitable (and likewise mild-mannered) wife. Alas, so much for the best-laid plans of mice and men…and Morgan Drummond. He arrives to find ...

This novel is about a woman called Martha. She knows there is something wrong with her, but she doesn't know what it is. Her husband Patrick thinks she is fine. He says everyone has something, the thing is just to keep going. Martha told Patrick before they got married that she didn't want to have children. He said he didn't mind either way because he has loved her since he was fourteen and making her happy is all that matters, although he does not seem able to do it. By the time Martha finds out what is wrong, it doesn't really matter anymore.

Dorothy Fiske, eighty-three, adores movie stars, jewelry, murder mysteries, and men. At twenty-five, inspired by Judy Garland and Angela Lansbury, she moved to Los Angeles from a religiously strict Midwestern home. Despite the glamour, Dorothy, heartbroken, was childless. She blamed her sweet, unambitious husband, Eugene, claiming his sperm was weak, but Dorothy knows the truth. Ruth, a sixty-six-year-old home health aide, fears eviction from her LA apartment due to her unusual, antisocial behavior. Previously fired from a nursing facility for residents dying under her care, Ruth targets ...

What is truth when nothing is real Hidden away in the Gulf of Mexico lies an island with a dark past. Once a haven for bootleggers and outlaws, Oyster Island now hosts the renovated Majestic Hotel & Casino. It’s not only the living that calls this place home. Ghosts, ghouls, and creatures of the night roam freely, haunting the island’s residents and visitors. One fateful night, a magical flying unicorn visits Odette Mouton and takes her on a wild ride to the island’s backside, where she discovers a time portal. Guided by a time-walking calico cat, she embarks on a journey that blurs ...

Bolt is the general foreman for Tug Mackintosh's railroad line, which is competing with Sirus Proctor's railroad to reach Breakneck Pass. The narrow gap is only wide enough for one line, meaning the other crew will have to skirt the mountain range at the cost of several weeks and many extra miles of track. Also, the first crew to arrive at the main line will be awarded the mail delivery contract and a prime spot for their dock. To complicate the situation, Tug has arranged to marry his junior partner's daughter, in lieu of his contributing more money to the railroad line. Ariette Ekhard is ...

Welcome to the world of Steamboat Willie’s Whistlestop Puzzle Mysteries! It’s the 1920s, and you’re the new first mate of a steamboat, the SS Wilkinshire. You encounter Willie, a talking mouse, on your first mystery! Together, the two of you team up to solve crimes. And there’s a lot of them! The SS Wilkinshire is a magnet for unfortunate events: murder, blackmail, thievery. There’s always a puzzle that needs to be solved. If you think playing detective is going to be easy, think again! These puzzle mysteries are tricky. It takes a very sharp eye to recognize the clues, so ...

It's 1883 - only a few months after Molly Pepper; her mother, Cassandra; and her friend, Emmett, saved New York from an attack by the megalomaniacal Ambrose Rector while managing to preserve the reputations of Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, whose technology was manipulated in Rector’s scheme. Their selfless heroism will finally earn them a place in the Inventors’ Guild, alongside the greatest minds of their generation. Unless, of course, no one knows that they did any of that.

The Alehouse at the End of the World is an epic comedy set in the 16th century, where bawdy Shakespearean love triangles play out with shapeshifting avian demigods and a fertility goddess, drunken revelry, bio-dynamic gardening, and a narcissistic, bullying crow, who may have colluded with a foreign power.

Oregon, 1851. Eli and Charlie Sisters, notorious professional killers, are on their way to California to kill a man named Hermann Kermit Warm. On the way, the brothers have a series of unsettling experiences in the landscape of Gold Rush America. And they bicker a lot. Arriving in California, and discover that Warm has invented a magical formula, which could make all of them very rich. What happens next is utterly gripping, strange and sad....

Harry Flashman: the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown's schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross, has three main talents - horsemanship, facility with foreign languages and fornication. A reluctant military hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the 19th century, despite trying his utmost to escape them all. When all other trusts fail, turn to Flashman' Abraham LincolnIn China in 1860, a lot of people mistakenly put their trust in Flashman.

The setting is Seattle's Lake City neighborhood during the 2001 holiday season. In the wake of the 9/11 tragedy and at the peak of Seattle's first wave of tech-boom gentrification - a wave that never quite made it to his neighborhood - Lane Bueche schemes how to win back his wife (and her trust fund). In his childhood bedroom in his mother's decrepit old house, the idealistic but self-serving striver Lane licks his wounds and hatches a plot.

A producer. A novelist. An actress. It is summer in 1968, the year of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. While the world is reeling, our trio is involved in making a rackety Swingin' '60s British movie in sunny Brighton. All are leading secret lives. As the film is shot, with its usual drastic ups and downs, so does our trio's private, secret world begin to take over their public one. Pressures build inexorably - someone's going to crack. Or maybe they all will.

AN ENCOUNTER is the story of Macu, a young man who leaves his tribe on his first solo hunting trip. Hoping to prove himself by killing and carrying home a small deer, his encounter turns out to be of a much more singular and fateful nature. An entertaining and instructive story suitable for readers of all ages.

Mitchell’s novel follows Brian O’Connal, a young boy growing up in Depression-era Saskatchewan. Curious and eager to explore the impossibly vast Canadian prairie, Brian guides the listener through the inner workings of his small, rural town and its quirky characters. As Brian grows up, navigating faith, loss, and his relationships with his grandmother and his friends, we see him evolve alongside the changing landscape of small-town Canadian life.

Upton Grange is in chaos as King Edward VII arrives for a naughty weekend with his mistress three weeks before his coronation. To help things along and save his back he's arranged for his even naughtier love-seat to be shipped in from Paris. When strange noises are heard from the state bedchamber and the king's health takes a turn for the worse; the cook thinks she's poisoned him; the carpenter's certain his shoddy work has seen Edward off and the parlour maid is convinced she's done for the monarch after swiping him one with a bed pan. Meanwhile Jenks, the Grange's battle hardened butler ...

Nothing escapes the snooping opera glasses of Miss Elizabeth Mapp. She whiles away her busy hours observing the small English village of Tilling, and recording the antics in her notebook. But her observations are set to be disrupted by amorous advances of two retired army generals, both vying for her affection. With Miss Mapp distracted, who will keep Miss Susan Poppit in her place or oversee the correct playing of bridge? More importantly will quiet Tilling be subject to a violent duel?

Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but he was born in 1581. Owing to a rare condition, he’s been alive for centuries. From Shakespeare’s England to Jazz Age Paris to voyaging the Pacific alongside Captain Cook, Tom has seen a lot, and he now craves an ordinary life. Tom now has the perfect cover - working as a history teacher at a London school. Here, he can teach the kids about wars and witch hunts as if he’d never witnessed them first-hand. He can try to tame the past that is catching up with him. The only thing Tom can’t do is fall in love.