Historical Humor

After two rollicking adventures through Western literature, resourceful literary detective Thursday Next definitely needs some downtime. And what better place for a respite than in the hidden depths of the Well of Lost Plots, where all unpublished books reside? But peace and quiet remain elusive for Thursday, who soon discovers that the Well is a veritable linguistic free-for-all, where grammasites run rampant, plot devices are hawked on the black market, and lousy books—like the one she has taken up residence in—are scrapped for salvage.

It's 1939, in New York City. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just pulled off his greatest feat: smuggling himself out of Hitler's Prague. He's looking to make big money, fast, so that he can bring his family to freedom. His cousin, Brooklyn's own Sammy Clay, is looking for a partner in creating the heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit the American dreamscape: the comic book.

People in Adenville are breathing a sigh of relief. It seems that Tom D. Fitzgerald, the Great Brain, has truly reformed. For months, not one kid has been swindled and not one stunt has been pulled. But when he gets a new bike for Christmas, the Great Brain heads full speed into his old ways. And this time his ideas are bigger than ever. He puts all of Adenville in fear of a prehistoric beast from Skeleton Cave, solves a mysterious bank robbery, and captures the ghost of Silverload Mine.

In this escapade, the Junior Ganymede Club (Jeeves's association of butlers and valets) is revealed to be an arm of the British intelligence service. Jeeves must ferret out a Fascist spy, and only his hapless employer can help. Unfolding in the background are school-chum capers, affairs of the heart, drawing-room escapades, antics with aunts, and sartorial set-tos.

1720. The Golden Age of Piracy.After setting out to look for his press-ganged father, fifteen-year old Dan Leake finds himself clinging to a barrel in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. His luck changes when a passing ship saves him from a watery grave, but his joy is short-lived. He soon discovers that his rescuers are not what they seem.Dan is forced to join Calico Jack’s blood-thirsty crew, which includes Anne Bonny and Mary Read. He faces death on a daily basis as they career around the Caribbean lurching from one hair-raising adventure to another. At last he reaches Jamaica, where he ...

London, 1664. Twenty years after the English revolution, the monarchy has been restored, and Charles II sits on the throne. The men who conspired to kill his father are either dead or disappeared. Baltasar “Balty” St. Michel is 24 and has no skills and no employment. He gets by on handouts from his brother-in-law Samuel Pepys, an officer in the king’s navy. Fed up with his needy relative, Pepys offers Balty a job in the New World. He is to track down two missing judges who were responsible for the execution of the last king, Charles I.

Oscar Hopkins is a high-strung preacher's kid with hydrophobia and noisy knees. Lucinda Leplastrier is a frizzy-haired heiress who impulsively buys a glass factory with the inheritance forced on her by a well-intentioned adviser. In the early parts of this lushly written audiobook, author Peter Carey renders the seminal turning points in his protagonists' childhoods as exquisite 19th-century set pieces.

Gesh, The Drunken Weed, one time member of the MCD and Mesopotamian goddess is getting bored by the pandemic lockdown. The solution, a holiday. However, lockdown rules forbid vacations to other places, so why not to the same place but other times. So, together with her family and friends, including John, the Irrelevant One and his wife Pandora they set off on a demon's tour bus to meet Robin Hood, King Charles and others in historical Nottingham. More chaos ensues.

Imagine that there are American MIAs who chose to remain missing after the Vietnam War. Imagine that there is a family in which four generations of strong, alluring women have shared a mysterious connection to an outlandish figure from Japanese folklore. Imagine just those things (don’t even try to imagine the love story) and you’ll have a foretaste of Tom Robbins’s eighth and perhaps most beautifully crafted novel--a work as timeless as myth yet as topical as the latest international threat.

When Dawn Fallon abandons her ambitions to be a professional musician and becomes a Civil Servant little does she realise she would be given a job as a VAT Control Officer - a job she struggles with on many levels, but with the help and support of her senior colleagues, she achieves a promotion, though finds the job no less difficult. The job brings her into contact with some bizarre situations and an interesting variety of business people. As she visits businesses to inspect their accounts for Value Added Tax purposes, researches whether sheep semen is taxable, grapples with solving why a ...

In 1761, a tiny, odd-looking girl named Marie is born in a village in Switzerland. After the death of her parents, she is apprenticed to an eccentric wax sculptor and whisked off to the seamy streets of Paris, where they meet a domineering widow and her quiet, pale son. Together, they convert an abandoned monkey house into an exhibition hall for wax heads, and the spectacle becomes a sensation. As word of her artistic talent spreads, Marie is called to Versailles, where she tutors a princess and saves Marie Antoinette in childbirth. But outside the palace walls, Paris is roiling....

Never Expected He Would Be the One... but I Had Fantasized. Guess that's the same as wishing! My first time! It’s really going to happen. I want this so bad, but I know it’s too BIG. “It’ll be tight, sweetheart. But we’ll make it fit!” A hot erotic short read. Older Man, Young Woman, Taboo situation, M/F intimacy.

It's 1962, and all across America barriers are collapsing. But when Natalie Marx's mother inquires about summer accommodations in Vermont, she gets the following reply: The Inn at Lake Devine is a family-owned resort, which has been in continuous operation since 1922. Our guests who feel most comfortable here, and return year after year, are Gentiles. For twelve-year-old Natalie, who has a stubborn sense of justice, the words are not a rebuff but an infuriating, irresistible challenge.

In this follow-up to Austenland, Charlotte Kinder is eager to escape the numbness she feels after her divorce. Deciding to get away, she visits the Regency-themed Pembrook Park resort in England, where talented actors set the perfect scene. But with everyone playing a role, it’s hard to distinguish reality from fantasy. So when Charlotte’s heart stirs, she wonders if she’s simply caught up in the experience - or if her ability to feel is finally returning.

Delphine Delacroix has lived the life of bird in a gilded cage, kept in a stately home with only her cold autocratic mother for company. At her mother’s death, she finds herself to be a wealthy woman and comes to London to be fretted over by her three maternal aunts determined to have her marry well. But Delphine feels she is once more having to hand herself over to another’s will and seeks to be the mistress of her own destiny.

Wanted Husband and Father to four on a horse ranch. Must be experienced with horses. Must be a God-fearing man with experience with ChildrenSarah Dawson doesn’t need a man. She doesn’t need anyone. Except she needs a husband’s name to keep the ranch to pass down to her son, Oliver, when he’s grown. After losing two husbands to unusual deaths, she is the object of gossip around town. Opting for a mail-order husband ad, she doesn’t expect a man like Roy Odell to show up at her door. Not only is he a good father, he wants a real marriage. But will he want to stay once he finds out ...

”Guess what I just wagered? I put you up as the booty and I lost!!!” This is how I became an unintentional hotwife! My husband can be a real goof-off sometimes, and he can pull some real bonehead moves, I’ll tell you. His latest screw up on poker night really beats it all, tho. My loving husband decided to ante up with yours truly as the bet, and he LOST! So his two co-workers get a shot at me… both at the same time. I was already letting his boss have his way with me in our bedroom!!! So now I have THREE HOT MEN to PLEASE!!! I just can’t seem to resist big men… so… when my ...

"Es una verdad mundialmente reconocida que un hombre soltero, poseedor de una gran fortuna, necesita una esposa". Con esta frase comienza la famosa novela de Jane Austen, Orgullo y Prejuicio, que cuenta la vida de la familia Bennet y sus cinco hijas, Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Catherine Y Lydia. La señora Bennet ve el matrimonio como la única esperanza para sus hijas. Con la llegada al vecindario de Mr. Bingley, un joven rico y soltero, y su apuesto amigo, Mr. Darcy, la vida de las muchachas se ve revolucionada.

Will the contents of dozens of old trunks filled with century’s old and fragile dresses, antique books and journals, and an even older jeweled sword, provide the answers to any of Mae’s well-guarded secrets?Sisters of the Heart is the fifth book in the ongoing story of the Engstrom family in the Mae’s Second Chance series. In the small ghost town of Mae’s Second Chance, where centuries old secrets remain hidden and the surrounding hills continue to guard another woman’s treasures, Julie Engstrom brings her family in search of a place that can replace what they had to leave behind....

As they blunder towards doom, Warlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson find themselves inconvenienced by a variety of eldritch beings. Christmas brings a goose that doesn't let being cooked slow it down; they meet an electricity demon, discover why being a redhead is even trickier than one might imagine, and Holmes attempts an Irish accent. And, naturally, Moriarty is hanging around...in some form or other.