Southern Historical Fiction

In 1928, Minnie's mother, Nora, arrives at her nursing college after abandoning her a few years ago as a child. What does Nora want? An unexpected visit to Grandpa and Marie at the Big House offers Minnie shelter and refuge, but no longer the carefree days of her youthful experiences there. She discovers secrets. Shrewd and hidden manipulations of power ensure the survival of the Big House in this small Southern town, where a smile can mask suppressed rage and hostility.

Memories of motherhood and marriage are fresh for Julia Presley...though tragedy took away both years ago. Finding comfort in the routine of running the Peach Orchard Inn, she lets the historic, mysterious place fill the voids of love and family. No more pleasure of a man's gentle kiss. No more joy in hearing a child call her Mommy. Life is calm, unchanging - until a stranger with a young boy and soul-deep secrets shows up in her Tennessee town and disrupts the loneliness of her world.

You can always go home…but what will you find when you do. Jonathan Hansen is about to find out. For years they’ve hidden a huge secret…an island that was home to their small town, the families and friends who live there, and the secrets they've kept for generations. But danger might be right beyond the water’s edge. Together, two guarded hearts are willing to face the impending threat and the danger it poses to the peaceful tranquility of their home. Ainslin O’Cleary wasn’t the type to over-react but she was beginning to feel a little desperate. She loved her home and ...

With so much trauma in her past, a young widow with a teen-age son clings to the belief that things can only get better. She’s wrong. When the grandfather with whom they live brings a conniving, selfish woman into the house, they are evicted from the only real home they’ve ever known. Driving down an unfamiliar road at night, on the way to seek a new life, a deer darts in front of the car, causing her to wreck. She watches helplessly as the automobile goes up in flames. A gruesome-looking character shows up out of nowhere and takes them to his cabin in the woods. Finding a way of escape...

Haughty Lady Helen Radney is one of London's most beautiful women, and the daughter of a duke, but her sharp tongue has frightened away most of her suitors. When her father gambles away his fortune, the duke's only chance for recouping his losses lies in marrying off Lady Helen to any man wealthy enough to take a bride with nothing to recommend her but a lovely face and an 800-year-old pedigree.

When a black boy named Paris saves Trudy from being crushed by a runaway Sunbeam Bread truck, they become friends. Navigating a multi-racial friendship in 1964 is no easy thing, however. The racism they encounter inspires them to go on an audacious adventure: to take down the Confederate flag that flies atop the South Carolina State House. And they can't do it without the help of Trudy's grandmother, Ida.

Dis 1933 - ses jaar voor die Tweede Wêreldoorlog. Kate Woodroffe was nog die heeltyd in watte toegedraai en soos ’n porseleinpoppie opgepas totdat sy besef dat daar ’n ander wêreld bestaan as die herehuis in Parktown Ridge. Haar studierigting bring haar in aanraking met die verwoestende armoede van Vrededorp, skaars tien kilometer van waar sy woon, en sy besluit om ’n verskil te maak in die stukkende wêreld om haar.

It’s 1972, and eighteen-year-old tomboy Maeve O’Connor must win a photography contest to escape her suffocating, conservative family and attend her dream school in Manhattan. But where will she find arresting subjects? Why, a washed up old seaside resort called Asbury Park, New Jersey—a place where sideshow entertainers, strippers, carnies, artists, and alternative lifestyles coexist on the boardwalk in plain sight.

It’s 1900 and work is scarce. Enticed by promises of work with good pay, people flock to textile mills in the South. Many leave their beloved mountains for what they hope is a step up from their grinding poverty. It’s guaranteed pay and housing. Being the sighted sister of the Hooper/Watson family, Lottie is grieved by a dream that sorrow will come to her home. Yet, she leaves Cocke County, Tennessee, with Beck Radford, her new husband, and her four children from a previous, abusive marriage, and goes to Clifton, South Carolina. Lottie is a stranger to village life and close neighbors. ...

Vicksburg is the fifth book in a series of novels spanning the Civil War and describing its effects on one southern family.

The Mariposa Mineby Harper Stanwick, Sr. is a romantic mystery set in New York and the remote corners of South America during the 1920s. Arnold returns to New York after years of constructing railways in the most remote parts of the world. The bustling city, filled with familiar faces and old haunts, is a stark contrast to his adventurous past. As he reconnects with his cousin Michelle, he is unexpectedly captivated by a mysterious woman he meets at an opera—Lisa Howe, a beauty adorned with silver butterflies. Lisa’s family’s fortunes have crumbled, yet she maintains an air of grace ...

Judith Kratt inherited all the Kratt family had to offer - the pie safe, the copper clock, the murder that no one talks about - and she knows in her old bones that it's time to make an inventory of her household and its valuables. But she finds that cataloging the family belongings - as well as their misfortunes - won't contain her family's secrets, not when her wayward sister suddenly returns, determined to expose skeletons that the Kratts had hoped to take to their grave.

Haunted by sorrow and regret, Margaret Hale stands at the precipice of an uncertain destiny. Fiercely determined but not knowing how to find her way, she risks the little she has left on the heart she once shattered - hoping somehow to win back his respect, if not his love...Since he was a boy, John Thornton has fought the consequences of his father’s mistakes. Crushed on all sides, all he has left to offer the one who needs him most is a home, and a heart that aches for her.

Antietam is the third book of eight spanning the Civil War and describing its effect on one southern family. The Brannon brothers answer the call to arms at different times, and the family finds itself struggling with dilemmas it never had considered.

Among the workhouses and pudding shops of South London, Private Detective William Arrowood is presented with far grittier, more violent, and considerably less well-paid cases than Sherlock Holmes. Arrowood has no doubt who is the better detective, and when Mr. and Mrs. Barclay engage him to find their estranged daughter, Birdie, he’s sure it won’t be long before he and his assistant, Barnett, have tracked her down.

John Thornton is a man of heavy responsibilities who has many things on his mind, but the most troublesome of them all is Margaret Hale. She wants nothing to do with him, and he wishes he could feel the same. When a moment of vulnerability allows her a glimpse into his heart, she begins to see him very differently.

The Great Depression has hit Annie Mae Thompkins' family, and prize money from the county fair could really help them. But when Jonathan Mercer's pig destroys her quilt entry, she hunts for another prize to chase. A beauty pageant may be the ticket, until she learns Jonathan is a judge. Can these two set aside their differences and find the true prize of love?

When Margaret Hale moves with her father from the comfort of the south of England to the industrial north, she is at first repulsed by what she sees; and then when she discovers the conditions under which the workers are forced to live, she is outraged. But this throws her into direct conflict with the powerful young mill-owner, John Thornton. Using personal passions to explore deep social divisions, North and South is a great romance and one of Elizabeth Gaskell's finest works.

It's 1943 and the Americans and Japanese are fighting a deadly war in the hot, jungle-covered volcanic islands of the South Pacific. The outcome is in doubt and a terrible blow has fallen on American morale. Lieutenant David Armistead, a Marine Corps hero and cousin of the President of the United States, is missing and some say he's gone over to the enemy. Coast Guard Captain Josh Thurlow and his ragtag crew are given the assignment to find Armistead, though not necessarily to bring him back alive.

In Erwin, TN in 1916, a rampaging elephant named "Murderous Mary" was hanged. That part of this short story is true. The rest is a love story involving two teenagers, Roy and Emily, who couldn't be more different or more in love. He's a poor farmhand from the south with a soft spot for animals and she's a rich Yankee with a hidden mean streak. Can their love survive the hanging of Murderous Mary, or will their differences tear them apart?