Southern Historical Fiction

South Africa, 1871. Jack Lark no longer walks alone. With the worldly Anna Baker by his side, he travels to the Cape Colony diamond fields determined to seek their fortune—and an adventurous new life together. The journey north soon turns violent as tensions erupt between other hopeful diggers and a gang of Boer men. Everyone has their eye on the same elusive prize—and some will stop at nothing to get it. For Jack and Anna, unearthing a diamond is only half the battle. Getting out of the mines alive will prove far more difficult—and dangerous.

Eve Mann arrives in Ideal, Georgia, in 1972 looking for answers about the mother who died giving her life. A mother named Mercy. A mother who for all of Eve’s 22 years has been a mystery and a quest. Eve’s search for her mother, and the father she never knew, is a mission to discover her identity, her name, her people, and her home. Eve’s questions and longing launch a multigenerational story that sprawls back to the turn of the 20th century.

The gravy train hasn’t stopped in the hollers of western Virginia for more than 30 years when Stony Shelor starts his junior year at Jubal Early High. Class divides and racism are still the hardened norms as the Eisenhower years draw to a close. Violence lies coiled under the calm surface, ready to strike at any time.

Set in Alabama in the early '80s, Family Law follows a young lawyer, Lucia, who is making a name for herself at a time when a woman in a courtroom is still a rarity. She's received plenty of threats for her work extricating women and children from troubled relationships, but her own happy marriage has always felt far removed from her work. When her mother's pending divorce brings teenaged Rachel into Lucia's orbit, Rachel finds herself captivated not only with Lucia, but with the change Lucia represents.

Bored with his desk job, Flight Lieutenant Harry "Flash" Rose is persuaded by his dear friend Daniel "Granny" Smith to re-join Excalibur Squadron, now flying Hawker Typhoons in the defence of the south coast of England. His success rate is extraordinary, but there is much more to Rose’s story than combat.

In West Texas in the summer of 1937, Cottonwood tells the story of two families thrown together by tragedy and the bounds of racial injustice. Sheriff Rube Whitlock is faced with raising his two young sons after the death of his infant daughter leaves his wife too grief stricken to care for them. Overwhelmed with the responsibility, Rube hires Esther, a local black woman whose husband has just purchased his second mule and ignited a stirring of dissonance and contempt within the usually quiet community.

Jasper Perry has a home, a family - everything he thought was lost to him forever after war broke out. With Clara's love, Jasper believes he has everything he has ever wanted. As he awaits marriage to Clara, he finds himself overcome with homesickness. When a Confederate militia kidnaps him, determined to punish him for his defection, Jasper has a choice: to give up the loyalty he once held to the Confederacy and fight to get back to Clara; or leave his new home behind, and return to all that is familiar.

In the years after World War II, the bleak yet beautiful plains of South Dakota still embody all the contradictions - the ruggedness and the promise - of the old frontier. This is a place where you can eat strawberries from wild vines, where lightning reveals a boundless horizon, where descendants of white settlers and native Indians continue to collide, and where, for most, there are limited options. René shares a home, a family, and a passion for dance with her older brother, Leon. Yet for all they have in common, their lives are on remarkably different paths.

"I was born a slave, as was my father before me, but I shall die a free man." Thus begins the poignant story of Samuel Washburn, born a slave in 1850. A young master's cruelty leads to an unforeseen confrontation, which results in Sam and his cousin fleeing the plantation for their lives. They run north to freedom, only to return the South to fight for the greater cause in the Civil War.

La historia del mundo cambió en los trascendentales días de la Guerra Civil americana. Si los acontecimientos hubieran discurrido entonces por caminos diferentes, no hay duda que nuestra realidad sería muy distinta de la que ahora nos rodea. De haber vencido la causa sudista, no es probable que hoy la esclavitud continuase en vigor en esa mitad de Norteamérica, pero es evidente que el decisivo papel jugado por Estados Unidos a lo largo de convulso siglo XX habría que replantearlo de raíz, quién sabe en qué sentido.

General Armistead Mason and John “Jack” Mason McCarty are brothers-in-law, second cousins, and descendants of founding father George Mason IV. Ambitious and headstrong, together they set out to find love, acceptance and honor on their own merit. Armistead - by nature a politician - demands respect and strives for perfection. Jack - by inclination a rover - looks to forge his own path. When Armistead is challenged by corruption in the political machine and is denied a seat in the US Congress, the two become embroiled in a bitter dispute....

When Margaret Hale moves with her parents 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.

Through events small and large, thirteen-year-old Harold Stevens grows up during a pivotal summer in the red-dirt backcountry of West Texas. With his friend C.K. Crow, the black field hand who works for Harold’s father, he shoots deer and quail, fishes for catfish, mends fences, grows and learns about marijuana, and tests his emerging manhood against bullies, bulls, and the irresistible charms of his horse-riding older cousin.

A soldier wounded in the American Civil War, Inman turns his back on the carnage of the battlefield and begins the treacherous journey home to Cold Mountain - and to Ada, the woman he loved before the war began. As Inman attempts to make his way across the mountains, through the devastated landscape of a soon-to-be-defeated South, Ada struggles to make a living from the land her once-wealthy father left when he died. Neither knows if the other is still alive.

Returning to London after his honeymoon (For Deader or Worse), Bow Street Runner John Pickett soon discovers wedded bliss is not without its pitfalls, as he finds it galling to be financially dependent on Julia, his aristocratic bride. When he is summoned to the home of Lady Washbourn, Pickett finds he has something in common with the young countess: like himself, Lady Washbourn has married above her station and now finds herself adrift in a world to which she does not truly belong.

London, 1941. After losing her family to a Nazi bomb attack back home in Ireland, Sarah Gillespie joins the British Secret Services to bring them justice. Partnered with American undercover agent Lieutenant Tony Anderson, Sarah embarks on a dangerous mission that takes her from war-torn London into the black mountains of Wales. But when one of her team is revealed to be a German mole and enemies begin to close in, what price will Sarah have to pay to save her country—and herself?

Jake was born during a time that was as turbulent as any in American history. Mexico claimed Texas, but the American settlers who'd recently flooded in were more independent, and when the dictator Santa Anna set aside the Constitution of 1824, he launched a series of changes he had not foreseen. With his partner Jean-Louis Lafitte, Jake worked when he could, fought when necessary, and in the process, began a career that would make him one of the most well-known men on the Texas frontier.

Self-educated and brown skinned, Cassie works full time in her grandmother's laundry in rural Mississippi. Illiterate and white, Judith falls for "colored music" and dreams of life as a big-city radio star. These teenage girls are half-sisters. And when they catch wind of their wayward father's inheritance coming down in Virginia, they hitch their hopes on a road trip together to claim what's rightly theirs. In an old junk car, with a frying pan, a ham, and a few dollars hidden in a shoe, they set off through the Deep South of the 1950s.

—Southern Historical Fiction at Its Best... A Visit to the Rural South that will Bless Your Heart— —VOLUME 5 ANTHOLOGY (6 volumes in all). Faith & Family Friendly— - Persimmon Jam (novella 1): The thing about raising pups is that there is no stopping point. Sort of like the chicken and the egg. Even if you love the job, it can turn into its own sort of prison. Just about the time you get it under control, something weird happens. But our Paula is a ‘can-do’ gal, and it just takes a bit of thought, good planning, and maybe an ad in the Classified column of the Wishbone Echo. - ...

Having resigned his position at Bow Street, John Pickett waits in vain for someone - anyone! - to engage his services as a private inquiry agent. As weeks go by with no responses to his newspaper advertisement, he has taken to spending his days wandering idly about London rather than admit his failure to his wife.