Southern Historical Fiction

Two strangers, young men from Pennsylvania and South Carolina, meet on the way to West Point.... Thus begins this brilliant novel of antebellum America, spanning three generations and chronicling the lives and loves of two great family dynasties. The Hazards and the Mains are brought together in bonds of friendship and affection that neither jealousy nor violence can shatter - until a storm of events sunders the nation and brings the cataclysm of war!

Oberlin, Ohio, 1868. Lisbeth Johnson was born into privilege in the antebellum South. Jordan Freedman was born a slave to Mattie, Lisbeth's beloved nurse. The women have an unlikely bond deeper than friendship. Three years after the Civil War, Lisbeth and Mattie are tending their homes and families while Jordan, an aspiring suffragette, teaches at an integrated school. When Lisbeth discovers that her father is dying, she's summoned back to the Virginia plantation where she grew up.

It's 1932, and Sullivan Harris is on the run. He promised the people of Kline, West Virginia, that he would find them water, but now he's failed and disappeared with their cash. Although he's determined to stay a step ahead of pursuers - like Jeremiah Weber - his resources are running low. Gainey Floyd is suspicious of Sulley's claim to be a dowser when he appears in town but reconsiders after he finds water. Rather, it's Sulley who grows uneasy when his success makes folks wonder if he can find more than water - like forgotten items or missing people.

She ran away from the war only to find herself in the middle of it. Who will protect her now? It’s 1861, Florida has seceded from the Union, and residents of Pensacola evacuate inland to escape the impending war. But Kate McFarlane’s impulsive act of rebellion changes her life and that of many others in ways she never expected. As a result, Kate finds herself with an eccentric aunt in an unfamiliar place. Lieutenant Clay Harris, a handsome Confederate officer, offers a chance for romance, but his actions make Kate question his character. When a hurricane brings an injured shipwrecked ...

In 1931, the creation of the new Great Smoky Mountains National Park threatens Rosie McCauley’s home. Rosie vows the only way the commission will get her land is if they haul her off in a pine box. When a compromise offers her and her disabled sister the opportunity to stay for Rosie’s lifetime, her acceptance sets her apart from the other mountain folk. And the bond she’s forming with ornithologist and outsider Benton Fuller only broadens the rift. Eighty-five years later, Kieran heads back to the national park to find answers to her great-grandmother’s mysterious death.

Maddie Sykes is a burgeoning seamstress who’s just arrived in Bright Leaf, North Carolina—the tobacco capital of the South—where her aunt has a thriving sewing business. After years of war rations and shortages, Bright Leaf is a prosperous wonderland in full technicolor bloom, and Maddie is dazzled by the bustle of the crisply uniformed female factory workers, the palatial homes, and, most of all, her aunt’s glossiest clientele: the wives of the powerful tobacco executives.

Strangers have come to Viney's mountain, and she is furious! The arrogant invaders are leveling acres of forest in her beloved home in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee to establish a Utopian democratic settlement in 1880, the dream of English writer and labor pioneer Thomas Hughes. Sixteen-year-old Viney Walker is determined to sabotage their plans, but her sister Lizzie is thrilled, convinced that she will find a wealthy husband among the newcomers. Independent and uncompromising, Viney rails against the traditional fate of a mountain woman--marriage, children, unending drudgery--and ...

For fourteen-year-old Leah Payne, life in her beloved coastal Carolina town is worlds away from the harsh realities of the day. Loyal to her lumberjack father, she knows only of the familiarity of her small community, the magic of the natural world, and the creative intuition that prompts her to march to the beat of her own drum. But when an accident takes her father's life, leaving her an orphan, Leah finds herself cast into a family of strangers whose welcoming façade hides a terrible secret.

Storm clouds are approaching Culpeper County, Virginia, in early January 1861. The troublesome Fogarty brothers have been raising havoc across the countryside, and when the local lawman, Will Brannon, returns from another futile attempt to track them down, he finds the townspeople abuzz. South Carolina has seceded from the Union, and rumor has it more states will follow, perhaps even Virginia.

Queensland, Australia, 1936 Sister Claire McAuliffe has been called from Dungarvan, County Waterford, to do God’s work in Jumaaroo, Queensland. Along with four other sisters, she is charged with setting up a Catholic school for the education of the gold rush families. But life between the tropical Australian rainforest and the azure ocean is far from the spectacular paradise it seems. Sister Claire finds life challenging in more ways than she can count—but far more worrying is the constant presence of the much-loved mayor of Jumaaroo, Joseph McGrath.

Ada promised herself she would never go back to the Trace, to her unbearable life on the swamp, and to her harsh father in Mississippi. But now, after running away to Baton Rouge and briefly knowing a different kind of life, she finds herself with nowhere to go but back home. Matilda, daughter of a sharecropper, is from the other side of the Trace. Doing what she can to protect her family from the whims and demands of some particularly callous locals is an ongoing struggle, so she forms a plan to go north.

Thelonious "Monk" Ellison's writing career has bottomed out: his latest manuscript has been rejected by seventeen publishers, which stings all the more because his previous novels have been "critically acclaimed." He seethes on the sidelines of the literary establishment as he watches the meteoric success of We's Lives in Da Ghetto, a first novel by a woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days."

Death at South Hills is a gripping English murder mystery set in the picturesque coastal town of Lynden Sands during the 1920s. Immerse yourself in a tale of intrigue, deception, and family secrets that will keep you guessing until the very end. When Mark Northbridge and his sister Stephanie arrive at the newly opened hotel in Lynden Sands, they are unaware of the dark mysteries that lie ahead. Their family estate, South Hills, stands at the center of unresolved tensions and a haunting disappearance. Garrett, their nephew, has been missing since the war, leaving a void filled with ...

Often called the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace is at once an epic of the Napoleonic wars, a philosophical study, and a celebration of the Russian spirit. Tolstoy's genius is clearly seen in the multitude of characters in this massive chronicle, all of them fully realized and equally memorable.

From drinking and running away from her problems to finding redemption, healing, forgiveness, and independence, Ethel Mae's life takes a dramatic turn in 1950 as she embarks on her last train ride. Facing yet another failed marriage, despite harsh judgment from family and community, she drops her children off at her mama’s small mountain farm one last time because she plans to bring their daddy home. During a train ride from the mountains of North Carolina, bound for New York, she reflects on and shares her miraculous birth, mountain raising, and tumultuous coming of age with fellow ...

When the Secretary of War appoints Dorothea Dix superintendent over the female nurses assigned to the Union Army, any woman who desires to serve must meet strict criteria: She had to be above thirty years of age, wear only plain, dark colors, and have no “ribbons, curls, bows, or hoops” about her person. Kate Wilkes fits all the criteria but one. Her father always said her curls were so tight even God couldn’t straighten them. When Kate starts tending the wounded soldiers at the Union Hospital in Paducah, Kentucky, chief surgeon Major James Logan doesn’t believe a battlefield ...

What happens when a trained nurse/midwife goes up against a Voodoo queen? New Orleans, 1890 Camille Duval has been a trained nurse and midwife for a short time in Charleston when she loses both her parents, and her uncle Claude Duval insists she come live with him in New Orleans. When wealthy Vincent Rousseau hires her as a midwife for Adelaide, his young bride, Camille has no idea she will come up against Madam Lafleur, the local voodoo queen, who has staked her claim on the pregnant woman and her future child. How can Camille convince Adelaide to trust her instead of voodoo for the health...

Bertie Jenkins has spent forty years serving as a midwife for her community in the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee. Out of all the mothers she’s tended, none affects her more than the young teenager who shows up on her doorstep, injured, afraid, and expecting, one warm June day in 1943. As Bertie and her four sisters tenderly nurture Songbird back to health, the bond between the childless midwife and the motherless teen grows strong. But soon Songbird is forced to make a heartbreaking decision that will tear this little family apart.

July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They’re looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long after the hitchhiker gets into their car, they see the blood seeping from her jacket and a truck barreling down Atticus Line after them.

Will she be safe, or will he find her? After physical abuse from her fiancé, Rose’s aunt convinces Rose to find refuge for the summer at her South Carolina beach house. At another time, Rose might have welcomed the incredibly handsome handyman, Frank, to repair her water heater. However, still reeling from her wounds and having total mistrust of all men, she seeks only solitude during her island summer. Frank is instantly attracted to Rose but finds her defenses forbidding. He senses how close she is to crumbling and will do anything to protect her. If her ex-fiancé finds her, can Frank...