Southern Historical Fiction

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 the fall of 1953, during the surface calm and prosperity of post-World War II America, the privileged West Texas Randolph family suffers a terrible blow. As a result, a disparate group of strangers become inextricably linked to the family, and to each other, for the four decades to follow. In the aftermath of their life-altering event, the deep-rooted Randolph clan is left vulnerable not only to threats from the outside, but to more sinister ones from within its own ranks.

In turn-of-the-century South Africa, 14-year-old Lettie, her younger brother, and her mother are Dutch Afrikaner settlers who have been taken from their farm by British soldiers and are being held in a concentration camp. It is early in the Boer War, and Lettie's father, grandfather, and brother are off fighting the British as thousands of Afrikaner women and children are detained. Determined to dictate their own fate, Lettie and her family give each other strength and hope as they fight to survive amid increasingly dire conditions.

Jane Gable thinks 1947 will be like every other year in Morgan Hill, Tennessee, but it turns out to be the year everything changes. Jane first lays eyes on young Milo Turner the day that her abusive, alcoholic father is buried in the Morgan Hill cemetery. The Turners are the first Black family ever to move into the area, and while their presence challenges the comfort of many in the small, tight-knit community, Jane and her brother, John, have found new friends.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, Kate Randsom is plunged into a battle of her own making.Pregnant and abandoned by the man who swore to marry her, disowned by her remaining family and shunned by the community where she has lived her whole life, Kate must find a way to deal with the repercussions of her own actions. Can she build a new life on the ashes of the old.....or will she lose everything she values?

1914, Australia: As war is declared, the idyllic world of Blue Water Station is torn apart when Oliver, the eldest grandson and heir, shares his desire to enlist in the army. His enthusiasm ignites his brother, cousins and friends to do the same but upsets his sister, Tilly. After a tragic family incident, she is left to run the cattle station and take care of the older folk. A chance meeting with a sophisticated lieutenant opens up a friendship through letters, but it’s a rogue stockman who attracts her attention - with dire consequences....

Ellen, the narrator of Boyd's previous novel, The Revolution of Little Girls, this time pierces the heart of the sexual revolution in her quest to find a woman hero or - by default - to become one. Ferociously paced, Terminal Velocity delineates six wonderfully engaging characters: Artemis Foote, for whom being rich, talented, and beautiful is a kind of game; Jordan, a messianic fugitive who becomes Ellen's lover; Amethyst Woman, a Marxist/Leninist dentist; Ross, a red-diaper baby and now a columnist for Ramparts; and Pearl, an art history professor turned hippie.

Author Lawrence Reid Bechtel has captured the story of Isaac Granger, a slave from Thomas Jefferson's plantation as told through the eyes of amateur historian Reverend Charles Campbell. In 1852, after much searching through the Black districts of Petersburg, Virginia, the amateur historian Charles Campbell finally located Isaac Granger, a former slave of the late Thomas Jefferson.

Russell is a changed man, but can he prove it to those he loves most? When Russell Stark returns to Fort Worth, he's determined to begin a new life. But when he arrives at his mother's homestead, he discovers that she is very ill and the woman he loved is still as beautiful and sweet as he remembered. With time running out, Russell must come to terms with both his future and his past.

A hardworking tobacco farmer in the Carolina Uplands, Justin Harris wants only to provide for his family. The outbreak of revolution turns his life upside down, and he cannot anticipate how even his seemingly most inconsequential actions will touch the lives of generations yet to come. Through crushing setbacks and hard-won victories, Justin's perseverance serves as a gift to his descendants.

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?

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.

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.

In 1866, with the country barely recovered from the Civil War, new war breaks out on the western frontier - a clash of cultures between a young, ambitious nation and the Native tribes who have lived on the land for centuries. Colonel Henry Carrington arrives in Wyoming’s Powder River Valley to lead the US army in defending the opening of a new road for gold miners and settlers. Carrington intends to build a fort in the middle of critical hunting grounds, the home of the Lakota.

Daisy Arnsby is the ugly duckling of the large Arnsby family. Destined to be alone. When a handsome schoolmate asks her to sign a promise that she’ll wed him on her 25th birthday, she jumps at the chance. She hopes, but never dares to dream, that he’d come back. Elias Laury fears his towering height excludes him from ever convincing Daisy to return his love, so he tricks her into waiting for him. But when he returns to collect his bride, he finds that she’s not willing to settle for a marriage of convenience.

Set against the backdrop of the antebellum South, this compelling work of historical fiction follows the harrowing journey of a young man, stolen from his family and thrust into the merciless world of slavery. The story unfolds with the abduction of IDI, a bright and resourceful young man who is cruelly torn from his family and homeland. His journey takes him to the American South, where he is subjected to the dehumanizing horrors of servitude. Driven by an unshakable determination to regain his freedom, David befriends a group of fellow slaves who share his longing for escape.

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.

In Where the Wild Cherries Grow by Laura Madeleine, it is 1919, and the end of World War I has not brought peace for Emeline Vane. Lost in grief, she is suddenly alone at the heart of a depleted family. And just as everything seems to be slipping beyond her control, in a moment of desperation, she boards a train and runs away.

Nora Arnsby fights her way into a world dominated by men. When a break-in shatters the sense of home she's created, Nora can’t find her footing. With the intruders growing bolder and her safety at risk, she reaches out to the only person who will listen, even if it means asking a man for help. The stranger across the street is handsome and persistently kind, so different from other men. Mathias Horton refuses to let any woman get close to him. Mathias must resume the life he gave up to save the one who ignites his battered heart, or admit defeat and let her go back to Deadwood.

Thirteen-year-old Barnaby Fletch is a bag-and-bones orphan in London in the late 1700s.Barnaby lives on his wits and ill-gotten gains, on streets seething with the press of the throng and shadowed by sinister figures. Life is a precarious business.When he hears of a paradise on the other side of the world – a place called Botany Bay – he decides to commit a crime and get himself transported to a new life, a better life.