Historical Fiction
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You love history. You love history ebooks. But, you also love fiction--and you're not afraid to admit it. Why not have the best of both worlds? Authors who promote their Historical Fiction ebooks on our website always do so for free or at a discounted price. Bestsellers, new releases, and authors you'll be glad to have discovered. See the past through the eyes of these creative heroes!
Definition of "Historical Fiction Genre": The most important part of ebooks in this genre are their settings. Yes, characters and plot matter. But, beyond all else, the details associated with the setting must be accurate. This takes a tremendous amount of research and familiarity from the authors who delve into this genre of ebooks. These ebooks can focus on actual historical figures, or they can insert more fictionalized elements into the plot. It is always a balancing act between the history and fiction, and is something the best authors in this genre navigate with aplomb.
Some examples of bestselling ebooks in the Historical Fiction genre are Erik Larson (Devil in the White City), Margaret Mitchell (Gone With the Wind), Patrick O'Brian (Aubrey/Maturin Novels), and Mary Renault (The Persian Boy).
“A Family Shattered” is book two in the “Michal’s Destiny” series
Taavi Margolis is arrested on Kristallnacht when he races out of his apartment to protect his daughter’s fiancée, Benny, who is being attacked and killed by a gang of Nazi thugs as they pillage and destroy the streets of a little Jewish neighborhood in Berlin. Taavi’s wife, Michal and their two daughters stare in horror through the window as Benny is savagely murdered. Then, they watch helplessly as the gang turns their attention to Taavi. They beat him with clubs until he is on his knees and bleeding on the pavement. When the police arrive, instead of arresting the perpetrators, they force Taavi into the back of a black automobile and take him away. Michal, pulls her daughters close to her. No one speaks but all three of them have the same unspoken questions. Will they ever see their beloved husband and Papa again? They realize, after tonight, the Anti-Semitism that is growing like a cancer all around them can no longer be ignored. Their future is uncertain. What will become of this family, what will become of the Jews? This is the story of the struggle of one Jewish family, to survive against the unfathomable threat of the Third Reich.
Longlisted for the 2018 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
“Incandescent...A searing portrait of what feminism looks like in much of the world.” —Vogue
“A treat for Ferrante fans, exploring the bonds of friendship and how female ambition beats against the strictures of poverty and patriarchal societies.” —The Huffington Post
An electrifying debut novel about the extraordinary bond between two girls driven apart by circumstance but relentless in their search for one another.
Poornima and Savitha have three strikes against them: they are poor, they are ambitious, and they are girls. After her mother’s death, Poornima has very little kindness in her life. She is left to care for her siblings until her father can find her a suitable match. So when Savitha enters their household, Poornima is intrigued by the joyful, independent-minded girl. Suddenly their Indian village doesn't feel quite so claustrophobic, and Poornima begins to imagine a life beyond arranged marriage. But when a devastating act of cruelty drives Savitha away, Poornima leaves behind everything she has ever known to find her friend.
Her journey takes her into the darkest corners of India's underworld, on a harrowing cross-continental journey, and eventually to an apartment complex in Seattle. Alternating between the girls’ perspectives as they face ruthless obstacles, Girls Burn Brighter introduces two heroines who never lose the hope that burns within.
"This lush mystery is perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver." --Bustle
"A lush debut; Owens delivers her mystery wrapped in gorgeous, lyrical prose." --Alexandra Fuller
How long can you protect your heart?
For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life--until the unthinkable happens.
Perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Karen Russell, Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.
"Echoes of Elena Ferrante resound in this sumptuous saga."--O, The Oprah Magazine
"A masterfully choreographed saga of friendship, envy, sacrifice and love--as soulful, layered, and intoxicating as the samba that reverberates from the page." -Georgia Hunter, New York Times-bestselling author of We Were the Lucky Ones
The story of an intense female friendship fueled by affection, envy and pride--and each woman's fear that she would be nothing without the other.
Some friendships, like romance, have the feeling of fate.
Skinny, nine-year-old orphaned Dores is working in the kitchen of a sugar plantation in 1930s Brazil when in walks a girl who changes everything. Graça, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy sugar baron, is clever, well fed, pretty, and thrillingly ill behaved. Born to wildly different worlds, Dores and Graça quickly bond over shared mischief, and then, on a deeper level, over music.
One has a voice like a songbird; the other feels melodies in her soul and composes lyrics to match. Music will become their shared passion, the source of their partnership and their rivalry, and for each, the only way out of the life to which each was born. But only one of the two is destined to be a star. Their intimate, volatile bond will determine each of their fortunes--and haunt their memories.
Traveling from Brazil's inland sugar plantations to the rowdy streets of Rio de Janeiro's famous Lapa neighborhood, from Los Angeles during the Golden Age of Hollywood back to the irresistible drumbeat of home, The Air You Breathe unfurls a moving portrait of a lifelong friendship--its unparalleled rewards and lasting losses--and considers what we owe to the relationships that shape our lives.
What was it like to live during the Civil War? Not only for soldiers, but for their wives and children, mothers and fathers, sweethearts and friends? How did people, North and South, cope with four years of fear and misery, death and destruction?
In Voices from the Civil War, twenty-six men and women, black and white, young and old tell their stories. Grounded in historical fact, these fictional characters relate how they struggled to survive the greatest conflict in America’s history.
Among the voices are an Alabama man who fought for the Union, a newly emancipated slave who refused to leave the plantation of her life-long bondage, a woman who lived in a cave with her starving family during the siege of Vicksburg, a soldier who survived the nightmare of captivity in a POW camp, and a woman who secretly turned to prostitution to support her disabled veteran husband and their child.
“Combining a creative imagination with an in-depth knowledge of the Civil War, George J. Bryjak has molded diverse characters of the era and breathed life into them. In authentic voices, they tell us of the horrors and heartaches, the suffering and sadness of America’s bloodiest conflict. Their stories range beyond standard accounts of great armies and battles and generals to intimate terrain – the individual, personal tales of everyday people caught in a cataclysm.”
Mark H. Dunkelman, author of War’s Relentless Hand: Twelve Tales of Civil War Soldiers
A historical novel based on the life of Mary Rowlandson
“An authentic drama of Indian captivity…A compelling, emotionally gripping tale.”—Eliot Pattison, author of the Mystery of Colonial America series
She suspects that she has changed too much to ever fit easily into English society again. The wilderness has now become her home. She can interpret the cries of birds. She has seen vistas that have stolen away her breath. She has learned to live in a new, free way....
Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1676. Even before Mary Rowlandson was captured by Indians on a winter day of violence and terror, she sometimes found herself in conflict with her rigid Puritan community. Now, her home destroyed, her children lost to her, she has been sold into the service of a powerful woman tribal leader, made a pawn in the ongoing bloody struggle between English settlers and native people. Battling cold, hunger, and exhaustion, Mary witnesses harrowing brutality but also unexpected kindness. To her confused surprise, she is drawn to her captors’ open and straightforward way of life, a feeling further complicated by her attraction to a generous, protective English-speaking native known as James Printer. All her life, Mary has been taught to fear God, submit to her husband, and abhor Indians. Now, having lived on the other side of the forest, she begins to question the edicts that have guided her, torn between the life she knew and the wisdom the natives have shown her.
Based on the compelling true narrative of Mary Rowlandson, Flight of the Sparrow is an evocative tale that transports the reader to a little-known time in early America and explores the real meanings of freedom, faith, and acceptance.
READERS GUIDE INCLUDED
The Emmets are Protestants, belonging to the elite society of Ireland’s ruling class. Born in 1778, Robert Emmet, the youngest son of the State Physician of Ireland, has grown up in the heart of a prosperous and loving family, one of the most respected in Dublin city. From his parents he acquired a deep love of Ireland and a commitment to justice. From his brother Thomas he acquired an understanding of the divisions and inequalities of his country.
In the historic year of 1798 Robert’s life changed from its charted course to one of rebellion. A brilliant student at Trinity, he casts aside all hopes of a scientific career, all the privileges of his class, to join the United Irishmen – a society dedicated to the union of Protestant and Catholic. But the men in Dublin Castle determined on the continuance of English rule, force him to flee to France. But even as his boat sails away from his beloved homeland, he looks back and knows he will return – to the cause of his country’s liberty, and to the beautiful girl he has fallen in love with, Sarah Curran, the daughter of Ireland’s most talented lawyer.
He returns – and meets Anne Devlin, a passionate and brave Catholic country girl, who becomes his most devoted companion.
Set against the background of the beauty of Ireland, the dark clouds of its past, as well as the humour and dreams of its people, this is a passionate and powerful true story of three young people, Robert Emmet, Anne Devlin, and Sarah Curran, drawn together in love, in hope, and tragedy.
Pulitzer Prize–winning author James A. Michener brings Hawaii’s epic history vividly to life in a classic saga that has captivated readers since its initial publication in 1959. As the volcanic Hawaiian Islands sprout from the ocean floor, the land remains untouched for centuries—until, little more than a thousand years ago, Polynesian seafarers make the perilous journey across the Pacific, flourishing in this tropical paradise according to their ancient traditions. Then, in the early nineteenth century, American missionaries arrive, bringing with them a new creed and a new way of life. Based on exhaustive research and told in Michener’s immersive prose, Hawaii is the story of disparate peoples struggling to keep their identity, live in harmony, and, ultimately, join together.
BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from James A. Michener's Centennial.
It's a Wild West story, but it's also a love story. A young man, Cole Flynn, just 14 years old, rides into trouble when he stops at a ranch just outside Las Vegas, New Mexico, the meanest, wildest town in the Territory. He stops to ask for some water for himself and his animals and meets a young widow who's cattle are being stolen by a gang of outlaws. Cole decides to help her and takes on the toughest gang in the land. He kills one in a fair gunfight, and the Purvis gang comes after him, repeatedly trying to kill him. At one point, they kidnap the young widow, and Cole ups the stakes and dynamites the saloon owned by the gang's leader. He frees the widow and they ride off to make a life for themselves, but John Purvis, the gang's leader is vengeful. He repeatedly sends men to kill Cole, who has to be on constant alert or face his own demise.
Nothing could keep Christopher and Rebecca apart: not her abusive parents, or even the fiancé she brought home after running away to England. But when World War II finally strikes the island of Jersey, the Nazi invaders ship Rebecca to Europe as part of Hitler's Final Solution against the Jewish population.
After Christopher and his family are deported back to their native Germany, he volunteers for the Nazi SS, desperate to save the woman he loves. He is posted to Auschwitz and finds himself put in control of the money stolen from the victims of the gas chambers. As Christopher searches for Rebecca, he struggles to not only maintain his cover, but also the grip on his soul. Managing the river of tainted money flowing through the horrific world of Auschwitz may give him unexpected opportunities. But will it give him the strength to accept a brave new fate that could change his life--and others' lives--forever?
Revised edition: This edition of Finding Rebecca includes editorial revisions.
From “the queen of royal fiction” (USA TODAY) comes this New York Times bestseller featuring three very different women whose fates are each bound by a bloody curse: the legacy of the Boleyn family.
After the death of his third wife, Jane Seymour, King Henry VIII of England decides to take a new wife, but this time, not for love. The Boleyn Inheritance follows three women whose lives are forever changed because of the king’s decision, as they must balance precariously in an already shaky Tudor Court.
Anne of Cleves is to be married to Henry to form a political alliance, though the rocky relationship she has to the king does not bode well for her or for England.
Katherine Howard is the young, beautiful woman who captures Henry’s eye, even though he is set to marry Anne. Her spirit runs free and her passions run hot—though her affections may not be returned upon the King.
Jane Rochford was married to George Boleyn, and it was her testimony that sent her husband and infamous sister-in-law Anne to their deaths. Throughout the country, her name is known for malice, jealousy, and twisted lust.
The Boleyn Inheritance is a novel drawn tight as a lute string about three women whose positions brought them wealth, admirations, and power, as well as deceit, betrayal, and terror.
In 1903 a mysterious young woman flees alone across the West, one heart-pounding step ahead of the law. At nineteen, Mary Boulton has just become a widow—and her husband's killer. As bloodhounds track her frantic race toward the mountains, she is tormented by mad visions and by the knowledge that her two ruthless brothers-in-law are in pursuit, determined to avenge their younger brother's death. Responding to little more than the primitive fight for life, the widow retreats ever deeper into the wilderness—and into the wilds of her own mind—encountering an unforgettable cast of eccentrics along the way.
With the stunning prose and captivating mood of great works like Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain or early Cormac McCarthy, Gil Adamson's intoxicating debut novel weds a brilliant literary style to the gripping tale of one woman's desperate escape.
Summer, 1940.
American Xanthe Schneider finds herself catapulted into the world of British espionage, and is sent into the heart of Nazi Germany: Berlin.
Her task? To find out whether Ralph Lancing-Price – a former government minister she had known briefly in London – is a patriot or traitor.
And what of the code he talked about so abstrusely? Using her guise as an American correspondent, Xanthe sets out to find him. But not all is what it seems. Xanthe soon becomes drawn into a web of intrigue involving a project entitled "Enigma" - and she also unexpectedly falls in love.
As the weeks go by, and Germany begins to mobilise its armies, Xanthe has to question who she can trust - and how she can survive?
The Berlin Affair is a page-turning thriller, full of historical insight and dramatic reversals of fortune.
A must read for fans of Robert Harris, David Downing and Alan Furst.
‘Authentic and compelling... Boyle captures the paranoia and peril of the era.’ Roger Moorhouse, author of Berlin at War
‘The Berlin Affair is the first book in what I'm sure will prove to be a gripping series... For fans of Alan Furst and Robert Harris.’ - Richard Foreman, author of A Hero of our Time
‘Exhilarating’ - Daily Mail
‘A book that is engagingly sensitive’ Dominic Lawson, Sunday Times
David Boyle is a British author and journalist who writes mainly about history and new ideas in economics, money, business and culture. He lives in Crystal Palace, London. His books include Alan Turing: Unlocking the Enigma, Before Enigma, Operation Primrose,Rupert Brooke: England’s Last Patriot, Peace on Earth: The Christmas Truce of 1914, Jerusalem: England’s National Anthem, Unheard Unseen: Warfare in the Dardanelles, Towards the Setting Sun: The Race for America and The Age to Come.
In January 1945, in the waning months of World War II, a small group of people begin the longest journey of their lives: an attempt to cross the remnants of the Third Reich, from Warsaw to the Rhine if necessary, to reach the British and American lines.
Among the group is eighteen-year-old Anna Emmerich, the daughter of Prussian aristocrats. There is her lover, Callum Finella, a twenty-year-old Scottish prisoner of war who was brought from the stalag to her family’s farm as forced labor. And there is a twenty-six-year-old Wehrmacht corporal, who the pair know as Manfred–who is, in reality, Uri Singer, a Jew from Germany who managed to escape a train bound for Auschwitz.
As they work their way west, they encounter a countryside ravaged by war. Their flight will test both Anna’s and Callum’s love, as well as their friendship with Manfred–assuming any of them even survive.
Perhaps not since The English Patient has a novel so deftly captured both the power and poignancy of romance and the terror and tragedy of war. Skillfully portraying the flesh and blood of history, Chris Bohjalian has crafted a rich tapestry that puts a face on one of the twentieth century’s greatest tragedies–while creating, perhaps, a masterpiece that will haunt readers for generations.
From the New York Times bestselling authors of America’s First Daughter comes the epic story of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton—a revolutionary woman who, like her new nation, struggled to define herself in the wake of war, betrayal, and tragedy. Haunting, moving, and beautifully written, Dray and Kamoie used thousands of letters and original sources to tell Eliza’s story as it’s never been told before—not just as the wronged wife at the center of a political sex scandal—but also as a founding mother who shaped an American legacy in her own right.
A general’s daughter…
Coming of age on the perilous frontier of revolutionary New York, Elizabeth Schuyler champions the fight for independence. And when she meets Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s penniless but passionate aide-de-camp, she’s captivated by the young officer’s charisma and brilliance. They fall in love, despite Hamilton’s bastard birth and the uncertainties of war.
A founding father’s wife...
But the union they create—in their marriage and the new nation—is far from perfect. From glittering inaugural balls to bloody street riots, the Hamiltons are at the center of it all—including the political treachery of America’s first sex scandal, which forces Eliza to struggle through heartbreak and betrayal to find forgiveness.
The last surviving light of the Revolution…
When a duel destroys Eliza’s hard-won peace, the grieving widow fights her husband’s enemies to preserve Alexander’s legacy. But long-buried secrets threaten everything Eliza believes about her marriage and her own legacy. Questioning her tireless devotion to the man and country that have broken her heart, she’s left with one last battle—to understand the flawed man she married and imperfect union he could never have created without her...
Walt investigates a death by poison in this gripping novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Cold Dish and Dry Bones, the second in the Longmire Mystery Series, the basis for LONGMIRE, the hit drama series now on Netflix
Craig Johnson's The Highwayman and An Obvious Fact are now available from Viking.
Fans of Ace Atkins, Nevada Barr and Robert B. Parker will love Craig Johnson, New York Times bestselling author of Hell Is Empty and As the Crow Flies, who garnered both praise and an enthusiastic readership with his acclaimed debut novel featuring Sheriff Walt Longmire, The Cold Dish, the first in the Longmire Mystery Series, the basis for LONGMIRE, the hit drama series. Now Johnson takes us back to the rugged landscape of Absaroka County, Wyoming, for Death Without Company. When Mari Baroja is found poisoned at the Durant Home for Assisted Living, Sheriff Longmire is drawn into an investigation that reaches fifty years into the mysterious woman’s dramatic Basque past. Aided by his friend Henry Standing Bear, Deputy Victoria Moretti, and newcomer Santiago Saizarbitoria, Sheriff Longmire must connect the specter of the past to the present to find the killer among them.
Afghan-American Nadia Hashimi's literary debut novel is a searing tale of powerlessness, fate, and the freedom to control one's own fate that combines the cultural flavor and emotional resonance of the works of Khaled Hosseini, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Lisa See.
In Kabul, 2007, with a drug-addicted father and no brothers, Rahima and her sisters can only sporadically attend school, and can rarely leave the house. Their only hope lies in the ancient custom of bacha posh, which allows young Rahima to dress and be treated as a boy until she is of marriageable age. As a son, she can attend school, go to the market, and chaperone her older sisters.
But Rahima is not the first in her family to adopt this unusual custom. A century earlier, her great-great grandmother, Shekiba, left orphaned by an epidemic, saved herself and built a new life the same way.
Crisscrossing in time, The Pearl the Broke Its Shell interweaves the tales of these two women separated by a century who share similar destinies. But what will happen once Rahima is of marriageable age? Will Shekiba always live as a man? And if Rahima cannot adapt to life as a bride, how will she survive?
France, 1940
The German army has marched into Paris. Three siblings, three very different people leading very different lives, find themselves face to face with new occupants of their city, and none of them can guess what the occupation has in store for them, and how it will change their lives once and for all.
Giselle Legrand, a renowned novelist and a socialite, encounters an unannounced guest in her apartment – a newly arrived chief of the Gestapo, Sturmbannführer Dr. Karl Wünsche, who is intended to billet there and who soon starts making rather unwelcome changes in Giselle’s lifestyle. Strong-willed and defiant, Giselle gets involved with one of the first Resistance cells, refusing to submit to the newly established authority despite the developing relationship between the two.
Kamille Blanchard, a new widow of the war left alone with a small daughter, is dreading the approaching army. However, she never expected that she could find love in the arms of an officer, who appears at her door as soon as the German army marches in. But will Kamille be able to trust a former enemy when he has to choose between his feelings and the duty for his country?
Marcel Legrand, a former history student and a deserter, fearing the capture by the Germans has no other choice than ask for the help from the ones he used to fear and avoid – the mysterious communists, who call for an uprising and freeing their country from the Nazi plague.
Soon, the fates of all three siblings will become intertwined in a dangerous knot, all of them, fighting for the same goal: a liberated France.
There's no slavery in the Yorkshire Dales, not in 1887, not ever. But loving families use artful schemes to enslave the innocent. Twenty nine year-old Tizzie is such an innocent. She has worked herself down to skin and bones as a dairymaid on the farm of her dear brother, Jack, his gracious wife, Maggie, their three boys and one girl, Agnes. Expert at many things, though not in spotting conniving entrapment, Tizzie longs to see that young Agnes will not suffer her spinster fate. In trying to help Agnes find an education and avoid a life of drudgery in their male-dominated world, Tizzie begins to suspect and then uncover Jack and Maggie's treachery, and the family's plots to enslave and use up Agnes too. With only her wits to guide her, Tizzie tries to right years of wrongs and set Agnes free.
Esther Bailey is Titanic’s newest recruit and one of the first female officers of her time. Although she’s braced herself for the duties ahead, she never expected to clash with her own mentor, First Officer Murdoch. His cool dismissal of her only turns colder as they bicker throughout their forced partnership, with Esther’s short temper challenging his own. But as Esther begins to prove her worth, blurring the line between subordinate and superior, she and Murdoch find themselves questioning what matters most: their careers . . . or the feelings they’re hiding from each other. As tragedy unfolds around them, will they overcome the sinking together and live to see daylight?
Blending fact with fiction, On the Edge of Daylight is a heart-wrenching historical romance that tells a different story of the RMS Titanic through the eyes of the crew, and shows the duty, loyalty, and sacrifice of two officers who were never supposed to fall for each other.