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Books > Fiction > Genre fiction > Historical fiction
A gripping dust bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town. The Antidote opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing—not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the dust bowl drought but beneath its own violent histories. The Antidote follows a "Prairie Witch,” whose body serves as a bank vault for peoples’ memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate. Russell's novel is above all a reckoning with a nation’s forgetting—enacting the settler amnesia and willful omissions passed down from generation to generation, and unearthing not only horrors but shimmering possibilities. The Antidote echoes with urgent warnings for our own climate emergency, challenging readers with a vision of what might have been—and what still could be.
From International Number One Bestseller Andrew Gross, The Last Brother is the thrilling historical novel about three brothers and the Mafia in 1930s New York. 1930s New York City. Three brothers grow up poor on the Lower East Side, until the death of their father forces them to find work to support their family. Each brother takes a different path. Twelve-year-old Morris Rabishevsky apprentices himself to a garment manufacturer with the aim of running the business. Sol, six years older, heads to accounting school but is forced to drop out. Scarred by a family tragedy, Harry falls under the spell of the charismatic Louis Buchalter, who in a few short years becomes the most ruthless mobster in town. Morris convinces Sol to go into business with him, but Harry can't be lured away from the glamour, power and money of the mob. As their business grows, Buchalter sets his sights on the unions that control the garment maker's factories, setting up a fatal showdown that could bring them together or shatter their family forever.
A reluctant bride. A forbidden romance. An island full of secrets . . . It’s the summer of 1929 and Mhairi MacKinnon is in need of a husband. As the eldest girl among nine children, her father has made it clear he can’t support her past the coming winter. On the small, Scottish island of St Kilda, her options are limited. But the MacKinnons’ neighbour, Donald, has a business acquaintance on distant Harris also in need of a spouse. A plan is hatched for Donald to chaperone Mhairi and make the introduction on his final crossing of the year, before the autumn seas close them off to the outside world. Mhairi returns as an engaged woman who has lost her heart – but not to her fiancé. In love with the wrong man yet knowing he can never be hers, she awaits the spring with growing dread, for the onset of calm waters will see her sent from home to become a stranger’s wife. When word comes that St Kilda is to be evacuated, the lovers are granted a few months’ reprieve, enjoying a summer of stolen hours together. Only, those last days on St Kilda will also bring trauma and heartache for Mhairi and her friends, Effie and Flora. And when a dead body is later found on the abandoned isle, all three have reason enough to find themselves under the shadow of suspicion . . . The Stolen Hours is Book Two in Karen Swan's bestselling Wild Isle Series.
Before the Raid was a 1942 Crown Film Unit, propaganda film, made for boosting public morale in war time. The booklet explores the making of this film at Portmahomack in North East Scotland, and its message about the need for free and oppressed peoples to engage in civil resistance towards evil and, with sacrifice, in their ability to overcome it. In support of their work in maintaining the local history of the Tarbat Peninsula, all proceeds from the sale of this book go to: The Tarbat Historic Trust.
The Vale of the Red Horse, Edgehill, Warwickshire, October, 1642. Bitter divisions that have grown unchecked in the kingdoms of the Stuart dynasty are about to engulf England in a bloody civil war. 30,000 men have gathered to determine the fate of nations and to pursue their own ideals and enmities through brutal and bloody combat. Many have never handled a weapon or strayed far from their native shire. Among them are Anthony Sedley the Birmingham iron worker and Leveller, Robbie Needham, an embittered lead miner from Derbyshire who picks up a pike for his king, George Merrick, the young Oxford graduate whose prospects have been blighted by court corruption, Hywel Lloyd, a proud Welsh hill farmer, and William Bennet the struggling merchant who has staked everything to raise a company for the parliamentary cause. Then there are the half-brothers, Ralph and Francis Reeve, sons of a Suffolk farmer. Pious Francis has abandoned his studies at Cambridge to make England a New Jerusalem, cleansed of sin and filth. He despises his carefree brother and the father who seems to favour him. Caught cuckolding a London merchant, Ralph has forfeited his apprenticeship and indenture money. He dreams of restoring his honour and his fortune when he returns to London with the king's victorious army. But first the brothers must face each other in the Vale of the Red Horse, the horse whose rider is War... God's vindictive wrath!
"Conspirata "is "a portrait of ancient politics as a blood sport,"
raves the "New York Times." As he did with "Imperium," Robert
Harris again turns Roman history into a gripping thriller as Cicero
faces a new power struggle in a world filled with treachery,
violence, and vengeance.
It is 1851. A group of excursionists sets off from Canterbury to see the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. During the train journey the organiser, Percy Blackwood, invites them to tell stories which he intends to publish anonymously, for unknown to the others he is in serious debt. From the navvy to the lady's companion, from the book binder to the music hall artiste, they all oblige, their stories forming a panorama of Victorian England and offering glimpses into the lives of their tellers. All set off for the Crystal Palace with high hopes, and all are changed, for better or worse, by encountering the technical and engineering miracles of the age.
Shortlisted for the 2010 Orange Prize
Sold by her mother. Enslaved in Pompeii's brothel. Determined to survive. Her name is Amara. Welcome to the Wolf Den... Amara was once a beloved daughter, until her father's death plunged her family into penury. Now she is a slave in Pompeii's infamous brothel, owned by a man she despises. Sharp, clever and resourceful, Amara is forced to hide her talents. For as a she-wolf, her only value lies in the desire she can stir in others. But Amara's spirit is far from broken. By day, she walks the streets with her fellow she-wolves, finding comfort in the laughter and dreams they share. For the streets of Pompeii are alive with opportunity. Out here, even the lowest slave can secure a reversal in fortune. Amara has learnt that everything in this city has its price. But how much is her freedom going to cost her? Set in Pompeii's lupanar, The Wolf Den reimagines the lives of women who have long been overlooked.
Here is a small fact - you are going to die. 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall. The 10th-anniversary edition features pages of bonus content, including annotated manuscript pages, original sketches, and pages from the author's writing notebook.
The first book in Hilary Mantel’s award-winning Wolf Hall trilogy, with a new cover design to celebrate the publication of the much anticipated The Mirror & The Light. England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
During the 9th and 10th century's the battles between the Anglo Saxons and Vikings were always bloody, but none more so than at the battle of Wodens elde. Our history shows that the Anglo Saxon army, consisting of men from Mercia and Wessex met the might of the Viking army on the elds of Woden and utterly defeated them on the 5th day of August 910.
A French army marches through Europe to attack Russia. In Lithuania, a Russian province, the people try to remain on the sidelines but the peasant KadiA!ius family are dragged into it. As the story unfolds and follows the everyday lives of succeeding generations we begin to understand exactly what it meant to live in this beautiful but little known country occupied by an alien power. Years later the peasants are still under the same Russian yoke. Poverty, cruel persecution of the Jews and the attempted erasure of Lithuanian culture forces an Exodus from the country of almost Biblical proportions towards the West. It is a decision that is not easy for the migrants but one which many have been compelled to take. In 1894 Elzbieta, a farm girl, and her sister Juoza, are seeking something better. They set out on their long, eventful journey through life, by road, train and ship. Arriving in England, the country which has offered them sanctuary, Elzbieta is appalled to discover the teeming slums of London's Stepney, where she is destined to live. The culture shock is great as she quietly battles to retain her identity huddled together with others of her kind in the Lithuanian ghetto. Her family's trials, throughout the years, are mirrored by world events. She and they fight against the odds armed with intelligence, humanity, honesty, and a religious faith which is sometimes not without its contradictions. The family progresses despite many setbacks. Between them they make a huge difference to the lives of others. In wartime and peace they are involved in major events as were their Lithuanian ancestors. This is about the striving of the human soul for something better.
The thrilling sequel to Fifteen Postcards Disappearing from her antiques shop amid a spray of bullets, Sarah Lester leaves no body, only questions. Sarah's friends are left to deal with the aftermath of her disappearance, including questions about the dubious provenance of her antiques which threaten to crush the business she's brought back from the brink of failure. Sarah struggles to reunite with her father while continuing the search for her mother, unaware that England's violent colonial past has followed her to the present, putting herself and those she loves in danger. From the remote shores of New Zealand, through India's hill-country stations and onto the streets of Victorian London, Sarah must determine whether family bonds are strong enough to reach across the centuries. The Last Letter is peopled with reticent soldiers, conniving clergymen, fanatical collectors and commission-hungry auctioneers, taking you on a spectacular journey through time.
Having brought peace to a country at war with itself the benign Roman governance encouraged previously unknown literacy plus education, trade, farming, an economy and the usage of Roman invention including the improved Roman plough, wind/water mills, double action pump and glass amongst many things. Such wealth production naturally generated envy and crime existed, including treason and murder as well as extortion and fraud, in the 105 towns that catered for a population of 2.5 million. A well organised civil service included policing and Albinus Felix, himself the son of a British ex-slave, had climbed the army's promotion ladder to become chief of intelligence in Britannia to be ably assisted by his son-in-law, Clemens, from a wealthy family in Rome. At daily risk from traitors, confidence tricksters and their acolytes they plan and counter-plan to capture them, at the same time attempting to infiltrate the groups. Experienced Governor Urbicus and his fleet admiral Agrippa offer whatever support is required within the law but often leaving Felix and Clemens out on a limb. A local tribal leader who understands that peace and stability can only benefit the tribes also offers help, to the chagrin of the overall tribal council.
In The Children of Jocasta, Natalie Haynes takes a fresh perspective on an ancient story, reimagining in gripping prose how the Oedipus and Antigone stories would look if the oft-overlooked female characters took centre stage. Retelling the myth to reveal a new side of an ancient story . . . My siblings and I have grown up in a cursed house, children of cursed parents . . . Jocasta is just fifteen when she is told that she must marry the King of Thebes, an old man she has never met. Her life has never been her own, and nor will it be, unless she outlives her strange, absent husband. Ismene is the same age when she is attacked in the palace she calls home. Since the day of her parents' tragic deaths a decade earlier, she has always longed to feel safe with the family she still has. But with a single act of violence, all that is about to change. With the turn of these two events, a tragedy is set in motion. But not as you know it. |
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