Take a trip to the days of yore in these historical fiction titles in book, eBook, eAudiobook, large print, or audio CD. This list updates when we add new titles to our collection.
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eBook
'Atonement' is the novel for which Ian McEwan will always be remembered. Enthralling in its depiction of childhood, love and war, class and England, at its centre is a profound and profoundly moving exploration of shame and forgiveness.
Book
"Scotland, 1703: Returning to her home town of Pittenweem, fishwife and widow Sorcha McIntyre knows she faces both censure and mistrust. After all, this is a country where myth and legend are woven into the fabric of the everyday, a time when those who...
"Will love be enough to overcome the odds? It is 1960 and Clare Hamilton is returning home to her beloved Armagh to marry Andrew, her childhood sweetheart. Full of the hope and possibilities of a newlywed couple, they plan to turn Andrew's ancestral home...
Large Print
"Ruth has been single-handedly raising four young daughters and running her family's Indiana farm for eight long years, ever since her husband, John, fell into a comatose state, infected by the infamous "sleeping sickness" devastating families across...
"Bethany Herbert, daughter of a legendary healer, leaves the South for the new black community of Nicodemus, Kansas. Despite the hardships, the community comes to love the prairie. Bethany's mother, Queen Bess, comes to Nicodemus, as does the handsome...
"Colman Harpe works for the C&O in the Appalachian rail town of Thurmond, West Virginia, but he'd rather be a preacher and lead his own congregation. When a member of the rival McLean clan guns down his cousin and the clan matriarch, Serepta McLean, taunts...
"Young Rachel Kalama, growing up in idyllic Honolulu in the 1890s, is part of a big, loving Hawaiian family, and dreams of seeing the far-off lands that her father, a merchant seaman, often visits. But at the age of seven, Rachel and her dreams are s...
"New from Marie Benedict, the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Woman in the Room! An incredible novel that focuses on one of the people who had the most influence during World War I and World War II: Clementine Churchill. In 1909, Clementine...
"She was the most beautiful woman in the world. Discovered in a Berlin cabaret in the roaring twenties, she is brought to the glamour of Los Angeles. She becomes a superstar of the silver screen and Hollywood's darling, but nothing perfect lasts forever....
"Seventeen-year-old Constance has had a privileged upbringing in Clapham, with staff to attend to her every need. But her parents have always been cold and distant, never showing her love. Craving affection, Constance falls into the arms of Albie Jones,...
"The pretty Arnold sisters have grown up on their father’s farm and yearn for something more out of life than drudgery and toil. Ellen, loyal and honest, is her father’s favourite, but Georgina is impulsive and unreliable, and can’t please a father who...
eAudiobook
Soundings and Choc Lit present the audiobook edition of Daughter of the House. Evelyn Pendragon is spirited but lonely, and largely ignored by her parents whose attentions are taken up with her brother, Nicholas: the expected heir to the family's Cor...
For fans of The Tattooist of Auschwitz 'Heart-wrenching. Emotional. A powerful story of wartime love and devotion' Glynis Peters, author of The Secret Orphan A powerful and incredibly moving historical novel inspired by an untold story of the Second World...
"The GimmicksNew York TimesThe Gimmicks is a masterpiece of storytelling. Chris McCormick brilliantly illuminates the impact of history and injustice on ordinary lives and challenges us to confront the spectacle of violence and the specter of its aft...
"Orphaned at the age of thirteen, Hikotaro resigns himself to a life at sea. But when the merchant vessel he sails on is caught in a violent storm, he is taken to San Francisco by American rescuers. Made an outcast by the shogunate policy forbidding reentry...
Moshe Sachar, the leader of Israeli forces battling the Arabs for Jerusalem in 1948, follows the dying wishes of an elder rabbi and escapes into a secret tunnel under the city, where he discovers a set of sacred scrolls that tell the history of the city...
Audio CD
"Cecily Hanson longs to live life on her own terms - to leave the shadow of her overbearing mother and marry her childhood sweetheart once he returns from the Great War. But when her fianc ̌is lost at sea, this future is shattered. Looking for meaning...
"On Christmas Eve, 1617, the sea around the remote Norwegian island of Vardø is thrown into a reckless storm. As Maren Magnusdatter watches, 40 fishermen, including her father and brother, are lost to the waves, the menfolk of Vardø wiped out in an i...
"Mags has never forgotten the friendship she forged with Flora and Ella, two fellow nurses she served with at the beginning of World War I. Haunted by what she experienced during that time, she fears a reunion with her friends would bring back the horror...
"As enemy planes continue to bombard the North West of England, the women of Great Paxford fight harder then ever to persevere. Pat thought she'd found true happiness, but as things change at home she finds herself questioning everything she thought she...
"Dilys is a devoted member of a terribly English cult: The Panacea Society, populated almost entirely by virtuous single ladies. When she strikes up a friendship with Grace, a new recruit, God finally seems to be smiling upon her. The friends become closer...
"Abandoned as an infant on the steps of the Ursuline Convent School, Leonie Vernay has endured the emotional and financial poverty of an orphan. Now a young woman making her way as a humble seamstress in New Orleans, she is startled by a mysterious s...
"An historically rich novel that brings to life the fascinating story of America's first female state senator, Martha Hughes Cannon, who was also a doctor, suffragist, and champion of public health in the frontier territory of Utah in the late 19th century....
As Chicago's Great Fire destroys their bookshop, Meg and Sylvie Townsend make a harrowing escape from the flames with the help of reporter Nate Pierce. But the trouble doesn't end there--their father is committed to an asylum after being accused of murder,...
"As the French revolution ravages the country, Desiree Clary is faced with the life-altering truth that the world she has known and loved is gone and it's fallen on her to save her family from the guillotine. A chance encounter with Napoleon Bonaparte,...
"When Ruby loses her job in Depression-era Norfolk, she boards a Greyhound for home. That bus will take her, not to her family, but to shame and degradation, to a life she never envisioned. Escape from that misery eventually comes, and she seeks to rebuild...
"Queen Elizabeth's spymasters recruit an unlikely agent - the only Muslim in England - for an impossible mission" --
"The Hundred Years War still rages on and the French army thirsts for Thomas Blackstone's blood. Blackstone battles to strengthen Edwards III's claim to the throne and confronts the might of the French army. But, when his friend turns assassin, Blackstone...
"London, 1754. Six years after leaving her newborn, Clara, at London's Foundling Hospital, young Bess Bright returns to reclaim the illegitimate daughter she has never really known. Dreading the worst - that Clara has died in care - the last thing she...
A sweeping novel about the extraordinary woman who captured Napoleon's heart, created a dynasty, and changed the course of history--from the New York Times bestselling author of The Traitor's Wife, The Accidental Empress, and Sisi. As the French revo...
The year is 1601. Queen Elizabeth I is dying, childless. Her nervous kingdom has no heir. It is a capital crime even to think that Elizabeth will ever die. Potential successors secretly maneuver to be in position when the inevitable occurs. The leadi...
"1930s colonial Malaysia. Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker, moonlighting as a dancehall girl to help pay off her mother's Mahjong debts. Then one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir. Houseboy Ren is racing to...
"Returning from the Great War a changed man, Byron Aldirdge drifts away from his privileged and charmed life to take a job as a constable in a remote Louisiana sawmill, while his younger brother, taking over management of the mill, struggles to understand...
"In the late 1930s, civil war gripped Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a...
"1940 - Small Heath, in the heart of Birmingham, is facing the darkest days of the war. Two very different girls from this tight-knit community join up as ARP wardens to do their bit for the Home Front. Violet Simms lives with her controlling, widowed...
"The drama of the Old Testament comes to life as Judah's most notorious king ascends to the throne in this gripping novel from the award-winning author of Isaiah's Daughter. At eight years old, Shulle has known only life in a small village with her loving...
"China: 1200 A.D.Guo Jing has confronted Apothecary Huang, his sweetheart Lotus' father, on Peach Blossom Island, and bested the villainous Gallant Ouyang in three trials to win her hand in marriage.But now, along with his sworn brother, Zhou Botong of...
This book explores familiar Renee territory. Loosely based on her own father’s suicide during the Depression, it is material that Renee has previously dramatised in her 1985 play, Wednesday To Come. But although the play took a Pakeha perspective, this...
"In 1649, Jan Brunt arrives in Great Britain from the Netherlands to work on draining and developing an expanse of wetlands known as the Great Level. Here he meets Eliza, a local woman whose love overturns his ordered vision. Determined to help her t...
"In Berlin, at the time when the world changed, Hanni Kohn knows she must send her twelve-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime. She finds her way to a renowned rabbi, but its his daughter, Ettie, who offers hope of salvation when she...
In the international bestseller Roma, Steven Saylor told the story of the first thousand years of Rome by following the descendants of a single bloodline. Now, in Empire, Saylor charts the destinies of five more generations of the Pinarius family, from...
"Queen Elizabeth's spymasters recruit an unlikely agent--the only Muslim in England--for an impossible mission" --
"Marcus Braddock, former general and newly appointed Duke of Hampton, is back from war. Now, not only is he surrounded by the utterly unbearable ton, he's mourning the death of his beloved sister, Elise. Marcus believes his sister's death wasn't an a...
"AD 260 - Mesopotamia. Betrayed by his most trusted adviser, the Roman Emperor Valerian has been captured by the Sassanid barbarians. The shame of the vanquished beats down mercilessly like the white sun, as the frail old Emperor prostrates himself b...
Hayley Ashworth's goal is to join the Navy SEALs. First she must return to Boston to confront memories of her abusive childhood. When she comes upon an old tea chest, she opens it and finds the remarkable story of Emma Malcolm, a 1773 Patriot sympathizer....
Love's Journal' is about a love that spans diversity and struggle. Ruby Sims is portrayed as one of the first true feminists to see past color in America, during the age of Slavery.Ruby leaves her homeland of England, travels across the sea to be bom...
1154. After years of manipulation and political cunning, young Henry II accedes to the throne of England, with the beautiful and indomitable Eleanor of Aquitaine by his side. But the kingdom he inherits is an impoverished shambles after the long, tro...
Heartache and regret, boldness and sacrifice. What will restoration cost the beloved Norgaard family? Aven Norgaard understands courage. Orphaned within an Irish workhouse, then widowed at just 19, she voyaged to America where she was wooed and wed by...
"Can a wrong be made right? On the windswept shores of an East German island, Bettina Heilstrom struggles to build a life from the ashes. World War II has ended and her country is torn apart. Longing for a family, she marries Werner, an older bureaucrat...
"Together can they overcome hardship, poverty and disaster? Anny Woodvine's family has worked at the ironworks for as long as she can remember. The brightest child in her road and the first in her family to learn to read, Anny has big dreams. The moment...
"It's 1926 and Anna Darton is on the run from a terrible crime she was forced into committing. Alone and scared in London, salvation comes in the form of Nancy, a sassy American dancer at the notorious nightclub, the Zip Club. Re-inventing herself as...
"Belle Hatton is a beautiful young girl living in Gloucestershire, who's never been further East than Paris. But when her father dies, she finds a mysterious newspaper clipping from Burma, 1911 buried among his belongings - a clipping that says the H...
"London, January 1537 - Thomas Cromwell is in deep mourning. His new queen is on the throne at King Henry's command, but the personal cost is too high. Nicola Frescobaldi is lying dead inside the Medici tomb in Florence, and Cromwell's only daughter Jane...
"American journalist Milly Bennett has covered murders in San Francisco, fires in Hawaii, and a civil war in China, but 1930s Moscow presents her greatest challenge yet. When her young Russian husband is suddenly arrested by the secret police, Milly tries...
Midday, 13th May, 1784: An earthquake in Peru tears up the white streets of Arequipa. As the dust settles, a young girl with fanaticism already branded on her face arrives at the devastated convent of Santa Catalina. At the same moment, oceans away in...
"Greece in the age of Heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the kingdom of Phthia. Here he is nobody, just another unwanted boy living in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles. Achilles, 'best of all the Greeks',...
"1936: The dark clouds of war are gathering across Europe and the brightest minds in Britain have been brought together in a grand manor on the Suffolk coast. These select few have been tasked by Churchill to develop, in utmost secrecy, an invention that...
"Meg and Sylvie Townsend manage the family bookshop and care for their father, Stephen, a veteran still suffering in mind and spirit from his time as a POW during the Civil War. But when the Great Fire sweeps through Chicago's business district, they...
"'During the sweltering Roman summer of 1492, Rodrigo Borgia has risen to power as pope. Rodrigo's eldest son Cesare, forced to follow his father into the church and newly made the Archbishop of Valencia, chafes at his ecclesiastical role and fumes w...
Shortlisted for the NSW, QLD and WA Premiers' Literary Awards, The Lieutenant is the profoundly moving tale of a young soldier's arrival in Australia on the First Fleet and the extraordinary friendship he develops with the local Aboriginal people. Da...
Now a major film starring Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer and James McAvoy. In 1910, Leo Tolstoy, the most celebrated figure in Russia, is frail with old age. Devotees jostle for his favour and the press documents his every move. Valentin Bulgakov,...
Kate Grenville takes us back to the early Australia of The Secret River and the Thornhill family. This is Sarah's story. It's a story of tangled secrets, a story of loss and unlooked-for happiness, and a story about the silent spaces of the past.
Roma is the story of the ancient city of Rome, from its mythic beginnings as a campsite along a trade route to its emergence as the centre of the most extensive, powerful empire in the ancient world. Beginning with the prehistory days when Roma was a...
For the first time in paperback--the epic, great American novel about love, tragedy, and the American Dream. Told in a series of flashbacks, this is the story of John Wickliff Shawnessy, who grows up to be the epitome of Civil War-era America. Origin...
A clue from the grave of a Holocaust victim makes an ordinary man heir to a fortune, but a serial killer has been waiting for him for thirty years, and only one of them will survive.
A chance discovery in boarded up old hotel brings back long forgotten memories and rekindles a forbidden love, swept aside during the chaos and heartbreak World War II and internment of Japanese families in the wake of Pearl Harbor.
"At the behest of his agent, renowned author Yoel Blum reluctantly agrees to visit his birthplace of Amsterdam to meet with his Dutch publisher, despite promising his late mother that he would never return to that city. While touring the Jewish Museum...
"'They kill us, they crucify us, they throw us to beasts in the arena, they sew our lips together and watch us starve. They bugger children in front of fathers and violate men before the eyes of their wives. The temple priests flay us openly in the streets...
"1815, Sumbawa Island, Indonesia Mount Tambora explodes in a cataclysmic eruption, killing thousands. Sent to investigate, ship surgeon Henry Hogg can barely believe his eyes. Once a paradise, the island is now solid ash, the surrounding sea turned to...
" It's 1943 and Ireland has escaped the worst of the war raging in Europe, but life is not without its hardships. When fire breaks out at the convent in Cavan where she has spent the past ten years, orphan Eva Fallon barely escapes with her life. She's...
"When all seems lost... As Hitler's bombs rain down on a battered and beleaguered Britain, Ruby Shadwell is dealt the most devastating blow - her entire family lost during the Coventry Blitz. Hope still survives... Alone and with the city in chaos, Ruby...
"Constance Wilde's marriage has ended. Oscar is in prison and she has fled to Italy with their children to escape London gossip and public disapproval. Here she reflects on her marriage to Oscar, the confusing difference between his private and public...
"Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Magnusdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the...
"1899, South Yorkshire. Fourteen-year-old Tommy has been destined to a life working down the mines since the moment he was born. But he has bigger plans for his future. His best friend Josie from the neighbouring village is equally restless. The wea...
After a shocking discovery, Grace Woods leaves her vast Australian sheep station and travels to tumultuous post-war Paris in order to find her true identity. While working as a mannequin for Christian Dior, the world's newly acclaimed emperor of fashion,...
"Gustave Termi is sitting on the toilet in Geneva one day when the Archangel Michael calls him to become one of the elect. No one could be more bewildered by this call than the agnostic Gustave. An encounter with a journalist in a therapist's waiting...
When Alice Verinder's beloved sister Lydia goes missing, Alice boards the Orient Express bound for Topkapi Palace in Constantinople, determined to find her. Lydia was governess to the Sultan's young children and though her letters spoke of exotic delights...
Essex, 1918. Aggie has tasted freedom working at the local munitions factory. But the Great War is coming to an end, and the men are coming home. Aggie can't bear the idea of going back into service. She wants more from her life, and becoming a Copperette...
Aurora Pettigrew has a loving family, a nice home, a comfortable life. She's waiting for the right man to offer marriage and the man for her is Reid Sinclair, heir to the Sinclair fortune. But, Reid's mother is against the match and unearths a secret...
It's 1943 and Ireland has escaped the worst of the war raging in Europe, but life is still hard. When a fire breaks out at the convent in Cavan, orphan Eva Fallon barely escapes with her life. She's offered a bed for the night by Ma Scully, whilst her...
1921. Families are desperately trying to piece together the fragments of their broken lives. Edie's husband Francis is considered "missing in action", but when Edie receives a mysterious photograph taken in the post, hope flares. And so she begins to...
When Lily Bell is sold by her father to a "Professor of Ghosts" to settle a bad debt, she thinks she is about to hit the London stage as an actress. But little does she know that the professor intends her to be his very own ghost, part of an elaborate...
Manchester, 1922. Belinda Layton is a surplus girl. One of the many women whose dreams of marriage perished in the Great War, with the death of her beloved fiance Ben. After four years of mourning, she finally feels ready to face whatever her future ...
Cornwall, 1891. Talented painter Edith Fairchild is poised to begin a life of newlywed bliss and artistic creation in the inspiring setting of Spindrift House, freshly inherited by her charming husband, Benedict. But when her honeymoon turns sour, her...
Liverpool, 1940. As the Luftwaffe turns its attention to Liverpool, Shane Quinn decides to move his family back to the safety of Ireland. But his only child, Dana, refuses. Determined to make it on her own, she heads to the city. Lonely and exhausted,...
Patty Jenkins has come a long way from her poverty-stricken days in Brownlow Hill workhouse. She now has a coveted position in the kitchens at Freeman's Department store in Liverpool and even the prospect of advancement. For Patty has always enjoyed baking...
Margot Baumann has left school to work in the mailroom of a large prison. But this is Germany in 1944, and the prison is Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin. Margot is shielded from the camp's brutality, as she has no contact with the prisoners....
1836: Copsi Castle, handed down from father to son since the time of William the Conqueror, now belongs to Sir Harald Copsey, a kindly gentleman who adores his home. But Magnus, his only son and heir, is cut from a different bolt of cloth. Harald has...
Liverpool, 1940. There comes a moment in every child's life when they must learn to stand on their own two feet. For 15-year-old Ellie Lancton, that time has come all too soon. The death of her mother and the increase in air raids leaves Ellie alone and...
Aurora Pettigrew has a loving family, a nice home, a comfortable life. She's waiting for the right man to offer marriage, and the man for her is Reid Sinclair, heir to the Sinclair fortune. But Reid's mother is against the match and unearths a secret...
It's 1937 and for sisters Lizzie and Milly Travis there's nothing quite like the thrill of the funfair at New Brighton. Amid the bright lights and whirling rides, Lizzie wins a lucky sixpence on a stall - as well as the heart of a handsome stallholder....
When Lizzie moves with her mother and her brothers to No. 9 Coronation Street at the end of the Second World War, it's a new start for all of them after the losses and heartache they've endured. Things look up for Lizzie when she lands a job as a barmaid...
Kate Channer thought married life was going to be a grand adventure. But when Luke ships off for war before the echoes of their vows have ended, she's left behind, desperate to do something to make a difference and help bring him home. Yet life in Devon...
"Bermondsey, 1920s. After her mother's death Kate is taken in by her father's sister, the quick-tempered Aunt Sylvie. Already struggling to feed children of her own, Aunt Sylvie treats Kate like an unwanted burden. Although Kate's father disappeared when...
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