"Inspired by true figures - real-life pirate Samuel Bellamy and his star-crossed love story with a young woman named Maria - this captivating historical debut, set in the Golden Age of Pirates and in the shadowy aftermath of the Salem witch trials, combines...

"Setting aside grief from the fallout of the second World War and putting her energy into curating an upcoming show critical to her career as the Keeper of the Metalworks at London's renowned Victoria and Albert Museum, Jeannine Maycroft stumbles upon a unique...

"Cana, Massachusetts: a utopian vision of 18th-century Puritan New England. To the outside world, Reverend Nathaniel Whitfield and his family stand as godly pillars of their small-town community, drawing Christians from across the New World into their fold....

"In 70 AD, nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on a mountain outside the Judean desert, Masada. Two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic event, The dovekeepers is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinary women in...

"1813. Haunted by her father's death and tired of watching her mother struggle, Meg Marsh will do anything to keep a roof over her family's head. Even if that means getting involved in a dangerous smuggling operation. When Meg catches the eye of a dashing...

"Scotland, the 11th Century. Born in a noble household and granddaughter of a forgotten Scottish king, a young girl carries the guilt of her mother's death and the weight of an unknowable prophecy. When she is married, at fifteen, to the Mormaer of Moray, she...

"On a bleak January day in 1845, a poet who had been confined to her room for four years by recurrent illness received a letter from a writer she secretly idolized but had never seen. 'I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett,' Robert Browning...

"Known as the Lions of Sicily, the Florios have officially arrived. Once rich only in ambition, the family has amassed a fortune that includes palaces, factories, ships, silks, and jewels. The city of Sicily admires them, honors them and, above all, fears...

"Raised on tales of her revolutionary ancestors, Frances Perkins arrives in New York City at the turn of the century, armed with her trusty parasol and an unyielding determination to make a difference. When she's not working with children in the crowded...

"April 1913. Belle Newbold hasn't seen mountains for seven years - since her father died in a mining accident and her mother married an Indiana gas magnate, Shipley Newbold. But when her stepfather's friend, Henry Ford, invites the family on one of his famous...

"It is 1942, and with the country still at war, the girls who work for Joe Lyons are praying for their loved ones to return home safely. Happily married, Rose is busy with staffing problems at the teashop with many women taking on war work. Rose dreams of her...

"Told from the important and often overlooked perspective of a young gay man imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camps, We Are Only Ghosts evocatively portrays how the things that happen to us, both tragic and beautiful, shape who we are, and how we have the...

"Penniless and stranded in France after a bid to escape her cruel uncle goes awry, Cornelia Shaw is far from the Parisian life of leisure she imagined. Desperate and lacking options, she allows herself to be recruited to Napoleon's Grande Armée. As a...

"Helen Bygrove is managing the hotel, now that her husband has been conscripted. Against all expectations, Helen and her team are doing marvellously, despite the shortages brought by war. Even the exacting Lady Blackmore agrees. But then the calm is shattered...

"Now 94 and living a quiet life, Cecily Larson, lives in Minnesota with her daughter, granddaughter, and great-grandson. When her family surprises her with an at-home DNA test, finds the unexpected results not only bringing to light the tragic love story she's...

"It is 1941, and Antwerp is in the grip of Nazi occupation. Young policeman Wilfried Wils has no intention of being a hero - but war has a way of catching up with people. When his idealistic best friend draws him into the growing resistance movement, and an SS...

"The survival story of the Patawomeck Tribe of Virginia has been remembered within the tribe for generations, but the massacre of Patawomeck men and the enslavement of women and children by land hungry colonists in 1666 has been mostly unknown outside of the...

"Meirionydd, 1783. Henry Talbot has been dismissed from his post at a prestigious London hospital. The only job he can find is as a physician in the backwaters of Wales where he can't speak the language, belief in myth and magic is rife, and the villagers...

"At the turn of the twentieth century, in a time of great change, two women--separated by societal status and culture but bound by their expected roles as the daughters of famed statesmen--forged a lifelong friendship. Portia Washington's father Booker T....

"It's winter of 1928, and young German man Wilhelm Erdinger is left stranded in the remote New Zealand village of Falter's Mill. Wilhelm purchases a piece of land capable of providing the kind of sustainable, self-sufficient life he craves, and a shack he soon...

"Wellington, 1923, and a sixty-year-old woman hangs herself in a scullery; ten years later another woman ‘falls’ from the second floor of a Taranaki tobacconist; soon afterwards a young mother in Taumarunui slices the throat of her newborn with a cleaver. All...

A dazzling new series from bestselling historical fiction author Deborah Challinor, exploring the fascinating world of Victorian funeral customs and featuring Sydney's first female undertaker. 'Men have been undertakers for hundreds of years. Not women, men....

"England, 1942: Having fled Germany after her father was captured by the Nazis, Lilli Bergen is desperate to do something pro-active for the Allies. So when she's approached by the Political Warfare Executive, Lilli jumps at the chance. She's recruited as a...

"In 1903, a fifteen-year-old girl named Ichi Aoi is sold to the most exclusive brothel in Kumamoto, Japan. Despite her modest beginnings in a southern fishing village, she becomes the protégée of an oiran, the highest-ranking courtesan at the brothel. Through...

"Autumn 1940. The Blitz has cast its shadow over London. Everyone is doing their bit to help, including the three Harrison sisters of the East End's Victory Walk. Nurse Rose is snowed under in the hospital tending to victims of the bombings. Her sister Clover...

"Shipwrecked English adventurer, John Blackthorn, finds himself a key figure in a vast power struggle that is to plunge medieval Japan into civil war. Set in the exotic world of Oriental intrigue, passions, discipline, courage, and rigid moral and martial...

"The red tent is the place where women gather during their cycles of birthing, menses, and even illness. Like the conversations and mysteries held within this feminine tent, this sweeping piece of fiction offers an insiders look at the daily life of a biblical...

"1062, a time many fear is the End of Days. With the English King Edward heirless and ailing, across the grey seas in Normandy the brutal William the Bastard waits for the moment when he can drown England in a tide of blood. The ravens of war are gathering....

"The year is 1883, and in New York City, it's a time of dizzying splendor, crushing poverty, and tremendous change. With the gravity-defying Brooklyn Bridge nearly complete and New York in the grips of anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock, Anna Savard and her...

"They called her Sila van den Kaap, slave woman of Jacobus Stephanus Van der Wat of Plettenberg Bay, South Africa. A woman moved from master to master, farm to farm, and - driven by the horrors of slavery to commit an unspeakable crime - from prison to prison....

"1843. On a remote Scottish island, Ivar, the sole occupant, leads a life of quiet isolation until the day he finds a man unconscious on the beach below the cliffs. The newcomer is John Ferguson, an impoverished church minister sent to evict Ivar and turn the...

"Discover the full story of the sorceress Medea, one of the most reviled and maligned women of Greek antiquity, in this propulsive and evocative debut in the tradition of Circe, Elektra, and Stone Blind. Among the women of Greek mythology, the witch Medea may...

"Barely able to walk and rendered mute by the cancer metastasizing in his throat, Ulysses S. Grant is scratching out words, hour after hour, day after day. Desperate to complete his memoirs before his death so his family might have some financial security and...

"At the height of the Second World War in England, Nina Woodrow joins the Royal Air Force and rebels against her careful upbringing by embarking on an illicit affair with an officer. She risks losing everything for Guy Nicholson: her comfortable home, her...

"Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of...

"There are many paths to power. They all come with a price. Neferura, princess and high priestess of Kemet, knows her duty is to her people. When your mother is the great Pharaoh, it is hard to forget. But Neferura's unique position at court comes with high...

"Paris, 1720. The Hospice of La Salpetriere is overrun with 'difficult' women. Halfway around the world, on the American frontier, French settlers are in want of wives. At the asylum, a list is drawn up: eighty-eight women of childbearing age to be shipped to...

"From Percival Everett [a recipient of the NBCC Lifetime Achievement Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize, and numerous PEN awards] comes James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told...

"In 1830 a young novice called Catherine Laboure was granted a vision of the Virgin Mary. Nearly 200 years later, Sister Anne is also waiting for a sign. Which is why she accepts a mission to go to a tiny community on an island just off the coast of Brittany....

"A bold, feminist debut novel, reimagining Mary, Queen of Scots's darkest hour, when she was held hostage in a remote Scottish castle with a handful of loyal women while plotting a daring escape to reclaim her country and her freedom."--Publisher.

"An epic reimagining of the life of Margaret Fuller - America's first feminist and the pioneering journalist who inspired a generation of writers and activists. Young, brazen, beautiful, and unapologetically brilliant, Margaret Fuller accepts an invitation...

"It is said that the Canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. But first, it must be built. Ada Bunting, a bold sixteen-year-old from Barbados, arrives alone in Panama as a stowaway alongside thousands of other West Indians seeking work in the...

"1942.Though she survived the bomb that destroyed her home, Yvonne Rudellat's life is over. She's estranged from her husband, her daughter is busy with war work, and Yvonne - older, diminutive, overlooked - has lost all purpose. Until she's offered a chance to...

"The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as seven other awards, The Sympathizer is one of the most acclaimed books of the twenty-first century. With the pace and suspense of a thriller and prose that has been compared to Graham Greene and...

"Imprisoned during World War I as a conscientious objector and interned during World War II as an enemy alien, Reginald Horace Blyth was a poet, a scholar, a musician, a linguist and a student of Zen who ultimately became teacher to an emporer. His pivitol...

"It is Bombay in 1971, the year India went to war over what was to become Bangladesh. A hard-working bank clerk, Gustad Noble is a devoted family man who gradually sees his modest life unravelling. His young daughter falls ill; his promising son defies his...

"1942. Determined to do her bit for the war effort, Yorkshire lass Evie Sinclair leaves her island home to become an Ack Ack Gunner Girl, defending Britain from Luftwaffe attacks. On the train steaming towards the Durham training depot, Evie meets lively...

"Sweeping yet intimate, Flight of the Wild Swan tells the story of Florence Nightingale, a brilliant, trailblazing woman whose humanity has been obscured beneath the iconic weight of legend. From her adolescence, Nightingale was determined to fulfill her...

"In 1915 three women start work at a toffee factory in the market town of Chester-le-Street, Durham. Anne works for the enigmatic owner Mr Jack. She is highly efficient and whips Mr Jack's disorganised office - and Mr Jack himself - into shape. However, behind...

"Germany, 1946: Emmy Clarke is a librarian not a soldier. But that doesn't stop the Library of Congress from sending her overseas to Germany to help the Monuments Men retrieve and catalog precious literature that was plundered by the Nazis. The Offenbach...

"Lois Saunders thought that marrying the right man would finally cure her loneliness. But as picture-perfect as her husband is, she is suffocating in their loveless marriage. In 1951, though, unhappiness is hardly grounds for divorce - except in Reno, Nevada....

"The heart finds its way when one least expects it--even in the most unforgiving frontiers. Invited by a friend to trek west and help establish the newly formed town of Cheyenne, Edward Vogel is prepared to leave the haunting memories of his wife and son's...

"Only Noah and his family know that God's judgment is coming soon. He and his wife Emzara dedicate themselves to God's command to build an ark. After years of preparing for the end of life as they know it, can they survive what lies ahead or will they simply...

"Josie Grimshaw has moved to Coronation Street to live with her mother's old friend, Elsie Lappin. The street is excited for the upcoming coronation of the new queen, Elizabeth, but Elsie is finding it hard to celebrate anything after the loss of her husband....

"Ellen O'Malley, together with her natural daughter Mary and adopted daughter Louisa, helps tend the wounds of the soldiers who have fallen in battle. In the killing fields of Virginia, she toils, not realising that her estranged son, Patrick and Lavelle, the...

"Rome, 1953. Hal, an itinerant journalist finds himself on the steps of a palazzo, walking into a world of privilege and light. On a rooftop above the city he meets the mysterious Stella. Together they escape the crowded party and imagine a different life,...

"Against the backdrop of France during the Second World War, Nicole, a young British woman, must face her own challenges. As the Nazi forces advance, Nicole tries to escape to England but becomes separated from her family and eventually returns to occupied...

"1941: Libby's life on the sprawling farm at Hollybank is a far cry from the bustling streets of London where she grew up, but after the tragic death of her parents she moved to Liverpool to be closer to her long-lost aunt and uncle. When she discovers they...

"Malta, 1943. The war in the air above Malta is over, but the battle for Europe is about to begin. Margarita, a young singer in a Valletta nightclub, has seen her former lover Henry Dunn only once since breaking off their affair. His wife Vera, an enigmatic...

"In the mid-1800s, Saint, an enigmatic and powerful conjure woman, always flanked by a silent companion, travels the South annihilating plantations and liberating the enslaved by means of purposeful violence and powerful magic. She founds a town for those she...

"1816. A massive volcanic eruption has caused the worst storms that Europe has seen in decades, yet Percy and Mary Shelley have chosen to visit the infamous Lord Byron at his villa on Lake Geneva. It wasn't their idea: Mary's eighteen year old step-sister,...

"How does a man show his love - for country, for heritage, for family - during a war that sets the three at odds? What sets in motion the necessity to choose one over the other? How will this choice change everything and everyone he loves? Jacob Miller, a...

"In 1790, Lavinia, a seven-year-old Irish orphan with no memory of her past, arrives on a tobacco plantation where she is put to work as an indentured servant with the kitchen house slaves. Though she becomes deeply bonded to her new family, Lavinia is also...

"North Carolina, 1960s. Lorraine has it all - the boyfriend, the good grades, the white picket fence, the ambition to become the first woman astronaut. But when she - the darling girl-next-door - becomes pregnant, she learns that love is conditional and...

"A Mennonite widower struggling to raise his mischievous boys becomes the unwilling target of the well-intentioned women's benevolent society in this heartwarming romance inspired by historical events--from the bestselling author of Freedom's Song"--

"It is 1836 in the colony of New South Wales. A young Darug girl, Duringah, also known as Nellie James, is looking for her mother Muraging, whose fate is unknown, but whose memory fascinates her. After a daring escape from the Parramatta Female Factory, where...

"You never know what the sea will give you ... or what it will take back. When Mair McCrae follows her island tradition and hunts for a husband cast up on the beach, she has no notion that the naked, half-drowned man she rescues is not just Captain Michael...

"Poland, 1942: seventeen-year-old Maya Schulze is struggling to survive in a brutal Nazi labour camp. But despite days filled with hunger, fear and despair, she is able to find courage and beauty in dancing - it is only then that she feels free.One day a camp...

"When heart-broken Sarah Quinn is left to care for her father and siblings when her mother dies, it's hard to watch their loving dad, Fred, drift into drink and despair. With money tight, Sarah is determined to keep the family together. But they receive a...

"1770. Delphine lives in the shadows of London: a secret, vibrant world of smugglers, courtesans and small rebellions. Four years ago, she escaped enslavement at great personal cost. Now, she must help her brother Vincent do the same. While Britain's highest...

"San Francisco, 1906. In a city bustling with newly minted millionaires and scheming upstarts, two very different women hope to change their fortunes: Gemma, a golden-haired, silver-voiced soprano whose career desperately needs rekindling, and Suling, a petite...

"Nicola Marter was born with a gift. When she touches an object, she sometimes glimpses those who have owned it before. When a woman arrives with a small wooden carving at the gallery Nicola works at, she can see the object's history and knows that it was...

"This is the story of two families - branches of the Solomons - transported to an alien land, both of whom eventually grow rich and powerful but who, through three generations, never for one moment relinquish their hatred for each other."--Publisher.

"There was no one to save her if she fell... The Hermitage Mt Cook 1946 When the volatile Stella is hired as a mountain guide, she vows never to return to a life of domesticity below the snowline. With her mentor Philip and troubled returned soldier Jim she...

"Meticulously researched, authentically told, poetically rendered Graham Lindsay brings us the story of Max Gunn, a thoughtful and idealistic youth, who leaves New Zealand in 1940 to fight fascism in Europe. His experiences there over the next five years will...

"In the genteel squares of late-Victorian Brighton, Ellen & Reynold Harper, twins, companions, colleagues, ply their trade as portrait photographers. But at the golden hour, the models arrive to pose for the lucrative and illicit photographs that really keep...

"Before George Orwell was Orwell, the pen name he took on becoming a writer - he was Eric Blair, an unlikely policeman in Burma. 19 years old, unusually tall, highly intelligent, a diffident loner fresh from Eton, Blair stood out amongst his fellow trainees in...

"Set against a backdrop of 1950s New York, this experimental novel follows an ensemble cast of all-singing, all-dancing butch dykes and Yiddish anarchists through eternal Friday nights, around the table, and at the bar."--Publisher.

"Taking the reader from Victoria's wild shipwreck coast to the artists' studios of revolutionary Paris and the bloody battlefields of Flanders, this sweeping novel reimagines the volatile history of the beautiful and enigmatic young woman immortalised in one...

"Elya is the lad with the vision, and Elya has the map. Ziv and Kiva aren't so sure. The water may run out before they find the Village of Lakes. The food may run out before the flaky crescent pastries of Prune Town. They may never reach the Village of Girls...

"The Welsh Marches, 1301. Strong-willed heiress Johane de Geneville is married to Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, at just fifteen years old. Soon Johane finds herself swept up in a world of treacherous court politics and dangerous secrets as her husband deposes...

"Glasgow, 1846, the second city of the British Empire is expanding rapidly and Ellory McHale, a working class woman receives an unexpected bequest which allows her to leave her job as junior assistant to a famous male photographer in Edinburgh to set up...

"1965. Frances "Frankie" McGrath, a twenty-year-old nursing student, raised on California's idyllic Coronado Island and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing, being a good girl. But the world is changing,...

"Growing up in the care of her grandparents on Belhaven farm, Lizzie Craig discovers at a young age that she can see into the future. Her gift of sight is selective - she doesn't, for instance, see that she has an older sister who will come to join the family...

"When twenty-one-year-old Madeleine Hamilton is asked to smuggle two young pupils to Berlin, she nervously agrees. But, when they run into trouble on the train, it is Maddie's turn to be saved by a chance encounter with a handsome man. Bletchley Park....

"London, 1850. Constance Horton has disappeared. Maude, her older sister, knows only that Constance abandoned the apothecary they call home, and, disguised as a boy, boarded a ship bound for the Arctic. She never returned. 'A tragic accident', the Admiralty...

"After fleeing the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands, Aleida's search for her missing child sets her on a collision course with Hugh, a charismatic BBC radio correspondent. During the London Blitz, they will risk their lives to discover the truth-- and find a...

"Nuneaton, 1875. Lily Moon, the local miner's daughter, spends her days as a parlour maid for Lord and Lady Bellingham at Oakley Manor, on the outskirts of Nuneaton. She's always been happy with her lot in life, and never expected more. But one day, everything...

"It is 1950 and Kitty Longthorne is now a Sister at Manchester's Park Hospital, and as busy as ever. With dizzying numbers of children with polio being admitted to the children's ward, a sharp uptick of major trauma from road accidents and growing political...

"After all their dreaming and planning, Missie and her beloved Willie are actually on the trail west in a covered wagon, leaving behind her also-beloved family. Her memories are bittersweet as she faces the hardships of the westward trek - the rain, the mud,...

"Clark and Marty visit their daughter Missie and her husband Willie in the far West and meet their two little grandsons, but their faith is tested once again when the visit is marred by a tragic accident."--Publisher.

"Anno Domini 1546. In a manor house in England a young woman feels the walls are closing round her, while her dying husband is obsessed by his vision of a chapel where prayers will be said for his immortal soul. As the days go by and the chapel takes shape,...

"Can her dreams for the future-- and a budding romance-- survive the trouble that comes calling? Larkspur Nielsen is determined to keep her family homestead running and to fulfill their dream of starting a seed catalog, with or without her siblings' help. With...

"Some people think foxes go around collecting qi, or life force, but nothing could be further than the truth. We are living creatures, just like you, only usually better looking. Manchuria, 1908: A young woman is found frozen in the snow. Her death is clouded...

"When her formidable intelligence, outspoken opinions and headstrong determination gain her the favor of the beau monde's leading taste-maker Beau Brummell, Lady Hester Stanhope learns to bend the rules of the ton to her own advantage until England is plunged...

"Responsible for raising her siblings, Lazarus and Mary, after her mother's untimely death, Martha finds solace in friendship and the beginnings of first love, until adversity strikes again. Many years later, a life-changing encounter with Jesus of Nazareth...

"During World War II, Catherine Duquette and Maggie McCleod come from different worlds but are thrown together on a USO variety show touring North Africa. While they each have secret reasons for accepting the job, neither anticipates the danger and intrigue...