Item category 1: Historical Fiction

As one of only a handful of female medical graduates working at the Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, Clara Heywood refuses to be denied the chance to become a surgeon because of her sex. As her male colleagues, including her unofficial fiance Edward, head off to war, Clara grapples with a sense ...

Ten years after the eruption of Vesuvius, the surrounding countryside lies buried and barren. But the destroyed cities and luxury villas on the Bay of Naples are not utterly lost. Flavia Albia and her husband Tiberius Manlius are tasked with restoring one villa and identifying any surviving remai...

April 1941: Belfast has escaped the worst of the Second World War -- so far. Over the next two months, it will be so destroyed from above that people will say, in horror, "My God, Belfast is finished." Many won't make it through, and those who do will be forever changed. Living amid the rubble ar...

November 1816: Restless but naive Emeline Fitzpatrick is desperate to escape her stifling life in foggy Halifax. Her guardian is lining up repugnant suitors, but Emeline has her eyes set on a lieutenant in the British Navy. She just needs to persuade him to propose, or her one chance at happiness...

In 1980, designer Claudie Miller is a household name. Girls are begging their mothers to make them her famous dress, the ‘Juliet’. But there’s a big hole in Claudie’s life – sixteen years ago she was forced to give up her baby for adoption. Now she’s in a race to track her daughter down before it...

The year is 1859 and the goldfields are filled with diggers -- and danger! Orphaned twelve-year-old Tigg is the Bandicoot Bushranger, the youngest bushranger on the Ballarat goldfields in 1859. When a robbery goes wrong, Tigg must flee in disguise as one of the tens of thousands of Chinese men an...

The boy Nero lives. His mother Agrippina has married her way to power, tangling the Emperor Claudius in her skirts. The emperor may have a son and heir of his own, but Agrippina sees no obstacles to her ambition. Rome is a path through a marsh, lit by torches. Those who walk it are always one ste...

England 1800s: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect Victorian governess. She'll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But the longer Winifred spends within the estate's dreary confines and th...

Sixteen-year-old Tasha Ancel turns to take one last look at the imposing place that stole her freedom and her childhood. She has no idea how she continued to live when so many others did not. For the first time in months, her heart beats with hope for her future and that of the smaller children w...

In 1892, the grisly murders of Whitechapel prostitutes by a killer dubbed Jack the Ripper remain a terrifying enigma. And in a packed Old Bailey courtroom, Superintendent Thomas Pitt's testimony causes distinguished soldier John Adinett to be sentenced to hang for the inexplicable murder of a fri...

'Women can be heroes, too'. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances 'Frankie' McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised on California's idyllic Coronado Island and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing, on being a good girl....

August 1914. Edie Lawrence has never played by the rules. When war is declared, she disguises herself as a man to join the war effort and write about her experiences. But she also wants to catch news of her beloved Nate, who has already been sent to the Front. Dr Lucie Garland volunteers her medi...

When Arabella Grant's wicked aunt dies suddenly, both Arabella and her cousin Lady Isabelle cannot help but feel relieved. She'd made their lives miserable, and now Lady Issie is free to read to her heart's content, and Bella is free from taunts about her ignoble birth. Their newfound freedom is ...

An epic saga of brotherhood, betrayal and revenge. On the unforgiving streets of 1920s Sydney, the Leach family have nothing but each other. In a tale spanning decades, three children of the broken, working-class family find adventure, heartache and trouble, as their lives drift apart. John finds...