Item category 1: Historical Fiction

William Buchanan lived an extraordinary life -- born a slave on a plantation in Jamaica, he escaped the gallows more than once, took part in the rebellion that led to the end of slavery in Jamaica, was transported to the other side of the world as punishment, tried his hand at robbing stage coach...

An audacious novel of feminine rage about one of the most prolific female serial killers in American history and the men who drove her to it. They whisper about her in Chicago. Men come to her with their hopes, their dreams, their fortunes. But no one sees them leave. No one sees them at all afte...

You have heard, no doubt, the tale of Master Oliver Twist - that rags-to-riches boy; the parish orphan who became heir to the Brownlow fortune. But what few know is that there was a second Twist - a girl, brought into this world moments ahead of her brother. This is the story of Twill Twist and h...

The dazzling true story of one of Hollywood's most celebrated Hispanic actresses and her daughter's search for answers. Cuba, 1936: When Estelita Rodriguez sings in a hazy Havana nightclub for the very first time, she is nine years old. From then on, that spotlight of adoration - from Havana to N...

Kat Stephenson has just discovered that she's inherited her mother's magical talents, and despite her Stepmama's stern objections, she's determined to learn how to use them. But with her eldest sister Elissa's intended fiance, the sinister Sir Neville, showing a dangerous interest in Kat's magica...

After losing her parents, young Mary Lennox is sent from India to live in her uncles gloomy mansion on the wild English moors. She is lonely and has no one to play with, but one day she learns of a secret garden somewhere in the grounds that no one is allowed to enter. Then Mary uncovers an old k...

Nathaniel, Duke of Rothhaven, lives in seclusion, leaving his property only to gallop his demon-black steed across the moors by moonlight. Exasperated mamas invoke his name to frighten small children, though Nathaniel is truly a decent man -- maybe too decent for his own good. That's precisely wh...

For the people who live on the banks of the Thames, the river is a living, breathing thing. It can take your treasures. It can hide your treasures. And, sometimes, it can give them back... Bo and Billy are two children who have never met. Billy is an orphan. Bo's dad died when she was small and n...

Amsterdam in the year 1705. It is Thea Brandt's eighteenth birthday. She is ready to welcome adulthood with open arms, but life at home is increasingly difficult. Her father Otto and her Aunt Nella argue endlessly over their financial fate, selling off furniture in a desperate attempt to hold on ...

1402, the Anglo-Scottish border.To fulfil his father's dying wish, border laird Lachlan Elliot must marry and sire a legitimate heir, cementing his family's name in the tumultuous borderlands. But he is determined his marriage will be one of convenience only - he has no time for the pain and betr...

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...

Emily Leland sheds no tears when her abusive husband is killed in a bar fight, but what awaits her back home in Sweetwater Crossing is far from the welcome and comfort she expected. First she discovers her father has died under mysterious circumstances. Then the house where the new schoolteacher ...

England, 1276: Forced to leave her home village, Eleanor moves to Lincoln to work as a housemaid. She's prickly, independent and stubborn, her prospects blighted by a port-wine birthmark across her face. Unusually for a woman, she has fine skills with ink and quill, and harbours a secret ambition...

For Ellen Whitfield, the betrothal of her dear friend Harriet to Ellen's brother has brought both loss and solace. But when Harriet suddenly breaks off the engagement, ostensibly at the insistence of her deceased mother, Ellen is bewildered. And when she learns that Harriet is involved with a spi...

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...

Set in Brisbane, Vietnam, London, Paris and Sydney, Leopold Cloud, an ambitious young journalist, plots his own course leaving casualties behind him, and sometimes being a casualty himself. Central to his rise and rise are two women, safe and steady Muriel, herself a journalist, and the provocati...

From the age of twelve, the Baron Cosimo Piovasco di Rondo makes his home among ash, elm, magnolia, plum and almond, living up in the trees. He walks through paths made from the twisted branches of olive, makes his bed in a holly oak, bathes in a fountain constructed from poplar bark. An aerial l...

Twin monarchs Satyrus and Melitta have worked hard, seen much blood shed and many good friends die to secure their fertile kingdom on the Black Sea. But as the colossal conflict between Alexander the Great's former generals to inherit his empire rages from one end of the known world to the other,...

1368. War is coming between France & Spain & England, and in Italy the Pope and the Visconti princes are battling for bloody supremacy. The worst years of Sir William Gold's life are about to begin. Leaving the side of his commander, Sir John Hawkwood, William embarks on a journey to serve the Co...

Arimnestos is a farm boy when war breaks out between the citizens of his native Plataea and and their overbearing neighbours, Thebes.

The Battle of Marathon in 490 BC was one of history's great turning points - the first time the Greeks managed to defeat the Persians in a pitched battle, it enabled the rise of classical Greek civilization.

Arimnestos of Plataea was one of the heroes of the Battle of Marathon, in which the heroic Greeks halted the invading Persians in their tracks, and fought in the equally celebrated naval battle at Salamis. But even these stunning victories only served to buy the Greeks time, as the Persians gathe...

Twin monarchs Satyrus and Melitta have worked hard, seen much blood shed and many good friends die to secure their fertile kingdom on the Black Sea. But as the colossal conflict between Alexander the Great's former generals to inherit his empire rages from one end of the known world to the other,...

1942: As the Vichy government hunts for Jews across France, Claudette Pelletier, a young and talented seamstress and lover of romance novels, falls in love with a Jewish man who seeks shelter at the château where she works. Their whirlwind and desperate romance before he must flee leaves her preg...

When a madman begins stalking victims on the streets of 1896 New York, a team of investigators is forced to apply radical and untested techniques that include fingerprinting and the controversial science of psychology.

The English seaside, 1920s. A world famous escape artist. A suitcase full of secrets. And a death-defying stunt. When Harry Houdini comes to visit the seaside town of Sidford-on-Sea, Glory and her friend Dennis are first in-line to see him. He is there to perform a daring trick: he will jump off ...

Ancient Assyria, 9th century BC. An orphan is raised on the outskirts of a brutal empire. Heir to a tragic prophecy, Semiramis dreams of wielding power and escaping her destiny. Far away, a reluctant prince walks the corridors of his gilded palace in a city built by the gods. Ninus would rather s...

A novel of Clytemnestra, the most notorious heroine of the ancient world and the events that forged her into the legendary queen. As for queens, they are either hated or forgotten. She already knows which option suits her best.

London 1941. Keen to do her bit in the war, Connie Allinson joins the WRNS and is posted as a letter censor. Her task- to read and alter correspondence to ensure no sensitive information crosses enemy lines. At first, she is not sure she's up to it, but is soon drawn in by the letters she reads, ...

In Roman-occupied Britain, the Iceni tribe crowns an extraordinary new queen. Tall and flame-haired, Boudicca is devoted to Andraste, the Iceni's patron goddess, known for her raven familiar, her fierceness and her swirling blue tattoos. Boudicca and her two young daughters will carry the tribe f...