Collection: Historical Fiction

From the sandy shores of America to the battered streets of London, one woman's search for love and redemption will defy all odds

Young Adelia Monteforte begins the summer of 1941 aboard a crowded ship bound for America, utterly alone yet free of Fascist Italy. Whisked away to the seaside by her well-meaning aunt and uncle, she basks in the noisy affection of the boisterous Irish Catholic boys next door. And although she adores all four of the Connally brothers, it's the eldest, Charlie, she pines for. But all hopes for a future together are throttled by the creep of war and a tragedy that hits much closer to home.

Grief-stricken, Addie flees--first to Washington and then to war-torn London, where she finds a position at a prestigious newspaper, as well as a chance for a new beginning. But the past always nips at her heels. And in a final, fateful choice, Addie will discover that the only way home may be a path she never suspected.

"The kind of book that absorbs you from the beginning and doesn't let go." --Beatriz Williams, New York Times bestselling author of The Beach at Summerly

June Hur's elegant and haunting debut The Silence of Bones is a bloody YA historical mystery tale perfect for fans of Kerri Maniscalco and Renée Ahdieh.

I have a mouth, but I mustn't speak;
Ears, but I mustn't hear;
Eyes, but I mustn't see.

1800, Joseon (Korea). Homesick and orphaned sixteen-year-old Seol is living out the ancient curse: "May you live in interesting times." Indentured to the police bureau, she's been tasked with assisting a well-respected young inspector with the investigation into the politically charged murder of a noblewoman.

As they delve deeper into the dead woman's secrets, Seol forms an unlikely bond of friendship with the inspector. But her loyalty is tested when he becomes the prime suspect, and Seol may be the only one capable of discovering what truly happened on the night of the murder.

But in a land where silence and obedience are valued above all else, curiosity can be deadly.

Praise for The Silence of Bones:

ABA Indies Introduce Selection

"At once haunting and evocative, June Hur's The Silence of Bones is a gorgeous, tightly-woven debut. Prepare to delve deep into the lush and dangerous world of Korea in the 1800's for a page-turner you won't soon forget." --Hafsah Faizal, New York Times-bestselling author of We Hunt the Flame

"This gripping drama is definitely one you're not going to want to miss." --Buzzfeed

Charity Courtney is at her wit's end trying to save her boardinghouse from a bank foreclosure. Short of money but not short of marriage proposals, she dreads putting aside her fairy tale dreams of love and having to settle for a marriage of convenience. But with the need to provide for her two younger sisters, she doesn't have any other options.

While visiting Fairplay, wealthy railroad magnet Hudson Vanderwater hears of Charity's plight. Although he comes across as cold and calloused, he is drawn to helping women in need because of a tragedy that destroyed his sister. He concocts a plan that will save Charity-he'll employ her and rent her boardinghouse for the month and in doing so alleviate her debt.

With a grumpy and demanding new boarder who is now her boss, Charity determines to hold the handsome Hudson at arm's length. But she's the sunshine for his stormy soul, and he can't resist being drawn to her. As danger closes in and threatens to destroy Charity, he'll stop at nothing to save her.

• Grumpy-sunshine
• Cranky billionaire
• Crusty boss
• Rags-to-riches
• Fairytale
• Class differences

"This one's worth rounding up." -Booklist, on Falling for the Cowgirl

*All of the books in the Colorado Cowgirls series are sweet, closed-door romances with plenty of sizzle. The inspirational themes are light, and the romance is the main focus of the books.

"Can't cook but doesn't bite." So begins the newspaper ad offering the services of an "A-1 housekeeper, sound morals, exceptional disposition" that draws the attention of widower Oliver Milliron in the fall of 1909. That unforgettable season deposits the ever-whistling Rose Llewellyn and her font-of-knowledge brother, Morris Morgan, in Marias Coulee along with a stampede of homesteaders drawn by the promise of the Big Ditch--a gargantuan irrigation project intended to make the Montana prairie bloom.

When the schoolmarm runs off with an itinerant preacher, Morris is pressed into service, setting the stage for the "several kinds of education"--none of them of the textbook variety--Morris and Rose will bring to Oliver, his three sons, and the rambunctious students in the region's one-room schoolhouse.

"Flawless...The Whistling Season is a book that strives for more than beauty, which it achieves, it reaches for joy."--O, the Oprah Magazine

Don't miss Selznick's other novels in words and pictures, The Invention of Hugo Cabret and The Marvels, which together with Wonderstruck, form an extraordinary thematic trilogy!

In this groundbreaking tour de force, Caldecott Medalist and bookmaking pioneer Brian Selznick sails into uncharted territory and takes readers on an awe-inspiring journey. Ben and Rose secretly wish their lives were different. Ben longs for the father he has never known. Rose dreams of a mysterious actress whose life she chronicles in a scrapbook. When Ben discovers a puzzling clue in his mother's room and Rose reads an enticing headline in the newspaper, both children set out alone on desperate quests to find what they are missing.Set fifty years apart, these two independent stories--Ben's told in words, Rose's in pictures--weave back and forth with mesmerizing symmetry. How they unfold and ultimately intertwine will surprise you, challenge you, and leave you breathless with wonder. Rich, complex, affecting, and beautiful--with over 460 pages of original artwork--Wonderstruckis a stunning achievement from a gifted artist and visionary.

A beloved Viking saga and masterpiece of historical fiction, The Long Ships is a high spirited adventure that stretches from Scandinavia to Spain, England, Ireland, and beyond.

Frans Gunnar Bengtsson's The Long Ships resurrects the fantastic world of the tenth century AD when the Vikings roamed and rampaged from the northern fastnesses of Scandinavia down to the Mediterranean. Bengtsson's hero, Red Orm--canny, courageous, and above all lucky--is only a boy when he is abducted from his Danish home by the Vikings and made to take his place at the oars of their dragon-prowed ships. Orm is then captured by the Moors in Spain, where he is initiated into the pleasures of the senses and fights for the Caliph of Cordova. Escaping from captivity, Orm washes up in Ireland, where he marvels at those epicene creatures, the Christian monks, and from which he then moves on to play an ever more important part in the intrigues of the various Scandinavian kings and clans and dependencies. Eventually, Orm contributes to the Viking defeat of the army of the king of England and returns home an off-the-cuff Christian and a very rich man, though back on his native turf new trials and tribulations will test his cunning and determination. Packed with pitched battles and blood feuds and told throughout with wit and high spirits, Bengtsson's book is a splendid adventure that features one of the most unexpectedly winning heroes in modern fiction.

Contains 3 newly-translated classic Asterix tales. Asterix is a fearless Gaul with a magic potion that grants him incredible strength to protect his village and ward off Roman Empire from invading. With his pal, Obelix, the defend their village from not only the blundering Roman legionairies, but also lend their services to the rest of the world. First, Asterix and Obelix's fishing trip goes wrong when they make "The Great Crossing" and wind up on the shores of North America. Neither America, nor Asterix, will ever be the same after this comical invasion. Second, Obelix gets the spotlight as his delivery service for stone menhir slabs gets a Roman update, becoming "Obelix and Co." Will Obelix be too greedy? Probably! Then, third, watch your waffles, it's "Asterix in Belgium," writer and Asterix co-creator René Goscinny's final story before his untimely death. It's a tale of two tribes as the Gauls and the Belgians unite, and then unravel, all to keep out Caesar's forces. Plus: a new Afterword by Alexander Simmons providing historical and cultural context for Asterix, both in 50 B.C. and in the time the classic comics were made.

For fans of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes films, this stunning, swashbuckling series opener by a powerhouse duo of authors is at once comfortingly familiar and tantalizingly new.

Two unlikely allies race through the cobbled streets of 1920s London in search of a killer targeting Chinese immigrants.

London, 1924. When shy academic Lao She meets larger-than-life Judge Dee Ren Jie, his quiet life abruptly turns from books and lectures to daring chases and narrow escapes. Dee has come to London to investigate the murder of a man he'd known during World War I when serving with the Chinese Labour Corps. No sooner has Dee interviewed the grieving widow than another dead body turns up. Then another. All stabbed to death with a butterfly sword. Will Dee and Lao be able to connect the threads of the murders--or are they next in line as victims?

Blending traditional gong'an crime fiction with the most iconic aspects of the Sherlock Holmes canon, Dee and Lao's first adventure is as thrilling and visual as an action film, as imaginative and transportive as a timeless classic.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

"A gripping page-turner...a riveting reminder of sacrifices made by history's most unlikely heroes." --Kristina McMorris, New York Times bestselling author of Sold on a Monday and The Ways We Hide

An extraordinary book about a gifted architect who reluctantly begins a secret life of resistance, devising ingenious hiding places for Jews in World War II Paris.

In 1942 Paris, architect Lucien Bernard accepts a commission that will bring him a great deal of money - and maybe get him killed. All he has to do is design a secret hiding place for a Jewish man, a space so invisible that even the most determined German officer won't find it while World War II rages on. He sorely needs the money, and outwitting the Nazis who have occupied his beloved city is a challenge he can't resist.

Soon Lucien is hiding more souls and saving lives. But when one of his hideouts fails horribly, and the problem of where to conceal a Jew becomes much more personal, and he can no longer ignore what's at stake.

Book clubs will pore over the questions Charles Belfoure raises about justice, resistance, and just how far we'll go to make things right.

Also by Charles Belfoure:

The Fallen Architect

House of Thieves

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Annie Proulx's The Shipping News is a vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary North American family.

Quoyle, a third-rate newspaper hack, with a "head shaped like a crenshaw, no neck, reddish hair...features as bunched as kissed fingertips," is wrenched violently out of his workaday life when his two-timing wife meets her just desserts. An aunt convinces Quoyle and his two emotionally disturbed daughters to return with her to the starkly beautiful coastal landscape of their ancestral home in Newfoundland. Here, on desolate Quoyle's Point, in a house empty except for a few mementos of the family's unsavory past, the battered members of three generations try to cobble up new lives.

Newfoundland is a country of coast and cove where the mercury rarely rises above seventy degrees, the local culinary delicacy is cod cheeks, and it's easier to travel by boat and snowmobile than on anything with wheels. In this harsh place of cruel storms, a collapsing fishery, and chronic unemployment, the aunt sets up as a yacht upholsterer in nearby Killick-Claw, and Quoyle finds a job reporting the shipping news for the local weekly, the Gammy Bird (a paper that specializes in sexual-abuse stories and grisly photos of car accidents).

As the long winter closes its jaws of ice, each of the Quoyles confronts private demons, reels from catastrophe to minor triumph--in the company of the obsequious Mavis Bangs; Diddy Shovel the strongman; drowned Herald Prowse; cane-twirling Beety; Nutbeem, who steals foreign news from the radio; a demented cousin the aunt refuses to recognize; the much-zippered Alvin Yark; silent Wavey; and old Billy Pretty, with his bag of secrets. By the time of the spring storms Quoyle has learned how to gut cod, to escape from a pickle jar, and to tie a true lover's knot.

With her bestselling novels On Mystic Lake and Angel Falls, Kristin Hannah became the fastest rising star in women's fiction today, distinguished as an amazingly sensitive writer who can tap into the deepest, most precious mysteries of the heart. If You Believe is one of her finest historical novels--a timeless tale of two lonely people who witness the miracle of second chances.

Mariah Throckmorton was hiding from a past filled with scandal. Mad Dog Stone was a drifter looking for a few days' work. He walked into her life, threatening Mariah's peace of mind and stirring emotions she tried to hide. Their love was born against all odds, difficult to count on, impossible to hold. Together they would learn the bittersweet truth--that love only exists if you believe.

The untold story of Sherlock Holmes' greatest rival, Moriarty!

Before he was Sherlock's rival, Moriarty fought against the unfair class caste system in London by making sure corrupt nobility got their comeuppance. But even the most well-intentioned plans can spin out of control--will Moriarty's dream of a more just and equal world turn him into a hero...or a monster?

Charles Augustus Milverton, the coldhearted King of Blackmail, knows Mary's dark secret, and he's using it to destroy any hope she has of marrying Watson! Wanting to save his best friend from the clutches of the deranged Milverton, who ruins innocent lives for fun, Sherlock decides to face the man head-on! Will London's greatest devil finally face judgment?

An ambitious and mesmerizing novel from the bestselling author of Rules of Magic. The Dovekeepers is "striking....Hoffman grounds her expansive, intricately woven, and deepest new novel in biblical history, with a devotion and seriousness of pur

Suspenseful and richly atmospheric, June Hur's The Forest of Stolen Girls is a haunting historical mystery sure to keep readers guessing until the last page.

1426, Joseon (Korea). Hwani's family has never been the same since she and her younger sister went missing and were later found unconscious in the forest near a gruesome crime scene.

Years later, Detective Min--Hwani's father--learns that thirteen girls have recently disappeared from the same forest that nearly stole his daughters. He travels to their hometown on the island of Jeju to investigate... only to vanish as well.

Determined to find her father and solve the case that tore their family apart, Hwani returns home to pick up the trail. As she digs into the secrets of the small village--and collides with her now estranged sister, Maewol--Hwani comes to realize that the answer could lie within her own buried memories of what happened in the forest all those years ago.

Praise for The Forest of Stolen Girls:

A Junior Library Guild Selection
A 2022 Edgar Allan Poe Award Nominee
A YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection
A 2022 White Pine Award Nominee
A 2022 ALA Rise Selection
A 2022 CCBC Choices Selection

"The Forest of Stolen Girls is a haunting, breathtaking tale that will have readers on the edge of their seats. ... Hur is an absolute master of mystery, and I will be reading her gorgeous books for years to come." --Adalyn Grace, New York Times-bestselling author of All the Stars and Teeth

"Rich, exquisite, and deeply atmospheric, The Forest of Stolen Girls draws the reader in from the very first page and doesn't let go. A dark and utterly engrossing mystery, beautifully drawn from start to finish." --Kathleen Glasgow, New York Times-bestselling author of Girl in Pieces

"Haunting and lyrical. Beware, this tale will draw you deeper into the forest than you want to go." --Stacey Lee, award-winning author of The Downstairs Girl

"A brilliant historical fiction mystery that is suspenseful, gorgeous and absolutely riveting! Hur brings Jeju Island during the early Joseon period completely to life in a rich, evocative manner that reminds me of watching my favorite historical Kdrama." --Ellen Oh, author of the Prophecy series

"Historical fiction of the highest order . . . an absolute joy of a book, warm and romantic, and with so much to say about the lives of women in the years following World War I."--Ann Napolitano, bestselling author of Hello Beautiful

A timeless comedy of manners--refreshing as a summer breeze and bracing as the British seaside--about a generation of young women facing the seismic changes brought on by war and dreaming of the boundless possibilities of their future, from the bestselling author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

It is the summer of 1919 and Constance Haverhill is without prospects. Now that all the men have returned from the front, she has been asked to give up her cottage and her job at the estate she helped run during the war. While she looks for a position as a bookkeeper or--horror--a governess, she's sent as a lady's companion to an old family friend who is convalescing at a seaside hotel. Despite having only weeks to find a permanent home, Constance is swept up in the social whirl of Hazelbourne-on-Sea after she rescues the local baronet's daughter, Poppy Wirrall, from a social faux pas.

Poppy wears trousers, operates a taxi and delivery service to employ local women, and runs a ladies' motorcycle club (to which she plans to add flying lessons). She and her friends enthusiastically welcome Constance into their circle. And then there is Harris, Poppy's recalcitrant but handsome brother--a fighter pilot recently wounded in battle--who warms in Constance's presence. But things are more complicated than they seem in this sunny pocket of English high society. As the country prepares to celebrate its hard-won peace, Constance and the women of the club are forced to confront the fact that the freedoms they gained during the war are being revoked.

Whip-smart and utterly transportive, The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club is historical fiction of the highest order: an unforgettable coming-of-age story, a tender romance, and a portrait of a nation on the brink of change.

Nghi Vo's Hugo and Crawford Award-winning series, The Singing Hills Cycle, continues...

Lambda Award Finalist
Ignyte Award Finalist
Hugo Award Finalist for Best Novella
Locus Award Finalist for Best Novella

A Best Of Pick for USA Today Buzzfeed Ms Magazine Arlington Magazine Transfer Orbit LitHub

"A delicious bonbon of a novella about stories and their unreliable narrators, who wink at their listeners (or readers), fully expecting us to catch on."―The Wall Street Journal

"Nghi Vo is one of the most original writers we have today."―Taylor Jenkins Reid on Siren Queen

Wandering cleric Chih of the Singing Hills travels to the riverlands to record tales of the notorious near-immortal martial artists who haunt the region. On the road to Betony Docks, they fall in with a pair of young women far from home, and an older couple who are more than they seem. As Chih runs headlong into an ancient feud, they find themself far more entangled in the history of the riverlands than they ever expected to be.

Accompanied by Almost Brilliant, a talking bird with an indelible memory, Chih confronts old legends and new dangers alike as they learn that every story--beautiful, ugly, kind, or cruel--bears more than one face.

The Hugo Award-winning Singing Hills Cycle

The Empress of Salt and Fortune
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain
Into the Riverlands
Mammoths at the Gates
The Brides of High Hill

The novellas of The Singing Hills Cycle are linked by the cleric Chih, but may be read in any order, with each story serving as an entry point.