Collection: Historical Fiction

Read the novel New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network Kate Quinn called "easily one of the best novels I have read all year!" A critically acclaimed, multi-layered romance set in the perilous days of World Wars I and II, where gods hold the fates--and the hearts--of four mortals in their hands.

They are Hazel, James, Aubrey, and Colette. A classical pianist from London, a British would-be architect-turned-soldier, a Harlem-born ragtime genius in the U.S. Army, and a Belgian orphan with a gorgeous voice and a devastating past. Their story, as told by goddess Aphrodite, who must spin the tale or face judgment on Mount Olympus, is filled with hope and heartbreak, prejudice and passion, and reveals that, though War is a formidable force, it's no match for the transcendent power of Love.

Hailed by critics, Lovely War has received seven starred reviews and is an indie bestseller. Author Julie Berry has been called "a modern master of historical fiction" by Bookpage and "a celestially inspired storyteller" by the New York Times, and Lovely War is truly her masterwork.

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time

Published in 1975, Ragtime changed our very concept of what a novel could be. An extraordinary tapestry, Ragtime captures the spirit of America in the era between the turn of the century and the First World War.

The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, at the home of an affluent American family. One lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside their house. And almost magically, the line between fantasy and historical fact, between real and imaginary characters, disappears. Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, J. P. Morgan, Evelyn Nesbit, Sigmund Freud, and Emiliano Zapata slip in and out of the tale, crossing paths with Doctorow's imagined family and other fictional characters, including an immigrant peddler and a ragtime musician from Harlem whose insistence on a point of justice drives him to revolutionary violence.

Iceland, circa AD 1000

Elska is a silver dapple Icelandic filly. She spends summers frisking about the countryside and winters in the farmyard, where the girl human Amma takes special care of her. But when a powerful neighbor notices Elska, her contented life suddenly changes. Here is Elska's story . . . in her own words.

"This page-turning true-life adventure is filled with rich and riveting details and a timeless understanding of the things that matter most."--Dashka Slater, author of The 57 Bus
"Brilliantly told in verse, readers will love Ken Sparks." --Patricia Reilly Giff, two-time Newbery Honor winner
"Lyrical, terrifying, and even at times funny. A richly detailed account of a little-known event in World War II." --Kirkus Reviews
"Middle grade Titanic fans, here's your next read." --BCCB
"An edge-of-your seat survival tale." --School Library Journal (starred review)

A Junior Library Guild Selection
The 2019 Golden Kite Middle Grade Fiction Award Winner
A 2019 ALSC Notable Children's Book
The 2019-2020 Lectio Book Award Winner
The 2020-2021 Florida Sunshine State Young Readers Award List
The 2020 Oklahoma Library Association's Children's Sequoyah Book Award Winner
The Connecticut Book Award Winner

In the tradition of The War That Saved My Life and Stella By Starlight, this poignant novel in verse based on true events tells the story of a boy's harrowing experience on a lifeboat after surviving a torpedo attack during World War II.

With Nazis bombing London every night, it's time for thirteen-year-old Ken to escape. He suspects his stepmother is glad to see him go, but his dad says he's one of the lucky ones--one of ninety boys and girls to ship out aboard the SS City of Benares to safety in Canada.

Life aboard the luxury ship is grand--nine-course meals, new friends, and a life far from the bombs, rations, and his stepmum's glare. And after five days at sea, the ship's officers announce that they're out of danger.

They're wrong.

Late that night, an explosion hurls Ken from his bunk. They've been hit. Torpedoed! The Benares is sinking fast. Terrified, Ken scrambles aboard Lifeboat 12 with five other boys. Will they get away? Will they survive?

Award-winning author Susan Hood brings this little-known World War II story to life in a riveting novel of courage, hope, and compassion. Based on true events and real people, Lifeboat 12 is about believing in one another, knowing that only by banding together will we have any chance to survive.

Featuring the illustrated lyrics to "Do-Re-Mi", this stunning new picture book from beloved icon Julie Andrews and her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, introduces readers to the remarkable story of the development of written music. Also includes an author's note about Julie Andrews's connection to the classic Rodgers & Hammerstein song!

Centuries ago, a young Italian monk named Guido longed to find a way to write and teach music. Eventually, he created the musical scale, using the words Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do...one syllable for each note. Though the other monks thought it was a waste of time, Guido's music couldn't be silenced. His discovery remains the foundation for learning music today, and inspired the famous song "Do-Re-Mi," which Julie Andrews sang in the beloved movie The Sound of Music.

This richly illustrated picture book from beloved icon Julie Andrews and her daughter, bestselling author Emma Walton Hamilton, introduces readers to the remarkable story of Guido d'Arezzo's development of musical notation. In addition to the lyrics of "Do-Re-Mi" illustrated in full color, the backmatter includes an author's note, extensive historical notes, and a glossary.

In this action-packed magical fantasy epic, a heroine at the head of a powerful empire confronts a raging battle as she's forced to do whatever it takes to restore peace.

The Emperor is Dead. Long live the Emperor.

Lin Sukai finally sits on the throne she won at so much cost, but her struggles are only just beginning. Her people don't trust her. Her political alliances are weak. And in the north-east of the Empire, a rebel army of constructs is gathering, its leader determined to take the throne by force.

Yet an even greater threat is on the horizon, for the Alanga-the powerful magicians of legend-have returned to the Empire. They claim they come in peace, and Lin will need their help in order to defeat the rebels and restore peace.

But can she trust them?

In this beautiful story of adventure and survival from the New York Times bestselling author of Room, three men vow to leave the world behind them as they set out in a small boat for an island their leader has seen in a dream, with only faith to guide them.

In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar and priest called Artt has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks--young Trian and old Cormac--he rows down the river Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a monastery. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare rock inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. In such a place, what will survival mean?

Navigate through monsters, mysteries, and the will of the gods with two young extraordinary adventurers in fifteenth-century Mesoamerica as they search for a missing father.

Donají is a fearless Zapotec girl who, even though she's only fifteen, is heralded as a hero by her village. In Codex Black, Donají sets out on an adventure--accompanied by the god that lives inside of her poncho--to find her missing father. Along the way, she meets a 17-year-old winged Mexica warrior named Itzcacalotl, and over time their temporary partnership blooms into an incredible friendship.

The search brings the young pair closer to danger and deeper into mystery than either could have predicted. What exactly was Donají's father involved with? And how did a simple search for a missing relative lead Donají and Itzcacalotl into a fight with a terrifying bat monster to defend an entire village?!

The swoony, frothy finale to the Rogues to Lovers series from award-winning author Anna Bennett.

She's about to face her biggest challenge yet...

Since she was a girl, Miss Kitty Beckett has been adept at finding trouble: sneaking brandy, running away, and getting under the skin of the boy who, like her, was an apprentice to an architect. Now Kitty's a talented heiress who can take a dry building plan and breathe life into it with her pencils and paints. Also? She can spot a rake at a hundred yards--and she won't be tricked or charmed into marriage. Certainly not by a man who might interfere with her dreams. When Bellehaven Bay announces its first ever architectural design contest, she vows to win--with a little help from her childhood rival.

Turning her buttoned-up nemesis into a certified rake.

Leo Lockland, a hardworking architect with a gift for numbers, has returned home after a few years in London, and he has secrets. The biggest? He's been in love with Kitty since they were both apprentices. She refuses to give her heart to any man, but Leo's determined to beat the odds--even if it means learning how to be a rake. Fortunately, Kitty's willing to tutor him in the nuances of fashion, flirtation, and seduction in exchange for his help with the contest. But the whole plan would fall apart if she knew how he felt, so he'll have to be very convincing.

Let the lessons begin...

Leo proves to be a surprisingly quick study in the ballroom, on the beach, and in the bedchamber. Before long, he's softening Kitty's hard edges with his wicked words and kissing his way past all her defenses. Perhaps she's a bit too skilled at teaching, because her lessons are threatening to backfire, putting her closely guarded heart in grave danger...

Join Idia of the Benin Kingdom as she molds herself from the young and curious daughter of a village warrior to becoming the Queen of the ancient African Kingdom of Benin. Discover the journey of a young heroine who saw her future in a dream and works her way to becoming one of the most well-loved, praised, and successful queens in African History.

Idia of the Benin Kingdom is a precious storybook that empowers young girls to create a vision of who they want to be as they create limitless possibilities for their future.

"Art dies the moment it acquires authority." So said Japan's quintessential rebel writer Osamu Dazai, who, disgusted with the hypocrisy of every kind of establishment, from the nation's obsolete aristocracy to its posturing, warmongering generals, went his own way, even when that meant his death--and the death of others. Faced with pressure to conform, he declared his individuality to the world--in all its self-involved, self-conscious, and self-hating glory. "Art," he wrote, "is 'I.'"

In these short stories, collected and translated by Ralph McCarthy, we can see just how closely Dazai's life mirrored his art, and vice versa, as the writer/narrator falls from grace, rises to fame, and falls again. Addiction, debt, shame, and despair dogged Dazai until his self-inflicted death, and yet despite all the lies and deception he resorted to in life, there is an almost fanatical honesty to his writing. And that has made him a hero to generations of readers who see laid bare, in his works, the painful, impossible contradictions inherent in the universal commandment of social life--fit in and do as you are told--as well as the possibility, however desperate, of defiance.

Long out of print, these stories will be a revelation to the legions of new fans of No Longer Human, The Setting Sun, and The Flowers of Buffoonery.

A powerful and gripping novel about a youth in Nazi Germany who dares to the truth about Hitler, written by a Newbery Honor Book author.

Susan Campbell Bartoletti has taken one episode from her Newbery Honor Book, Hitler Youth, and fleshed it out into a thought-provoking nonfiction novel. When 16-year-old Helmut Hubner listens to the BBC news on an illegal short-wave radio, he quickly discovers Germany is lying to the people. But when he tries to expose the truth with leaflets, he's tried for treason. Sentenced to death and waiting in a jail cell, Helmut's story emerges in a series of flashbacks that show his growth from a naive child caught up in the patriotism of the times, to a sensitive and mature young man who thinks for himself.

There was a time when the family Künstler lived in the fairy-tale city of Vienna. Circumstances transformed that fairy tale into a nightmare, and in 1939 the Künstlers found their way out of Vienna and into a new fairy tale: Los Angeles, California, United States of America.

For years Mamie Künstler, ninety-three-years-old, as clever and glamorous as ever, has lived happily in her bungalow in Venice, California with her inscrutable housekeeper and her gigantic St. Bernard dog. Their tranquility is upended when Mamie's grandson, Julian, arrives from New York City. Like many a twenty-something, he has come to seek his fortune in Hollywood. But it is 2020, the global pandemic sweeps in, and Julian's short visit suddenly has no end in sight.

Mamie was only eleven when the Künstlers escaped Vienna in 1939. They made their way, stunned and overwhelmed, to sunny, surreal Los Angeles where they joined a colony of distinguished Jewish musicians, writers and intellectuals also escaping Hitler. Now, faced with months of lockdown and a willing listener, Mamie begins to tell Julian the buried stories of her early years in Los Angeles: her escapades with eminent émigrés like Arnold Schoenberg, Christopher Isherwood, Thomas Mann. Oh, and Greta Garbo. While the pandemic cuts Julian off from the life he knows, Mamie's tales open up a world of lives that came before him. They reveal to him just how much the past holds of the future.

From the New York Times bestselling author of A Little Hatred comes a stunning fantasy novel that finds the world in an unstoppable revolution where heroes have nothing left to lose as darkness and destruction overtake everything.

Chaos. Fury. Destruction.

The Great Change is upon us . . .

Some say that to change the world you must first burn it down. Now that belief will be tested in the crucible of revolution: the Breakers and Burners have seized the levers of power, the smoke of riots has replaced the smog of industry, and all must submit to the wisdom of crowds.

With nothing left to lose, Citizen Brock is determined to become a new hero for the new age, while Citizeness Savine must turn her talents from profit to survival before she can claw her way to redemption. Orso will find that when the world is turned upside down, no one is lower than a monarch. And in the bloody North, Rikke and her fragile Protectorate are running out of allies . . . while Black Calder gathers his forces and plots his vengeance.

The banks have fallen, the sun of the Union has been torn down, and in the darkness behind the scenes, the threads of the Weaver's ruthless plan are slowly being drawn together . . .

"A master of his craft." --Forbes

"No one writes with the seismic scope or primal intensity of Joe Abercrombie." --Pierce Brown

For more from Joe Abercrombie, check out:

The Age of Madness
A Little Hatred
The Trouble With Peace
The Wisdom of Crowds

The First Law Trilogy
The Blade Itself
Before They Are Hanged
Last Argument of Kings

Best Served Cold
The Heroes
Red Country

The Shattered Sea Trilogy
Half a King
Half a World
Half a War

A Caldecott Honor Book
A Coretta Scott King Award Winner

From a highly acclaimed author and bestselling artist comes a resounding, reverent tribute to Harriet Tubman, the woman who earned the name Moses for her heroic role in the Underground Railroad.

I set the North Star in the heavens and I mean for you to be free...

Born into slavery, Harriet Tubman hears these words from God one summer night and decides to leave her husband and family behind and escape. Taking with her only her faith, she must creep through woods with hounds at her feet, sleep for days in a potato hole, and trust people who could have easily turned her in. But she was never alone.

In lyrical text, Carole Boston Weatherford describes Tubman's spiritual journey as she hears the voice of God guiding her north to freedom on that very first trip to escape the brutal practice of forced servitude. Tubman would make nineteen subsequent trips back south, never being caught, but none as profound as this first one. Courageous, compassionate, and deeply religious, Harriet Tubman, with her bravery and relentless pursuit of freedom, is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.

THE USA TODAY BESTSELLER!

"An exquisitely detailed journey through the harrowing field of medicine in mid-19th century London."--Tracey Enerson Wood, USA Today bestselling author of The Engineer's Wife and The War Nurse

An unforgettable historical fiction novel about one woman who believed in scientific medicine before the world believed in her.

London, 1845: Raised by the eccentric surgeon Dr. Horace Croft after losing her parents to a deadly pandemic, the orphan Nora Beady knows little about conventional life. While other young ladies were raised to busy themselves with needlework and watercolors, Nora was trained to perfect her suturing and anatomical illustrations of dissections.

Women face dire consequences if caught practicing medicine, but in Croft's private clinic Nora is his most trusted--and secret--assistant. That is until the new surgical resident Dr. Daniel Gibson arrives. Dr. Gibson has no idea that Horace's bright and quiet young ward is a surgeon more qualified and ingenuitive than even himself. In order to protect Dr. Croft and his practice from scandal and collapse Nora must learn to play a new and uncomfortable role--that of a proper young lady.

But pretense has its limits. Nora cannot turn away and ignore the suffering of patients, even if it means giving Gibson the power to ruin everything she's worked for. And when she makes a discovery that could change the field forever, Nora faces an impossible choice. Remain invisible and let the men around her take credit for her work, or step into the light--even if it means being destroyed by her own legacy.

Fans of The Other Einstein and The Paris Library will relish this riveting and empowering story about one woman's fight to follow her dreams and build a life--and legacy--beyond what is expected of her.

Praise for The Girl in His Shadow:

"A suspenseful story of a courageous young woman determined to become a surgeon in repressive Victorian England. Fluidly written, impeccably researched, The Girl in His Shadow is a memorable literary gift to be read, reread, and treasured."--Gloria Goldreich, author of The Paris Children

Other Bestselling Historical Fiction from Sourcebooks Landmark:

The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson

Sold on a Monday by Kristina McMorris