Collection: Historical Fiction

From the celebrated author of Juliet the Maniac comes a collection of previously unpublished stories concerned with girlhood, family, and urge, reminiscent of Mary Gaitskill and Laura Vandenberg

In You Are the Snake, we peer into the life of a community college student, the life of an abusive grandmother is imagined, and a young woman takes up gardening. Escoria's characters are trying their best, or they aren't, as they bump against the boundaries of society's expectations.

Exploiting the form of the short story in a voice entirely her own, You Are the Snake resists easy moralizing by subverting our expectations of how narrative functions. While Escoria plumbs the depth of girlhood and new womanhood, she leaves room for oddness, impulse, and yearning. Each story contains its own world, be it the suburbs of California or the mountains of West Virginia, but taken as a whole, this collection is expanding and challenging, corrupting expectations about what women can be and what they can write.

Juliet Escoria's writing has been called "vivid," "fantastic," "sharp," and "singularly honest," and this collection delivers the "charged eloquence" of her previous work, in addition to the maturity and style of a new format--the short story--which is a dream fit for her "electricity that pulsates from within the prose."

"It is past the half-hour. My time is coming nearer with every tick of the clock."

Horace Manning, scientist, recluse and "closed book" even to his friends is found dead in his study at 4am, following a dinner in honor of his daughter's engagement. An ivory-handled carving knife rests between his shoulder blades as the house guests gather round to witness the awful crime. The telephone line has been sabotaged - a calculated murder has been committed.

Rewinding twelve hours, the events of the afternoon and evening unfold, revealing a multitude of clues and motives from a closed cast of suspects until the narrative reaches 4am again - then races on to its riveting conclusion at 4pm as the reader is led twice round the clock.

"Ahoy, my lad!" he bellowed back.

"I didn't expect you so early. Come for a dip! The water's fine. Everything is--"

Then it happened.

Mystery and murder run amok amidst ominous peaks and icy lakes. In hushed valleys, venom flows through villages harboring grievances that span generations. The landscapes and locales of Wales ("Cymru," in the Welsh language) have fired the imagination of some of the greatest writers in the field of crime and mystery fiction.

Presenting fourteen short stories first published in 1909 through the 1980s, this new anthology celebrates a selection of beloved Welsh authors Cardiff's Roald Dahl and Abergavenny's Ethel Lina White, as well as lesser-known yet highly skilled writers including Cledwyn Hughes and Jack Griffith. Alongside these home-grown tales, this collection also includes a handful of gems inspired by, or set in, the cities and wilds of Wales by treasured authors with an affinity for the country, such as Christianna Brand, Ianthe Jerrold, and Michael Gilbert.

In August 1942, French parents were faced with a horrible choice: watch their children die, or abandon them forever. Fifty years later, it becomes one woman's mission to match the abandoned names with the people they belong to.

Five years after the highly publicized trial of Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon," law student Valérie Portheret began her doctoral research into the 108 children who disappeared from Vénissieux fifty years earlier, children who somehow managed to escape deportation and certain death in the German concentration camps. She soon discovers that their rescue was no unexplainable miracle. It was the result of a coordinated effort by clergy, civilians, the French Resistance, and members of other humanitarian organizations who risked their lives as part of a committee dedicated to saving those most vulnerable innocents.

Theirs was a heroic act without precedent in Nazi-occupied Europe, made possible due to a loophole in the Nazi agenda to deport all Jewish immigrants from the country: a legally recognized exemption for unaccompanied minors. Therefore, to save their children, the Jewish mothers of Vénissieux were asked to make the ultimate sacrifice of abandoning them forever.

Told in dual timelines, The Forgotten Names is a reimagined account of the true stories of the French men and women who have since been named Righteous Among the Nations, the children they rescued, the stifled cries of shattered mothers, and a law student, whose twenty-five-year journey allowed those children to reclaim their heritage and remember their forgotten names.

As World War II sweeps over Europe, nine-year-old Danielle ("Dani") Loesseps escapes from Latvia under the protection of the Dutch consul. Her Jewish mother, the consul's secretary, is tragically left behind at the end of a momentous year which sees a heroic scheme to save refugees from the Nazis, the blossoming of a secret love, and an unhappy woman's revenge. The consul's young daughter Berta Vandercam also grows up in the shadow of the war and strives to understand why her father never speaks about their time in Riga. Memories of the Riga consulate and questions about what happened there haunt the survivors as they remake their lives in the postwar world.

In 1884 a mine collapsed into itself. What was the dark substance found 666 feet underground?

Blending modern horror, historical fact and Western lore, Scott Snyder and Dan Panosian have created a uniquely terrifying thriller with Canary.

During the final days of the Gold Rush, one mining company in Utah pulled up radioactive Uranium, and then the mine then collapsed in on itself. Legends sprung up about the mine being cursed or even haunted.

Now the Frontier is closed and the gold and silver mines have dried up. The country is becoming "civilized," and yet, in one stretch of the Rocky Mountains, a terrifying, new kind of violence is suddenly emerging. Random killings. People going mad and murdering neighbors and classmates without real cause. When a schoolboy kills his teacher with a hatchet, a famous federal marshal named Azrael William Holt is called in to investigate the killings. What he and a brilliant young geologist uncover is stranger and more horrifying than anything they could have ever imagined.

Who was Medea, really?

Beyond the hearsay, exaggerations, and distortions inflicted by time, this is Medea's story in her own voice, from the luxuriant gardens of her childhood in Colchis to the mysterious island from which she gives her final confession.

An intoxicating graphic novel reimagining the story of one of the biggest female figures in ancient Greek mythology, for fans of Lore Olympus and Circe.

The legendary sorceress from Greek myth has been cast as many things--a caring mother and a passionate lover who was thwarted by her desires; an independent woman vilified for refusing the tyranny of men; a barbarian who sowed confusion in the regimented world of the Greeks; a formidable witch, mistress of occult forces. Simply put, she was precisely what some would call a monster. And yet, there is so much more to Medea...

This provocative tale is created by writer Blandine Le Callet and artist Nancy Peña, with an English translation by Montana Kane.

Originally published in French by Éditions Casterman.

Inspired by the shocking true story of the Gunfight at Hide Park, this blazing Western novel by Spur Award-winner Johnny D. Boggs takes readers back to that fateful summer in 1871--when Newton, Kansas, became "the wickedest town in the west" . . .

BLOODY NEWTON

A decade before the legendary Gunfight at OK Corral, there was a much bloodier showdown with a much bigger body count--and Wichita Herald reporter Cindy Bagwell was there to see it all. At first, the fledgling journalist had no idea why her boss would send her to what hardly even passes for a town. But Texans, including trail boss Gary Hardee and his sons, are bringing longhorns to Kansas. And Newton aims to take over the cattle market. Hardee has his hands full--and that's before he reaches Newton, where Texans and Kansans don't get along. Tensions escalate from fisticuffs to brawling to fatal shootings in short order. But that's just a warm-up. On August 19, 1871, in a gambling room at Tuttle's dance hall in Hide Park, this powder keg of bad blood and bitterness between two rival groups explodes--with one young reporter, a restaurant owner, and Hardee's sons caught in the middle . . .

This is the story of the deadliest gunfight in the American West. Of the passionate men and women who fought for a piece of the American Dream. And of the ultimate price they'd have to pay . . .

In post-World War I England, foul play at a suspicious séance provokes the delightfully mismatched sleuthing duo of American adventuress Beryl Helliwell and prim Brit Edwina Davenport to dig up some dirt . . .

Hidden beneath her British reserve, Edwina has a secret: she's finished her novel and is bravely mailing the manuscript to a publisher. Beryl also has a secret: as thanks for solving a case, the American adventuress has been gifted an airplane. After swooping over the fields and hedgerows of Walmsley Parva, livestock scattering beneath her, she flamboyantly lands the plane on the village green, prompting a startled Edwina to consider a stiff gin fizz.

Beryl's aircraft is not the only disruption of village peace. Miss Dinsdale, a psychic medium, has started holding séances. After the church organist resigns to serve as musical accompaniment for the séances, the vicar's wife hires the enquiry agents to expose the medium as a charlatan. Beryl is confident she can spot the fraud, having learned from Harry Houdini himself some tricks of the trade. The dubious Miss Dinsdale claims her spirit guide is an Egyptian princess whose mummy resides in a sarcophagus in the room. But the only body in the sarcophagus belongs to a murdered villager impaled with a dagger.

As the sleuths begin to investigate, Beryl discovers her plane has been sabotaged and wonders if there's a connection. Whether in the air or on terra firma, Beryl and Edwina must go round a circle of suspects to divine the culprit . . .

Social standing is everything in Regency England--and no one knows better than Miss Caroline Morton, a lady's companion from a disgraced line. But when she has a chance to claim what's rightfully hers, the one obstacle in her way is a dangerous murder mystery . . .

Miss Caroline has doubts when she receives an urgent invitation from a London law firm to discuss her late father's estate. After all, the dishonored Earl of Morton died without a pound sterling to pass on to his two daughters. But while immersing herself in helping Mrs. Frogerton's capricious daughter navigate the high social season, Caroline meets with a cagey lawyer, Mr. Smith, who shares life-altering news--the earl composed a second will, leaving behind an undisclosed fortune.

Mrs. Frogerton, however, is thoroughly unimpressed with the firm's conduct and suspicious of their true motives. Her instinct proves right when the two ladies find the office ransacked, staff in turmoil, and Mr. Smith missing. The full weight of the situation doesn't sink in until Mr. Smith dies following a brutal attack on the street--discovered with an empty envelope bearing Caroline's name in his pocket.

With a connection forming between two deaths at the firm, Caroline can't imagine why anyone would kill twice over the contents of a will. Further complicating matters is the amorous Mr. DeBloom--who claims his mother goaded the earl into making bad investments and promises to link Caroline to her inheritance--and the disappearance of Susan, her younger sister. As Caroline unwittingly becomes the center of both a criminal case and a sordid love triangle, she must tread with caution while seeking the truth . . . because someone is waiting to reduce her to nothing more than a signature on a dotted line.

From New York Times bestselling author Candace Camp comes an exciting Regency adventure, where a slow-burning love affair collides with a complex mystery...

After the scandal of his broken engagement, Nathan Dunbridge accepted his fate as a bachelor--so of course that's when the most ineligible woman of all turns up in disguise at a society event: Verity Cole, former spy and Stonecliffe's resident troublemaker... a woman Nathan finds equal parts alluring and irritating.

Living in London under an assumed name, Verity runs an investigation agency. So when a stranger shows up claiming to be the rightful Dunbridge heir, Nathan turns to Verity to help him uncover the truth. Verity agrees, always eager to unravel a mystery--especially when it involves the handsome Nathan Dunbridge.

As Nathan's family secrets threaten everything he's known, he finds Verity is the only person he wants to confide in. But Verity has secrets too--secrets that make it impossible to be with a proper gentleman like Nathan. And when an enemy from her past appears, will Nathan and Verity be able to hold on to their impossible love, or will they be torn apart?

A Stonecliffe Novel

Book 1: An Affair at Stonecliffe
Book 2: A Rogue at Stonecliffe

In the latest installment of Tasha Alexander's New York Times bestselling series, Lady Emily must solve a string of high stakes "accidents" while trapped in a lavish villa in the Bavarian Alps.

In the winter of 1906, Lady Emily and husband Colin are invited to the opulent home of Baroness Ursula von Duchtel in the Bavarian alps. Outside is a mountainous winter wonderland with a view of Mad King Ludwig's fairy tale castle. Inside, the villa hosts a magnificent but eclectic art collection--as well as an equally eclectic collection of fellow guests, among them a musician, an art dealer, a coquette from the demi-monde, and Kaspar, the Baroness' boorish son-in-law, whom, it begins to appear, someone wants dead.

Almost forty years earlier, Niels, a young German lord, sings to himself in the forest surrounding those same alps, capturing the attention of a not-yet-mad King Ludwig. Niels and the king become fast friends, their relationship deepening into something more as their time together stretches on. But while King Ludwig is content to live out a fantasy where their responsibilities don't matter and the outside world doesn't affect them, Niels knows that their bliss cannot last forever...

Decades later, Emily continues to investigate Kaspar's increasingly lethal "mishaps" when tragedy strikes, ensnaring the guests in a web of fear and suspicion. It's up to Emily to sift through old secrets and motivations, some stretching far into the past, to unmask the killer.

From the winner of the National Jewish Book Award

Theodore "Teddy" Hartigan is the scion of a wealthy Washington, D.C. family who place him into a comfortable job at the State Department and a placid diplomat's career. In 1938, as Hitler's inexorable rise continues, Teddy is re-assigned to the US Consulate in Amsterdam to replace fleeing staff

Teddy's job is to process visa applications, and by 1939, refugees from Nazi-conquered Poland, Austria, and other countries are desperate to secure safe passage to America. As Hitler sweeps through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, and Holland, the screws tighten and law after virulent law is passed to threaten the lives, indeed the very existence of the Jewish people. When Teddy and his girlfriend Sara are introduced to an orphaned young girl named Katy, who has been abandoned on the grounds of a nursery school, they agree to adopt her. Teddy comes to realize that he holds the key to saving lives, whether five, fifty, or five hundred--and makes the dangerous and selfless decision to join with underground groups and use his position at the Consulate to rescue those with no other avenue of escape.

Powerful and dramatic, National Jewish Book Award winner Ron Balson's A Place to Hide explores the deeply-moving actions of an ordinary man who resolves, under perilous circumstances, to make a difference.

The ship was doomed before it ever left port. His fate was sealed before he ever stepped on board. From R. L. Graham, Death on the Lusitania is an immersive WW1 historical novel set aboard the ill-fated ocean liner.

Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie.

Welcome on board the Lusitania's final voyage . . .

New York, 1915. RMS Lusitania, one of the world's most luxurious ocean liners, departs for war-torn Europe. Among those on board is Patrick Gallagher, a civil servant in Her Majesty's government tasked with escorting a British diplomat back to England.

When a fellow passenger is believed to have shot himself in his cabin, Gallagher is asked by the captain to investigate the scene but one crucial detail doesn't fit. The man's body was discovered in a locked cabin with the key inside and no gun to be found. Was it really suicide? Or murder?

Gallagher believes one of the passengers is a deadly killer who could strike again to protect their true reasons for being on board. And all the while, the ship sails on towards Europe, where deadly submarines patrol dark waters . . .

A new paperback edition of Julia Alvarez's beloved Pura Belpre winner about life in Trujillo's Dominican Republic. "Diary entries written by a child while in hiding will remind readers of Anne Frank's story." --SLJ

Anita de la Torre never questioned her freedom living in the Dominican Republic. But by her twelfth birthday in 1960, most of her relatives have immigrated to the United States, her Tio Toni has disappeared without a trace, and the government's secret police terrorize her remaining family because of their suspected opposition to Trujillo's iron-fisted rule.

Using the strength and courage of her family, Anita must overcome her fears and fly to freedom, leaving all that she once knew behind.

From renowned author Julia Alvarez comes an unforgettable story about adolescence, perseverance, and one girl's struggle to be free.

A Miami Herald Best Book of the Year
Winner of the Americas Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature
Winner of the Pura Belpre Award
An ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults
An ALA-ALSC Notable Children's Book

"A stirring work of art." --Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"A realistic and compelling account of a girl growing up too quickly while coming to terms with the cost of freedom." --The Horn Book, Starred Review

"Diary entries written by the child while in hiding will remind readers of Anne Frank's story. . . . Readers will bite their nails as the story moves to its inexorable conclusion." --SLJ

"Alvarez's story will spark intense discussion about politics and family." --Booklist