Historical Fiction

The Butcher’s Block

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The Butcher's Block
Title: The Butcher's Block
ASIN: B074HD7KM6
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Published: August 1, 2017
Short link: http://j.mp/AwesIndBk480
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Author's Twitter: http://www.lucienneboyce.com/
During a routine patrol, police arrest two men in possession of human body parts intended for sale to the dissecting rooms of a London teaching hospital. Bow Street Runner and amateur pugilist Dan Foster makes the grisly discovery that they are the remains of fellow officer George Kean. The arrested men are charged with Kean’s murder, but Dan is not convinced that they are the killers. In pursuit of the real murderer, he investigates the unhallowed activities of the resurrection men – bodysnatchers. The bodysnatching racket soon leads Dan to something bigger and much more dangerous. In a treacherous underworld of vicious pugilists, ruthless murderers, British spymasters and French agents, Dan must tread carefully…or meet the same terrible fate as Kean. 'The Butcher’s Block' is the second Dan Foster Mystery. 'Bloodie Bones', the first in the series, was joint winner of the Historical Novel Society Indie Award 2016.

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Rosette: A Novel of Pioneer Michigan

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Rosette: A Novel of Pioneer Michigan
Title: Rosette: A Novel of Pioneer Michigan
ASIN: B01AZLS05A
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Published: January 22, 2016
Short link: http://j.mp/AwesIndBk262
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Author's Twitter: @CindyRMarsch
We meet Rosette in 1888 as she revises the wedding-day page of her journal. In lush detail, in the voices of Rosette and others, the novel traces how we both choose and suffer our destiny, how hopes come to naught and sometimes rise from the wreckage. Why did she edit her wedding-day journal? Almost-spinster schoolteacher Rosette Cordelia Ramsdell married Otis Churchill on a Michigan farm in 1857. Her real-life journal recounts two years of homesteading, history hints at the next six decades, and the novel explores the truth. We meet Rosette in 1888 as she revises the wedding-day page of her journal. In lush detail, in the voices of Rosette and others, the novel traces how we both choose and suffer our destiny, how hopes come to naught and sometimes rise from the wreckage.  

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The Fatal Coin

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The Fatal Coin
Title: The Fatal Coin
ASIN: B0725QQBC1
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Published: May 16, 2017
Short link: http://j.mp/AwesIndBk479
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Author's Twitter: @LucienneWrite
Missing treasure. Murder. One ruthless criminal. And one Bow Street Runner determined to stop him. In the winter of 1794 Bow Street Runner and amateur pugilist Dan Foster is assigned to guard a Royal Mail coach. The mission ends in tragedy when a young constable is shot dead by a highwayman calling himself Colonel Pepper. Dan is determined to bring Pepper to justice, but the trail runs cold. Four months later Dan is sent to Staffordshire to recover a recently excavated hoard of Roman gold which has gone missing. Here he unexpectedly encounters Colonel Pepper again. The hunt is back on, and this time Dan will risk his life to bring down Pepper and his gang. 'The Fatal Coin' is a prequel to 'Bloodie Bones', the first Dan Foster Mystery, which was joint winner of the Historical Novel Society Indie Award 2016.

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The Curiosity Cabinet

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The Curiosity Cabinet
Title: The Curiosity Cabinet
ASIN: B01N23HTHU
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Published: February 6, 2017
Short link: http://j.mp/AwesIndBk457
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A novel sure to appeal to fans of Outlander. When Alys revisits the beautiful Scottish island of Garve after an absence of 25 years, she is captivated by the embroidered casket on display in her hotel. She discovers that it belongs to Donal, her childhood playmate, and soon they resume their old friendship.   Interwoven with the story of their growing love is the darker 18th-century tale of Henrietta Dalrymple, kidnapped by the formidable Manus McNeill and held on Garve against her will. Despite the 300 years separating them, the women are strongly connected: their parallel lives are linked by the cabinet and its contents, by the tug of motherhood and by the magic of the Hebridean island itself.   But Garve has its secrets, past and present. Donal must learn to trust Alys enough to confide in her and, like Henrietta before her, Alys must earn the right to belong.

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Nazi Saboteurs on the Bayou

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Nazi Saboteurs on the Bayou
Title: Nazi Saboteurs on the Bayou
ASIN: B01MYLUNUK
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Published: November 15, 2016
Short link: http://j.mp/AwesIndBK284
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Author's Twitter: @steven_burgauer
Nazi Saboteurs on the Bayou intertwines historic persons, events and locales of World War II with a fictional Nazi plot to disrupt the manufacture of Higgins boats, the Allied landing craft which won the war.  Spanning the globe from amphibious landings at Gavutu and Guadalcanal, to the Navajo code talker school near San Diego, to the exotic environs of New Orleans, to the secret world of Bletchley Park, England, to the Allied invasion of North Africa, this tautly written thriller, covering two weeks during the summer of 1942, combines an intriguing cast of characters with the historically important Andrew Jackson Higgins, Admiral John Godfrey of British Intelligence, Navajo code talker Chester Nez, Colonel “Wild Bill” Donovan of the OSS (later the CIA), Commander Ian Fleming of MI6, along with a Polish intelligence officer code-named “Rygor,” and Sylvestro “Silver Dollar Sam” Carolla, the crime boss of New Orleans.   A German dies in a New Orleans whorehouse.  He is carrying a mysterious notebook filled with hand-drawn maps, surveillance notes and cryptic codes.  As a result, Nazi Waffen SS conspirators ruthlessly search for that notebook, killing anyone, including two U.S. Marshals, who get in the way of their plans to disrupt the production of the Eureka steel-ramped landing crafts built by Higgins Industries.   Can this sabotage be stopped by a U.S. Navy intelligence officer, or a New Orleans Mafia don and his Cuban mistress with ties to British MI6, or the brilliant codebreakers of Bletchley Park?  The lives of U.S. Marines and Navajo code talkers in the Pacific and the Allied Forces of Operation Torch in North Africa are depending on their success in disrupting the plot.   The victory of Allied Forces hangs in the balance.

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Toru: Wayfarer Returns

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Toru: Wayfarer Returns
Title: Toru: Wayfarer Returns
ASIN: B01AOWGP9S
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Published: February 16, 2016
Short link: http://j.mp/AwesIndBK282
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A Japan that might have been... Revolutionary young samurai take on the West in this alternate history technofantasy set in 1850s samurai-era Japan. In Japan of 1852, the peace imposed by the Tokugawa Shoguns has lasted 250 years. Peace has turned to stagnation, however, as the commoners grow impoverished and their lords restless. Swords rust. Martial values decay. Foreign barbarians circle the island nation’s closed borders like vultures. Tōru, a shipwrecked young fisherman rescued by traders and taken to America, defies the Shogun’s ban on returning to Japan, determined to save his homeland from foreign invasion. Can he rouse his countrymen in time? Or will the cruel Shogun carry out his vow to execute all who set foot in Japan after traveling abroad? Armed only with his will, a few books, dirigible plans and dangerous ideas, Tōru must transform the Emperor’s realm before the Black Ships come. Tōru: Wayfarer Returns is the first book in the Sakura Steam Series, an alternate history of the tumultuous period from the opening of Japan in 1853 to the Meiji Restoration in 1868. This volume covers the year prior to the American Commodore Perry’s arrival in Japan and follows the hero and his young allies as they lead Japan through a massively compressed industrial revolution, dramatically altering that pivotal moment in history. While Tōru and his dirigibles are fictional, the story unfolds against the backdrop of the "real" Japan of that period, with historical figures and their political environment woven into the tale, staying true to their motivations and agendas even as the alternate history warps their actions, history and a few laws of physics. Underpinning the adventure plot is a young man's yearning for his father's approval and an honorable place in his world. Readers who enjoy steampunk alternate histories more typically set in Victorian England or the American Wild West may enjoy this steampunk story made fresh by the Japanese samurai setting, as well as readers who enjoy historical fiction set in Japan.

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Trouble in Nuala

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Trouble in Nuala
Title: Trouble in Nuala
ASIN: B01K7VSGO8
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Published: August 10, 2016
Short link: http://j.mp/AwesIndBk440
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Author's Twitter: @harrietsteel1
In the opening book of this series set in the 1930s among the rolling green hills of colonial Ceylon, Inspector Shanti de Silva is not finding life in his new post in the sleepy town of Nuala as restful as he had hoped. An arrogant plantation owner with a lonely wife, a crusading lawyer, and a death in suspicious circumstances conspire to present him with a puzzle that he will need all his experience to solve and prove his worth to his new boss. If you love traditional-style mysteries, spiced with colourful characters and a dash of humour, don’t miss The Inspector de Silva Mysteries.

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Hosanna

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Hosanna
Title: Hosanna
ASIN: B01FDT2ZZ0
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Published: May 8, 2016
Short link: http://j.mp/AwesIndBK278
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The last thing Hosanna wants is a bucket, a dishrag, and a brush. After all, it’s been fifteen years. Her heart and knees have grown callous from years of scrubbing floors for her racist grandmother who’s disgusted over the unlawful deeds of Hosanna’s white mother and black father. But Hosanna is now tired. Tired of her grandmother who has cloaked the family’s shame for far too long. So tired, she has waxed in wrath, counted every injustice, and rebelled against all who obstruct her quest for truth. So will she ever find peace? This uniquely-crafted story transcends time and takes us from the racial animus of 1945 to the abiding power of grace that heals and binds divisive wounds.

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The Likeness

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The Likeness
Title: The Likeness
ASIN: B01LXDFQ8L
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Published: October 14, 2016
Short link: http://j.mp/AwesIndBK275
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Author's Twitter: @carver26
Aberdeen, 1841. Woodcarver John Grant has an unusual new commission - creating a figurehead to feature onstage in the melodramas of a newly-arrived theatre group. Simultaneously, he’s also trying to unravel the mystery of the death of a young woman, whose body has been found in the filth behind the harbour’s fish sheds. His loving relationship with Helen Anderson, which began in The Figurehead, has grown stronger but, despite the fact that they both want to be together, she rejects the restrictions of conventional marriage, in which the woman is effectively the property of the husband. As John works on the figurehead, Helen persuades her father, a rich merchant, to let her get involved in his business, allowing her to challenge yet more conventions of a male-dominated society. The story weaves parallels between the stage fictions, Helen’s business dealings, a sea voyage, stage rehearsals, and John’s investigations. In the end, the mystery death and the romantic dilemma are both resolved, but in unexpected ways.

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