Historical Fiction

Plaint for Provence : 1152 in Les Baux

Plaint for Provence : 1152 in Les Baux
Title: Plaint for Provence : 1152 in Les Baux
ASIN: B014O1DQII
Publisher:
Published: November 29, 2015
Author:
Author's Twitter: @writerjeangill.
Summoned to the court of Les Baux, Estela and her lover, Dragonetz, are embroiled in two rival claims for power as their feuding liege lords gather in Provence. Although Estela is reluctant to leave her idyll with her young child Musca, and her pursuit of Arabic medicine, she welcomes the chance to show her musical skills and to support Dragonetz, who must use his swordsmanship to play peacemaker. Both of them must face their own personal demons as the storm-clouds gather over Provence. . In this third volume of the Troubadours Quartet, Jean Gill, the ‘master of historical intrigue’, continues to weave the gripping adventures of Dragonetz and Estela seamlessly into real historical events. Medieval France comes alive in all its facets, from healing with leeches to training a goshawk.

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Penny for Them

Penny for Them
Title: Penny for Them
ASIN: B00A2QDI92
Published: January 14, 2014
Author's Twitter: @PhilipCatshill
After learning of her stepfather’s death, Penny reveals the secrets that have kept her in hiding for thirty years. Her account begins in 1982, when a jewel robbery brought mayhem and death to central England. The following day, secret agents persuaded Penny to pursue her father’s murderer, Sean Moran. Penny discovered her stepfather, who was a junior minister in the British Government, had conspired with Argentinian agents towards the occupation of the Falklands. While trying to warn the British Government, the adventure takes Penny and Sean to Argentina, where a colonel in the brutal military regime realised Sean had the diamonds from the robbery. After rescuing the badly injured Sean, Penny discovered how her stepfather had engineered the arrest. Having thwarted his plans, her stepfather promised not to rest until he sees her dead body. Penny escaped him, but underestimated the lengths he would go to ensure her death.

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South of Burnt Rocks – West of the Moon

South of Burnt Rocks – West of the Moon
Title: South of Burnt Rocks – West of the Moon
ASIN: B009V2ZOL8
Published: October 21, 2012
Author:
Lavena, the last survivor of Rome's plundering destruction in ancient Spain, must survive to the next sunrise and then try to unite far-flung villages and oust the Roman menace. Based on real events and ancient She-Warriors who fought alongside their men. Mighty Rome plunders everything of value and destroys anything left standing in the beautiful and rich land south of Burnt Rocks. We know it as Spain. Lavena, the last child of the strongest tribal leader in the area, must grow up fast, must choose between marriage to her favorite young man and children, or the life of a She-Warrior fighting side-by-side with the male warriors of her tribe – or even fighting alone. The crush of an invading Roman army forces her choices. Guided by the spirits of the dead, by her father’s favorite dog, and the courage of those with nothing left to lose, she takes a last stand against the Roman menace. Roman scout, Marcus, is ordered to try to find answers to unseen but real threats pestering his Roman army – scouts who never return, dead soldiers, deadly traps in the ground, and slaughtered bullocks. More than any of his masters, Marcus begins to understand the havoc Lavena has wreaked, but deeper yearnings drive him to find her for other reasons, to be with her. Based on actual characters of that time and place, South of Burnt Rocks – West of The Moontells that mostly true story lost to the fog of history.

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Delivering Virtue

Delivering Virtue
Title: Delivering Virtue
ASIN: B01528UA9A
Published: November 7, 2015
Author's Twitter: @briankindall
Poetic rogue Didier Rain is hired by The Church of the Restructured Truth to deliver a baby – Virtue – to be the bride of the Prophet Nehi at his church’s new settlement in the wilderness territories. A picaresque novel set in the American frontier of 1854. “It’s 1854 in the American West and Didier Rain – rogue, poet, and would-be entrepreneur – is hired by an upstart church to deliver a child bride to the sect’s prophet across a frontier fraught with perils.” Delivering Virtue is a picaresque novel set in the American frontier of 1854. A poetic rogue by the name of Didier Rain is hired by The Church of the Restructured Truth to fulfill a prophecy. He is to deliver a baby – Virtue – to be the bride of the Prophet Nehi at his church’s new settlement in the wilderness territories. The story is an account of the trials Rain endures on this journey, attempting to adhere to the contract he signed prescribing his sacrosanct behavior throughout, while wrestling with his more base animal inclinations. As he walks this precarious line between the sacred and the profane, Virtue remains Didier Rain’s guiding miracle, showing him the true meaning of salvation by journey’s end.

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1066: What Fates Impose

1066: What Fates Impose
Title: 1066: What Fates Impose
ASIN: B00BPDGWNA
Publisher:
Published: March 4, 2013
Author's Twitter: @GlynnHolloway
Historical fiction where history is the star. The novel is set mainly in pre-Conquest England and deals with the fascinating events and characters that led up to the Battle of Hastings. It is full of papal plots, court intrigues, family feuds, assassinations, battles and betrayals.

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Sail Upon the Land

Sail Upon the Land
Title: Sail Upon the Land
ASIN: B00OVJIUOY
Publisher:
Published: December 1, 2014
Author:
Author's Twitter: @JosaYoung
A tale of love and loss told through four generations of English women, Sail Upon the Land traces 80 years of social turmoil. The story of an English family is told through the experiences of its mothers and children over the last eighty years. The book opens with Damson being raped in India during her Gap Year in the 1980s. She runs away, goes up to Cambridge to train as a medical student and discovers she is pregnant. The plot then goes back to Sarah in 1938. Desperately bored by her mother’s snobbish inertia she learns to cook and then becomes a VAD, falling in love with a doctor who treats wounded soldiers in her requisitioned family home. They have a fragile daughter, Melissa, who emerges into womanhood during the 1960s, marries a lonely and unhappy young man as shy as herself, and in turn produces another daughter – Damson. One after another, these mothers and daughters fail to understand and help each other until the third, Damson, is given a second chance.

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Bloodie Bones

Bloodie Bones
Title: Bloodie Bones
ASIN: B00XJTCLBA
Publisher:
Published: May 11, 2015
Author's Twitter: @LucienneWrite
In 1796 Bow Street Runner and amateur pugilist Dan Foster is sent to Somerset to infiltrate a poaching gang suspected of murdering Lord Oldfield’s gamekeeper, Josh Castle. Dan has walked into a volatile situation: the locals are up in arms against Lord Oldfield for enclosing Barcombe Forest and depriving them of their rights to gather fuel and food. Against a background of vandalism, arson and riot, Dan discovers that there were others with a grudge against Josh. However, Lord Oldfield orders him to arrest the poachers. When Dan learns that Josh had a claim to the Oldfield estate his suspicions focus on Lord Oldfield. Before he can confront him, rioters attack Oldfield Hall protesting against the arrests. During the fight, Dan finds himself at the mercy of the local doctor and realises that he and Josh were rivals in love. Dan narrowly escapes death and arrests the murderer: Doctor Russell.  

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The Hour of Parade

The Hour of Parade
Title: The Hour of Parade
ASIN: B00GXMDGKK
Published: November 11, 2013
Author:
One violent act draws together three very different people in Alan Bray’s haunting debut The Hour of Parade. The year is 1806, and Russian cavalry officer Alexi Ruzhensky travels to Munich to kill the man responsible for murdering his brother in a duel, French officer Louis Valsin. Obsessed by the main character in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s novel Julie, Alexi delays his search and becomes romantically entangled with a young Bavarian woman. When he finally meets Valsin and his mistress Anne-Marie, Alexi hides his true identity and befriends them. As the three grow closer, tensions mount as Alexi and Anne-Marie desperately try to resist their growing attraction. But in the novel’s explosive conclusion, Alexi will learn that revenge cannot be forgotten so easily.

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September Sky

September Sky
Title: September Sky
ASIN: B00RNQI5ZQ
Published: January 1, 2015
Author's Twitter: @johnheldt
San Francisco reporter Chuck Townsend and his college-dropout son, Justin, take a cruise to Mexico in 2016, where they meet a mysterious lecturer who touts the possibilities of time travel. Within days, they find themselves in 1900, intent on preventing a distant uncle from being hanged for a crime he did not commit.   When unemployed San Francisco reporter Chuck Townsend and his college-dropout son, Justin, take a cruise to Mexico in 2016, each hopes to rebuild a relationship after years of estrangement. But they find more than common ground aboard the ship. They meet a mysterious lecturer who touts the possibilities of time travel. Within days, Chuck and Justin find themselves in 1900, riding a train to Texas, intent on preventing a distant uncle from being hanged for a crime he did not commit. Their quick trip to Galveston, however, becomes long and complicated when they wrangle with business rivals and fall for two beautiful librarians on the eve of a hurricane that will destroy the city. Filled with humor, history, romance, and heartbreak, September Sky follows two directionless souls on the adventure of a lifetime as they try to make peace with the past, find new purpose, and grapple with the knowledge of things to come.

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