Fiction > Historical Fiction

Short of money, the inventor Thomas Edison is captivated by the charismatic figure of J.P. Morgan, the "world's banker". Accepting Morgan's glittering offer of almost unlimited cash in return for helping the man change the way the world does business, Edison sees himself descend from being the godlike inventor of electric light to being complicit in the invention of the electric chair. Ever more enmeshed in Morgan's personal life, he becomes infatuated by a world of privilege and power, where duty and desire, faith and immorality a... read more

The latest novel in the popular Lord John series from the international bestseller

A year of bones, of grave-dirt, relentless work. Of mummified corpses and chanting priests. A year of rape, suicide, sudden death. Of friendship too. Of desire. Of love...A year unlike any other he has lived. Deep in the heart of Paris, its oldest cemetery is, by 1785, overflowing, tainting the very breath of those who live nearby. Into their midst comes Jean-Baptiste Baratte, a young, provincial engineer charged by the king with demolishing it. At first Baratte sees this as a chance to clear the burden of history, a fitting task f... read more

The master of historical fiction presents the iconic story of King Alfred and the making of a nation. As the ninth century wanes, England appears about to be plunged into chaos once more. For the Viking-raised but Saxon-born warrior, Uhtred, whose life seems to shadow the making of England, this presents him with difficult choices. King Alfred is dying and his passing threatens the island of Britain to renewed warfare. Alfred wants his son, Edward, to succeed him but there are other Saxon claimants to the throne as well as ambiti... read more

Leaving the valley of horses with Jondalar, the handsome man she has nursed back to health and come to love, Ayla embarks on a journey that will lead her to the Mamutoi; the Mammoth Hunters. But as she settles into this new life among a people at first strange and disturbingly different, Ayla finds herself irresistibly drawn to Ranec, their master-carver. Ultimately, she is compelled to make a fateful choice between the two men. Jean Auel's imaginative reconstruction of pre-historic life, rich in detail of language, culture, myth a... read more

A thrilling love story set amid the French Revolution from the author of the Richard & Judy bestseller THE ROSE OF SEBASTOPOL.

The Quality of Mercy opens in the spring of 1767, in the immediate aftermath of the events in Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger.
It follows the fortunes of two central characters from that book: Sullivan, an Irish fiddler, and Erasmus Kemp, the son of a disgraced Liverpool slave-ship owner who hanged himself. To avenge his father's death, Erasmus Kemp has had the rebellious sailors of his father's ship, including Sullivan, brought back to London to stand trial on charges of mutiny and piracy. But as the novel opens, a bli... read more

Russia 1855. After forty years of peace in Europe, war rages. In the Crimea, the city of Sevastopol is besieged. In the north, Saint Petersburg is blockaded. But in Moscow there is one who needs only to sit and wait - wait for the death of an aging tsar, and for the curse upon his blood to be passed to a new generation. As their country grows weaker, a man and a woman - unaware of the hidden ties that bind them - must come to terms with their shared legacy. In Moscow, Tamara Valentinovna Komarova uncovers a brutal murder and discov... read more

A fascinating novel based on the life of the infamous baby farmer Minnie Dean, the only woman in New Zealand history ever to be hanged.
Accused of infanticide and awaiting trial and then sentence, Minnie confides in the Reverend Lindsay. Alternating between these two contrasting personalities, the novel tells Minnie's version of events. From her oppressive upbringing in Victorian Scotland to adulthood in Southland, Minnie battles her own nature and the hardships of colonial life and social hypocrisy. Once Minnie is tr... read more

The powerful and exhilarating third novel in Conn Iggulden's No. 1 bestselling Conqueror series, following the life and adventures of the mighty Genghis Khan The fatherless boy, exiled from his tribe, whom readers have been following in 'Wolf of the Plains' and 'Lords of the Bow', has grown into the great king, Genghis Khan. He has united the warring tribes and even taken his armies against the great cities of their oldest enemies. Now he finds trouble rising west of the Mongolian plains. His emissaries are mutilated or killed; hi... read more

The fourth in the bestselling Alfred series from number one historical novelist, Bernard Cornwell. The year is 885, and England is at peace, divided between the Danish kingdom to the north and Alfred's kingdom of Wessex in the south. But trouble stirs, a dead man has risen and new Vikings have arrived to occupy London. It is a dangerous time, and it falls to Uhtred, half Saxon, half Dane, a man feared and respected the length and breadth of Britain, to expel the Viking raiders and take control of London for Alfred. His uncertain ... read more

Reissue of Philippa Gregory's first novel, a tale of passion and intrigue set in the eighteenth century. 'If it was the way of the world that girls left home, then the world would have to change. I would never change.' Wideacre Hall, set in the heart of the English countryside, is the ancestral home that Beatrice Lacey loves. But as a woman of the eighteenth century she has no right of inheritance. Corrupted by a world that mistreats women, she sets out to corrupt others. Sexual and wilful, she believes that the only way to achie... read more

This is the reissue of the second novel in the "Wideacre Trilogy"; a compulsive drama set in the eighteenth century. The Wideacre estate is bankrupt, the villagers are living in poverty and Wideacre Hall is a smoke-blackened ruin. But, in the Dower House, two children are being raised in protected innocence. Equal claimants to the inheritance of Wideacre, rivals for the love of the village, they are tied by a secret childhood betrothal but forbidden to marry. Only one can be the favoured child. Only one can inherit the magical unde... read more

A young diplomat is killed in the street as he begs Lord John Grey for help. Witnessing the murder, Grey vows to avenge the young man, as the trail leads to the notorious Hellfire Club and the dark caves beneath Medmenham Abbey.

On the ten-hour sailing west from the Hebrides to the islands of St Kilda, everything lies ahead for Lizzie and Neil MacKenzie. Neil is to become the minister to the small community of islanders and Lizzie, his new wife, is pregnant with their first child. Neil's journey is evangelical: a testing and strengthening of his own faith against the old pagan ways of the St Kildans, but it is also a passage to atonement. For Lizzie - bright, beautiful and devoted - this is an adventure, a voyage into the unknown. She is sure only of her l... read more

Ayla and Jondalar leave the safety of the lands of the Mammoth Hunters and embark on a seemingly impossible journey across an entire continent. Their goal is the Cro-Magnon settlement in what is now southern France where Jondalar lived as a young man. Accompanied by the half-tame Wolf, the superb stallion, Racer, and the mare, Whinney, they brave both savage enemies and the elemental dangers of weather and terrain in their search for the place that will become Home. Jean Auel's imaginative reconstruction of pre-historic life, ric... read more

'This town is full of tiger men,' Dan said. 'Just look around you. The merchants, the builders, the bankers, the company men, they're all out for what they can get. This is a tiger town, Mick, a place at the bottom of the world where God turns a blind eye to pillage and plunder.' Van Diemen's Land was an island of stark contrasts; a harsh penal colony, an English idyll for its landed gentry, and an island so rich in natural resources it was a profiteer's paradise. Its capital Hobart Town had its contrasts too; the wealthy elite in ... read more

Cesare Borgia, Niccolo Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci are three of the most famous, or notorious, names in European history. This title tells the true story of these men who, with different tools - ruthless ambition, unstoppable genius and subtle political manipulation - follow an obsession to attain greatness and leave a mark on the world.

Number 1 bestselling author Philippa Gregory continues her series, "The Cousins War", with Jacquetta Woodville, mother of the White Queen. Jacquetta, daughter of the Count of Luxembourg and kinswoman to half the royalty of Europe, was married to the great Englishman John, Duke of Bedford, uncle to Henry VI. Widowed at the age of nineteen she took the extraordinary risk of marrying a gentleman of her household for love, and then carved out a life for herself as Queen Margaret of Anjou's close friend and a Lancaster supporter - until... read more

1794, the height of the French Revolution.

Charles Hayden sets off aboard the ill-fated HMS Themis with orders to destroy a French frigate sailing from Le Havre and to gather intelligence from a royalist spy. On discovering French plans for an imminent invasion of England, Hayden must return to Portsmouth to give warning before it's too late.

But the enemy have been lying in wait for him, and so begins a dangerous chase out into the Atlantic and into the clutches of a powerful French squadron. After a fai... read more