Historical fiction Books

In the tradition of epic novels like Exodus and Cast a Giant Shadow, Isaac’s Beacon is a sweeping historical tale based on the real events of Israel’s founding—bringing alive the power and complexities of the birth of the Jewish state out of the ashes of...

An evocative novel of love and art, and one man’s journey to find his place in the world. Where Light Meets Water is a moving debut traversing nineteenth-century London, Melbourne and New Zealand’s rugged South Island.Shortlisted for the NZ Booklovers...

FROM THE AUTHOR OF KIM JIYOUNG, BORN 1982'There is laughter and joy to be found in these pages, along with the kind of laughter that sets two women over 50 rolling in the snow with tears streaming down their frozen cheeks and the aurora borealis dancing...

Previously published as Echoes of War'Blanchard at her breathtaking best. Rich in every sight, taste and smell.' Australian Women’s Weekly _________________ Set in Mussolini’s Italy amid great upheaval, this is the story of one woman’s determination to...

From Philippa Gregory, the #1 bestselling author of Tidelands and Dark Tides. The spellbinding Fairmile series continues as the fiercely independent Alinor and her family find themselves entangled in palace intrigue, political upheaval,...

The Great Gatsby women take centre stage in this powerful reimagining of a timeless classic​.On a sultry August day in 1922, Jay Gatsby is shot dead in his West Egg swimming pool. To the police, it appears to be an open-and-shut case of murder/suicide...

Where does the story of the Owens family begin? With a baby abandoned in a snowy field in the 1600s. Under the care of Hannah Owens, little Maria learns about the “Unnamed Arts.” Hannah recognizes that Maria has a gift and she teaches the girl all she...

‘Masterful, magnificent. A passionate story of survival. This story will stay with me for a long time.’ Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of AuschwitzThe war is over, but the past is never past …Paris, 1944. Charlotte Foret is working in a tiny...

A beautiful leather-bound collectible volume of Jack London’s stories.From hard-edged adventures in the Klondike territory to harrowing experiences on the South Seas, Jack London’s three most popular novels form the basis of this collection. Popular...

Pre-order THE LOST PASSENGER, the astonishing new novel by Frances Quinn, coming February 2025.‘What a heroine Endurance Proudfoot is! I loved her from the start. An unconventional woman who takes us on a fascinating - if bumpy - ride through a man’s...

England 1648. A dangerous time for a woman to be different . . . From Philippa Gregory, the #1 bestselling author of The Other Boleyn Girl.On Midsummer’s Eve, Alinor waits in the church graveyard, hoping to encounter the ghost of her missing husband and...

From the bestselling author of The Girl from Munich, a sweeping, dramatic tale of love and identity, inspired by a true story.After enduring the horror of Nazi Germany and the chaos of postwar occupation, Lotte Drescher and her family arrive in Australia...

A big, bold and hauntingly beautiful story that captures a defining moment in Australia's history.Everywhere he looked he saw what Utzon saw. The drama of harbour and horizon, and at night, the star-clotted sky. It held the shape of the possible, of a...

An easily understood reference guide to the deities of Greek and Roman mythology.Stories of Gods and Heroes, originally published in 1855, is the first of three works that make up Bulfinch's Mythology, by Thomas Bulfinch. A useful and concise guide to...

Discover six classic novels as you follow the footsteps of the trailblazers who settled the American West.  As the American West opened up to settlers after the Civil War, people were eager for tales of great adventures, endless possibilities, and...

Finalist in the Queenland Literary Awards 2017Longlisted in the Dublin Literary Awards 2017A story about a love that transcends all boundaries, from one of Australia’s best loved authors.5 AUGUST, 1944.Over 1000 Japanese soldiers break out of the No.12...

A SPELLBINDING NOVEL FROM SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR, PHILIPPA GREGORY'There is only one bond that I trust: between a woman and her sisters. We never take our eyes off each other. In love and in rivalry, we always think...

London. 1945. The capital is shrouded in the darkness of the blackout, and mystery abounds in the parks after dusk. During a stroll through Regent's Park, Bruce Mallaig witnesses two men acting suspiciously around a footbridge. In a matter of moments,...

R.J. Kinch blends literary genres and the history of the period to tell a fast-paced, action filled story of the maturation of an Irish Catholic during a tumultuous time in American History. Confronted with tough choices and moral dilemmas, Joe O'Mara...

An enchanting tale of the complex and fascinating life of Luisa Abrego of Seville, an emancipated woman who forges a new future for herself in colonial Mexico and gets caught in the Spanish Inquisition.Luisa Abrego, an enslaved woman in Seville, is...

**Winner of the 2023 Parliamentary Book Awards****The New Statesman Book of the Year****Sunday Times Book of the Week**Queen Elizabeth I is dying, James I waiting to accede. But who will thrive, and who will fail, under the new king? Will it be the...

Spring, 1523. Henry VIII readies England for war with France. The King's chief minister, Cardinal Wolsey, prepares to open Parliament at Blackfriars. The eyes of the country turn towards London. But all is not well in Wolsey's household. A visiting...

"When the Violin Weeps" is based upon the disturbing true events of the Holocaust in World War II and the struggles to create the State of Israel. It is the story of appalling crimes against humanity.Forcing Warsaw's massive Jewish population into an...

Summer, 1942 The idyllic days on the Outer Banks of North Carolina are abruptly shattered when Hitler's U-Boats steal into the waters offshore torpedoing commercial and military vessels. A tall, handsome Coast Guardsman, Finn Ingram, flies spotter planes...

In this Swedish bestseller, a man training to become a Ugandan fighter pilot defects after a coup and spends his life on the run.P's greatest dream is to fly. He sets out to become a Ugandan fighter pilot, training in an academy in Greece. When the 1971...

Winner of the PEN/Faulkner award for fiction in 2003, The Caprices is a collection of stories artfully told across the theatre of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. An Anglo-Indian cavalryman, his homeland on the brink of revolution, finds himself in...

Sherlockian crime set in early 20th century London, packed with action and martial arts elements, this is the first book in a series featuring the daring Judge Dee Ren Jie and his shy, academic sidekick Lao She.For fans of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock...

'A rollicking mix of gunplay, quips, and romance.' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY'Beautifully captures the visual style of the Jazz Age.' BOOKLISTIt's 1927 and Prohibition is in full effect in St. Louis, Missouri...

A band of mercenaries fight deadly enemies and solve ancient riddles to plunder the tomb of Egypt's robber pharaoh in this break-neck historical adventure-thriller.In this fresh twist on the historical adventure genre, a band of misfit...

A thousand years ago in an ancient Scottish landscape, a woman is on the run with her three bosom companions a healer, a weaver and a seer. If the men hunting her find them, they will kill her because she is the only one who stands between them and their...

Richard Hannay Returns.JULY, 1942. Once again veteran adventurer Richard Hannay is called into action on a mission that will test him as never before. At stake is the fate of the beleaguered island of Malta where Hannay's son is stationed as a fighter...

The free-standing successor and next novel by the author of the critically acclaimed The Last Thing You Surrender, Leonard Pitts, Jr.'s 54 Miles launches forward twenty years to the fateful weeks of March 1965-from the infamous "Bloody Sunday" march at...

A Bridgerton-inspired humorous Victorian romance featuring a defiant heroine who fights to escape a bad marriage, while her love for a forbidden man jeopardizes her chance at freedom.James Standish knows how to play society's game. He'll follow the rules...

The hour between dog and wolf is twilight, when it is hard to distinguish between known and unknown, right and wrong. When one state has ended and another has not quite begun. In 1980s Russia, Soviet policies, cruel but familiar, are giving way to...

A young artist meets Stephen Crane as America's hunger for empire draws them both into warOliver Fischer, a self-styled bohemian, boardwalk caricaturist, and student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, enrages his banker father and earns the...

'Societies are oiled with the unpaid, unaccounted for, work of women. It is the very glue that binds us together, and yet we are blind to it; a woman's work remains invisible.'Rosalind Franklin knows that to be a woman in a...

A wronged woman's voice is reclaimed in this gripping tale of revenge and romance-a medieval Gone Girl.Highland Scotland was no place for a woman in the early 1500s. Life was turbulent and short, battles were waged, and sisters and daughters were traded...

'Everybody has everything to lose...'An atmospheric, violent crime caper set in 1950s New York, with everything from femme fatales to double-crosses.A heist gone wrong forces Slick to do a job for his employer, Rex, to repay the debt he...

The Second World War is over, but young Tomas learns that Europe's wounds have not yet healed.'You come to see [Tomas] is conserving himself deliberately against the old suffering, the tired old guilt of the adults... Simplicity is a great...

In a dark and grimy steam-powered alternate history, Holmes and Watson are still on the case! In this gothic horror-tinged retelling of the classic duo, they'll face down the legendary Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, a villainous card playing...

The Cellist of Dachau is an acclaimed and 'masterful' novel of the Holocaust - the legacy that haunts us, and the music that binds us.In 1938, Otto Schalmik, a 19-year-old musician from a Jewish family in Vienna, is arrested by Nazi...

The darkest days of Paris, 1790s. Riots ignite the street, classes struggle for power, and death rests at the foot of the guillotine. For Ani, the French Revolution is a catalyst for bringing down the corrupt aristocracy and avenging her fallen family,...

Johanna is one of the daughters of a migrant cobbler from the eastern backwoods of Pomerania, born in the German Empire of the 1880s. Aching for a life of accomplishment and respect, she resolves to escape her dad's fate of early death, the stigma of his...

A novel based on the shocking true eighteenth-century story of a Scottish noblewoman whose own husband faked her death and exiled her to a remote island, where she could never be found.Edinburgh, January 1732. It's the funeral of Rachel, wife of...

FEATURED ONLITHUB CBC BOOKS:2024 SPRING FICTION PREVIEW Dickinson after her death: a novel of the trio of women who brought Emily Dickinson's poems out of the shadowsWhen she died, Emily Dickinson left behind hundreds of texts scribbled on scraps of...

A lyrical, lush, evocative story about a fractured Jamaican family and a daughter determined to reclaim her home.When Pearline receives grave news about her ailing father, she abruptly leaves Brooklyn for her childhood home in Jamaica. But Pearline isn't...

A seminal novel of African decolonization available for the first time in English translation.Lisbon 1961. Aware that the secret police are watching them, four young Angolans discuss their plans for a utopian homeland free from Portuguese rule. When war...

The Isle of Iona, 825.In a bloody, brutal raid, Abbot Blathmac is slain on the steps of his monastery for refusing to give away the location of the sacred relics of St Columba, the missionary who first brought Christianity to Scotland. Following a night...