Showing titles in Historical Fiction

Based on the real-life memoirs of the 19th Century investigator who inspired Sherlock Holmes, Inspector James McLevy, this atmospheric mystery series features the fictional casebook of Edinburgh's finest thief-taker. Accompanied by his loyal partner, Constable Mulholland, McLevy prowls the murky streets of 1840s Leith bringing criminals to justice—assisted by the madam of Edinburgh's finest bawdy-house, the deliciously immoral Jean Brash.

The barbarian leader Calgus defies both his barbarian captors and Britannia's legions - and Marcus Aquila - once more in the sixth thrilling novel in the Empire sequence, praised by fellow-authors Conn Iggulden, Ben Kane and Manda Scott. The Tungrian auxiliary cohorts return to Hadrian's Wall...

Brought to you by Penguin. THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2022 SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION 2022 From one of our greatest living writers comes a sweeping novel of unrequited love and exile, war and family. The Magician...

'One of the greatest storytellers of our time' Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing 'A story of love, family, unbreakable bonds, bravery and hope' Christy Lefteri, author of The Beekeeper of Aleppo The Four Winds, an instant New York Times number one bestseller and Richard and Judy...

Million-copy bestselling author Kate Ellis returns with the brand new mystery in the DI Wesley Peterson crime series. 'A beguiling author who interweaves past and present' The Times South Devon is returning to its usual calm after the summer tourist season when DI Wesley Peterson and his team...

Read by Richard Armitage (The Hobbit, Missing You) Heads You Win is the incredible and thrilling novel by the master storyteller and bestselling author of the Clifton Chronicles and Kane and Abel, Jeffrey Archer. Leningrad, Russia, 1968. From an early age it is clear that Alexander Karpenko is...

The sun rides high over the British Empire and the light still sparkles brightly in Amelia Peabody's eye as she returns for her second adventure in archaeology and romantic mystery as recounted in her lively journal, The Curse of the Pharaohs.

Inspector Betty Church - one of the few female officers on the force - has arrived from London to fill a vacancy at Sackwater police station. But Betty isn't new here. This is the place she grew up. Time ticks slowly in Sackwater. Having solved the case of the missing buttons, Betty's called to the train station to investigate a missing bench. But though there's no bench, there is a body. A smartly dressed man, murdered in broad daylight, with two distinctive puncture wounds in his throat. While the locals gossip about the Suffolk Vampire, Betty Church readies herself to hunt a dangerous killer.

Benedict Cumberbatch reads these four new Sherlock Holmes stories by John Taylor: 'An Inscrutable Masquerade', 'The Conundrum of Coach 13', 'The Trinity Vicarage Larceny' and 'The 10.59 Assassin'. Inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle's original Sherlock Holmes stories, John Taylor has written four more mysteries featuring the world's greatest detective. Read by acclaimed actor Benedict Cumberbatch, these new adventures share all the suspense of the original tales.

The shy, young Duke of Sale has never known his parents, Instead, his Grace Adolphus Gillespie Vernon Ware (Gilly for short) has endured 24 years of rigorous mollycoddling form his uncle and valet. But his natural diffidence conceals a rebellious spirit. So when Gilly hears of Belinda, the beautiful foundling who appears to be blackmailing his cousin, he absconds with glee. No sooner has he entered this new and dangerous world than is he plunged into a frenzy of intrigue, kidnap and adventure.

With its winding high street lined with a greengrocer, post office, pub and church, Melstead St Mary is the perfect English village. Neighbours look out for neighbours, and few things trouble the serene surface of the community. But when residents start to receive anonymous letters containing secret information about their pasts - secrets that no one else is meant to know - life in Melstead St Mary is about to change, possibly forever....

Witchers are not born. They are made. Before he was the White Wolf or the Butcher of Blaviken, Geralt of Rivia was simply a fresh graduate of Kaer Morhen, stepping into a world that neither understands nor welcomes his kind. And when an act of naïve heroism goes gravely wrong, Geralt is only...

Beloved authors Julia Quinn, Elizabeth Boyle, Laura Lee Guhrke, and Stefanie Sloane deliver the stories of four friends from Madame Rochambeaux s Gentle School for Girls who find an old sixpence in their bedchamber and decide that it will be the lucky coin for each of their weddings ...

Summer, 1522. In a wave of pomp, Henry VIII's court welcomes the Imperial emperor, Charles V. Anthony Blanke, the son of the king's late 'black trumpet', John Blanke, is called to Hampton Court by his former employer, Cardinal Wolsey. The cardinal is preparing a gift for King Henry: a masque of King Arthur and the Black Knight. Anthony is to take center stage.

War and Peace is one of the greatest monuments in world literature. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, it examines the relationship between the individual and the relentless march of history. Here are the universal themes of love and hate, ambition and despair, youth and age, expressed with a swirling vitality which makes the book as accessible today as it was when it was first published in 1869.

Laurence and Temeraire made a daring journey across vast and inhospitable continents to bring home a rare Turkish dragon from the treacherous Ottoman Empire. Kazilik dragons are firebreathers, and Britain is in greater need of protection than ever, for while Laurence and Temeraire were away, an epidemic struck British shores and is killing off her greatest defence - her dragon air force is slowly dying. The dreadful truth must be kept from Napoleon at all costs.

Lizzie Miller worries for her family – money is short in their little house, but her beautiful daughter Ruby vows to give them all a better life. Working as a maid for Mr Banks, Ruby befriends his shy and gentle daughter, Cicely. The two girls hatch a mischievous plan to introduce Ruby to society at a party for the ‘gentry’ of Blackburn, where Ruby meets Luke Arnold, the dissolute heir to his father’s fortunes.

As the Crow Flies is an epic rags to riches tale from Jeffrey Archer, author of the bestselling The Clifton Chronicles. If your dream is big enough, not even your enemies can stop you . . . Charlie Trumper's earliest memory is of hearing his grandfather's sales patter from behind his...

The Rich Are Different is the story of Dinah Slade, a young Englishwoman of immense vitality and great sensual power, whose life, loves, and fierce ambition become entangled with the fate of an American banking family. When Paul Van Zale, a handsome patrician and powerful American banker, meets Dinah in London, he commits the imprudence of falling in love with her. When Dinah follows him to his world, she is caught up in the currents of Paul's life. And among her new acquaintances is Paul's wife.

Summer 1939: After touring an unsettled Europe to promote her latest book, Romily Temple returns home to Island House and the love of her life, Jack Devereux. But when Jack falls ill, his estranged family are called to his bedside. With war now declared, each member of the family is reluctantly forced to accept their new stepmother and confront their own shortcomings. But can Romily cope with the life that has been so unexpectedly thrust upon her?