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Historical fiction

  • Auteur:
    Oatley, Keith
    Sommaire:

    On a summer visit to Germany, George, a young medical student at Cambridge, meets Anna von Kleist, whose intellectual force, beauty, and self-assurance smite him full in the heart. It is 1936. Hitler is already in power, and a shift has occurred in Germany that Anna, George, and their friend Werner have not fully grasped. Europe is on the cusp of war when the three find themselves in a painful love triangle that plays between England and Germany. Facing decisions that will forever alter the course of their lives, they must choose and live with the consequences of their choices. Reviewers have compared Oatley's pure, spare prose with that of A.S. Byatt and Umberto Eco. In Therefore Choose, his intimately rendered characters draw us irrevocably into their quest for meaning, hope, and understanding in a world diving headlong into chaos.

  • Auteur:
    Morris, Lynn
    Sommaire:

    Hoping to escape a brutal New York winter, Cheney and Shiloh travel with a group of friends to Sangria House, a small citrus plantation in Florida. But when they arrive, all is not as they expected. Though the place seems deserted, with no supplies or staff, they manage to get settled in and look forward to enjoying a relaxing holiday together. But when they find something dreadful in the wine cellar, they wonder if perhaps Sangria House is not the haven they had thought it would be.

  • Auteur:
    Kulbak, Moshe
    Sommaire:

    This is the first complete English-language translation of a classic of Yiddish literature, one of the great comic novels of the 20th century. The Zelmenyaners describes the travails of a Jewish family in Minsk that is torn asunder by the new Soviet reality. Four generations are depicted in riveting and often uproarious detail as they face the profound changes brought on by the demands of the Soviet regime and its collectivist, radical secularism. The resultant intergenerational showdowns - including disputes over the introduction of electricity, radio, or electric trolley - are rendered with humor, pathos, and a finely controlled satiric pen. Moyshe Kulbak, a contemporary of the Soviet Jewish writer Isaac Babel, picks up where Sholem Aleichem left off a generation before, exploring in this book the transformation of Jewish life.

  • Auteur:
    Johnson, Sadeqa
    Sommaire:

    Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Delores Brown has lived a relatively sheltered life. Shielded by her mother's position as the estate's medicine woman and cherished by the Master's sister, she is set apart from the others on the plantation, belonging to neither world. She'd been promised freedom on her eighteenth birthday, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with her true love, Essex Henry, Pheby is forced to leave the only home she has ever known. She unexpectedly finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil's Half Acre, a jail in Richmond, Virginia, where the enslaved are broken, tortured, and sold every day. There, Pheby is exposed not just to her Jailer's cruelty but also to his contradictions. To survive, Pheby will have to outwit him, and she soon faces the ultimate sacrifice.

  • Auteur:
    Falvey, Patricia
    Sommaire:

    The story of a fiery young woman fighting to reunite her family and reclaim their ancestral home during the war for Irish Independence.

  • Auteur:
    Slater, Patrick
    Sommaire:

    Folktale, memoir, fiction, literary hoax, The Yellow Briar is all of these. Ostensibly the charming remembrance of an Irish orphan who escapes the Great Famine of 1840s Ireland and comes to the New World to seek a fresh start on the streets of Toronto and in the pioneer hinterland of Canada West (Ontario), the book was actually a fictional humbug perpetrated by John Mitchell, a Toronto lawyer, who first published the tale in 1933. Patrick Slater, the protagonist of the "memoir," is said to have died in 1924 but not before setting his saga down on paper. And what an account it is! The Globe and Mail felt that the book "gives a picture of Ontario to be found in no other work of fiction we know and has won for itself a permanent place in Canadian literature." If nothing else, Slater/Mitchell captures perfectly the lilt of the Irish and the wry wisdom of an old soul to paint an affecting portrait of trials and tribulations in a long-ago time.

  • Auteur:
    Lebedev, Sergeĭ
    Sommaire:

    A story of a Russian boyhood and coming of age as the Soviet Union is on the brink of collapse.

  • Auteur:
    Li, Mirok
    Sommaire:

    As the son of a Korean family of substance the author of this autobiographical sketch grew up, in the early years of the century, among unsettling influences from east and west. Europe, known as "West of the Ocean," supplied modern education to replace the old classics of China and Korea. From the east came Japanese troops to annex the country in a bloodless war. Mirok Li, a perceptive and receptive schoolboy, saw this political scene in terms of his day-to-day experience. The remarkable thing is that he continued to see it with the same clarity, truth and detail when came to write the story many years later in Europe, using a simple German that his translator may perhaps have improved on Mr. Hammlmann's English version, at least, is lucent calm and fully expressive of the closely felt Korean scene that stirs the reader by its blend of intimacy and remoteness.

  • Auteur:
    Casey, Donis
    Sommaire:

    Murder and illness, rumors of war, rain and floods worthy of the Bible. 1916 was not shaping up to be a good year for Alafair Tucker, and finding Bernie Arruda dead in a ditch wasn’t going to help matters. She had not wanted to come to Arizona in the first place. But her daughter Blanche, only 10-years-old, was suffering from a stubborn ailment of the lungs, and her best chance for a cure was dry desert air. So Alafair and her husband Shaw had bundled their sick child onto the train and made the nightmare trip from Oklahoma to Alafair’s sister in Tempe, Arizona. Yet as soon as they arrived on that bright March day, Blanche began to improve. Alafair was overjoyed to see her witty, brilliant, beautiful sister Elizabeth again, and for added excitement, a Hollywood motion picture company was shooting their movie right on the streets of Tempe! But Alafair and Shaw soon discover that all is not well in sunny Arizona. Elizabeth’s marriage is in tatters, tensions are high between the Anglo and Latino communities following Pancho Villa’s murderous raid on Columbus, New Mexico, and Alafair suspects her sister is involved in an illegal operation to smuggle war refugees out of Mexico and into the U.S. And now here lies Bernie Arruda on his back in a ditch, staring into eternity. The night before he had been singing Mexican love songs at the party in Elizabeth’s back yard, his black eyes flashing as he winked at the ladies. He had been a charmer, all right. Too bad there were so many people who would be glad he was dead.

  • Auteur:
    Ahdieh, Renée
    Sommaire:

    A sumptuous and epically told love story inspired by A Thousand and One NightsEvery dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, takes a new bride each night only to have her executed at sunrise. So it is a suspicious surprise when sixteen-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid. But she does so with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the Caliph for the murder of her best friend and countless other girls. Shazi's wit and will, indeed, get her through to the dawn that no others have seen, but with a catch ... she's falling in love with the very boy who killed her dearest friend. She discovers that the murderous boy-king is not all that he seems and neither are the deaths of so many girls. Shazi is determined to uncover the reason for the murders and to break the cycle once and for all.

  • Auteur:
    Bissoondath, Neil
    Sommaire:

    This beautiful novel from the acclaimed, award-winning author of A Casual Brutality and The Innocence of Age, joins politics and love in a powerful story set in both the Caribbean and Canada. Neil Bissoondath draws us with a startling grace of language into the lives of a mother and daughter whose worlds and dreams collide to release deeply buried secrets.

  • Auteur:
    Hoffman, Alice
    Sommaire:

    In Berlin in 1941 during humanity's darkest hour, three unforgettable young women must act with courage and love to survive, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dovekeepers and The Marriage of Opposites Alice Hoffman. In Berlin, at the time when the world changed, Hanni Kohn knows she must send her twelve-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime. She finds her way to a renowned rabbi, but it's his daughter, Ettie, who offers hope of salvation when she creates a mystical Jewish creature, a rare and unusual golem, who is sworn to protect Lea. Once Ava is brought to life, she and Lea and Ettie become eternally entwined, their paths fated to cross, their fortunes linked. Lea and Ava travel from Paris, where Lea meets her soulmate, to a convent in western France known for its silver roses, to a school in a mountaintop village where three thousand Jews were saved. Meanwhile, Ettie is in hiding, waiting to become the fighter she's destined to be. What does it mean to lose your mother? How much can one person sacrifice for love? In a world where evil can be found at every turn, we meet remarkable characters that take us on a stunning journey of loss and resistance, the fantastical and the mortal, in a place where all roads lead past the Angel of Death and love is never ending.

  • Auteur:
    Furst, Alan
    Sommaire:

    Set in the shadowy back streets and glittering salons of wartime Paris. Film producer Jean Casson, a Paris sophisticate struggles to come to terms with the uncomfortable realities of life under German occupation, as he becomes caught up in the activities of what was to become the French Resistance.

  • Auteur:
    Lund, Gerald N.
    Sommaire:

    Despite ongoing trials, they feel that God has granted them this season of relief, hope and joy.

  • Auteur:
    Lund, Gerald N.
    Sommaire:

    Thy Gold to Refine covers one of the stormiest and trying, yet inspiring periods of Church history. The Steeds are reunited in Far West, Missouri, all the while animosity towards the Mormons is growing unchecked. Violence erupts and Governor Boggs issues an extermination order for the Mormons leading to the spilling of innocent blood at the Haun's Mill massacre. Far West falls, Joseph Smith is jailed, and the Mormon Saints are forced from Missouri. Even Joshua Steed takes up arms, but will he fight for or against the Mormons?

  • Auteur:
    Lund, Gerald N.
    Sommaire:

    For the Steeds, the years between 1836 and 1838 are a time of separation and reunion, committment and apostasy, heartache and hope. Nathan Steed joins Parley P. Pratt on a challenging mission to Upper Canada. Jessica, Joshua's ex-wife, feels compelled to seek a safe haven with the Church in Far West, Missouri; meanwhile, Joshua, restless, ambitious, and haunted by his past -- journeys to Savannah, Georgia. Tensions between Melissa and her nonmember husband, Carl, forces her to make a difficult decision. And even as a growing spirit of apostasy permeates Kirtland, the divine call comes to open the work in the first missions overseas -- England.

  • Auteur:
    Lund, Gerald N.
    Sommaire:

    Pillar of Light — the first volume in the series The Work and the Glory — begins the epic story of the Benjamin Steed family. In the 1820s they move from Vermont to Palmyra Township in upstate New York in search of better farmland. There they meet a young man named Joseph Smith and are thrown into the maelstrom of conflict and controversy that swirls around him. Did he really see the Father and the Son in a pillar of light? Has he truly been visited by angelic messengers? What is all this talk about gold plates and new scripture? In short, is he a prophet and seer or a monumental fraud? The answers each one gives to these questions — intensely personal, potentially divisive — will dramatically affect the lives of the Steeds forever after.

  • Auteur:
    Sarginson, Saskia
    Sommaire:

    A sweeping and turbulent drama about the anxieties of postwar Britain, where one strong and inspirational young woman looks to find her place, no matter the cost.

    Sometimes, the truth lies in fiction

    It’s hard to be an American girl in 1957. Especially when your dad’s job means you have to move four thousand miles from home. Especially if you’d rather play baseball than wear a dress. Especially if you see your mom fraying a little more from anxiety each day. And especially if being five minutes older means you have to protect your fragile twin brother.

    Still, Hedy Delaney loves her family, and she’s trying to make the best of her new life on a U.S. airbase in England. After all, her dad’s a war hero, her mother’s a beauty, and her brother’s a brainiac who writes moving stories about space travel.

    Then one tragic day, the unforeseen occurs and all three are ripped away, leaving Hedy alone with countless questions. What really happened on the airbase? What went on behind military closed doors? What were the secrets that could never be told? And how could any of it have led to her family’s destruction?

    In her search for the truth, Hedy turns to a story her brother began months before he died. Deciding to finish what her brother started, Hedy begins to piece together what happened to her family. But whether she’s ready for what she’ll discover is another matter entirely.

    A sweeping and turbulent family drama, The Wonderful asks whether writing fiction can uncover fact, and if it’s ever better to let the truth remain hidden.

    Sometimes, it’s safer not to finish what you’ve started.

  • Auteur:
    Chiaverini, Jennifer
    Sommaire:

    New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini returns with The Women's March, an enthralling historical novel of the woman's suffrage movement inspired by three courageous women who bravely risked their lives and liberty in the fight to win the vote. Twenty-five-year-old Alice Paul returns to her native New Jersey after several years on the front lines of the suffrage movement in Great Britain. Weakened from imprisonment and hunger strikes, she is nevertheless determined to invigorate the stagnant suffrage movement in her homeland. Nine states have already granted women voting rights, but only a constitutional amendment will secure the vote for all. To inspire support for the campaign, Alice organizes a magnificent procession down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, the day before the inauguration of President-elect Woodrow Wilson, a firm antisuffragist. Joining the march is thirty-nine-year-old New Yorker Maud Malone, librarian and advocate for women's and workers' rights. The daughter of Irish immigrants, Maud has acquired a reputation-and a criminal record-for interrupting politicians' speeches with pointed questions they'd rather ignore. Civil rights activist and journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett resolves that women of color must also be included in the march-and the proposed amendment. Born into slavery in Mississippi, Ida worries that white suffragists may exclude Black women if it serves their own interests. On March 3, 1913, the glorious march commences, but negligent police allow vast crowds of belligerent men to block the parade route-jeering, shouting threats, assaulting the marchers-endangering not only the success of the demonstration but the women's very lives. Inspired by actual events, The Women's March offers a fascinating account of a crucial but little-remembered moment in American history, a turning point in the struggle for women's rights.

  • Auteur:
    Barker, Pat
    Sommaire:

    Troy has fallen and the victorious Greeks are eager to return home with the spoils of an endless war--including the women of Troy themselves. They await a fair wind for the Aegean. It does not come, because the gods are offended. The body of King Priam lies unburied and desecrated, and so the victors remain in suspension, camped in the shadows of the city they destroyed as the coalition that held them together begins to unravel. Old feuds resurface and new suspicions and rivalries begin to fester. Largely unnoticed by her captors, the one time Trojan queen Briseis, formerly Achilles's slave, now belonging to his companion Alcimus, quietly takes in these developments. She forges alliances when she can, with Priam's aged wife the defiant Hecuba and with the disgraced soothsayer Calchas, all the while shrewdly seeking her path to revenge.

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