Showing results for "life-" in Historical Fiction

Kenneth Branagh stars in BBC Radio 4's ambitious eight-hour dramatisation of Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman's epic masterpiece set during the Battle of Stalingrad. This powerful work, completed in 1960, charts the fate of both a nation and a family in the turmoil of war. Its comparison of Stalinism with Nazism was considered by Soviet authorities to be so dangerous that the KGB placed the manuscript under arrest and Grossman was informed his book would not be published for at least 200 years.

In 1672, Sarah Solart Poole Good and Ann Carr Putnam begin life on seemingly equal footing—both daughters of well-off families in colonial Massachusetts. But as the years pass, their fortunes diverge. Sarah’s life spirals into poverty, homelessness, and mental distress. Ann marries into wealth and stability, becoming the wife of Thomas Putnam, the Younger, heir to one of Salem Village’s most powerful families. Yet even privilege cannot shield the Putnams from misfortune. Thomas is disinherited in favor of his younger brother, and Ann’s expected inheritance proves meager.

Rachel has an unusual problem: she can't die. Her recent troubles - widowhood, a failing business, an unemployed middle-aged son - are only the latest. She's already put up with scores of marriages and hundreds of children, over 2,000 years - ever since she made a spiritual bargain to save the life of her first son back in Roman-occupied Jerusalem. There's only one other person in the world who understands: a man she once loved passionately, who has been stalking her through the centuries, convinced they belong together forever.

The remnants of Duke de Clairmont's army are surrounded by enemy legions under the command of Ricardo di Lorenzo, otherwise known as the Golden Lion. Marshal de Clairmont himself is badly wounded, and already at death's door. Duke de Bauffremont and Duke de Gondy have assembled their forces on the border between Bergonia and Vestonia, and now, under Prince Philippe's leadership, this army is about to march off to rescue the surrounded Vestonian force. But that won't be enough to beat the Golden Lion in the field.

Eureka: The Life and Death of Edgar Allan Poe By Tim Simpson He was America’s first true master of the macabre—yet his own life was a story more mysterious than any he ever wrote. From the shadowed streets of Richmond to the rain-slick alleys of Baltimore, Edgar Allan Poe walks again in this sweeping historical novel that blurs the line between genius and madness, love and obsession, life and death.

Hui Yue is continuing his journey to become a god when an enemy from the past appears in front of him. What is it that makes this old enemy appear in front of Hui Yue, and why is it so urgent? Being tempted by this saint, Hui Yue moves forward to find many secrets of the world he had never imagined before. He experiences one hardship after another, but with his friends by his side, they fight for survival in the red realm that has been created to test their abilities.

The Golden Lion has retreated to Atalia with the remnants of his army. An anxious calm has settled over war-torn Bergonia, but it doesn't seem likely that things will stay quiet for very long. With the burden of command finally removed from his shoulders, Max is headed to northern Bergonia. To the lands of the Margraviate de Valier, which were conferred on him by King Carl III.

In 15,000 B.C., while on a hunt with his clan, being chased by an angry wooly mammoth, and he fell down a deep hole in the ground while running away. He received life-threatening injuries, but unbeknownst to him, he completely healed from them. Finally able to climb back out of the hole, he discovered years had passed in his absence. His clan was no longer around.

Twenty-six-year-old Nicole Najim is struggling to find herself after a painful breakup, just when she thought she was going to settle down. Working a dead-end job in the family car dealership and at a loose end, she picks up her camera and returns to the melting pot of Sydney’s West to rediscover her roots. When she catches up with childhood friend, Danny, who makes his living in a shadowy underworld, their relationship intensifies just as the law starts to close in.

After losing her husband and daughter in an auto accident, 42-year-old Emma flies to Paris, discovers she has a twin brother whose existence she had not known about, and learns that her birth parents weren't the Americans who raised her, but a White Russian film star of the 1920s and a French Stalinist.

Told in dual POV and set in 1913 Boston, a middle class girl and a Greek immigrant defy her parents and buck society by eloping, but when tragedy rips them apart they give up everything, including each other, for their love and for their child.

Der zweite Band der großen Familien-Saga von Anke Petersen um ein kleines Hotel auf Amrum Ende des 19./Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts – mit viel Nordsee-Zauber und Nostalgie. Amrum Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts: Die Familie Stockmann hat sich auf der Nordsee-Insel gut eingelebt, und ihr Hotel Inselblick blüht und gedeiht – sehr zum Ärger des Pastors, dem der florierende Betrieb ein ewiger Dorn im Auge ist, da er darin eine Konkurrenz zu seinem eigenen Seehospiz sieht und außerdem im »Inselblick« Sodom und Gomorrha wittert.

Auf der kleinen Fischer-Insel an der norwegischen Westküste ist das Leben hart, die Natur überwältigend. Die junge Kristiane verspricht ihrem Vater, den seit Generationen besetzten Lotsenposten in der Familie zu halten. Als Frau darf sie die Schiffe in den Schären nicht selbst geleiten. Als ihr Mann bei einem Sturm ums Leben kommt, steht die schwangere Kristiane allein da mit Mutter und Schwester; man will ihnen das Lotsenmandat entziehen. Auf der Suche nach jemandem, der ihnen eine Zukunft gewähren kann, gerät sie in tiefen Konflikt zwischen Pflicht und Leidenschaft.

María es profesora universitaria en Castellón y una mujer independiente, libre, que se embarca en un viaje a Colombia tras recibir la llamada de su amiga de la infancia, Carmen, una monja oblata que trabaja en un centro en las afueras de Bogotá donde acogen a niños huérfanos o abandonados que han llegado allí tras vivir infancias muy duras. En su visita al centro María conecta de una manera muy intensa con Ava, una niñita que decide adoptar y con la que regresará a España.

Als Isabel die beeindruckenden Hallen des schottischen Rosewell Castle betritt, spürt sie, dass hier ihre Chance auf ein neues Leben wartet. Absolviert sie die Ausbildung zur Butleresse erfolgreich, wird ihr Einlass gewährt in die glamouröse Welt der Lords und Ladys, sogar das Königshaus stünde ihr offen. Der Weg an die Spitze ist steinig, doch schon bald bietet ihr Garrett Hayes, der Musterschüler, seine Hilfe an. Eines Tages findet Isabel in der Bibliothek das Foto einer Frau, die ihrer verstorbenen Großmutter Bonnie erstaunlich ähnlich sieht – hatte ihre Großmutter etwa eine Schwester?

Working in industry as a Chemical Engineer boring...who says it is? Most people consider working in the Industrial world to be fairly mundane and boring. Well, I am able to contradict that erroneous belief. My forty years in industry have been far from ordinary and unexciting. In fact, those years have been so eventful and exhilarating, I felt compelled to put events, incidents and a plethora of eclectic, fascinating characters into print and write about my career as a Chemical Engineer from the late sixties to the beginning of the eighties.

The era is 1988, Detroit is the scene, and crack is the movement. It's a time when young black men can become self-made millionaires seemingly overnight by selling dope. The crack era has become to blacks what Prohibition was to the Italians - a time to get over! It's a time that inspires generations of street dreams.... Fresh out of high school, young Wink has but one thing on his mind - rollin' fresh. Infatuated by all the trappings of the game, Wink and his B-boy crew jump headfirst into the ills of the drug trade, determined to taste the good life.

Set amongst the glittering backdrop of London's iconic Savoy hotel, a young woman is forced to confront her troubled past as she uncovers the story of the hotel’s first female bartender who has been erased from the history books—"an exhilarating, tender read that will leave you smiling"...

Born in a bookstore in a blighted 1960's Boston neighborhood, Firmin the rat miraculously learns how to read by digesting his nest of books. Alienated from his family and unable to communicate with the humans he loves, Firmin quickly realizes that a literate rat is a lonely rat. Following a harrowing misunderstanding with his hero, the bookseller, Firmin begins to risk the dangers of Scollay Square, finding solace in the Lovelies of the burlesque cinema. Finally adopted by a down-on-his-luck science fiction writer, the tide begins to turn.

A former inmate, who is now an assistant stock broker and a part-time gang counselor, details his life on the inner city streets of Atlanta as a notorious drug dealer, vividly recreating the his struggle to break the cycle and walk the straight and narrow.