Showing titles in Historical

A young Native American transvestite navigates the margins of hate in a small desert town in the 1980s.

This short story is set in Europe before the start of World War Two, Jillian tours the clubs as a jazz singer to put a little adventure into her life. She gets more than she bargains for when she does a little favor for the girl who has her eye. She winds up running for her life and discovering a calling that gives her a purpose in life that is bigger than herself.

WWII. 1942. Will's brother is fighting the war in the Pacific, but Will is forced to remain behind. Will takes his brother's place in the academic world of Indiana University, where he meets two students and two soon-to-be-legendary men who will change his life forever. Will thought he was the only boy attracted to other males, but when he sneaks into Professor Kinsey's marriage course he realizes his mistake. Will meets Ben, who he suspects is not unlike himself.

Being a gay man in the 1940s was not easy. When a zealous journalist discovers Cedric "Sudsey" Mervin's carnal bent and blackmails him on the verge of playing the New Year's Eve Countdown, the popular pianist finds himself renewing acquaintances from the old neighborhood in order to raise needed funds and protect his secret - a situation that entangles him deep within a web of crime, deceit, and a powerful mafia family, and binds his destiny to a rare piano that has already claimed the souls of everyone who ever owned it.

After Constantine's death, his son, Constantius, took power as Caesar Augustus, high ruler of the empire in Byzantium - the new capital of Rome and home of the Senate - then executed all that remained of their family save his two cousins, Gallus and Julian. Constantius appointed Julian, only 23, Caesar of the West, custodian of Rome against the pillaging tribes. An academic at heart, no one in the empire believed he stood a chance leading the armies of Rome - until one day in Gaul.

In Nazi-occupied Paris, most Frenchmen tread warily, but gay nightclub singer Yves Lacroix puts himself in the spotlight with every performance. As a veteran of France's doomed defense, a survivor of a prison camp, and a "degenerate", he knows he's a target. His comic stage persona disguises a shamed, angry heart and gut-wrenching fear for a sister embedded in the Resistance.

The much-anticipated sequel to Purgatory follows the flight of Confederate Private Ian Campbell and Union soldier Drew Conrad from the battlefields of the Civil War. Weary and wounded, the pair dare not drop their guard not only because enemies on both sides can be found along the way to a family homestead in West Virginia - Ian and Drew are lovers and society's view of sodomy hounds them both.

In 1933 in the Shenandoah Valley, there isn't a place for Lum (short for Columbia), a 33-year-old intersex woman. She travels by schedule from one branch of the family to another, assisting with cooking, childcare, and housework. Always an outsider, even in her own family, Lum secretly collects postcards of people like the Dog-faced Girl, imagining their stories, and nurtures her lifelong friendship with Smiley, an African-American man who sells furniture, odds and ends, and a little moonshine.

Long before "Don't ask, don't tell", gays served in the military - sometimes openly - more often in secret. In this volume the author imagines what their lives might have been like. Within, you will find tales of historical fiction mixed occasionally with supernatural horror, including: a French fusilier fighting guerrillas and growing disillusionment in Napoleonic Spain; soldiers encountering the unthinkable during the 1812 occupation and retreat from Moscow; and more.

Once a renowned tournament fighter known as the "Lion of Kent", William Raven joined the Templars in the Holy Land to escape his past and the political machinations of his enemies. Called to protect travelling pilgrims bound for Jerusalem, William comes face to face with Guy de Metz, his lover from the past. But Guy is no longer the foppish young noble William knew.

Aristide, Léandre, and Perrin pledge only three loyalties in life: their king, their captain, and their passion for each other. So when the musketeers discover a plan to accuse M. de Tréville of treason, their reactions vary from the desire to kill the messenger, Benoît, to the need to unmask the man behind the plot to discredit their captain. The first two suspects, the English ambassador and Cardinal Richelieu, prove to be innocent, and the musketeers are forced to delve deeper into the inner machinations of the French court.

When sword-for-hire Teodoro Ciéza de Vivar accepts a commission to "rescue" Lord Christian Blackwood from unsuitable influences, he has no idea he's landed himself in the middle of a plot to assassinate King Philip IV of Spain and blame the English ambassador for the deed. Nor does he expect the spoiled child he's sent to retrieve to be a handsome, engaging young man.

Set in World War II in 1943, Troop Train Nights is a 4,050-word short story about two young G.I.s on a train, on their way to war. One is a closeted gay former swimmer and gymnast, teed off because the army has seen fit to make him a clerk-typist. The other is a womanizing, muscular, overconfident Italian-American paratrooper from Detroit. They are reluctantly paired off on a train trip to a port of call where they will ship overseas. This is the tale of their experiences and an unlikely connection.

In 1938, while tensions in Europe are reaching a boiling point, four young women with big ambitions enter secretarial school in San Francisco. Motivated to attain the financial stability that eluded their parents, they go to battle for their futures. Moira, of Scottish descent, dreams of being an actress. Ann yearns for the education her Jewish immigrant parents provided for her brother, but not for her. Japanese American Wanda experiences firsthand the racial injustices running rampant in the United States.

France, 1916. The Great War. High above the carnage in the trenches, British and German aces joust like knights of old for control of the skies. The strain and tension of living every day on the edge of death leads to dangerous choices and wild risks. When British ace Bat Bryant's past catches up with him, he strikes out in panic and kills the man threatening him with exposure. But there's a witness: the big, handsome American pilot Cowboy Cooper.

Harry George Alexander Bircham: Not necessarily an infamous name in the annals of gay fictional characters - yet. But listeners of Erastes' newest historical novel should prepare themselves for many pages of suspenseful intrigue as the miscreant Bircham, a cultured man of Wildean excesses and humours, will do anything it takes to bend Fate to his will. And that sinister will is to keep the affections and attentions of another English young man.

Le Paradise est ce club du Red Light de Montréal qui, en 1930, accueille les vieux garçons dans un espace nommé le ringside. C'est là qu'Édouard Tremblay aimerait bien faire son entrée dans le "grand monde", peu après son embauche comme vendeur de chaussures sur l'avenue du Mont-Royal. Car à presque dix-huit ans il est déjà emporté par le double qui l'habite, cette duchesse de Langeais qui deviendra son personnage de folle des nuits de la métropole.

At 14, Kit St. Denys brought down his abusive father with a knife. At 21, his theatrical genius brought down the house. At 30, his past and his forbidden love - nearly brought down the curtain for good. This is a compelling Victorian saga of two men whose love for each other transcends time and distance and the society that considers it an abomination.

It's September 1939, and suddenly everyone faces an uncertain future, especially the children who are evacuated from the East End of London to faraway Norfolk. Billy and Jeannie Curtis, two waifs who have had to raise themselves, are billeted in the sleepy village of Little Asham, but the evacuation is destined to have a profound effect upon both them and the troubled adults whose lives they change.

World Fantasy Award winner Tanith Lee channels the allusive Esther Garber to tell these dark, erotic tales of lesbian ardor and obsession. The ''fatal women'' found within these pages lead exotic lives and adventures and have grim secrets. From fin de siecle Paris to Egypt of the 1930s and contemporary England, the Garber novellas create feverish dreams of danger, scandal, and sensuality.