Showing titles in Biographical Fiction

She is a young maid in a stately home; he is a dashing British army officer trapped in an unhappy marriage. The pair strike up a close friendship and, just as he's departing for war, they surrender to their passion. Years later, he returns triumphant from defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, to reunite not only with his wife and their two sons, but with the maid Mary Ann and their illegitimate daughter Elizabeth.

My Struggle: Book One introduces American listeners to the audacious, addictive, and profoundly surprising international literary sensation that is the provocative and brilliant six-volume autobiographical novel by Karl Ove Knausgaard. It has already been anointed a Proustian masterpiece and is the rare work of dazzling literary originality that is intensely, irresistibly readable.

Waking in the small hours, Marcel Proust embarks on a retrospective journey, endeavouring to capture the elusive moments that shaped his life. A sip of tea and the taste of a madeleine prompt further recollections, and the floodgates of memory open, pouring forth a torrent of vivid reminiscences.

Jewish refugee Felix Wolff believes he has found safety in England, but he is arrested and thrown into a British internment camp as a suspected Nazi spy. To clear his name and join the fight against Hitler, he must break free of a system that mistakes him for the very evil he fled. Fresh off his ruthless campaign in Poland, Sicherheitsdienst agent Karl Vogt is sent on a chilling mission: to devise a system for controlling the growing Jewish population within the Reich. His cold efficiency lays the groundwork for a coming horror the world has yet to comprehend.

'WALKER'S FINEST YET ... A FIRST-RATE MYSTERY' - Entertainment Weekly Bruno, Chief of Police, investigates when a body is found floating in the river showing marks of Satanism. France's favourite cop must track down a murderer while quelling his town's superstitious fears in this page-turning...

The Queen identifies the 70 year-old victim, Edward St Cyr, from his signet ring. But the search for his killer is not so straightforward. Suspects include the Queen's horse groom, a shady land agent, an aristocrat neighbour, as well as the victim's many cousins and relations. The investigation leads the Queen - and her trusted assistant, Rozie - to a local pigeon racing club, back to London, and to the ancient, moated Godwick Hall. But how do the seemingly disparate pieces of the puzzle fit together? And who is the next victim?

In the tradition of The Paris Wife and Mrs. Poe, The Other Einstein offers us a window into a brilliant, fascinating woman whose light was lost in Einstein's enormous shadow. This is the story of Einstein's wife, a brilliant physicist in her own right, whose contribution to the special...

Over one million copies sold! The Instant New York Times Bestseller! A Good Morning America* Book Club Pick! Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR! Named a Notable Book of the Year by the Washington Post! “Historical fiction at its best!”* A remarkable novel about J. P. Morgan’s personal...

In a compelling, richly researched novel that draws from thousands of letters and original sources, bestselling authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie tell the fascinating, untold story of Thomas Jefferson’s eldest daughter, Martha “Patsy” Jefferson Randolph—a woman who kept the secrets...

Based on true events, this gripping historical novel set in Norway and Sweden in 1940, follows one of the first female US Ministers, Daisy Harriman, and her niece as the two are unexpectedly caught up in the German invasion of Norway. Cleo Jaffray was an American. A war in Europe had nothing to...

January 2003. The Berest family receive a mysterious, unsigned postcard. On one side was an image of the Opéra Garnier; on the other, the names of their relatives who were killed in Auschwitz: Ephraïm, Emma, Noémie and Jacques. Years later, Anne sought to find the truth behind this postcard. She journeys 100 years into the past, tracing the lives of her ancestors from their flight from Russia following the revolution, their journey to Latvia, Palestine, and Paris, the war and its aftermath.

The New York Times bestselling author of the The Paris Library returns with a powerful, moving new novel based on the extraordinary true story of Jessie Carson, the American librarian determined to bring books to the children of war-torn France. 'This is hands down my book of 2024. A rich...

A brilliant sliding-doors reimagining of the passionate life of the first woman to win a Nobel Prize – and the life Marie Curie might have led if she had chosen love over science. Poland, 1891. Marie Curie (then Marya Sklodowska) was engaged to a budding mathematician, Kazimierz Zorawski. But...

A family torn apart. A king with an iron fist. Will their faith be strong enough to survive persecution and reunite? Jeanne is the wife of a wealthy merchant, but now she risks losing everything. Louis XIV's soldiers will stop at nothing to forcibly convert the country's Protestants to the "true" faith. The men ransack Jeanne's belongings and threaten her children. If Jeanne and Jacob can't find a way to evade the soldiers' clutches, their family will face a fate far worse than poverty and imprisonment. They may never see each other again....

Brought to you by Penguin. THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER! From Number One bestselling author Sophie Kinsella, an unforgettable story – by turns heartbreaking and life-affirming – of a renowned novelist facing a devastating diagnosis and learning to live and love anew. ‘What Does It...

A Treacherous Paradise sees Henning Mankell turn his talents for writing gripping thrillers to a world where power and powerlessness meet and passion is a dangerous commodity. Hanna Lundmark escapes the brutal poverty of rural Sweden for a job as a cook onboard a steamship headed for Australia...

Anthony Opoka and Florence Okori are coming of age in Uganda in the 1990s. Outstanding students, they believe in being good humans before they are kidnapped and forced into the fanatical Lord’s Resistance Army. In a legion of young recruits, no one gets closer than Anthony to powerful messianic warlord Joseph Kony and his darkest secrets. To stay sane as he spirals through chaos, Anthony clings to his childhood lessons about being a good human. Florence’s upbringing grounds her, too, helping her keep her dreams alive even as she’s pulled deeper into the insanity of Kony’s war.

Legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel is revered for her sophisticated style - the iconic little black dress - and famed for her intoxicating perfume Chanel No. 5. Yet behind the public persona is a complicated woman of intrigue, shadowed by mysterious rumors. The Queen of Paris, the new novel from award-winning author Pamela Binnings Ewen, vividly imagines the hidden life of Chanel during the four years of Nazi occupation in Paris in the midst of WWII - as discovered in recently unearthed wartime files.

Rome, 63 BC. In a city on the brink of acquiring a vast empire, seven men are struggling for power. Cicero is consul, Caesar his ruthless young rival, Pompey the republic's greatest general, Crassus its richest man, Cato a political fanatic, Catilina a psychopath, Clodius an ambitious playboy...

From a bestselling Australian author, this compellingly realised novel brings to life the story of an enigmatic figure, wife to feted colonial architect Francis Greenway, and asks, whose hand really shaped Sydney? Who is the talented Mrs Greenway? 1814 Sydney When Mary Greenway, freshly arrived...