Showing titles in Biographical Fiction

Lady Kat Cooke is a member of the Tudor court, presided over by an ailing King, and a resolute Queen Katherine Parr. Kat is a witness to the grandeur and wealth, and to the dangerous passions that are hidden beneath the surface. Kat knows that there is danger for the Queen, and possible betrayal. Kat is determined to remain loyal, but a reckoning with the King looms. Will Kat survive or will her fiery spirit lead her into danger? But Kat is more concerned for her daughter than herself.

The crumbling Gothic mansion of Thornwalk, long-term home of the Gilbert family, is being handed over to a chain of luxury 'historic' hotels. Millions will be spent in its restoration. But for every 'improvement', what will be lost? What value can there possibly be in a threadbare carpet, a tarnished spoon and a thousand empty jam jars? Before the hotel people arrive, with their clipboards and their skips and their bottles of bleach, Maximus, loyal guardian of the Gilberts' legacy, invites us on a final tour of the once-stately home, where each room holds a secret.

"Somebody’s daughter; Somebody’s sister; Somebody’s wife. Who am I in all of this?" She is Deborah, adopted daughter of a Jewish carpenter; sister to a crucified holy man and wife of Judah of Kerith—later to be known as Judas Iscariot. Those men are gone; their stories have been told. But Deborah’s destiny is just beginning to unfold. Where the men work openly, women work in secret. When it is made clear to her that there is no place for her in the new movement that heralds Christianity, Deborah leaves her native land for Alexandria with its great library and schools of mystical thought.

This is a memoir with a side of murder (90% fiction)! In this book, I retell the story (through the character Rae) about my time working at the hottest salon in Richmond, Virginia. In the book, the salon owners buy a building and renovate it into a high-end salon. Hiring new people is tricky but when they start having accidents they begin to notice that something is amiss. The employees begin to get nervous, looking over their shoulders and into each other's business. A group of them decide to keep tabs on some sketchy activities that the manager is doing.

Osman Warning is a gripping, thought-provoking book that explores the chilling consequences of a threat to life and the ripple effect it has on an ordinary family. Inspired by the real-life case of the Osman family, this fictionalized account follows the journey of Yasmin and Ali Osman as they struggle to protect themselves and their loved ones from a seemingly unstoppable danger. As the family grapples with mounting fear, paranoia, and a shattered sense of safety, they must rely on each other and the support of their community.

Land Where My Fathers Died is the story of a young man's search for identity, love, and his place in the world. While incarcerated six years for a murder he never committed, Jo Shelby Ferguson lost his only family in a highway accident. Upon his release from the Mississippi state penal farm, a trunk, the only earthly possession left to him, yields several bundles of old letters. Upon reading the first letter, he discovers they are written by his great-great-great grandmother.

Paris, 1924. The Olympics. Lucy Morton, an ambitious Blackpool swimmer waits to find out if she’s won against her American rival. If she has, she’ll be the first British woman to win Gold in an individual event. If she has, it’ll upset the apple cart. The Americans have been sweeping the boards and, at 26, she’s a veteran in the sport. If she has, it’ll be despite the car accident she was in just 48 hours before, which saw her lose five teeth, crack a rib and be out cold until the morning of the biggest race of her life.

In this charming patchwork of fever dreams and memories, Pirkko Saisio transports us to the 1950s Finland of her youth, where she navigates life as an only child of communist parents. Convinced she will grow up to become a man, a young Pirkko keeps trying and failing to meet the expectations of the adults around her. But as she discovers that she can be the narrator of her own story, it is in language that she finds a refuge and a way to be seen at last.

Francesco Lentini nasce con tre gambe, quattro piedi, sedici dita e due genitali, in una Sicilia di fine Ottocento dove la sua vita si prospetta misera e inevitabilmente destinata alla vergogna. Finché a nove anni l'incontro con un impresario gli cambia la vita: Francesco diventa Frank e si trasferisce negli Stati Uniti, dove la sua «mostruosità» diventa una «meraviglia» per tutti gli avventori dei circhi, delle fiere e dei freak show.

Juju, 17 ans, découvre le journal intime de sa grand-mère Léonie, écrit deux ans auparavant. Léonie est une triplée. On découvre dans son journal, les joies de son enfance auprès de ses soeurs Marie et Aline, mais aussi sa vie bouleversée par la deuxième guerre mondiale. Pourquoi la mère de Juju, Margaux, fait-elle d’incessants allers-retours entre Bordeaux et Granville ? Juju mettra tout en oeuvre pour percer ce secret de famille.

At just 19, Katheryn Howard is quick to trust and fall in love. She comes to court. She sings, she dances. She captures the heart of the King. Henry declares she is his rose without a thorn. But Katheryn has a past of which he knows nothing. It comes back increasingly to haunt her. For those who share her secrets are waiting in the shadows, whispering words of love...and blackmail.

12th century, England: A penniless young knight with few prospects, William Marshal is plucked from obscurity when he saves the life of Henry II's formidable queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. In gratitude, she appoints him tutor to the heir to the throne, the volatile and fickle Prince Henry. But being a royal favorite brings its share of danger and jealousy as well as fame and reward.

In the frigid days of February 1870, Caroline Ingalls and her family leave the familiar comforts of the Big Woods of Wisconsin and the warm bosom of her family for a new life in Kansas Indian Territory. Packing what they can carry in their wagon, Caroline, her husband, Charles, and their little girls, Mary and Laura, head west to settle in a beautiful, unpredictable land full of promise and peril. The pioneer life is a hard one, especially for a pregnant woman with no friends or kin to turn to for comfort or help.

It is the 1970s in LA, and Jacaranda Leven - child of sun and surf - is swept into the dazzling cultural milieu of the beautiful people. Floating on a cloud of drink, drugs and men, she finds herself adrift before her talent for writing, and a determined literary agent, set her on a course for New York and a new life. Sex & Rage is a recently rediscovered classic from author Eve Babitz, herself a muse to many an artist, writer and musician in the 1970s.

Hendrik Groen is 83¼ years old, and he has decided that it is time to make something of his life. He may be rich in years, but he refuses to give in to all the trappings of old age just yet. Hendrik's hilarious and touching diary documents his life as an OAP living in a care home. When he recruits some similarly young-at-heart friends to join his Old but Not Dead Club, Hendrik proves that love can blossom, rules can be broken and fun is within reach, even at their age.

Eve is a successful novelist who wakes up one day in a hospital bed with no memory of how she got there. Her husband, never far from her side, explains that she has had an operation to remove the large, malignant tumour growing in her brain. As Eve learns to walk, talk, and write again — and as she wrestles with her diagnosis, and how and when to explain it to her beloved children — she begins to recall what’s most important to her: long walks with her husband’s hand clasped firmly around her own, family game nights and always buying that dress when she sees it.

The haunting story of the mother of the Tudors, Elizabeth of York, wife to Henry VII. Beautiful eldest daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville - the White Queen - the young princess Elizabeth faces a conflict of loyalties between the red rose and the white. Forced into marriage with Henry VII, she must reconcile her slowly growing love for him with her loyalty to the House of York, and choose between her mother's rebellion and her husband's tyranny. Then she has to meet the Pretender, whose claim denies the House of Tudor itself.

A woman torn between love and duty. Two husbands dead, a boy and a sick man. And now Katharine is free to make her own choice. The ageing king's eye falls upon her. She cannot refuse him, or betray that she wanted another. She becomes the sixth wife - a queen and a friend. Henry loves and trusts her. But Katharine is hiding another secret in her heart, a deeply held faith that could see her burn.

Katherine Woodville's sister never gave her a choice. A happy girl of modest means, Kate hardly expected to become a maker of kings. But when her sister impulsively marries King Edward IV in secret, Katherine's life is no longer hers to control....

In Arthur Golden's poised and beautifully written debut novel, Sayuri tells the extraordinary tale of her life, evoking a quarter of a century of Japan's dramatic history, 1929 through to the post-war years.