Showing results by publisher "HarperAudio" in Historical Fiction

He clawed his way up from the gutters of St. Giles to the top of a shadowy empire. Feared and fearsome, battered and brilliant, nothing shocks Lorcan St. Leger—not even the discovery of an aristocratic woman escaping out a window near the London docks on the eve of the storm of the decade. They find shelter at a boarding house called the Grand Palace on the Thames—only to find greater dangers await inside.

She arrives in the dead of night, a mob out for blood at her heels: Mariana Wylde, the “Harlot of Haywood Street”, an opera diva brought low by a duel fought for her favors. But the ladies of the Grand Palace on the Thames think they can make a silk purse from scandal: They’ll restore her reputation and share in her triumph...provided they can keep her apart from that other guest. Coldly brilliant, fiercely honorable, General James Duncan Blackmore, the Duke of Valkirk, is revered, feared, desired...but nobody truly knows him.

Sabrina Davidson, dutiful daughter, avowed spinster, thought she'd secured a place for herself in Aberfeldy society - until her hard-earned acceptance of her fate is challenged by the arrival of Cormac Enright, earl of Ballin, trained physician, soldier of fortune, and convicted felon. Mac is determined to clear his name, but first he has to find the man whose testimony sentenced him to a hangman's noose.

Audiofile Magazine Earphones Award Winner Named a Best Book of the Summer by Harper's Bazaar and ELLE “Stunning…an intricately built novel that spans decades, moving in and out of a collective voice, while also telling Hi’i’s deeply personal and devastating story of trying to find...

Cat Sebastian returns to Georgian London with a stunning tale of a reluctant criminal and the thief who cannot help but love her. Marian Hayes, the Duchess of Clare, just shot her husband. Of course, the evil, murderous man deserved what was coming to him, but now she must flee to the...

When Rosalind Sharpe gains the attention of the deliciously wicked duke of Avendale, she's torn between her distracting attraction to the notorious rogue and the knowledge that he - rich as Croesus - is the perfect target for a deception that will put her swindling days behind her.

The last thing Marcus, the Duke of Autenberry, expects to see after sleeping off a night’s drunken shenanigans is a woman being auctioned in the village square. Before he can think about the ramifications, he buys her, thinking he’s winning the girl her freedom. Instead, he discovers he’s bought a wife. Alyse Bell is almost rid of the shackles that bound her in a name-only marriage, but the day her friend promised to purchase her in a wife auction, he vanishes, leaving her to face a mob of unsavory bachelors. But the appearance of a wicked, wealthy stranger changes her path forever.

Margot Baumann has left school to take up her sister's job in the mailroom of a large prison. But this is Germany in 1944, and the prison is Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin. Margot is shielded from the camp's brutality as she has no contact with prisoners. But she does handle their mail and, when given a cigarette lighter and told to burn the letters, she is horrified by the callous act she must carry out. So Margot steals a few letters, intending to send them in secret, only to find herself drawn to their heart-rending words of hope, of despair, and of love.

She'd once been the toast of London, but now scandal has brought her down. Still, pretty, petted Lady Tara Davidson can't believe her new fate. She had wanted to marry for love…but her profligate father has promised her hand to none other than Breccan Campbell, the "Beast of Aberfeldy" and laird of the valley's most despised clan! Well, Tara may have to marry him, but Breccan can't make her love him…can he?

Diana, Catherine, Meghan...glamorous Princess Margaret outdid them all. Springing into post-World War II society, and quite naughty and haughty, she lived in a whirlwind of fame and notoriety. Georgie Blalock captures the fascinating, fast-living princess and her “set” as seen through the eyes of one of her ladies-in-waiting.

To the world, she was Princess Victoria, daughter of a queen, wife of an emperor, and mother of Kaiser Wilhelm. Her family just called her Vicky...smart, pretty, and self-assured, she changed the course of the world. January 1858: Princess Victoria glides down the aisle of St. James Chapel to the waiting arms of her beloved, Fritz, Prince Frederick, heir to the powerful kingdom of Prussia.

When Jonathan Deverill promised a dying friend he’d be guardian to the man’s daughter, he envisioned a girl in pigtails and pinafores, a child he could leave behind in some finishing school. Problem is, his ward is actually a fully-grown, defiant beauty whose longing for romance threatens to make his guardianship a living hell.

In the first year of the doomed German invasion of Russia in WWII, a German military doctor, Paul Bauer, is assigned to establish a field hospital at Yasnaya Polyana - the former grand estate of Count Leo Tolstoy, the author of the classic War and Peace. There, he encounters a hostile aristocratic Russian woman, Katerina Trubetzkaya, a writer who has been left in charge of the estate. But even as a tentative friendship develops between them, Bauer's hostile and arrogant commanding officer, Julius Metz, becomes erratic and unhinged as the war turns against the Germans.

A London season is the chance of a lifetime for Catherine Keating. But the ton’s glitter and decadence and casual cruelty threaten to crush her hopes of finding a husband before her season even begins...until she accidentally acquires one of the most scandalous men in England as a secret chaperone.

They were the Boleyns, once one of England's most powerful family. Anne Boleyn captured the hand of Henry VIII, and now we see the rise and fall of their family fortunes through the eyes of the eldest Boleyn daughter, Mary. Mary Boleyn is overshadowed in history by her sister, Anne, but it was she who first caught the eye of Henry VIII, setting the stage for her family's dramatic rise to power - and ultimate fall from grace. Although Henry set her aside as his mistress, Mary still navigated the dangerous waters of the Tudor court while forging ahead to find a life.

Set in an unnamed NZ city in 1953, Fire tells the story of four working-class friends, all employed at Dawsons, one of the country's most glamorous and sophisticated department stores. A historical romance based on the Ballantynes department store fire in 1947 that killed 41 people, most of them store employees trapped in controversial circumstances.

Jialing is only seven years old in 1908, when she is abandoned in the courtyard of a once-lavish estate near Shanghai. Jialing is zazhong - Eurasian - and faces a lifetime of contempt from both Chinese and Europeans. Without her mother's protection, she can survive only if the estate's new owners, the Yang family, agree to take her in.

Midwife Patience Murphy has a gift: a talent for escorting mothers through the challenges of bringing children into the world. Working in the hardscrabble conditions of Appalachia during the Depression, Patience takes the jobs that no one else wants, helping those most in need - and least likely to pay. She knows a successful midwifery practice must be built on a foundation of openness and trust - but the secrets Patience is keeping are far too intimate and fragile for her to ever let anyone in.

Maria Florkowska is many things: daughter, avid chess player, and, as a member of the Polish underground resistance in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, a young woman brave beyond her years. Captured by the Gestapo, she is imprisoned in Auschwitz, but while her family is sent to their deaths, she is spared. Realizing her ability to play chess, the sadistic camp deputy, Karl Fritzsch, decides to use her as a chess opponent to entertain the camp guards. However, once he tires of exploiting her skills, he has every intention of killing her.

Twice he has been close to the altar and still no duchess. Will the third time be the charm? A duke can't marry just anyone. His wife must be of good family, be fertile, and be young. Struggling playwright Sarah Pettijohn is absolutely the last woman Gavin Whitridge, Duke of Baynton, would ever fall in love with. However, there is something about her that stirs his blood, which makes her perfect for a bargain he has in mind: In exchange for backing her play, he wants Sarah to teach him about love.