Showing results by publisher "Phoenix Books" in Historical Fiction

Rich with unforgettable characters and history, intricately plotted and utterly absorbing, City of Dreams is a stirring saga of early Manhattan and the beginnings of medical science told by a master storyteller.

Young Alvin was born the seventh son of a seventh son. By his birthright, he possesses magical powers and is destined to become something great, perhaps even a Maker. Indeed, Alvin is special. But the boy remains vulnerable to dark forces who reach out to destroy him and are willing to do anything to keep him from growing up. Carefully weaving the lore and the folk-magic of the men and women who settled a continent—as well as the beliefs of the tribes who were there before them—Orson Scott Card has created a fascinating alternate frontier America.

It is the winter of 1879, and Dodge city has lost its snap. Thirty-one-year-old Wyatt Earp, assistant city marshal, loads his wife and all they own into a wagon, and goes with two of his brothers and their women to Tombstone, Arizona, land of the silver mines. There Earp becomes deputy sheriff, meeting up with the likes of Doc Holliday, Clay Allison, and Bat Masterson as well as finding the love of his life, showgirl Josie Marcus.

A 19th century novel that defied the repressive moral conventions of Victorian England. Young Tess Durbeyfield comes from an impoverished home. Her father, desperate to alleviate the family's financial plight, presses his daughter into work for the wealthy D'Urbervilles. But in doing so, Tess meets the manipulative Alec, who forces himself upon her. And though Tess later meets a kinder man who proposes marriage, her salvation is jeopardized when she reveals to him her troubled past.

This landmark saga of adventure and romance spans 200 years against the rich and dangerous wilds of Alaska as a backdrop. The epic begins with the love of a beautiful Aleut woman for a noble and ambitious Cossack hunter. From their union come seven generations of a proud breed of native Alaskans, in whose veins flows the blood of the many peoples—Russian, Indian, English, American—who played a part in forging the new land. The story of these intrepid men and women, their dynasty, their dreams, and the heritage they share is a grand as the land from which they sprang.

In 1930's China, the all-male Peking opera was luxurious entertainment for the privileged class—but only children from the poorest families were sent to opera schools to train as actors. Abandoned by his mother—a prostitute who can no longer care for him—Xiao Douzi is brought to an opera school. With seeds of bitterness in his soul, the nine-year-old boy endures hardships and misery to learn and perfect his craft.

Amidst the upheaval of the French Revolution, former aristocrat Charles Darnay becomes wrongly tangled in unfortunate events, endangering his freedom and family. Sidney Carton, a cynical lawyer who squandered his life away, seeks to redress his unhappiness through Darnay's beautiful wife, Lucie. A work of historical fiction by one of the world's greatest writers, A Tale of Two Cities is a story about love, chaos, sacrifice, and redemption.

All he wanted was enough whiskey to forget. Ravaged by grief after a car crash killed his cherished wife and unborn child, Chase Tyler has abandoned his family business. He'd hit the rodeo circuit and the bars with equal disregard for his life, unwilling to face his pain and move on - until a bad-tempered bull and a lady from the past forced him to.... All she wanted was his love. Marcie Johns had known Chase all her life, and had been driving the car when it crashed.

This is the classic story of the young Theseus - Prince of Troizen, King of Eleusis and Athens, slayer of the Minotaur. Mary Renault's powerful novel captures the modern imagination by weaving myth, legend, history, and fiction into the story of a young hero's search for his destiny, or moira. If you like The King Must Die, try The Bull from the Sea.

It is 1757, the third year of the French and Indian War. Deep in the forests of New York State, the brave woodsman Hawkeye and his loyal Mohican friends become involved in the bloody French and Indian War. Hawkeye, a colonial scout, Chingachgook, the Mohican chief, and Uncas, his son, risk their lives to guide two English sisters through hostile territory and evade the evil Huron chief, Magua, who is determined to destroy them. The thrilling events that lead to the final tragic confrontation between rival war parties create an unforgettable, spine-tingling picture of life on the frontier.

In the summer of 1947, Kate Herrick, widowed by the war, returns to Rose Cottage, her childhood home. A tiny, thatched dwelling nestled in an idyllic country setting, Rose Cottage at first appears the picture of tranquility. But Kate soon discovers that someone has broken in, and valuable family papers have disappeared. The village seethes with gossip. How harmless are her elderly neighbors, who are suspected of witchcraft? And what is behind their reports of nighttime prowlers and ghosts in the cottage garden?

In 1947, Jackie Robinson breaks major-league baseball's color barrier—and changes the world. The event also changes the life of Joseph Burke, veteran of World War II and Robinson's bodyguard—because under the media spotlight, hard truths are easier than ever to see, and harder to escape. And some can prove fatal.

Life has always been a banquet for Sappho, one to be savored to the fullest. Following a magnificent destiny, her strange and sensual odyssey has carried her to the far corners of the ancient world, from Delphi to Egypt, to the Land of the Amazons, and the realm of Hades. For Sappho, it was always about love—love that seduced her into a plot to depose a dictator, and love that made her trade an unwanted marriage bed of a despised and drunken husband for a seemingly endless series of lovers, both male and female.

In Rachel & Leah, Orson Scott Card paints vivid portraits of four celebrated women—Laban's daughters, Rachel and Leah; Bilhah, the orphaned servant; and Zilpah, an ambitious member of Laban's household. Into the desert camp comes Jacob, a handsome and charismatic kinsman who is clearly destined to be Rachel's husband. But that doesn't prevent the other woman from vying for his attention. Tracing their lives from childhood to maturity, Card shows how these women change in relationship to each other and how they are changed again by the holy books that Jacob brings with him.

In a timeless tale of misguided romance and heartbreak, Jane Austen's first novel of love and marriage is seen through the eyes of two very different heroines, the Dashwood sisters—cautious, level-headed Elinor and impulsive lively Marianne—one representing sense and the other sensibility.

At the end of the Civil War, a tremendous stream of soldiers and settlers began moving westward along the Bozeman Trail, cutting deep into sacred Sioux hunting grounds. For Red Cloud and his warriors, a bloody fight to retain their ancestral homeland proved inevitable. Brash Captain William J. Fetterman leads his troops into battle with the angry natives, while frightened white settlers anxiously await the outcome of the fight. The Fetterman Massacre of 1866 marked the tragic opening to one of the longest and most dramatic wars in history.

On February 14, 1944, Caroline Thomas said goodbye to her beloved husband, a Navy pilot sent to the Pacific. For half a century, she waited for him to return— until a miracle happened and she received his "Last Valentine." Their son, Neil Thomas, Jr., wants to share the powerful message of his parents' tragic, yet triumphant, 50-year love story with the world. When Neil meets Susan Allison— a skeptical reporter who is looking for the perfect story about true love— neither of them expects that the story of Neil's parents will bring them together in a love as powerful as her dreams.

This rich and nuanced portrait of eighteenth-century China follows a Chinese girl's path to enlightenment. At the midpoint of the Manchus' long sway over the largest empire in China's history, a young girl stands reluctantly on the brink of womanhood. Lotus, the Empress Dowager's servant, decides to follow a spiritual path through the Forbidden City. She travels down routes of erotic fancy in search of a place called Mandala, where life's troubles are left behind.

Jean Valjean is one of society's victims. A poor but honest peasant, he is caught stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving family and is sent to prison. By the time of his eventual release, he has become a hardened criminal, but his friendship with the saintly Monseigneur Bienvenu gives him another chance at life. This new, respectable life is precarious, for Valjean is still sought by the law, in the person of the implacable Inspector Javert.

Best-selling sportswriter Peter Golenbock knew Mickey Mantle, as well as many of Mantle's friends, family members, and teammates. While Mickey was a good person at heart, he had a dark side that went far beyond his well-known alcoholism and infidelities. In Golenbock's shocking and revealing first novel, 7, Mickey tells the hidden story of his life as a baseball hero and asks for forgiveness from his friends and family. In this fictional portrait, Mantle, now in heaven, needs to unburden himself of all the horrible things he did and understand for himself why he did them.