Showing results by publisher "Phoenix Books" in Historical Fiction

It's the 1950s. After a nuclear blast in the mid-Pacific, a Thoreau-reading American Air Force General makes an unexpected and troubling discovery: In a flowery field on a tiny island in the middle of a vast ocean, is an angel — its beautiful face frozen in a death mask and its huge wings wrapped around an inert body. As the general ponders this mystery, the Soviets discover their own angel after a similar nuclear test in Siberia. Are these twin phenomena a ploy in the ongoing hostilities between two international powers? Or has divine intervention pointed the way toward a new political era?

Dessa Rose is the heartwarming story of an extraordinary friendship between two strong, remarkable women from very different backgrounds, both caught in the shadow of slavery in the 19th-century South. One is an escaped Black slave under sentence of death; the other is a white woman committed to end the horrors her neighbors accept as a matter of course. Ruby Dee's passionate and sensitive reading gives a poignant sense of reality to this magnificent story of courage, daring, and love.

The moment Ivan stumbled upon a clearing in the dense Carpathian forest, his life was forever changed: atop a pedestal encircled by fallen leaves, the beautiful princess Katerina lay still as death. But beneath the foliage a malevolent presence stirred, sending the 10-year-old scrambling for safety. Years later, Ivan is an American graduate student engaged to be married, yet he cannot forget that day long ago. Compelled to return to his native land, Ivan finds the clearing just as he left it.

When Prince Baudouin's infant son, Alexander, grows to manhood, he sets out for Camelot to avenge his father's death. Years before, his father was murdered in cold blood by Alexander's jealous uncle, the King of Cornwall. Young Alexander journeys to Camelot seeking justice, but his path is diverted, first to a dark tower where he is bewitched by the sorceress Morgan Le Fay. He then meets a beautiful young woman named Alice, who has also encountered many dangers on her pilgrimages to the Holy Land. As they travel together, their connection grows beyond their separate purposes.

Bella Ford, aged 19 and inexperienced, is seduced by an older, married man and becomes pregnant. Jilted by her unscrupulous lover, Bella plans revenge and journeys to the place he told her he was from —a lie— and loses the baby during the journey. She is taken in by a family of shoemakers who help her restore her faith in living—until a crisis of extreme tragedy puts her to the highest test.

The Atropos, a 22-gun sloop, has been given its first assignment under Horatio Hornblower's command: flagship for the funeral procession of Lord Nelson. But soon the Atropos is part of the Mediterranean Fleet's harassment of Napoleon, recovering treasure that lies deep in Turkish waters and boldly challenging a Spanish frigate several times her size. Follow Forester's hero in more adventures in Lieutenant Hornblower.

A Russian museum curator acquires a painting of a public building that includes a modification completed in 1952. The artist: Adolf Hitler. A prominent historian is mysteriously killed while in the final stages of research for his latest book—a biography of the fü hrer. An American architect preparing a book on Third Reich architecture discovers plans for a seventh bunker. All are pieces of an emerging puzzle whose solution will reveal…the Seventh Secret.

Set against the backdrop of the American Civil War, The Red Badge of Courage tells the story of Henry Fleming, a young private in the Union Army who flees from the horror of battle and then struggles with shame and self-loathing. Outstanding in its portrayal of the quiet tension and violent emotion of war, this powerful psychological study of a young soldier will strike listeners with its undeniable realism.