Showing results by publisher "Phoenix Books" in Historical Fiction

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.

Fresh from solving the mystery of who killed Michael Collins in Irish Gold, Dermot Michael Coyne and Nuala Anne McGrail are reunited in Chicago. An accountant by day, Nuala sings in a local pub at night, while dreaming of making it big. Dermot compares Nuala to Irish lace-"thin and delicate and pretty, and just a little bit complicated."But their courtship in once again interrupted, this time by one of Nuala's "spells". Nuala is fey, as they say in the Old Country, and she occasionally has visions from the past.

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.

Middle-aged Lucas Corso is a tired and cynical book detective, a mercenary hired to hunt down rare editions for wealthy and unscrupulous clients. When a well-known bibliophile is found hanged, leaving behind part of the original manuscript of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, Corso is brought in to authenticate the fragment. Soon the unsuspecting Corso is drawn into a swirling plot involving devil worship, occult practices, and swashbuckling derring-do among a cast of characters bearing a suspicious resemblance to those of Dumas' masterpiece.

A brooding, suspenseful novel of sensuality and vengeance, set amid the fields and villages of 19th century England. Bella Ford, jilted by her unscrupulous lover, plans revenge that ends in a catastrophic act of violence.

Slaying the minotaur was only the beginning. Theseus's legendary exploits continue in this magnificent tale of mythological adventure in classical Greece. Picking up where The King Must Die left off, this stirring sequel recounts Theseus's triumphant return from Crete to become King of Athens.

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.