Historical Fiction California

Josie Bianci was killed years ago on a train during a terrorist attack. Gone forever. It’s what her sister, Kit, an ER doctor in Santa Cruz, has always believed. Yet all it takes is a few heart-wrenching seconds to upend Kit’s world. Live coverage of a club fire in Auckland has captured the image of a woman stumbling through the smoke and debris. Her resemblance to Josie is unbelievable. And unmistakable. With it comes a flood of emotions - grief, loss, and anger - that Kit finally has a chance to put to rest: by finding the sister who’s been living a lie.

The classic Western, now newly repackaged as part of Bantam's Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures program—with never-before-seen material from Louis and his son, Beau L'Amour. "I am Johannes Verne, and I am not afraid." This was the boy's mantra as he plodded through the desert alone, left to die...

At the height of California's Gold Rush, men left everything behind for the chance at striking it rich. Now, some 30 years after its peak, gold fever still entices adventurous Easterners like James Macklin Chance, a poor Pennsylvanian who is drawn to California by the dream of lasting wealth - a dream so powerful he'll stop at nothing to see it through.

Maggie Hope is off to California to solve a crime that hits too close to home—and to confront the very evil she thought she had left behind in Europe—as the acclaimed World War II mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Susan Elia MacNeal continues. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST...

Louis L’Amour’s long-lost first novel, faithfully completed by his son, takes readers on a voyage into danger and violence on the high seas. Fate is a ship. As the shadows of World War II gather, the SS Lichenfield is westbound across the Pacific carrying eighty thousand barrels of...

Frank Norris, accused of theft and unable to prove his innocence, leaves for excitement and adventure in the California gold fields of 1850s America. He sails the Atlantic, braves a storm while working as a barge man on the Mississippi, survives an Indian attack while crossing the plains with a caravan, strikes it rich in the California gold mines, and is finally able to clear his name and return to England to claim his rightful inheritance.

Juliet must bear the burden of caring for her younger sisters, but that doesn't thwart her desire to run away to be a star on the stage. Taking her sisters, she heads to New York, where her journey to stardom is swift, but the price of fame is dear.

Aislin Byrne harbors a powerful love for the wild, untamed lands of Rancho La Paloma. The threat of its financial ruin only strengthens her feelings and seals her resolve to save her home. But the fight to rescue the rancho will draw her into a drama rife with conflict and secret sorrow, and send her on a desperate journey that will test her mettle, and change her life forever.

The cast of a smash TV show arrives at a quilter’s retreat for week of camaraderie and creativity that takes some surprising twists in this heartwarming new installment of Jennifer Chiaverini’s much-beloved Elm Creek Quilts series. Acclaimed TV actress Julia Merchaud almost can’t believe...

Two sisters navigate the thrilling, euphoric early days of California surf culture in this dazzling saga of ambition, sacrifice, and the tangled ties between mothers and daughters from the New York Times bestselling author of The Aviator’s Wife. “A shimmering rendering . . . pairs the surf...

Emmeline Amity Callahan is a feisty charmer with a needy heart. Emmeline's an ugly duckling. At least that's what she thinks, that is until she receives a gift that leads her to California's Big Valley where she makes a surprising discovery.

First there were roses and the notes in her mailbox signed simply, "Admirer." Then, the accident. One minute Chris Callaway was one of Hollywood's brightest rising stars, starting a new picture that could send her career skyrocketing; the next, she was falling from the unfinished deck of her...

In this thrilling 1950s noir, when a beautiful woman comes into Paris Minton’s life, everything starts falling apart—leaving him no choice but to ask Fearless Jones for help. Mosley returns to mysteries at last with his most engaging hero since Easy Rawlins. When Paris Minton meets a...

""The Californians is an absolute pleasure from end to end, a thrilling, century-spanning, wholly American tale of art and money, family and land, treasure and time....A brilliant read for fans of Anthony Doerr, Dana Spiotta, and Don DeLillo.”—Matt Bell, author of Appleseed For fans...

New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Lowell creates another masterpiece of excitement and chills, passion and surprise. When Lacey Quinn inherits the striking landscapes done by her late, much-loved grandfather, she believes they are as good as anything hanging in museums. But the...

1958. Kate Morgan is looking for an escape, and she gets her chance by honoring a cryptic plea from her grandfather: Find the beautiful stranger. The search takes her to Hotel del Coronado, the beachfront landmark on the Southern California coast where filming is underway on the movie Some Like It Hot. For a movie lover like Kate, it’s a fantasy come true. So is the offer of a position at the glamorous hotel. But as sure as she is that Coronado is her future, Kate discovers it’s also where the ghosts of the past have come to stay.

It's 92 AD. The imperial city of Rome rules Western civilization. A young man named Marco from Corinth joins a small team of brilliant engineers to work on classified projects. Titus, the Roman Prefect of Egypt, knew Marco's father and he sponsors the young man, who then promptly falls in love with Titus' daughter, Paula. Titus orders Marco's team to find a new weapon to help defeat the rebels. They create a shockingly powerful device, but before they can deliver it to Titus, the rebels obtain it and begin murdering.

Seventeen-year-old Hannah Bailey is at the center of a Nazi secret, a secret hidden for nearly a century. Until now. It's 2029. And as the United States teeters on the brink of disaster, Hannah's life begins to crumble all around her. Tragedy strikes unexpectedly. Someone is trying to kill her. And suddenly no one - including herself - is quite who they seem. Unexpected love helps counter the turbulence, but even then, her heart is still torn in two very different directions.

A thrilling historical mystery about a young woman searching for her father, a young man trying to solve an impossible problem, and the quest for the power to transcend time. “From Vienna to San Francisco, I was swept away by this fascinating search for family and for answers.”—Janet...

A landmark modern classic about the Korean American immigrant experience and the dawn of Los Angeles’s Koreatown A Penguin Classic Kim Ronyoung (Gloria Hahn, 1926–1987) tells the story of Haesu and Chun, immigrants who fled Japanese-occupied Korea for Los Angeles in the decade prior to...