Historical World Fiction

A story of homecoming, this engrossing novel opens with a young, city-based lawyer setting out on her first visit to ancestral country. Candice arrives at ‘the place where the rivers meet’, the camp of the Eualeyai where in 1918 her grandmother Garibooli was abducted. As Garibooli takes up the story of Candice’s Aboriginal family, the twentieth century falls away. Garibooli, now renamed Elizabeth, is sent to work as a housemaid, but marriage soon offers escape from the terror of the master’s night-time visits.

Brought to you by Penguin. The great filmmaker Werner Herzog, in his first novel, tells the incredible story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who defended a small island in the Philippines for twenty-nine years after the end of World War II In 1997, Werner Herzog was in Tokyo to direct an...

Born a Native American but brought up Amish, Hester Zug, at age 20, flees her Amish home. Her father's too-tender care of her has made her stepmother wildly jealous, and so Hester sets off, knowing only that she can't stay. Hester's natural instincts for navigating the forests in colonial Pennsylvania, along with the book of medicines and remedies given to her by an aged Native American woman, allow her to survive until she gets sick from drinking river water.

Berlin, 1941. Felix Thalberg, a printer’s apprentice, has the weight of the world on his shoulders. His beloved city is changing under Nazi rule, and at home things are no better - Felix’s father hasn’t left the house since he was forced to wear a yellow star, and his mother grows thinner every day. Then one night, Felix meets a mysterious young woman in a crowded dance hall, and his life is changed forever. Hannah is like a rush of fresh air into his gloomy, stagnant life, and Felix finds himself instantly, powerfully infatuated with her.

In 1913, before there is a rumor of war in Europe, Matthias Wrenn and Con Hatchel, lifelong friends from Ballyrannel in the Irish midlands, decide to see the world at the expense of the king of England and join the British army. A year later, while en route to India, their troop ship is recalled and they soon find themselves in the European slaughterhouse that was World War I.

In 1913, two brothers are sent into the forest to fend for themselves, forging a bond through hunger, freedom and endurance. Before the summer is over, a decision fractures that world, leaving a scar that will mark their family for generations. The wondrous, magical and deeply moving debut novel by one of Norway's finest artists, Lars Elling… Nineteen-year-old Filip spends his days playing football, listening to music on his Walkman and drawing, searching for something he cannot yet name.

One man finds himself torn between two cultures in this sweeping tale of frontier life in post–Civil War era Texas. In the years following the American War Between the States, the once vacated military presence in west Texas is on the rise to protect the waves of settlers moving into the region. Living peaceably with the Mescalero Apache, half-breed former military scout Holton Lang promotes the tentative harmony between the US cavalry and the Native American population.

17 September 1944: The allies launch the largest airborne offensive in history, delivering 36,000 troops by parachute and glider to the Dutch / German Border. In nine days’ time, half of them will be casualties of war. Among their number is Theo Trickey, a young paratrooper so dreadfully...

Set in Queensland during World War II, this breath-taking historical novel is inspired by a true wartime story that has remained a well-kept secret for over seventy years. KHAKI TRANSFORMATION It seems to have happened overnight, Val thought . How extraordinary. We've become a khaki town. It's...

Bloomsbury presents The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly, read by Rosina Aichner **WINNER OF THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION 2026** From the multi-award-winning author – a beautiful, stunningly ambitious novel telling the story of a young girl’s battle for survival and search for...

Keiko Yoshida is a young Japanese girl living in San Francisco. Her life Is filled with family, hope, and even love. Pearl Harbor changes all that. She finds herself and her family living in a world of anger, suspicion, and fear. In the years that follow, she will be persecuted, isolated, and forced into a prison camp. But that will not kill her determination to hold on to hope.

The first three books of the Viking Warriors dark historical romance series features stories of burning desire and brutal passion, jealousy, revenge, betrayal, secrets, and redemption. The audiobook includes Viking Thunder, Viking Wolf, and Viking Beast.

The Battle of Britain defined the future for Britain, Europe, and America. Bluebirds tells the story of four ordinary young men who are thrown together as Hitler plunges the European continent into its darkest hours. Andrew Francis and Gerry Donaldson were born on different sides of the Atlantic just before The Great War. Together with the mildly psychotic Bryan Hale, they fly Spitfires through the summer of 1940. 

The year 1941: Andrew Troost, heir to generations of naval tradition, has just been made admiral, when reports fly in of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Troost's son, Warren, has followed in his footsteps and is one of the men fighting for his country on a PT boat in the Pacific. In New York City, Tony Trapasso hears the call to action and gets ready to join the naval action. With him is Jacob Miller, a young man choosing to become a naval pilot instead of following the rabbinical calling of his Jewish forebears. 

Brought to you by Penguin. SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore. Her brain cells, having run out of blood, were now completely deprived of oxygen. But...

For Stella Bled Lawrence, being wealthy and stylish in 1938 is exactly what it's cracked up to be. She's blissfully unaware of the rising tensions in Europe even as she travels to Vienna on the eve of the Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. Stella and her husband, Nicky, witness the night's atrocities firsthand. Even as they watch the horror, they never imagine it will touch them personally, a pair of wealthy Americans on their honeymoon, but touch them it does. 

From the author of The Power of One comes a new novel about Africa. The time is 1939. White South Africa is a deeply divided nation with many of the Afrikaner people fanatically opposed to the English. The world is also on the brink of war, and South Africa elects to fight for the Allied cause against Germany. Six-year-old Tom Fitzsaxby finds himself in The Boys Farm, an orphanage in a remote town in the high mountains, where the Afrikaners side fiercely with Hitler's Germany.

Britain, AD 38, Princess Cartimandua—Carti—of the Brigantes tribe faces an uncertain future when her father’s sudden death ignites turmoil. Suspicion falls on the Crow People of the Votadini tribe, straining the fragile peace between the factions. But they’re not the only ones bearing a grudge. A tangled web of political games soon unfolds. When enigmatic Prince Cormag of the Votadini shows the princess unwanted attention, the Brigantes’ alliance with the Carvetti is shaken. Cartimandua’s dream of marrying gallant Prince Venutiux of the Carvetti is put at risk.

Gran Bretagna, marzo 1944. Dopo una disperata battaglia aerea nei cieli del Somerset, un bombardiere tedesco precipita in fiamme. Al sicuro nella fattoria di famiglia, Joan Marsh osserva tre paracadute aprirsi nel cielo notturno, ignara che uno di essi trasporta un uomo destinato a cambiarle la vita per sempre. Quando Joan scopre il pilota della Luftwaffe nascosto nel fienile, il suo primo istinto è denunciarlo; invece, contro ogni logica, decide di offrirgli rifugio. Lavorando fianco a fianco nei campi, un amore proibito inizia a fiorire.

It is still the War of 1812 and Jack Aubrey - with his tetchy, sardonic friend Stephen Maturin - has set course across the South Atlantic to intercept a powerful American frigate outward bound to play havoc with the British whaling trade. If they do not come up with her before she rounds the Horn, they must follow her into the Great South Sea and as far across the Pacific as she may lead them.