Middle Ages Fiction

Ellie Byrne didn’t plan on rebuilding her life from scratch. But when her cheating husband leaves her with nothing, she heads to Salem Falls to claim her unexpected inheritance—a charming (and slightly crumbling) bed and breakfast. It’s the perfect fresh start. Until she learns her aunt didn’t just die there. She was murdered. Now Ellie’s juggling renovations, suspicious townspeople, and a growing list of enemies…

A missing treasure. A cursed property. Will Ellie’s bed and breakfast turn into a dead and breakfast on opening weekend? Excited to restart her life after a bitter divorce, Ellie Byrne plans to re-open her aunt’s old bed and breakfast with a murder mystery weekend. But when she finds out the property possesses a cursed treasure that has robbed all previous owners of their lives, she worries her fresh start may lead to her death. Threats abound and when a body turns up, Ellie’s convinced the curse is real.

Ellie Byrne was hoping for a quiet holiday season, filled with sugar cookies, Christmas movies, and zero dead bodies. But when a famous author drops dead during a winter storm—and his final manuscript mysteriously vanishes—her cozy bed-and-breakfast in Salem Falls becomes the center of a snow-covered scandal. Soon, Ellie and her opinionated pets are up to their eyeballs in secrets, suspects, and surprise guests with hidden agendas.

Written in 1861 but taking place in the fifteenth century, this picturesque historical novel by Charles Reade follows the story of a young scribe and illuminator named Gerard Eliason. In order to escape persecution, Gerard sets out on a journey from Holland to Rome, leaving behind the woman he loves, Margaret. Along the road Gerard meets a colorful cast of characters—including various historical figures—and explores the conflict between a person’s obligation to family versus the church. 

Her modern-day life turns into a tangle of secrets when a fall lands her back in time. When a mundane mishap propels Ellie into a bygone era – the Roaring Twenties, she’s not only stuck in time, but she lands smack dab in the middle of another mystery. Steeped in history, a local landmark’s haunting becomes Ellie’s prime objective as she navigates a society of guys and dolls in the hopes of finding her way home. As she delves deeper, she finds out that not all is as it seems and the past is filled with secrets, puzzles, and intrigue she didn’t expect.

Paul was reading a newspaper. Catherine was reading a novel. So begins Room on the Sea, André Aciman's scorching and elegiac love-story about a middle-aged man and woman who meet in the bullpen of jury selection and spend a sultry summer’s week trespassing ever further into each other's hearts. What begins as a flirtation quickly evolves into something deeper, something Paul and Catherine must carry on in secret - and with the understanding that anything more than a casual crush is out of the question.

Collection of audiobooks of stories from Smile and Learn. Educational and entertaining stories that teach values and knowledge through charming tales.

A Halloween Ball. A missing friend. A serial killer’s return? Ellie Byrne is ready to enjoy a Halloween masquerade ball at her bed and breakfast with friends, but when her friend mysteriously disappears, Ellie’s evening takes a dark turn. Just as Mia is found, shaken but unharmed, another body is discovered, and it looks like the infamous Clue Killer may have resurfaced after 20 years of silence. With a murderer on the loose, Ellie, with the help of her snarky cat Cleo and loyal dog Lola, must dig deep into the town’s secrets.

Ellie Byrne’s pending divorce from her cheating husband threatens to leave her broke and homeless. But when she inherits a bed and breakfast in the unique town of Salem Falls, her prayers may be answered. That is, until she finds out her aunt didn’t just die on the property, she was murdered. And shortly after Ellie arrives, she finds herself the target of threatening messages and hostile attitudes from almost everyone in town.

Greed and ambition threaten to tear the north apart. War rages between the two kingdoms of Northumbria. Kin is pitted against kin and friend becomes foe as ambitious kings vie for supremacy. When Beobrand travels south into East Angeln to rescue a friend, he unwittingly tilts the balance of...

In this indispensable volume, one of America's ranking scholars combines a life's work of research and teaching with the art of lively narration. Both authoritative and beautifully told, The Middle Ages is the full story of the thousand years between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance - a time that saw the rise of kings and emperors, the flowering of knighthood, the development of Europe, the increasing power of the Catholic Church, and the advent of the middle class.

A History of the Middle Ages is the amazing story of European man in transition. It is a dramatic chronicle of 1,000 years of political, social, and economic transformation beginning with the dissolution of the classical Mediterranean civilization and ending with the first flowering of the Renaissance. It is also the story of two new religions, Christianity and Islam, both of which were destined to dominate the mind of every person in those new civilizations arising in their wake.

United by supernatural powers unveiled in menopause but divided by long-held secrets, cousins must battle a murderer hellbent on brutally mutilating her victims before she kills one of their own. In Heroes of the Middle Ages there’s a puzzling pin, a Russian spellcaster, and revenge of the most gruesome kind unfolding in Connecticut. The story blends murder mystery elements with fantasy and flashes of menopause.

A history of peasants in the Middle Ages, the story takes the listener into the life of Marion, the carpenter's wife, and her extended family as they struggle to survive through hardship, featuring a year in their lives at the mercy of the weather and the Lord of the Manor. Existing without soap, paper or glass and only with the most basic of tools, we learn how they survive starvation, sickness, fire and natural disaster in their home on the edge of the Weald.

The violent, poignant story of how Oswald de Lacy came to be lord of Somershill. Oswald de Lacy, Lord of Somershill, sits at his mother's deathbed. Before she dies, he must make a confession. He needs to tell of the days when he was eighteen years old, the third, disregarded son of the family...

Brought to you by Penguin. Unforgettably funny and painfully honest, Jonathan Coe's tale of Benjamin Trotter and his friends' coming of age during the 1970s is a heartfelt celebration of the joys and agonies of growing up. Featuring, among other things, IRA bombs, prog rock, punk rock, bad...

"Not only an engrossing read about the distant past, both informative and entertaining, but also a profoundly thought-provoking view of our not-really-so-‘new’ present . . . All medieval history is here, beautifully narrated."—Wall Street Journal "A lively history . . . [Jones] has managed...

From the schism between Rome and Constantinople to the rise of the T'ang Dynasty, from the birth of Muhammad to the crowning of Charlemagne, this erudite book tells the fascinating, often violent story of kings, generals, and the peoples they ruled.

Rafe Khatchadorian has enough problems at home without throwing his first year of middle school into the mix. Luckily, he's got an ace plan for the best year ever, if he can pull it off. With his best friend Leonardo the Silent awarding him points, Rafe tries to break every rule in his school's...

William Shakespeare may have been the greatest playwright in the English language, but how does he measure up as a historian? In this brilliant comparison between the events and characters in Shakespeare's history plays and the actual events that inspired them, acclaimed historian John Julius Norwich examines the nine works that together amount to an epic masterpiece on England's most fascinating period.