Fiction & Literature - historical

In the 1800s, Britain was making a mint selling Indian opium to China. In return, they were buying tea, silks and ceramics. When eventually China decided that the drug trade was ruining her people, the British declared war, declaring China 'protectionist', 'backwards-looking' and 'superstitious'. For two years Britain pummelled China's east coast, forcing her to sign a humiliating treaty allowing Britain full trading access. A weakened China was at the mercy of the West until the Communist triumph of 1949. This is the popular belie... read more

"The Clifton Chronicles" is a multi-generational family saga, from the epic master storyteller. "The Clifton Chronicles" is Jeffrey Archer's most ambitious work in four decades as an international bestselling author. The epic tale of Harry Clifton's life begins in 1920, with the chilling words, 'I was told that my father was killed in the war'. But it will be another twenty years before Harry discovers how his father really died, which will only lead him to question: who was his father? Is he the son of Arthur Clifton, a stevedore ... read more

Sarah Thornhill is the youngest child of William Thornhill, convict-turned-landowner on the Hawkesbury River. She grows up in the fine house her father is so proud of, a strong-willed young woman who's certain where her future lies. She's known Jack Langland since she was a child, and always loved him. But the past is waiting in ambush with its dark legacy. There's a secret in Sarah's family, a piece of the past kept hidden from the world and from her. A secret Jack can't live with. A secret that changes everything, for both of the... read more

The one and only Conn Iggulden takes on the story of the mighty Kublai Khan. An epic tale of a great and heroic mind; his action-packed rule; and how in conquering one-fifth of the world's inhabited land, he changed the course of history forever. A scholar who conquered an empire larger than those of Alexander or Caesar. A warrior who would rule a fifth of the world with strength and wisdom. A man who betrayed a brother to protect a nation. From a young scholar to one of history's most powerful warriors, Conqueror tells the sto... read more

The fourth novel in the number one bestselling Conqueror series, continuing the life and adventures of the mighty Khan dynasty.
Genghis Khan is dead, but his legend and his legacy live on. His son Ogedai has built a white city on a great plain and made a capital for the new nation. Now the armies have gathered to see which of Genghis' sons has the strength to be khan. The Mongol empire has been at peace for two years, but whoever survives will face the formidable might of their great enemy, China's Song dynasty. The great le... read more

A top ten bestselling novelist and historian recreates in fiction the most extrordinary and tempestuous marriage in history. It is the year 1152, and a beautiful woman rides through France, fleeing her crown, her two young daughters and a shattered marriage. Her husband, Louis of France has been more monk than monarch, and certainly not a lover. Now Eleanor of Aquitaine has one sole purpose: to return to her duchy and marry the man she loves, Henry Plantagenet, destined for greatness as King of England. It will be a union founded ... read more

The master of historical fiction presents the iconic story of King Alfred and the making of a nation. As the ninth century wanes, England appears about to be plunged into chaos once more. For the Viking-raised but Saxon-born warrior, Uhtred, whose life seems to shadow the making of England, this presents him with difficult choices. King Alfred is dying and his passing threatens the island of Britain to renewed warfare. Alfred wants his son, Edward, to succeed him but there are other Saxon claimants to the throne as well as ambiti... read more

Translated by Sandra Smith, with an introduction by Patrick Marnham. In 1929, 26-year-old Irene Nemirovsky shot to fame in France with the publication of her second novel David Golder. At the time, only the most prescient would have predicted the events that led to her extraordinary final novel Suite Francaise and her death at Auschwitz. Yet the clues are there in this astonishingly mature story of an elderly Jewish businessman who has sold his soul. Golder is a superb creation. Born into poverty on the Black Sea, he has clawed his... read more

1829, Tasmania. John Batman, ruthless, singleminded; four convicts, the youngest still only a stripling; Gould, a downtrodden farmhand; two free black trackers; and powerful, educated Black Bill, brought up from childhood as a white man. This is the roving party and their purpose is massacre. With promises of freedom, land grants and money, each is willing to risk his life for the prize. Passing over many miles of tortured country, the roving party searches for Aborigines, taking few prisoners and killing freely, Batman never aband... read more

Having survived the perils of a journey across half the world, Romulus and Tarquinius are press-ganged into the legions, which are under imminent threat of annihilation by the Egyptians. Meanwhile in Rome, Romulus' twin sister Fabiola lives in fear for her life, loved by Brutus, but wooed by Marcus Antonius, his deadly enemy. Soon after, Romulus fights at Zela, the vicious battle where Caesar famously said, 'Veni, vidi, vici'. Tarquinius, separated from Romulus in the chaos of war, hides in Alexandria, searching for guidance. But m... read more

This is the new novel from the commercial historical women's fiction author Margaret George. The legendary Elizabeth Tudor is history's most enigmatic queen: the virgin with many suitors; the victor of the Armada who hated war; and the jewel-bedecked woman always pinching pennies. Elizabeth's flame-haired cousin, Lettice Knollys, is her bitter rival. In love with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and mother to the Earl of Essex, the mercurial nobleman who challenged Elizabeth's throne - Lettice has been intertwined with Elizabeth ... read more

Cleopatra's palace shimmered with onyx and gold but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world. Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Stacy Schiff boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order, a generation before the birth of Christ. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Schiff's is a luminous reconstruction of a dazzling life.

We know him as Renaissance genius: inventor, scientist, artist. Visionary painter of the Mona Lisa, the smiling, enigmatic Gioconda. They knew him as Leonardo from Vinci, Leonardo the Florentine: heretic, butcher, lunatic. It is dawn in the barn. On a wooden plinth lies a terrifying creature, part lizard, part dog, part cockerel, pieced together from several slaughtered animals. Sitting in front of it, a boy draws an image of a monster. His first thought: men need saving from each other. His second: men need saving from themselve... read more

A gorgeously written, The English Patient-style novel about the real-life romance between the war photographers Robert Capa and Gerda Taro during the Spanish Civil War.
Love, war and photography marked their lives. They were young, anti-Fascist, good-looking, and nonconformist. They had everything in life, and they put everything at risk. They created their own legend and remained faithful to it until the very end! A young German woman named Gerta Pohorylle and a young Hungarian man named Endre Friedmann meet in Paris in 193... read more

A special, limited edition, with a brand new cover and the first two chapters of The Invisible Ones. Winner of the Costa Book of the Year, Best First Novel of the Year Awards and the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. 1867, Canada: as winter tightens its grip on the isolated settlement of Dove River, a man is brutally murdered and a 17-year old boy disappears. Tracks leaving the dead man's cabin head north towards the forest and the tundra beyond. In the wake of such violence, people are drawn to the township - ... read more

The brand new thrilling Roman adventure from the bestselling author of THE LEGION and THE GLADIATOR. The city of Rome in AD 50 is a dangerous place. Treachery lurks on every corner, and a shadowy Republican movement, 'the Liberators', has spread its tentacles wide. It is feared that the heart of the latest plot lies in the ranks of the Praetorian Guard. Uncertain of whom he can trust, the Imperial Secretary Narcissus summons to Rome two courageous men guaranteed to be loyal to the grave: army veterans Prefect Cato and Centurion Mac... read more

Set from just before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and through World War II, 'The Seamstress' follows the life of Sira Quiroga, a Spanish seamstress who becomes embroiled in a glamorous and dangerous world far from where she belongs, one filled with the idle rich and politically powerful. Abandoned by her lover and beset by debt, Sira clings to her gift for sewing and forges a new life as the most sought-after couturiere in Morocco. But her wealthy clients bring more than their business to her tiny studio. Caught up in inte... read more

Early nineteenth century New Zealand - the great chief Te Rauparaha has conquered tiny Kapiti Island, from where Ngati Toa launches brutal attacks on its southern enemies. Off the coast of Kapiti, English trader John Stewart seeks to trade with Te Rauparaha, setting off a train of events that forever change the course of New Zealand history. Narrated by two English sailors on board Stewart's ship, these events are also eerily resonant of a more distant memory, stretching back into mythology, of the charismatic leader Wulf and an an... read more

Salah ad-Din, or Saladin as he is known to the Franks, was a Kurd, the son of despised people, and yet he became Sultan of Egypt and Syria. He united the peoples of Allah, recaptured Jerusalem, and drove the Crusaders to the very edge of the sea. He battled, and in the end tamed King Richard the Lionheart, who well deserved his savage name. He was a great man, the greatest man that I ever knew, but when I first met him, he was only a skinny child ...The Chronicle of Yahya al-Dimashq But alongside the legend of Saladin there is ano... read more