Form/Genre: Historical fiction

Marianne Clifford, 15, only child of a peppery army colonel and his vain wife, Lal, falls helplessly and absolutely for Simon Hurst, 18, whose cleverness and physical beauty suggest that he will go forward into a successful and monied future, helped on by doting parents. But fate intervenes. Simo...

Liverpool, 1910.When Patch runs up the gangway of RMS Glorious she is just looking for a quick place to hide. Too late, she realises the ship is moving! Patch has become an accidental stowaway ...Luckily Patch’s unconventional past helps her blend in on both the upper and lower decks. But hiding ...

Prague, 1588.The Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II, wants to expand the boundaries of human knowledge, and his court is a haven for scientists, astrologers and alchemists. His abiding passion is the feverish search for the philosopher’s stone and thus immortality. The Catholic Church fears he has pus...

'Sometimes I whisper it over to myself: Murderess. Murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt along the floor.'Grace Marks. Female fiend? Femme fatale? Or weak and unwilling victim? Around the true story of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the 1840s, Margaret Atwood has created a...

The events of one fateful night change two sisters' lives forever ...February, 1921. When influenza claims the life of their mother, Daisy Cooper and her younger sister Mary are suddenly all alone in the world.Daisy works long hours to keep a roof over their heads, but she worries she's neglectin...

Marie-Laure has been blind since the age of six. Her father builds a miniature version of their neighbourhood so she can memorise it. But when the Nazis invade, they flee with a dangerous secret. Werner is a German orphan destined to labour in the mines, until he discovers a knack for engineering...

Revolution is in the air1792. A tyrannical government is determined to make England a mighty commercial empire. In France, Napoleon Bonaparte begins his rise to power, and with dissent rife, France’s neighbours are on high alert.Kingsbridge is on the edgeUnprecedented industrial change sweeps the...

Edinburgh, 1850. Despite being at the forefront of modern medicine, hordes of patients are dying all across the city, with doctors finding their remedies powerless. But it is not just the deaths that dismay the esteemed Dr James Simpson - a whispering campaign seeks to blame him for the death of ...

With tensions in Prague rising at the height of World War II, Isaac Wolf is forced to leave home with nothing more than a small backpack and a pendant in the shape of an eternity knot. His parents believe the pendant will keep him safe--if he can discover what it really means.This clue leads him ...

1928, ParisA boy is found, moments from death, and taken in by a kindly family. Gentle, precocious, talented, he flourishes in his new home, and the family show him a life he hadn’t dreamed possible. But he refuses to speak a word about who he really is.As he grows into a young man, falling in lo...

On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. ...

When Laura meets a French exchange student, Leon, she is flattered by his interest in her. She's never had any sort of boyfriend before.One night, Leon walks Laura home - and her life will never be the same again.Things start to change for Laura - first her moods, and then her body. Laura isn't p...

September 1940. As the skies split apart and bombs rain down on London, it’s all the staff at the famed Buckingham Hotel can do to keep their guests in the luxury they’re accustomed to, and evoke the magic of the Grand Ballroom for them each night.Home on leave and still reeling from the tragic e...

This production chronicles the history surrounding the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and the ascension of Duke William of Normandy to the English throne. Harold, Duke of Wessex, takes the English throne, despite Edward the Confessor's wish that William Duke of Normandy should be his heir. Seeking re...

Minnie Gray is an ordinary young woman.She is also a spy for the British government. It all began in the summer of 1928... Minnie is supposed to find a nice man, get married and have children. The problem is it doesn’t appeal to her at all. She is working as a secretary, but longs to make a diffe...

Deep in uncharted Peru, the holy town of Bedlam stands at the edge of a forest. The shrine statues move, and anyone who crosses the border dies. But somewhere inside are cinchona trees, whose bark yields quinine: the only known treatment for malaria.On the other side of the Pacific, it is 1859, a...

Arlette works in Liberty by day, and by night is caughty up in a glamorous whirl of parties, clubs, cocktails and jazz. But when tragedy strikes she flees the city, never to return.Over half a century later, in the grungy mid-'90s, her graddaughter Betty arrives in London.She can't wait to begin ...

Molly McKenzie is only eleven years old when her abusive father beats her to within an inch of her life. Escaping from the hovel she calls home, Molly is found by kind fisherfolk, sick and near death. With them she experiences the love of a family for the first time and, even though life is hard,...

In Rita Bradshaw's Beneath a Frosty Moon, it’s 1940 and Britain is at war with Germany. For Cora Stubbs and her younger siblings this means being evacuated to the safety of the English countryside. But little does Cora know that Hitler’s bombs are nothing compared to the danger she will face in h...

Eve should never have married Don Hathaway …The man is a bully who hurts his wife. But, after one drunken rage too many, Eve finds the courage to leave him. It’s a difficult – even treacherous – path, yet she has promised herself she will give her children hope for the future.Don, however, is bit...