Historical Fiction > Giveaways

[close] A vivid and compelling novel about a woman who becomes entangled in an affair with Edgar Allan Poe—at the same time she becomes the unwilling confidante of his much-younger wife.

It is 1845, and Frances Osgood is desperately trying to make a living as a writer in New York; not an easy task for a woman—especially one with two children and a philandering portrait painter as her husband. As Frances tries to sell her work, she finds that editors are only interested in writing similar to that of the new renegade literary sensation Edgar Allan Poe, whose poem, “The Raven” has struck a public nerve.

She meets the handsome and mysterious Poe at a literary party, and the two have an immediate connection. Poe wants Frances to meet with his wife since she claims to be an admirer of her poems, and Frances is curious to see the woman whom Edgar married.

As Frances spends more and more time with the intriguing couple, her intense attraction for Edgar brings her into dangerous territory. And Mrs. Poe, who acts like an innocent child, is actually more manipulative and threatening than she appears. As Frances and Edgar’s passionate affair escalates, Frances must decide whether she can walk away before it’s too late...

Set amidst the fascinating world of New York’s literati, this smart and sexy novel offers a unique view into the life of one of history’s most unforgettable literary figures.
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[close] An historical children's novel about a young Irish orphan girl transported to Botany Bay and adopted into the house of a wealthy doctor and his cold, commanding wife. There she meets their spoilt daughter Daisy and uncovers the magical secrets of the exotic maze garden overlooking the harbour. [close]

[close] Stormbringers is the brand new book by Queen of Historical Fiction, Philippa Gregory. The second book in her atmospheric Order of Darkness series, Stormbringers continues the adventures of hero Luca Vero and Lady Isolde. Epic, rich and exciting, with a touch of romance, Stormbringers is an addictive historical read.

We have 25 copies of the hardback to giveaway. It's not out until 6th June, so you'll be one of the first people to read it! Good luck!

You can find out more about Philippa Gregory at www.philippagregory.com, or visit www.orderofdarkness.com to learn more about the series. [close]

[close] Just in time for summer!
Honorable Mention at the 2012 Southern California Book Festival, General Fiction

From Readers Favorite - "Highly recommended for reading lists everywhere"

Reviewers are saying..."Put this at the top of your list", "A Must Read", "Captivating", "The characters come alive"

THREE friends, TWO secrets, ONE lie, and the summer that changed their lives.

In 1953, three teenage girls’ innocent conversations about what each of them would do if the end of the world were imminent, coupled with a friend’s obsession, become the catalyst for a prank that spins wildly beyond control and draws in an entire town. Left behind in the wake of that summer’s events are their unrealized dreams and open wounds. In 1973, a reunion trip to the small town of their youths returns them to the summer of 1953 and the passion and betrayal that changed their lives.

The world is ripe for destruction in 1953. The Korean War drags on and the Rosenbergs are executed as spies. Senator Joseph McCarthy convinces the country communists are infiltrating the government, and the threat of nuclear war festered in the collective consciousness of the nation. While American’s constructed backyard bomb shelters, the government conducted nuclear tests in the desert.

Women’s Fiction Author, Elaine D. Walsh, captures the anxiety of the times and draws the reader in with rich characters that linger long after the story ends. [close]

[close] From the incomparable David Rakoff, a poignant, beautiful, witty, and wise novel in verse whose scope spans the twentieth century

Through his books and his radio essays for NPR's This American Life, David Rakoff has built a deserved reputation as one of the finest and funniest essayists of our time. Written with humor, sympathy, and tenderness, this intricately woven novel proves him to be the master of an altogether different art form.

LOVE, DISHONOR, MARRY, DIE; CHERISH, PERISH leaps cities and decades as Rakoff sings the song of an America whose freedoms can be intoxicating, or brutal.

The characters' lives are linked to each other by acts of generosity or cruelty. A daughter of Irish slaughterhouse workers in early-twentieth-century Chicago faces a desperate choice; a hobo offers an unexpected refuge on the rails during the Great Depression; a vivacious aunt provides her clever nephew a path out of the crushed dream of postwar Southern California; an office girl endures the casually vicious sexism of 1950s Manhattan; the young man from Southern California revels in the electrifying sexual and artistic openness of 1960s San Francisco, then later tends to dying friends and lovers as the AIDS pandemic devastates the community he cherishes; a love triangle reveals the empty materialism of the Reagan years; a marriage crumbles under the distinction between self-actualization and humanity; as the new century opens, a man who has lost his way finds a measure of peace in a photograph he discovers in an old box—an image of pure and simple joy that unites the themes of this brilliantly conceived work.

Rakoff's insistence on beauty and the necessity of kindness in a selfish world raises the novel far above mere satire. A critic once called Rakoff "magnificent," a word that perfectly describes this wonderful novel in verse.
About David Rakoff:

David Rakoff wrote the bestsellers Fraud, Don’t Get Too Comfortable and Half Empty. A two-time recipient of the Lambda Literary Award and winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, he was a regular contributor to Public Radio International’s This American Life. His writing frequently appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, Wired, Salon, GQ, Outside, Gourmet, Vogue, and Slate, among other publications. An accomplished stage and screen actor, playwright, and screenwriter, he adapted the screenplay for and starred in Joachim Back’s film The New Tenants, which won the 2010 Oscar for Best Live Action Short. He died in August 2012 at the age of 47, shortly after finishing this book.
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[close] Celebrated actres Lavinia Hargraves performs her most challenging role offstage.

Born in 1872 to Daniel Taylor, a white man and wealthy landowner in southern California, Lavinia’s mother, Lori, is a Negro and former slave.

Lavinia, who appears white, is desperate to hide her Negro ancestry, as well as pursue her dream of becoming the world’s greatest actress.

After eloping with the much older Vernon Hargraves, owner of New York’s premier theater company, Lavinia is provided with all she could ever want: a new life as white, stardom on the stage, and an abundant supply of money.

Soon, Lavinia’s seduction by a young and handsome actor sets in motion a devastating turn of events. Dashing millionaire contractor Andrew Standish comes into Lavinia’s life at a time when she needs him most. However, Lori's existence could demolish her daughter's carefully constructed facade. To what lengths will Andrew go to uncover Lavinia's past?
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[close] Emily Courtland is strong, but she'll need all her strength and courage when her husband returns from war.

Naval hero, Lieutenant Commander
Charles Courtland, is tormented by terrifying memories of battle.

The ugly wounds to his body are healing. But the uglier scars on his mind are forcing him to fight the nightmarish demons he cannot speak of.

Emily sees her family being crushed by her husband's erratic and delusional behavior. Most especially, and mysteriously, it is their young son Brent who bears the brunt of his father’s irrational treatment. For the boy it has reached the point of physical abuse.

Emily is forced to choose between standing by the ill husband she loves, and leaving him to protec their child.

With the onset of World War II, it is a grown Brent who must now go off to face the gut-wrenching shock of war at sea.
In the misty red haze of battle, he will finally come to understand the mystery of his father’s treatment.

Perhaps, he will learn far more than he ever wanted to know.

REVIEWS

… The Cost of Courage is a quick read composed of short emotion-filled chapters. Cordaro’s powerful writing leaves the reader out of breath and dehydrated from sweat and tears. His characters’ senses of honor, duty, morality and family feels so real that the reader bonds with them and feels everything they feel, like a saltwater spray on the face or the incensed throb of betrayal. Not just a novel to entertain, readers will learn the cost of courage.

--ForeWord Clarion Review


… Cordaro’s debut is well-researched and highly readable, blending historical fiction with military drama while providing a detailed look into British naval service during the early to mid-twentieth century. The appearance of Winston Churchill is one of the novels highest points, and his portrayal is handled with an honor and humor befitting the man’s legend … Historical fiction that focuses less on history and more on those who survive it.

--Kirkus Review

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[close] Rebel Cast out from his home, rejected by his family, Tom Rivers returns to his regiment. But his commander believes the young hothead’s recklessness and contempt for authority has no place in his troop. But to a spymaster like Captain Crafte, Tom’s dark and fearless nature is in itself a weapon to be turned upon the hated Cavaliers - who else would dare to infiltrate Oxford, now the Royalist capital, to destroy the King’s printing press and strike a blow at the very heart of the enemy?

Renegade Raw with grief at the death of his father, Edmund Rivers rejects the peace talks between Parliament and the King. He chooses instead to lead a hardened band of marauders across the moors, appearing out of the frozen world to fall on unsuspecting rebel columns like wolves. But Prince Rupert - recognising in Mun a fellow child of war - has other plans for him, from stealing a colossal gun, to tunneling beneath the walls of Lichfield. The only peace the enemy will get from Mun Rivers is that of the grave.

Huntress Her heart broken following the deaths of her beloved Emmanuel and her father, Bess Rivers takes the hardest decision of her life: to leave her new-born son and depart Sheer House in search of tghe one person who might help her re-unite what is left of her broken family. Risking her own life on the road, Bess will do whatever it takes to find her brother Tom and secure his Royal pardon, but can she douse the flames of her brothers’ fury and see them reconciled? [close]

[close] Whispered by the wise and the learned. Talked of in hushed tones round luminous firesides. Engraved by awestruck scribes in the scriptoria of the Chronicles. Against all the odds, great King Alfred defeated a vastly superior Danish army outside Chippenham. This victory, the sages prophesied, would guarantee peace throughout the land. Or so they thought.

Two years later, Rigr the Bastard, vengeful and seeking to claim his birthright, was defeated in the wilds of East Anglia. His blood smeared berserker warriors vanquished; no quarter asked for - no quarter given.

Now, a further two years later, the Vikings return. Noble Prince Sven instigates a seaborne invasion, fuelled partly by blind rage when he discovers that his brother, Prince Erik, has sworn fealty to the Anglo-Saxon king. His own brother: A traitor and a fool.

Erik’s love, Lady Gwyneth, attempts to stop the invasion before it starts by uniting the two estranged brothers, but her scheming only succeeds in making matters worse. Indeed, her interference guarantees the death of thousands of warriors in the freezing, tumultuous North Sea. So when the horns of Sven’s monumental fleet of warships are heard off the fogbound coast of Britannia, King Alfred – outnumbered, outshipped and weary of the fray - must rouse his jaded Saxon warriors and lead them to sea, to repel his most formidable enemy yet. For a host motivated by the spilled blood of the fallen, the spirit of black vengeance, and the delights of a warrior’s reward in Valhalla, is the most fearsome opponent of all.

Alfred. Sven. Erik. Gwyneth. Amidst the ferrous reverberation of a battle royale - one or all must die, and the fate of a nation hangs in the balance, one final time.
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[close] Can we learn from our ancestral past? Do our relatives’ behaviors help mold our own? In "Unexpected Gifts," that is precisely what happens to Sonia, a confused college student, forever choosing the wrong man. Searching for answers, she begins to read her family’s diaries and journals from America’s past: the Vietnam War, Woodstock, and Timothy Leary era; Tupperware parties, McCarthyism, and Black Power; the Great Depression, dance marathons, and Eleanor Roosevelt; the immigrant experience and the Suffragists. Back and forth the book journeys, weaving yesteryear with modern life until finally, she gains enough clarity to make the right choices. [close]

[close] A heart-wrenching historical novel spanning fifty-years, two continents, and a an imagined story that holds the power to create a safe future for a young girl. This page-turning family
saga soars to a breathtaking ending that redefines the meaning of love.

When Natalie and Anna, sisters and life-long rivals, hide an abandoned child from the Nazis,
their struggle re-opens a star-crossed love triangle, threatening their safety and testing the bonds of their loyalty. [close]

[close] Take a snippet of Canadian History, add a father who is trying to instill values and raise his boy to be a responsible member of the community, stir in a teenager ready for adventure and enjoy the results. This 'coming-of-age story will delight teens and parents alike. [close]

[close] Experimental, post-modern, philosophical, satirical, dystopian fiction.

Catena recounts the open-ended odyssey of a modern antihero adrift at sea.

Born into the cultural fragmentation of diaspora and a world citizen by default, the protagonist, named simply Dog, roams the globe in a Sisyphean quest for home, unable to claim allegiance to either creed or flag.

Erudite, sharp-witted, and street-smart, Dog marshals the survivor’s tenacity in his attempt to distill a legacy of victimization into a cogent, dynamic identity marked by the creative impulse, and, ultimately, a life-affirming ethos borne of the liberation from the self and the other alike.

The first epistle of the Journey to Virginland trilogy, Catena is Dog’s maiden foray into his ancestral country, where women are perennially struck by virginhood, men remain churlishly Neanderthaline, and a resplendent culture is held hostage by the twin hydras of chauvinism and corruption. It is here, in his self-referential heartland, that a disillusioned and ostracized Dog will be propelled into a consummate search for meaning.

The ensuing journey unfolds as a fluid, cinematic tapestry of emotion and experience, seemingly rudderless yet tightly interconnected, with the narrative woven together by the protagonist’s biting observations on sex, politics, history, religion, and philosophy.

Closely reflecting Dog’s splintered world, which is a consequence of empire in naked brutality marketed as progress, or as the exigencies of civilization, Catena is a conscious subversion of the form and structure of the modern novel. Melikian rejects the very nature of the conventional novel, viewing it as emblematic of the rational structures, cohesiveness, and verticality of centers of power, of the ongoing project of imperialism.

What emerges from Catena is the irreverent, often bawdy, and intensely moving tale of a stateless outsider which dispenses linearity in favor of fresh air, and a freedom of seeing which hints, with every turn, at a higher sense of humanism. [close]

[close] Real events that occurred in the Civil War of Tennessee and a soldier's struggle to save his very soul.

Stones River - December 31st, 1862

The battle in middle Tennessee has begun and Confederate Sergeant Jon Lyhton is lost amid scattered skirmishers. Jon obtains a Union overcoat to survive the freezing night, but his desperate attempts to survive backfire in a horrid twist that only war can deliver.

Disillusioned with himself and the lack of Confederate efforts to win the battle, Jon is confronted with failure and dishonor.

For atonement, he must take heroic, but drastic action to avert the very judgment of God and his faith is tested to the limits of the human will.

In vivid contrast are Jon’s experiences of the previous summer at the Cumberland Gap in Eastern Tennessee.

While in the 11th Tennessee Regiment, he is introduced to garrison duty, first combat and the cold realities of war.

Unionist partisans populate the nearby hills and there, Jon meets Bethanna, the daughter of German farming emigrants.

As her serene valley is threatened by the encroaching sectional conflict, she must find a way to rise above the chaos of love and war.

True Blue Confederate is a dynamic historical fiction surging with action, morality, and compassion during extremely difficult circumstances. Culminating in a heart-clinching final day at Stones River (Murfreesboro), Staten M. Rall proves that passionate characters still live and breathe in deeds of chivalry and honor
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[close] The epic story of the queen who founded the Tudor dynasty, told through the eyes of her loyal nursemaid. Perfect for fans of Philipa Gregory.

Her beauty fuelled a war.
Her courage captured a king.
Her passion would launch the Tudor dynasty. [close]

[close] "All the Light There Was" is the story of an Armenian family’s struggle to survive the Nazi occupation of Paris in the 1940s—a lyrical, finely wrought tale of loyalty, love, and the many faces of resistance. [close]

[close] Written by the author of Book Club favorite PUSH NOT THE RIVER!
Engaging and opulent, THE WARSAW CONSPIRACY unfolds as a family saga set against the November Rising (1830-1831), partitioned Poland’s daring challenge to the Russian Empire. Brilliantly iIlustrating the psyche of a people determined to reclaim independence in the face of monumental odds, the story portrays two brothers and their fates in love and war. Michał is a seasoned veteran soldier, cautious of the evolving conspiracy; Józef, his much younger brother and impassioned cadet, finds himself caught up in the vortex of a daring plot to abduct the Grand Duke of Russia. With Siberia or emigration to France looming as heart-rending contingencies, matriarchs Anna and Zofia stay steadfast in their resolve to steer the clan through ever-muddying waters. Autographed! [close]

[close] In 1913, Paul Weyburn and his fellow copper miners have tolerated dangerous working conditions for too long. Some of their workmates are being maimed or killed thousands of feet underground. . .which one of them will be next? Paul leads some of the miners on a labor strike to bring attention to the dangers of blasting and drilling copper for low pay. Marie, his wife, struggles to raise their four children and to maintain their boarding home during the crisis. Will the miners remain unified as the strike continues into the brutal weather and with money scarce? The Weyburn's eldest daughter, Nancy, moves to Detroit for employment in order to help the family with expenses. Will the Weyburns lose their home, and will their daughter stay permanently in Detroit? To make matters even worse, on Christmas Eve, an unthinkable tragedy will change Michigan's Copper Country forever.
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[close] International giveaway in celebration of Branwell Brontë's birthday (June 26, 1817). The winner will receive a SIGNED COPY.

"I love the Brontes, and the idea of bringing them to life is what made me want to read The Mist on Bronte Moor. That, and a love interest with none other than Branwell Bronte, known for being the family rebel. It's an exciting and new twist on historical fiction that I can't wait to get my hands on." Megan.

"Detailed and mysterious... a prime, ingenious story that lives up to its title, with a touch of history and love." --Girl in the Woods Reviews


When fifteen-year-old Heather Jane Bell is diagnosed with alopecia and her hair starts falling out in clumps, she wants nothing more than to escape her home in London and disappear off the face of the earth.

Heather gets her wish when her concerned parents send her to stay with a great-aunt in West Yorkshire. But shortly after she arrives, Heather becomes lost on the moors and is swept through the mist back to the year 1833. There she encounters fifteen-year-old Emily Brontë and is given refuge in the Brontë Parsonage.

Unaware of her host family’s genius and future fame, Heather struggles to cope with alopecia amongst strangers in a world foreign to her. While Heather finds comfort and strength in her growing friendship with Emily and in the embrace of the close-knit Brontë family, her emotions are stretched to the limit when she falls for Emily’s brilliant but troubled brother, Branwell.

Will Heather return to the comforts and conveniences of the twenty-first century? Or will she choose love and remain in the harsh world of nineteenth-century Haworth?
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[close] James, Lord of Douglas, known to his foes as the Black Douglas, leads a flank of the Scottish army in crushing a vast invading English force at the waters of the Bannockburn. Fresh from battle, James revels in honors heaped on him by the Scots and in the hatred of the enemy. When King Robert the Bruce orders him to push their advantage and force the English to the peace table, they both know the only way James can do so is by fire and the sword--the only language King Edward of England understands.

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[close] Set amidst the atmospheric world of New York's literati in 1845, MRS. POE is a smart and compelling novel about a female poet who becomes dangerously entangled in an affair with Edgar Allan Poe, on of history's most unforgettable literary figures.

It is 1845, and Frances Osgood is desperately trying to make a living as a writer in New York; not an easy task for a woman—especially one with two children and a philandering portrait painter as her husband. As Frances tries to sell her work, she finds that editors are only interested in writing similar to that of the new renegade literary sensation Edgar Allan Poe, whose poem, “The Raven” has struck a public nerve.

She meets the handsome and mysterious Poe at a literary party, and the two have an immediate connection. Poe wants Frances to meet with his wife since she claims to be an admirer of her poems, and Frances is curious to see the woman whom Edgar married.

As Frances spends more and more time with the intriguing couple, her intense attraction for Edgar brings her into dangerous territory. And Mrs. Poe, who acts like an innocent child, is actually more manipulative and threatening than she appears. As Frances and Edgar’s passionate affair escalates, Frances must decide whether she can walk away before it’s too late...

http://lynncullen.com/
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[close] *AUTOGRAPHED HARDBACK COPY*

Time travel! "Spy thriller, historical romance, science fiction, fantasy. Dazzling and often amusing ... has the feel of an instant classic." - Washington Post

In Bee Ridgway’s wonderfully imaginative debut novel, a man and a woman travel through time in a quest to bring down a secret society that controls the past and, thus, the future.

“You are now a member of the Guild. There is no return.” Two hundred years after he was about to die on a Napoleonic battlefield, Nick Falcott, soldier and aristocrat, wakes up in a hospital bed in modern London. The Guild, an entity that controls time travel, showers him with life's advantages. But Nick yearns for home and for one brown-eyed girl, lost now down the centuries. Then the Guild asks him to break its own rule. It needs Nick to go back to 1815 to fight the Guild’s enemies and to find something called the Talisman.

In 1815, Julia Percy mourns the death of her beloved grandfather, an earl who could play with time. On his deathbed he whispers in her ear: “Pretend!” Pretend what? When Nick returns home as if from the dead, older than he should be and battle scarred, Julia begins to suspect that her very life depends upon the secrets Grandfather never told her. Soon enough Julia and Nick are caught up in an adventure that stretches up and down the river of time. As their knowledge of the Guild and their feelings for each other grow, the fate of the future itself is hanging in the balance. [close]

[close] King Richard is dead.

With King John on the throne, the Sheriff of Nottingham knows he will soon be replaced by one of the new king's favorite men. The only way he can survive the constant vagaries of political whim is to become wealthy in his own right. And the easiest way to do this is to see the king's taxes fall into his own pocket. When the thefts are reported, he will simply claim that a band of bandits has taken up residence in Sherwood Forest and has stolen the money. A good idea and it works. That is until King John decides the sheriff needs some help in hunting down the bandits.

Sir Guy is dispatched to Nottingham with a unit of French soldiers under his command. A ruthless man, Sir Guy will not stop until the taxes are returned and the thieves hanged. The sheriff is in trouble. There are no bandits in the wood and the king's coin sits snugly in the lockbox in the sheriff's office. A single word spoken by the wrong person will put his head in a noose.

But then news of Sir Robert of Locksley reaches Nottingham. Sir Robert had left for crusade many years before and he and Sir Guy hated each other. When rumors said that Sir Robert was returning to Nottingham, the sheriff devised a new scheme. He would spread word that Sir Robert was the leader of the bandits and that his loyalty to King Richard did not extend to King John. This plan would keep Sir Guy searching the woods for men who don't exist. [close]

[close] WIN AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY of the NAACP Image Awards nominated novel "Congo (Spirit of Darkness, #1)" written by the Ngwala brothers.

On the smooth, cool rock Layila watches as her elders beat the dust from their bright clothes, singing sweet songs of gods and demons; dreamlike stories of fire and water, forest and sky. She has never seen the evil spirits from her mother's songs, those that dwell in the deepest jungle, but Layila knows she must always keep watch for them, for they bring certain death and destruction to all. So when Layila sees the strange pale beings, with their unnatural gait, their sharp, unfamiliar smells, approaching her people at the waterside, she knows she must run. Vanishing herself into the enfolding gloom of the jungle she watches as Kimbindi, spirit of darkness—Belgian incomers—shackle and ravage her mother, her sisters, her friends, before leading them away from the safety of the forest path and into unknown territories. The preadolescent is lost in this tangled expanse of untamed and merciless wilderness in the company of her friends. Both watch as the land of Congo is ravaged by cold-hearted aggressors, who infect it with a darkness that spreads down the rivers and paths, like poison in the blood vessels, through the very heart of Africa. [close]

[close] Winner receives a signed paperback of this medieval historical novel, endorsed by a Nobel Laureate.

For hundreds of years, Christians, Muslims and Jews lived together in peace, sharing languages and customs, and embracing a level of tolerance and mutual respect unheard of today. Working together, these three peoples spawned one of the great intellectual and cultural flowerings of history in medieval Spain.

Historical novel Emeralds of the Alhambra reawakens this remarkable era via the relationship between William Chandon, a wounded Christian knight brought to the Sultan’s court in Granada, and the strong-willed Layla al-Khatib, who is on a quest to become the first female Sufi Muslim mystic in a male-dominated society. As Chandon’s influence at court grows, he becomes trapped between his forbidden love for Layla, his Christian heritage, the demands of chivalry, and political expediency. Chandon must make a choice between love and honor, war and peace, life and death, a choice which ultimately will seal Granada’s fate as the last surviving stronghold of Muslim Spain.

The novel is set in Granada at the resplendent Alhambra Palace during the Castilian Civil War (1367-1369), a time when Muslims took up their swords to fight alongside Christians. Emeralds of the Alhambra is the first book in the Anthems of al-Andalus series.

Dr. John Cressler spent 8 years at IBM Research and 10 years at Auburn University before joining Georgia Tech in 2002, where he has authored numerous books.
Emeralds of the Alhambra is the TED talk presenter’s debut novel.

Visit the author at http://johndcressler.com/emeralds-of-...
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[close] "Readers of nautical fiction shouldn’t miss this book." -- Historical Novel Society!

"I highly recommend it." —Historic Naval Fiction

"The best nautical story I have read since I turned the last page of The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey by Patrick O'Brian near a decade ago." —A Fair Substitute for Heaven

"If you like a good story of exploration, adventure and piracy, this is a good book to check out." —The Book Stop

"Hill is in good company with C.S. Forester and Patrick O'Brian." —Los Angeles Maritime Museum Library

"At Drake's Command, by David Wesley Hill, is a godsend to readers ..." —Awesome Indies

"You'll be planning your day around the next opportunity to pick it up again and devour its 424 pages." —The Literate Man [close]

[close] Lucius is a young Centurion in the time of Hadrian, serving at Trimontium, modern-day Melrose in southern Scotland. Trista is a Roman patrician girl, living in Gaul. She is orphaned and becomes a vagrant when her parents are killed by traitors plotting to overthrow the emperor.
Following the death of his wife, Lucius becomes an imperial agent, operating beyond the borders of the Empire as a trader, seeking signs of invasion. He meets Trista who is under threat of assassination. The story follows their flight across Gaul, pursued by evil forces, to the German forests in a race to avert invasion and the death of the emperor. [close]

[close] A preview is available on Amazon.com

Blamed for her uncle's death, fifteen-year-old Annie is on the run. Knowing the perils she will face on the streets of eighteenth century London, she disguises herself as a boy. Her life on the streets is cut short when she becomes Captain Hawke’s cabin boy. Not only must Annie work alongside the Realm’s motley crew of outcasts and gentlemen, she must also keep her superstitious shipmates from discovering she is a girl. Annie vows she will never leave the Realm, where dreams are chased, shattered lives can mend, and secrets are stowed like keepsakes in an old desk drawer. But when her past catches up with her, can she return to the Realm? More importantly, will she have a choice? [close]

[close] Mirror, Mirror is the first novella in the Dark and Deadly series.

Lust's passion will be served; it demands, it militates, it tyrannizes~~Marquis de Sade

Possession? Obsession? Reincarnation? Or a fifteen year old sadistic psychopath on a killing spree?

***Warning - Adult content, sadistic and visually graphic murder scenes where blood is spilled for the sheer pleasure of spilling it, and death is merely a dispassionate objective. [close]

[close] A priceless violin. A family torn apart. A decision that could change everything.

1939 Berlin. Fourteen year old Simon Horowitz is awash in a world of music. His family owns a superb collection of instruments and at its heart is his father’s 1742 Guarneri de Gesu violin. But all is lost as the Nazis march across Europe and Simon and his father and brother are sent to Dachau. Amid unimaginable cruelty and death, Simon finds kindness from an unexpected corner, and a chance to pick up a violin again-a chance to live.

In the present day, orchestra conductor Rafael Gomez has seen much in his time on the world’s stage, but he finds himself oddly inspired by the playing of an aspiring violin virtuoso, a fantastic talent who is only just fourteen. Then the boy, Daniel Horowitz, suddenly refuses to play another note, and Rafael knows he’ll do anything he can to change that. When he learns the boy’s family once owned a precious violin, one that has been lost forever, Rafael believes he might know exactly how to get Daniel playing again. In taking on the task he discovers a family story that winds through World War II and Communist Russia all the way to Rafael’s very own stage. [close]