The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cleopatra, the #1 national bestseller, unpacks the mystery of the Salem Witch Trials.
It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister's daughter began to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before 19 men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death.
Rise up for liberty with the true story of Boudicca: Britain's Queen of the Iceni and discover one of the most inspiring stories in history! A Legendary Women of World History creative non-fiction biography.
It took the genius of Sir Francis Drake and an army of men to bury the contents of a Spanish Treasure Galleon somewhere in the land Drake called Nova Albion, and the only evidence they left behind was a small brass plaque that claimed the land for England. It only took one man to unravel the 400-year-old mystery surrounding the treasure's location and contents and he found it in his own backyard.
Queen Mary Stuart was one of the most beloved and controversial women in Scottish history. The granddaughter of King James IV and his wife Margaret Tudor, Queen Mary's status as heiress-apparent to the English throne paired with the violence of the Scottish Reformation set the stage for one of the most dramatic and poorly understood lives of the 16th century.
Abby Thomas is spending the summer in a run-down old house with a bratty pre-teen named Merrideth she is supposed to tutor. Not a dream job. But it does come with perks.
There’s John Roberts, a devastatingly attractive neighbor who is almost too wonderful to be real.
And there’s the new computer program Beautiful Houses—also too amazing to be real. No one knows how it works, but with it she can rewind and fast-forward the lives of all the people who ever lived in the house
Queen Elizabeth Tudor is still known today as "Gloriana" after her small fleet of agile ships defeated the Spanish Armada's 131 galleons in the English Channel on 6 August 1588. But how did this happen and why is the late Elizabethan era the "Golden Age?" In this beautiful creative non-fiction biography you'll meet Elizabeth as you have never met her before.
Erik Larson—author of #1 bestseller In the Garden of Beasts—intertwines the true tale of the 1893 World's Fair and the cunning serial killer who used the fair to lure his victims to their death. Combining meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling, Erik Larson has crafted a narrative with all the wonder of newly discovered history and the thrills of the best fiction.
War made her queen of England. Her love for a Welshman made her immortal.
Best known as Henry V's Agincourt bride from Shakespeare's "Henry V," Catherine de Valois was an extraordinary woman of faith, courage, and conviction in an age of politically powerful women.
This book is an inspirational novel that I read in the last year; Brunt's work reminds me of The Hours by Michael Cunningham, another favorite. Cunningham's work in The Hours is complex and illustrates those small moments in people's lives that intertwine in unexpected ways, but Brunt's work focuses on one particular era (the 1980s) during the AIDS crisis. The novel follows June, who gradually comes to know her uncle's lover after he dies; it is a haunting work and sure to have you ruminating about the nature of love long after you finish the last page. -- Erin F., DC Public Library staff
The #1 New York Times Bestseller
Christina Baker Kline’s Orphan Train is an unforgettable story of friendship and second chances that highlights a little-known but historically significant movement in America’s past—and it includes a special PS section for book clubs featuring insights, interviews, and more.
Although the London of the early 1950's holds its attractions, and love is blossoming between Lisa and her fellow trainee schoolteacher, Liam, Lisa stills nurtures resentment towards her Dad, who exiled her there from Sydney, leaving her in the care of her grandmother, six years before.
In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn't believe that the Nazis will invade France...but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne's home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.
Early in The Sweetness, an inquisitive young girl asks her grandmother why she is carrying nothing but a jug of sliced lemons and water when they are forced by the Germans to evacuate their ghetto.
"Something sour to remind me of the sweetness," she tells her, setting the theme for what they must remember to survive.
It's the early nineteen fifties, and the nascent romance of two young Sydneysiders is about to be challenged. Linda is being courted by an ambitious young carpenter named Harry. Seemingly without effort, he passes the scrutiny of her parents and they encourage her alliance with him. Trouble brews, though, when her sister Tessa lays eyes on him and, despite her engagement to a young accountant, makes her feelings abundantly clear.
