Ancient Historical Fiction

On the isle of Ithaca, queen Penelope maintains a delicate balance of power. Many years ago, her husband Odysseus sailed to war with Troy and never came home. In his absence, Penelope uses all her cunning to keep the peace—a peace that is shattered by the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra. Orestes' hands are stained with his mother's blood. Not so long ago, the son of Agamemnon took Queen Clytemnestra's life on Ithaca's sands. Now, wracked with guilt, he is slowly losing his mind.

A gothic mystery book set in Ireland during the early 19th century. In the midst of poverty-stricken Ireland, in fall of 1816, Michael Smith abandons his studies at Trinity College to attend to a familial duty. His journey takes him to the isolated and eerie County Wicklow to care for his wealthy and reclusive uncle who lies on his deathbed, guarded within their dilapidated ancestral estate. Disturbing Revelations As he steps into his uncle’s haunting estate, Michael stumbles upon chilling secrets of his uncle's past. He encounters disconcerting memories and discovers the mysterious room ...

Lavinia never asked to be fought over. But now her childhood sweetheart has waged a war that threatens to destroy everything she holds dear, all because Lavinia's father has promised her to somebody else–Aeneas. Aeneas, rumored to be the son of Venus, is famed for his bravery, cunning, and his vision for a new great Empire. He is also secretive, slippery—and Lavinia wonders why he will never discuss the past he left behind. So when a stranger arrives in the camp with stories about Aeneas that suggest he is not what he seems, Lavinia realizes she has to take her future into her own hands.

In the 1950s, as a continuation of Moses, Man of the Mountain, Zora Neale Hurston penned a historical novel about one of the most infamous figures in the Bible, Herod the Great. In Hurston’s retelling, Herod is not the wicked ruler of the New Testament who is charged with the “slaughter of the innocents,” but a forerunner of Christ—a beloved king who enriched Jewish culture and brought prosperity and peace to Judea.

A jealous Egyptian queen. A lascivious Galilean governor. How can one servant girl possibly make a difference? An orphan since birth, Lydia lives in the palace at the demand of Cleopatra and her royal child, the son of Julius Caesar. But Lydia’s beauty is becoming a liability to the aging queen, and the visiting Herod’s undisguised interest in Lydia only makes matters worse. When Lydia’s mentor is murdered, the handmaid inherits a daunting task. An ancient set of sealed scrolls, the secret writings of the prophet Daniel, must be returned to Jerusalem–before those who killed her ...

Although the rightful Jarl of Orkney, Einar is not yet strong enough to overcome his rival, King Eirik. Einar and the Wolf Coats raid the pagan ceremony that will confirm Eirik's power, but due to his injured sword hand, Einar fails to kill Eirik and he and his men must flee. They seek the protection of the King of the English. In exchange for his help, the crew must undertake a perilous mission: sail to Brittany and bring a renowned scholar back to England.

After the bloody Battle of Jelling, Denmark’s throne lies empty and chaos reigns as Jarls jostle for power. Sven survives the bloodshed only to return home to find Ribe sacked by those he trusted and Charles, a pawn in a much bigger political game, kidnapped. Consumed by the loss of Charles, Sven is shocked by the arrival of the Abbess Hildegard, daughter of his nemesis King Louis of East Francia, who seeks the whereabouts of Charles, her son, and also the cross of Charlemagne.

Told through intimate diary entries, this fiction series unfurls the extraordinary sagas of the Bible's best-known characters through the eyes of ordinary girls. In Book 3 of The Promised Land Diaries, Alisah, a young nursemaid, must leaver her family to live with beautiful Rebekah in order to help her aging nurse Deborah and care for her growing household. Alisah learns of Rebekah's generous spirit and witnesses firsthand the tender love story of Rebekah and Isaac.

In a magnificent, war-torn world cut by soaring red canyons, an evil ruler launches a search for a mystical artifact that he hopes will bring him ultimate power - an ancient witch’s pot that reputedly contains the trapped soul of the most powerful witch ever to have lived. The aged healer Tocho has to stop him, but to do it he must ally himself with the bitter and broken witch hunter, Maicoh, whose only goal is achieving one last great kill.

A devastating plague; rampant inflation; propaganda for the masses; breakthroughs in innovative technology; rumors of civil war; racial and ethnic tensions; nefarious conspiracies; class struggles and street preachers yearning to overthrow the nobility. The Sendyne Empire is at the height of its power, but it has never been in a more precarious position…and it is about to reach a boiling point. General Rotilla Voxinus and the teenage Emperor Kwisus continue their relentless campaign to destroy Bovir of the Woodlands, and lock down their colony in the Three Rivers. Amidst the mayhem, bold ...

In Harvest of Gold, the scribe Sarah married Darius, and at times, she feels as if she has married the Persian aristocracy, too. There is another point she did not count on in her marriage—Sarah has grown to love her husband. Sarah has wealth, property, honor, and power, but her husband’s love still seems unattainable. Although his mother was an Israelite, Darius remains skeptical that his Jewish wife is the right choice for him, particularly when she conspires with her cousin Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

Adam Wellesbourne and his four sons - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - comprise the most feared House in the service of Richard III. Adam's eldest son, Matthew, has earned such an influential reputation that throughout England he is known as The White Lord of Wellesbourne. Upon the eve of the Battle of Bosworth field, Matthew finds himself forced into a contract marriage that he has been avoiding for 10 years.

Two lovers crest the wave of the golden age of Athens: Pericles, statesman and general, and Aspasia, his courtesan, a philosopher's daughter, and a brilliant woman in her own right. In a world of hierarchies, he is at the top when she arrives as little more than flotsam cast up on Athenian shores. Their love transcends social sanctions, enduring and deepening despite the grave threat it presents to Pericles' reputation as a leader of the Athenian democracy.

Northumbria, AD 794. Those who rule the seas, rule the land. None know the truth of this more than the Vikings. To compete with the violent sea-faring raiders, the king of Northumbria orders the construction of his own longships under the command of oath-sworn Norseman, Runolf. When the Northern sea wolves attack for the second year, the king sends cleric turned warrior, Hunlaf, on a mission across the Whale Road to persuade the king of Rogaland into an alliance. But Runolf and Hunlaf have other plans.

Elantia, a seer, is kidnapped from her home on the coast of Britannia and sold as a slave in Ephesus. Her new owners take her to Philippi, where they put her to work each day in the marketplace telling fortunes. When they take from her the only good thing left in her life, she vows she will take her revenge and find her way home, even if she has to kill to do it.

Every dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the 18-year-old caliph of Khorasan, takes a new bride each night only to have her executed at sunrise. So it is a suspicious surprise when 16-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid. But she does so with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the caliph for the murder of her best friend and countless other girls. Shazi's wit and will, indeed, get her through to the dawn that no others have seen, but with a catch.

In their first adventure as Master Librarians, Jack and In their first adventure as Master Librarians, Jack and Annie go to the city of Pompeii to bring back an ancient story that is in danger of being lost forever. Little do they know they are saving the myth of Hercules! But before they can find it, the town's volcano erupts in a mighty explosion. Just when things look hopeless, Jack and Annie get some unexpected help from a certain mythic hero...and the rest, as they say, is history.

AD 1192 - Sir Christopher de Lohr is Richard the Lion Heart's champion, a man the Muslims nicknamed "The Lion's Claw". Blond, battle scarred, and powerful, he is what all men fear. After the fall of Acre, Christopher makes a promise at the deathbed of a dying comrade to marry the man's incorrigible but wealthy daughter. Christopher returns home to marry the woman, but the only thing he is interested in is her substantial dowry. He has no use for a wife and resents being forced into the marriage.

Against the mighty splendour of the glorious Roman Empire, unfolds the magnificent new saga, perfect for fans of Conn Iggulden. Correus and Flavius. Half-brothers, sons of a brilliant general. One, son of a slave woman, is a born warrior destined to excel. The other, a nobleman by birth, must struggle relentlessly to succeed. When they both join the Centuriate, a position Flavius has always known he will inherit, and one that Correus has long coveted, it is together that they face the brutal reality of war. Fighting German barbarians will prove dangerous, not only to their bodies but to their souls as well.

“I got and read this book on recommendation from a friend, and I have to admit that I'm thoroughly impressed with it. It's a deep dive into some local Greek mythology, told in a story-with-a-plot kind-of-way. It probably helps if you are already interested in this particular material, because there's a lot. The book's pacing is overall easy, and sometimes it just drops a bomb on you. Event happened, plot shifts, no questions asked or answers given! While reading it I thought of Game of Thrones and even in Blood Meridian the way characters can be just written off without a second thought. ...