Historical Fiction Diary

Up-and-coming artist Lisbeth Parker finally has a chance to show the folks back home what it means to leave Cannonball Island and make something of yourself. As a native whose stubborn father forbade her from befriending townies, Lis always felt like an outsider in St. Dennis. So while her work is on display in the local art gallery, she records her ailing centenarian great-grandmother's stories of the island's rich history and spearheads a fight for its survival.

For the first time we discover what really happened between his sister and the dastardly Wickham. How did he distract his friend Bingley from pining for his beloved Jane? Why did he propose to another young woman? Only to his diary does he tell his true story. At last we see Darcy as he really is; and, beneath his polite facade, we find a sensitive, private and passionate man.

Miss Lily Hartley is the anonymous mastermind behind the ton’s latest obsession: The Debutante’s Revenge, a tell-all advice column for young ladies. To keep her identity hidden, Lily delivers her columns disguised as a boy - which is well and good, until she lands in the middle of tavern brawl. As luck would have it, a devastatingly handsome duke sweeps in to rescue her.

Robert E. Lee is remembered by history as a tragic figure, stoic and brave but distant and enigmatic. Using dozens of previously unpublished letters as departure points, Pryor produces a stunning personal account of Lee's military ability, his beliefs, and his time, shedding new light on every aspect of the complex and contradictory general's life story.

Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl has captivated and inspired people for decades. Published posthumously by her bereaved father, Anne's journal, written while she and her family were in hiding during World War II, has become one of the central texts of the Jewish experience during the Holocaust, as well as a work of literary genius. Bestselling author Alice Hoffman delivers a stunning novel about one of contemporary history's most acclaimed figures, exploring the little-known details of Anne Frank's life before she went into hiding.

After ten years away to build a family, Mallory returns to Floreana Island in the Galápagos, and to Gavin, the mentor with whom she had a long-ago affair. Their project is to build nests to revive the vulnerable penguin population. But Mallory doesn’t dare tell Gavin why she’s really come back. Then she discovers old journals hidden in a lava cave—confessions of another woman who needed to disappear.

Docia Ingalls was more than just the little sister of Charles "Pa" Ingalls from the Little House books. She was a spirited, fiercely independent, passionate woman, who experienced love, heartbreak, hard work, trials, and tribulations, but kept on going. She was a true pioneer woman from the hardy stock that filled the Ingalls family. A romantic, loving and naive young woman, she married twice, divorced once and birthed and raised nine children all the while doing the best she could with what she had. Married to an alcoholic whom she loved despite his faults, Docia carried her family and ...

When thirty-four-year-old Ms. Shibata gets a new job to escape sexual harassment at her old one, she finds that as the only woman at her new workplace—a manufacturer of cardboard tubes—she is expected to do all the menial tasks. One day she announces that she can’t clear away her coworkers’ dirty cups—because she’s pregnant and the smell nauseates her. Except Ms. Shibata is not pregnant. But she has a nine-month ruse to keep up. Before long, it becomes all-absorbing, and with every stage of her “pregnancy,” the boundary between her lie and her life begins to dissolve.

This third and final volume of the unexpurgated diaries of Sir Henry 'Chips' Channon begins as the Second World War is turning in the Allies' favour. It ends with a prematurely aged Chips descending into poor health but still socially active and able to turn a pointed phrase about the political events that swirl around him and the great and the good with whom he mingles.

Iceland, circa AD 1000. Elska is a silver dapple Icelandic filly. She spends summers frisking about the countryside and winters in the farmyard, where the girl human Amma takes special care of her. But when a powerful neighbor notices Elska, her contented life suddenly changes. Here is Elska's story . . . in her own words.

The late Dr. Michihiko Hachiya was director of the Hiroshima Communications Hospital when the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on the city. Though his responsibilities in the appalling chaos of a devastated city were awesome, he found time to record the story daily, with compassion and tenderness. Dr. Hachiya's compelling diary was originally published by the UNC Press in 1955, with the help of Dr. Warner Wells of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Beneath Lily Layton’s sweet and charming exterior beats the heart of a vixen - one with shocking and scandalous secrets and desires. But as a genteel lady, she confines her forbidden fantasies, like those about her employer’s devastatingly handsome son, to her diary…until she loses it. Oliver Carlyle, Marquess of Ambrose, has finally found the perfect wife, a woman who will not hide from his dark, carnal cravings. He just needs to figure out who she is.

Robin Maxwell’s debut novel introduces Anne Boleyn and her daughter, Elizabeth: one was queen for a thousand days, the other for more than 40 years. Both were passionate, headstrong women, loved and hated by Henry VIII. At the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, her mother’s private diary is given to her by a mysterious lady. In reading it, the young ruler - herself embroiled in a dangerous love affair - discovers a great deal about her much maligned mother.

Miss Sophie Kendall is happiest arranging the secret meetings of the Debutante Underground, a group of women who come together to discuss the weekly advice column The Debutante’s Revenge. What makes Sophie most unhappy is her impending march down the aisle to a man she does not love. But her family’s finances are in increasingly dire straits.

This is the original diary of the wife of Confederate General James Chesnut, Jr., who was an aide to President Jefferson Davis. It is a fascinating narrative of all the years of the American Civil War. It focuses on the daily lives and hardships of all who suffered through the war, from ordinary people to the Confederacy's generals and political elite. Mary Chesnut's prose has lost none of its provocative bite through the ages.

This second volume of the best-selling diaries of Henry 'Chips' Channon takes us from the heady aftermath of the Munich agreement, when the prime minister Chips so admired was credited with having averted a general European conflagration, through the rapid unravelling of appeasement, and on to the tribulations of the early years of the Second World War. It closes with a moment of hope, as Channon, in recording the fall of Mussolini in July 1943, reflects: 'The war must be more than half over.'

The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon is a fascinating, detailed account of Japanese court life in the closing years of the 10th century. Written by a lady of the court at the height of Heian culture, this book enthrals with its lively gossip, witty observations and subtle impressions. Lady Shōnagon was an erstwhile rival of Lady Murasaki, whose novel, The Tale of Genji, fictionalized the elite world Lady Shōnagon so eloquently relates.

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.

Nazi-occupied Prague, 1942: Amelia is hiding in her closet when flashlights blind her and she’s captured by the SS. Out on the cobblestone street, her heart shatters as her mother is shot before her eyes. She is shoved onto a freight train with hundreds of others—hours pass as they travel in darkness. Arriving in a concentration camp, Amelia fears for her life when she is led to a block by a soldier. He is her enemy, yet he secretly passes her a piece of bread; an act that saves her.

Germany, 1945. As the ground shakes and the air raid sirens wail, Katja holds her tiny baby to her chest. She pictures Karl’s handsome face and kind blue eyes, her breath catching at the thought of him heading back to the front. She must never tell anyone about the letters she delivered for him or the other secret she is hiding....