Historical Fiction Europe

The gallows, the rack, and angry mobs are part of the menace in this horrific novel set in 15th century Paris. Quasimodo, the kind-hearted, hunchbacked bell ringer and the lovely La Esmaralda struggle to survive the brutality that surrounds them.

A small force of peasants from the forest regions surrounding Lake Lucerne, rise up against their Austrian overlords in the 14th century. Outnumbered seven-to-one by the battle-hardened Habsburg army, they have little hope. A daring moonlight raid leaves the outlaw Noll Melchthal in possession of an Austrian fortress. In the north, an outraged Leopold of Habsburg assembles the ultimate punitive force: a great army, thousands strong, boasting the best knights and soldiers the Holy Roman Empire has to offer.

April, 1947. In a run-down farmhouse on a remote Scottish island, George Orwell begins his last and greatest work: Nineteen Eighty-Four. Forty-three years old and suffering from the tuberculosis that within three winters will take his life, Orwell comes to see the book as his legacy - the culmination of a career spent fighting to preserve freedoms. Completing the book is an urgent challenge, a race against death. This “highly compelling, deeply researched" (The National Review) novel was shortlisted for the 2018 Indie Book Award for Best Debut Fiction.

Written in 1940 in Yiddish, this heart-wrenching story of two nine-year-old friends caught up in the earliest tremors of anti-Semitic hatred in Vienna is all the more shocking because its author had no idea of what was still to come. Despite the casual violence done to their families - Karl's parents were socialists and Emil is Jewish - the boys find moments of kindness, courage and hope along their painful journey.

In ancient Finland, young Vierra begins her passage to adulthood. It's a time when Viking warriors prowl the land, and riches are in reach of the powerful. The medieval north of myth is a dangerous place, and powers both natural and supernatural are ready to take away everything she holds dear. Vierra sets to overcome the odds with iron will and sharp wit, but fate has more in store for the young woman.

England, 1069. The nation is still recovering from the Norman invasion three years earlier - and adjusting to life under its sometimes brutal new rulers. A young girl trembles in the shadows of what was once her home. Avis is homeless and penniless, and with no family left alive she is forced to become a ward of Richard, the Norman lord who has taken her home.

Best-selling author Michael Morpurgo turns his storytelling skills to the drama and tragedy of the Spanish Civil War, illustrated by Michael Foreman. Toro, Toro is the story of a young boy growing up in Andalucia, Spain, on a farm rearing bulls for the bull ring. Antonito hand rears a little black calf, and they become firm friends, but the boy doesn't yet understand the fate of the black bulls: the corrida and death.

Italy is exhausted. Tired of the political class. Tired of the inept moderates and the agonising machinations of a democracy that no longer seems to be working. While the leaders of the country have sat idly in the safety of parliament, achieving nothing, one man on the outside has risen to the top. Like an animal, he can smell that change is coming. He is Benito Mussolini.

On the day of his birth, Prince Alexos is revealed to be the long-awaited champion of Athene. He grows up lonely, conscious of all that is expected of him. But Alexos discovers that being a champion isn't about fame and glory - it's about sacrifice and courage.

Blandford Candy is sent to London, after an illicit affair, and joins the Roundhead army to fight against the King, taking part in the Battle of Edgehill. A reluctant hero if ever there was one, he becomes a spy for the cause - and, through luck or judgement, uncovers more than one Royalist plot. His love of wine and the fairer sex prove both a curse and a blessing for the agent. Blandford soon earns the enmity of the King’s spy mistress Jane Whorwood, and patronage of the great parliamentarian leader John Hampden.

The year is 1501. Michelangelo has created his Roman pieta, and yet patrons are not lining up at his door to hire him for more commissions. Reluctantly, he agrees to take on a project for Cardinal Piccolomini - a commission which will try the patience of both patron and artist. Before the year is out, Michelangelo hears the rumors that the Florentine City Fathers are looking for a sculptor to finish the colossal David that had been been begun four decades before. Will they give the task to Michelangelo, or his arch rival, Leonardo the Florentine?

What does it take to be a cross-cultural messenger of the Gospel? This audiobook explores two extraordinary lives that God has used to impact France: Bob Evans, soldier, WWII chaplain, missionary, and founder of Greater Europe Mission, and Jazz Jones, modern-day missionary facing the challenges and trials of ministry in post-modern Europe, including terrorism and religious strife. What was true about the spiritual climate of Europe 75 years ago? What is true today? And what is always true?

This is a true story about Frances, age 9, who saw fairies by the waterfall behind her house. Nobody but Frances saw them, but when she told her cousin Elsie and their parents, the adults teased them. Why not take a photograph? Elsie (who was fifteen) had the idea. She would paint paper fairies and take their picture with Frances, and none would be the wiser. The girls never meant to fool the world. Who could have imagined that Elsie’s photograph would fall into the hands of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the world’s most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes?

Toledo, 1479. Nace Juana I de Castilla, tercera hija de los Reyes Católicos. A pesar de tener una educación esmerada, ni sus padres, Isabel I de Castilla y Fernando II de Aragón, ni su esposo Felipe de Habsburgo por el que sentía un amor y unos celos desmedidos, la consideraron capaz de gobernar. Relegada a un segundo plano, y olvidada, su padre y su esposo ejercieron la regencia hasta que su hijo Carlos I tuvo la mayoría de edad.

Leonard is shocked when he arrives with his mother in the port of Southampton. His father is a stranger to him, it's cold and even the Jamaican food doesn't taste the same as it did back home in Maroon Town. But his parents have brought him here to try to make a better life, so Leonard does his best not to complain, to make new friends, to do well at school - even when people hurt him with their words and with their fists. How can a boy so far from home learn to enjoy his new life when so many things count against him?

In 1996, Hanna Heath, a rare-book expert, is offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, which has been rescued during the Bosnian war. Priceless and beautiful, the book is one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images. When Hanna discovers a series of artifacts in its ancient binding, she begins to unlock the book's mysteries. The reader is ushered into an exquisitely detailed past, tracing the book's journey from its salvation back to its creation.

Una giovane siriana, profuga di guerra, fugge sulla barca a vela di quattro uomini assetati di miti. La ragazza si chiama Evropa. Da quel momento la leggenda della principessa fenicia rapita sulla costa del Libano da Giove trasformatosi in toro si intreccia con gli eventi del Mediterraneo di oggi: emigrazioni, secessioni, conflitti, turismo di massa. Ingravidata in sogno dal re degli dèi, la ragazza riesce a sbarcare in Italia dopo infinite avventure e a dare il suo nome alla Terra del Tramonto, che però non riconosce in una figlia dell’Asia la Grande Capostipite.

Le 13 juillet 1131, le destin de la monarchie capétienne et du royaume de France a pris un tour tragique. Alors qu'il chevauchait avec quelques compagnons dans un faubourg de Paris, le jeune prince Philippe, fils aîné du roi Louis VI le Gros et héritier du trône déjà sacré et couronné, fit une grave chute de cheval et mourut quelques heures plus tard. Le cheval n'est pas en cause dans cet accident. Un autre animal se trouve être responsable de la chute, un animal gyrovague, remplissant en ville un rôle d'éboueur : un vulgaire cochon domestique.

The pope is dead. Cardinals are beginning to arrive at the Vatican to select his replacement, but one has fled for Malta in search of a document that dates back to the fourth century and Constantine the Great. Former Justice Department operative Cotton Malone is in Italy, on the trail of legendary letters between Winston Churchill and Benito Mussolini that could rewrite history. But someone else is after the same letters, and when Malone obtains and then loses them, he's plunged into a hunt that draws the attention of the legendary Knights of Malta.

In June of 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte's attempts at reclaiming the French Empire are destroyed on the field of Waterloo. With the Bourbon monarchy restored to the throne of France, King Louis XVIII seeks his revenge against many of Napoleon's former generals. While many are sent into exile, the fanatical royalists demand that one in particular pay with his life. That man is Michel Ney, Marshal of France; called by both friend an enemy as "The Bravest of the Brave".