Historical Fiction Science History

Inspired by a true story. In 1825, in a remote Irish valley lying between the mountains and Flesk River of Killarney, three women are brought together by strange and troubling events. Nora Leahy, a widow, has lost her daughter and her husband in the same year and is now burdened with the care of her grandson, Michael. The boy cannot walk or speak, and Nora has kept him hidden from neighbours, who might see in his deformity evidence of supernatural interference.

France, 1918. Nurse Marcelle Marchand has important secrets to keep. Her role as a spy has made her both feared and revered, but it has also put her in extreme danger from the approaching German army. American soldier George Mountcastle feels an instant connection to the young nurse. But in times of war, love must wait. Soon, George and his best friend Philip are fighting for their lives during the Second Battle of the Marne, where George prevents Philip from a daring act that might have won the battle at the cost of his own life.

Enslaved in Kipchak Khanate, Jinghua has lost everything: her home, her family, her freedom...until the kingdom is conquered by enemy forces and she finds herself an unlikely conspirator in the escape of Prince Khalaf and his irascible father across the vast Mongol Empire. On the run, with adversaries on all sides and an endless journey ahead, Jinghua hatches a scheme to use the Kipchaks’ exile to return home, a plan that becomes increasingly fraught as her feelings for Khalaf evolve into an impossible love.

In Edward Whittemore’s masterful and surreal alternate history, a man’s search for answers about his vanished parents propels him on an odyssey from the present into the past, from a bar in the Bronx to Tokyo and Shanghai during the Second World War. Quin, born in China and raised in the Bronx, is orphaned in the closing days of the Second World War when his parents go missing and are presumed dead in Shanghai.

Young, ambitious, and in possession of the Mandate of Heaven, Zhu believes utterly in her own capacity to do anything – endure anything – that will bring her closer to being crowned Emperor. But Zhu isn’t the only one with imperial ambitions. Her neighbor, the former courtesan Madam Zhang, wants the throne for her husband – and her powerful kingdom has the strength and resources to wipe Zhu off the map. The only way for Zhu to defeat Madam Zhang is to gamble everything on a risky alliance with an old enemy: the beautiful, traitorous eunuch general Ouyang.

In a tropical country where shadowy political affairs lurk behind the scenes of its glamorous film industry, three people maneuver inside a high-stakes game of statecraft and espionage: Lillian, a reluctant diplomat serving a fascist nation; Aristide, an expatriate film director running from lost love and a criminal past; and Cordelia, a former cabaret stripper turned legendary revolutionary. Each one harbors dangerous knowledge that can upturn a nation. When their fates collide, machinations are put into play, unexpected alliances are built, and long-held secrets are exposed.

In a remote mountain village, a boy is born gifted with the supernatural skills of his father, once the deadliest assassin of the Tribe. Set in the years before the beginning of Across the Nightingale Floor, Heaven's Net Is Wide by Lian Hearn is the first and last tale, which both closes the circle and introduces new listeners to the fantastical, beautiful and thrilling world of the Otori. It is an epic story of betrayal, revenge, magic and love.

Cameron Thorne and his fiancee Amanda Spencer don't for a second believe the Ark of the Covenant is hidden in a cave in the Arizona desert. But when a militant survivalist leads them to a radioactive replica of the Ark, filled with a mysterious white powder, they begin to wonder if legends of Templar Knights visiting the American Southwest on a secret mission might be true. What is this strange white powder? And is it the key to understanding the true power of both Moses and the sacred Ark of the Covenant?

The Crown and Key Society face their most terrifying villain yet: Gaios, a deranged demigod with the power to destroy Britain. To avenge a centuries-old betrayal, Gaios is hell-bent on summoning the elemental forces of the earth to level London and bury Britain. The Crown and Key Society, a secret league consisting of a magician, an alchemist, and a monster-hunter, is the realm’s only hope—and to stop Gaios, they must gather their full strength and come together as a team, or the world will fall apart.

Lawrence was having a shitty day after he found out his girlfriend and best friend were cheating on him, together. Then a legendary Native American god, Coyote, to be exact, sent him back in time to 1400's North America. Now he's living in the past, kicking ass, and taking names. Rejoin Moon Flower, Freak, and the rest of the crew, as they save history, by rewriting it.

Wien in den Jahren 1910/11 und 1923-25. Im Mittelpunkt von Doderers Großstadtroman steht der Amtsrat und Major a. D. Melzer. Doch nicht nur sein Leben wird hier erzählt. Es sind die kleinen und großen Geschichten, die Dialoge und Reflexionen zahlreicher Akteure aus der Wiener Gesellschaft, die das Besondere dieses Romans ausmachen.

Where did Professor Abner Jefferson go? Can the kids put history back together, find the pieces of the puzzle, and save Professor Abner or will they be stuck in history forever?

One of the best-known Arthurian stories—adapted many times into verse, prose, games, and film. It recounts an adventure undertaken by King Arthur’s famous nephew, Sir Gawain, who is brave and the model of knightly grace. When a mysterious knight in green armor issues a challenge to the Round Table, the gallant Gawain volunteers to do battle for his king, beginning an adventure that explores chivalric tradition, loyalty, and the virtue of forgiveness, as well as alchemical symbolism and the psychological process of individuation.

Este libro revela la parte oculta de la historia del segundo emperador del México independiente: su pasado borrado, las traiciones y manipulaciones de las que fue objeto, y el verdadero propósito detrás de su brevísimo mandato. Además, explora una posibilidad escalofriante: ¿qué ocurriría si su único y distante heredero fuera hoy llamado por un grupo de monarquistas para restablecer el imperio que se vio truncado por la Reforma? Un complot de esa magnitud desestabilizaría al país y supondría una amenaza patente a la soberanía mexicana.

There are monsters roaming the desert and menacing the roads. There are sorcerers, harlots, and gamblers rampant in the city. In a compound in a forest, at the base of a mountain, one man and his family have received a prophecy. There will be a reckoning. There will be a flood. They will survive, but only if they obey the prophecy. Only if they build an ark, where there is no water. Only if they gather all of the creatures of the world. Only if they are faithful. Everyone else? Well, they're going to die.

Imagine if the transatlantic slave trade was reversed. Imagine Africans the masters and Europeans their slaves.... Now meet young Doris, living in a sleepy English cottage. One day she is kidnapped and put aboard a slave ship bound for the New World. On a strange tropical island, Doris is told she is an ugly, stupid savage. Her only purpose in life is to please her mistress. Then, as personal assistant to Bwana, Chief Kaga Konata Katamba I, she sees the horrors of the sugarcane fields. Slaves are worked to death under the blazing sun.

The Eastern Network is owned by the wealthy Tradesmen and Landowners, so uneducated witch Vittoria Gutia isn't about to make any waves. She either works as a lavanda maid, or she and her beloved nephew starve to death.

Following the scandalous revelations about his love life, disgraced media mogul Harry Rose is searching for redemption. His daughters - bright, winsome Eliza and dark, difficult Maria - have taken over the helm at Rose Corp. But while Eliza's on study leave at Oxford, Maria embarks on a drive to rid the British media giant of sleaze. His legacy under threat, Harry wants Maria out and Eliza in. But hanging between Harry and Eliza is the unresolved death of Eliza's mother, Ana.

After Halley's Comet was destroyed in a magical battle in 1759, the backlash separated the entire New World from the Old in an event known as The Sundering. Now isolated from the rest of the globe, America has become a very different place, where magic works and history has been changed forever.

“Short stories have to accomplish a nearly impossible magic trick: to introduce a world often much stranger than our own and make you care about it in a matter of pages,” writes R. F. Kuang in her introduction. “The most important part of this magic trick is just a willingness to get weird.” The stories in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023 are brimming with bizarre and otherworldly premises.