Historical Fiction Well

'Tis the season when lovers' eyes shine by the light of a blazing Yule log, when a quick kiss is shared beneath the mistletoe, and when love is the most splendid gift of all. Savor the beauty and passion of Christmas with two heartwarming stories by outstanding Regency author Elizabeth Mansfield. From A Sneeze on Tuesday: A broken engagement and a miserable cold were not in Elinor's holiday plans. But her spirited heart found its own remedy: a true and lasting love.

Renowned inventor Peter Sanbourne - working on Project Blue Arrow for the navy - heads the school's new engineering program, and literature professor Concordia Wells prepares to leave to marry David Bradley. The new routine soon goes awry when a bludgeoned body - clutching a torn scrap of the only blueprint for Blue Arrow - is discovered on the property Concordia and David were planning to call home.

Popular Kansas author Linda K. Hubalek continues the story of a Swedish immigrant family featured in the Butter in the Well series with the second book Prairie Bloomin'. Prairie Bloomin' features the 1889 to 1900 diary of daughter Alma Swenson, as she grows up on the farm her parents homesteaded. Even though born on the same farm in two different centuries, the main character of Prairie Bloomin', Alma Swenson Runneberg, and the author shared uncanny similarities while growing up in the Smoky Valley region of central Kansas.

Esme Silver has always taken care of her charming ne'er-do-well father, Ike Silver, a small-time crook with dreams of making it big with Bugsy Siegel. Devoted to her daddy, Esme is often his "date" at the racetrack, where she amiably fetches the hot dogs while keeping an eye to the ground for any cast-off tickets that may be winners. In awe of her mother, Dina Wells, Esme is more than happy to be the foil who gets the beautiful Dina into meetings and screen tests with some of Hollywood's greats. When Ike gets an opportunity to move to Vegas life takes an unexpected turn for Esme.

In 1903, Louisa, an impoverished young widow goes to Glastonbury to care for her ailing aunt. One day while sitting beside the ruined abbey church, she experiences a vision from the past of a woman who was guardian of one of the three sacred wells on the Isle of Avalon - the red and white wells situated at the foot of the Tor are known to this day, but the black well, which reveals the future, has lain unrecognized for centuries. Further visions follow, revealing the lives of the women whose gift of seership marked them out as keepers of the dark well.

This metaphysical novel incorporates mystery and problem-solving, but also adds a dash of spice. The prologue introduces an era just before Hitler has just been made the ruler of Germany, when Queen Mary of Teck christens her ship of the same name, and where a baby born in Louisiana faces an uncertain future without her mother. Fast forward to 2020, in the first chapter, some hours before a predicted apocalypse, when kindergartner Alana Miceli falls into a trance for the first time. In her vision, she's wrenched out of her familiar school setting and into the ship's Secret Spice Cafe.

When a killer crashes the honeymoon, three’s a crowd...It’s the summer of 1899, and Professor Concordia Wells - now Mrs. David Bradley - eagerly anticipates their honeymoon in the Hamptons. She has one errand along the way, to visit a former student seeking advice. About a love interest, no doubt. If only it were that benign. The young lady, now employed as a switchboard operator, inadvertently eavesdropped on a murder plot involving the high finance world of the Stock Exchange Luncheon Club. How to notify the police without losing her position?

The inevitable happens- time moves on and we grow older. Instead of our own little children surrounding us, grandchildren take their place. Each new generation lives in a new age of technology, not realizing the changes the generations before theirs has seen- and improved for them.

When their father disappears and their mother dies, child siblings Rose and David Wells face the cruel streets of 1844 Buffalo, New York. Daring to dream beyond their wretched circumstance, they escape a brutal slave master, change their names to Deacon and Marie Hickman, and begin a new life on the shores of Lake Erie in the care and nurture of Ken and Lorna Hunsaker.

Suddenly guardian to twins, Viscount Dominic Kelbourne is luckily betrothed to a suitable lady - until she elopes. With no time to woo, Dominic decides to marry his fiancée's unconventional sister. Torie isn't perfect, but their kisses are so passionate that society thinks he's actually chosen her. She doubts Dominic is capable of love, let alone respect, but as their heated debates turn into something more, Torie begins to imagine a life as a wife, not a nanny.

Growing up with all of the modern comforts of Sydney in the 1950s and '60s, young Jocelyn joins the glamorous life of an Ansett hostess flying around Australia’s vast country. On a holiday with a friend on a cattle station in the Kimberley, Jocelyn is awestruck by the magic, color, and rugged remoteness of the Kimberley landscape. It is not only the Kimberley that captures Jocelyn’s attention; stockman Timothy Doran has ridden into her life.

Set in the waning years of the Cold War, a stunning debut novel about a trio of young Armenians that moves from the Soviet Union, across Europe, to Southern California, and at its center, one of the most tragic cataclysms in twentieth-century history - the Armenian Genocide - whose traumatic reverberations will have unexpected consequences on all three lives.

Raised among London's most notorious criminals, a twist of fate landed Adelaide Frampton in the bright ballrooms of Mayfair, where she masquerades as a quiet wallflower-so plain and unassuming that no one realizes she's the Matchbreaker...using her superior skills as a thief to help brides avoid the altar.

Justine Parker is a hopeless romantic who has long been obsessed with the Tudor period. Working in a magnificent stately home that once belonged to the dashing adventurer Sir William de Beauvais, she often daydreams about the lavish balls and grandeur of Tudor life. But when a freak electrical storm suddenly catapults her back in time, she discovers the harsh reality of Tudor England—a time of perilous accusations, ruthless witch hunts, and deadly punishments.

After years of living as London's brightest scandal, Lady Sesily Talbot has embraced the reputation and the freedom that comes with the title. No one looks twice when she lures a gentleman into the dark gardens beyond a Mayfair ballroom...and no one realises those trysts are not what they seem. No one, that is, but Caleb Calhoun, who has spent years trying not to notice his best friend's beautiful, brash, brilliant sister. If you ask him, he's been a saint about it, considering the way she looks at him.

Edmund Winters' life has been laid out for him by his ambitious father: he had to do whatever it takes to get away from his trade-bound roots and prove himself every inch a gentleman. If that requires marrying the haughty daughter of a local grandee, a loveless match is a small price to pay for acceptance by the ton. His youthful rebellion long forgotten, he is now planning to carry his late father's plans out. However, these are thrown into disarray when the living, breathing, and captivatingly beautiful reminder of that youthful rebellion arrives in Morwood Hall.

Lucy’s Chantress magic will make her the most powerful - and most hunted - girl in England. “Sing, and the darkness will find you.” This warning has haunted fifteen-year-old Lucy ever since she was eight and shipwrecked on a lonely island. Lucy’s guardian, Norrie, has lots of rules, but the most important is that Lucy must never sing. Not ever. Now, it is 1667, Lucy is fifteen, and on All Hallows’ Eve, Lucy hears a tantalizing melody on the wind. She can’t help but sing - and soon she is swept away into the darkness.

Iris Caldwell and Nell Ryland were never meant to be friends. From two very different backgrounds, one the heir to the Caldwell estate, the other a humble vicar's daughter. Both have their secrets, both have their pasts, but they each find solace with one another and soon their futures become irrevocably intertwined. Until May Day 1912, a day that haunts Missensham. The day two girls disappeared. The day the girls were murdered. Now, many years later, old footage has emerged which shows that Iris Caldwell may not have died on that spring morning.

In 1465 a simple pocketful of herbs could get you burned at the stake, but Luccia Alimenti, daughter of one of the legendary women doctors called Salernistas, travels Europe secretly distributing medical texts to midwives and herbalists. Despite dodging the Inquisition and battling the Plague with her beloved Irish godmother, Luccia finds love as well as heartbreak. Pushed to the edge, however, she must use her skill as an archer to rescue women being taken to the pyre.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer of science fiction stories and novels and is frequently credited as being the father of science fiction. The Red Room is the account of the terrifying nocturnal experiences of a young man who volunteers to spend a night in the haunted red room at Lorraine Castle.