Historical Fiction White

A fully-realized historical thriller in the tradition of James Clavell's Shogun and Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth. One of the most haunting mysteries in American history - The Lost Colony of Roanoke - comes roaring back to life in White Seed, with a compelling cast of characters,

It is the last night before Watson’s second wedding. Holmes tells Watson of his utter vanquishment by an adversary he never met in a tale set in 1880s Germany and featuring Goethe, Beethoven, Karl Benz, and Bertha Benz. By the end of this story, the listener would have found out about Holmes’ role in the invention of the motor car, powered flight, and the mobile phone, as well as his involvement in the discovery of a 10th symphony of Beethoven.

Louisa Hoffman has just endured a humiliating annulment, which has left her bitter and determined never to marry again. Having tarnished her reputation in New York, she flees to the Colorado Territory to live with her sisters, Hannah and Paulina, who have happily married and settled.

Thanks to Royal Jelly, Holmes is a fit 74-year-old, who has lost his interest in bees and returned to detecting, joining forces again with his colleague and friend, Dr. John Hamish Watson, a 75-year-old unfit twice-widower, who hankers after the good old days of derring-do. Together they explore the case of the Kew Gardens Gnomes and their fiery vengeance; the Portobello Pornographer and the reappearance of an old enemy; the Camden Counterfeiter and the theft of Doctor Watson's identity; the Kensington Kidnapper and the hefty price on Mrs Hudson's head; and the Undiscovered Country, in which a successful writer is haunted by his most famous character.

This mystery is part of the famous "Had-I-But-Known School" of mysteries founded by Mary Roberts Rinehart with the 1908 publication of her first work, The Circular Staircase. The story deals with civic corruption, a popular theme of early American mysteries. Stories like this anticipate the hard-boiled school to come. So does Rinehart's realistic style, which does not gloss over life's problems.

A ragged fur peddler arrives at a remote outpost of the Hudson Bay Company in the winter of 1766 with a lump of gold, claiming that there is plenty more like it further north at a place called Ox Lake. The outpost’s chief factor, Magnus Norton, dreams of instant riches and launches a secret and perilous expedition to find the treasure and bring it back. Led by a family of native guides, the party of prospectors includes Norton’s brutish deputy, John Shaw, and Thomas Hearn, the insular and intellectual first mate from the factory’s whaling sloop.

Rachel Lyndon yearns to escape her scandalous past, but her dreams for a better life seem ruined after she buries her fiancé on the Texas plains. Heath Renier has been evading the law by the skin of his teeth for years. Now he's found a new identity as Holden Renshaw, foreman of Dog Creek Ranch. But the arrival of his boss's mail-order bride, now a widow, upsets his fragile peace and threatens to expose his deadly secrets.

Set in an unnamed NZ city in 1953, Fire tells the story of four working-class friends, all employed at Dawsons, one of the country's most glamorous and sophisticated department stores. A historical romance based on the Ballantynes department store fire in 1947 that killed 41 people, most of them store employees trapped in controversial circumstances.

After the tragic death of her beloved, Hester Aspinall vowed never to be ruled by her passions again. Still, she is drawn to her landlord, handsome adventurer Thomas Ramsay - but she doesn't fool herself that a man of his station would look twice at a poor tailor's sister. With the sea for a mistress, Thomas has no intention of entering into matrimony. And yet, he can't get the plain-spoken and desirable Hester out of his mind, even though she's never tried to secure his attentions as other women do.

In an alternate London, the city's Theatre District is a walled area south of the river where an immersive production - the Show - has been running for centuries, growing ever bigger, more sprawling and lavish. The Show is open to anyone who can afford a ticket but the District itself is a closed world. Juliet's mother died when she was a baby. Brought up by her emotionally distant father and even more distant stepmother, she has never felt wanted. It's only when her father passes away that Juliet - now nineteen - learns her birth was registered in the District.

The empire that ruled the world is crumbling, and darkness is falling. Cities burn, armies pillage, and warlords struggle for domination. In the shadow of Rome's fall, the land of Britannia is divided and bleeding. Uther Pendragon and his allies journey to the heart of the dying empire, lead great armies, and forge a fragile alliance, the last hope to preserve the fading light of civilization. Amidst the ruins of Roman power and glory, the free peoples of Britannia make their last stand against the forces of darkness.

Molly Baird is a wealthy debutante in 1887 New York City, searching for love in a society riddled with hypocrisy. In desperation, Molly relies on an old wives’ tale, which states that if she counts 99 white horses, the next unmarried man to tip his hat to her will be her love. But when fate delivers on the horses and a young man tips his hat, she loses him in the crowds of a busy street. However, her father’s financial ruin takes her to live on a Vermont horse farm, where she finds that fate has not deserted her, after all—only the man it has delivered is not the one she wants.

1916. The Russian Empire is crumbling under the weight of defeat in the World War I and the imminent Revolution. Irina Yakovleva is a 17-year-old girl of noble birth living in Moscow. She falls in love with a young and ambitious lawyer Nikolai Rakelov. They marry in the middle of the tumultuous 1917 right before the Bolshevik Revolution. A few months later, Nikolai is murdered by a group of four Bolshevik soldiers while Irina is left alive to be raped and later executed.

Jasmine is not sure she likes the idea of being stuck in Victoria while her father goes to China. But on a field trip to Chinatown, she changes her mind. Passing through a doorway in Fan Tan Alley, she mysteriously finds herself in the early 1880s. Adventure begins with a new friend, a journey to the Fraser Canyon during the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and a search for an ancient amulet. But Jasmine is not the only one searching for the white jade tiger....

The tide of war has turned against the Nazis, but desperation has made them more brutal than ever. After the Gestapo hung members of the White Rose for distributing leaflets. Their father solicits the help from the Edelweiss Pirates to save a Jewish girl in hiding.

One of the most famous pioneers in United States history, Daniel Boone (1734 - 1820) spent most of his life exploring and settling the American frontier. He was instrumental in finding and improving the first wilderness trails between the Carolinas and the west, allowing for the settlement of Kentucky. Later in his life, Boone moved his family west again, leading hundreds of settlers to new homes in Missouri.

From the war-torn streets of Odense to the devastated warzone of South Korea, destiny calls... Nurse Molly Dahl wants to escape the trauma of wartime Denmark by joining the hospital ship, Jutlandia, set for the battlefields of Korea. Yun, an eleven-year-old North Korean girl, flees her village which was destroyed by Napalm, seeking sanctuary from the havoc. Both Molly and Yun abandon their pasts, hopeful for a brighter future in South Korea. However, their journey becomes more treacherous than they could ever have anticipated.

It's 1959, and Judy Cooper, the Black Stiletto, sets out to confront a dangerous gangster known as the heroin king of Harlem, when the teenage daughter of her beloved martial arts instructor ends up a prisoner in an uptown narcotics den. The Stiletto has troubles of her own - a shady filmmaker is threatening to reveal her identity to the world - a close friend of her landlord and substitute father may be in cahoots with the Harlem criminals - she's fighting for racial equality - and she has fallen in love again....

In May 1941, Hitler's Deputy, Rudolf Heβ flew solo to Great Britain. The reason for his flight remained a mystery throughout the rest of the War as he brought no new peace proposals, provided no new insight into Hitler's plans, and did not claim political asylum. In May 1945 and with the war almost at an end, the British Government must decide whether to send the frequently overwrought Heβ back to Germany to face trial on war crimes charges.

In the 17th century, a young man sailing from Venice to Naples is taken prisoner by pirates and delivered to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople. There he is forced into slavery and left in the custody of a brilliant Turkish inventor known as Hoja - 'master' - a man who is his exact double. In the years that follow, the slave instructs his master in Western science and technology, from medicine to pyrotechnics.