Historical Humor

When his teacher sets the class a History project, Sam cannot choose which bit of History he prefers, so decides to do all of it. His version of History is a rumbustious collection of half remembered facts, assembled roughly in the right order, and glued together with alarmingly confident misunderstanding. Sam takes us from Ancient Egypt right up to Last Week with the flair of a bright eyed nine year old.

“One of the wildest, funniest, and most memorable trips ever dreamed up by a novelist. Wagoner is a master story-teller.” Chicago Tribune It’s 1859, and twenty-year-old Ike Bender, eager to escape the yoke of his brutal father, runs away from his family’s hard-scrabble Nebraska farm with dreams of making his fortune in the gold-rush country around Pike’s Peak, where his older brother Kit has already fled. Ike sets out alone, armed with only his home-made wheelbarrow, a side of bacon, an old pick-ax, a few dollars, and the love of plucky, head-strong teenager Millicent Slaughter to...

Victoria Caldwell expects one thing from her children – that they live a life that makes them happy. So why, whenever everyone is on the verge of happiness, do things always go wrong? Bella Caldwell has no intention of hiding away because her husband turned out to be a bigamist and their marriage a sham. Every day, she forces herself out of bed to keep up the pretence that she’s enjoying life. But will she allow George Bristow to manipulate her again and drag her into his murky world? How will this damaged young woman cope when she’s faced with evil at a level she’s never before ...

Brant's always had trouble with the ladies... ...becoming the Wizard's Apprentice is helping...a bit! Working at Burke and Dunne to pay for college, Brant had always considered the curiosity shop a fun place, where he could unwind. Following the death of one of it's owners, though, things get somewhat more complicated. Dutch Dunne, the surviving owner, seemes to want Brant to be his apprentice...The Wizard's Apprentice. Is the old codger full of it? Brant thinks the downhill slide to dementia is accelerating for his beloved boss, but that was before weird things started to happen to him. Is...

Contains books three and four of the Richard Jackson Saga, a coming-of-age adventure series: Hollywood and In the Movies.

Gretel has never had any time for sorcerers, considering them nothing more than show-offs with questionable fashion sense. It is with some reluctance and a deal of grumpiness, then, that she agrees to look into the matter of a murdered magician. All that is left of him is a grisly remnant, which the police quack confirms is the murdered man’s appendix. What has become of the rest of him is baffling the local constabulary, the Sorcerers’ Society, and, not least, the hapless trickster’s widow.

Maxine Tarnow is running a nice little fraud investigation business on the Upper West Side, chasing down different kinds of small-scale con artists. She used to be legally certified but her license got pulled a while back, which has actually turned out to be a blessing because now she can follow her own code of ethics - carry a Beretta, do business with sleazebags, hack into people's bank accounts - without having too much guilt about any of it. Otherwise, just your average working mom - two boys in elementary school, an off-and-on situation with her sort of semi-ex-husband Horst - till Maxine starts looking into the finances of a computer-security firm....

June 1957. One hot afternoon in the backwaters of the Deep South, a young black farmer named Tucker Caliban salts his fields, shoots his horse, burns his house, and heads north with his wife and child. His departure sets off an exodus of the state’s entire black population, throwing the established order into brilliant disarray. Told from the points of view of the white residents who remained, A Different Drummer stands, decades after its first publication in 1962, as an extraordinary and prescient triumph of satire and spirit.

Tales of My Ancestors is like watching the History Channel broadcast via "The Twilight Zone." It will take you on a journey through time with historical figures like Bat Masterson, Queen Elizabeth, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Cochise, Saint Margaret of Scotland, and players from the last Chicago Cubs team to win a World Series. You'll be there to witness the Salem Witch Trials, the Civil War, the signing of the Magna Carta, and the first steps onto colonial American soil. You'll run into William the Conqueror and a pale horse of death, learn how Shakespeare might have been inspired to ...

In his eagerly anticipated sequel to Jeeves and the King of Clubs, Ben Schott leads Jeeves and Wooster on another elegantly uproarious escapade. From the mean streets of Mayfair to the scheming spires of Cambridge, we encounter a joyous cast of characters: chiseling painters and criminal bookies, eccentric philosophers and dodgy clairvoyants, appalling poets and pocket dictators, vexatious aunts and their vicious hounds.

It is 1860, and while China seethes through the bloodiest civil war in history, and the British and French armies hack their way to the heart of the Forbidden City, Harry Flashman hoodwinks them all. Once again, that supreme anti-hero of the Victorian era, the one and only Harry Flashman, is ready to rise to the occasion no matter what depths of dishonor he must plumb. This is the inimitable Flashman at his very worst. And, as all Flashman fans know, that means he's at his irresistible best in this, his most exotic and erotic, uninhibited and hilarious adventure yet.

Author Christine Coulson spent twenty-five years writing for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her final project was to write wall labels for the museum’s new British Galleries. During that time, she dreamt of using The Met’s strict label format to describe people as intricate works of art. The result is this “jewel box of a novel” (Kirkus Reviews) that imagines a privileged 20th-century woman as an artifact—an object prized, collected, and critiqued.

This novel centers on the figure of Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a member of the dying class of the landed gentry, who spends most of his time lying in bed gazing at life in an apathetic daze, encouraged by his equally lazy servant Zakhar and routinely swindled by his acquaintances. But this torpid existence comes to an end when, spurred on by his crumbling finances, the love of a woman, and the reproaches of his friend, the hardworking Schtoltz, Oblomov finds that he must engage with the real world and face up to his commitments.

If only Flashman had got on with his dinner and ignored the handkerchief dropped by a flirtatious hussy in a Calcutta hotel... well, American history might have been different, a disastrous civil war might have been avoided, and Flash Harry himself would have been spared one of the most hair-raising adventures of his misspent life. If only... but alas, the arch-rotter of the Victorian age could never resist the lure of a pretty foot.

London, 1664. Twenty years after the English revolution, the monarchy has been restored, and Charles II sits on the throne. The men who conspired to kill his father are either dead or disappeared. Baltasar “Balty” St. Michel is 24 and has no skills and no employment. He gets by on handouts from his brother-in-law Samuel Pepys, an officer in the king’s navy. Fed up with his needy relative, Pepys offers Balty a job in the New World. He is to track down two missing judges who were responsible for the execution of the last king, Charles I.

But when Claire arrives in Cripple Creek, she realizes there are different definitions of adventure. As sickness wreaks havoc on her family, Claire suddenly finds herself an all-day caregiver. Her brief moments of relief come from her uncle Patrick’s handsome farmhand, Henry Adam. The connection between them is undeniable, and Claire is falling fast. But when Henry’s past come back to haunt him, Claire’s new world is turned upside down and she faces losing Henry forever. Only Claire’s faith in God will keep her going and give her the strength to fight for Henry’s very life and his...

It is the dawn of the twentieth century when the beautiful, budding feminist Katherine Dexter falls in love with Stanley McCormick, son of a millionaire inventor. The two wed, but before the marriage is consummated, Stanley experiences a nervous breakdown and is diagnosed as a schizophrenic sex maniac. Locked up for the rest of his life at Riven Rock, the family's California mansion, Stanley is treated by a series of confident doctors determined to cure him.

Everyone’s heard of Nostradamus. No one’s heard of Philibert Montmorency. One was a legend. The other, not so much.... A newly discovered Nostradamus prophecy has taken the internet by storm thanks to "The Oblivion Doctrine", a group of online conspiracy theorists. Apparently the end is nigh. And in case anyone’s interested, nigh is definitely a Tuesday. Doctor Ally Oldfield, professor of Medieval Languages, is summoned to Lyon for a second opinion. She’s not happy about it. But then again she’s rarely happy about anything.

When London journalist Eleanor-Rigby Donovan receives an anonymous letter alluding to a crime committed by her deceased mother, her life is turned upside down. It points her to a bar on the Baltimore Harbor, where she finds a stranger who has received the same mysterious letter about his own mother. Together, Eleanor-Rigby and this young man, George-Harrison Collins, embark on a quest through the shadowy past of the Stanfields, a moneyed Maryland family full of unimaginable secrets.

Ravaged At the Party! Be the first to read Lakelyn's Forced By Strangers ~ Book 4 Excerpt: How did I get here… alone in the dark basement with three hot strangers and no clothes… not even a bra… or panties? Well, I could say it all started with a party invitation, but I have a feeling it started before then. It didn’t get underway, though, until I arrived at my best friend’s house that evening. The night promised to be unforgettable... The party was going full blast. People laughing and talking – and drinking. Some of them mingling. Lots of flirting. Music pulsating, beat ...