Historical Humor

When Hubert Larnaudie invites some fellow residents of his Parisian apartment building to drink an exceptional bottle of 1954 Beaujolais, he has no idea of its special properties. The following morning, Hubert finds himself waking up in 1950s Paris, as do antique restorer Magalie, mixologist Julien, and Airbnb tenant Bob from Milwaukee, who's on his first trip to Europe. After their initial shock, the city of Edith Piaf and An American in Paris begins to work its charm on them.

Harry Flashman: the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown's schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross, has three main talents - horsemanship, facility with foreign languages, and fornication. A reluctant military hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the 19th century, despite trying his utmost to escape them all. Flash Harry is back! The first new Flashman novel since Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, this is the long-awaited new installment of the Flashman Papers.

Welcome to the Palace movie theater! Now Showing: Philandering husbands, ghostly sidekicks, and a murder or two. When Nora Paige’s movie-star husband leaves her for his latest co-star, she flees Hollywood to take refuge in San Francisco at the Palace, a historic movie theater that shows the classic films she loves. There she finds a band of misfit film buffs who care about movies (almost) as much as she does. She also finds some shady financial dealings and the body of a murdered stranger. Oh, and then there’s Trixie, the lively ghost of a 1930’s usherette who appears only to Nora and...

In this very funny audiobook, Bobs gives us his opinions on everything from fireworks to frogs, cats to Christmas, in his own words. This collection of his letters takes us through a year in the life of Bobs, the adored pet terrier owned by national treasure Enid Blyton.

A #1 Kindle Bestseller in Time Travel and Victorian Romance! MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE In 1880’s Galveston, dairy farmer Jake Blarney is left devastated when his wife betrays and leaves him, drowning in the seas, leaving Jake with twin baby daughters to raise. Angry and forlorn, Jake pens a message in a bottle beseeching the Fates to bring him a new bride and hurls the bottle into the sea. But never does he dream that Destiny will summon him a new bride from across the vast gulf of time! BRIDE ACROSS TIME In modern-day Galveston, college professor Priscilla Pemberton is a forsaken bride, hurt ...

A Small Town, Absurdist, Dark Humor from the Twisted Mind of Count Fathom. A dying man delivers, with his last breath, a message to a tavern full of drunks, in a storm. Struck by lightning, this modern prophet says he speaks with the stars and beyond. His message he sets in the hearts of the new apostles. They, in turn, spread the message to build a brand around the Martyr, bringing unity, hope, and financial prosperity to the town, and to themselves most of all. The drunks spill their cups in a mad dash down fortune’s path, as greed leads the town astray. Cursed with the common self-...

It's 1942, and war is raging in Europe and in the Pacific. The Japanese army is on Australia's doorstep, and the small coastal Queensland town of Maryborough is on full war footing. What they are not prepared for is the arrival in the town of a troupe of incompetent actors whose unjustifiably self-confident leader, William Power, is determined to bring his daring production of Titus Andronicus to the barbarians of rural Australia. Unfortunately for the Power Players, the only gift William Power has is a capacity for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

At the end of World War Il, most of the veterans who valiantly defended our country's freedoms left the military and returned home. A few of these gallant men, though, chose to remain in the service, and they found themselves in Japan—along with those few who stayed in uniform because they had nowhere else to go. When war breaks out in Korea, a new generation of men and women arrive—either drafted or volunteering to fill the empty ranks left by the departing servicemen. As the war rages, a different dynamic starts to take place in Japan, one that will shape and mold the future lives of ...

An ambitious noble and his three serving men travel through the Irish countryside in the stifling summer of 1348, using the advantage of the plague which has collapsed society to buy up large swathes of property and land. They come upon Nobber, a tiny town, whose only living habitants seem to be an egotistical bureaucrat, his volatile wife, a naked blacksmith and a beautiful Gaelic hostage. Meanwhile, a band of marauding Gaels are roaming around, using the confusion of the sickness to pillage and reclaim lands that once belonged to them.

Edi and Ash have been best friends for over forty years, a bond formed by a lifetime of memories. Since childhood they have seen each other through life's milestones: stealing vodka from their parents, REM concerts, unexpected Scottish wakes, marriages, infertility, children. As Ash notes, 'Edi's memory is like the back-up hard drive for mine.' When Edi is diagnosed with the final stages of terminal ovarian cancer, she makes the painstaking decision to leave behind her husband and son to move to a hospice down the road from Ash.

A trio of royal siblings brave the wild frontiers to secure their place in history, setting the stage for a zany adventure filled with chaos, danger, and unexpected love in a fantasy kingdom. When the Emperor of Jordinia tasks his two underachieving nephews to spearhead an expedition to the untamed North Isles, the impish and audacious Duke Andrew leaps at the chance to make history and stand out among his four brothers. While he manages to convince his shy and reclusive brother Ludwig to join him, he is less enthusiastic about their spirited sister tagging along. Duchess Johannah, ...

Harry Flashman: the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown's schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross, has three main talents - horsemanship, facility with foreign languages and fornication. A reluctant military hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the 19th century, despite trying his utmost to escape them all. What caused the Indian Mutiny?

Behind every myth there is a spark of truth.... There's nothing special about Ben Garston. Or so he'd have you believe. He won't tell you, for instance, that he's also known as Red Ben. Or that the world of myth and legend is more real than you think. Because it's his job to keep all that a secret. But now a centuries-old rivalry has resurfaced, and the delicate balance between his world and ours is about to be shattered.

This is the story of a drug deal gone bad. Having committed the crime of selling a potent poison to a desperate youth, a destitute apothecary must decide how to spend his ill-gained fortune. Resolving to start his career afresh, he flees to the city of Verona to set up a new shop of medicinal healing and alchemical discovery. Plans go awry when he finds himself in the middle of a woeful tragedy he had unwittingly helped to cause.

Robin "Puck" Blackthorn is young, rich, handsome as sin, and delights in the life he lives. A single stolen kiss at a masquerade ball should be nothing more than a lark, but that explosive embrace has unexpected consequences when he is suddenly thrust into helping a beautiful damsel in distress. Regina Hackett hadn't wanted to attend the masquerade with her cousin. When that cousin disappears, she turns to Puck for help, only to realize they've stumbled onto a dark and dangerous secret that threatens not only her cousin, but Regina's entire world. As the two embark on a dangerous journey ...

Twenty years after ruling the halls of her suburban Chicago high school, Lissy Ryder doesn't understand why her glory days ended. Back then, she was worshipped...beloved...feared. Present day, not so much. She's been pink-slipped from her high-paying job, dumped by her husband and kicked out of her condo. Now, at 37, she's struggling to start a business out of her parents' garage and sleeping under the hair-band posters in her old bedroom. Lissy finally realizes karma is the only bitch bigger than she was.

Flashman must choose - politcs in London or slave trading in Africa - not that it matters really in this hilarious third installement of the Flashman Papers. When Flashman was inveigled into a game of pontoon with Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck, he was making an unconscious choice about his own future - would it lie in the House of Commons or the West African slave trade? Was there, for that matter, very much difference?

The true test for surviving war lies in the mind, not on the battlefield. Inspired by the author’s own experiences of US military operations during the Vietnam War, Boot is a debut literary novel that charts the journey of marine George Orwell Hill, known affectionately as G.O. by his brothers-in-arms, as he comes to grips with the psychological impacts of war in the jungles and rice paddies of Southeast Asia.

New York socialite Kit McNair decides to host an impromptu dinner party at the home of her friend, Jimmy Wilson, to cheer him up following his divorce. What could possibly go wrong?

Meet Samuel: stalled writer, bored teacher at a local college, obsessive player of online video games. He hasn't seen his mother, Faye, in decades, not since she abandoned her family when he was a boy. Now she has suddenly reappeared, having committed an absurd politically motivated crime that electrifies the nightly news, beguiles the Internet, and inflames a divided America. The media paints Faye as a radical hippie with a sordid past, but as far as Samuel knows, his mother was an ordinary girl who married her high school sweetheart.