Historical Humor

When a woman yearns to be reunited with an aviator she met in WWI, fun-loving 1920s detectives and their cool cats pounce on the case. Praise for Magical Cool Cats Mysteries: “FUN! Step back into the days when you needed a password to get that drink, veterans had come home from the Great War, and the electric double decker trolley was the Bee's Knees of public transportation. Travel along with a well polished debutante, a rough hewn veteran pilot, and the deaf Persian cat, who is actually the brains of this detective agency, as the humans try to keep up! “The Magical Cool Cats Mystery ...

Young Kit Kellan has led a rough-and-tumble life - knocking around the Vega System in his youth as a tiger hunter, a brawler, and a bouncer in a bar. But his real fight is just beginning. Summarily expelled from the prestigious Terra University, he is taken into custody by an agent of the System Bureau of Investigation (SBI). Kit's crime: thinking too much and thinking too well. He’s not in custody for long, however. Snatched from captivity by the People’s Revolutionary Society, Kit sets out an epic adventure that will take him to the farthest reaches of the universe.

The setting is Seattle's Lake City neighborhood during the 2001 holiday season. In the wake of the 9/11 tragedy and at the peak of Seattle's first wave of tech-boom gentrification - a wave that never quite made it to his neighborhood - Lane Bueche schemes how to win back his wife (and her trust fund). In his childhood bedroom in his mother's decrepit old house, the idealistic but self-serving striver Lane licks his wounds and hatches a plot.

On the outskirts of a small seaside town, Lia and her friend Anna work serious hours running their restored cafe. The summer season is upon them, they have Anna's wedding to plan, and Lia's ex-boyfriend seems not to understand it's over. When a gorgeous stranger taps on Lia's window near midnight and turns out not to be a serial killer, she feels it's a promising sign. But no one comes without a past, and his arrives in the form of a four-year-old son. Just as Lia decides to give things a try, problems from her own past rear up.

A great Australian yarn about a bold Australian outback adventure belonging to another time in another world, inspired by a true story. The happy routine life of two Perth boys is shattered one November day in 1950 when they are falsely accused of theft. With fabricated evidence mounting against them they decide to run away from their homes and families to avoid prosecution and pooling their meager pocket money they back the winner of the Melbourne Cup and fund an escape.

Summer 1989: Gunther Fahnstiel, once a tough cop who wasn't averse to taking a little side money from a certain madam, has just escaped the dementia ward of his Wichita nursing home. He's not exactly sure where he wants to go, but wherever it is, it has to do with the bag full of cash belonging to the man he accidentally backed over with his RV in 1979. During his search, Gunther begins to relive the violent fallout of that madam's sex lottery 40 years ago. As Gunther's memories unravel, his past and present will collide in a devastating reckoning.

"Michaels truly shines in this gem of a historical romance rich in witty dialogue and intriguing political maneuverings.” -- Review by Patty Engelmann American Library Association Perry Shepherd, Earl of Brentwood, presents himself to Society as a bit of a fribble; carefree, fairly indolent, and bored to flinders by anything remotely political. But appearances can deceive, because scratch that polished surface and the real Perry appears, an invaluable and rather ruthless covert asset to England during the late war with Bonaparte. Perry ignores the reappearance of Princess Caroline, ...

Already sold in eight countries around the world, these nine energized, irreverent stories from Nathan Englander introduce an astonishing new talent.

His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, KG, KT, OM, GBE has been at the forefront of British public life since he married Princess Elizabeth in 1947. In the 70 years since, his wit (and the occasional 'gaffe') has continued to endear him to the nation, as he travelled the world taking his unique and charmingly British sense of humour to its far-flung corners. In the year in which the Prince has stepped down from his royal duties, this joyous and timely book celebrates his wry humour and supremely wicked wit.

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.

RITA Award winner Melody Carlson's sassy tale highlights the healing influence of family, friends, faith - and unexpected love - on a 31-year-old single gal who's down but not out. The day she dons her Valentino boots, Cassidy's life starts spinning out of control. Her boss fires her, her boyfriend dumps her, and someone steals her identity. And binging on chocolate doesn't help.

A Regency Time Travel Romance from New York Times bestselling author Kasey Michaels. All American book editor Cassandra Kelley wanted to do was escape the tour group slowly making it’s way through the Tower of London by slipping down a convenient hallway. Once the group moved on, she could find a bus and return to the London Book Fair. It wasn’t as if she was doing anything too terribly wrong. She certainly didn’t expect to feel herself drawn to the winding staircase she encountered, but she couldn’t resist a slight detour. Once she reached the small room at the base of the stairs a...

1870s, Sicily. Much to the displeasure of Vigàta's stubborn populace, the town has just been unified under the Kingdom of Italy. They're now in the hands of a new government they don't understand and definitely don't like. Eugenio Bortuzzi has been named prefect for Vigàta, a regional representative from the Italian government to oversee the town. But the rowdy and unruly Sicilians don't care much for this rather pompous mainlander nor the mediocre opera he's hell-bent on producing in their new municipal theater.

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 ...

In China, in 1860, a lot of people mistakenly put their trust in Flashman: the English vicar’s daughter with her cargo of opium; Lord Elgin in search of an intelligence chief; the Emperor’s ravishing concubine, seeking a champion in her struggles for power; and Szu-Zhan, the female bandit colossus, as practised in the arts of love as in the arts of war. They were not to know that behind his Victoria Cross, Harry Flashman was a base coward and a charlatan. They took him at face value. And he took them, for all he could, while China seethed through the bloodiest civil war in history.

Athens, 460 B.C. Life's tough for Nicolaos, sole investigating agent in Athens. His girlfriend's left him and his boss wants to fire him. But when an Athenian official is murdered, Pericles has no choice but to put Nico on the job. The case takes Nico, with a beautiful slave girl, to the land of Ionia within the Persian Empire. The Persians will execute him on the spot if they think he's a spy.

Tom Sawyer's and Huckleberry Finn's adventures are legendary, but what about the story you haven't heard? In 1860, eleven-year-old Becky Thatcher is the new girl in town, determined to have adventures like she promised her brother Jon before he died. Before long, she joins the boys at school in a bet to steal from the Widow Douglas, and Becky convinces her new best friend, Amy Lawrence, to join her. But the theft doesn't go as planned, and Widow Douglas ends up being unfairly accused of grave robbing as a result.

Donald Cameron, a young Scotsman, is commissioned to write a book on the outsider's view of the English. He sets about his task with enthusiasm, encountering along the way an array of richly comical characters including civil servants, newspaper editors, minor poets, a glamourous movie star, politicians, and many more. This satire of English eccentricity has become a classic of 20th century literature.

This humorous and factual history of five lads who grew up to become Founding Fathers brings the early days of American history to life with sass and substance, in Lane Smith's inimitable style.

The accidental governess...After her livelihood slips through her fingers, Alexandra Mountbatten takes on an impossible post: transforming a pair of wild orphans into proper young ladies. However, the girls don’t need discipline. They need a loving home. Try telling that to their guardian, Chase Reynaud. The ladies of London have tried - and failed - to make him settle down. Somehow, Alexandra must reach his heart...without risking her own.