Saga World

Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara’s family is in terrible danger: her fifteen-year-old son, Abel, has disappeared, and her youngest daughter, Jasmin, is confined in a basement to prevent being pressed into service at the comfort stations. Her eldest daughter Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day.

Tuscany, 1943. Stranded in war-ravaged Italy, Beatrice’s dream of an escapist year teaching English is shattered. Granted shelter at the Villa delle Colombe, she seeks refuge in Francesca and Edoardo’s beautiful walled garden, hidden from the outside world, with an elaborate cypress maze at its heart. But Beatrice is not the only one seeking an escape here. Francesca has brought children to the safety of the house, as well as other adults, all of them seeking sanctuary on the estate with its mysterious maze.

The Colley family is made of modest farmers in the Missouri Ozarks. Although Southerners, the Colleys try to remain neutral, a fact ignored by the Union militia who confiscate their livestock, burn their farm, and arrest their daughter, Adair, on charges of “enemy collaboration”. Yet as this innocent young woman soon discovers, fate can have a double edge. While imprisoned, she falls in love with her interrogator, a Union major who helps her escape.

Mavra Chang was once a master criminal, notorious throughout the galaxy. But for 11 long years she has been trapped in a nonhuman body on the Well World - the master control planet for the universe, where untold numbers of strange races exist, separated by barriers erected by the mysterious, vanished race that built the Well World billions of years ago. Orbiting the planet is a planetoid concealing Obie, a supercomputer that could restore Mavra Chang to her original form - if she can reach it. Unfortunately, the only spaceship on the planet is hidden in the northern hemisphere, a place no living creature can survive.

The new galactic trade network that will fund the Free Fleet's operations is beginning to grow, and soon will begin operations. But if operations are not secure, it could threaten the safety of the entire galaxy . . . and beyond. Only one, very unlikely hero, can protect the galaxy against potential disaster. And he needs help.

From the shining towers of Silvermoon to the sulfurous Blackrock Mountain to the white stone castles of Stormwind, the Eastern Kingdoms are vast and full of wonder. Every corner of the majestic isle contains countless stories, treasures, and more than a few secrets that some would prefer stay buried.

Edward Rutherfurd has enthralled millions of people with his grand, sweeping historical sagas that tell the history of a famous place over multiple generations. Now, in China: The Novel, Rutherfurd takes listeners into the rich and fascinating milieu of the Middle Kingdom. The story begins in 1839, at the dawn of the First Opium War, and follows Chinese history through Mao's Cultural Revolution and up to the present day. Rutherfurd chronicles the rising and falling fortunes of members of Chinese, British, and American families, as they negotiate the tides of history.

In 1866, with the country barely recovered from the Civil War, new war breaks out on the western frontier - a clash of cultures between a young, ambitious nation and the Native tribes who have lived on the land for centuries. Colonel Henry Carrington arrives in Wyoming’s Powder River Valley to lead the US Army in defending the opening of a new road for gold miners and settlers. Carrington intends to build a fort in the middle of critical hunting grounds, the home of the Lakota.

In the heyday of the British Raj, 11-year-old Anahita, from a noble but impoverished family, forms a lifelong friendship with the headstrong Princess Indira, the privileged daughter of rich Indian royalty. Becoming the princess's official companion, Anahita accompanies her friend to England just before the outbreak of the Great War. There, she meets the young Donald Astbury - reluctant heir to the magnificent, remote Astbury Estate - and his scheming mother.

'Lois and Wilma are proud of their father's brand-new gold Cadillac and excited that the family will be driving it all the way from Ohio to Mississippi. But as they travel deeper into the rural South, there are no admiring glances for the shiny new car; only suspicion and anger for the black man behind the wheel. For the first time in their lives, Lois and her sister know what it's like to feel scared because of the color of their skin.

The ashes of the Great Cleansing have barely settled, and Elara’s Bloom is a fragile ember fighting for survival. Overseer Valerius, his resolve hardened by defeat, unleashes insidious new weapons: a life-draining Blight and subterranean drills aimed at Xylos’s very heart. While Kael, Lyra, and their companions undertake a perilous quest across poisoned wastes to find a legendary Nexus Point capable of rekindling Elara's fading song, the Core herself must delve deeper, transforming her struggle into a silent, subterranean war. Ancient secrets awaken, new alliances are forged with stone-...

It is 1914, and the world has been on the brink of war so often many New Yorkers treat the subject with only passing interest. Eliza Ferriday is thrilled to be traveling to St. Petersburg with Sofya Streshnayva, a cousin of the Romanovs. Eliza embarks on the trip of a lifetime to see the splendors of Russia. But when Austria declares war on Serbia, Eliza escapes back to America, while Sofya and her family flee to their country estate. In need of domestic help, they hire the local fortune-teller’s daughter, Varinka, unknowingly bringing intense danger into their household.

San Francisco, 1938: A world’s fair is preparing to open on Treasure Island, a war is brewing overseas, and the city is alive with possibilities. Talented Grace, traditional Helen, and defiant Ruby, three young women from very different backgrounds, meet by chance at the exclusive and glamorous Forbidden City nightclub.

The first novel in The Century Trilogy, it follows the fates of five interrelated families - American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh - as they move through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage.

In the tradition of epic novels like Exodus and Cast a Giant Shadow, Isaac’s Beacon is a sweeping historical tale based on the real events of Israel’s founding - bringing alive the power and complexities of the birth of the Jewish state out of the ashes of the Holocaust. Best-selling author David L. Robbins, called “the Homer of World War II”, turns his mastery of the historical novel to another defining moment of the 20th century: the birth of the state of Israel.

Sara Schönflies, a young Jewish woman from a line of gifted tailors and seamstresses, finds her world shattered by the rise of the Nazi regime. When Sara and her sisters are transferred to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, their talent becomes a lifeline. Their survival hinges on sewing beautiful dresses for the wives of SS officers and Nazi dignitaries. Amidst the horrors and suffering, Sara's determination, her sisters' unwavering courage, unyielding defiance, and the unexpected friendship with a member of the Sonderkommando become beacons of hope.

In early 1943, Magda Ritter's parents send her to relatives in Bavaria, hoping to keep her safe from the Allied bombs strafing Berlin. Young German women are expected to do their duty - working for the Reich or marrying to produce strong, healthy children. After an interview with the civil service, Magda is assigned to the Berghof, Hitler's mountain retreat. Only after weeks of training does she learn her assignment: she will be one of several young women tasting the Führer's food, offering herself in sacrifice to keep him from being poisoned.

Called the brandy of the gods by Victor Hugo, Cognac is a universal symbol of refinement and quality. In the first comprehensive history of this celebrated drink, Kyle Jarrard charts Cognac's birth in the 1500s and its transformation into the world's most coveted brandy. Along the way, he reveals how Cognac distillers weathered vineyard die-offs, the German occupation, and other challenges over the years - and offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Hennessy, Remy-Martin, Courvoisier, Martell, and other legendary brands.

In the chaos of World War II, Polish teenagers Helena and Luzyna Grabowski have lost everything. Without parents or a home, they are shipped to a refugee camp in Persia, where the days ahead hold only darkness. When they hear that orphans are being selected for relocation to New Zealand, Helena is filled with hope - until the officials say they have a place only for her younger sister. On the morning she is to be transported, Luzyna fails to join the chosen group, and Helena takes her place.

Over thousands of years and thousands of worlds, universe-spanning societies of interdimensional travelers have arisen. Some seek to make the multiverse a better place, some seek power and glory, others knowledge, while still others simply want to write their own tale across the cosmos.