Southern Historical Fiction

A beach romance of love, forgiveness, and divine providence Allison and her friend spend July Fourth weekend at the beach. While there, a magnificent mistake brings Allison and Jim together, and they share an instant attraction. After spending half his adult life in the Air Force, Jim plans to leave the military soon. He wants Allison by his side when he embarks on his new lifestyle. Before they leave the beach, Jim promises to write to Allison and visit her soon. But after a horrible accident at the airfield, Jim keeps his diagnosis from Allison, fearing she won’t choose to spend their ...

After an airless childhood in Savannah, Smoky O'Donnell arrives in Atlanta, dazzled and chastened by this hectic young city on the rise. Her new job as a writer with the city's Downtown magazine introduces her to many unforgettable people and propels her into the center of momentous events that will irrevocably alter her heart, her career, and her world.

Let the people of West Mills say what they will about Azalea 'Knot' Centre; they won't keep her from what she loves best: cheap moonshine, 19th-century literature, and the company of men. And yet, when motherhood looms, Knot begins to learn that her freedom has come at a high price. Low on money, ostracized from her parents and cut off from her hometown, Knot turns to her neighbor, Otis Lee Loving, in search of some semblance of family and home.

An old traveler tells his grandchildren how he survived a harsh winter alone in the American Northwest during the gold rush of the 1800s, facing brutal cold and hungry wolves, and finding help from an unexpected source. This is a short story of about 3k words.

On a bright June day in 1965, a dozen girls - classmates at a Blue Ridge women's college - launch a ramshackle raft on a trip down the Mississippi. Their journey, inspired by Huckleberry Finn, is duly reported in the Paducah, Kentucky newspaper. 35 years later, four of the "girls" reunite to cruise the river again. This time, it's on the luxury steamboat The Belle of Natchez. This time, when they reach New Orleans, they'll give the River the ashes of a fifth rafter: Margaret ("Baby") Ballou.

It’s 1953 when Memory Feather and her mother, Virginia, are welcomed back home to the Mississippi Gulf Coast community of Belle Cote by Virginia’s childhood friend Mac McFadden, whose verve and energy buoy the recently divorced Virginia to embrace this new chapter. Memory (“Mem”) is unlike other girls: she is attuned to the voices of plants and animals and is missing two fingers on her twisted left hand. The three of them knit their lives together and become a close, though unconventional, family.

An epic gothic adventure set in various locations in South Africa and the UK during the late 19th century. Sign of the Spider is a mesmerizing tale that revolves around the life of Laurence Ferran who is trapped within the confines of a dull suburban life in London. Spurred by hopes of breaking free and forging a new life, Ferran embarks on a thrilling adventure to Johannesburg, South Africa, a land of booming prospects during this period.While aboard the RMS Persian, Ferran builds significant relationships, particularly with Martin and the enchanting Lilith Battey. Ferran’s deepening ...

Siblings Bert, Willet, and Pansy know better than to go swimming at the old rock quarry. According to their father, it's the Devil's place, a place that's been cursed and forgotten. But Mississippi Delta summer days are scorching hot, and they can't resist cooling off in the dark, bottomless water - until the day six-year-old Pansy vanishes...not drowned, not lost, simply gone. When their father disappears as well, Bert and Willet leave their childhoods behind to try and hold their broken family together.

Late September 1957. Henry and Effie, very young newlyweds from Georgia, arrive in Cape May, New Jersey, for their honeymoon only to find the town is deserted. Feeling shy of each other and isolated, they decide to cut the trip short. But before they leave, they meet a glamorous set of people who sweep them up into their drama. The empty beach town becomes their playground, and as they sneak into abandoned summer homes, go sailing, walk naked under the stars, make love, and drink a great deal of gin, Henry and Effie slip from innocence into betrayal, with irrevocable consequences.

The hurricane of 1900, America’s worst natural disaster, left the island city of Galveston in ruins. Thousands perished, including all 93 children at the Sisters of the Incarnate Word orphanage—except six-year-old Hester, who miraculously survived. Oleander City is the tale of this little girl and the volatile collision between the American Red Cross, the Ku Klux Klan, and one of the most famous boxing matches in American history.

Forced by bankruptcy and scandal into exile in France, Lord Waverly expects never to return to his homeland until, staggering home from a gaming hell in the wee hours of the morning, he encounters a young novice escaping from a convent. When she asks him to take her to England, promising him that her English grandfather will reward him handsomely for her safe conveyance, Waverly reluctantly agrees. Alas, Waverly soon realizes the enormity of his task.

February, 1942: Singapore lies burning and shattered, defenceless before the conquering hordes of the Japanese Army. The last boat escapes out of the harbour into the South China Sea, and on board are a desperate group of strangers, each with a secret to guard, each willing to kill to keep that secret safe. Dawn sees them far out to sea but with the first murderous dive bombers already aimed at their ship. Thus begins a nightmare succession of disasters wrought by the hell-bent Japanese, the unrelenting tropical sun and, ultimately, by the survivors themselves, as they head south by Java Head.

Haunted by sorrow and regret, Margaret Hale stands at the precipice of an uncertain destiny. Fiercely determined but not knowing how to find her way, she risks the little she has left on the heart she once shattered - hoping somehow to win back his respect, if not his love...Since he was a boy, John Thornton has fought the consequences of his father’s mistakes. Crushed on all sides, all he has left to offer the one who needs him most is a home, and a heart that aches for her.

Nine-year-olds Max Sassaport and Ruby Johnson are best friends who can't imagine a world where they aren't together. Unfortunately, no one-not their families, nor anyone else in rural Georgia in 1906-wants to see a White middle-class Jewish boy get too close to the Black daughter of a sharecropper. It's only a matter of time before fate will separate the two. And that day comes on the eve of Ruby's womanhood, when a violent act sends her running from her home to the life of a child laborer at the National Pencil Factory in Atlanta.

In the tumult of the Civil War, a Southern woman’s determination wavers as she faces forbidden passion with a Union soldier. Catey Allendale stands alone in 1862 Louisiana, facing Yankee soldiers on her family's plantation. With her loved ones absent, she must confront fear and uncertainty to survive the harsh realities of war. Lieutenant Jess Granger, a compassionate Yankee officer, recognizes Catey's vulnerability and offers her protection from a cruel superior. Despite their opposing sides in the conflict, Jess claims Catey as his own, forging a bond that transcends the chaos of battle...

Tournament is the successful first novel by Shelby Foote, a major Southern writer whose masterpiece, The Civil War: A Narrative, has become the modern standard against which all other works of historical narrative must be weighed.

With a beautiful and clever wife, a growing investigative business, and a baby due any day, former Bow Street Runner John Pickett finally has a respectable life far removed from his beginnings as a juvenile pickpocket in the rookeries of St. Giles.

John Thornton is facing the collapse of everything he has worked for all of his life. Through his banker, he hears about a potential business opportunity that could save the mill. He decides to investigate, even if it means traveling from home when he can least afford it. Margaret Hale, now living in London, learns that her godfather Mr. Bell is visiting her brother Frederick in Cadiz. Bell is dying, and asking to see her before it is too late. She is determined to sail, regardless of the risk.

Memories of motherhood and marriage are fresh for Julia Presley...though tragedy took away both years ago. Finding comfort in the routine of running the Peach Orchard Inn, she lets the historic, mysterious place fill the voids of love and family. No more pleasure of a man's gentle kiss. No more joy in hearing a child call her Mommy. Life is calm, unchanging - until a stranger with a young boy and soul-deep secrets shows up in her Tennessee town and disrupts the loneliness of her world.

When the Chalkboard Preacher accompanies his friend to the Psychiatric Hospital to secure his wife’s release, the husband is horrified to learn she’s even more disturbed than when she was admitted. She fails to recognize him and clings to a doll she believes to be the baby they never had. Things go awry when an angry, domineering nurse sabotages the husband’s intent to take his wife home. Determined to free her and convinced the end will outweigh the means, the husband devises a plan that will ultimately involve his faithful friend, the Chalkboard Preacher. Would the Reverend Castle ...