Southern Historical Fiction

It's not good to live in the past; even worse to die in it Paranormal investigator Wyatt Thomas awakens from a vivid dream in his French Quarter apartment. He finds an antique double-moonstone pendant placed in his hand by the ghost of a voodoo mambo. One of the two moonstones is missing, and both gemstones are needed to make the pendant magical. The rightful owner of the pendant is a supernatural fairy named Maurelle. Someone chopped off Maurelle’s wings and buried her alive in the ruins of a French Quarter Creole townhouse. A mystical beast still haunts the grounds of the estate. Now, ...

Folks in Moab live for ice cream socials, baseball, and the local paper’s weekly gossip column. Sheriff Winston Browne has watched over Moab with a generous eye for a decade, and by now he’s used to handling the daily dramas that keep life interesting for Moab’s quirky residents. But just after Winston receives some terrible, life-altering news, a seemingly mute runaway with no clear origin arrives in Moab. The residents do what they believe is right and take her in - until two suspicious strangers arrive and begin looking for her.

For fourteen-year-old Leah Payne, life in her beloved coastal Carolina town is worlds away from the harsh realities of the day. Loyal to her lumberjack father, she knows only of the familiarity of her small community, the magic of the natural world, and the creative intuition that prompts her to march to the beat of her own drum. But when an accident takes her father's life, leaving her an orphan, Leah finds herself cast into a family of strangers whose welcoming façade hides a terrible secret.

Though the Civil War has now ended, Mosa is confronted by new challenges and old adversaries who are determined to try and take what she has. While some hope to build a new South, the old South refuses to die. Her husband becoming a politician seems to offer a new dawn. However, his election to office has unexpected consequences. Will Mosa lose everything or find a way through? With lives in danger, she makes a life-changing decision, but will she and her family ever find real safety and true freedom? A saga of struggle, betrayal, loss and the power of family and friendship. The gripping ...

The dream of their own farmstead and a good life in America had brought Roald and Ingeborg Bjorklund across the Atlantic to pioneer the virgin prairie of Dakota Territory. But Roald's tragic disappearance in a winter storm turned Ingeborg's dreams into a living nightmare. Against nearly impossible circumstances and overwhelming grief, she struggles to keep the farm and her family together.

Penelope Fayre, nineteen years old and the belle of the Season, knows she must marry money, but she’d hoped to find a man she could love for his personality as well as his purse. Now the Season is drawing to a close, and if such a man exists, he has been keeping himself well-hidden. Painfully aware of having failed her family, Penelope makes a bargain with herself: She will accept the next eligible offer she receives, but first, she’ll make the most of her freedom by stealing away to Bartholomew Fair.

Bertie Jenkins has spent forty years serving as a midwife for her community in the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee. Out of all the mothers she’s tended, none affects her more than the young teenager who shows up on her doorstep, injured, afraid, and expecting, one warm June day in 1943. As Bertie and her four sisters tenderly nurture Songbird back to health, the bond between the childless midwife and the motherless teen grows strong. But soon Songbird is forced to make a heartbreaking decision that will tear this little family apart.

Oberlin, Ohio, 1868. Lisbeth Johnson was born into privilege in the antebellum South. Jordan Freedman was born a slave to Mattie, Lisbeth's beloved nurse. The women have an unlikely bond deeper than friendship. Three years after the Civil War, Lisbeth and Mattie are tending their homes and families while Jordan, an aspiring suffragette, teaches at an integrated school. When Lisbeth discovers that her father is dying, she's summoned back to the Virginia plantation where she grew up.

Ten strangers are lured to an isolated island mansion off the Devon coast by a mysterious "U.N. Owen". At dinner a recorded message accuses each of them in turn of having a guilty secret, and by the end of the night one of the guests is dead. Stranded by a violent storm, and haunted by a nursery rhyme counting down one by one...one by one they begin to die. Who among them is the killer? And will any of them survive?

It’s the 1960s in North Carolina, and Lorraine Delford has it all—an upstanding family, a perfect boyfriend, and an idyllic home complete with a white picket fence. Yet every time she looks through her father’s telescope, she dreams of leaving it all behind to go to space. It’s ambitious, but Lorraine has always been exceptional.

Ada promised herself she would never go back to the Trace, to her unbearable life on the swamp, and to her harsh father in Mississippi. But now, after running away to Baton Rouge and briefly knowing a different kind of life, she finds herself with nowhere to go but back home. Matilda, daughter of a sharecropper, is from the other side of the Trace. Doing what she can to protect her family from the whims and demands of some particularly callous locals is an ongoing struggle, so she forms a plan to go north.

Storm clouds are approaching Culpeper County, Virginia, in early January 1861. The troublesome Fogarty brothers have been raising havoc across the countryside, and when the local lawman, Will Brannon, returns from another futile attempt to track them down, he finds the townspeople abuzz. South Carolina has seceded from the Union, and rumor has it more states will follow, perhaps even Virginia.

The hardscrabble folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap for everything - everything except books, that is. Thanks to Roosevelt's Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, Troublesome's got its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter. Cussy's not only a book woman, however, she's also the last of her kind, her skin a shade of blue unlike most anyone else. Not everyone is keen on Cussy's family or the Library Project, and a Blue is often blamed for any whiff of trouble.

Miss Ollie has returned due to popular demand from her readers and beloved followers of the Maxwell Saga. Hope Maxwell, who came to live on the Maxwell ranch when she was only three, pleads with Miss Ollie to tell about her childhood. Miss Ollie sits in her rocking chair on the porch, closes her eyes and tells what she remembers from the beginning. Her story comes alive from the time she is four-years-old with slave’s parents on the Waverly Plantation. A master storyteller, Miss Ollie will grab your attention as she weaves her life stories. Her words will wrap your heart so tight that you...

In Gods of Howl Mountain, award-winning author Taylor Brown explores a world of folk healers, whiskey-runners, and dark family secrets in the high country of 1950s North Carolina. Bootlegger Rory Docherty has returned home to the fabled mountain of his childhood - a misty wilderness that holds its secrets close and keeps the outside world at gunpoint. Slowed by a wooden leg and haunted by memories of the Korean War, Rory runs bootleg whiskey for a powerful mountain clan in a retro-fitted 1940 Ford coupe.

It's 1932, and Sullivan Harris is on the run. He promised the people of Kline, West Virginia, that he would find them water, but now he's failed and disappeared with their cash. Although he's determined to stay a step ahead of pursuers - like Jeremiah Weber - his resources are running low. Gainey Floyd is suspicious of Sulley's claim to be a dowser when he appears in town but reconsiders after he finds water. Rather, it's Sulley who grows uneasy when his success makes folks wonder if he can find more than water - like forgotten items or missing people.

"Escaping the Incas" delivers an unforgettable historical adventure set in the contrasting locales of Peru and New York during the tumultuous period of the early 20th century. The tale begins in the vibrant city of New York, following our protagonist, John, as he navigates the struggles of city life only to set off on an exciting, perilous journey to the distant lands of South America. The Setting This deeply immersive narrative effortlessly transports you from the dazzling streets of 1900s New York, marked by rapid growth and cultural dynamism, to the majestic, treacherous landscapes of ...

A historical adventure book set in the American Southwest during the 1840s. Prepare to embark on a gripping journey across the unforgiving landscapes of the 19th century American frontier. The Santa Fe Trail weaves a tale of courage, survival, and the indomitable spirit of exploration. Join thirteen-year-old Oliver Wiggins as he ventures into the vast expanses of the American Southwest, driven by a thirst for adventure and a desire to prove his mettle. As part of a caravan making its arduous way from Missouri to Santa Fé, Oliver encounters the harsh realities of frontier life—scorching ...

The Sovereign Order of Monte Cristo begins with a condensed retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, related through the voice of Sherlock Holmes. It includes exhilarating new adventures, characters, and ideas, carrying the reader through books I and II and into book III of an ever-expanding new series based on the classic. The author consulted the original French as well as the oldest English translations of The Count of Monte Cristo, but the style of the retelling, in the distinctive voice of Sherlock Holmes, constitutes a new work. Books II and III, incorporated herein,...

When the Secretary of War appoints Dorothea Dix superintendent over the female nurses assigned to the Union Army, any woman who desires to serve must meet strict criteria: She had to be above thirty years of age, wear only plain, dark colors, and have no “ribbons, curls, bows, or hoops” about her person. Kate Wilkes fits all the criteria but one. Her father always said her curls were so tight even God couldn’t straighten them. When Kate starts tending the wounded soldiers at the Union Hospital in Paducah, Kentucky, chief surgeon Major James Logan doesn’t believe a battlefield ...