Historical Tragedy

The Thirty Years War devastated seventeenth-century Europe, killing nearly a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to towns and countryside alike. Peter Wilson offers the first new history in a generation of a horrifying conflict that transformed the map of the modern world.

Helen Rappaport, an expert in the field of Russian history, brings you the riveting day-by-day account of the last 14 days of the Russian Imperial family, in this first of two books about the Romanovs. The brutal murder of the Russian Imperial family on the night of July 16 to 17, 1918, has long been a defining moment in world history. The Last Days of the Romanovs reveals in exceptional detail how the conspiracy to kill them unfolded.

Elsbeth Munford is set to marry the man she loves until an accident destroys her life. Her beauty tainted by ugly scars, Ellie resigns herself to a life of spinsterhood. Frederick Lancaster, brother to the Marquess of Elmridge, returns home from war. A hero in the eyes of others, he is haunted by nightmares. Unable to make his peace with the past, Frederick retreats into the dark until his brother dies and he not only inherits his title, but with it the obligation to produce an heir. When two damaged souls find themselves tied to one another, will they pull each other under?

Proud and talented, history now remembers this conflicted man solely through the lens of his last desperate act of treason. Yet the fall of Benedict Arnold remains one of the Revolutionary period's great puzzles. Why did a brilliant military commander, who repeatedly risked his life fighting the British, who was grievously injured in the line of duty, and fell into debt personally funding his own troops, ultimately became a traitor to the patriot cause?

Florida’s Space Coast—1963. People flock south to make the Sunshine State their winter playground, moving to the brand new beach towns and neighborhoods to live their lives in the sun. But the families moving to Stardust Beach near Cape Kennedy aren’t there for canasta and cocktails; the men aren’t going to spend their days on the golf courses, and the women aren’t there for fashion shows and shuffleboard. These couples are young, driven, and there to make history. These are the First Families of NASA’s new space program, and they’re ready to aim for the moon… Josephine ...

J. Robert Oppenheimer was one of the iconic figures of the 20th century, a brilliant physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb but later confronted the moral consequences of scientific progress. When he proposed international controls over atomic materials, opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb, and criticized plans for a nuclear war, his ideas were anathema to powerful advocates of a massive nuclear buildup during the anti-Communist hysteria of the early 1950s.

Sir Charles Cartwright should have known better than to allow 13 guests to sit down for dinner. For at the end of the evening one of them is dead - choked by a cocktail that contained no trace of poison. Predictable, says Hercule Poirot, the great detective. But entirely unpredictable is that he can find absolutely no motive for murder.…

Francesca Lombardi’s ascent from glamorous Rockette in the late 1950s to star of the Broadway stage seemed like a given; nothing could stand in her way. But something did—something broke her spirit and she gave up dancing and left New York for good, swearing that she’d never set foot on a stage again... Fast forward a few years and Francesca has been refashioned as Frankie, gorgeous wife to one of NASA’s newest astronauts, Ed Maxwell. Frankie’s new group of friends loves her for her acerbic wit and sharp outlook on life, and her close friendship with Jo Booker is keeping both ...

1939. Seventeen-year-old Nora Jennings has spent her life secure in the certainty of a bright, happy future - until one night of passion has more catastrophic consequences than she ever could have anticipated. Labelled a moral defective and sectioned under the Mental Deficiency Act, she is forced to endure years of unspeakable cruelty at the hands of those who are supposed to care for her.

In the late 1950s, in a small New England town, Reverend Tyler Caskey has suffered a terrible loss and finds it hard to be the person he once was. He struggles to find the right words in his sermons and in his conversations with those facing crises of their own, and to bring his five-year-old daughter, Katherine, out of the silence she has observed in the wake of the family’s tragedy.

Does time heal all wounds? Or do some last forever? Pennsylvania, 1971: Graham Davidson is a young man with survivor’s guilt after the death of three siblings. Estranged from his father and seeking a direction in his life, Graham learns about vision quests from a Crow Indian. He secures seasonal employment in Yellowstone National Park and embarks on a spiritual journey. Wyoming Territory, 1871: Under a full moon at a sacred thermal area, Graham finds himself in Yellowstone a century earlier - one year before it was established as a national park.

At twenty-seven, Jeanie Florence is shattering glass ceilings and forging a new path for women in the 1960s. As a NASA engineer, the shy, studious Jeanie has never been in a real relationship, and the closest she's come to having real, adult feelings for a man is the way she feels about Bill Booker. But Bill is a married astronaut ten years her senior, and he is NOT a real prospect...if only Jeanie's heart would get that fact the same way her brain does. The glamour and excitement of the 60s plays out as a backdrop to Jeanie's search for love and meaning, and as she dreams of going to space...

The iconic Australian exploration story - brought to life by Peter FitzSimons, Australia's storyteller. 'They have left here today!' he calls to the others. When King puts his hand down above the ashes of the fire, it is to find it still hot. There is even a tiny flame flickering from the end of one log. They must have left just hours ago. Melbourne, 20 August 1860. In an ambitious quest to be the first Europeans to cross the harsh Australian continent, the Victorian Exploring Expedition sets off, with 15,000 well-wishers cheering them on.

Deborah Larkin was only ten years old when the quiet calm of her California suburb was shattered. Thirty miles north, on a quiet November night in Santa Barbara, a pregnant nurse named Olga Duncan disappeared from her apartment. The mystery deepens when it is discovered that Olga’s mother-in-law—a deeply manipulative and deceptive woman—had been doing everything in her power to separate Olga and her son, Frank, prior to Olga’s disappearance.

Thirteen guests arrived at dinner at the actor's house. It was to be a particularly unlucky evening for the mild-mannered Reverend Stephen Babbington, who choked on his cocktail, went into convulsions and died. But when his martini glass was sent for chemical analysis, there was no trace of poison, just as Poirot had predicted. Even more troubling for the great detective, there was absolutely no motive.

In 1727, Stefan Silbermann is a grief-stricken 13-year-old, struggling with the death of his mother and his removal to a school in distant Leipzig. Despite his father’s insistence that he try not to think of his mother too much, Stefan is haunted by her absence, and, to make matters worse, he’s bullied by his new classmates. But when the school’s cantor, Johann Sebastian Bach, takes notice of his new pupil’s beautiful singing voice and draws him from the choir to be a soloist, Stefan’s life is permanently changed.

When Robert Pomeroy, a young undergraduate at Corpus Christi College, finds a letter slipped under his door in the early hours of a rainy day, he flies into a panic. He hurries to the railway station. But he doesn’t reach his destination alive. Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming are called upon to investigate this tragedy on the railway. It soon becomes apparent that Cambridge’s hopes of success in the forthcoming boat race rested on Pomeroy’s shoulders.

This book is the product of The Earhart Project, a thirty-four-year investigation of the Earhart tragedy by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery. TIGHAR investigators had no agenda. They were not out to advocate, excuse, honor, or impugn. They saw the Earhart disappearance as an aviation accident and reasoned the answer to its cause and outcome should be discoverable if they could find, assemble, and analyze the relevant data.

Embark on an unforgettable journey through the shadows and spotlights of our contemporary world with Scandal & Tragedy 100 Short Stories That Will Shock & Amaze You. This extraordinary anthology delves deep into the most riveting and controversial episodes in recent history, pulling back the curtains on the untold stories that have left an indelible mark on society. Within these pages, you'll find yourself immersed in a world of astonishing twists, jaw-dropping revelations, and enigmatic figures who have forever altered the course of our collective narrative. From the murky backrooms of ...

By the summer of 1660 the last remnants of the Republic have been swept away and the Stuarts have been restored under their king, Charles II. A list of forty-nine regicides believed to be involved in the death of Charles I is drawn up. Executions of the regicides begin to take place and the hunt intensifies for those who have gone into hiding or have fled. Although not a regicide, staunch Republican Damian Seeker is on a list of traitors to the king. Royalist spy Lady Anne Winter is employed to find evidence of guilt or innocence among the names on this Winter List.