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HISTORICAL FICTION -1- |
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The Pilgrim Cottage Omnibus - Cecil Roberts
Very thick hardback (1200pp) in good condition, no d/w. First edition by Hodder and Stoughton (1938). Grey cloth boards. With 21 Gravures illustrations. NZD: 8.50 / P & P: B -- Containing the three "Pilgrim Cottage" Novels: Pilgrim Cottage, The Guests Arrive and Volcano. The books pictures Russia in the first enthusiasm of the Revolution contrasted sharply against the tranquillity of England and the peaceful canals of Venice lovely 'period' artwork... 
The Other Boleyn Girl - Philippa Gregory
Harper Collins (2002). Large paperback in good used condition. 533pp. NZD: 5.50 / P & P : A Set in the court of King Henry VIII, Mary Boleyn attracts the attention of the young king and becomes his mistress; when he tires of her, she sets out to school her sister, Anne, as a replacement. Politics and passion are inextricably bound together in this compelling drama... Fabulous historical fiction book by Philippa Gregory, the queen of Tudor novels. 
Amandine - Marlena De Blasi
Allen & Unwin (2010). Large paperback in excellent new condition. 390pp. NZD: 7.00 / P & P : B Set against the backdrop of Europe as it moves inexorably toward World War II, Amandine follows a young orphan’s journey in search of her heritage. The story opens in Krakow in 1931, as a baby girl is conceived out of wedlock, the by-product of a foolish heart and a tragic inheritance. The child’s grandmother, a countess, believes that she is protecting her daughter when she claims that the baby didn’t survive... 
The Mesmerist - Barbara Ewing Sphere (2007). 390pp. Paperback in average used condition. NZD: 5.50 / P & P : B London, 1838: the controversial practice of Mesmerism, with its genuine practitioners and its fraudulent chancers, has hypnotised the city. Unable to find stage work, actresses Cordelia Preston and Rillie Spoons need to find a way of making a living... 
Man of War - John Masters
Hardback with d/w both in excellent condition. First UK publication by Michael Joseph (1983). 320pp. NZD: 5.00 / P & P : A The heroic and unforgettable saga of one man's rise to military glory…written by one of Britain's greatest soldiers turned writer. Miller was a career soldier — one of the best. He had twenty years and more of active service behind him — from the trenches of World War 1, to a riot-torn India, and from the Spanish Civil War to a heroic rear guard action at Dunkirk. His tactical brilliance and unquestioned courage played their part in those victories. But there were other battles he had to fight — with the old guard who despised his unorthodox methods, with brother officers who could never accept a shopkeeper's son as one of their own, and with the women whose love he jeopardised in his determination to succeed. This is Miller's story — a vivid, unforgettable portrait of a soldier. And this too is John Masters' epitaph — the novel that only he, with his first-hand knowledge of military life, could write. A splendid storyteller as well as a master at describing battles and campaigns, Lieutenant Colonel John Masters, DSO (1914–1983), was an English officer in the Indian Army who fought in World War Two, and later a novelist. His works are noted for their descriptions of the British Empire in India. 
The Lost Letters of Aquitaine - Judith Koll Healey
Large paperback in excellent condition. Harper Collins (2004). 355pp. NZD: 6.50 / P & P : B This novel mixes fiction with history. The Novel: Year 1200 - Princess Alais, former betrothed of Richard Plantagenet and former lover of his father, King Henry II of England, is sent on a mission by Eleanor, wife to Henry and mother to Richard, to retrieve some letters written long ago, and secreted in Becket's altar at Canterbury Cathedral. What ensues is a tale of adventure, which sees our Princess crossing the Channel to England, and back again to France; she is abducted, rescued and ultimately pursued by ruthless King John who believes that she holds the key to some long lost secret that could threaten his position as King of England. Enter Stage Left the mysterious Knights Templar - what secrets do they hold and what pressure can they bring to bear against King John. The Reality: Could Alais have undertaken such a mission - it is indeed possible as much of Alais' life after the death of Henry II is sparsely documented. What we do know is that Alais (to continue with the spelling of her name as per the novel) was indeed betrothed to Richard and became the mistress of his father Henry II whilst Eleanor was a prisoner. Did Alais have any children by Henry II - it depends on what documents you read - yes there is the possibility that a fertile young girl would ultimately give birth to a child or number of children in a situation where the King was "exercising his masculine prowess" - he was apparently no slouch in the sack. Four children are ascribed to Alais and Henry II - no names or the genders are given and they are presumed to have died young. Alais was ultimately sent back to France (1195) and was married, at age 35yo, to William Tavlas, Count of Ponthieu. She was mother to three daughters, one - Eleanor - would be the grandmother of Eleanor of Castile, wife of King Edward I. 
Boudica: Dreaming The Bull - Manda Scott
Large paperback in NEW condition. Bantam Press (2004). 398pp. NZD: 6.50 / P & P : B The Magnificent Story of the World's Most Famous Warrior Queen . The second part of the stunning fictionalization of the life of Britain’s warrior queen, Boudica, immerses us in a world of druids and dreamers, warriors and lovers, passion and courage. Originally a trilogy, this is now a four-part series. “Boudica” means “Bringer of Victory” (from the early Celtic word “boudeg”). She was the last defender of the Celtic culture; the only woman openly to lead her warriors into battle and to stand successfully against the might of Imperial Rome -- and triumph. Dreaming the Bull, the second book in this compelling series, continues the intertwined stories of Boudica, and Bán, now an officer in the Roman cavalry. They stand on opposite sides in a brutal war of attrition between the occupying army and the defeated tribes, each determined to see the other dead. In a country under occupation, Caradoc, lover to Breaca, is caught and faces the ultimate penalty. Only Bán has the power to save him, and Bán has spent the past ten years denying his past. Treachery divides these two; heroism brings them together again, changed out of all recognition -- but it may not be enough to heal the wounds. This is a heart-stopping story of war and of peace; of love, passion and betrayal; of druids and warring gods, where each life is sacred and each death even more so; and where Breaca and Bán learn the terrible distances they must travel to fulfill their own destinies. 
The Book of Ester - Yvonne du Fresne
Large paperback in excellent condition. Longman Paul Ltd. NZ (1982). 280pp. NZD: 5.50 / P & P : A Ester is lost, in the winter of the middle of her life, lost in the last country the family de la Fevre had reached. Ester, half Danish, half French Huguenot, born in New Zealand but not belonging any more. So she begins tunnelling back through all the years and lives to that other Ester, that first Ester, born in France in 1650 who fled the Religious Wars to Pfaiz, Brnadenburg, Gramzow, Russia, and finally to Denmark... Yvonne du Fresne (1929 – 2011) is a fiction writer whose works set in the Danish-French Huguenot community are among the finest literary examinations of non-British European cultures in New Zealand. Born in Takaka, du Fresne moved to the North Island at age three and was brought up in the Danish-French Huguenot settlement of the Manawatu. Her writing shows a strong affinity with the region's landscape. Her collection of short fiction, Farvel and other stories (1980) won the PEN Best First Book Award and was read over the radio as ‘Astrid of the Limberlost’. This debut was followed by this novel: The Book of Ester (1982), and a collection of linked stories The Growing of Astrid Westergaard (1985). Astrid Westergaard features the same Danish New Zealand protagonist as Farvel and was also adapted for radio. Both collections, writes Nina Nola in the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature ‘attempt to establish a connection between the non-British European migrants and Maori.’ 
Resistance - Anita Shreve
Large paperback in excellent condition. Abacus Books (2002). 228pp. NZD: 5.50 / P & P : A Another engrossing work by Shreve that keeps the pages turning. Perhaps less complex than some of her work but twists up to the end... This tale of impossible love--told with the same narrative grace and keen eye for human emotion that have distinguished all of Anita Shreve's cherished bestsellers--leads us into a harrowing world where forbidden passions have catastrophic consequences. In a Nazi-occupied Belgian village, Claire Daussois, the wife of a resistance worker, shelters a wounded American bomber pilot in a secret attic hideaway. As she nurses him back to health, Claire is drawn into an affair that seems strong enough to conquer all--until the brutal realities of war intrude, shattering every idea she ever had about love, trust, and betrayal. 
Girl with a Pearl Earring - Tracy Chevalier
Paperback in excellent condition. Harper Collins (2003). 308pp. NZD: 5.00 / P & P : A With precisely 35 canvases to his credit, the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer represents one of the great enigmas of 17th-century art. The meagre facts of his biography have been gleaned from a handful of legal documents. Yet Vermeer's extraordinary paintings of domestic life, with their subtle play of light and texture, have come to define the Dutch golden age. His portrait of the anonymous Girl with a Pearl Earring has exerted a particular fascination for centuries--and it is this magnetic painting that lies at the heart of Tracy Chevalier's second novel of the same title. Girl with a Pearl Earring centres on Vermeer's prosperous Delft household during the 1660s. When Griet, the novel's quietly perceptive heroine, is hired as a servant, turmoil follows. First, the 16-year-old narrator becomes increasingly intimate with her master. Then Vermeer employs her as his assistant--and ultimately has Griet sit for him as a model. 
The Pied Piper's Poison - Christopher Wallace
Large paperback in excellent, as new condition. Flamingo (1998). 298pp. NZD: 7.00 / P & P : B It is winter 1946 and Robert Watt, a young Army doctor, is sent to a camp in southern Poland, charged with discovering why refugees are dying of a hideous and unidentifiable disease. Is the camp being used by Russian doctors as a macabre experiment into the effects of radiation? Or are the symptoms of the disease, as Watt misanthropic colleague Arthur Lee believes, proof of a poison that lurks within the human psyche? This account of a young man adrift and seeking solace in medical certainties is deftly interwoven with pages from Arthur’s research paper on that most enduring of folk myths, the Pied Piper of Hamelin… These parallel narratives lead to a climax which is at once genuinely shocking and hugely satisfying resolution to the mystery. Wallace’s book is a grainy, honest attempt to probe those dark areas we give novelists sanction to investigate. As such, it is both highly ambitious and stunningly successful. Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Suskind’s Perfume and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks all rolled into one – sounds good? If so, then read Wallace’s ambitious first novel, The Pied Piper’s Poison. It is a heady mixture of historical drama, romance and moral allegory. Wallace’s prose style is remarkably fluent and never dull. 
Day - A.L. Kennedy
Paperback in very good condition. Vintage (2008). 282pp. NZD: 5.00 / P & P : A Alfie Day, RAF airman and former World War 2 POW, never expected to survive the war. Now, five years later and more alone than ever, Alfie finds himself drawn to unearth those strange, passionate days by working as an extra on a POW film. What he will discover on the set about himself, his loves and the world around him will make the war itself look simple. Funny and moving, wise and sad, Day is a truly original look at the intensity and courage to be found in the closeness of death, from one of Britain's most iconoclastic and highly acclaimed young writers. Day is the story of hate. His hatred for an abusive father. Hatred of those who bring tyranny over the innocent. Author A.L. Kennedy brings us Alfred Day the character. His tale dances across time, interweaving an authentic captivity with a staged re-enactment offering Day a second chance to untangle the cords of his war. 
The Sands of Sakkara - Glenn Meade
Paperback in VG+ condition. Coronet Books (1999). 646pp. NZD: 4.00 / P & P : A To save the Western Allies, he must kill the woman he loves... November 1943: Adolf Hitler sanctioned his most audacious mission ever--to kill US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill as they visit Cairo for a secret conference to plan the Allied invasion of Europe, an invasion which threatens imminent defeat for Germany. This really happened and is the basis for Glenn Meade's spectacular new novel. Only one man is capable of leading the defiant Nazi mission--Major Johann Halder, one of the Abwehr's most brilliant, daring agents, a man with a tortured soul and a talent for the impossible. Accompanied by an expert undercover team, and a young and beautiful Egyptologist, Rachael Stern, Halder must race against time across a hostile desert, to reach Cairo and successfully carry out the assignment, or forfeit his own life and that of his young son. When US military intelligence learns of the plan, they assign one of their best officers, Lieutenant-Colonel Harry Weaver, to hunt down and eliminate Halder and his team. But for Weaver, as for Johann Halder and Rachael Stern, there's more than just the balance of war and the lives of the Allied leaders at stake--a pact of love and friendship is about to be tested in a frantic, high-stakes chase to the death. Glenn Meade's long-awaited new novel Sands of Sakkara is a breathless, suspenseful thriller with one of the most remarkable chases in recent memory. It is a heart-wrenching tale of friendship, love and treachery set against the exotic and intriguing backdrop of wartime Egypt. 
Dying Day - Robert Ryan
Large paperback in excellent condition. Published by Headline Review (2007). 344pp. NZD: 5.00 / P & P : A In 1944 SOE agent Diana McGill is flown into occupied France. Shortly afterwards she disappears, apparently into the “Night and Fog” of the Nazi death camps. Three years after the end of the war her sister, Laura, is tired with being fobbed of by the Home Office and decides to either find Diana or discover her fate. In Berlin the man who sent Diana on her final mission, James Hadley Webb, is working as a spy but that doesn’t stop Laura tracking him down and demanding a few answers. Unfortunately for both James and Laura a bloody war is about to break out between the East and the West for control of the city. The Cold War curtain is about to be raised, and Diana’s fate might never be known. As ever it is Robert Ryan’s meticulous research and imaginative use of actual people, places and events that really impresses. He is the master of the thriller genre and writes with great panache—with prose stuffed full of evocative images and exhilarating action. Dying Day conjures up all the chaos at the close of World War Two and all the shady shenanigans at the outset of the Cold War. 
Redemption Falls - Joseph O'Connor
Large format paperback in excellent, as new condition. Published by Vintage (2008). 458pp. NZD: 6.50 / P & P : A 1865. The American Civil War is ending. Eighteen years after the famine ship Star of the Sea docked at New York, the daughter of two of her passengers sets out from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on a walk across a devastated America. Eliza Duane Mooney is searching for a young boy she has not seen in four years, one of the hundred thousand children drawn into the war. His fate has been mysterious and will prove extraordinary. It's a walk that will have consequences for many seemingly unconnected survivors: a love-struck cartographer, a haunted Latina poetess, rebel guerrilla Cole McLaurenson, runaway slave Elizabeth Longstreet and the mercurial revolutionary James Con O'Keeffe, who commanded a brigade of Irish immigrants in the Union Army and is now Governor of a western wilderness where nothing is as it seems. Redemption Falls is a Dickensian tale of war and forgiveness, of strangers in a strange land, of love put to the ultimate test. Packed with music, balladry, poetry, and storytelling, this is a vivid mosaic of a vast country driven wild by war, containing moments of sustained brilliance which in psychological truth and realism make Daniel Defoe look like a literary amateur. With this riveting historical novel of urgent contemporary resonance, the author of the bestselling novel "Star of the Sea" now brings us a modern masterpiece. 
A Passage to India - E.M. Forster
Large vintage paperback in excellent, as NEW condition. Published by Penguin (1985). 336pp. NZD: 5.50 / P & P : A When Adela Quested and her elderly companion Mrs Moore arrive in the Indian town of Chandrapore, they quickly feel trapped by its insular and prejudiced 'Anglo-Indian' community. Determined to escape the parochial English enclave and explore the 'real India', they seek the guidance of the charming and mercurial Dr Aziz, a cultivated Indian Muslim. But a mysterious incident occurs while they are exploring the Marabar caves with Aziz, and the well-respected doctor soon finds himself at the centre of a scandal that rouses violent passions among both the British and their Indian subjects. A masterly portrait of a society in the grip of imperialism, A Passage to India compellingly depicts the fate of individuals caught between the great political and cultural conflicts of the modern world. In 1957, E.M. Forster, looking back in old age, wrote that "the late-empire world of A Passage to India no longer exists, either politically or socially"... Today, approaching 100 years after its composition (1924), the novel is probably as "dated" as ever. Yet – because Forster's concern is the forging of a relationship between a British schoolteacher and a Muslim doctor, reflecting the larger tragedy of imperialism – A Passage to India stands as a strangely timeless achievement, one of the great classic novels of the 20th century. 
The Conjuror's Bird - Martin Davies
Published by Hodder and Stoughton (2005). 312pp. Hardback with attractive d/j both in excellent condition. PLEASE NOTE: The apparent damage of the book's covers (creases and frayed/burnt top and bottom edges) is in fact printed on the dust-jacket to make the book look old and worn... Quite realistic in fact..!! NZD: 5.50 / P & P: B In 1774, an unusual bird was spotted on Captain Cook’s second expedition to the South Seas. This single specimen was captured, preserved, and brought back to England—and no other bird of its kind was ever seen again. The bird was given to naturalist Joseph Banks, who displayed it proudly in his collection until it too disappeared. Were it not for a coloured drawing created by the ship’s artist, it would seem that the Mysterious Bird of Ulieta had never existed. Two hundred years later, naturalist John Fitzgerald gets a call from an old friend asking him to join the search for the bird’s remains. He traces the bird’s history, uncovering surprising details about the role of a woman known only as Miss B in Joseph Banks’s life and career. Could she be the key to solving the mystery—to finally finding the lost Bird of Ulieta? Seamlessly leaping between two time periods, The Conjurer’s Bird is at once the story of Joseph Banks’s secret life and of Fitz’s thrilling and near-impossible race to find the elusive bird. Based an actual bird discovered on one of Captain Cooks expeditions and never seen again. The only specimen of the bird was lost and a fictional plot has been woven around that fact. This book is historical, it is a mystery and it is a romance. Davies keeps the suspense active throughout as the characters look for the specimen in the 21st century each with their own motives. Alternating between present day and historical fiction an interesting and enjoyable plot unfolds. 
Cheyenne Madonna - Eddie Chuculate
Large format paperback in excellent condition. Published by Black Sparrow Books (2010). 148pp. NZD: 6.50 / P & P: B One stormy night in 1826, just north of Galveston Bay, Old Bull, a Cheyenne Indian who had just seen the ocean for the first time, found himself trying to outrace a hurricane. Lifted from his horse, spun around, and thrown down in the bayou, Old Bull rode the current into a small canyon, and survived. He was the only one of his party to return from the expedition, arriving home nearly naked, nearly hallucinating, riding a horse. Such is the auspicious beginning to the life of Jordan Coolwater, a distant relation to Old Bull, whom we meet as a boy in the 1970s, shooting turtles on a summer day, and being raised by his grandparents on Creek Indian land in the house of his great-great-grandfather, a survivor of the "Trail of Tears." Bearing the burden of his ancestry, Jordan Coolwater—from bored young boy, to thoughtful teenager, struggling artist, escaped convict, and finally, father—is the subject of Eddie Chuculate's prize-winning collection of linked short stories. Reminiscent of Denis Johnson's Jesus's Son, Chuculate's gritty, deceptively simple stories also recall Junot Dias and Sherman Alexie. This is not only a portrait of a young Native American artist struggling with the two constants in his life, alcohol and art, but also a portrait of America, of its dispossessed, its outlaws, and its visionaries. 
Hammer Strike - Walter Winward
Hardback with d/j, both in excellent condition. Red cloth covers, no inscriptions. Hamish Hamilton (1978). 278pp. NZD: 8.00 / P & P: B You might have read numerous World War Two POW escape stories - both fiction and non-fiction - if you are a world war enthusiast. However, you probably won't have read anything about German POW escape attempt from mainland UK...! Of course, in reality not a single German POW was able to escape from mainland UK in World War II (as this book states), but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't have attempted an escape. This is a good fictional account of something that might have happened in that regard. Code named "Operation Hammer" this novel describes the fictional escape attempt. "Eight thousand men on the run... think of the chaos that escape would cause on that wretched island... I want to be able to tell the Fuehrer that we can disrupt the whole of Britain's economy, hammer her into the ground. Yes, hammer her into defeat..." --ReichsMarschall Goering, 12 November 1942. The war is going badly for Germany. In a daring bid to tip the scales, Goering has masterminded a plan for the mass escape of German POWSs in Britain. But, unexpectedly, the key man in the plot, a Luftwaffe ace, is shot down and interned in a POW camp in the north of England. The plan is jeopardized--and so is the future of Nazi Germany. An ex-SS officer must do the impossible: before the British can discover the famed pilot's true identity-- and the secret plan called HAMMERSTRIKE-- he must penetrate British defences and spirit the general out of Skiddaw or, failing that, kill him. |