Biographical Fiction

Mrs. Post, the President and First Lady are here to see you. . . . So begins another average evening for Marjorie Merriweather Post. Presidents have come and gone, but she has hosted them all....

In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture in New York City society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world....

1867, Richmond, Virginia: Though she wears the same low-cut purple gown that is the uniform of all the girls who work at Worsham's gambling parlor, Arabella stands apart. It's not merely her statuesque beauty and practiced charm....

Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie tell the fascinating, untold story of Thomas Jefferson's eldest daughter, Martha "Patsy" Jefferson Randolph....

Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He's a normal Italian teenager - obsessed with music, food, and girls....

It is 1936, and Nancy Wake is an intrepid Australian expat living in Paris who has bluffed her way into a reporting job for Hearst newspaper when she meets the wealthy French industrialist Henri Fiocca....

This is the story about the extraordinary partnership between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune—a forbidden friendship that changed the world....

Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary....

Her beauty saved her from the rising Nazi party and led to marriage with an Austrian arms dealer. Underestimated in everything else, she overheard the Third Reich's plans while at her husband's side, understanding more than anyone would guess. She devised a plan to flee....

On an otherwise ordinary morning in 1943, Helene Hannemann is preparing her five children for the day when the German police arrive at her home....

In 1580s England, during the Black Plague, a young Latin tutor falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman in this “exceptional historical novel” (The New Yorker) and best-selling winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction....

Under direct orders from Vladimir Lenin, Bolshevik secret police force Anastasia Romanov, along with the entire imperial family, into a damp basement in Siberia....

Mitza Maric has always been a little different from other girls. Most 20-year-olds are wives by now, not studying physics at an elite Zurich university with only male students trying to outdo her....

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post comes an epic imagining of the life of Margaret Fuller—America’s forgotten leading lady and the central figure of a movement that defined a nation....

From the author of the number one best seller Beneath a Scarlet Sky comes a new historical novel inspired by one family’s incredible story of daring, survival, and triumph....

From the bestselling, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Garden of Evening Mists comes a spellbinding novel about love and betrayal, colonialism and revolution, storytelling and redemption....

The Lioness of Boston is a portrait of what society expected a woman's life to be, shattered by a courageous soul who rebelled and was determined to live on her own terms....

Descended from Melusina, the river goddess, Jacquetta always has had the gift of second sight....

From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women....

April, 1912: It's the perfect finale to a Grand Tour of Europe—sailing home on the largest, most luxurious ocean liner ever built. For the Fortune sisters, the voyage offers a chance to reflect on the treasures of the past they've seen and contemplate the futures that await them.

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of 20 years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him....

From the author of The Other Einstein, the mesmerizing tale of what kind of woman could have inspired an American dynasty....

Anne Berest’s The Postcard is a vivid portrait of twentieth-century Parisian intellectual and artistic life, an enthralling investigation into family secrets, and poignant tale of a Jewish family devastated by the Holocaust and partly restored through the power of storytelling....

First published in 1958, a year after On the Road put the Beat Generation on the map, The Dharma Bums stands as one of Jack Kerouac's most powerful and influential novels. The story focuses on two ebullient young Americans whose quest for Truth leads them on an odyssey....

The story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls's no nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother....

It’s 1961, and for Margo Hightower, everything is about to change. True, her engagement is off, her family has fallen in scandal and she’s completely broke. But she’s just been hired as an assistant to photographer Slim Aarons—famous for his vibrant pictures of high society, royalty and Hollywood stars—and she knows this opportunity is her ticket to something better.

Yefim Shulman, husband, grandfather and war veteran, was beloved by his family and his coworkers. But in the days after his death, his widow Nina finds a letter to the KGB in his briefcase. Yefim had a lifelong secret, and his confession forces them to reassess the man they thought they knew and the country he had defended.

This book is a true-to-life collection of 30 short stories from physicist and electrical engineer Roman Litovsky chronicling his family’s harrowing emigration journey in 1989 from Ukraine to the United States during the height of the impending collapse of the USSR. It details his life in Kyiv, traveling throughout Europe to gain freedom from the oppressive Soviet regime, settling in the U.S., and his life after that with a great engineering career at a prominent U.S. electro-acoustic company.

Set in Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Bombay, India, Mr. Monroe's journey into authenticity results in a series of failed relationships that reveal the dark, enigmatic recesses of his complex personality and eventually land him in a hellhole prison in Bombay. His tragedy unfolds into an ending that no one, especially Monroe, could have possibly predicted or imagined.

Surviving the job happens one day, one shift, and one call at a time. Having each other's backs sets a team apart from a crew. The Bag takes you on that journey for just one shift.

This is a very special book for me because for the first time in the GMJ Series I explain more about my late wife. I added a dedication: “I wrote this book for you, my wife. Actually, all of them with their hidden codes and your ‘M’ on all the covers between my own initials. I had to keep busy or go insane after the machines were switched off - the final act of love to release you to the care of God, our Father. So I began writing the GMJ Series. Three weeks, Honey, that is how long a GMJ Novel takes no matter how long or short. Just more than two weeks to write, a few days to ...

Sweeping yet intimate, Flight of the Wild Swan tells the story of Florence Nightingale, a brilliant, trailblazing woman whose humanity has been obscured beneath the iconic weight of legend. From adolescence, Nightingale was determined to fulfill her life's calling to serve the sick and suffering. Overcoming Victorian hierarchies, familial expectations, patriarchal resistance, and her own illness, she used her hard-won acclaim as a battlefield nurse to bring the profession out of its shadowy, disreputable status and elevate nursing to a skilled practice and compassionate art.

It’s 1961, and for Margo Hightower, everything is about to change. True, her engagement is off, her family has fallen in scandal, and she's completely broke. But she’s just been hired as assistant to photographer Slim Aarons—famous for his vibrant pictures of high society, royalty, and Hollywood stars—and she knows this opportunity is her ticket to something better. From the bright beaches of Acapulco to glitzy parties in New York, Margo is thrown headfirst into the glamorous jet-set world she so covets, observing its ways from behind the camera as Slim’s sidekick.

November 1967. Dara and Silloo Baruchas' serene life is interrupted when the British occupation announces its swift exit from the country. Things take a violent turn when they are targeted by members of the revolution: the family business is seized, Dara is whisked away as a political prisoner, and Silloo is put under house arrest with her three young children and mother-in-law. As the couple embarks on their separate harrowing journeys, in the hopes of being reunited, they are bombarded by challenges. The looming question: Will they make it out alive? Based on a true story.

Yosseleh Karlinski was born to a family of great Jewish rabbis. Gifted with a keen mind and unique talent for chess, he earned the respect and admiration of those around him–especially his childhood friend, Christina. But everything changes when the Germans conquer Lublin, forcing Yosseleh into a new reality in the cramped Lublin Ghetto.

Three months after the dramatic climax of Band in the Wind, the “Journal of Johnny Cipp,” has found its way to Maria Romano and Riet Carver. After reading Johnny’s tragic tale, they can understand all that happened in 1967. Now they have all the answers—or do they? Sound of Redemption continues this tale of love and loyalty, memories and mayhem, and racism, revenge, and rock and roll. Praise for Sound of Redemption “Sound of Redemption hits all the right notes, ringing true to the feel of Band in the Wind. As in the first book, Rostron’s quirky sense of humor, reflected in the ...

Based on actual events in the author’s life, this compelling coming-of-age journey follows DJ Thompson as he navigates an unusual path of self-discovery. Struggling with both his sexuality and spirituality in a strict southern evangelical black Christian household, he leaves for the Big Apple right after high school to gain clarity and to pursue his dreams of becoming a famous music star.

"Holy Footprints" entails the upbringing of Elda Livingston, a fictional character. She was born into and raised by a religious family who attended church every Sunday. But because her family was religious, that didn't mean she was holy. Livingston battled many obstacles, including sickle cell anemia and lung cancer, which caused her to question God many times. She couldn't fathom His existence, considering He had given her many hardships. But when she was twelve, Livingston prayerfully started her Christian walk.

In 1800 France, twenty-year-old Barbe-Nicole inherits her great-grandfather's uncanny sense of smell and uses it to make great champagne, despite the Code prohibiting women from owning a business. When tragedy strikes and she becomes a Veuve (widow), she must grapple with a domineering partner, the complexities of making champagne, and the aftermath of six Napoleon wars. When she falls in love with her sales manager, Louis Bohne, she must choose between losing her winery to her husband to obey the Napoleon Code, or losing Louis.

"I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." Captain Nathan Hale, America's first spy, uttered these immortal words while staring at a hangman's noose in a leafy New York City park in September 1776. When a patriot mob threatened to lynch her father, a staunch supporter of the British crown, Anne Wheaton tossed her needles and threads aside to become a soldier in her own right. In The Spy and the Seamstress, Nathan and Anne must navigate duty and sacrifice, freedom and bondage, love and lust. Their Revolutionary tale rollicks with action, suspense, and romance, while also ...