Showing results by publisher "HarperCollins Publishers Limited" in Biographical Fiction

In Arthur Golden's poised and beautifully written debut novel, Sayuri tells the extraordinary tale of her life, evoking a quarter of a century of Japan's dramatic history, 1929 through to the post-war years.

Sunday Times and New York Times best-selling author Cathy Glass returns with her first novel. The Girl in the Mirror is a moving and gripping story of a young woman who tries to piece together her past and uncovers a dreadful family secret that has been buried and forgotten. When Mandy learns her much-loved Grandpa is dying, she is devastated and returns to the house where she spent so many wonderful summers as a child. But the childhood visits ended abruptly, and those happy days are now long gone.

The stories of two very different women, linked by the secrets and lies of history, merge together as past and present weave together in this stunning story of love, loss and resilience. 2016. Kitty, fleeing from a devastating revelation in her own life, finds herself at her great-grandfather's cabin in Lake Akanabee. There she discovers a gorgeous necklace, which leads her uncover to long-buried family secret. 1914. Tatiana, Grand Princess of Russia, falls in love with Dmitri, a Russian solider, as she nurses him back to health.

Mummy dreams of a quirky rural cottage with roses around the door and chatty chickens in the garden. Life, as ever, is not going quite as she planned. Paxo, Oxo and Bisto turn out to be highly rambunctious rather than merely chatty, and the roses have jaggy thorns.

The heartrending story of a British boy's four-year ordeal in a Japanese prison camp during the Second World War. Based on J. G. Ballard's own childhood, this is the extraordinary account of a boy's life in Japanese-occupied wartime Shanghai - a mesmerising, hypnotically compelling novel of war, of starvation and survival, of internment camps and death marches. It blends searing honesty with an almost hallucinatory vision of a world thrown utterly out of joint.

Why Mummy Swears is the much anticipated new novel from Gill Sims, author of the hilarious Why Mummy Drinks and online sensation Peter and Jane. It’s every parents’ nightmare - the start of the school holidays - and instead of sitting in the sun, reading a book over a cold, crisp glass of Pinot Grigio, Mummy has two bored moppets to attend to. After frantically booking sports camps, child minder slots, not to mention time off work, Mummy is exhausted. But this is only the beginning....

Mary is Queen of Scotland but she has been forced to flee her land and take refuge in an England that is ruled by her cousin Elizabeth. But England, precarious in its Protestant state, set against the mighty powers of Spain, France and Rome, doesn't need a charismatic Catholic figurehead at large. So Elizabeth's chief advisor, Cecil, devises a plan in which Mary will live under guard with his trusted accomplice: Bess of Hardwick.

The thrilling story of Catherine de Valois - the French princess who became an English queen. Perfect for fans of Philippa Gregory. Even the greatest of queens have rules - to break them would cost her dearly… King Henry V's new French Queen, Catherine, dazzles the crowds in England but life at court is full of intrigue and her loyal companion, Mette, suspects that the beautiful Eleanor Cobham, protégée of the Duke of Gloucester, is spying for him.

Theo Miller is 14 years old, bright and ambitious, when he steps off the train into the simmering heat and uproar of 1920s Nairobi. Neither he nor his earnest younger sister, Maud, are prepared for the turbulent mix of joy and pain their new life in Kenya will bring. Their father is Director of Kenyan Railways, a role it is assumed Theo will inherit. But when he meets enchanting American heiress Sylvie de Croÿ and her charismatic, reckless companion, Freddie Hamilton, his aspirations turn in an instant.

1917: When two young cousins, Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright from Cottingley, England, announce they have photographed fairies at the bottom of the garden, their parents are astonished. But when the great novelist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle endorses the photographs' authenticity, the girls become a sensation, their discovery offering something to believe in amid a world ravaged by war.

I would like to make myself the heroine of this story and my character to be noble - an innocent victim led astray. But alas, sir, I would be lying.... Tully Truegood: orphan. Magician's apprentice. Whore. In prison, accused of murder, Tully begins to write her life story. A story that takes her from a young daughter-skivvy in the back streets of 18th-century London to her stepmother Queenie's fairy house - a place where decadent excess is a must....

First published in 1719, Robinson Crusoe is the story of an adventurous young man who ignores the sound and sensible advice of his father and sets off to see the world. However, Crusoe's ship founders in a storm, and he is the only survivor. Washed ashore on a desert island, he is faced with the challenge of providing food and shelter for himself, and is forced to invent afresh many things that he had previously taken for granted.

Based on a true story, The Less You Know the Sounder You Sleep is a tale of survival and self-determination, innocence and lies. 'We're waiting. I squeeze my eyes shut and dig my fingers into Masha's neck where I'm holding her. She digs hers into mine. The curtains slowly open. I can't see anything because the spotlight is on us, bright as anything and blinding me, but I can hear the gasp go up. They always gasp.'

It's Friday evening on the Canterbury Estate in Bradford, and Christine, who's been rushed to hospital by her friend, Josie, is on the maternity ward giving birth. She's 17 and terrified. Not just of the pain, which is ripping her in two, but because she knows that once the baby arrives, her family is never going to speak to her again. Her beautiful baby boy is about to start a chain of events that will lead to tragedy - and only her own family can save her.