Historical Humor

Elizabeth Bennet is a lady of decided opinions—especially about a certain Mr Darcy. When Colonel Fitzwilliam reveals that gentleman as the cause of her sister’s romantic woes, Elizabeth does not become angry or distraught. Instead, the news offers some relief, because it allows her to finally understand everything that happened in Hertfordshire the previous autumn. With this new knowledge, she acts to remove herself from the disagreeable company at Rosings.

This is the ultimate book of weird history! Combining Volumes 1 and 2 in the “Weird Things in History and Why the Heck They Happened” series, this is your opportunity to jump into a time machine and visit some of the overlooked, the peculiar, and definitely the most amusing things that have influenced our contemporary world. Brace yourself for amusement and astonishment as you explore not only the 50 tales from the first two volumes but 5 additional historical events that you most likely won’t find in any school textbook! “Weird Things in History and Why the Heck They Happened” ...

I survived five Seasons as a chaperone without a single scandal. Then a werewolf bit me in the hedge maze. Invisibility is the greatest asset a spinster chaperone can have. But while searching for a straying debutante in the dark gardens of a masquerade ball, I stumble upon a massive, terrifying wolf. Instead of eating me, the beast pins me to a stone statue, nuzzles my throat, and gives me a sharp, stinging bite right on the collarbone. The next morning, the most notorious rake in London, Lord Loxley, arrives at my door. He isn't here for my young charge. He is here for me. Suddenly, ...

The complete “One Breath at a Time” trilogy of time travel romance adventures, including: AS I FADE (Book 1) What would you do if the love of your life was waiting for you fifty years in the past? For Brielle Eden, a successful novelist living in New York City, this is a very real possibility. For reasons unknown to her Brielle is drawn to Paris. Once there, she will quickly discover that not all is as it seems; indeed, there’s a thin line between fantasy and reality... And when she wakes up in a hospital for the mentally insane, Brielle’s nightmare is about to begin. Confused, she ...

She joined the Land Army for duty. She found drama, friendship – and a whole lot of trouble. A heartwarming and hilarious WW2 novel bursting with Yorkshire grit, female friendship, and Land Girl spirit. 1944. Feisty eighteen-year-old April Thornton is done with waiting. With a head full of dreams and a heart set on adventure, she defies her parents and signs up for the Women’s Land Army – determined to do her bit for King and country. Swapping her quiet village for muddy fields and unpredictable farm life, April quickly learns that war work isn’t all hay bales and heroics. For ...

There’s a voodoo woman in New Orleans who knows your darkest secrets French Quarter paranormal investigator Wyatt Thomas learns he’s permanently linked to the spirit of a man with whom he’d fought a duel during another lifetime. The only person who can free Wyatt from his curse is long-dead voodoo queen Marie Laveaux. To seek her help, he must travel back to Antebellum New Orleans, succeed in his endeavor, or be trapped in the past forever. When Wyatt meets his former lover at the Mulatto Ball, he doesn’t know if he wants to return. While Wyatt is time traveling, detective Tony ...

This hilarious, heartfelt, and soaring adventure will delight fans of The Goonies and Indiana Jones. Performed as a 1930s radio drama, it’s bursting with humor for all ages, orchestral scoring, and some of the most talented voices on Broadway. When their ace pilot parents (and adorable puppy) mysteriously disappear over the Pacific, the Flamingo Sisters - Flo, Faye, and Franny - escape the clutches of their evil Uncle Freidrich (who believes girls should never pilot aeroplanes) and join a flying circus.

He was forced to hang up his badge. Now, a kidnapping has raced into his retirement England, 1960’s. Former inspector Tom Ramsay is taking advantage of having to step down. Invalided after getting shot in the line of duty, the plain-speaking man adopts a border collie and gets down to the serious business of hiking the scenic countryside of his ancestry. But after hearing over the radio about a missing local, the fifty-five-year-old ex-cop is shocked when a pleasant walk brings him face-to-face with the victim fleeing her captors. With the young woman reported as a runaway and no ransom ...

The Truth Elixir is a witty, sparkling, and affectionate Pride and Prejudice variation filled with wit, gentle romance, memorable conversations, and unexpected humour, where the greatest surprises are not born of magic—but of what people have always wished to say. There is no lingering angst here—only brilliant irony, lively situations, and a grand declaration delivered with raw, unforgettable vulnerability. What happens when the most hypocritical society in Regency England is forced to drink the unvarnished truth? When Elizabeth Bennet sets out for Netherfield to nurse her ailing ...

Despite the title, Dickens's portrayal of early industrial society is less relentlessly grim than that in novels by contemporaries such as Elizabeth Gaskell or Charles Kingsley. Hard Times weaves the tale of Thomas Gradgrind, a hard-headed politician who raises his children Louisa and Tom without love and to have no empathy, their lives completely devoid of beauty, culture, or imagination. Only after a series of crises does their father realise that the manner in which he raised his children has ruined their lives.

A delightful historical romance about three friends who are coming of age and their families decide to go west. Each has their own unique set of challenges. Ellie lost her mother to pneumonia three years ago and has had to take over the cooking and washing chores to help her father and two older brothers. Her brother, Ben, is a joy to be around and Bob is a pain. He's positive that he is what every girl is looking for and has no clue how bad his manners are until he makes a huge blunder with the most popular girl in town. After eating a lot of humble pie, he enlists Ellie's help to teach ...

Two gentlemen. One shared suite. A Season already deciding their story. When impeccably composed Mr. Julian Harcourt and irresistibly unpredictable Lord Adrian Fenwick are assigned adjoining accommodations at Penworth House, society anticipates intrigue, speculation, or at the very least entertainment. What it does not anticipate is companionship. What begins as polite inconvenience becomes, to society’s great satisfaction, a story. Observed by matrons, interpreted by gossip columns, and subtly arranged by well-meaning allies, the Season’s most discussed gentlemen discover that ...

A dead man, a locked Gazebo, and a Haunted Shop full of secrets. Daphne Cole arrives in Elderberry Harbor to inherit her aunt’s antique shop—only to find it comes with a talking cat, a resident ghost, and a murder that points straight at her. When local appraiser Gordon Pell is found dead inside a locked gazebo with one of her music boxes on his chest, suspicion spreads fast—and Daphne becomes the town’s favorite suspect. With Finn Calder, a sharp-eyed journalist, and Della Brewster, a café owner who knows everyone’s business, Daphne uncovers a web of forged antiques, buried ...

The Bennet family of Longbourn, Hertfordshire, had long been known to its neighbours as exceptionally learned though eccentric, but was tolerated because the first Bennets settled there more than four hundred years before, just after the great plague. Both the grandfather and father of the master, Mr. Thomas Bennet, married blue-stocking wives from the Continent. These circumstances had a profound effect on Mrs. Bennet and her five daughters. Because of this broader worldview, the Bennet family was more aware of, and affected by some historical events of the period far outside the twenty-...

From Boston's social underworld emerges Verena Tarrant, a girl with extraordinary oratorical gifts, which she deploys in tawdry meeting-houses on behalf of "the sisterhood of women". She acquires two admirers of a very different stamp: Olive Chancellor, devotee of radical causes, and marked out for tragedy; and Basil Ransom, veteran of the Civil War, with rigid views concerning society and women's place therein. Is the lovely, lighthearted Verena made for public movements or private passions?

When Marilyn Kleinman is caught making out with the rabbi’s son in front of the whole congregation, her parents ship her off to her great-aunt Ada for the summer. If anyone can save their daughter’s reputation, it’s Philadelphia’s strict premier matchmaker. Either that or Marilyn can kiss college goodbye. To Marilyn’s surprise, Ada’s not the humorless septuagenarian her mother described. Not with that platinum-blonde hair, Hermès scarf, and Cadillac convertible. She’s sharp, straight-talking, takes her job very seriously, and abides by her own rules…mostly.

Limber up, ready the troops, and prepare your bowels: Rivals 3! Even More Frenemies Who Changed the World takes a hilarious look at the petty squabbles and bitter feuds that shaped history.

Julian Fellowes, creator of the Emmy-Award winning TV series Downton Abbey, established himself as an irresistible storyteller and a deliciously witty chronicler of modern manners in his first novel, Snobs, a wickedly astute portrait of the intersecting worlds of aristocrats and actors. "The...

An antique dealer and his inconvenient(ly irresistible) new colleague must contend with an illicit stuffed goose and their sizzling attraction, from USA Today bestselling author Sarah Adler. Antique store owner Callahan Leitner has an illegal taxidermy goose in his living room. Why?...

Her mission to the past is in shambles. Her future’s in deadly peril. Can this resourceful spitfire stop the present from going sideways? Wilda Firestone suffers no fools. And the seasoned retiree refuses to be tempted by the thrill of time-traveling shenanigans and instead buckles down to train her clueless new protégé. But when a bomb reduces the time machine next door to ashes and reduces her life’s work to rubble, the angry woman takes on a dangerous investigation… Ignoring her own battle scars from past time-hopping adventures, Wilda convinces her trainee to jump to 1850s ...