Music Historical Fiction

In "Imperium" erzählt Christian Kracht eine Aussteigergeschichte in den deutschen Kolonien der Südsee, indem er virtuos und gut gelaunt...

After defeating the terrifying Necromuse and his mysterious orchestra, all Amelia Jones hopes for is a return to normal. But to her surprise, her class is sent to Europe for a month of study abroad. This seems like the perfect escape from all her problems, but not long after they land in Salzburg, Austria, danger haunts their steps. A street musician claims there is something wrong with Amelia’s magic, odd visions of the past appear around the city, and Amelia finds a strange message preserved in a museum—a message she fears was left by the Necromuse.

Laura Amy Schlitz wrote the Newbery Medal winner Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! for the students at the school where she is a librarian. The 22 monologues introduce readers to everyone in a medieval village, from the town half-wit, to Nelly the Sniggler, to the Lord's daughter.

Pembrokeshire, Wales, 2020. Serious illness has forced Eleanor Wilder to leave her life in London, close her antique shop and return to the family farm in Pembrokeshire. Her instinct is to hide from the world but when her parents bring her to a family reunion at the nearby house, Cliffside, she is transfixed by a set of old family photographs. One of the images is of a woman in theatrical dress, labelled ‘Esme Blood'—a name that is familiar to Eleanor through a set of Victorian tarot cards and diaries that she found through her shop.

Gustav and Alma Mahler arrived in New York City in 1907. He had been invited to lead the Metropolitan Opera; his glamorous wife accompanied him to the New World. His embattled American career places their legendary marriage in sharp relief. Nineteen years Gustav’s junior, Alma was his constant companion and occasional soul-mate, sometimes his muse, always his caretaker, a woman otherwise restless and unfulfilled. Her husband’s life was intensely interior, sporadically alert to others’ needs and desires. Joseph Horowitz writes: “Every Mahler biography known to me is written through ...

Against the backdrop of 1960s music and culture, comes a tale of memories and mayhem...and loyalty and love...and racism, revenge, and rock n' roll. 1990 - Key West, Florida - On a moonlit evening, the "Journal of Johnny Cipp" is discovered on a secluded beach. It has been more than twenty-three years since its author disappeared from his home 1500 miles away. His opening journal entry is cryptic in its message. "Unlike the lyrics to the classic rock song, 'The Summer of '69,' the Jimmy in my band didn't quit, and my Joey didn't get married. In my life, they died. In fact, except for me, ...

For Princess Gabrielle of St. Biel, Scotland is a land of stunning vistas, wild chieftains, treacherous glens, and steep shadows: skullduggery, betrayal, and now murder. Prized for her exquisite beauty, the daughter of one of England's most influential barons, Gabrielle is also a perfect bargaining chip for a king who needs peace in the Highlands: King John has arranged Gabrielle's marriage to a good and gentle laird. But this marriage will never take place.

1916: Betty O’Fogarty is proud and clever. Spurred on by Betty's belief in her husband Seamus’s talent as a violin-maker and her desire to escape rural life, the couple elopes to Dublin. As Dublin is plunged into chaos as the Easter Rebellion of 1916, Betty gives birth to her first child to the sound of gunfire and shelling. A hundred years later, secrets churn their way to the surface, and Betty’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren uncover both Betty’s ruthlessness and her unique brand of heroism.

World-renowned pianist Gloria Banderas is at the height of her career when a curious ailment forces her to cancel a sold-out performance at Carnegie Hall. The same day, she befriends one of the many free-spirited artists inhabiting the warren of apartments above the theater. With her career and marriage at a standstill, Gloria moves into an empty studio and convalesces among the poets, photographers, and dancers who eke out a living with total dedication to their art. As a return to her old routine beckons, Gloria must decide which parts of her life are worth fighting for.

Growing up in London in the aftermath of the Second World War, Ruth is a thoughtful child who finds herself in a confusing adult world. She seeks refuge in her memories of her idyllic stays with her grandparents in the picturesque countryside, which provide comforting visions of a simpler life. As she comes to terms with her surroundings and her adolescence, Ruth finds the motivation to pursue the dream which has governed her childhood, discovering family secrets along the way.

John Alves, son of a famous Presbyterian martyr on the Portuguese island of Madeira, spends his childhood in jail and in poverty. When he meets Mary Freitas—though the adopted daughter of a master botanist, her true lineage is the subject of dangerous rumor—a spark kindles a lasting bond. But soon their families must confront the rising blood tide of warfare between Catholics and Protestants. Fleeing with only what they can carry, John and Mary are separated and arrive at different times and places in a rapidly growing and changing mid-nineteenth-century Illinois.

Phantom of the Opera meets Beauty and the Beast in this gothic-inspired dark fantasy romance. A haunted tower, a mysterious instructor, and the lure of the music of the night...After the death of her father, Aria is left penniless and destitute. To avoid working the streets, she becomes the ward of a Count and moves to a remote town called High Tower. High Tower is a gloomy place with one vivid attraction: The theater. Lords and ladies come from afar to be seduced by a night of unforgettable entertainment.

The moving true story of how young Ukrainian Jewish piano prodigies Zhanna (alias “Anna”) and her sister Frina outplayed their pursuers while hiding in plain sight during the Holocaust. A middle grade nonfiction novel-in-verse by award-winning author Susan Hood with Greg Dawson (Zhanna’s son).

Jaded from her years in the music business, perpetually hungover, and diagnosed with career-ending vocal problems, Lillian cobbles together a nationwide farewell tour featuring some old hands from her early days playing honky-tonk bars in Washington State and Nashville, plus a few new ones. She yearns to feel the rush of making live music one more time and bask in the glow of a packed house before she makes the last, and most important, stop on the tour: the farm she left behind at age ten and the sister she is finally ready to confront about an agonizing betrayal in their childhood.

After her mother’s death, Faun, a naïve college dropout, grabs her Polaroid and hops a Greyhound to Los Angeles. In the City of Angels, she reconnects with her charismatic childhood friend Josie, now an up-and-coming model and muse. To make their reunion even sweeter, Josie is now dating Cal Holiday, the frontman of the superstar rock band Holiday Sun, and Faun is positively mesmerized.

1914. For Paul, with love. Jewish silversmith Johann Blumenthal engraved those words on his most exquisite creation, a singing filigree bird inside a tiny ornamented box. He crafted this treasure for his young son before leaving to fight in a terrible war to honor his beloved country - a country that would soon turn against his own family. A half century later, Londoner Lilian Morrison inherits the box after the death of her parents. Though the silver is tarnished and dented, this much-loved treasure is also a link to an astonishing past.

As a young girl growing up in Vienna in the 1930s, Orly has an idyllic childhood filled with music. Her father plays the viola in the Philharmonic, her mother is a well-regarded opera singer, her beloved and charismatic older brother holds the neighborhood in his thrall, and most of her eccentric and wonderful extended family live nearby. Only vaguely aware of Hitler's rise or how her Jewish heritage will define her family's identity, Orly spends her days immersed in play with her best friend and upstairs neighbor, Anneliese.

Picture it: Pine Grove, Louisiana. The year is 1986. A clueless divorced man stumbles into a world he never knew existed: aerobics class. Stacy: I’ve always been the practical one in my friend group. Level-headed. Responsible. Cautious. Until the day HE came into my aerobics class… Jessie: After I got divorced I decided it was time to get back into shape. I’d let myself get a bit soft over the years I was married. I was lifting weights at the community center when another guy said that aerobic exercise was the key to burning fat. When I saw a sign for Aerobics class, I figured that ...

“Know now that I no longer rely on you to keep my secrets. It is rather the other way around. You are under my protection.” Meg Giry knew that danger awaited her when her life became inseparably linked with that of Erik, the man known as the Phantom of the Opera. But she never suspected that her home and future would be destroyed at his hands.

Lilian Morrison has one memento of her beloved sister, Emma: a battered silver music box. A family heirloom that was passed down through two world wars, the box was the key to Lilian’s recent, joyous reunion with the surviving members of her birth family, whom she lost many years earlier when she and her sister fled Hitler’s Germany on the Kindertransport. Now Lilian is compelled to investigate Emma’s final days after the girls were shipped to separate foster families in Britain and the time before Emma was killed in the London Blitz.