Archives de catégorie : Historical Fiction

THE SHADOW KEY de Susan Stokes-Chapman

From the best-selling author of Pandora.

THE SHADOW KEY
by Susan Stokes-Chapman
HarperCollins, TBC
(via Mushens Entertainment)

Meirionydd, 1783. Henry Talbot has been dismissed from his post at a prestigious London hospital. The only job he can find is as a physician in the backwaters of Wales where he can’t speak the language, belief in myth and magic is rife, and the villagers treat him with bewildering suspicion. When Henry discovers his predecessor died under mysterious circumstances, he is determined to find answers.

Linette Tresilian, the unconventional mistress of Plas Helyg, lives a lonely life. Her father is long dead, her mother haunted by demons which keep her locked away in her room, and her cousin treats her with cool disdain – she has had no choice but to become fiercely self-reliant.

Linette has always suspected something is not quite right in the village, but it is only through Henry’s investigations that the truth about those closest to her will come to light…a truth that will bind hers and Henry’s destinies together in ways neither thought possible.

Susan Stokes-Chapman was born in 1985 and grew up in Lichfield, Staffordshire. She studied for four years at Aberystwyth University, graduating with a BA in Education & English Literature and an MA in Creative Writing.

RED RABBIT d’Alex Grecian

From bestselling author Alex Grecian comes a folk horror epic about a ragtag posse that must track down a witch through a wild west beset by demons and ghosts—and where death is always just around the bend..

RED RABBIT
by Alex Grecian
Tor Nightfire, September 2023
(via The Gernert Company)

Sadie Grace is wanted for witchcraft, dead (or alive). And every hired gun in Kansas is out to collect the bounty on her head, including bona fide witch hunter Old Tom and his mysterious, mute ward, Rabbit. On the road to Burden County, they’re joined by two vagabond cowboys with a strong sense of adventure – but no sense of purpose – and a recently widowed schoolteacher with nothing left to lose. As their posse grows, so too does the danger. Racing along the drought-stricken plains in a stolen red stagecoach, they encounter monsters more wicked than witches lurking along the dusty trail. But the crew is determined to get that bounty, or die trying. Written with the devilish cadence of Stephen Graham Jones and the pulse-pounding brutality of Nick Cutter, Red Rabbit is a supernatural adventure of luck and misfortune.

Alex Grecian is the New York Times bestselling author of The Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad series: The Yard and its sequels The Black Country, The Devil’s Workshop, The Harvest Man, and Lost and Gone Forever; as well as the contemporary thriller The Saint of Wolves and Butchers, and the ebook The Blue Girl. He has also written multiple award-winning graphic novels, including Proof, and Rasputin.

This is a book I’m going to be pressing into the hands of every reader I know. It’s an epic, sometimes brutal, sometimes tender, but always surprising gallop of a book, populated by characters I found myself caring deeply about. RED RABBIT was impossible to put down.” —Kelly Link, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Get In Trouble

Echoing True Grit, The Good Lord Bird, and any number of classic tales of terror, Alex Grecian’s RED RABBIT is a riotous, Boschian, gun-slinging marvel.” —Laird Hunt, author of In the House in the Dark of the Woods

ETWAS VERBORGEN SCHÖNES d’Arne Jensen

A novel about living the life you want, inspired by the true story of trans woman Charlotte von Mahlsdorf.

ETWAS VERBORGEN SCHÖNES
(Hidden Beauty)
by Arne Jensen
Heyne/PRH Germany, December 2023

Uckermark, July 2018. On an old estate in the middle of nowhere, ninety-year-old Ottilie Rabe gathers her extended family around her to finalise her will. But when they come together, old wounds are opened. There is one thing from her past which Ottilie knows she must deal with – a terrible secret she has been hiding for decades, and which will change all their lives for ever.

Berlin, 1944. The body of a high-ranking Gestapo officer is found in a flat. He has been battered to death with a hammer. Investigating officer Werner Beltheim is under pressure to solve the case quickly. His prime suspect is the dead man’s daughter, who was found sitting next to the body. Her name is Ottilie Rabe…

Medic and therapist Arne Jensen has always been interested in modern German history and how it has affected the postwar generation. HIDDEN BEAUTY is partly about his specialist subject of how war trauma is passed down through families.

SECRETS OF THE SANDS d’Alisha Sevigny

Sesha must race to find a priceless scroll before time runs out.

SECRETS OF THE SANDS
by Alisha Sevigny
Dundurn Press, 2020 – 2022
(via The Rights Factory)

Book 1: THE LOST SCROLL OF THE PHYSICIAN (January 2020)

After a brutal fire takes their parents’ lives, Sesha and Ky, children of the pharaoh’s royal physician, are left charming snakes and stealing food to survive. Unsure of who to trust, the pair are found and brought back to the palace, where the pharaoh tasks Sesha with finding a rare medical document her father was transcribing. But are the royals hiding something?

Befriended by a fellow scribe and a young princess, Sesha navigates palace intrigue and temple treachery while urgently seeking the valuable papyrus. For the scroll doesn’t just have the power to keep the pharaoh’s army alive and reveal the secrets around her parents’ death—it may be the only thing that can save Ky’s life.

Book 2: THE DESERT PRINCE (September 2020)

Ancient Egyptian healer and scribe Sesha is ready for another role: spy.

Forced to flee Thebes or face death, Sesha and her friends, Paser and Reb, travel up the Nile and into the desert in search of a hidden oasis. Led by a freed spy, they plan to rescue Pharaoh’s daughter Princess Merat, given to a Hyksos chieftain against her will. Before they can get there, though, they have to battle lurking crocodiles, endless dunes, and blinding sandstorms.

When the group finally straggles into the Hyksos camp, they find the rebels preparing for combat. But as Sesha and her friends spend time with the rival tribe, the lines in the sand begin to blur. When she takes on a dangerous secret mission and learns about a prophecy that could change the course of history, Sesha has to decide where her future—and the real danger—lies.

Book 3: THE ORACLE OF AVARIS (January 2022)

A search for answers from a mysterious Oracle has Sesha and her friends navigating intrigue and danger in this thrilling conclusion to the SECRETS OF THE SANDS series.

Leaving the oasis, Sesha and her friends set sail for Avaris, intent on stopping the Hyksos Chieftain from claiming the throne and declaring war on Thebes. On the journey, Sesha learns that she and the scroll are at the centre of a pair of prophecies made by a famed Oracle—prophecies with staggering implications for both her and the Hyksos people. But when the crew arrives in the bustling port city, they are stunned to learn the Oracle is missing. With the prophecies now in doubt and their lives in danger, Sesha, Paser, and Reb must race to find a mysterious Priestess sect and witness the third and final prophecy before the upcoming lunar eclipse.

As the young scribes seek answers, Sesha must untangle her past and future while keeping war from erupting in the present. For there is one person she cannot bear to face across the Hyksos battlefield: her brother.

Alisha Sevigny is the author of MG adventure series, SECRETS OF THE SANDS, as well as YA contemporaries, Summer Constellations and Kissing Frogs. Her baby board book Give Me a Snickle! came out April 2022. Alisha’s novels have been CCBCs Best Books for Kids & Teens picks and she was one of three finalists in North America’s National Excellence for Romance Fiction Award (NERFA) in their YA category. Born and raised in BC’s Pacific Northwest’s temperate rainforest, she now makes her home in the Cayman Islands with her family. A former literary agent, Alisha is also an actor, yoga teacher, tarot reader, and an avid collector of crystals.

THE WITCHES AT THE END OF THE WORLD de Chelsea Iversen

Two sisters find themselves at odds in this breathtaking historical fantasy —and when one releases a dark spell, someone will have to burn. They are witches, after all.

THE WITCHES AT THE END OF THE WORLD
by Chelsea Iversen
Sourcebooks Landmark, October 2023

Minna and Kaija live deep in the birch woods of northern Norway, hiding in the shadows since their mother was burned at the stake thirteen years ago. Sweet-tempered Kaija remembers life before the fire—the friendships, the comfort and warmth of community. Her magic is quiet, mostly charms to heal cuts and bruises. She’d happily give it up to have a normal life. Minna, though, was raised in smoke. She’s a witch through and through: full of power and unafraid of it, wrath always simmering just below the surface. When Kaija decides to return to the village where their mother died to make a new life for herself, Minna, in a rage, releases a curse to raze the community that’s taken everything from her. In doing so, she sets in motion a plot that could destroy Kaija and the new life she’s trying to build. But you can’t take back dark magic once it’s been released, and someone will have to burn. They are witches, after all.

Chelsea Iversen lives with her husband and dog in Colorado, where she reads her runes at every full moon. This is her debut novel.

Chelsea Iversen’s magical debut is a story for the ages.” –Adriana Trigiani, author of The Good Left Undone.