Historical fiction

  • The shape of water

    Creator

    Kraus, Daniel

    Toro, Guillermo del

    Abstract

    *Winner of the 2018 Golden Globe Award for Best Director of a Motion Picture* Visionary storyteller Guillermo del Toro and celebrated author Daniel Kraus combine their estimable talent in this haunting, heartbreaking audiobook. The Shape of Water is set in Cold War-era Baltimore at the Occam Aerospace Research Center, which has recently received its most sensitive asset ever: an amphibious man captured in the Amazon. What unfolds is a stirring romance between the asset and one of the janitors on staff, a mute woman who uses sign language to communicate with the creature.

    Audience
    Adult**
    Publisher (Source)

    New York

    Macmillan Audio

    Not specified
  • The serpent of Venice

    Creator

    Moore, Christopher

    Abstract

    New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore channels William Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe in this satiric Venetian gothic featuring the irresistibly mischievous Pocket, the eponymous hero of Fool Venice, a really long time ago. Three prominent Venetians await their most loathsome and foul dinner guest, the erstwhile envoy from Britain who also happens to be a favorite of the Doge: the rascal-Fool Pocket. This trio of cunning plotters have lured Pocket to a dark dungeon, promising a spirited evening. Their invitation is, of course, bogus.

    Audience
    Adult**
    Publisher (Source)

    New York

    HarperCollins

    Not specified
  • The serpent and the pearl

    Creator

    Quinn, Kate

    Abstract

    Rome, 1492. The Holy City is drenched with blood and teeming with secrets. A pope lies dying and the throne of God is left vacant, a prize awarded only to the most virtuous--or the most ruthless. The Borgia family begins its legendary rise, chronicled by an innocent girl who finds herself drawn into their dangerous web. Vivacious Giulia Farnese has floor-length golden hair and the world at her feet: beauty, wealth, and a handsome young husband.

    Audience
    Adult**
    Publisher (Source)

    New York

    Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group

    Not specified
  • The secrets we kept

    Creator

    Prescott, Lara

    Abstract

    A thrilling tale of secretaries turned spies, of love and duty, and of sacrifice--inspired by the true story of the CIA plot to infiltrate the hearts and minds of Soviet Russia, not with propaganda, but with the greatest love story of the twentieth century: Doctor Zhivago. At the height of the Cold War, two secretaries are pulled out of the typing pool at the CIA and given the assignment of a lifetime. Their mission: to smuggle Doctor Zhivago out of the USSR, where no one dare publish it, and help Pasternak's magnum opus make its way into print around the world.

    Audience
    Adult**
    Publisher (Source)

    [New York, NY]

    Random House Audio

    Not specified
  • The secret of Nightingale Wood

    Creator

    Strange, Lucy

    Abstract

    A beautifully tangled story of friendship, fairy tales, and family secrets. For those who loved Pax and The War That Saved My Life. 1919. Mama is ill. Father has taken a job abroad. Nanny Jane is too busy to pay any attention to Henrietta and the things she sees-or thinks she sees-in the shadows of their new home, Hope House. All alone, with only stories for company, Henry discovers that Hope House is full of strange secrets: a forgotten attic, ghostly figures, mysterious firelight that flickers in the trees beyond the garden. One night she ventures into the darkness of Nightingale Wood.

    Audience
    Juvenile**
    Publisher (Source)

    New York, NY

    Scholastic Audiobooks

    Not specified
  • The secret chord

    Creator

    Brooks, Geraldine

    Abstract

    Page turner ... Brooks is a master at bringing the past alive ... in her skillful hands the issues of the past echo our own deepest concerns: love and loss, drama and tragedy, chaos and brutality."--Alice Hoffman, The Washington Post. A rich and utterly absorbing novel about the life of King David, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of People of the Book and March. With more than two million copies of her novels sold, New York Times bestselling author Geraldine Brooks has achieved both popular and critical acclaim.

    Audience
    Adult**
    Publisher (Source)

    New York

    Books on Tape

    Not specified
  • The second Mrs. Astor

    Creator

    Abé, Shana

    Abstract

    Madeleine Talmage Force is just seventeen when she attracts the attention of John Jacob "Jack" Astor. Madeleine is beautiful, intelligent, and solidly upper-class, but the Astors are in a league apart. Jack's mother was -- Titanic Four months later, at the Astors' Fifth Avenue mansion, a widowed Madeleine gives birth to their son. In the wake of the disaster, the press has elevated her to the status of virtuous, tragic heroine. But Madeleine's most important decision still lies ahead: whether to accept the role assigned to her or carve out her own remarkable path .

    Audience
    Adult**
    Publisher (Source)

    New York

    Tantor Audio

    Not specified
  • The seamstress of New Orleans

    Creator

    McPhail, Diane C.

    Abstract

    The year 1900 ushers in a new century and the promise of social change, and women rise together toward equality. Yet rules and restrictions remain, especially for women like Alice Butterworth, whose husband has abruptly disappeared. Desperate to make a living for herself and the child she carries, Alice leaves Chicago far behind, offering sewing lessons at a New Orleans orphanage. Constance Halstead, a young widow, has thrown herself into charitable work.

    Audience
    Adult**
    Publisher (Source)

    [Prince Frederick]

    HighBridge Audio

    Not specified
  • The saints of Swallow Hill

    Creator

    Everhart, Donna

    Abstract

    During the Great Depression, labor camps crop up in remote areas throughout the American South. Destitute workers live under terrible conditions. Trapped in these isolated locations, workers are entirely dependent on the often greedy, abusive camp owners who provide food and housing at grossly inflated prices. But for the most desperate among America's vast unemployed, these camps are often the last and only option. This much is true for three individuals whose lives intersect in the deep woods of Georgia at the Swallow Hill turpentine camp in 1932.

    Audience
    Adult**
    Publisher (Source)

    [Old Saybrook]

    Tantor Audio

    Not specified
  • The room on Rue Amelie

    Creator

    Harmel, Kristin

    Abstract

    For fans of Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale and Martha Hall Kelly's Lilac Girls, this powerful novel of fate, resistance, and family--by the international bestselling author of The Sweetness of Forgetting and When We Meet Again--tells the tale of an American woman, a British RAF pilot, and a young Jewish teenager whose lives intersect in occupied Paris during the tumultuous days of World War II. When newlywed Ruby Henderson Benoit arrives in Paris in 1939 with her French husband Marcel, she imagines strolling arm in arm along the grand boulevards, awash in the golden afternoon light.

    Audience
    Adult**
    Publisher (Source)

    New York

    Simon & Schuster Audio

    Not specified