Historical Fiction

The Hundred Years War rages on and the bloodiest battles are yet to be fought across France. As the outnumbered English army becomes trapped near the town of Poitiers, Thomas of Hookton, an English archer known as Le Bâtard, his men and his sworn enemies meet in an extraordinary confrontation that ignites one of the greatest battles of all time.  Book 4 of series.

Having completed his life's work, the Dictionary of the English Language, Dr Johnson is prominent in 18th Century society, but his home life is chaotic. He develops a relationship with a friend's wife, which is observed by Mrs Thrale's daughter, Queeney.

Rome, 65 AD. Someone - or something - is killing prominent citizens in a brutal and violent way. Investigating the murders on behalf of the elite Eighth Cohort of Police, Quintus Julius Marcellus finds himself in a mesh of palace intrigue, and having to placate the paranoid Nero, protecting his Christian friends against the suspicion that focuses on them.

1660, General Edward Whalley and Colonel William Goffe, father- and son-in-law, cross the Atlantic. They are on the run and wanted for the murder of Charles I. Under the provisions of the Act of Oblivion, they have been found guilty in absentia of high treason.

In London, Richard Nayler, secretary of the regicide committee of the Privy Council, is tasked with tracking down the fugitives. He'll stop at nothing until the two men are brought to justice. A reward of GBP100 hangs over their heads - for their capture, dead or alive.

1721, and Adam Hanaway arrives in wealthy, cosmopolitan Lisbon seeking to restore his father’s lost fortune. But Adam is expelled from his uncle’s firm and must clear his name.

April 1814. Napoleon is deposed and exiled after defeat by a resurgent allied collation.

Captain Sir Thomas Kydd is one of the lucky officers not to be put on half pay. Instead, he is offered an admiral's flag, but the station is West Africa and with it comes anti-slavery operations set in fever-ridden swamps. Despite the obvious dangers and hardships, Kydd readies for sea with his beloved Thunderer as his flagship.

But before he can set sail comes the electrifying news - the tyrant has escaped from Elba and is marching on Paris, the citizens flocking to join him.

With frantic haste Admiral Sir Thomas Kydd is appointed temporary commander-in-chief to sail with all the men-o'-war that can be scraped together to stand athwart the French…

A beautiful and determined admiral's daughter could be the key to realising all Kydd's career ambitions and dreams of love. However high society, he finds, can be as treacherous as his first mistress - the sea.  Book 8 of series.

1794. Lieutenant John Pearce is caught between a feuding trio of admirals. One puts him in a position of danger while another asks him to undertake a hazardous commission in order to protect his friends, the Pelicans. Book 5 of series.

1922. When Lady Emily Fitzallan returns to Leysmorton Manor where she spent her childhood, it brings back many memories. But the disturbing discovery of a soldier’s skeleton at the base of an ancient Yew tree brings the past shockingly into the present. Could the man’s untimely death have its roots in her sister Clare’s disappearance, which occurred almost half a century ago . . .?

Patrick Paniter was James IV's right-hand man, in charge of the guns at the disastrous battle of Flodden in 1513. When Louise Brenier, daughter of a rogue sea trader, asks his help in finding out if her brother Benoit was killed in action, it is the least he can do to salve his conscience.

Her father is a favoured courtier of James 1, yet her grandmother is a devout Catholic, causing Isabel Stanhope to lead a double life. Torn between her duty to her father and her own desperate longings, Isabel leaves Jacobean London and travels to war torn Europe.

When her own first child is still-born, young Mette is pressed into service as a wet-nurse at the court of the mad king, Charles VI of France. Her young charge is the princess, Catherine de Valois, caught up in the turbulence and chaos of life at court. Can Mette protect Catherine from forces at court who seek to harm her or will her loyalty to Catherine place her in even greater danger?

Yolande, the Queen of Four Kingdoms is dead. Agnès Sorel, had arrived a year earlier with the court of Yolande's son, René D'Anjou. Agnès captivates everyone she meets, and finds herself firmly ensconced in the royal court. Soon though, whispers at court regarding Charles's burgeoning feelings for her begin to grow, and despite her best efforts to resist, Agnès is alarmed to discover that she too is in love.

Emilie Seldon has been raised by her father who wants to turn her into a philosopher and alchemist, but he fails to teach her about the mysteries of the human heart. In 1725, two fascinating strangers arrive and her father's spell is broken. Banished to London she has much to learn about human nature and her family's complicated past.

A decade and a half has passed since Grace was locked up, at the age of 16, for the murders of her employer Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper/lover Nancy Montgomery. Her alleged accomplice, James McDermot, was hanged in 1843. Dr Simon Jordan attempts to uncover the truth.

A novel based on the true story of one of the most notorious murder cases in French history. The heroine, Henriette Deluzy-Desportes, governess to the children of the Duc de Praslin, found herself strangely drawn to her employer; when the Duc murdered his wife in the most savage fashion, she had to plead her own case before the Chancellor of France in a sensational murder trial that helped bring down the French king. After winning her freedom, Henriette took refuge in America, where she hosted a salon visited by all the socialites of New York and New England.

When Hitler comes to power in 1933, a tight-knit group of friends and lovers become hunted outlaws overnight. United in their resistance to the madness and tyranny of Nazism, they must flee the country. But England is not the safe-haven they think it to be and a single, chilling act of betrayal will tear them apart...

Marie-Laure has been blind since the age of six. Her father builds a miniature version of their Paris neighbourhood so she can memorise it. But when the Nazis invade, they flee with a dangerous secret to St Malo. Werner is a German orphan destined to labour in the mines, until he discovers a knack for engineering. As Europe is engulfed by war their lives collide unpredictably.

Four gripping historical dramas centred around key figures who shaped America in the 20th century Award-winning writer Mike Walker has created many acclaimed docudramas and historical dramas for Radio 4, including The Stuarts, Tsar, Caesar! and Plantagenet. This collection includes four nuanced dramas featuring a trio of controversial men who stamped their mark on American history: J Edgar Hoover, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Richard Baines Nixon. Among the casts are William Hootkins, Bob Sherman, Lorelei King, Nathan Osgood and Alex Lanipekun. J Edgar Hoover - This four-part drama charts the rise and fall of the notorious FBI director. Beginning in 1919, when a young Hoover uses his reputation for anti-Communist zealotry to further his ambitions, it takes in his single-minded pursuit of criminals including 'Public Enemy Number One' John Dillinger; his struggles with Bobby Kennedy and his relationship with his longtime deputy and close companion Clyde Tolson. LBJ - Inspired by real historical events, this two-part drama looks at the Kennedy administration, LBJ and the Vietnam War through the eyes of fictional journalist Lyle Weaver.

Offered a job working as speechwriter to Vice-President Johnson, idealistic Lyle can't resist the chance to become an insider, helping to drive change. But the White House is riven by power struggles and, forced to take sides, he fails to consider the personal cost of being one on LBJ's people. The Product - Vietnam, 1968. When their helicopter is shot down, a soldier and a reporter are stranded in the jungle. Battling together to reach safety, they share stories, and realise that they were part of opposing campaigns in the historic 1960 election which saw JFK narrowly defeat Nixon. Reflecting on a victory won through propaganda, dollars and dirty tricks, they recall the candidates they each supported - and consider the legacy of their choices. American Faith: Richard Milhous Nixon's Road to Watergate - An epic, intimate drama recounting the life and extraordinary career of one of America's most fascinating and enigmatic Presidents: from his upbringing as a Quaker shopkeeper's son to his involvement in the 1970s Watergate scandal that rocked the nation and forced his resignation. NB: Contains strong language and attitudes from the era in which these stories are set which would not be considered acceptable today.

Abandoned on a bank of snow as a baby, Amy is taken in at nearby Hatville Court. Amy's only friend and ally is the young heiress Aurelia Vennaway. So when Aurelia tragically dies young, she leaves Amy one last gift. A bundle of letters with a coded key. A life-changing discovery awaits...if only she can unlock the secret.

A new novel from the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Glass Room and The Girl Who Fell from the Sky. Ancestry contains stories that are gripping and heart-breaking, from the squalor and vitality of Dickensian London to the excitement of seafaring in the last days of sail and the horror of the trenches of the Crimea.

The Nazi Party have a firm hold of 1930s Germany when wilful Henrietta Arabella, the youthful Duchess of Loxley, is sent on a tour of Europe by her formidable grandmother Katherine, to remove her from the temptation of an unsuitable love affair with the grandson of the estate's chauffeur. However the removal of one temptation only serves to spark another..

Ross Poldark is now the MP for Truro, but his old feud with George Warleggan still continues.  Book 7 of series.

Maria Kendall is a dream client - beautiful, impeccably mannered, graceful and extremely well dowered. In short, she doesn't seem to need the Tribbles' help at all. But then the sisters meet her parents and realise that they do have a problem on their hands - not with the perfect Maria, but with her overweening, gauche and socially over-ambitious parents!  Book 5 of series.

Anna Karenina is a woman who abandons her empty existence as a society wife and embarks on a doomed love affair with the passionate but emotionally bankrupt Vronsky. The novel raises profound questions about duty, marriage, hypocrisy and human relationships.

Against a background of life in the Staffordshire Potteries - a gossipy, myopic, savage community - Anna receives an inheritance but has to contend with her miserly father.

In 1363, when people start dying in strange circumstances the common link seems to be herbal remedies dispensed by Nicholas Wilton. Owen Archer is sent to York to solve the mystery.

1665: Susannah Leyton has grown up behind the counter of her father's apothecary shop in bustling Fleet Street. But Susannah is dealt a shocking blow when her widowed father marries again, and her new stepmother seems determined to remove her from the apothecary shop for good.

Nell Cardross and her husband are madly in love... But they're very bad at showing it. While Nell believes her new husband, the Earl, married her out of convenience, Giles Cardross worries that his young wife is more interested in his money than his heart. And Nell's secretive and extravagant spending is becoming a problem... As she attempts to pay off her brother's never-ending gambling debts, and prevent the Earl's half-sister from eloping with a potentially ruinous match, will Nell's heart of gold lead her - and her marriage - into trouble?

A BELOVED CLASSIC FROM THE QUEEN OF THE REGENCY ROMANCE.

Arabella, the daughter of an impoverished country parson, dreams of a new life in London. But her beauty and charm will only get her so far - and when Arabella embarks on her first London season armed with nothing but a benevolent godmother and her own notoriously short temper, she quickly runs afoul of Robert Beaumaris. 

He's the most eligible bachelor of the day, with a personality as strong and combative as hers - and Arabella cannot abide him thinking of her as just another pretty girl after his wealth. So she allows herself to be provoked into a game of deception - one that could have unexpected consequences...

Gordianus the Finder - the large, eccentric, philosophical investigator whose famed skills and integrity have made him much sought after in Rome - is hired by Crassus, Rome's wealthiest citizen, to investigate the murder of the overseer of his estate, the prime suspects being two of his slaves.

As the Germans advance on Paris in 1940, a young Jewish girl, Sylvie Vasseur, is sent by her father to rural Ireland to live with the Courtney family. He also sends his valuable art collection – including a portrait of Sylvie by the renowned Mateus, Girl on a Swing. Sylvia is seduced by the narcissistic elder son Nicholas Courtney when she is eighteen, but he abandons her when he discovers she is pregnant. To avoid the inevitable social stigma, Sylvie marries his brother Peter. In Dublin, she becomes involved in the art scene, achieving critical acclaim as a painter. Seventeen years later, Claire Howard, struggling art historian, is hired by the Courtney family to record Sylvie’s lifeworks. Fascinated by the artist and working with Sylvie’s son Sam, Claire travels between Dublin and Paris, eventually unravelling a labyrinth of deceit and lies that threaten to endanger her life.

Aboard the frigate, HMS Artemis, life can be invigorating, but dangerous. After a hero's welcome for fighting the French, Artemis is soon setting sail for the Far East, where there are new dangers to be encountered.  Book 2 of series.

After the Roman occupation of Britain, tribal kings are vying with each other for titles, land and power. A young boy confounds these knights when he pulls a sword from a stone and claims the empty throne of Uther Pendragon. This is a stylish and witty re-telling of the Arthurian legend.

This is the story of Jacob Cullen, first son of a gentleman in Civil War England. After his family becomes destitute he becomes the servant of another well to do family. Later he becomes a soldier in the service of the New Model Army and finally has a progressive decline into madness. X rated, contains graphic violence and explicit sex.

During the 1640s two royal exiles meet in the Netherlands. Elizabeth of Bohemia, daughter of James 1, and Pelagius, once heir to a Yoruba kingdom and now a freed slave, fall in love and marry secretly. Seventeenth century political intrigue and prejudice works against them!