Other books that might interest you

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  Star of the Sea - The Cresswell...

  Katharine Tiernan

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  Star of the Sea is a gripping family saga set in Cresswell, Whitby and London in the years 1745–90. As the restless spirit of the Age of Sail transforms the old social order of the North East, three families from very different backgrounds find their destinies unexpectedly brought close, in a story of ambition, heartbreak and redemption.
  
   
  In her new novel, Katharine Tiernan explores her family roots in Northumberland, with the remarkable story of her eighteenth-century ancestors. Based in Cresswell and Whitby, the novel brings to life the early industrial history of North East England in the Age of Sail.

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  End of the Beginning

  Harry Turtledove

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  Six weeks ago, Imperial Japanese military forces conquered and occupied the Hawaiian Islands. A puppet king sits on Hawaii's throne, his strings controlled by the general of the invasion force. American POWs, malnourished and weak, are enslaved as hard laborers until death takes them. Civilians fare little better, struggling to survive on dwindling resources. And families of Japanese origin find their loyalties divided. 
  Meanwhile, across the United States, from Pensacola, Florida, to San Diego, California, the military is marshaling its forces. Steel factories and fuel refineries are operating around the clock. New recruits are enlisting and undergoing rigorous training exercises—all for the opportunity to strike back and drive the enemy from American soil...

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  Family of Women

  Annie Murray

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  1950 - Seven year old Carol Martin lies encased in an iron lung, struck down by the killer disease, polio. Distraught at her side, her mother, Violet, wonders if this is her punishment - for Carol is the love child who should not have been born . . . 
  Family of Women is the story of three generations of women read by actress Annie Aldington: 
  Bessie, scarred by a childhood of poverty in the slums of Victorian Birmingham and left a young widow with four children, is a hard, bullying woman who will go to disturbing lengths to keep her family under her thumb. 
  Violet, one of Bessie's four children, marries young to escape, into the arms of a man whose life will be broken by war. 
  Linda grows up on a large housing estate in the 1950s with older sister Joyce and her beloved young sister Carol. Intelligent and energetic, she craves education and something more than the life she sees around her. Torn from her longed for place at the grammar school, she gives up hoping for anything better. It takes a tragic love affair to make her question the limitations of her life and the secrets which haunt her family. 
  Spanning more than half of the last century, Family of Women by Annie Murray is a story of one family - and of the joys, struggles and changes in women's lives.

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  Hell Unearthed - A Modern...

  Hilary McElwaine

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  Hell Unearthed charts Dante’s journey, guided by his hero, Virgil, through the underworld. In this modern version of Inferno, the cast of sinners Dante meets includes gangsters, dictators, pop stars, sports stars, princes and princesses. These characters’ stories will be familiar to many and they sit alongside sinners drawn from classical mythology as well as the heroes and villains from Dante’s contemporary medieval Tuscany. 
  The tormented souls we witness in Hell Unearthed prompt questions about life, happiness, greatness, our relationship with society and with our friends and family. Do we really suffer for our wrongdoings after we have died? What is happiness? What is it to achieve greatness in life, and how it that greatness viewed in the afterlife? How should we live our lives to ensure happiness or salvation after we die? What makes society and local communities strong? The message remains the same as Dante’s original. Happiness is achieved through peace and stability in government with clear moral guidance coming from a spiritual power. We need to nurture our relationships with others in society and be mindful of causing harm. What we achieve in life, and how, will ultimately be judged by God. 
  Hell Unearthed expands Dante’s world to show that people across geographical, cultural and religious divides can be guilty of the same human failings. Recognition of the universality of sin should be a unifying process and that was certainly also Dante’s intention with Inferno.

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  The Leaves of Fate - Tobacco and...

  George Robert Minkoff

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  The Leaves of Fate is the third and final volume of the epic fictional chronicle In the Land of Whispers.    
  Here, we find the hero of Jamestown, Captain John Smith, forced to return to England, never to set foot again in the colony. Beyond his compelling memories of life in Jamestown, with its famine, disease, and discord, lies the sordid history of the rapacious greed of desperate colonists and wealthy London financiers who develop tobacco as a cash crop in lieu of food.     
  Even a reunion with Pocahontas is brief and bittersweet, but despite continuing hardship and neglect, Smith becomes the best-selling author of his time. 
  “The concluding volume of Minkoff’s heavyweight Jamestown trilogy (The Weight of Smoke; The Dragons of the Storm) covers 1610 to 1630 and offers a detailed history of the English colonies told in flowery Elizabethan English ('I am all that I know, a motion sensed, a current from forgetfulness'). A fitting wrap-up to an impressive trilogy, this expansive epic will surely please series fans with its authenticity, intrigue, and stylistic verve." (Publishers Weekly) 
  “No author that I know of has brought home [Jamestown’s] trials and tribulations more vividly than Minkoff.... It is obvious that Mr. Minkoff has done an enormous amount of research on the periods he covers. Any reader who enjoys having history come alive will benefit from acquiring and reading all three volumes of In the Land of Whispers.” (Virginia Gazette)

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  Michael O'Halloran

  Gene Stratton-Porter

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  The story of a plucky, optimistic newsboy, Michael O’Halloran, who has been orphaned from a young age and asks nothing of the world but to “Be Square!” This is a warm and joyous story of how Michael makes life sunnier for those around him, bringing joy to all who know him. (Summary by Mary A.)

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