Showing results by publisher "Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd" in Historical Fiction

Winter 1852. Adam has just returned from the Californian goldfields and is heading for Bendigo in Victoria, the new El Dorado. He comes across Ella, injured, penniless and with only the clothes she is wearing. Adam is the son of a convict with the determination and intelligence to ‘better’ himself. Despite her current circumstances, it is obvious to him that Ella is a lady, and although Adam might believe himself as good as any man, the class divide remains.

For the past 50 years, the golden treasures of Troy have been lying in the basement of the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Now Germany and Turkey are both reclaiming the treasures. American lawyer Sarah Kaplan is drawn into the debate when the Turkish government employs her to get the treasure back. But things go horribly wrong and Sarah ends up in a Turkish gaol. Sarah's only link with the outside world is the amulet she wears, passed down to her from her great-grandmother. Engraved with the symbols of the bull and owl of Troy, the amulet's origin is a mystery.

Two families from two classes. Four siblings with four dreams. Fate versus destiny. Midge and Gordon Hardie have grown up as the children of a wine merchant. But their lot in life, to inherit The House of Hardie, is not what they have in mind. Midge wants more than her mundane life – she craves intrigue and luxury. Gordon wants nothing more than a life of adventure. Meanwhile, Lucy and Archie Yates, the grandchildren of the Marquess of Ross, have everything they could ever need. But they too yearn for different lives.

Praxis Duveen is a survivor. At five years old, in 1920s England, she is still innocent, the product of an unstable mother and a flighty father who abandoned Praxis and her half-crazy sister, Hypatia. As the decades fly by, Praxis experiences many incarnations. Now, from her dingy basement apartment, where she's attempting to write a memoir, Praxis tells about the story of her remarkable journey - peppered with more than a few detours along the way.

London, 1939. Orphan Clara Knight is haunted by childhood memories of her house being bombed and fire raining from the sky - she was miraculously pulled from the rubble, finding herself all alone. Determined to make a difference with her life, she has found solace in nursing and helping others. When the storm clouds of war return and a tragically injured soldier arrives at the hospital, Clara is instantly drawn to him and the stories he shares. When Clara falls pregnant, the growing life inside her is a glimmer of hope: she will finally have a family of her own again. 

Yorkshire, 1878. Young, ambitious and in love, Albert Cowgill’s life is finally beginning in earnest. At just 23, he has already been made partner at Haigh, Ackroyd & Cowgill – the best wool business in the city. He’s also just laid eyes on the prettiest girl he ever saw, Hannah Ackroyd. Romance soon blossoms for Albert and Hannah, and they marry and set up home in Scarborough. But before long, clouds gather over Number 1, Byland Crescent. Within a year, Albert’s family begins to disintegrate.

J.P. Powell is an archaeologist and historian with a passion for bringing the past to life. Powell has worked as a high school teacher, an academic, a National Parks officer, a museum administrator and has excavated in Jordan, Cyprus and Greece as well as leading historical archaeology projects in Australia.

Ben Thomas made a mistake. A one-night stand with Natasha Peters has got her pregnant. Now Ben has two options – give up on his dream as a comedian and get a day job, or abandon his responsibility and be a total dick. Only when Tash tells the full truth does a third possibility emerge.

1929. When a passionate love affair threatens to leave Lucy in disgrace, she chooses a respectable marriage over a life of shame. With her husband, coffee-plantation-owner James, she travels to her new home in India. Everything in India is new to Lucy, from the jewel-coloured fabrics to the exotic spices. When her path crosses that of Gowri, a young woman who tends a temple, Lucy is curious to find out more about her, and the events that lead her to live in isolation from her family.

The year is 1853, and 16-year-old Elisabeth 'Sisi' of Bavaria has been very clear – she will wait for the sweeping, head-over-heels kind of love the poets speak of or she will have no love at all. It is not her fault Mother refuses to listen. After all, just because her older sister Helene has chosen the line of duty and is preparing to marry Emperor Franz of Austria does not mean Sisi also needs to subject herself to such a passionless, regimented existence.

It is September 1940, and as German bombs fall on Britain, fears grow of an impending invasion. Enemy fighter planes blacken the sky around Epping Forest, the home of Susan Shepherd and her grandfather, Bertie. After losing her parents as a child, Susan found comfort in raising homing pigeons. Duchess has proven to be the most extraordinary of all Susan's birds, as the two share a special bond and an unusual curiosity about the world. Thousands of miles away in Buxton, Maine, a young crop-duster pilot named Ollie Evans has decided to travel to Britain to join the Royal Air Force.  

A stunning epic bringing the passions and heartaches of colonial Australia to vivid life. When a volatile trio is thrown together in Australia, they form an extraordinary, unexpected alliance that will challenge the establishment. Love, hate, survival and revenge: all will discover the truth. 

As the sun rose higher in the sky there was nothing to suggest that 23rd July 1932 was to be anything other than the most ordinary of days. But, for Grace Hardie, this one day changes everything. Grace Hardie has been happy in her family home of Greystones. Alongside her mother and brother, she lives a quiet life of sculpting. But her beloved Greystones is beginning to show signs of neglect. Unable to afford the maintenance of the sprawling estate, Grace begins to worry about who will care for her birthright when she’s gone.

Grace Hardie has grown up in a sweeping estate on the outskirts of Oxford. But her life has been a far cry from a fairytale. Ailing and asthmatic as a child, she never really found her place - not with her brothers, not with any friends - always on the outside. And when tragedy strikes twice in the same day, Grace’s world, and her place in it, is turned upside down. Ungainly and lonely at 16, could the bloom of first love be the guiding light she needs?

Out of the Silence is the stunning tale of three women from very different worlds: Maggie Heffernan, a spirited working-class country girl, Elizabeth Hamilton, whose own disappointment in love has served only to strengthen her humanity and the remarkable Vida Goldstein, the suffragist who was to become the first woman to stand for Parliament. When Maggie's life descends into darkness after a terrible betrayal, the three women's lives collide.

A story of friendship, resilience and compassion and how women support each other through the most difficult times. Connie Carter has lost everyone and everything dear to her. Leaving her home in New York, she moves to a run-down Irish mansion, hoping to heal her shattered heart and in search of answers: how could her husband do the terrible things he did? And why did he plough all their money into the dilapidated Ludlow Hall before he died, without ever telling her?

The marriage of Marcia and Curt Ratheter seems idyllically happy. As much in love now as on their wedding day, nothing can mar their joy. But one fateful day in 1931, Curt disappears, leaving Marcia her two daughters bereft. Then Barty Bendall admits his love to Marcia. Desperately trying to forget the past, Marcia moves to Blackburn with him, but soon Barty sinks into bad ways, tyrannising the family. He particularly focuses his aggression on Polly, Curt and Marcia’s first-born, blonde as an angel but afflicted since birth with an ominous shadow over her health.

Maine, 1997. As the people of Fort Meadow Beach celebrate the Fourth of July, four-year-old Daisy Wright disappears and is never seen again. Maine, Present Day. Fired from her job and heartbroken, Peyton Winchester moves back home for the summer. Bored and aimless, she finds a renewed sense of purpose when an ad for a journalism course reminds her of a path not taken. Returning to life in her hometown brings back all kinds of memories—including Daisy's vanishing when she was a young girl herself.

Measuring the World recreates the parallel but contrasting lives of two geniuses of the German Enlightenment - the naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt and the mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss. Daniel Kehlmann has produced a novel of rare charm and readability, distinguished by its sly humor and unforgettable characterization

The third novel in the best-selling eight-volume Angel Mountain Saga, about the life and times of the incorrigible, passionate and very imperfect heroine Martha Morgan. Martha Morgan, the Mistress of Plas Ingli, has a premonition of grave danger to come. As the effects of poverty and starvation afflict the neighbourhood, Martha tries to influence the corrupt Turnpike Trusts, who are compounding the miseries of the poor by building new and illegal toll gates and rigorously collecting tolls.