Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Historical Fiction

It is 1950. In a devastating moment of clarity, Margery Benson abandons her dead-end job and advertises for an assistant to accompany her on an expedition. She is going to travel to the other side of the world to search for a beetle that may or may not exist. Enid Pretty, in her unlikely pink travel suit, is not the companion Margery had in mind. And yet together they will be drawn into an adventure that will exceed every expectation. They will risk everything, break all the rules and, at the top of a red mountain, discover their best selves.

'Mad Nicholas' to his friends, 'Scourge of Spain' to the enemy, Sir Nicholas Beauvallet has never been known to resist a challenge. When a captured galleon yields the lovely Doña Dominica de Rada y Sylva, he vows to return her and her father to the shores of Spain. But he has no sooner said than done, so he proposes a venture more reckless than any of his exploits on the high seas which have made him Drake's equal and a favourite of the queen. He will take Dominica as his bride even if he must enter the lion's den.

Leonie Bonnard is being drawn into a 12-year-old feud. Justin Alastair, the duke of Avon, is a reprehensible rake with an axe to grind. Decades ago the Comte de Saint-Vire did something unforgivable, and ever since Justin has been lying in wait to settle the score. When Justin meets Leon, a street urchin with a striking resemblance to his nemesis, he aims to use him as a pawn in his plans for revenge on the Comte. Except Leon is in fact Leonie, a beautiful young ingénue who may just steal Justin's heart.

There was a time when Cicero held Caesar’s life in the palm of his hand. But now Caesar is the dominant figure, and Cicero’s life is in ruins. Exiled, separated from his wife and children, his possessions confiscated, his life constantly in danger, Cicero is tormented by the knowledge that he has sacrificed power for the sake of his principles. His comeback requires wit, skill and courage - and, for a brief and glorious period, the legendary orator is once more the supreme senator in Rome.

In an 18th-century England of wit, womanising and powdered wigs, provincial Philip Jettan runs the risk of irreproachability. Cleone Charteris stands in no such danger. The golden-haired, headstrong despair of men, she seeks a husband who can duel and dice with the best of them. So Philip leaves for Paris, where his father's hopes and his lover's ideals are realised, but with unforeseen consequences for them both.... A peerlessly successful and prolific romantic novelist, Georgette Heyer shows in Powder and Patch what won her a wide, devoted audience that continues to this day.

Pericles returns home more than a hero: he's the leader of Athens, the empire's beacon of light in the dark. But even during times of peace, the threat of Sparta - Athens's legendary rival - looms large on the horizon. When a sudden catastrophe brings Sparta to its knees, Pericles sees a golden opportunity to forever shift the balance of power in his city's favour. For sometimes, the only way to win lasting peace is to wage war.

There Are Rivers in the Sky is a rich, sweeping novel set between the 19th century and modern times, about love and loss, memory and erasure, hurt and healing, centred around three enchanting characters living on the banks of the River Thames and the River Tigris – their lives all curiously touched by the epic of Gilgamesh.

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 £100 hangs over their heads—for their capture, dead or alive.

What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right? During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath. During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale. What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?

Her eccentric and childless guardian, Mr. Penicuik, is leaving Kitty all of his vast fortune - but with one condition. She must marry one of his five grand-nephews. However, Kitty's clear favourite - the rakish Jack Westruther - doesn't appear at all interested in the arrangement. To make Jack jealous, Kitty impulsively convinces his cousin, the kind-hearted and chivalrous Freddy Standen, to enter into a pretend engagement. But the more time she spends with Freddy, the more Kitty wonders whether Jack is the right choice after all....

Adam Deveril, the new Viscount Lynton and a hero at Salamanca, returns from the Peninsula War to find his family on the brink of ruin and the broad acres of his ancestral home mortgaged to the hilt. It is Lord Oversley, father of Adam's first love, who tactfully introduces him to Mr Jonathan Chaleigh, a city man of apparently unlimited wealth with no social ambitions for himself, but with his eyes firmly fixed on a suitable match for his one and only daughter.

Mary Challoner must protect her sister at all costs. When she discovers that the notorious Marquis of Vidal is planning to run away with her little sister, Mary will not stand idly by. To save Sophia's reputation without destroying her own, Mary will take her sister's place - and once the Marquis sees through her disguise, he will be humiliated and forced to return her home. But the irresistible Marquis is a wilder rake than even Mary anticipated, and her growing feelings for him are proving an unexpected complication....

London, 1920. Arlette works in Liberty by day and by night is caught up in a glamorous whirl of parties, clubs, cocktails and jazz. But when tragedy strikes she flees the city, never to return. More than half a century later, in the grungy mid-'90s, her granddaughter Betty arrives in London. She can't wait to begin her new life. But before she can do so, she must find the mysterious woman named in her grandmother's will. What she doesn't know is that her search will uncover the heartbreaking secret that changed her grandmother's life and might also change hers for ever....

A dashing Regency romance from the legendary Georgette Heyer, founder of the genre. Captain John Staple's exploits against Napoleon's armies in the Iberian Peninsula have earned him the nickname 'Crazy Jack' amongst his comrades in the Dragoon Guards - but once the Battle of Waterloo brings the curtain down once and for all on the Napoleonic Wars, the boisterous, adventure-loving captain finds life in peacetime intolerably dull.

Beautiful heiress Judith Taverner has her pick of London suitors. But her luck takes a turn for the worse when her hapless brother, Peregrine, becomes the target of a would-be-assassin. To Judith's great annoyance, their mysterious guardian - the handsome Earl of Worth - seems far more intent on wooing her than saving her brother, but all is not as it seems. When the truth is revealed, Judith will finally discover if the earl is after her money or her heart.

Summer 1914. A world on the brink of catastrophe. In London, 26-year-old Venetia Stanley – aristocratic, clever, bored, reckless – is having a love affair with the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, a man more than twice her age. He writes to her obsessively, sharing the most sensitive matters of state. As Asquith reluctantly leads the country into war with Germany, a young intelligence officer is assigned to investigate a leak of top secret documents – and suddenly what was a sexual intrigue becomes a matter of national security that will alter the course of political history.

Moscow is in flames, leaving its people searching for answers - and someone to blame. Vasilisa, a girl with extraordinary gifts, must flee for her life, pursued by those who blame their misfortune on her magic. Then a vengeful demon returns, stronger than ever. Determined to engulf the world in chaos, he finds allies among men and spirits. Mankind and magical creatures alike find their fates resting on Vasya's shoulders. But she may not be able to save them all.

When Sophy is sent to stay with her London relatives, she finds her cousins in quite the tangle. Cecilia is besotted with an attractive but feather-brained poet, Hubert has fallen foul of a money-lender and the ruthlessly handsome Charles is engaged to a pedantic bluestocking who seems to bring out the worst in him. Fortunately, Sophy has arrived just in time to sort them all out - but Charles is eager to rid his family of her meddlesome ways. Has the grand Sophy finally met her match?

The thrilling first instalment in the Wars of the Roses series - set at the beginnings of this turbulent period of English history which saw the throne change hands six times in 30 years. The Swan sees Henry VI crowned King of England, and married to the young French noblewoman, Margaret of Anjou - and so begins the extraordinary story of how England became a divided nation, where brother took up arms against brother. This was the war which defined the England we know today.

His most intimate and epic work to date, Inside Story is the portrait of Martin Amis' extraordinary life, as a man and a writer. This novel had its birth in a death - that of the author's closest friend, Christopher Hitchens. We also encounter the vibrant characters who have helped define Martin Amis, from his father Kingsley, to his hero Saul Bellow, from Philip Larkin to Iris Murdoch and Elizabeth Jane Howard, and to the person who captivated his 20s, the alluringly amoral Phoebe Phelps.