Book picks similar to
The Sweet Hills of Florence by Jan Wallace Dickinson


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The Bluebeard Club: A 1920's Historical Murder Mystery (Lord Kit Aston Book 6)


Jack Murray - 2021
    

Harry Heron Midshipman's Journey


Patrick G. Cox - 2015
    Cox weaves the exciting, authentic tale of Harry Nelson-Heron, a young midshipman in the British Navy in the early 1800s. Born in 1789 during the Irish Rebellion, Harry must overcome the prejudice against the Irish and the usual hazards of an active and inquisitive youth to realise his dream of becoming an officer in Britain’s Royal Navy. When he and his childhood friend Ferghal make the treacherous journey to London to be commissioned to a ship, fate smiles on them. Harry is appointed a midshipman on the HMS Bellerophon, and Ferghal joins him as a seaman. Corsairs, diplomacy, and exploration challenge their skills as the seafaring life takes Harry and Ferghal across the seas to worlds they never imagined and engages their ship in sea fights with the French during the Napoleonic Wars.

What It All Comes Down To


Duane Boehm - 2018
    He's a loner - his job is his life. The one creed Jude lives by is to only take work from those being persecuted by the corrupt men of the world. When Eli, an old friend from the war, needs help with a ruthless rancher, he hurries to his aid. As Jude attempts to protect Eli and the ranch, he's forced to face his past, all while Eli's family and a spitfire of a saloon girl disrupts his way of life.Will Jude and Eli survive and save the ranch, and if Jude lives, will he ride away, back into his old way of life, and leave behind all the good things that have come his way?Duane Boehm has written another western novel with enough humor, heartbreak, love, and outlaws to keep you turning the page.

Soldier of Rome: Reign of the Tyrants


James Mace - 2015
    Provinces are in rebellion, while Emperor Nero struggles to maintain the remnants of his political power, as well as his last shreds of sanity. In the province of Hispania, the governor, Servius Sulpicius Galba, marches on Rome. In his despair, Nero commits suicide. Galba, the first Emperor of Rome from outside the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, is at first viewed as a liberator, yet he soon proves to be a merciless despot, alienating even those closest to him. A member of the imperial court, and former favorite of Nero, Marcus Salvius Otho seeks to become the childless Galba’s successor. When he is snubbed for another of the new emperor’s favorites, Otho decides to take the mantle of Caesar by force. At the same time, the governor of Germania, Aulus Vitellius, is proclaimed emperor by his legions, leading Rome into civil war. In the east, the empire’s fiercest general, Flavius Vespasian, has been embroiled in suppressing the rebellion in Judea over the last two years. With nearly one third of the entire Roman Army under his command, he wields formidable power. At first attempting to stay above the fray, and with the empire fracturing into various alliances, Rome’s most loyal soldier may soon be compelled to put an end to the Reign of the Tyrants.

Badlands


Christopher Kenworthy - 2012
     When a highway robbery takes place on route, Bligh feels there is more to it than meets the eye. He starts to investigate El Mexicano, an elusive but infamous bandit terrorising the south-west. As he hunts for his man, Bligh is led further into the vast Arizona wilderness. And what he finds will shatter all of his expectations... On the border of the US and Mexico, where the law seldom reaches, he pursues justice - and a hidden treasure. But in these Badlands, the truth is not always what it seems. Badlands is an action packed western full of intrigue, deception and revelations. Praise for Christopher Kenworthy 'A thrilling read.' - Robert Foster, acclaimed author of The Lunar Code. ‘Kenworthy is a craftsman and entertainer.’ - Richard Foreman, bestselling author of The Sword of Rome series Christopher Kenworthy was a journalist and novelist. His other Westerns include Apache Country and Hired Gun, and he has also written two naval fiction series - the John Paul Jones adventures and the In the Dark of the Moon saga. Pioneering Press is an imprint of Endeavour Press, the UK’s leading independent digital publisher. We publish new and classic westerns by authors from the US and the UK.

Under a Flaming Sky


Elizabeth Haran - 2007
    Their journey takes an unexpected turn, however, and Arabella finds herself in the desert - all alone. Her fate might have been sealed if not for a group of Aborigines that take her to Marree, a small town in the outback, cut off from the rest of the world. While her parents believe her dead, Arabella is all on her own...

Araluen


Judy Nunn - 1994
    Corruption... Movie-making. Judy Nunn weaves an intricate web of characters and locations in this spellbinding saga of the Ross family and its inescapable legacy of greed and power.

The Writing On The Wall


Juliet Rieden - 2019
    She longed to have relatives and knew precious little about her Czech father's childhood as a refugee.On the night before Juliet's father died, in 2006, Juliet's father suddenly looked up and said: 'The plane is in the hangar.' In the years after his death, Juliet comes to truly understand the significance of these words.On a trip to Prague she is shocked to see the Rieden name written many times over on the walls of the Pinkas Synagogue memorial. These names become the catalyst for a life-changing journey that uncovers a personal Holocaust tragedy of epic proportions.Juliet traces the grim fate of her father's cousins, aunts and uncles on visits to Auschwitz and Theresienstadt concentration camps and learns about the extremes of cruelty, courage and kindness.Then in a locked box in Britain's National Archives, she discovers a stash of documents including letters from her father that reveal intimate details of his struggle.Meticulously researched and beautifully told, this is the moving story of a woman's quest to piece together the hidden parts of her father's life and the unimaginable losses he was determined to protect his children from.PRAISE FOR THE WRITING ON THE WALL'Rieden sets out to chart her story with a journalist's rigour: facts, timelines, archival material. She does it brilliantly. But it is the small, powerful resonant moments within a harrowing arc that bring her story alive.' The Australian

The Right Place


Carla Caruso - 2018
    Perfect for readers who love The Missing Pieces of Us by Fleur McDonald and Josephine Moon. With her dreams of dominating Melbourne's fashion scene in tatters, Nella Martini has returned to the last place she wants to be – Torrente Blu, the market garden inherited from her late nonna. She just needs to clean up the property, sell it quickly, and avoid run-ins with her neighbour: surly Adrian Tomaso. But when Nella comes across her nonna's cookbook things start to change. The place, with its endless tomato plants and gallons of olive oil in storage, gets under her skin, as does Adrian with his passion for this life. But her dreams have always meant being anywhere but here – haven't they? Or has the right place been here all this time? For Esta Feliciano in the 1950s, the right place was her Italian village. But in search of a better life than war-torn Italy has to offer, her husband has moved Esta and their daughter to this alien country, settling on a small, flat piece of land that he calls Torrente Blu. Can Esta come to grips with the harsh Australian sun and strange culture? Woven with traditional Italian recipes, The Right Place is the heartfelt story of two women's journeys, as they discover how the right place to call home can be where you make it...

On Fairness


Sally McManus
    Why then do we have creeping inequality in the land of the fair go? The answer lies in stagnant wage rises, gender pay inequity, insecure work and the lack of real opportunities for all while corporations are still consuming large profits and executives claim record bonuses. Sally McManus confronts these truths every day. In On Fairness, she explores the true cost of social injustice and argues for advancing Australia fair.

When You Wake and Find Me Gone


Maureen McCarthy - 2002
    . .Everything is coming together for twenty-year-old Kit. She loves her new subjects at uni, she has some great friends, her big country family is safely three hours drive away, and the lecturer she's been idolising for months seems interested in her. Kit's life is taking off!But then there's an accident, the family calls Kit back, and suddenly all her certainties are shattered. Kit takes off to Ireland in search of answers. What she finds is a past dominated by violence, a present where the history still lives and a man who can help her understand . . .

Wood Green


Sean Rabin - 2016
    Peopled by an ensemble cast, the local publican the single mother who manages the pub’s kitchen, the unhappily married couple that runs the corner store, a newcomer from Johannesburg with a murky past, a snivelling B&B proprietor and a determined ex-girlfriend, Wood Green artfully evokes the claustrophobia of small-town life. While Michael believes he is making a new life for himself, Lucian has other plans. Rabin writes with wit and intelligence – and deftly executes an unsuspected plot twist – in his exploration of the perils of literary ambition and the elusive prospect of artistic legacy.

The Toy Maker


Liam Pieper - 2016
    . .Adam Kulakov likes his life. He's on the right side of middle age; the toy company he owns brightens the lives of children around the world; and he has more money than he can ever spend, a wife and child he adores, and as many mistresses as he can reasonably hide from them. And he is not the only one with secrets. In 1944, Adam's grandfather, Arkady, was imprisoned in Auschwitz and given an impossible choice. Now, as he's coming to the end of his life, he has to keep the truth from his family, and hold back the crushing memories of his time with one of history's greatest monsters. As a mistake threatens to bring Adam's world tumbling down around him, the past reaches for Arkady. Everything he's spent a lifetime building will be threatened, as will everything Adam and his family think they know of the world. Bold, dark and compelling, The Toymaker is a novel about privilege, fear and the great harm we can do when we are afraid of losing what we hold dear. 'Pieper writes superbly. The Toymaker gives immediate and absorbing pleasure, and has similarities to J M Coetzee's Disgrace in terms of the main character's wretched search for redemption, both for himself and for humanity.' Books+Publishing

Dustfall


Michelle Johnston - 2018
    He travels to the isolated town of Wittenoom and takes charge of its small hospital, a place where no previous doctor has managed to stay longer than an eye blink. Instead of settling into a quiet, solitary life, he discovers an asbestos mining corporation with no regard for the safety of its workers and no care for the truth.Thirty years later, Dr Lou Fitzgerald stumbles across the abandoned Wittenoom Hospital. She, too, is a fugitive from a medical career toppled by a single error. Here she discovers faded letters and barely used medical equipment, and, slowly the story of the hospital’s tragic past comes to her.Dustfall is the tale of the crashing consequences of medical error, the suffering caused by asbestos mining and the power of storytelling.

Purple Threads


Jeanine Leane - 2011
    From Aunty Boo’s surveillance of the local farmers’ sheep dip alliance to Aunty Bubby’s fireside tales of the Punic Wars, the women in this book offer sage advice to their nieces about growing up as Aboriginal girls in a white country town. Farming is not an easy pursuit for anyone, but the Aunties take all the challenges in stride, facing torrential rain, violent neighbors, and injured dogs with an equal mix of humor and courage.