Book picks similar to
Dying to be Roman by E.M. Swift-Hook
fiction
mystery
alternate-history
novella
Turn Her Face to the Wall
William Hussey - 2013
In this creepy tale, the twist comes with the very last word…
The Only Harmless Great Thing
Brooke Bolander - 2018
Around the same time, an Indian elephant was deliberately put to death by electricity in Coney Island.These are the facts.Now these two tragedies are intertwined in a dark alternate history of rage, radioactivity, and injustice crying out to be righted. Prepare yourself for a wrenching journey that crosses eras, chronicling histories of cruelty both grand and petty in search of meaning and justice.
The Battle for England
Bernard Neeson - 2017
The RAF is on the verge of defeat, the Royal Navy near mutiny.In an underground bunker, Churchill and the British commanders await the onslaught. Their plan to throw back Hitler's army is about to be put to the test.Churchill is confident they can throw back the enemy.But not all his enemies are abroad.
Caesar Triumphant
R.W. Peake - 2013
The story opens with the last target of conquest: an island nation known then as the Isles of Wa, and what we know today as the country of Japan. It will be the final challenge of a remarkable career, but facing him and his battle-hardened Legions are a race of people as fiercely dedicated to the profession of arms, and fanatically devoted to their emperor as any foe Caesar and his Romans have ever faced. The Wa have never tasted defeat, repelling every attempted invasion of their sacred islands. In these warriors, has Caesar and his unstoppable force of an army finally met their match in the immovable object, in the form of the men of Wa, or will Caesar once again be triumphant? Caesar Triumphant is an alternative history, by the author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed Marching With Caesar series, R.W. Peake, featuring Titus Pullus, Legionary of Rome.
Lore and Order
Steve K. Peacock - 2014
The fire brigade have been doing their best, as have the other emergency services, but whoever is behind the fires has been systematically running them ragged. Whitehall is worried. Something doesn’t add up, so they’ve dispatched a warlock – a former illegal mage, pressed into service of the government to deal with matters of the arcane – to look things over. Jameson Parker is that warlock, and he’s pretty okay with that. His freedoms might be heavily restricted, and any unauthorised use of magic means he’ll be struck down dead instantly, but it could be worse. He gets more or less free rein to swan around Humberside like the big I am, and it gives him a way to atone for his less than stellar past. He’s better off without magic, and he knows it. But is magic better off without him? The warlocks of Humberside don’t seem to think so, and there are rumblings that, as well as the fires, something big is about to go down. Jameson is not best pleased.
The Demons of Paris
Eric Flint - 2018
Demons, imps, and spirits, evil and benign, spill into the universe from the netherworld. In Paris, a series of grisly murders that couldn't possibly be performed by a human, no matter how depraved, leads the Grand Chatelet and his men to try and raise a demon of their own to learn how to combat the creature that is terrorizing the city. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—the demon who is summoned brings with him a van from the Paris of the twenty-first century. The van contains a modern day drama teacher, her son, and eight precocious high school students—along with all of their electronic devices. Soon, their laptops, tablets and cell-phones become possessed by imps and spirits of the netherworld, some of whom are brilliant and all of whom are insatiably curious. Soon it's a race to see which pack of outsiders can create the most turmoil in the late Middle Ages—monstrous demons or precocious teenagers who soon have their own allies and followers among the ranks of demonkind. And King Charles V had already been in trouble! Piled onto his own poor health, a suspicious and contentious church, France's always-quarrelsome nobility—worst of all, his unscrupulous and ambitious brother, Philip the Bold—the king now has both demons and people from the future to contend with. He does have one asset—and not a small one. He can place his trusted Constable of France, Bertrand du Guesclin, in charge of the rambunctious teenagers from the future and their ever-growing legion of demons. And Bertrand has a great asset of his own—his wife Tiphaine de Raguenel, perhaps the best astrologer in all of France and, for sure and certain, not a woman to take seriously the prattling nonsense of youngsters skeptical of her lore and knowledge.
Powder Island: the Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James Mysteries, Book 26
Charles Veley - 2021
A wounded ally. And the rise of a new and powerful enemy . . . When an unforeseen blast destroys part of England’s largest gunpowder factory, Inspector Gregson, a former ally of Sherlock Holmes, is put on the case. Holmes waits for a call to help Gregson investigate, but the call never comes. Soon Gregson will be demoted to a lowly beat patrolman, walking the streets of Whitechapel. Nine months later, the factory owner comes to Holmes for help. He has rebuilt the demolished structure and needs to resume operations. But he's received an anonymous note threatening another explosion.All known suspects have iron-clad alibis, and there are no other leads. If the culprit is not caught, the factory may never reopen, and the livelihoods of four hundred workers and their families will vanish permanently.Then Gregson is brutally stabbed in a Whitechapel alley. More mysterious circumstances unfold. Holmes realizes the Baker Street team is up against a powerful and complex enemy who will stop at nothing to avoid being caught. Can the team unmask the malefactor before more damage is done? Or will all their efforts go up in smoke?A thrilling and fast-paced take on a classic Sherlock who-done-it, complete with unexpected twists and turns, clever sleuthing, and diabolical villainy. Powder Island stays faithful to the spirit of the beloved original series, while adding fresh new mysteries and dynamic new characters. Get it today!
Gray Tide in the East: An Alternate History of the First World War
Andrew J. Heller - 2013
Really. The Kaiser did order the invasion of Belgium halted, and yet it went ahead, bringing Great Britain and the rest of the British Empire into the war.This book explores what would have happened if the Kaiser’s decision had not been reversed and his troops had not crossed the Belgian border. It is fiction, of course, but the characters are real and, most of them, precisely where they were and where they would have been fulfilling their historical roles at that time.The story is vivid, realistic and exciting, following the action, the intrigue, the political upheavals as well as political apathy and inertia, meticulously researched and accurate in military and historical detail.
Panzers: Push for Victory Book 1: Battle of Kursk
Tom Zola - 2014
Adolf Hitler, the "Führer" of the German Reich, unexpectedly dies in a plane crash in Hungary. The German High Command takes over the regime, disempowers the Nazi Party and reorganizes the military forces. Germany swiftly has to overcome recent setbacks in North Africa and on the Eastern Front. Furthermore, an allied invasion already casts its long shadow. The German generals understand that it is not about the ultimate victory anymore but merely about achieving a stalemate to save the Reich on the negotiating table. First, they have to stabilize Germany's positions on the Eastern Front. Therefore the High Command gathers its panzer forces and throws them into a daring all or nothing gamble for the city Kursk. Tom Zola, a former sergeant in the German Army, is a military fiction writer, famous for his intense battle descriptions and realistic action scenes. In 2014 the first book of his PANZERS series was released in German language, setting up an alternate history scenario in which a different German Reich tries to turn around the fortunes of war at the pinnacle of the Second World War. Zola doesn’t beat around the bush; his stories involve brutal fighting, inhuman ideologies and a military machine that overruns Europe and the whole world without mercy. He has developed a breathtaking yet shocking alternate timeline that has finally been translated into English.
SS-GB
Len Deighton - 1979
London is in shock. The very look of daily life is a walking nightmare of German uniforms, artifacts, regulations. There are collaborators. There are profiteers. But there are others working in hope, in secret, and desperate danger, against the invader. And still others are living strangely ambiguous lives – none more so than Detective Superintendent Douglas Archer ("Archer of the yard" as the press like to call him), trying to maintain a peculiarly, almost sacredly, British institution under a Nazi chief. Archer has started work on what seems, at first, a routine murder case. But suddenly an SS Standartenführer from Himmler's personal staff flies in from Berlin to supervise the investigation, and Archer is plunged deep into an espionage battle for which he is completely unprepared, and where the stakes are incredibly high. "We’re dealing with something that could prove so deadly that not even the Black Death would compare with the consequences", the SS man tells him.Setting forth on a tight rope trail of violence, betrayal and danger, Archer moves into worlds within worlds of intrigue. The British resistance, wealthy collaborators, high-level scientists, German army and SS factions and vicious rivalry, a beautiful American reporter on assignment for the still-neutral papers back home – these are the players that Deighton's treacherously shifting drama, as it races toward its chattering climax that involves the fate of the King, and of England itself.SS–GB is fascinating in its premise, utterly authentic and convincing in its detail. It is the most gripping novel we have had from the author of The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin, and Bomber. Already, in England, it has become Len Deighton's greatest best seller.
Lincoln's Bodyguard: In A Heroic Act Of Bravery Saves Our Beloved President! John Wilkes Booth Killed In Act Of Treason
T.J. Turner - 2015
Though he prophesied his own death the only way he believed the South would truly surrender Lincoln never accounted for the heroics of his bodyguard, Joseph Foster. A biracial mix of white and Miami Indian, Joseph makes an enemy of the South by killing John Wilkes Booth and preventing the death of the president. His wife is murdered and his daughter kidnapped, sending Joseph on a revenge-fueled rampage to recover his daughter. When his search fails, he disappears as the nation falls into a simmering insurgency instead of an end to the War. Years later, Joseph is still running from his past when he receives a letter from Lincoln pleading for help. The President has a secret mission. Pursued from the outset, Joseph turns to the only person who might help, the woman he abandoned years earlier. If he can win Molly over, he might just fulfill the President s urgent request, find his daughter, and maybe even hasten the end of the War."
Parker & Knight
Remington Kane - 2014
PARKER & KNIGHTWhen beautiful, nineteen-year-old Tiffany Grace is found murdered inside the house next door, Detectives Rick Parker and Joanna Knight are brought in to investigate.What they find is a tangled web of love, lies and infidelity between the homeowners, Alex and Mandy Kent, and their young neighbors, murder victim, Tiffany Grace, and her handsome brother, Steve.As Parker wades through the Kents' marital woes, he also has to deal with his own, as his marriage comes to a close.Did Alex Kent kill Tiffany, a young woman he lusted for deeply?Or did Mandy Kent kill her, to keep her from her husband?The truth is even more twisted than Parker and Knight could have imagined.
Young Ravens And Hidden Blades: A Short Tale From Norse America
Colin Taber - 2013
If you have already discovered Colin Taber’s alternate history setting, The United States of Vinland (USV), this short takes place in Markland (what we know as Labrador, around 1000 years ago), and is placed in that timeline midway between USV#1: The Landing and USV#2: Loki’s Rage. Familiarity with the broader USV series and characters is not required. This short story is approximately 30 pages long and is a standalone ebook. For paperback readers of USV, this tale will be included in the front of USV#2: Loki’s Rage as bonus material.
The Wald
Jason Born - 2013
when the belligerent Sugambrian tribe leaves their beloved forest to cross the Rhenus River into Gaul. While on their foraging rampage meant simply to gather supplies for the coming winter, they cross paths with the Roman Fifth Legion. An ever-so brief battle ensues. Though short, this encounter will set in motion a conflict lasting more than two decades with the tribes struggling under the might of the professional legions. The outcome of these wars, in forthcoming works, will prove to have lasting repercussions. In fact, we still feel them today in the global order.The Wald is chock full of heroism, brotherhood, adventure, wit, and even history. Read it today to find out how tribesmen Berengar and his friend Ermin will fare against the likes of Drusus, Tiberius, and Augustus.
An Occupation of Angels
Lavie Tidhar - 2005
But what would happen if, more than quarter of a century later, something somehow managed to kill these supreme beings? Killarney knows and, as an agent working for the Bureau, a British agency that's so secret it doesn't officially exist, she finds herself embroiled in the consequences as, one by one, the Archangels die. Assigned to trace a missing cryptographer thought to have information on the murders, she travels from England, through France, heading for the frozen wastes of the USSR. But there's an unknown third party intent on stopping her, and there's God, who also has an agenda. Not knowing who is friend and who is foe, and with only a brief glimpse of a swastika on angel wings as solid information, Killarney struggles to remain alive long enough to glean sufficient information to put together the pieces of the puzzle and complete what is, without them, an impossible mission.