Book picks similar to
Beyond the Sea of Ice by William Sarabande


historical-fiction
fiction
prehistoric
historical

The Spirit Keeper


K.B. Laugheed - 2013
    Little does she know that someone far away is dreaming of her.In 1747, savages raid her family home, and seventeen-year-old Katie is taken captive. Syawa and Hector have been searching for her, guided by Syawa’s dreams. A young Holyman, Syawa believes Katie is the subject of his Vision: the Creature of Fire and Ice, destined to bring a great gift to his people. Despite her flaming hair and ice-blue eyes, Katie is certain he is mistaken, but faced with returning to her family, she agrees to join them. She soon discovers that in order to fulfill Syawa’s Vision, she must first become his Spirit Keeper, embarking on an epic journey that will change her life—and heart—forever.

Cry to Heaven


Anne Rice - 1982
    Anne Rice brings to life the exquisite and otherworldly society of the eighteenth-century castrati, the delicate and alluring male sopranos whose graceful bodies and glorious voices brought them the adulation of the royal courts and grand opera houses of Europe, men who lived as idols, concealing their pain as they were adored as angels, yet shunned as half-men.As we are drawn into their dark and luminous story, as the crowds of Venetians, Neopolitans, and Romans, noblemen and peasants, musicians, prelates, princes, saints, and intriguers swirl around them, Anne Rice brings us into the sweep of eighteenth-century Italian life, into the decadence beneath the shimmering surface of Venice, the wild frivolity of Naples, and the magnetic terror of its shadow, Vesuvius.

Whispers in the Sand


Barbara Erskine - 1995
    Cruising down the Nile from Luxor to the Valley of the Kings, Anna carries with her two mementos: an ancient Egyptian scent bottle, and the diary of that original Nile voyage, which has lain unread for a hundred years. As she follows Louisa's footsteps, Anna discovers both the chilling secret of the bottle and the terrifying specters that pursued her great grandmother.

Hunters of the Plains: A Novel of Prehistoric America


Ardath Mayhar - 1995
    Primordial beasts roamed the land: creatures like the giant sloth, the flat-faced bear, the woolly mammoth, and the dire wolf hunted there, often coming into conflict with their two-legged prey.When Do-na-ti reaches adulthood, he slays the badger for his ceremonial cloak. By wedding E-lo-ni, he unites their clans. Together they must face battle with dire wolves, a stampede of mammoths that destroys their lodge, and the birth of a new volcano, fulfilling an old woman's prophecy and Do-na-ti's conviction that his son must become brother to the mountain."Mayhar has a way of drawing the reader seamlessly into her historical narratives. You can smell the breath of the dire wolf as it closes in for the kill!" -- Robert Reginald

Tales from Shakespeare


Charles Lamb - 1807
    Presents an introduction to Shakespeare's greatest plays including Hamlet Othello, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest and Pericles.

Gypsy


Lesley Pearse - 2008
    Sam believes that only in America can they make their fortunes so, reluctantly leaving Molly with adoptive parents, brother and sister embark on the greatest adventure of their lives.Onboard the steamer to New York there are rogues aplenty. But Beth's talent with the fiddle earns her the nickname Gypsy - and the friendship of charismatic gambler Theo and sharp-witted Londoner, Jack. And after dodging trouble across America, finally the foursome head for the dangerous mountains of Canada and the Klondike river in search of gold.How far must Beth go to find happiness? And will her travels lead this gypsy to a place she can call home?

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge


Ambrose Bierce - 1890
    A noose is tied around his neck. In a moment he will meet his fate: DEATH BY HANGING. There is no escape. Or is there? Find out in . . . An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.

MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors


Richard Hooker - 1968
    The doctors who worked in the Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH) during the Korean War were well trained but, like most soldiers sent to fight a war, too young for the job. In the words of the author, "a few flipped their lids, but most of them just raised hell, in a variety of ways and degrees."For fans of the movie and the series alike, here is the original version of that perfectly corrupt football game, those martini-laced mornings and sexual escapades, and that unforgettable foray into assisted if incompleted suicide--all as funny and poignant now as they were before they became a part of America's culture and heart.

The Gift of Stones


Jim Crace - 1988
    As the stories of the narrators unfold, conflicting truths are revealed - truths which deal with contemporary issues of work, love, lying and forces of change.

Dance of the Tiger: A Novel of the Ice Age


Björn Kurtén - 1978
    One of the world's leading scholars of Ice Age fauna, Kurtén fuses extraordinary knowledge and imagination in this vivid evocation of our deepest past. This novel illuminates the lives of the humans who left us magnificent paintings in the caves of France and Spain.

The Sound of Butterflies


Rachael King - 2007
    Thomas Edgar, a passionate collector of butterflies, is offered the chance of a lifetime: to travel to the Amazon as part of a scientific expedition. Hoping to find the mythical butterfly that will make his name and immortalise that of his wife, Sophie—for if he finds it, he will call it the "Papilio Sophia"—he eagerly accepts the invitation, and embarks on a journey that will take him to a whole new world.On his return, Sophie greets her husband at the railway station, and is appalled by the change in him: he is thin, obviously sick, and apparently so traumatised by what he witnessed while he was away, he has been rendered mute. As Thomas struggles to find the words to describe what he's seen, it's unclear whether or not Sophie—and their marriage—will be able to withstand what he has to tell her, for the story that unfolds, the story behind Thomas's silence, is one of great brutality. Like the butterflies Thomas is so obsessed by, the butterflies that he catches and kills, it's a story of men who have been dazzled by surface splendour and wealth, and consequently refuse to acknowledge its underlying cruelty. But when that cruelty ends in murder, the question for Thomas—and Sophie—is whether or not he should be the one to speak out.Written in rich, sensuous prose, and taking the reader from the demure gentility of Edwardian England to the decadence of Brazil's rubber boom, The Sound of Butterflies is a compelling and noteworthy debut.

The Rule of Four


Ian Caldwell - 2004
    Seniors are scrambling to finish their theses. And two students, Tom Sullivan and Paul Harris, are a hair's breadth from solving the mysteries of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili--a renowned text attributed to an Italian nobleman, a work that has baffled scholars since its publication in 1499. For Tom, their research has been a link to his family's past -- and an obstacle to the woman he loves. For Paul, it has become an obsession, the very reason for living. But as their deadline looms, research has stalled -- until a long-lost diary surfaces with a vital clue. And when a fellow researcher is murdered just hours later, Tom and Paul realize that they are not the first to glimpse the Hypnerotomachia 's secrets.Suddenly the stakes are raised, and as the two friends sift through the codes and riddles at the heart of the text, they are beginnning to see the manuscript in a new light--not simply as a story of faith, eroticism and pedantry, but as a bizarre, coded mathematical maze. And as they come closer and closer to deciphering the final puzzle of a book that has shattered careers, friendships and families, they know that their own lives are in mortal danger. Because at least one person has been killed for knowing too much. And they know even more.From the streets of fifteenth-century Rome to the rarified realm of Princeton, from a shocking 500 year-old murder scene to the drama of a young man's coming of age, The Rule of Four takes us on an entertaining, illuminating tour of history--as it builds to a pinnacle of nearly unbearable suspense.

Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life


Herman Melville - 1846
    Typee is a fast-moving adventure tale, an autobiographical account of the author's Polynesian stay, an examination of the nature of good and evil, and a frank exploration of sensuality and exotic ritual.The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature a limited edition collection is published under the auspices of The American Revolution Bicentennial Administration

Confessions of a Pagan Nun


Kate Horsley - 2001
    She also writes of her fiercely independent mother, whose skill with healing plants and inner strength she inherited. She writes of her druid teacher, the brusque but magnetic Giannon, who first introduced her to the mysteries of written language. But disturbing events at the cloister keep intervening. As the monastery is rent by vague and fantastic accusations, Gwynneve's words become the one force that can save her from annihilation.

The Guns of Navarone


Alistair MacLean - 1957
    Full-scale attacks had been driven back. Now they were sending in just five men, each one a specialist in dealing death.