Book picks similar to
Written in the Ashes by K. Hollan Van Zandt
historical-fiction
for-review
ebooks
egypt
Redemption: The Further Adventures of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer
Andrew Joyce - 2013
Huck Finn is a famous lawman not afraid to use his gun to protect the weak. He has come to right a terrible wrong. After his wife’s death, Tom Sawyer does not want to live anymore; he has come to die. The third man, the Laramie Kid, a killer Huck and Tom befriended years earlier has come to kill a man. For these three men Death is a constant companion. For these three men it is their last chance for redemption.
A Spear of Summer Grass
Deanna Raybourn - 2013
But her latest scandal is big enough to make even her oft-married mother blanch. Delilah is exiled to Kenya and her favorite stepfather's savannah manor house until gossip subsides. Fairlight is the crumbling, sun-bleached skeleton of a faded African dream, a world where dissolute expats are bolstered by gin and jazz records, cigarettes and safaris. As mistress of this wasted estate, Delilah falls into the decadent pleasures of society. Against the frivolity of her peers, Ryder White stands in sharp contrast. As foreign to Delilah as Africa, Ryder becomes her guide to the complex beauty of this unknown world. Giraffes, buffalo, lions and elephants roam the shores of Lake Wanyama amid swirls of red dust. Here, life is lush and teeming-yet fleeting and often cheap. Amidst the wonders-and dangers-of Africa, Delilah awakes to a land out of all proportion: extremes of heat, darkness, beauty and joy that cut to her very heart. Only when this sacred place is profaned by bloodshed does Delilah discover what is truly worth fighting for-and what she can no longer live without.
Through Streets Broad and Narrow
Gemma Jackson - 2013
Her irresponsible Da is dead. She is grief-stricken and alone – but for the first time in her life free to please herself. After her mother deserted the family, Ivy became the sole provider for her Da and three brothers. Pushing a pram around the well-to-do areas of Dublin every day, she begged for the discards of the wealthy which she then turned into items she could sell around Dublin’s markets. As she visits the morgue to pay her respects to her Da, a chance meeting introduces Ivy to a new world of money and privilege, her mother's world. Ivy is suddenly a woman on a mission to improve herself and her lot in life. Jem Ryan is the owner of a livery near Ivy’s tenement. When an accident occurs in one of his carriages, leaving a young girl homeless, it is Ivy he turns to. With Jem and the people she meets in her travels around Dublin, Ivy begins to break out of the property-ridden world that is all she has ever known. Through Streets Broad and Narrow is a story of strength and determination in the unrelenting world that was Dublin tenement life.
The Forgotten Legion
Ben Kane - 2008
At thirteen-years-old, they are sold — Romulus to gladiator school, Fabiola into prostitution where she will catch the eye of one of the most powerful men in Rome.Tarquinius is an Etruscan warrior and soothsayer, and an enemy of Rome, but doomed to fight for the Republic in the Forgotten Legion. Brennus is a Gaul; the Romans killed his entire family. He rises to become one of the most famous and feared gladiators of his day — and mentor to the boy slave, Romulus, who dreams night and day of escape and revenge.The lives of the four are bound together into a marvellous story which begins in a Rome riven by corruption, violence and politics, and ends far away at the very border of the known world.
The Sealwoman's Gift
Sally Magnusson - 2018
Among the captives sold into slavery in Algiers were the island pastor, his wife and their three children. Although the raid itself is well documented, little is known about what happened to the women and children afterwards. It was a time when women everywhere were largely silent.In this brilliant reimagining, Sally Magnusson gives a voice to Ásta, the pastor's wife. Enslaved in an alien Arab culture Ásta meets the loss of both her freedom and her children with the one thing she has brought from home: the stories in her head. Steeped in the sagas and folk tales of her northern homeland, she finds herself experiencing not just the separations and agonies of captivity, but the reassessments that come in any age when intelligent eyes are opened to other lives, other cultures and other kinds of loving.The Sealwoman's Gift is about the eternal power of storytelling to help us survive. The novel is full of stories - Icelandic ones told to fend off a slave-owner's advances, Arabian ones to help an old man die. And there are others, too: the stories we tell ourselves to protect our minds from what cannot otherwise be borne, the stories we need to make us happy.
Shiri
D.S. Taylor - 2013
With their murderers bearing down on her she turns to obey his final command. "RUN!" Amenhotep, Prince of Egypt, burns her village, enslaves her people, and destroys all she loves. Only Shiri escapes. With tears in her eyes and vengeance in her heart, she races to warn the Shepherd King. If she doesn't reach him in time, all Palestine will burn. It's a race that takes her from the fields of Armageddon, to the sands of Ancient Egypt and the very heart of Pharaoh's court. It's a struggle that brings the deaths of kings and the birth of a god. It's a quest that sees her fall in love.
Lily of the Nile
Stephanie Dray - 2011
Heiress of one empire and prisoner of another, it is up to the daughter of Cleopatra to save her brothers and reclaim what is rightfully hers... To Isis worshippers, Princess Selene and her twin brother Helios embody the divine celestial pair who will bring about a Golden Age. But when Selene's parents are vanquished by Rome, her auspicious birth becomes a curse.Trapped in an empire that reviles her heritage and suspects her faith, the young messianic princess struggles for survival in a Roman court of intrigue. She can't hide the hieroglyphics that carve themselves into her hands, nor can she stop the emperor from using her powers for his own ends.Faced with a new and ruthless Caesar who is obsessed with having a Cleopatra of his very own, Selene is determined to resurrect her mother's dreams and succeed where she failed. But in a treacherous political game where the only rule is win or die, there's no telling what success will cost her...
River God
Wilbur Smith - 1993
But Tanus will have to defy the same gods to attain the reward they have forbidden him, an object more prized than battle's glory: possession of the Lady Lostris, a rare beauty with skin the color of oiled ceder--destined for the adoration of a nation, and the love of one extraordinary man.
1964
James Farner - 2014
Through verdant fields and meandering brooks, life is simple and easy, far from the turmoil of the Cold War world. When an adventure with his older brother Peter Warren goes wrong and Richard finds himself trapped in the dark depths of an abandoned quarry, it kick-starts a chain of events that brings him into contact with work, family conflict, and the dreaded English class system. Will Richard be able to persevere and become wise well beyond his tender years? Part of the Made in Yorkshire saga: 1969 (Made in Yorkshire Book 2)
Voyage
Stephen Baxter - 1996
Imaginatively created from the true lives and real events., Voyage returns to the geniuses of NASA and the excitement of the Saturn rocket, and includes historical figures from Neil Armstrong to Ronald Reagan who are interwoven with unforgettable characters whose dreams mirror the promise of a young space program that held the world in thrall. There is: Dana, the Nazi camp survivor who achieves the dream of his hated masters; Gershon, the Vietnam fighter jock determined to be the first African-American to land on another planet; and Natalie York, the brilliant geologist/astronaut who risks a career and love for the chance to run her fingers through the soil of another world.
Salvation in the Sun
Lauren Lee Merewether - 2018
But what seemed a difficult task only becomes more grueling when Amenhotep loses himself in his radical obsessions.Standing alone to bear the burden of a failing country and stem the tide of a growing rebellion, Nefertiti must choose between her love for Pharaoh and her duty to Egypt in this dramatic retelling of a story forgotten by time.Salvation in the Sun is the first volume of Lauren Lee Merewether's debut series, The Lost Pharaoh Chronicles, a resurrection of an erased time that follows the five Kings of Egypt who were lost to history for over three millennia. The story continues in book two, Secrets in the Sand.
A Conspiracy of Alchemists
Liesel Schwarz - 2013
It is 1903, and the world is divided between light and shadow. On the side of light is a wondrous science that has transformed everyday life by harnessing magical energies to ingenious new technologies. But each advance of science has come at the expense of shadow—the traditional realm of the supernatural. Now two ancient powers are preparing to strike back. Blood-sucking immortal Nightwalkers and their spellcasting Alchemist allies have a plan to cover the whole world in shadow. All they require is the sacrifice of a certain young woman whose past conceals a dangerous secret. But when they come after Elle, they get more than they bargained for. This enterprising young woman, the daughter of a scientific genius, has reserves of bravery and determination that even she scarcely suspects. Now she is about to meet her match in more ways than one: a handsome yet infuriating Warlock named Hugh Marsh, whose agenda is as suspect as his charms are annoyingly irresistible.
Two Moon Princess
Carmen Ferreiro-Esteban - 2007
A Spanish PrincessAn American BoyA King set on revengeAn unrequited loveand a disturbing family secretbring a World to the brink of WarTwo Moon Princess is a coming of age story with a touch of romance that takes place in a mythical world in which the medieval kingdoms of Spain are still fighting each other, a world of warrior kings in which girls are not supposed to speak their minds.
The Broken Sword
Poul Anderson - 1954
Now the elves need the weapon for their war against the trolls. Only Scafloc, a human kidnapped and raised by elves, can hope to persuade Bolverk the ice-giant to make Tyrfing whole again. But Scafloc must also confront his shadow self, Valgard, the changeling in his place among men.
The Oversight
Charlie Fletcher - 2014
Only five hold back what waits on the other side. Once the Oversight, the secret society that policed the lines between the mundane and the magic, counted hundreds of brave souls among its members. Now their numbers can be counted on a single hand. When a vagabond brings a screaming girl to the Oversight's London headquarters, it seems their hopes for a new recruit will be fulfilled - but the girl is a trap. As the borders between this world and the next begin to break down, murders erupt across the city, the Oversight are torn viciously apart, and their enemies close in for the final blow. This gothic fantasy from Charlie Fletcher (the Stoneheart trilogy) spins a tale of witch-hunters, supra-naturalists, mirror-walkers and magicians. Meet the Oversight, and remember: when they fall, so do we all.