Book picks similar to
We That Are Left by Juliet Greenwood
historical-fiction
first-reads
england
great-war
A Blaze of Glory
Jeff Shaara - 2012
A Blaze of Glory takes us to the action-packed Western Theater for a vivid re-creation of one of the war’s bloodiest and most iconic engagements—the Battle of Shiloh. It’s the spring of 1862. The Confederate Army in the West teeters on the brink of collapse following the catastrophic loss of Fort Donelson. Commanding general Albert Sidney Johnston is forced to pull up stakes, abandon the critical city of Nashville, and rally his troops in defense of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. Hot on Johnston’s trail are two of the Union’s best generals: the relentless Ulysses Grant, fresh off his career-making victory at Fort Donelson, and Don Carlos Buell. If their combined forces can crush Johnston’s army and capture the railroad, the war in the West likely will be over. There’s just one problem: Johnston knows of the Union plans, and is poised to launch an audacious surprise attack on Grant’s encampment—a small settlement in southwestern Tennessee anchored by a humble church named Shiloh. With stunning you-are-there immediacy, Shaara takes us inside the maelstrom of Shiloh as no novelist has before. Drawing on meticulous research, he dramatizes the key actions and decisions of the commanders on both sides: Johnston, Grant, Sherman, Beauregard, and the illustrious Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest. Here too are the thoughts and voices of the junior officers, conscripts, and enlisted men who gave their all for the cause, among them Confederate cavalry lieutenant James Seeley and Private Fritz “Dutchie” Bauer of the 16th Wisconsin Regiment—brave participants in a pitched back-and-forth battle whose casualty count would far surpass anything the American public had yet seen in this war. By the end of the first day of fighting, as Grant’s bedraggled forces regroup for could be their last stand, two major events—both totally unexpected—will turn the tide of the battle and perhaps the war itself.
A God in Every Stone
Kamila Shamsie - 2014
Young Englishwoman Vivian Rose Spencer is running up a mountainside in an ancient land, surrounded by figs and cypresses. Soon she will discover the Temple of Zeus, the call of adventure, and the ecstasy of love. Thousands of miles away a twenty-year old Pathan, Qayyum Gul, is learning about brotherhood and loyalty in the British Indian army.July, 1915. Qayyum Gul is returning home after losing an eye at Ypres, his allegiances in tatters. Viv is following the mysterious trail of her beloved. They meet on a train to Peshawar, unaware that a connection is about to be forged between their lives – one that will reveal itself fifteen years later, on the Street of Storytellers, when a brutal fight for freedom, an ancient artefact and a mysterious green-eyed woman will bring them together again.A powerful story of friendship, injustice, love and betrayal, A God In Every Stone carries you across the globe, into the heart of empires fallen and conquered, reminding us that we all have our place in the chaos of history and that so much of what is lost will not be forgotten.
Everyone Brave is Forgiven
Chris Cleave - 2016
She is assigned as a teacher to children who were evacuated from London and have been rejected by the countryside because they are infirm, mentally disabled, or—like Mary’s favorite student, Zachary—have colored skin.Tom, an education administrator, is distraught when his best friend, Alastair, enlists. Alastair, an art restorer, has always seemed far removed from the violent life to which he has now condemned himself. But Tom finds distraction in Mary, first as her employer and then as their relationship quickly develops in the emotionally charged times. When Mary meets Alastair, the three are drawn into a tragic love triangle and—while war escalates and bombs begin falling around them—further into a new world unlike any they’ve ever known.A sweeping epic with the kind of unforgettable characters, cultural insights, and indelible scenes that made Little Bee so incredible, Chris Cleave’s latest novel explores the disenfranchised, the bereaved, the elite, the embattled. Everyone Brave Is Forgiven is a heartbreakingly beautiful story of love, loss, and incredible courage.
Liberty Boy (The Liberty Series #1)
David M. Gaughran - 2016
She accuses him of spying for the English, and he thinks she's a reckless troublemaker.All Jimmy wants is to earn enough coin to buy passage to America. But when the English turn his trading patch into a gallows, Jimmy finds himself drawn into the very conflict he's spent his whole life avoiding.
The Crimson Rooms
Katharine McMahon - 2009
Still haunted by the death of her only brother, James, in the Great War, Evelyn Gifford is completely unprepared when a young nurse and her six-year-old son appear on the Giffords' doorstep one night. The child, the nurse claims, is James's, conceived in a battlefield hospital. The grief-stricken Giffords take them both in; but Evelyn, a struggling attorney, must now support her entire family—at a time when work for women lawyers is almost nonexistent. Suddenly a new case falls in Evelyn's lap: Seemingly hopeless, it's been abandoned by her male coworkers. The accused—a veteran charged with murdering his young wife—is almost certain to die on the gallows.... And yet, Evelyn believes he is truly innocent, just as she suspects there may be more to the story of her "nephew" than meets the eye...
The Paladin
George Shipway - 1973
From the author of Imperial Governor. Normandy: 11th century: Young Walter has grown up at the abbey of Evreux, believing himself the son of the abbey’s superintendent Dean Fulk, and earns the nickname Tirel for his skill at archery. An unfortunate incident leads to him being sent away to endure the rigorous training of a squire in William the Conqueror’s household. At the same time he learns his true lineage, and how he has been deprived of his inheritance. He finds a friend in the Conqueror’s second son William Rufus, but is disgusted by certain aspects of his behaviour. He must also attach himself to Rufus’s feckless elder brother Robert Curthose in the hope of making his fortune and regaining his inheritance, but this leads him to make new enemies, and brings him together with his childhood sweetheart, the warrior-lady Isabel of Conches. ‘George Shipway’s progress as an historical novelist has established him in the enviable position of matching such masters of the genre as Harrison Ainsworth. No sloppy romantic make-believe; instead, Mr Shipway creates a vivid, definitive adventure story of the period.’ Sunday Telegraph ‘You could easily vaunt George Shipway’s latest novel as a saga of nymphomania, homosexuality, torture, witchcraft and bloodshed. But that would be to do it a great deal less than justice, for THE PALADIN blends its … ingredients into a very civilized novel. Mr Shipway promises a sequel, which softens the blow of reaching the final pages of this story.’ Daily Mail ‘Here is a rattling good yarn in the form of a historical novel. .. the details of life in castle and countryside are animated and evocative.’ Evening Standard ‘Vivid reconstruction of violent period of history probably nearer the truth than conventional notions of romantic chivalry.’ The Evening News ‘As delectable a piece of historical collage as you could wish for.’ Liverpool Daily Post ‘Power passion rather than rosy romance is the preoccupation of the giant Norman knights who stalk the pages of THE PALADIN by George Shipway . . . Its earthy often horrific images have a great physical presence...His sheer professionalism is a joy.’ Eastern Daily Press ‘This “account” of the young Norman lord’s (Tirel’s) earlier life is so vividly told that one waits eagerly the culmination in a second novel.’ Western Mail ‘George Shipway’s new book.… should make you late for dinner….In diamond-hard style he tells a meaty tale of bad barons, sadistic soldiery and persecuted peasants in post-Conquest Normandy. A disturbing picture of the so-called Age of Chivalry.’ Coventry Evening Telegraph This book was first published in the 1970s and has since been out of print. Contains passages which may be offensive to LGBT readers. ABOUT THE AUTHOR George Frederick Morgan Shipway was in 1908 in India and was educated at Clifton. He then attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and was commissioned into the Indian Army in 1928. He was attached the 2nd Battalion The Prince of Wales's Volunteers (South Lancashire), for one. After his year Shipway was posted to the 13th Duke of Connaught's Own Lancers. He spent two years (1936-1938) as Adjutant of the Mekran Levy Corps. In 1940-41 he became a General Staff Officer, at General Headquarters, India. He remained on the staff until 1944 when he was posted to serve with the Hyderabad Lancers.
The Romance of Tristan and Iseult
Joseph Bédier
The story of the Cornish knight and the Irish princess who meet by deception, fall in love by magic, and pursue that love in defiance of heavenly and earthly law has inspired artists from Matthew Arnold to Richard Wagner. But nowhere has it been retold with greater eloquence and dignity than in Joseph Bédier’s edition, which weaves several medieval sources into a seamless whole, elegantly translated by Hilaire Belloc and Paul Rosenfeld.
The Marriage of Opposites
Alice Hoffman - 2015
Thomas about the extraordinary woman who gave birth to painter Camille Pissarro; the Father of Impressionism.Growing up on idyllic St. Thomas in the early 1800s, Rachel dreams of life in faraway Paris. Rachel's mother, a pillar of their small refugee community of Jews who escaped the Inquisition, has never forgiven her daughter for being a difficult girl who refuses to live by the rules. Growing up, Rachel's salvation is their maid Adelle's belief in her strengths, and her deep, life-long friendship with Jestine, Adelle's daughter. But Rachel's life is not her own. She is married off to a widower with three children to save her father's business. When her husband dies suddenly and his handsome, much younger nephew, Fréderick, arrives from France to settle the estate, Rachel seizes her own life story, beginning a defiant, passionate love affair that sparks a scandal that affects all of her family, including her favorite son, who will become one of the greatest artists of France.Building on the triumphs of The Dovekeepers and The Museum of Extraordinary Things, set in a world of almost unimaginable beauty, The Marriage of Opposites showcases the beloved, bestselling Alice Hoffman at the height of her considerable powers. Once forgotten to history, the marriage of Rachel and Fréderick is a story that is as unforgettable as it is remarkable.
The Lake House
Kate Morton - 2015
But by the time midnight strikes and fireworks light up the night skies, the Edevane family will have suffered a loss so great that they leave Loeanneth forever.A missing child...Seventy years later, after a particularly troubling case, Detective Sadie Sparrow retreats to her beloved grandfather's cottage in Cornwall. Once there, she stumbles upon an abandoned house, and learns the story of a baby boy who disappeared without a trace.An unsolved mystery...Meanwhile, in her elegant Hampstead home, the formidable Alice Edevane, now an old lady, leads a life as neatly plotted as the bestselling detective novels she writes. Until a young police detective starts asking questions about her family's past, seeking to resurrect the complex tangle of secrets Alice has spent her life trying to escape...
Johnny Got His Gun
Dalton Trumbo - 1939
This was a war to make the world safe for democracy. And if democracy was made safe, then nothing else mattered - not the millions of dead bodies, nor the thousands of ruined lives... This is no ordinary novel. This is a novel that never takes the easy way out: it is shocking, violent, terrifying, horrible, uncompromising, brutal, remorseless and gruesome... but so is war. Winner of the National Book Award.
The Gamekeeper's Wife
Clare Flynn - 2018
Christopher Shipley is the reluctant heir to a substantial family fortune. He has more money than he needs or wants – but responsibilities he can’t shirk. She has nothing, and now stands to lose even her home. They were never meant to fall in love …but sometimes you know the wrong person is the right one. Until one day a terrible secret is revealed which will force them apart. A story of love, duty, sacrifice and determination in the aftermath of the First World War. From an English country house to the jungles of Borneo The Gamekeeper’s Wife is sure to keep you up reading all night.
The Moon and Sixpence
W. Somerset Maugham - 1919
Somerset Maugham's ode to the powerful forces behind creative genius. Charles Strickland is a staid banker, a man of wealth and privilege. He is also a man possessed of an unquenchable desire to create art. As Strickland pursues his artistic vision, he leaves London for Paris and Tahiti, and in his quest makes sacrifices that leave the lives of those closest to him in tatters. Through Maugham's sympathetic eye, Strickland's tortured and cruel soul becomes a symbol of the blessing and the curse of transcendent artistic genius, and the cost in humans' lives it sometimes demands.
Powder And Patch: Gossip, scandal and an unforgettable Regency romance
Georgette Heyer - 1923
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 . . .
The Shooting Party
Isabel Colegate - 1980
Sir Randolph Nettleby has assembled a brilliant array of guests at his Oxfordshire estate for the biggest hunt of the season. It seems a perfect consummation of the pleasures of Edwardian England, but the moral and social code of this group is not so secure as it appears.
Liberation
Imogen Kealey - 2020
Soldier. Spy. Leader. Her name is Nancy Wake.To the Allies, she was a fearless freedom fighter, a special operations legend, a woman ahead of her time. To the Gestapo, she was a ghost, a shadow, the most wanted person in the world.But at first, Nancy Wake was just another young woman living in Marseilles and recently engaged to a man she loved. Then France fell to the Nazi blitzkrieg. With her appetite for danger, Nancy quickly finds herself drawn into the underground Resistance standing up to Nazi rule. Gaining notoriety as the White Mouse, with a 5-million-franc bounty hanging over her head, Wake rises to the top of the Nazi's Most Wanted list--only to find her husband arrested for treasonous activity under suspicion of being the White Mouse himself.Narrowly escaping to Britain, Wake joins the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and parachutes into the Auvergne, where she must fight for the respect of some of the toughest Resistance fighters in France. As she and her maquisards battle the Nazis, their every engagement brings the end of the war closer--but also places her husband in deeper peril.A riveting, richly imagined historical thriller, LIBERATION brings to life one of World War II's most fascinating unsung heroines in all her fierce power and complexity. This is the story of one of the one of the war's most decorated women, told like never before.