Book picks similar to
Aztec Fire by Gary Jennings


historical-fiction
fiction
aztecs
historical

War God: Nights of the Witch


Graham Hancock - 2013
    Five hundred desperate adventurers are about to pit themselves against the most brutal armies of the ancient Americas, armies hundreds of thousands strong.This is a war of gods and men. Dark powers that work behind the scenes of history show their hand as the prophecy of the return of Quetzalcoatl is fulfilled with the arrival of Cortes. The Aztec ruler Moctezuma fights to maintain the demands of the war god Huitzilopochtli for human sacrifice. The Spanish Inquisition is planning an even greater blood-letting.Caught up in the headlong collision between two gods of war are Tozi, Pepillo and the beautiful sex slave Malinal whose hatred of Moctezuma runs so deep she will sell out her own land and people to destroy him.

Hawk Quest


Robert Lyndon - 2012
    The Turks have captured a Norman knight. And in order to free him, a soldier named Vallon must capture four rare hawks.On a heart-stopping journey to the far ends of the earth, braving Arctic seas, Viking warlords, and the blood-drenched battlefields, Vallon and his comrades must track down their quarry one by one in a relentless race against time.The scale is huge. The journey is incredible. The history is real. This is Hawk Quest.

The Other Side of the Fence


Julie Dewey - 2015
    This story begins and ends in Carville, Louisiana where in 1894, the town was transformed from an abandoned Plantation into a refuge for lepers. Children were forcibly isolated from their families and put under strict quarantine inside the confines of a twelve foot barbed wire fence. Once inside, they were stripped of their rights, their dignity, and often even their identity. Eighteen year old Frances was smack in the middle of the debutante ball season in Baton Rouge, when pale patches of skin were discovered on her arm during a dress fitting. Diagnosed with leprosy, she was seen as a blight on her family and was sent away at once. Restless and overwhelmed by her family’s abandonment, she set out on a journey through the confines of the plantation that led her to the bend in the Mississippi River. Here she discovers a hole dug under the fence; this is her chance to escape and reclaim her life, or start a new one. When Jenny, a spirited ten year old girl, and her four year old brother, Danny test positive for leprosy they also become reluctant residents of Carville. They are met with the open and compassionate arms of the Sisters of Charity who do their best to help them live normal lives among the suffering. This sweeping historical novel gracefully details the depth, strength, and stamina of the human spirit during extreme times. When lives unfold and intertwine, Faith and Jenny find one another. Together, they develop a deep affinity and unlock the key to surviving by opening their hearts and letting love in once again. This is a love story about the deep bonds of friendship, the effects of love, and the ability to overcome and thrive.

Time Pebbles


Jerry Merritt - 2014
    Only Tekla cares enough to search for her over the years. As Ka Li survives fierce predators and scarce resources she leaves behind a series of signal cairns to help Tekla find her.Skipping forward 60,000 years, Helen Ryland, a mid-twentieth century archaeologist, unearths one of Ka Li's surviving signal cairns and realizes she has found trace of people who populated the Americas even before the Clovis culture. Helen's detective work tracking Ka Li's timeless signals across the Alaskan wilderness now intertwines with Ka Li's story. As Helen solves the puzzle of the signal cairns she finds universal fame and suffers devastating misfortune. In the end Helen discovers that science in isolation cannot answer all of her questions, for Tekla's devotion to Ka Li had not died even though six hundred centuries had passed.

The Wild Adventure of Jasper Renn


Kady Cross - 2013
    So when the group's mechanical genius Emily is abducted, he'll plunge into England's darkest places to rescue her….But his old flame Wildcat is turning London town upside down to find her missing sister, and Jasper finds the attraction between himself and the fierce beauty as tempting and dangerous as ever. Their trail leads deep into the city's most unusual circus. Soon, Jasper will find his loyalties—and future—tested more than he could ever imagine….And don't miss Jasper's continuing exploits in The Girl with the Iron Touch by Kady Cross, available now from Harlequin TEEN.

The Book of Air and Shadows


Michael Gruber - 2007
    As he awaits a killer—or killers—unknown, Jake writes an account of the events that led to this deadly endgame, a frantic chase that began with a fire in an antiquarian bookstore.A distinguished Shakespearean scholar found tortured to death . . . A lost manuscript and its secrets buried for centuries . . . An encrypted map that leads to incalculable wealth . . . The Washington Post called Michael Gruber's previous work "a miracle of intelligent fiction and among the essential novels of recent years." Now comes his most intellectually provocative and compulsively readable novel yet. Tap-tapping the keys and out come the words on this little screen, and who will read them I hardly know. I could be dead by the time anyone actually gets to read them, as dead as, say, Tolstoy. Or Shakespeare. Does it matter, when you read, if the person who wrote still lives? These are the words of Jake Mishkin, whose seemingly innocent job as an intellectual property lawyer has put him at the center of a deadly conspiracy and a chase to find a priceless treasure involving William Shakespeare. As he awaits a killer—or killers—unknown, Jake writes an account of the events that led to this deadly endgame, a frantic chase that began when a fire in an antiquarian bookstore revealed the hiding place of letters containing a shocking secret, concealed for four hundred years. In a frantic race from New York to England and Switzerland, Jake finds himself matching wits with a shadowy figure who seems to anticipate his every move. What at first seems like a thrilling puzzle waiting to be deciphered soon turns into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, where no one—not family, not friends, not lovers—is to be trusted. Moving between twenty-first-century America and seventeenth-century England, The Book of Air and Shadows is a modern thriller that brilliantly re-creates William Shakespeare's life at the turn of the seventeenth century and combines an ingenious and intricately layered plot with a devastating portrait of a contemporary man on the brink of self-discovery . . . or self-destruction.

The Devil and the Dark Water


Stuart Turton - 2020
    A detective duo. A demon who may or may not exist.It's 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world's greatest detective, is being transported to Amsterdam to be executed for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Traveling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is determined to prove his friend innocent.But no sooner are they out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage. A twice-dead leper stalks the decks. Strange symbols appear on the sails. Livestock is slaughtered.And then three passengers are marked for death, including Samuel.Could a demon be responsible for their misfortunes?With Pipps imprisoned, only Arent can solve a mystery that connects every passenger onboard. A mystery that stretches back into their past and now threatens to sink the ship, killing everybody on board.The breathtaking new novel from Stuart Turton, author of the The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, winner of the Costa Best First Novel Award.

Keys of Life


Carolyn Schield - 2014
    The Nephilim's thirst for revenge rages through history as they slowly infiltrate global corporations, secret societies and international politics. The goal: is total domination. Cordy McDermott isn't your typical veterinarian - unless your veterinarian also happens to have a black belt in karate. After rescuing an Egyptian princess from being sold as a sex slave, Cordy finds herself in the crosshairs of death, tangled in a harrowing battle dating to Biblical times. Across the world, a young, brawny archeologist stumbles upon an ancient relic at the Egyptian temple of Abu Simbel after a mysterious dream. On the run, Ash and Cordy team up in a thrilling race against time to keep balance from falling in favor of an enemy bent on vengeance and absolute control.

Court of Wolves


Robyn Young - 2018
    

I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive


Steve Earle - 2011
    In 1963, ten years after Hank's death, Doc himself is wracked by addiction. Having lost his license to practice medicine, his morphine habit isn't as easy to support as it used to be. So he lives in a rented room in the red-light district on the south side of San Antonio, performing abortions and patching up the odd knife or gunshot wound. But when Graciela, a young Mexican immigrant, appears in the neighborhood in search of Doc's services, miraculous things begin to happen. Graciela sustains a wound on her wrist that never heals, yet she heals others with the touch of her hand. Everyone she meets is transformed for the better, except, maybe, for Hank's angry ghost—who isn't at all pleased to see Doc doing well.  A brilliant excavation of an obscure piece of music history, Steve Earle's I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive is also a marvelous novel in its own right, a ballad of regret and redemption, and of the ways in which we remake ourselves and our world through the smallest of miracles.

Queen Of The Dawn: A Love Tale Of Old Egypt


H. Rider Haggard - 2000
    It opens at an almost breakneck pace, with Pharaoh deposed and killed, his wife and child in hiding, and the goddesses stirring. A secret religious order raises the Pharaoh's daughter, and she meets and falls in love with the usurper's disguised son. The climax features traditional adventure-fiction excitement (battle and torture).

The Sword Brothers


Peter Darman - 2013
    The battle to convert the natives is savage and unrelenting and into this holy war is thrust Conrad Wolff, a young native of the city of Lübeck whose family has suffered a terrible injustice. Forced to leave his homeland to seek sanctuary in Livonia, Conrad’s fate is soon entwined with that of the Sword Brothers, the order of warrior monks that fights to defend and expand Christendom in the Baltic. But as Conrad begins his training to become a member of the brethren, the enemies of the Bishop of Riga gather and soon Livonia is surrounded and battling for its very existence. Conrad and the order soon find themselves fighting for their lives as the enemies of the Sword Brothers close in on all sides. This, the first volume in the Crusader Chronicles, tells the story of Conrad Wolff and the Baltic Crusade during the first years of the thirteenth century.

The Turncoat


Donna Thorland - 2013
    They can trust no one—especially not each other. Major Lord Peter Tremayne is the last man rebel bluestocking Kate Grey should fall in love with, but when the handsome British viscount commandeers her home, Kate throws caution to the wind and responds to his seduction. She is on the verge of surrender when a spy in her own household seizes the opportunity to steal the military dispatches Tremayne carries, ensuring his disgrace—and implicating Kate in high treason. Painfully awakened to the risks of war, Kate determines to put duty ahead of desire, and offers General Washington her services as an undercover agent in the City of Brotherly Love. Months later, having narrowly escaped court martial and hanging, Tremayne returns to decadent, British-occupied Philadelphia with no stomach for his current assignment—to capture the woman he believes betrayed him. Nor does he relish the glittering entertainments being held for General Howe’s idle officers. Worse, the glamorous woman in the midst of this social whirl, the fiancée of his own dissolute cousin, is none other than Kate Grey herself. And so begins their dangerous dance, between passion and patriotism, between certain death and the promise of a brave new future together.

The People in the Trees


Hanya Yanagihara - 2013
    They succeed, finding not only that tribe but also a group of forest dwellers they dub "The Dreamers," who turn out to be fantastically long-lived but progressively more senile. Perina suspects the source of their longevity is a hard-to-find turtle; unable to resist the possibility of eternal life, he kills one and smuggles some meat back to the States. He scientifically proves his thesis, earning worldwide fame and the Nobel Prize, but he soon discovers that its miraculous property comes at a terrible price. As things quickly spiral out of his control, his own demons take hold, with devastating personal consequences.

The Book of Pirates


Howard Pyle - 1921
    Includes "The Ghost of Captain Brand," "Tom Chist and the Treasure Box," "Jack Ballister's Fortunes," "The Ruby of Kishmoor," and other tales. Enhanced with 63 of the author's own illustrations, including 11 full-color plates.