Book picks similar to
Dead Ringer by William Cone
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historical-fiction
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Diana's Nightmare: The Family
Chris Hutchins - 1993
No sooner had she become the Princess of Wales and moved into Kensington Palace than her fears were confirmed: the House of Windsor constituted a flawed dynasty. She found herself trapped in a world of scandal, deceit and treachery. Diana's Nightmare reveals the previously untold secrets Diana discovered about her royal relatives. This book exposes how intensely Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles contrived to exclude her, it reveals the Queen was angry and bitter at her family's indiscretions, how the Queen Mother's indifference was matched only by Prince Philip's blind range over Diana's determination to find her own path, what really went on between the Duke and Duchess of York and how Prince Edward witnessed Diana's tantrums at Balmoral . . . Diana's own secret life.""Filled with new insights into the troubled life of the beautiful Princess. I remained riveted to the end."" - DOMINICK DUNNE
Jesse James and the Secret Legend of Captain Coytus
Alex Mueck - 2013
When a Harvard history professor receives a thesis paper titled Jesse James and the Secret Legend of Captain Coytus, from Ulysses Hercules Baxter-an underwhelming student-he assumes the paper must be a prank. He has never read such maniacal balderdash in his life. But after he calls a meeting with the student, Professor Gladstone is dismayed when Baxter declares the work is his own. As he takes a very unwilling Professor Gladstone back in time via his thesis, Baxter's grade hangs in the balance as he attempts to prove his theory. It is 1864 as philanderer and crusader Captain Coytus embarks on a mission to avenge his father's death and infiltrates the Confederate Bushwacker posse looking for the man responsible, Jesse Woodson James. Accompanied by the woman of his dreams, Coytus soon finds himself temporarily appointed to be the sheriff of Booneville and commissions his less-than-loyal deputy to help him carry out his plan. But when tragedy strikes, the Captain is forced to change his immature ways and redefine his lofty mission-more or less.
Rangers Betrayed (Sgt. Dunn Novels Book 6)
Ronn Munsterman - 2016
Army Ranger Sergeant Tom Dunn’s newest squad member has a dark secret. And a plan. Nazi Germany’s V2 rockets are streaking down on London, indiscriminately killing civilians. The Allies are desperate to find out how the weapons work. Dunn and his British counterpart, Commando Sergeant Malcolm Saunders, are assigned separate, but related missions. Albert Speer, the Nazi Minister of Armaments, is transporting ten completed V2 rocket engines to another manufacturing facility for installation into the deadly rockets. Thanks to Bletchley Park’s Ultra intelligence, the Allies know all about it. Dunn and his squad earn the assignment to intercept the rocket engines in western Germany. Meanwhile, Saunders and his men parachute into Poland, south of Warsaw, to retrieve a captured V2 rocket gyroscope as well as schematics for the rocket obtained by the Polish Resistance. His wedding day is a week away and he promised Sadie he’ll be there on time, but something goes wrong. Separated from his squad, he scrambles to reunite with his men in time to catch the only way home, but meets one obstacle after another. From their first moment in Germany, as Dunn’s men execute their mission, things go inexplicably wrong. Betrayed by one of his own, Dunn must rely on his quick thinking to get his men out of an impossible situation so they can complete their mission and capture the extremely valuable Nazi V2 rocket engines. In the sixth book of the Sgt. Dunn series, Munsterman continues to masterfully blend history with action-packed plots in another of his fast-paced WWII Action Thrillers.
Strange Are The Ways
Teresa Crane - 1993
Petersburg, Russia: The Shalakov family are moving from Moscow to start new lives. A family of musicians and violin makers in the traumatic early years of the 20th century, they’re faced with war and revolution, gruelling hardship and the breakdown of relationships and values caused by these most harrowing of events.A tale of unlikely loves and of unforgiving hatreds. Of bravery and cowardice, of innocence betrayed and of courage that will outface the harshest of adversity and the ever-present threat and shadow of death.
A compelling family saga of the valour of the human spirit and of the magic of music that can do so much to sustain and support it. Perfect for fans of Josephine Cox, Lily Graham and Natasha Lester.
The Face in the Locket
Alexandra Connor - 2003
The two sisters have their own secrets, hiding difficult childhoods yet still maintaining an air of superiority and righteousness with those around them. Living with them is their brother, Saville, an adult but with the mind of a seven year old. The little girl’s arrival soon turns their world upside down. Great plans are laid for their good-looking, headstrong niece. Harris is going to marry well. Everything changes when World War Two breaks out. Harris falls in love with a man who only has his own interests at heart. She scandalises and disgraces her family with her obsessive behaviour, making herself a laughing stock in the close-knit town. But Harris is not to be put down. She begins to build a successful business with the support of her aunts and her close friend, Bonny. She eventually meets and agrees to marry the respectable local solicitor to the happiness of her aunts, but at the altar, she hears her lost love enter the church…. And once again, she shows her true colours. When tragedy strikes, Harris fights to regain respectability in the eyes of those who care for her but has Harris learned any lessons from her obsessive past…?
Empire Day (New England Book 1)
James Philip - 2018
It is the day before Empire Day – 4th July - the day each year when the British Empire marks the brutal crushing of the rebellion dignified by the treachery of the fifty-six delegates to the Continental Congress who were so foolhardy as to sign the infamous Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia on that day of infamy in 1776. It is nearly two hundred years since George Washington was killed and his Continental Army was destroyed in the Battle of Long Island and now New England, that most quintessentially loyal and ‘English’ imperial fiefdom – at least in the original, or ‘First Thirteen’ colonies - is about to celebrate its devotion to the Crown and the Old Country, of which it still views, in the main, as the ‘mother country’. Yet all is not roses. Since 1776 in a world of empires the British Empire has grown and prospered until now, it stands alone as the ultimate arbiter of global war and peace. The Royal Navy has enforced the global Pax Britannia for over a century since the World War of the 1860s established a lasting but increasingly tenuous ‘peace’ between the great powers. Nonetheless, while elsewhere the Empire may be creaking at the seams, struggling to come to terms with a growing desire for self-determination; thus far the Pax Britannica has survived – buttressed by the commercial and industrial powerhouse of New England stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific North West - intact for all that barely a year goes by without the outbreak of another small, colonial war somewhere... This said, the British ‘Imperial System’ remains the envy of its friends and enemies alike and nowhere has it been so successful as in North America, where peace and prosperity has ruled in the vast Canadian dominions and the twenty-nine old and recent colonies of the Commonwealth of New England for the best part of two centuries. In Whitehall every British government in living memory has complacently based its ‘American Policy’ on the one immutable, unchanging fact of New England politics; that the First Thirteen colonies will never agree with each other about anything, let alone that the sixteen ‘Johnny-come-lately’ new (that is, post-1776) colonies, protectorates, territories and possessions which comprise half the population and eight-tenths of the land area of New England, should ever have any say in their affairs! New England is a part of England and always will be because, axiomatically, it will never unite in a continental union. Notwithstanding, in the British body politic the myths and legends of that first late eighteenth-century rebellion in the New World still touches a raw nerve in the old country, much as in former epochs memories of Jacobin revolts, Oliver Cromwell and the Civil War still harry old deep-seated scars in the national psyche. Empire Day might not have originally been conceived as a celebration of the saving of the first British Empire and but as time has gone by it has come to symbolise the one, ineluctable truth about the Empire: that New England is the rock upon which all else stands, an empire within an empire that is greater than the sum of all the other parts of the great imperium ruled from London. In past times a troubling question has been whispered in the corridors of power in London: what would happen to the Empire – and the Pax Britannica – if the British hold on New England was ever to be loosened? Generations of British politicians have always known that if the question was ever to be asked again in earnest it has but one answer.
Christmas With Nurse Millie
Jean Fullerton - 2013
Christmas is approaching - but for Nurse Millie and Nurse Annie babies are still being born, and in the East End of London, new mothers still need all the care and support they can give.Vividly summing up all the friendship of a close-knit community - both for the midwives and for the families - CHRISTMAS WITH NURSE MILLIE powerfully brings to life post-War London - with a heartwarming festive twist.
The Mughal High Noon: The Ascent of Aurangzeb
Srinivas Rao Adige - 2015
Is the emperor alive? Or is his death being kept a closely-guarded secret? It’s impossible to know for certain, since the spies and agents of the kingdom trade in misinformation and half-truths, and only heighten the tension between the brothers.In this atmosphere of palace intrigue and chicanery—as Murad acquires a reputation for overindulgence, Dara for sensitivity, and Shuja for impulsiveness—the stage seems set for a power-hungry Aurangzeb to make his ascent as emperor. However, will Aurangzeb’s quest for domination become his ultimate undoing? The Mughal High Noon, with master brushstrokes, explores questions of power, faith and contentment.
Flotilla Attack
Duncan Harding - 2017
The old sailors, who could remember her past, said that she was jinxed and ought never sail again. But in the last days of 1940, as the phoney war drew to an end, Britain needed every ship she could lay her hands on, to challenge the might of Hitler’s Kriegsmarine. So it was that Lieutenant-Commander John Lamb found himself commanding the old destroyer Rose, with a crew of misfits and troublemakers, and set sail across the dark and icy seas in a desperate race to prevent the German invasion of Norway.... Duncan Harding is a pseudonym for Charles Whiting (1926-2007), who also wrote as Leo Kessler and John Kerrigan. Charles Whiting volunteered for the Army aged 16 in 1943, where he saw active service in Belgium, Holland and Germany with the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment. He has over 350 books to his credit, encompassing military history, espionage, biography and action fiction and holds the Sir George Dowty Prize for Literature.
Soldier of Rome: Reign of the Tyrants
James Mace - 2015
Provinces are in rebellion, while Emperor Nero struggles to maintain the remnants of his political power, as well as his last shreds of sanity. In the province of Hispania, the governor, Servius Sulpicius Galba, marches on Rome. In his despair, Nero commits suicide. Galba, the first Emperor of Rome from outside the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, is at first viewed as a liberator, yet he soon proves to be a merciless despot, alienating even those closest to him. A member of the imperial court, and former favorite of Nero, Marcus Salvius Otho seeks to become the childless Galba’s successor. When he is snubbed for another of the new emperor’s favorites, Otho decides to take the mantle of Caesar by force. At the same time, the governor of Germania, Aulus Vitellius, is proclaimed emperor by his legions, leading Rome into civil war. In the east, the empire’s fiercest general, Flavius Vespasian, has been embroiled in suppressing the rebellion in Judea over the last two years. With nearly one third of the entire Roman Army under his command, he wields formidable power. At first attempting to stay above the fray, and with the empire fracturing into various alliances, Rome’s most loyal soldier may soon be compelled to put an end to the Reign of the Tyrants.
Cairnaerie
M.K.B. Graham - 2017
Geneva Snow commits the unforgivable Southern sin. No longer the apple of her father’s eye, she is a pariah, defying her society's most sacrosanct rule. To protect her—and hoping for a change of heart—her shattered yet steadfast father hides her at Cairnaerie, his mountain estate. But his iron-willed daughter is unrepentant. After years of solitude, an older and wiser Geneva is finally mellowing, and she is desperate to leave a legacy worthy of the father she loved and lost. To that end, she engages an unwitting young history professor for help to escape Cairnaerie long enough to attend the wedding of her granddaughter—a girl dangerously unaware of her lineage. But when a postman’s malevolence and a colleague’s revenge converge, Geneva's long-kept secret is exposed. For a second time, she faces a calamity of her own making. Only this time, there is no place to hide.
Orphan Girl
Lila Beckham - 2014
She never overcame her humble beginnings and when Willie Eubanks rescued her from the orphanage by marrying her, she ended up right back where she started. Living in the same cabin, she was born in twelve and a half years earlier. However, she grew to love Willie and was determined that she and Willie were not going to end up as her parents had. In addition, she wanted to make sure her children were not going to have to suffer through the same experiences she had.
Aroon
M.B. Gibson - 2016
A desolate maid. And one cold corpse. Richard Lynche, heir of an 18th century Tipperary estate, can find no peace. His bookish ways disgust his bullying letch of a father. His heartsick mother sinks ever-deeper into a drug-induced lethargy. The teen’s only solace are the loving arms of the homesick new maid, Eveleen. Meanwhile jealousy, lust, and oppression lead to gruesome visions, causing Richard to question his own sanity. Desperate to prevail over his demons, he determines there is only one way to stop the torture—a killing. Aroon is a cauldron of old-fashioned Irish stew. Spiced heavily with Downton Abbey, sprinkled with Shakespeare’s Hamlet and a dash of The Godfather’s Michael Corleone, it explores the underbelly of life during the Protestant Ascendancy.
The Daring Girls of Guernsey: a Novel of World War II
Gayle Callen - 2021
Innocent young teacher Catherine is forced to house a German officer. Shrewd waitress Betty seeks to elude the persistent Nazi determined to conquer her. And courageous nurse Helen cares for her patients – both British and German – while hiding a British spy in her seaside cottage.Their fight against the injustices being enacted on their island home brings the women, the spy, and their enemies together in one night that will change all of their lives forever. Though none of them could foresee that the battle they fought that night would reach across time to 1997, when the tragic fallout ensnares Helen once more.