Book picks similar to
Storm Bay by Patricia Shaw


historical-fiction
read-original
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historyroman

Scatterheart


Lili Wilkinson - 2007
    Hannah’s eyes stung and she felt a heavy churning in her belly. The smell of urine, vomit, sweat and rotting flesh was overpowering, and she broke out in a hot, prickly sweat, despite the icy night.1814, London Town. Hannah Cheshire - wealthy and spoiled - has fallen from grace. Punishment: transportation to the colony of New South Wales.

The Curious Story of Malcolm Turnbull, the Incredible Shrinking Man in the Top Hat


Andrew P. Street - 2016
    You know, again.

Carry Me Home


Dorothy Adamek - 2015
    And she’s determined to marry a man who’s neither. Chasing her dead father’s dreams, the twenty-year-old English bride arrives in Australia in 1875 for an arranged marriage. Anticipating her future as village preacher’s wife, she records her thoughts in her Everlasting journal. But instead of her fiancé, Finella is met by Shadrach Jones, a poor farmer sent to collect her from the busy Melbourne pier. This is not what her father planned. And it’s only the beginning of the unraveling of Finella Mayfield ~ the bride with no groom. All Shadrach Jones longs for is rows of mustard and chicory. He’s busy growing a farm near the Phillip Island fishing village of Cowes, and caring for Molly, his simple sister. Far from the brutal life they remember with their ex-convict father, Shadrach’s building something new. But he’s also made a promise to a dying friend. To collect and marry the English girl destined to never be a preacher’s wife. Can Shadrach convince Finella she has a future with a farmer? Can he convince himself, knowing his family secrets will haunt their future? Carry Me Home ~ Book 1 in the Blue Wren Shallows series. An Australian historical romance set in the pioneering era of the 1870s, on Victoria’s majestic Phillip Island.

Stone Country


Nicole Alexander - 2019
    Ross Grant has always felt like the black sheep of his wealthy Scottish family. An explorer at heart, he dreams of life on Waybell, their remote cattle station in Australia's last remaining wilderness, the Northern Territory.Then his brother Alastair is branded a deserter after going missing during the Great War. To help restore the Grants' damaged reputation, Ross is coerced into marrying Darcey Thomas, a woman he has never met. Disgusted by his manipulative family, he turns his back on his unwanted wife just hours after the ceremony, and heads to Waybell with no plans to return. He carries with him the hope of carving his own empire in the far north.But Ross has not counted on Darcey's determination to be his wife in more than just name. Nor did he anticipate meeting Maria, a young, part-Chinese woman who will capture his heart. And he certainly wasn't prepared for how this beautiful yet savage land will both captivate and destroy his soul . . . From nineteenth-century Adelaide and the red dirt of mid-north South Australia, to the cattle stations and buffalo plains of the far north Ross's journey is one of anger and desire, adventure and determination, to the heart of stone country and beyond.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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…?

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.

Head Over Heels: A Story Of Tragedy, Triumph and Romance in the Australian Bush


Sam Bailey - 2006
    After months of struggle, he learned how to resume his life as a farmer, running a sheep and cattle property in northwest New South Wales. then he met and fell in love with Jenny Black, an ABC Rural journalist, proposed to her on air, and the rest is history. Jenny tells Sam's story in his own laconic, wry style. By turns romantic, funny and moving, it affirms the strength of iron-willed determination and the power of love.

The Fabulous Flying Mrs Miller


Carol Baxter - 2017
    Jail attendants said they understood she was held in connection with the shooting of an airline pilot.'Petite, glamorous and beguiling, Jessie 'Chubbie' Miller was one remarkable woman ... flyer, thrill seeker, heartbreaker. No adventure was too wild for her, no danger too extreme. And all over the world men adored her.When the young Jessie left suburban Melbourne and her newspaperman husband in 1927, little did she know that she'd become the first woman to complete an England to Australia flight (with a black silk gown thrown into her small flight bag, just in case), or fly the first air race for women with Amelia Earhart, or that she would disappear over the Florida Straits feared lost forever only to charm her way to a rescue. Nor could she have predicted that five years later she'd find herself at the centre of one of the most notorious and controversial murder trials in United States history. And this all began with something as ridiculously mundane as a pat of butter.The Fabulous Flying Mrs Miller is a spellbinding story of an extraordinary woman - an international celebrity during the golden age of aviation - and her passionate and spirited life.

The China Coin


Allan Baillie - 1991
    Allan Baillie's masterpiece – an exciting journey into China set against the background of Tiananmen Square.

Cold Coast


Robyn Mundy - 2021
    She must prove to Anders Sæterdal, her trapping partner who makes no secret of his disdain, that a woman is fit for the task. Over the course of a Svalbard winter, Wanny and Sæterdal will confront polar bears, traverse glaciers, withstand blizzards and the dangers of sea ice, and hike miles to trap Arctic fox, all in the frigid darkness of the four-month polar night. For Wanny, the darkness hides her own deceptions that, if exposed, speak to the untenable sacrifice of a 1930s woman longing to fulfil a dream. Alongside the raw, confronting nature of the trappers’ work, is the story of a young blue Arctic fox, itself a hunter, who must eke out a living and navigate the trappers’ world if it is to survive its first Arctic winter.

Her Duke in Shining Armor


Emma Linfield - 2019
     Rebellious and blatantly outspoken about her dislike for the hypocrisy of the ton, she’s earned herself not only a bluestocking reputation but also the nickname ‘Lady Disdain.” Aaron Bravolt, Duke of Oberton, never expected to catch one Lady Eleanor sneaking a servant child out at night in order to spare her from her father’s wrath. But his determination to decrypt the puzzling lady has consequences he couldn’t have foreseen. With his own assets under attack by a mysterious adversary, Aaron has only eighteen hours to discover what really happened to the Duke of Brisdane’s late wife and to keep Eleanor from being taken away from him forever.