Book picks similar to
The Gisburn Witch by Sarah L. King
historical-fiction
historical-fiction-series
witches
historical-fiction-romance
The Last Witchfinder
James K. Morrow - 2005
But when she witnesses the unjust and horrifying execution of her beloved aunt Isobel, the precocious child decides to make it her life's mission to bring down the Parliamentary Witchcraft Act. Armed with little save the power of reason, and determined to see justice prevail, Jennet hurls herself into a series of picaresque adventures—traveling from King William's Britain to the fledgling American Colonies to an uncharted island in the Caribbean, braving West Indies pirates, Algonquin Indian captors, the machinations of the Salem Witch Court, and the sensuous love of a young Ben Franklin. For Jennet cannot and must not rest until she has put the last witchfinder out of business.
The Fool's Girl
Celia Rees - 2010
Her journey has been long and her adventures many, but it is not until she meets the playwright William Shakespeare that she gets to tell the entire story from beginning to end. Violetta and her comic companion, Feste, have come in search of an ancient holy relic that the evil Malvolio has stolen from their kingdom. But where will their remarkable quest--and their most unusual story--lead? In classic Celia Rees style, it is an engrossing journey, full of political intrigue, danger, and romance.This wholly original story is spun from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and includes both folly and suspense that would make the Bard proud.
Sister Stardust
Jane GreenJane Green
In her twenties, and already a famous model and actress, she moved from London to a palace in Marrakesh, with her husband Paul Getty, the famous oil heir. There she presided over a swirling ex-pat scene filled with music, art, free love and a counterculture taking root across the world. When Claire arrives in London from her small town, she never expects to cross paths with a woman as magnetic as Talitha Getty. Yearning for the adventure and independence, she's swept off to Marrakesh, where the two become kindred spirits. But beneath Talitha's glamourous facade lurks a darkness few can understand. As their friendship blossoms and the two grow closer, the realities of Talitha's precarious existence set off a chain of dangerous events that could alter Claire's life forever.
Shakespeare's Lady
Alex Schnee - 2012
Emilia Bassano -- lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth and one of the first women poets in England -- could be the answer. In Shakespeare's Lady, Emilia Bassano is one of the most dazzling ladies at court when she meets the little-known playwright William Shakespeare. Shakespeare sees the world like no one ever has before, and despite everything they fall in love. But the course of true love never did run smooth, and the Virgin Queen does not take lightly to her ladies straying. These star-crossed lovers must fight for their love -- and, eventually, their lives. Meanwhile, William, courting the queen's favor for his new theater, pens some of the most memorable stories ever written, and encourages Emilia to write; he helps her compose, and eventually steals A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Cunning Women: A Feminist Tale of Forbidden Love After the Witch Trials
Elizabeth Lee - 2021
A birthmark reveals that Sarah, like her mother, is a witch. Torn between yearning for an ordinary life and desire to discover what dark power she might possess, Sarah’s one hope is that her young sister Annie will be spared this fate.The Haworth family eke out a meagre existence in the old plague village adjoining a God-fearing community presided over by a seedy magistrate. A society built upon looking the other way, the villagers’ godliness is merely a veneer. But the Haworth women, with their salves and poultices, are judged the real threat to morality.When Sarah meets lonely farmer’s son Daniel, she begins to dream of a better future. Daniel is in thrall to the wild girl with storms in her eyes, but their bond is tested when a zealous new magistrate vows to root out sins and sinners. In a frenzy of fear and fury, the community begins to turn on one another, and it’s not long before they direct their gaze towards the old plague village … and does Daniel trust that the power Sarah wields over him is truly love, or could it be mere sorcery?
The de Lacy Inheritance
Elizabeth Ashworth - 2010
Damned by leprosy, he must bid his family a final and sorrowful farewell and leave his estates at Halton Castle forever. Condemned to shun the company of others, he must now find a place of solitude where he can seek forgiveness for sins committed in the Holy Land for which he is certain he has earned God’s curse. Resolved to live out his life as a hermit, he journeys north into the newly named county of Lancashire. But this is no arbitrary journey; there is one last obligation to be undertaken for his grandmother—he must seek out her kinsman, Sir Robert de Lacy, at Cliderhou Castle and there press his consideration of her claim to his estate. While at Halton, Richard’s headstrong 14-year-old sister Johanna is distraught. Her other brother, ruthless and ambitious Roger, has returned to take his place as head of the family. He and Johanna’s mother have contrived a marriage for her to a wealthy old landowner, and without Richard’s protection there seems little she can do about it—unless of course she can escape and find him.
September
Rosamunde Pilcher - 1990
The invitations summon home the group of people Violet Aird has cared for most in her long life. The oldest, strongest and wisest of them all, she sees Alexa, her vulnerable granddaughter, find love for the first time, while the decision to send her little grandson away to school is driving parents Edmund and Virginia even further apart. Far from them all is Pandora, the glamorous, exciting girl who ran away twenty years before. All will converge on Scotland this September.
The Baker's Tale: Ruby Spriggs and the Legacy of Charles Dickens
Thomas Hauser - 2015
There the divide between the classes looms large. The absence of learning and want of knowledge is a constant cause of misery among the downtrodden. Ignorance is the reason the poor live - that is to say, they have not yet died - in ruinous places on dangerous streets that are avoided by all but those who live there.” Mentored in his youth by the wealthy patron Octavius Joy, Antonio was apprenticed to a baker and able to improve his station through this opportunity. So his heart is deeply moved when, on a frigid winter’s night, Christopher Spriggs and his four-year-old niece Ruby —characters that we first met in The Final Recollections of Charles Dickens — arrive on his doorstep. Having suffered the loss of her mother one year previous, the child is in desperate need of food, shelter, and as Antonio can feel firsthand, a way out of their crushing poverty.He takes them both under his wing and watches as they blossom under his tutelage. Ruby grows into a smart, precocious teenager, instilled with a love of books and learning by the everpresent Octavius Joy. But she’ll discover that a life of learning and comfort and security is not enough of a barrier against the machinations of life in nineteenth century London, and soon she’ll have new challenges to face to become the woman her mother wanted her to be.With gorgeous prose brimming with the atmosphere of historical London, The Legacy of Charles Dickens is wonderfully infused with everything the famous author believed in: education, literacy, the need to support the lower classes, and the redemption found in the strong bond of community. The novel is filled with the influence of his journalism and his classic Oliver Twist, as well as a deeply felt love story, an unpleasant villain, a full range of other Dickensian characters, and the unequaled passion of Dickens’s social conscience.
The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel: A Story of Sleepy Hollow
Alyssa Palombo - 2018
Through their shared love of books and music, they form a friendship that quickly develops into romance. Ichabod knows that as an itinerant schoolteacher of little social standing, he has nothing to offer the wealthy Katrina – unlike her childhood friend-turned-enemy, Brom Van Brunt, who is the suitor Katrina’s father favors.But when romance gives way to passion, Ichabod and Katrina embark on a secret love affair, sneaking away into the woods after dark to be together – all while praying they do not catch sight of Sleepy Hollow’s legendary Headless Horseman. That is, until All Hallows’s Eve, when Ichabod suddenly disappears, leaving Katrina alone and in a perilous position.Enlisting the help of her friend – and rumored witch – Charlotte Jansen, Katrina seeks the truth of Ichabod Crane’s disappearance, investigating the forest around Sleepy Hollow using unconventional – often magical – means. What they find forces Katrina to question everything she once knew, and to wonder if the Headless Horseman is perhaps more than just a story after all. In Alyssa Palombo's The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel nothing is as it seems, and love is a thing even death won't erase.
Out Front the Following Sea
Leah Angstman - 2022
At the onset of King William’s War between French and English settlers in 1689 New England, Ruth Miner is accused of witchcraft for the murder of her parents and must flee the brutality of her town. She stows away on the ship of the only other person who knows her innocence: an audacious sailor — Owen — bound to her by years of attraction, friendship, and shared secrets. But when Owen’s French ancestry finds him at odds with a violent English commander, the turmoil becomes life-or-death for the sailor, the headstrong Ruth, and the cast of Quakers, Pequot Indians, soldiers, highwaymen, and townsfolk dragged into the fray. Now Ruth must choose between sending Owen to the gallows or keeping her own neck from the noose.Steeped in historical events and culminating in a little-known war on pre-American soil, Out Front the Following Sea is a story of early feminism, misogyny, arbitrary rulings, and the treatment of outcasts, with parallels still mirrored and echoed in today’s society.Taken from Author's Website
Cartier's Hope
M.J. Rose - 2020
New York, 1910: A city of magnificent skyscrapers and winding subways, where poor immigrants are crammed into tenements while millionaires thrive in Fifth Avenue mansions. Vera Garland is a thirty-two-year-old journalist, fighting alongside hundreds of women for a place in society, only to meet hurdles around every turn. Most female journalists are delegated to the fashion and lifestyle pages but like her hero, Nellie Bly, Vera is a fighter.When news of the Hope Diamond—a jewel whose infamous legends and curses have captured the world’s attention—arrives in the city, Vera is fast on its trail. She’s certain the fabulous jewel will help jumpstart her career but she’s determined to seek revenge against her current employer, a magazine owner whose greed and blackmailing schemes led to the death of her beloved father.Set against the backdrop of New York’s glitter and grit, this enchanting historical novel explores the very human desire for truth, equality, and retribution.
Darkness Rises
Lily Blake - 2014
Born from blood and terror, it was called the Darkness. Now the Darkness has returned, and Bash is determined to stop it from spreading through the land before it can destroy the people he loves most.
A Breath of Frost
Alyxandra Harvey - 2014
Now, beyond the manicured gardens and ballrooms of Regency London, an alluring underworld available only to those with power is revealed to the cousins. By claiming their power, the three cousins have accidentally opened the gates to the underworld. Now ghouls, hellhounds—and most terrifying of all, the spirits of dark witches known as the Greymalkin Sisters—are hunting and killing young debutante witches for their powers. And, somehow, Emma is connected to the murders…because she keeps finding the bodies. Can the cousins seal the gates before another witch is killed…or even worse, before their new gifts are stripped away?
Luck Be A Lady
Anna King - 2017
Her peaceful childhood in Kent is devastated when her parents and younger brothers are taken by smallpox. When her cousin Richard offers to take her in, it seems an offer too tempting to refuse. But Richard’s bedridden sister is in need of constant attention, and when Rebecca moves into Richard’s house in London’s East End, Richard moves out. Luck, it seems, has been anything but a lady. And when Rebecca is attacked while out shopping, it seems that fate is far from finished with her. Then Rebecca is rescued by Jimmy Jackson, an East End bookie with deep brown eyes and rugged good looks. And as she gets to know him, she realises she has found that rarest of men: one who is as kind as he is attractive…
For readers of Katie Flynn, Annie Groves, and Rosie Goodwin, Luck Be A Lady is a heartwarming East End saga.
Strange Practice
Vivian Shaw - 2017
In her consulting rooms, Dr. Helsing treats the undead for a host of ills - vocal strain in banshees, arthritis in barrow-wights, and entropy in mummies. Although barely making ends meet, this is just the quiet, supernatural-adjacent life Greta's been groomed for since childhood. Until a sect of murderous monks emerges, killing human and undead Londoners alike. As terror takes hold of the city, Greta must use her unusual skills to stop the cult if she hopes to save her practice, and her life.