Book picks similar to
The Angels' Share by James Markert


historical-fiction
fiction
historical
christian-fiction

Sinners and the Sea: The Untold Story of Noah's Wife


Rebecca Kanner - 2013
    But this virtuous woman has the perfect voice to make one of the Old Testament’s stories live anew.Desperate to keep her safe, the woman’s father gives her to the righteous Noah, who weds her and takes her to the town of Sorum, a land of outcasts. Noah, a 600-year-old paragon of virtue, rises to the role of preacher to a town full of sinners. Alone in her new life, Noah’s wife gives him three sons, but is faced with the hardship of living with an aloof husband who speaks more to God than with her. She tries to make friends with the violent and dissolute people of Sorum while raising a brood that, despite a pious upbringing, have developed some sinful tendencies of their own. But her trials are nothing compared to what awaits her after God tells her husband that a flood is coming—and that Noah and his family must build an ark so that they alone can repopulate the world.Kanner weaves a masterful tale that breathes new life into one of the Bible’s voiceless characters. Through the eyes of Noah’s wife we see a complex world where the lines between righteousness and wickedness blur. And we are left wondering: Would I have been considered virtuous enough to save?

The Lost Book of the Grail


Charlie Lovett - 2017
    Increasingly, he feels like a fish out of water among the concrete buildings of the University of Barchester, where he works as an English professor. His one respite is his time spent nestled in the library, nurturing his secret obsession with the Holy Grail and researching his perennially unfinished guidebook to the medieval cathedral.But when a beautiful young American named Bethany Davis arrives in Barchester charged with the task of digitizing the library's manuscripts, Arthur's tranquility is broken. Appalled by the threat modern technology poses to the library he loves, he sets out to thwart Bethany, only to find in her a kindred spirit with a similar love for knowledge and books and a fellow Grail fanatic.Bethany soon joins Arthur in a quest to find the lost Book of Ewolda, the ancient manuscript telling the story of the cathedral's founder. And when the future of the cathedral itself is threatened, Arthur and Bethany's search takes on grave importance, leading the pair to discover secrets about the cathedral, about the Grail, and about themselves.

A.D. 30


Ted Dekker - 2014
    30.The outcast daughter of one of the most powerful Bedouin sheikhs in Arabia, Maviah is called on to protect the very people who rejected her. When their enemies launch a sudden attack with devastating consequences, Maviah escapes with the help of two of her father's warriors--Saba who speaks more with is sword than his voice and Judah, a Jew who comes from a tribe that can read the stars. Their journey will be fraught with terrible danger. If they can survive the vast forbidding sands of a desert that is deadly to most, they will reach a brutal world subjugated by kings and emperors. There Maviah must secure an unlikely alliance with King Herod of the Jews.But Maviah's path leads her unexpectedly to another man. An enigmatic teacher who speaks of a way in this life which offers greater power than any kingdom. His name is Yeshua, and his words turn everything known on its head. Though following him may present even greater danger, his may be the only way for Maviah to save her people--and herself.

The Ironwood Plantation Family Saga: The Complete Series


Stephenia H. McGee - 2020
    Civil War pits countrymen against one another and tears a nation asunder. Life and death are held in the balance where everyone is a slave to something. In a time when war brings the South to its knees, two women will forge a friendship in the fires of redemption and thrust Ironwood into a new future – where the battle for freedom has merely begun. Book Two: Heir of HopeA hidden diary. Dreams of the past. And a hope for a new future. Emily Burns grew up an orphan, so she never expected to inherit a southern plantation. When she discovers an old diary hidden in the attic, her life becomes strangely entwined with her Civil War ancestor and she soon begins to wonder how a woman long dead can keep showing up in her dreams.Book Three: Missing MercyThe venture ahead could leave their friendship behind.Made a safe-haven after the Civil War, Ironwood Plantation is a refuge of equality for former slaves. But twenty years and a new generation later, they have become an isolated community with little contact with the rest of the world.In a time where prejudices try to define them, Mercy Carpenter and Faith Harper must push the boundaries of their beliefs and trust in the God who holds the keys to freedom.

The Moonshiner's Daughter


Donna Everhart - 2019
    . .Generations of Sassers have made moonshine in the Brushy Mountains of Wilkes County, North Carolina. Their history is recorded in a leather-bound journal that belongs to Jessie Sasser's daddy, but Jessie wants no part of it. As far as she's concerned, moonshine caused her mother's death a dozen years ago.Her father refuses to speak about her mama, or about the day she died. But Jessie has a gnawing hunger for the truth--one that compels her to seek comfort in food. Yet all her self-destructive behavior seems to do is feed what her school's gruff but compassionate nurse describes as the "monster" inside Jessie.Resenting her father's insistence that moonshining runs in her veins, Jessie makes a plan to destroy the stills, using their neighbors as scapegoats. Instead, her scheme escalates an old rivalry and reveals long-held grudges. As she endeavors to right wrongs old and new, Jessie's loyalties will bring her to unexpected revelations about her family, her strengths--and a legacy that may provide her with the answers she has been longing for.

Ashoka: Lion of Maurya


Ashok K. Banker - 2016
    Their target—the entire imperial family.The prince makes it his mission to root out the assassins with the help of the Chandikas—the female military order instituted by Samrat Chandragupta Maurya. But when his own lover, a Chandika, confesses a terrible secret, he realizes that the threat lies within his own family!Meanwhile, the palace is not without its own intrigues. Queen Khorasan and her mother are playing their own game of thrones. Dowager Queen Apama is secretly working for her father, Seleucus Nicator, who still has ambitions of invading the sub-continent. King Bindusara’s harsh methods are turning the marbled floors of the imperial palace awash with blood. Will Prince Ashoka be able to save his family —and Mauryavansh—before it’s too late?India’s epic storyteller turns his masterful hand to the life of ancient India’s greatest ruler, Ashoka in a thrilling trilogy packed with non-stop action, adventure, battles and lusty no-holds-barred storytelling.

No One Is Here Except All of Us


Ramona Ausubel - 2012
    Their tribe has moved and escaped for thousands of years - across oceans, deserts, and mountains - but now, it seems, there is nowhere else to go. Danger is imminent in every direction, yet the territory of imagination and belief is limitless. At the suggestion of an eleven-year-old girl and a mysterious stranger who has washed up on the riverbank, the villagers decide to reinvent the world: deny any relationship with the known and start over from scratch. Destiny is unwritten. Time and history are forgotten. Jobs, husbands, a child, are reassigned. And for years, there is boundless hope. But the real world continues to unfold alongside the imagined one, eventually overtaking it, and soon our narrator - the girl, grown into a young mother - must flee her village, move from one world to the next, to find her husband and save her children, and propel them toward a real and hopeful future. A beguiling, imaginative, inspiring story about the bigness of being alive as an individual, as a member of a tribe, and as a participant in history, No One Is Here Except All Of Us explores how we use storytelling to survive and shape our own truths. It marks the arrival of a major new literary talent.

The Keys of the Kingdom


A.J. Cronin - 1941
    Considered a failure by his superiors, he is sent to China to maintain a mission amid desperate poverty, civil war, plague, and the hostility of his superiors. In the face of this constant danger and hardship, Father Chisholm finds the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Recognized as A. J. Cronin’s best novel, The Keys of the Kingdom is an enthralling, fast-moving, colorful tale of a deeply spiritual man called to do good in an imperfect world.

The Witnesses


Robert Whitlow - 2016
    . . or his deadliest curse. The fresh-faced North Carolina attorney shares his German grandfather’s uncanny ability to see future events in his mind’s eye—a gift that has haunted 82-year-old Frank House through decades of trying to erase a murderous wartime past.While Parker navigates the intrigue and politics of small-town courtroom law, Frank is forced to face his darkest regrets. Then, a big career break for Parker collides with a new love he longs to nurture and the nightmares his grandfather can no longer escape. Sudden peril threatens to shatter not only Parker’s legal prospects but also his life and the lives of those dearest to him.Two witnesses, two paths, an uncertain future.

The Stranger in the Lifeboat


Mitch Albom - 2021
    He claims to be “the Lord.” And he says he can only save them if they all believe in him.Adrift in a raft after a deadly ship explosion, nine people struggle for survival at sea. Three days pass. Short on water, food and hope, they spot a man floating in the waves. They pull him in.“Thank the Lord we found you,” a passenger says.“I am the Lord,” the man whispers.So begins Mitch Albom’s most beguiling and inspiring novel yet.Albom has written of heaven in the celebrated number one bestsellers The Five People You Meet in Heaven and The First Phone Call from Heaven. Now, for the first time in his fiction, he ponders what we would do if, after crying out for divine help, God actually appeared before us? What might the Lord look, sound and act like?In The Stranger in the Lifeboat, Albom keeps us guessing until the end: Is this strange and quiet man really who he claims to be? What actually happened to cause the explosion? Are the survivors already in heaven, or are they in hell?The story is narrated by Benji, one of the passengers, who recounts the events in a notebook that is later discovered—a year later—when the empty life raft washes up on the island of Montserrat.It falls to the island’s chief inspector, Jarty LeFleur, a man battling his own demons, to solve the mystery of what really happened. A fast-paced, compelling novel that makes you ponder your deepest beliefs, The Stranger in the Lifeboat suggests that answers to our prayers may be found where we least expect them.

Trinity


Leon Uris - 1976
    From the acclaimed author who enthralled the world with Exodus, Battle Cry, QB VII, Topaz, and other beloved classics of twentieth-century fiction comes a sweeping and powerful epic adventure that captures the "terrible beauty" of Ireland during its long and bloody struggle for freedom. It is the electrifying story of an idealistic young Catholic rebel and the valiant and beautiful Protestant girl who defied her heritage to join his cause. It is a tale of love and danger, of triumph at an unthinkable cost—a magnificent portrait of a people divided by class, faith, and prejudice—an unforgettable saga of the fires that devastated a majestic land... and the unquenchable flames that burn in the human heart.

Two from Galilee: The Story of Mary and Joseph


Marjorie Holmes - 1972
    Here are Mary and Joseph--a teenage girl and a young carpenter--alone, frightened, in love, faced with family conflict, a hostile world and an awesome responsibility. It is a story for young and old alike; for everyone who finds the Christmas tale a source of timeless beauty and wonder, a compassionate, emotional novel of divine love.

Till We Have Faces


C.S. Lewis - 1956
    Lewis reworks the classical myth of Cupid and Psyche into an enduring piece of contemporary fiction. This is the story of Orual, Psyche's embittered and ugly older sister, who posessively and harmfully loves Psyche. Much to Orual's frustration, Psyche is loved by Cupid, the god of love himself, setting the troubled Orual on a path of moral development.Set against the backdrop of Glome, a barbaric, pre-Christian world, the struggles between sacred and profane love are illuminated as Orual learns that we cannot understand the intent of the gods "till we have faces" and sincerity in our souls and selves.

The Illusionists


Rosie Thomas - 2014
    But for a beautiful young woman of limited means, Eliza’s choices appear to lie between the stifling domesticity of marriage or a downwards spiral to the streets – no matter how determined she is to forge her own path.One night at a run-down theatre, she meets the charismatic Devil Wix – showman, master of illusion, fickle friend. Drawn into his circle, Eliza becomes the catalyst of change for his colleagues – a dwarf, an eccentric engineer, and an artist – as well as Devil himself. And as Eliza embarks on a dangerous adventure, she must decide which path to choose, and how far she should go when she holds all their lives in her hands.

The River Widow


Ann Howard Creel - 2018
    Essentially trapped, Adah must plan an escape.But when she develops feelings for the one person essential to her plan’s success, she faces a painful choice: Will she choose to risk everything saving Daisy or take the new life offered by a loving man?