"International bestselling author Ken Follett has enthralled millions of readers with The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End, two stories of the Middle Ages set in the fictional city of Kingsbridge. The saga now continues with Follett's magnificent new epic, A Column of Fire. In 1558, the ancient stones of Kingsbridge Cathedral look down on a city torn apart by religious conflict. As power in England shifts precariously between Catholics and...

Would you rather sacrifice your livelihood, your lover, or your life?

When the Black Death comes knocking on your door, you'd better decide quickly.

ERIC HOFFER GRAND PRIZE FINALIST

EDITOR'S CHOICE, HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

Venice, 1510. Maria Bartolini wants nothing more than to carry on her father's legacy as a master gilder. Instead, her father has sent her away from

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"A thrilling departure: a short, piercing, deeply moving novel about the death of Shakespeare's 11 year old son Hamnet--a name interchangeable with Hamlet in 15th century Britain--and the years leading up to the production of his great play. England, 1580. A young Latin tutor--penniless, bullied by a violent father--falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman--a wild creature who walks her family's estate with a falcon on her shoulder...

Historian and New York Times bestselling author Crowley presents the epic story of the emergence of Portugal, a small, poor nation that enjoyed a century of maritime supremacy thanks to the daring and navigational skill of its explorers--a tactical advantage no other country could match. The epic story of the emergence of Portugal, a small, poor nation that enjoyed a century of maritime supremacy thanks to the daring and navigational skill of its...

Two Catholic missionaries face the ultimate test of faith when they travel to Japan looking for their missing mentor, at a time when Catholicism was outlawed.

"Bestselling author and acclaimed historian Alison Weir tells the tragic story of Henry VIII's fifth wife, a nineteen-year-old beauty with a hidden past, in this fifth novel in the sweeping Six Tudor Queens series. In the spring of 1540, Henry VIII, desperate to be rid of his queen, Anna of Kleve, first sets eyes on the enchanting Katheryn Howard. Although the king is now an ailing forty-nine-year-old measuring fifty-four inches around his waist,...

Shusaku Endo's classic novel of enduring faith in dangerous times. "Silence I regard as a masterpiece, a lucid and elegant drama."--The New York Times Book Review. -- Back cover. "Seventeenth-century Japan: Two Portuguese Jesuit priests travel to a country hostile to their religion, where feudal lords force the faithful to publicly renounce their beliefs. Eventually captured and forced to watch their Japanese Christian brothers lay down their lives...

"Newly widowed and the father of an infant son, Henry VIII realizes he must marry again to ensure the royal succession. Forty-six, overweight, and suffering from gout, Henry is soundly rejected by some of Europe's most eligible princesses. Anna of Kleve, from a small German duchy, is twenty-four, and has a secret she is desperate to keep hidden. Henry commissions her portrait from his court painter, who depicts her from the most flattering perspective....

An entertaining, accessible guide to Elizabethan England—the latest in the Time Traveler's Guide series Acclaimed historian Ian Mortimer shows readers that the past is not just something to be studied; it is also something to be lived. Using diaries, letters, books, and other writings of the day, Mortimer offers a masterful portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, re-creating the sights, sounds, and customs of the sixteenth century from the...

Over a hundred years before the pilgrims, the very first English settlers arrived on Roanoke Island. But without warning, these colonists abandoned their new home and disappeared without a trace. What happened to the colonists? To figure it out, we'll need to investigate how these missing settlers got to Roanoke in the first place, and what the people already living there thought about these strange foreigners. It's a case filled with brutal battles,...