Showing titles in Biographical Fiction

In the scorched city of Rome, the cobbled streets hum with gossip and sin. Costanza Piccolomini is a respectable young wife - until she meets Gianlorenzo Bernini, the famed sculptor and star of Roman society, whose jet-black gaze matches his dark temper. From the second they set eyes upon each other, a fatal attraction is born. Their secret love burns with a passion that consumes them. But with every stolen kiss and illicit tryst, Costanza's reputation is at stake. Meanwhile, Bernini has a dangerous desire: he wants to make Costanza immortal. 

Brought to you by Penguin. Villa Diodati, Lake Geneva, 1816. The dark summer that birthed a monster . . . Eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley has fled London with her lover, Percy Shelley, and her sister, Claire. Tormented by Shelley’s betrayals, haunted by the loss of their baby and suspicious of...

The comical tales of a new mum on her journey from postnatal depression to the dawning of her self-worth as she discovers adventure, friendship, and the healing power of horses. Join Grace as she battles her negative thought patterns and fears among a backdrop of eccentric characters, pampered farm animals, and the glorious Yorkshire countryside.

England. 1535. Jane Seymour is 27 years old and increasingly desperate to marry and secure her place in the world. When the court visits Wolf Hall, the Seymour ancestral manor, Jane has the perfect opportunity to shine: her diligence, efficiency, and newfound poise are sure to finally attract a suitor. Meanwhile, King Henry VIII is 45 and increasingly desperate for an heir. He changed his country's religion to leave his first wife, a princess of Spain, for Anne Boleyn—but she, too, has failed to provide a son.

When the young and beautiful Catherine Howard becomes the fifth wife of the fifty-year-old King Henry VIII, she seems to be on top of the world. Yet her reign is destined to be brief and heartbreaking, as she is forced to do battle with enemies far more powerful and calculating than she could have ever anticipated in a court where one wrong move could mean her undoing. Wanting only love, Catherine is compelled to deny her heart's desire in favor of her family's ambition. 

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "None of this is real and all of it is true." —Jim Carrey Meet Jim Carrey. Sure, he's an insanely successful and beloved movie star drowning in wealth and privilege—but he's also lonely. Maybe past his prime. Maybe even ... getting fat? He's tried diets, gurus...

Brought to you by Penguin. 'I shall be a thousand different Marys and, in such manner, shall find the one I wish to be...' Lady Mary Wortley Montagu longs for adventure, freedom and love, believing that only by truly living can she ever escape the stalking crow of Death... An aristocratic woman...

Brought to you by Penguin. Driven mad by three years of endless telegrams, phonecalls, mail, reporters and snoopers in the wake of his hugely successful novel On the Road, Jack Kerouac, 'King of the Beats', needs peace, quiet and sobriety: surrounded and outnumbered he has to 'get away to...

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge) has been described as an anti-novel. It is set in Paris in the period just before the First World War, but it presents a bleaker milieu than that described by Proust. The language is terse, the atmosphere painful, the images uncompromising. Rilke drew on the short period he spent in Paris in 1903 where, in contrast to the rural circumstances in which he had lived before, he found the underbelly of urban life distressing.

Brought to you by Penguin. **SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021** **LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2022** I WAS BORN TO BE A WANDERER From the night she is rescued as a baby out of the flames of a sinking ship; to the day she joins a pair of daredevil pilots looping and diving...

Waking in the small hours, Marcel Proust embarks on a retrospective journey, endeavouring to capture the elusive moments that shaped his life. A sip of tea and the taste of a madeleine prompt further recollections, and the floodgates of memory open, pouring forth a torrent of vivid reminiscences.

London, 1942. Despite the raging war, spirited 18-year-old Nellie Morris lives a quiet life in the tight-knit East End community of Bethnal Green. Her family and friends all tease that she will marry air raid warden Billy, the boy next door who’s always been sweet on her. The arrival of Ray, a handsome American airman stationed nearby, causes Nellie to question everything she thought she knew about her future. Nellie’s newfound happiness is short-lived when a tragic accident occurs during an air raid.

For readers of Philippa Gregory and Alison Weir comes a dramatic novel of the beloved Empress Maria, the Danish princess who became the mother of the last Russian tsar. “This epic tale is captivating and beautifully told.”—Lisa Wingate, New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were...

The New York Times bestseller from Margaret George—a captivating novel about history's most enthralling queen, the legendary Elizabeth Tudor. England’s greatest monarch has baffled and intrigued the world for centuries. But what was the Virgin Queen really like? Lettice Knollys—Elizabeth's...

** THE INTERNATIONAL PHENOMENON ** 'There are many laughs in this book but it's so much more than just a comedy. It's a story about how friendship, selflessness and dignity lie at the heart of the human experience. When I'm an old man, I want to be Hendrik Groen' John Boyne, author of...

Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. Sayuri's story begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old with unusual blue-gray eyes, she is taken from her home and sold into...

H. E. Bates is probably best known for his comic novel The Darling Buds of May, which introduced the lovable Larkins to the world and sparked three hugely popular TV adaptations. In his 68 years, Bates wrote over 20 further novels, more than 300 short stories, children’s books, poems, plays and non-fiction. This collection brings together three full-cast BBC Radio dramatisations and fourteen excellent readings, rounding off with extracts from H. E. Bates autobiographies.

Inspired by a true story, this is a moving reimagining of loss, legacy and the fragile truth between memory and myth… She was never meant to be a symbol, but the world made her one In 1912, fourteen-year-old Helen ‘Melville’ Smith loses her father, Captain Edward J. Smith of the Titanic...

Kathryn Janeway reveals her career in Starfleet, from her first command to her epic journey through the Delta Quadrant leading to her rise to the top as vice-admiral in Starfleet Command. Discover the story of the woman who travelled further than any human ever had before, stranded decades from home, encountering new worlds and species.

Alison Weir was already one of Britain's most popular historians when she wrote her first novel, Innocent Traitor, which hit the Sunday Times bestseller list to a chorus of praise. Now, in her second novel, Alison Weir goes to the heart of Tudor England at its most dangerous and faction-riven in telling the story of Elizabeth I before she became queen. The towering capricious figure of Henry VIII dominates her childhood, but others play powerful roles.