Best Historical Fiction

 Temperance Flowerdew (1590-1628) was an early settler of the Jamestown Colony and its significant member. She was wife of two Governors of Virginia. However, this story is mostly concentrated on two years 1609-1610. She was one of the few survivors of the brutal winter of those two years, known as the Starving Time, which killed almost ninety percent of Jamestown’s inhabitants. This book is a dedication to such historical figures forgotten by history. “For all the women gone missing from history.” 1609, Lily, Temperance’s maid, has premonition of storm coming their ship’s way, which sails for Jamestown. Temperance is well-read and she prepared for the voyage by “consuming all the maps, books, and pamphlets about the New World…” With her knowledge and Lily’s help, she charts the path of the storm. Only to be dismissed by a narrow-minded and opinionated Master of the ship. Two of the nine ships survived the storm. “The utopia they had nursed in their imaginations for months, e...

  Saint Augustine’s writings influenced the development of Western philosophy and Western Christianity. But before he became the bishop of Hippo Regius, North Africa, as a young man he fell in love with a peasant girl. And as a man of aristocratic blood, together they defied social norms and traditions. Thagaste, North Africa, 371 AD. Leona, a goat shepherd’s daughter, helps at weaver’s shop. She catches an eye of Aurelius Augustine. At seventeen-years-old, he looks for students to practice his skills. He offers to teach Leona read. But this goes beyond teaching; their attraction to each other is mutual. When she gets pregnant, Aurelius is about to leave for Carthage to study rhetoric there. Defying norms as he is from a noble class and can't marry a peasant by Roman law or he'd have to forfeit all of his property. And with a help of a wealthy patron, they make Carthage their home for the next few years. With the Roman Empire losing its grip in North Africa and the rise of Chr...

 This is a story of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip of Greece, perhaps better known as Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh. It brings a time when Philip is courting Elizabeth and fighting an uphill battle of monarchy’s disapproval of him. Windsor Castle, 1943. Seventeen-year-old Princess Elizabeth is eager to see Prince Philip. They’ve met a few years earlier in London and she’s been smitten with him ever since. Philip is a handsome lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Elizabeth is ready for a change in her life. Philip has that rough-edged charm which is very attractive to her. She doesn’t want safe. It’s too stagnant. To Philip’s surprise, there is something about Elizabeth that he likes. His restless spirit actually enjoys her serious side and being reserved. His cousin, David, objects to his current love interest, announcing that Philip would “rub everyone up the wrong way.” Elizabeth is patient, dutiful, “careful not to rock the boat,” but now she is ready to act, to ...

   “Inspired by the real events of the Vardo storm and the 1621 witch trials.” On Christmas Eve 1617 the Vardo storm claims forty fishermen, among them brother and father of Maren. With nearly all men dead, the women of a tiny Arctic island of Vardo must fend for themselves. The women fish, chop the wood, ready the fields, butcher reindeer, tend the livestock. A new Pastor assigned to Vardo observes the women closely and asks for a commissioner to be assigned as he sees something that may not be a godly behavior. A firmer hand is needed, “to root the Church more fully into the land.” Ursa, commissioner’s wife, is terrified by her newlywed husband. But she is a smart woman and she can form her own opinion. By being obedient doesn’t mean she agrees with her husband. On the small island of Vardo, she sees primitive living conditions. At the same time, she notices women being independent. Commissioner’s pressure and his iron hand cause a rift among kirke-women. Those gathering for...

 In 1875, ten years after assassination of President Lincoln, Mary Lincoln tries to poison herself. Why? Is it because of a deranged mind or traumatized one? 1875. Mary has been estranged from her sister Elizabeth and other siblings and friends for years. She lost her husband and three sons. Robert, her eldest and only surviving child, believes that his mother is a danger to herself and has begun legal proceedings to have her committed to an asylum. Or is compassion and sympathetic companionship what she truly needs? Instead of asylum. That’s what some of her sisters think. 1825. Mary is a cheerful child, full of entertaining ideas, making others laugh. This merry child loses her mother to fever after giving birth. And this is one of the first tragic events in Mary’s life. With years and different events affecting her, she starts changing from her cheerful side into a more dramatic person. 1875. Mary’s sister Ann reveals that Mary’s “eccentricities had manifested long before she ...