Chris McMullen has organized what he hopes will become an annual event called Read Tuesday, December 10, a day dedicated to the buying and gifting of books for the holiday season.
In support, we would like to remind you of all the great Historical Fiction ebooks (and print editions) that are available to choose from as you finish up your holiday shopping for your friends and family. Many, like those by Suzanne Adair and I. J Parker, will be discounted for the day, while thirty-six of our ebooks–if bundled with print editions–are free for the entire month of December in our special Matchbook Promotion.
Meanwhile, if you think someone on your list would like to spend time in the world of gods and goddesses on the island of Crete, learn about the mysterious Etruscans, visit Rome in the times of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, and Nero, then you should check out our Ancient Catalog.
Our Medieval Catalog is particularly varied, with several mystery series. One features a 12th-century Welsh Knight and his true love. Another stars a 13th century English prioress and a monk who are amateur sleuths. A third takes the reader to Medieval Japan to experience the detective abilities of a minor government official. Books in this section range in time from the mythical kingdom of King Arthur, through seventh-century Wales to the the dawn of the Renaissance. Readers can travel from the cold highlands of Scotland to the heat of Southern Spain, with a stop off on the shores of Constantinople and Crusades to the Holy Land. For the reader who particularly likes tales of love and scandal among the nobility, we have forbidden love between Saxon and Normans, a family feud in Italy, a trilogy about Robert the Bruce, books about the stormy marriage of Isabelle of France and Edward of England, and stories about life within a Sultan’s harem. We even have some time travelers who are whisked away to 13th Century Wales and 14th century Scotland!
For the 15th to 16th Centuries, our catalog offers mystery series with both Leonardo da Vinci and Elizabeth I as the sleuth. There are books about a 16th century harem, an Aztec Princess, and the Knights Templar during the time of the Spanish Inquisition.
The 17th and 18th Centuries were clearly a time of danger. In this catalog you’ll find stories of women accused of witchcraft, captured by pirates, and threatened by plague. Again, we have mystery series with unusual sleuths. In one series, three different women solve crimes and fight to survive the American Revolution, a British Officer in that war tracks down a brutal killer and a kidnapper, and a French police agent solves crimes during and after the French Revolution. War is again a theme in books about a soldier who comes home with a secret from the Thirty Years War. But the two oddest heroes among the books in this catalog, are the public executioner of France and a “castrato” Venetian opera singer who solves mysteries.
Our 19th Century Catalog starts with the early 19th century and includes a sweeping epic of the South American revolutions. A two-part story details the great love between a British official and his concubine in China. Others follow a young boy’s adventures in Australia and a soldier who fights in the American Civil War. This catalog is also filled with mystery series with female sleuths in late Victorian America, a governess in Boston, a saloon keeper in the boomtown of Leadville Colorado, and a boarding-house keeper and part-time clairvoyant in San Francisco. The west is also featured in series of books about the Gold Rush and real-life characters like the eccentric “Emperor Norton” and the gunslinger, Black Bart, and a western female gun-fighter who finds herself in Victorian era Paris, facing danger and romance. Romance also prevails in stories about artists in the Pre-Raphaelite movement, young women fighting to find love among the English upper classes, and a girl who challenges her fate in the exotic Azores islands.
Finally, the books in our 20th Century Catalog carry on the themes of love and death. There is a retelling of the death of Leo Tolstoy, stories about the plight of a Russian princess after the Russian Revolution, adventures of a pearl diver off of the coast of Japan, and a sheep-herding Irishman with a family secret. WWI provides the background of several books, including a mystery series with a down-to-earth mother of nine who solves crimes in Oklahoma, and family sagas about nurses and soldiers that follow the ramifications of war into the next generations. Prohibition finds one highly educated woman as a rum-runner trying to save her family, and a thriller about a notorious gang in Detroit. There are books set in the 1930s, with a story of the Civil Conservation Corps, a down-in-his-luck reporter in Key West, a series about a sassy private detective in Depression era Daytona, and a tragic story of two lovers in a Oregon coast life-house that reverberates to the present time. During WWII, a New York nurse solves a murder, a German signalman uncovers a conspiracy, and a great love story emerges in war-torn Budapest. And in the post-war world, love and tragedy follow a woman from a small town to London and a torn-apart couple in the midst of the Greek Civil War.
War and revolution. Kings, queens, and hard-working servants. Quiet family dramas and tragic love stories. Danger. Mystery. Humor. Pathos. Exotic times and places. All this and more are waiting for the lucky readers to whom you will give great historical fiction this Holiday season.
