Showing titles in Biographical Fiction

Brought to you by Penguin. A masterful and eerie collection of ghost stories from Sunday Times bestselling author Jeanette Winterson Our lives are digital, exposed and always-on. We track our friends and family wherever they go. We have millennia of knowledge at our fingertips. We know...

An awkward misfit, nine-year-old Fulke FitzWarin leaves his family for the household of Joscelin de Dinan, Lord of Ludlow. Once there, he begins to learn the knightly arts which he desperately hopes will free him from the shadows of his past. Joscelin’s youngest daughter, Hawise, befriends Fulke when he most needs it. But as the years pass, an enemy to Ludlow changes their friendship unalterably, forcing them onto opposite sides of a cruel divide.

Britannia, 45 AD: Vespasian's brother, Sabinus, is captured by druids. The druids want to offer a potent sacrifice to their gods – not just one Roman Legate, but two. They know that Vespasian will come after his brother and they plan to sacrifice the siblings on midsummer's day. Vespasian must strive to save his brother whilst completing the conquest of the south-west of the haunted isle, before he is drawn inexorably back to Rome and the heart of Imperial politics.

Rising singer-songwriters Jane Quinn and Jesse Reid looked untouchable. Captivating crowds in festival meadows, lighting up turntables, intoxicating fans from coast to coast. It was a connection that inspired the greatest love songs. But nothing lasts forever. Beneath the hits that made them, a dark secret threatened to break them. Now it’s time to hear the whole story, finally revealed in Jane’s iconic album, Songs in Ursa Major....

Dolly Maunder is born at the end of the nineteenth century, when society's long-locked doors are just starting to creak ajar for determined women. Growing up in a poor farming family in rural New South Wales, Dolly spends her life doggedly pushing at those doors. A husband and two children do not deter her from searching for love and independence.

Elizabeth of York, her life already tainted by dishonour and tragedy, now queen to the first Tudor king, Henry the VII. Joan Vaux, servant of the court, straining against marriage and motherhood and privy to the deepest and darkest secrets of her queen. Like the ravens, Joan must use her eyes and her senses, as conspiracy whispers through the dark corridors of the Tower.

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, the first novel Nabokov wrote in English, is a tantalizing literary mystery in which a writer’s half brother searches to unravel the enigma of the life of the famous author of Albinos in Black, The Back of the Moon, and Doubtful Asphodel. A characteristically cunning play on identity and deception, the novel concludes “ I am Sebastian, or Sebastian is I, or perhaps we both are someone whom neither of us knows.”

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...

Elizabeth I has survived hundreds of plots against her, but now she faces the revelation of a secret she thought would remain hidden forever. Elizabeth is not the last of the Tudor line - there are two more legitimate heirs to her crown. Her sworn enemy, Philip II, king of Spain, has discovered the secret and thinks he can control the missing princess as his puppet queen. Can Elizabeth maintain control over her throne? Meanwhile, in 2018 - Dr Perdita Rivers and her twin sister, Piper, are safely hidden in Andorra....

American-born Catherine knows little of her Croatian mother's early life. When Marijana dies of ovarian cancer, 22-year-old Catherine finds herself cut off from the past she never really knew. As Catherine searches for clues to her mother's elusive history, she discovers that Marijana was orphaned during WWII, nearly died as a teenager, and escaped from Communist Yugoslavia to Rome, and then South America. Through travel and memory, history and imagination, Catherine resurrects the relatives she's never known.

1857. Three women—once strangers—come together in unpredictable Utah Territory. Hopeful, desperate, and willful, they’ll allow nothing on Earth or in Heaven to stand in their way. Following the call of their newfound Mormon faith, Tamar Loader and her family weather a brutal pilgrimage from England to Utah, where Tamar is united with her destined husband, Thomas Ricks. Clinging to a promise for the future, she abides an unexpected surprise: Thomas is already wedded to one woman—Tabitha, a local healer—and betrothed to still another.

Cyber hero Bob Servant became a cult classic in the best-selling Delete This At Your Peril. Now this much-anticipated sequel tells the life story of one of Scotland's unsung heroes. From his days in the Merchant Navy to his creation of a window-cleaning round and his time as a cheeseburger...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of On the Bright Side by Hendrik Groen, read by Patrick Ryecart. Everyone's favourite octogenarian is back and - together with the Old-But-Not-Dead Club - is more determined than ever to wreak havoc. After a year mourning the death of his beloved friend...

I would like to make myself the heroine of this story and my character to be noble - an innocent victim led astray. But alas, sir, I would be lying.... Tully Truegood: orphan. Magician's apprentice. Whore. In prison, accused of murder, Tully begins to write her life story. A story that takes her from a young daughter-skivvy in the back streets of 18th-century London to her stepmother Queenie's fairy house - a place where decadent excess is a must....

The spirited daughter of England's greatest knight, Mahelt Marshal, lives a privileged medieval life. But when her beloved father falls out with the volatile and dangerous King John, her world is shattered. The king takes her brothers hostage and Mahelt's planned marriage to Hugh Bigod, heir to nobility, takes place sooner than she expected.

Adored by her parents and pampered by the court, the infant Princess Mary’s life changes suddenly and drastically when her father’s eye is taken by the enigmatic Anne Boleyn. Mary stands firm against her father’s determination to destroy both her mother’s reputation and the Catholic church. It is a battle that will last throughout both her father’s and her brother’s reign, until she is almost broken by persecution.

‘I want you to remember something, Nat. You’re small on the outside. But inside you’re as big as everyone else. You show people that and you won’t go far wrong in life.’ A compelling story perfect for fans of The Doll Factory, The Illumination of Ursula Flight and The Familiars. My...

Brought to you by Penguin. FROM THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF CECILY 1461. Through blood and battle Edward has gained England’s throne – king by right and conquest – eighteen years old and unstoppable. Cecily has piloted his rise to power and stands at his shoulder now, first to claim...

*NATIONAL BESTSELLER* A PARADE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR A NEW YORK POST BEST BOOK OF THE WEEK In her first novel inspired by a true story, Jane Green re-imagines the life of troubled icon Talitha Getty in this transporting story from a forgotten chapter of the Swinging '60s From afar...

Scotland has been torn apart by civil war, and the young and passionate Catholic Mary Queen of Scots is in the hands of her enemies. Under duress, Mary abdicates in favour of her son, James VI, and flees to England for safety, boldly seeking refuge with her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. But Elizabeth has never trusted the ambitious Catholic queen and has Mary imprisoned.