"It is the autumn of 1943, and life is becoming increasingly perilous for Italian Jews like the Mazin family. With Nazi Germany now occupying most of her beloved homeland, and the threat of imprisonment and deportation growing ever more certain, Antonina Mazin has but one hope to survive--to leave Venice and her beloved parents and hide in the countryside with a man she has only just met. Nico Gerardi was studying for the priesthood until circumstances...

"An epic story, set against the backdrop of World War I, from bestselling author Anita Shreve. When an American woman, Stella Bain, is found suffering from severe shell shock in an exclusive garden in London, surgeon August Bridge and his wife selflessly agree to take her in. A gesture of goodwill turns into something more as Bridge quickly develops a clinical interest in his houseguest. Stella had been working as a nurse's aide near the front, but...

Follows Peekay, a white British boy in South Africa during World War II, between the ages of five and eleven, as he survives an abusive boarding school and goes on to succeed in life and the boxing ring, with help from a chicken, a boxer, a pianist, black African prisoners, and many others.

Raised to be a warrior, seventeen-year-old Eelyn fights alongside her Aska clansmen in an ancient rivalry against the Riki clan, but when faced with her brother's betrayal, and driven by a growing love for her brother's friend Fiske, she attempts to unite the two clans.

Battles, captures and escapes figure largely in this story of a young man's revenge on his guardian whom he suspects of having murdered his father. Set during the War of the Roses in fifteenth-century England.

Daniel Kehlmann masterfully weaves the fates of many historical figures into this enchanting and picturesque book of magical realism and adventure. It is the story of the 17th century vagabond performer and trickster Tyll Ulenspiegel that begins before he is enshrined in rumors and myths. We meet him as a scrawny boy growing up in a quiet village. When his father, a miller with an interest in alchemy and magic, is found out by the church, Tyll is...

"Cavendon Hall is home to two families, the aristocratic Inghams and the Swanns who serve them, just as their ancestors did over the centuries. Charles Ingham, the sixth Earl of Mowbray, lives there with his wife Felicity and their six children: Guy, the heir, who is studying at Cambridge; their younger son Miles, attending Eton; and their four daughters Diedre, Daphne, DeLacy and Dulcie, affectionately called the Four Dees by the staff. Walter Swann,...

Set in the crazed, nationalistic Tokyo of late 1941, December 6 explores the coming world war through the other end of history's prism -- a prism held here by an unforgettable rogue and lover, Harry Niles. In many ways, Niles should be as American as apple pie: raised by missionary parents, taught to respect his elders and be an honorable and upright Christian citizen dreaming of the good life on the sun-blessed shores of California. But Niles...

Since earning his sergeant's stripes at the bloody siege of Seringapatam, Richard Sharpe has led a peaceful existence. But his easy life meets a brutal end when he is the sole survivor of a murderous attack by a cold-blooded English officer who has defected to join the mercenary forces of the Mahratta confederation in India.

Sharpe vows to avenge his comrades, even if he must pursue the turncoat to the ends of the continent. His quest takes

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RICHARD SHARPE AND THE SIEGE OF SERINGAPATAM, 1799. The year is 1799, and Richard Sharpe is just beginning his military career. An inexperienced young private in His Majesty's service, Sharpe becomes part of an expedition to India to push the ruthless Tippoo of Mysore from his throne and drive out his French allies. To penetrate the Tippoo's city and make contact with a Scottish spy being held prisoner there. Sharpe has to pose as a deserter. Success...