The Historical Fiction category has 5,886 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 31,971 ratings. The most-rated is The Tattooist of Auschwitz.
Ruby
Summary
The epic, unforgettable story of a man determined to protect the woman he loves from the town desperate to destroy her - this beautiful and devastating debut heralds the arrival of a major new voice in fiction. Ephram Jennings has never forgotten the beautiful girl with the long braids running through the piney woods of Liberty, their small East Texas town. Young Ruby, “the kind of pretty it hurt to look at,” has suffered beyond imagining, so as soon as she can, she flees suffocating Liberty for the bright pull of 1950s New York. Ruby quickly winds her way into the ripe center of the city - the darkened piano bars and hidden alleyways of the Village - all the while hoping for a glimpse of the red hair and green eyes of her mother. When a telegram from her cousin forces her to return home, 30-year-old Ruby Bell finds herself reliving the devastating violence of her girlhood. With the terrifying realization that she might not be strong enough to fight her way back out again, Ruby struggles to survive her memories of the town’s dark past. Meanwhile, Ephram must choose between loyalty to the sister who raised him and the chance for a life with the woman he has loved since he was a boy. Full of life, exquisitely written, and suffused with the pastoral beauty of the rural South, Ruby is a transcendent novel of passion and courage. This wondrous pause-resister rushes through the red dust and gossip of Main Street, to the pit fire where men swill bootleg outside Bloom’s Juke, to Celia Jennings’s kitchen where a cake is being made, yolk by yolk, that Ephram will use to try to begin again with Ruby. Utterly transfixing, with unforgettable characters, riveting suspense, and breathtaking, luminous prose, Ruby offers an unflinching portrait of man’s dark acts and the promise of the redemptive power of love.
©2014 Cynthia Bond (P)2014 Random House Audio
Promises to Keep
Summary
An enchanting and poignant story about the unfailing power of love in a world turned upside down by war - from the best-selling author of Tides of Honour. Summer 1755, Acadia Young, beautiful Amélie Belliveau lives with her family among the Acadians of Grande Pré, Nova Scotia, content with her life on their idyllic farm. Along with their friends, the neighbouring Mi'kmaq, the community believes they can remain on neutral political ground despite the rising tides of war. But peace can be fragile, and sometimes faith is not enough. When the Acadians refuse to pledge allegiance to the British in their war against the French, the army invades Grande Pré, claims the land, and rips the people from their homes. Amélie's entire family, alongside the other Acadians, is exiled to ports unknown aboard dilapidated ships. Fortunately, Amélie has made a powerful ally. Having survived his own harrowing experience at the hands of the English, Corporal Connor MacDonnell is a reluctant participant in the British plan to expel the Acadians from their homeland. His sympathy for Amélie gradually evolves into a profound love, and he resolves to help her and her family in any way he can - even if it means treason. As the last warmth of summer fades, more ships arrive to ferry the Acadians away, and Connor is forced to make a decision that will alter the future forever. Heart-wrenching and captivating, Promises to Keep is a gloriously romantic tale of a young couple forced to risk everything amidst the uncertainties of war.
©2017 Genevieve Graham (P)2017 Audible, Inc.
Le grand voyage
Summary
Dans ce quatrième volet de la saga Les Enfants de la Terre, Ayla et son compagnon Jondalar laissent derrière eux la chaleureuse tribu des chasseurs de mammouths pour continuer leur traversée des steppes immenses du continent européen. Le couple ne manque pas de susciter l'étonnement sur son passage. En effet, Ayla et Jondalar se déplacent à cheval, en compagnie d'un loup apprivoisé. Or, les peuples qu'ils rencontrent vivent de chasse et de cueillette, et n'ont jamais vu d'animaux domestiques. D'où ce couple étrange tient-il donc ses pouvoirs ?En quête d'un lieu qui deviendrait le foyer de leur amour, Ayla et Jondalar feront maintes découvertes au cours de ce voyage initiatique à travers un monde inconnu, dangereux et grandiose. >> Ce livre audio en version intégrale vous est proposé en exclusivité par Audible et est uniquement disponible en téléchargement.
©2002 Presses de la Cité. Traduit de l'anglais (États-Unis) par Alexis Champon (P)2017 Audible Studios
The Colonels
Summary
They were the professionals, the men who had been toughened by combat in the mine-laden fields of Europe, in Korea, in Greece, in Indochina. Now, in the twilight of a dying decade, they must return to the United States to forge a new type of American soldier - one to be tested on the beaches of Cuba and in a new war yet to come....
©2012 B. V. Larson (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Commodore
Summary
Exclusively from Audible In the ninth instalment of the series, C.S. Forester transports us to the quaint village of Smallbridge. Predictably restless and eager to embark on his next adventure, Horatio Hornblower dreams of returning to the seas and commanding his next ship. Now happily married to Lady Barbara Leighton and widely celebrated for his recent successes with the navy, Hornblower has been knighted and appointed a commodore. Fortunately for Horatio, his uneventful days as village squire are soon interrupted when he is sent word from the Admiralty. Ordered to embark upon a diplomatic and military mission to protect Britain's Baltic interests, Horatio is quick to choose a squadron and leave his small village life behind. Fighting against the savage Baltic weather, Hornblower must impede Napoleon from conquering Sweden and Russia and, as always, ensure that no French privateer can prevent him from achieving his goals. Hailed by the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Sir Winston Churchill for being 'admirable and vastly entertaining,' C.S. Forester became a hugely influential 20th-century author. Born in Cairo, raised in London and buried in California, the metropolitan writer experienced huge success with his Horatio Hornblower series as well as with his later works, The African Queen and The Good Shepherd. His literary genius is perfectly encapsulated within this endlessly entertaining narrative, and his heroic protagonist draws us in to another titillating journey through the Napoleonic wars. Narrator Biography Christian Rodska is an English television and voice actor best known for his role in the 1970s series Follyfoot. From the The Monuments Men and The Eagle of the Ninth to The Likely Lads, Z Cars, The Tomorrow People, Coronation Street, Bergerac and Casualty, his extensive and diverse acting career has led him to become a highly solicited radio and audiobook narrator. He has now voiced over 150 unabridged audiobooks including Winston Churchill's biographies, Evelyn Waugh's Men at Arms and Sebastian Faulks' A Possible Life. He has been praised for his ability to vary in vocal pace and style, and as such, Christian boasts 12 Earphone Awards from Audiofile Magazine.
©1945 C.S. Forester (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Candle in the Darkness
Summary
Winner of the 2001 Christy Award, Lynn Austin captures the turmoil of the Civil War in this stirring novel. From vast plantations to the cramped closets of the Underground Railroad, it follows one young woman's inspiring journey of risk and sacrifice. Caroline Fletcher, the daughter of a wealthy family in Richmond, has never questioned her father's right to own slaves. But after a lengthy visit to her uncle's home in Boston, she learns of the abolitionist movement. Now, knowing that slavery is against God's will, she must risk betraying the people she loves to obey her convictions. Compelling characters and the searing conflicts between North and South create a vivid canvas for Caroline's struggle to make the right decisions. Through Christina Moore's hearfelt narration, Candle in the Darkness burns even brighter.
©2002 Lynn Austin (P)2004 Recorded Books, LLC
The Midwife of Hope River
Summary
Midwife Patience Murphy has a gift: a talent for escorting mothers through the challenges of bringing children into the world. Working in the hardscrabble conditions of Appalachia during the Depression, Patience takes the jobs that no one else wants, helping those most in need - and least likely to pay. She knows a successful midwifery practice must be built on a foundation of openness and trust - but the secrets Patience is keeping are far too intimate and fragile for her to ever let anyone in. Honest, moving, and beautifully detailed, Patricia Harman's The Midwife of Hope River rings with authenticity as Patience faces nearly insurmountable difficulties. From the dangerous mines of West Virginia to the terrifying attentions of the Ku Klux Klan, Patience must strive to bring new light and life into an otherwise hard world.
©2012 Patricia Harman (P)2013 HarperCollins Publishers
The Happy Return
Summary
Exclusively from Audible The year is 1808 and somewhere off the coast of Nicaragua, C.S. Forester's hero returns, ready to embark on his next swashbuckling adventure. The fifth instalment in the series, The Happy Return follows Captain Horatio Hornblower as he commands the thirty-six-gun frigate, HMS Lydia. Sent out on a mission to weaken the colonial Spanish government, Horatio must form an alliance with a narcissistic revolutionary leader with delusions of grandeur, who goes by the name of 'El Supremo'. Simultaneously faced with an advancing Spanish fleet and their far superior fifty-gun ship, Natividad, Horatio must find a way to 'take, sink, burn or destroy' his enemies or fail and be made to face the British courts. Adding insult to injury, Horatio is furthermore challenged by the arrival of a singularly attractive passenger, the influential Lady Barbara Wellesley. Vulnerable, alone and seeking passage to England, Horatio cannot refuse the lady, but as a happily married man, he finds himself tortured by Barbara's tempting nature and astounding beauty. An English novelist, C.S. Forester was highly praised by his contemporaries for his Napoleonic naval warfare series, and later for the publication of The African Queen. Despite his natural ability and endless imagination, Forester came to writing much later than expected. Having originally studied medicine at Guy's Hospital, it was only after his travels with the Royal Navy that he was artistically inspired, developing in particular, a fervent love of story-telling. Sadly stricken with arteriosclerosis whilst voyaging to the Bering Sea, C.S. Forester was crippled in his later life, but his imagination and his skill with a pen survived for years to come. Narrator Biography Christian Rodska is an English television and voice actor best known for his role in the 1970s series Follyfoot. From The Monuments Men and The Eagle of the Ninth to The Likely Lads, Z Cars, The Tomorrow People, Coronation Street, Bergerac and Casualty, his extensive and diverse acting career has led him to become a highly solicited radio and audiobook narrator. He has now voiced over 150 unabridged audiobooks including Winston Churchill's biographies, Evelyn Waugh's Men at Arms and Sebastian Faulks' A Possible Life. He has been praised for his ability to vary in vocal pace and style and as such, Christian boasts 12 Earphone Awards from Audiofile Magazine.
©1937 Cassette Productions SA (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
The Confusion
Summary
In the year 1689, a cabal of Barbary galley slaves, including one “Half-Cocked Jack” Shaftoe, devises a daring plan to win freedom and fortune. A great adventure ensues that will place the intrepid band at odds with the mighty and the mad, with alchemists, Jesuits, great navies, pirate queens, and vengeful despots across vast oceans and around the globe. Back in Europe, the exquisite and resourceful Eliza, Countess de la Zeur, master of markets, pawn and confidante of enemy kings, onetime Turkish harem virgin, is stripped of her immense personal fortune by France’s most dashing privateer. Penniless and at risk from those who desire either her or her head (or both), she is caught up in a web of international intrigue, even as she desperately seeks the return of her most precious possession -- her child.Meanwhile, Newton and Leibniz continue to propound their grand theories as their infamous rivalry intensifies. And Daniel Waterhouse seeks passage to the Massachusetts colony in hopes of escaping the madness into which his world has descended. The Baroque Cycle, Neal Stephenson’s award-winning series, spans the late 17th and early 18th centuries, combining history, adventure, science, invention, piracy, and alchemy into one sweeping tale. It is a gloriously rich, entertaining, and endlessly inventive historical epic populated by the likes of Isaac Newton, William of Orange, Benjamin Franklin, and King Louis XIV, along with some of the most inventive literary characters in modern fiction. Audible’s complete and unabridged presentation of The Baroque Cycle was produced in cooperation with Neal Stephenson. Each volume includes an exclusive introduction read by the author.
©2004 Neal Stephenson (P)2010 Audible, Inc.
Lando
Summary
In Lando, Louis L’Amour has created an unforgettable portrait of a unique American hero. For six long years Orlando Sackett survived the horrors of a brutal Mexican prison. He survived by using his skills as a boxer and by making three vows. The first was to exact revenge on the hired killers who framed him. The second was to return to his father. And the third was to find Gin Locklear. But the world has changed a lot since Lando left it. His father is missing. The woman he loves is married. And the killers want him dead. Hardened physically and emotionally, Lando must begin an epic journey to resolve his past, even if it costs him his life.
©1962 Louis and Katherine L'Amour Trust (P)2003 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random house, Inc.
Histoires de femmes tome 3. Marion, une femme en devenir
Summary
Un an après le retour de Marion au manoir, la vie semble reprendre son cours normal. Mais la période d'accalmie sera brève puisque survient le krach boursier de 1929, un événement qui secouera l'Amérique entière. Fulgurante et inattendue, la catastrophe n'épargne personne… Les membres des familles O'Gallagher, Couturier et Lafrance subiront, eux aussi les conséquences de la terrible débâcle financière. Malgré ces bouleversements, la jeune Marion, à 16 ans, comprend la chance qu'elle a d'être sortie d'un cocon familial étouffant. Grâce à la bienveillance de madame Éléonore, elle va enfin déployer ses ailes et pour la première fois de sa vie, rêver d'un autre avenir que celui qu'on a décidé pour elle. Et il y a ce jeune homme qui ne la laisse pas indifférente…
©2019 Guy Saint-Jean Éditeur (P)2019 Vues et Voix
Treasure Mountain
Summary
Filled with exciting tales of the frontier, the chronicle of the Sackett family is perhaps the crowning achievement of one of our greatest storytellers. In Treasure Mountain, Louis L'Amour delivers a robust story of two brothers searching to learn the fate of their missing father, and finding themselves in a struggle just to stay alive. Orrin and Tell Sackett had come to exotic New Orleans looking for answers to their father's disappearance 20 years before. To uncover the truth, the brothers enlisted the aid of a trailwise gypsy and a mysterious voodoo priest as they sought to re-create their father's last trek. But Louisiana is a dangerous land, and with one misstep the brothers could disappear in the bayous before they even set foot on the trail that led to whatever legacy their father had left behind, and a secret worth killing for.
©1972 Louis and Katherine L'Amour Trust (P)2002 Random House Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.
Tides of Honour
Summary
From best-selling author Genevieve Graham comes a novel of love, loss, and honor amid the horrors of war and its aftermath. In the summer of 1916, Private Daniel Baker marches into battle with the boys of Nova Scotia's 25th Battalion. Out of brutal necessity, Danny has steeled himself against the trials and horrors of war, but he is completely unprepared to meet the love of his life in war-torn France. Audrey Poulin has the soul of an artist. She lives alone with her grandmother in the quiet French countryside, where her only joy is in her brush and palette. When by chance she encounters Danny, the handsome young soldier captures her heart and inspires her painting. The young lovers believe that only together can they face the hardships the war brings. But love is just the beginning. Mere months later Danny is gravely wounded at the Battle of the Somme, and his future is thrown into uncertainty. Soon he and Audrey find themselves struggling to build a new life in Halifax, a city grieving its lost men. As the gray winter of 1917 sets in, Danny's lack of purpose and Audrey's isolation continue to mount, pulling the two apart just as a new catastrophe threatens their existence. Heartrending and enthralling, Tides of Honour is a novel of love and second chances set against Halifax's most devastating moment of the First World War.
©2015 Genevieve Graham (P)2017 Audible, Inc.
The Hollow Hills
Summary
Born on Christmas Eve, Arthur Pendragon is the illegitimate son of the married duchess Ygraine and Uther Pendragon, brother of a great king: a union Merlin arranged. But Arthur's birth is not welcomed by everyone: his father demands he be hidden until a legitimate son can be born, and Merlin is forced to give the babe to his own childhood nurse for safekeeping and go into hiding. In a dream, Merlin learns of a sword of unparalleled beauty and extraordinary craftsmanship, hidden in a long-deserted Roman temple. Merlin retrieves the sword and hides it in a cave on an island in the centre of a lake, where it remains for years. But what is hidden must be revealed. For it is foretold that the irrepressible young man named Arthur will find a sword and claim his birthright: as heir to Uther Pendragon and king of the Britons.
©1973 Mary Stewart (P)2018 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Mojave Crossing
Summary
Louis L’Amour takes William Tell Sackett on a treacherous passage from the Arizona goldfields to the booming town of Los Angeles. Tell Sackett was no ladies’ man, but he could spot trouble easily enough. And Dorinda Robiseau was the kind of trouble he wanted to avoid at any time - even more so when he had 30 pounds of gold in his saddlebags and a long way to travel. But when she begged him for safe passage to Los Angeles, Sackett reluctantly agreed. Now he’s on a perilous journey through the most brutal desert on the continent, traveling with a companion he doesn’t trust...and headed for a confrontation with a deadly gunman who also bears the name of Sackett.
©1964 Louis and Katherine L'Amour Trust (P)2001 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random house, Inc.
Heretic
Summary
A sharp, skilled and utterly fearless archer in the army of King Edward III, young Thomas of Hookton has been making his way through France for three years now, fighting fiercely alongside the English troops. But being a soldier in the great Hundred Years War is only a means to an end: Thomas of Hookton is hot on the trails of the man who brutally slaughtered his father and stole his only treasure - rumored to be the Holy Grail - from the ancient church of Hookton. All Europe wants the grail, and though many doubt it even exists, no one would willingly allow an enemy to find Christendom's most precious relic. To seek revenge and reclaim what's rightfully his, Thomas finds himself in a murderous race with the dangerous black rider who keeps cunningly eluding his grasp. In the tradition of Ken Follett and Edward Rutherford, Heretic is the third book in Bernard Cornwell's remarkable new series about the search for the Holy Grail.
©2003 Bernard Cornwell (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers
What Only We Know
Summary
A door slammed and the unmistakable sound of boots came crashing up the hall. Liese held her little daughter’s hand so tightly, the tiny fingers had turned purple. The SS officer’s hand was at Liese’s throat before she saw him move. "I can kill you easily, then I can kill your daughter." He relaxed his grip a little. "Or perhaps I could kill her first?" England, 40 years later. When Karen Cartwright is unexpectedly called home to nurse her ailing father, she goes with a heavy heart. The house she grew up in feels haunted by the memory of her father’s closely guarded secrets about her beautiful mother Elizabeth’s tragic death years before. As she packs up the house, Karen discovers an old photograph and a stranger’s tattered love letter to her mother postmarked from Germany after the war. During her life, Karen struggled to understand her shy, fearful mother, but now she is realizing there was so much more to Elizabeth than she knew. For one thing, her name wasn’t even Elizabeth, and her harrowing story begins long before Karen was born. It’s 1941 in Berlin, and a young woman called Liese is being forced to wear a yellow star... A beautiful and gripping wartime story about family secrets and impossible choices in the face of terrible hardship. Perfect for fans of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, We Were the Lucky Ones, and The Alice Network.
©2020 Catherine Hokin (P)2020 Bookouture
Highland Treasure
Summary
A Buchanan brother finds a love to treasure in this scintillating historical romance from New York Times best-selling author Lynsay Sands.... After escaping from the English soldiers who attacked her home and imprisoned her in a dungeon, Lady Elysande de Valance is grateful for the rugged Scots who are escorting her to safety in the Highlands. Even with danger dogging their every step, she hadn’t expected to welcome the strong comforting embrace of their leader, Rory Buchanan. They say he’s a healer, but she finds the heat of his touch does so much more.... Let his brothers get married - Rory is too busy tending to the sick to be bothered with wooing a bride. But when he is tasked with accompanying a family friend’s “treasure” to the Highlands, he is surprised to learn the treasure is a beautiful woman on the run - and even more surprised to discover bruises hidden by her veil. Rory makes it his mission to tend to her injuries and protect her, but the thought of losing her makes him realize that perhaps it is his heart that is most in need of healing....
©2021 Lynsay Sands (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers
The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
Summary
In this first of three books inspired by the life of Josephine Bonaparte, Sandra Gulland has created a novel of immense and magical proportions. We meet Josephine in the exotic and lush Martinico, where an old island woman predicts that one day she will be queen. The journey from the remote village of her birth to the height of European elegance is long, but Josephine's fortune proves to be true. By way of fictionalized diary entries, we traverse her early years as she marries her one true love, bears his children, and is left betrayed, widowed, and penniless. It is Josephine's extraordinary charm, cunning, and will to survive that catapults her to the heart of society, where she meets Napoleon, whose destiny will prove to be irrevocably intertwined with hers.
©1995 Sandra Gulland (P)2017 Audible, Inc.
Bella Poldark: A Novel of Cornwall 1818-1820
Summary
Bella Poldark is the 12th and final audiobook in Winston Graham's sweeping series of Cornwall, Poldark. Cornwall, 1818. We continue the tale of Ross and Demelza; of the wayward Valentine Warleggan, whose existence keeps open the old wounds of the feud between Ross and George; of Bella, the Poldarks' youngest daughter, whose precocious talent as a singer is encouraged by her old flame, Christopher Havergal, and by a distinguished French conductor who has more in mind than Bella's music; of Clowance, the Poldarks' widowed daughter, who considers remarriage to one of two rival suitors; and of a murderer who stalks the villages of West Cornwall.
©2017 Winston Graham (P)2017 Macmillan Digital Audio