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.
Matterhorn
Summary
In the monsoon season of 1968-69 at a fire support base called Matterhorn, located in the remote mountains of Vietnam, a young and ambitious Marine lieutenant wants to command a company to further his civilian political ambitions. Two people stand in his way. The first is a well-loved combat-weary lieutenant his own age who desperately wants out of the bush but who does not want to leave his Marines with an inexperienced and overly ambitious officer. The second is an angry leader of the company’s radical blacks, who has all the political skill, savvy, and ambition of the protagonist. As the young lieutenant experiences the costs of combat, he sees the terrible results of his actions and begins to question the value of ambition and skill over compassion and heart. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.
©2010 Karl Marlantes (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The House of the Spirits
Summary
The unforgettable first novel that established Isabel Allende as one of the world's most gifted and imaginative storytellers. The House of the Spirits brings to life the triumphs and tragedies of three generations of the Trueba family. The patriarch Esteban is a volatile, proud man whose voracious pursuit of political power is tempered only by his love for his delicate wife, Clara, a woman with a mystical connection to the spirit world. When their daughter, Blanca, embarks on a forbidden love affair in defiance of her implacable father, the result is an unexpected gift to Esteban: his adored granddaughter, Alba, a beautiful and strong-willed child who will lead her family and her country into a revolutionary future. One of the most important novels of the 20th century, The House of the Spirits is an enthralling epic that spans decades and lives, weaving the personal and the political into a universal story of love, magic, and fate.
©1982 Isabel Allende (P)2016 Simon & Schuster
The Orphan's Tale
Summary
Look out for Pam's new book, The Lost Girls of Paris, a story of friendship and courage centered around three women and a ring of female spies during World War II - coming soon! A New York Times best seller! "Readers who enjoyed Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale and Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants will embrace this novel. " (Library Journal) "Secrets, lies, treachery, and passion…. I read this novel in a headlong rush." (Christina Baker Kline, number one New York Times best-selling author of Orphan Train) A powerful novel of friendship set in a traveling circus during World War II, The Orphan's Tale introduces two extraordinary women and their harrowing stories of sacrifice and survival Sixteen-year-old Noa has been cast out in disgrace after becoming pregnant by a Nazi soldier and being forced to give up her baby. She lives above a small rail station, which she cleans in order to earn her keep… When Noa discovers a boxcar containing dozens of Jewish infants bound for a concentration camp, she is reminded of the child that was taken from her. And in a moment that will change the course of her life, she snatches one of the babies and flees into the snowy night. Noa finds refuge with a German circus, but she must learn the flying trapeze act so she can blend in undetected, spurning the resentment of the lead aerialist, Astrid. At first rivals, Noa and Astrid soon forge a powerful bond. But as the facade that protects them proves increasingly tenuous, Noa and Astrid must decide whether their friendship is enough to save one another - or if the secrets that burn between them will destroy everything.
©2017 Pam Jenoff (P)2017 Harlequin Enterprises, Limited
The Throwaway Children
Summary
Rita and Rosie Stevens are only nine and five years old when their widowed mother marries a violent bully called Jimmy Randall and has a baby boy by him. Under pressure from her new husband, she is persuaded to send the girls to an orphanage, not knowing that the papers she has signed will entitle them to do what they like with the children. And it is not long before the powers that be decide to send a consignment of orphans to their sister institution in Australia. Among them - without their family's consent or knowledge - are Rita and Rosie, the throwaway children.
©2016 Diney Costeloe (P)2016 Dreamscape Media, LLC
The Girls with No Names
Summary
Instant International Best Seller A beautiful tale of hope, courage, and sisterhood - inspired by the real House of Mercy and the girls confined there for daring to break the rules. Growing up in New York City in the 1910s, Luella and Effie Tildon realize that even as wealthy young women, their freedoms come with limits. But when the sisters discover a shocking secret about their father, Luella, the brazen elder sister, becomes emboldened to do as she pleases. Her rebellion comes with consequences, and one morning Luella is mysteriously gone. Effie suspects her father has sent Luella to the House of Mercy and hatches a plan to get herself committed to save her sister. But she made a miscalculation, and with no one to believe her story, Effie’s own escape seems impossible - unless she can trust an enigmatic girl named Mable. As their fates entwine, Mable and Effie must rely on their tenuous friendship to survive. Home for Unwanted Girls meets The Dollhouse in this atmospheric, heartwarming story that explores not only the historical House of Mercy, but the lives - and secrets - of the girls who stayed there. “Burdick has spun a cautionary tale of struggle and survival, love and family - and above all, the strength of the heart, no matter how broken.” (New York Times Book Review) “Burdick reveals the perils of being a woman in 1913 and exposes the truths of their varying social circles.” (Chicago Tribune)
©2020 Serena Burdick (P)2020 Harlequin Audio
Exit West
Summary
From the internationally best-selling author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a love story that unfolds across the rapidly changing face of a volatile world. In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet - sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors - doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through.... Exit West follows these remarkable characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are. Profoundly intimate and powerfully inventive, it tells an unforgettable story of love, loyalty, and courage that is both completely of our time and for all time.
©2017 Mohsin Hamid (P)2017 Penguin Audio
Sharpe's Triumph: The Battle of Assaye, September 1803 (The Sharpe Series, Book 2)
Summary
Sergeant Richard Sharpe witnesses a murderous act of treachery and, with Sir Arthur Wellesley, faces the Mahratta Horde. The paths of treachery all lead to the small village of Assaye. Outnumbered and outgunned, Wellesley, with a diminished British army, plunges his men into the white heat of battle. A battle that will make his reputation, and perhaps Sharpe's too. Soldier, hero, rogue - Sharpe is the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage. He knows no other family than the regiment of the 95th Rifles whose green jacket he proudly wears.
©1998 Bernard Cornwell (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishing Limited
The Thirteenth Tale
Summary
All children mythologize their birth... So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter's beloved collection of stories, long famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale. The enigmatic Winter has always kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she summons a biographer to tell the truth about her extraordinary life: Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth remains an ever-present pain. Disinterring the life she meant to bury for good, Vida mesmerizes Margaret with the power of her storytelling. Hers is a tale of gothic strangeness, featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, and a devastating fire. Struck by a curious parallel between their stories, Margaret demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them. The Thirteenth Tale is a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and we loved as children. Diane Setterfield will keep you guessing, make you wonder, move you to tears and laughter, and in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life.
©2006 Diane Setterfield (P)2007 Simon & Schuster Audio
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Summary
Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2001 It's 1939, in New York City. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just pulled off his greatest feat: smuggling himself out of Hitler's Prague. He's looking to make big money, fast, so that he can bring his family to freedom. His cousin, Brooklyn's own Sammy Clay, is looking for a partner in creating the heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit the American dreamscape: the comic book. Inspired by their own fantasies, fears, and dreams, Kavalier and Clay create the Escapist, the Monitor, and the otherworldly Mistress of the Night, Luna Moth, inspired by the beautiful Rosa Saks, who will become linked by powerful ties to both men. The golden age of comic books has begun, even as the shadow of Hitler falls across Europe. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a stunning novel of endless comic invention and unforgettable characters, written in the exhilarating prose that has led critics to compare Michael Chabon to Cheever and Nabokov. In Joe Kavalier, Chabon has created a hero for the century.
©2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc. (P)2000 Michael Chabon
The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home
Summary
From the New York Times best-selling authors of Welcome to Night Vale and It Devours! and the creators of the hit podcast, comes a new novel set in the world of Night Vale and beyond. In the town of Night Vale, there’s a faceless old woman who secretly lives in everyone’s home, but no one knows how she got there or where she came from...until now. Told in a series of eerie flashbacks, the story of The Faceless Old Woman goes back centuries to reveal an initially blissful and then tragic childhood on a Mediterranean Estate in the early 19th century, her rise in the criminal underworld of Europe, a nautical adventure with a mysterious organization of smugglers, her plot for revenge on the ones who betrayed her, and ultimately her death and its aftermath, as her spirit travels the world for decades until settling in modern-day Night Vale. Interspersed throughout is a present-day story in Night Vale, as The Faceless Old Woman guides, haunts, and sabotages a man named Craig. In the end, her current day dealings with Craig and her swashbuckling history in 19th century Europe will come together in the most unexpected and horrifying way. Part The Haunting of Hill House, part The Count of Monte Cristo, and 100 percent about a faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home.
©2020 Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor (P)2020 HarperAudio
The Mountains Sing
Summary
With the epic sweep of Min Jin Lee's Pachinko and Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing and the lyrical beauty of Vaddey Ratner's In the Shadow of the Banyan, The Mountains Sing tells an enveloping, multigenerational tale of the Tr?n family, set against the backdrop of the Vi?t Nam War. Tr?n Di?u Lan, who was born in 1920, was forced to flee her family farm with her six children during the Land Reform as the Communist government rose in the North. Years later in Hà N?i, her young granddaughter, Huong, comes of age as her parents and uncles head off down the H? Chí Minh Trail to fight in a conflict that tore not just her beloved country, but her family apart. Vivid, gripping, and steeped in the language and traditions of Vi?t Nam, The Mountains Sing brings to life the human costs of this conflict from the point of view of the Vietnamese people themselves, while showing us the true power of kindness and hope. The Mountains Sing is celebrated Vietnamese poet Nguy?n Phan Qu? Mai's first novel in English.
©2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC
The Potato Factory
Summary
Always leave a little salt on the bread... Ikey Solomon's favorite saying is also his way of doing business, and in the business of thieving he's very successful indeed. Ikey's partner in crime is his mistress, the forthright Mary Abacus, until misfortune befalls them. They are parted and each must make the harsh journey from thriving nineteenth century London to the convict settlement of Van Diemen's Land. In the backstreets and dives of Hobart Town, Mary learns the art of brewing and builds The Potato Factory, where she plans a new future. But her ambitions are threatened by Ikey's wife, Hannah, her old enemy. The two women raise their separate families, one legitimate and the other bastard. As each woman sets out to destroy the other, the families are brought to the edge of disaster.
©2013 Christine Courtenay (P)2014 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Heads You Win
Summary
This program is read by acclaimed English actor Richard Armitage. Leningrad, Russia, 1968. From an early age, it is clear that Alexander Karpenko is destined to lead his countrymen. But when his father is assassinated by the KGB for defying the state, Alexander and his mother will have to escape Russia if they hope to survive. At the docks, they have an irreversible choice: board a container ship bound for America or one bound for Great Britain. Alexander leaves the choice to a toss of a coin.... In a single moment, a double twist decides Alexander’s future. During an epic tale, spanning two continents and 30 years, we follow Alexander through triumph and defeat as he sets out on parallel lives as Alex in New York and Sasha in London. As this unique story unfolds, both come to realize that to find their destiny, they must face the past they left behind as Alexander in Russia. With a final twist that will shock even his most ardent fans, this is international number one best seller Jeffrey Archer’s most ambitious and creative work since Kane and Abel.
©2018 Jeffrey Archer (P)2018 Macmillan Audio
Julian Fellowes's Belgravia
Summary
Julian Fellowes's Belgravia is the story of a secret. A secret that unravels behind the porticoed doors of London's grandest postcode. Set in the 1840s, when the upper echelons of society began to rub shoulders with the emerging industrial nouveau riche, Belgravia is peopled by a rich cast of characters. But the story begins on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. At the Duchess of Richmond's new legendary ball, one family's life will change forever.
©2016 Julian Fellowes (P)2016 Hachette Audio
Ellen
Summary
Une fresque monumentale par le plus grand bâtisseur de romans historiques de notre époque. 1123. Motivés par d'obscures raisons, un prêtre, un chevalier et un moine font pendre un prisonnier après un procès expéditif. Une étrange malédiction semble alors s'abattre sur eux. ELLEN 1135. Dans un royaume d'Angleterre en perdition, morcelé par la guerre, affaibli par la famine et une épouvantable crise religieuse, noblesse et clergé rivalisent d'inventivité pour s'approprier le pouvoir. Lorsque le projet de construction d'une grande cathédrale est annoncé, chacun y voit l'occasion de servir ses propres intérêts... Les destins de Philip, le prieur, de Jack, le bâtisseur, ou de la jeune aristocrate Aliena vont s'entremêler. Tous égaux devant Dieu, ils seront seuls pour affronter leur sort.
©2017 / 2015 / 1989 / 1990 Audiolib / Ken Follett. Titre original : "The Pillars of the Earth", publié par Macmillan Ltd., Londres. Traduction française : Éditions Stock et Éditions Robert Laffont, S.A., Paris (P)2017 Audiolib
The English Patient
Summary
With ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burned man who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal,and rescue illuminates this book like flashes of heat lightening.
©1992 Michael Ondaatje (P)2007 Books on Tape
Sharpe's Trafalgar: The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805 (The Sharpe Series, Book 4)
Summary
Richard Sharpe, travelling home aboard the 'Revenant', meets Admiral Nelson and his fleet, on what was a calm October day off Cape Trafalgar. Soldier, hero, rogue - Sharpe is the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage. He knows no other family than the regiment of the 95th Rifles whose green jacket he proudly wears.
©2009 Bernard Cornwell (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishing Limited
Love in the Time of Cholera
Summary
Audie Award Finalist, Classic, 2014 From the Nobel Prize-winning author of One Hundred Years of Solitude comes a masterly evocation of an unrequited passion so strong that it binds two people's lives together for more than half a century. In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career, he whiles away the years in 622 affairs - yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he does so again. With humorous sagacity and consummate craft, Gabriel García Márquez traces an exceptional half-century of unrequited love. Though it seems never to be conveniently contained, love flows through the novel in many wonderful guises - joyful, melancholy, enriching, and ever surprising.
©1988 Gabriel García Márquez (P)2013 Blackstone Audio
First Snow, Last Light
Summary
2018 winner of the BMO Winterset Award 2019 nominee of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award From the author of the critically acclaimed, prize-winning, and internationally best-selling The Colony of Unrequited Dreams comes an epic family mystery with a powerful, surprise ending, which features the return of the ever-fascinating Sheilagh Fielding, one of the most memorable characters in fiction. Ned Vatcher, only 14, ambles home from school in the chill hush that precedes the first storm of the winter of 1936 to find the house locked, the family car missing, and his parents gone without a trace. From that point on, his life is driven by the need to find out what happened to the Vanished Vatchers. His father, Edgar, born to a poor family of fishermen, had risen to become the right-hand man to the colony's prime minister, then suffered an unexpected fall from grace. Were he and his wife murdered? Was it suicide? Had they run away? If so, why had they left their only child behind? Ned soon finds himself enmeshed in another family, that of his missing father and the poverty from which the man somehow escaped. His grandparents, Nan and Reg, his uncle Cyril, and others are themselves haunted by the inexplicable disappearance of a third Vatcher, a young man who was lost at sea on a calm and sunny day years earlier. Two other people loom large as Ned becomes Newfoundland's first media mogul, building an empire to insulate him from loss: a Jesuit priest named Father Duggan and Sheilagh Fielding, a boozy giantess who, while wandering the city streets at night, composes satiric columns that scandalize the rich and powerful. In Ned, Fielding sees a surrogate for her two lost children, the secret that dogs her life, while Ned believes the enigmatic Fielding to be his soul mate. The novel builds to a spectacular resolution of the mystery of all the Vanished Vatchers. Only Wayne Johnston could create such larger-than-life, mythic characters embroiled in events that leave us contemplating not only their tragedies and triumphs but the forces that compel us all to act in ways that surprise and sometimes terrify us.
©2017 Wayne Johnston (P)2018 Penguin Random House Canada
Sharpe's Havoc: The Northern Portugal Campaign, Spring 1809
Summary
A small British army is stranded when the French invade northern Portugal and Lieutenant Richard Sharpe meets the future Duke of Wellington. Sharpe is stranded behind enemy lines, but he has Patrick Harper, his riflemen, and he has the assistance of a young, idealistic Portuguese officer. When he is joined by the future Duke of Wellington they immediately mount a counter-attack and Sharpe, having been the hunted, becomes the hunter once more. Amidst the wreckage of a defeated army, in the storm-lashed hills of the Portuguese frontier, Sharpe takes his revenge. Soldier, hero, rogue - Sharpe is the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage. He knows no other family than the regiment of the 95th Rifles whose green jacket he proudly wears. Please Note: The historical note is NOT included in this audiobook.
©2003 Bernard Cornwell (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers Limited