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.
Men in Green Faces
Summary
Because it’s a novel, the truth can be told. Because it’s the truth, you’ll never forget it.... Gene Wentz's Men in Green Faces is the classic novel of Vietnam that inspired a generation of SEALs. Here is the story of a good soldier trained to be part of an elite team of warriors - and of the killing grounds where he was forever changed. Gene Michaels carries an M-60, 800 rounds, and a Bible. The ultimate SEAL, he also carries a murderous grudge against a bloodthirsty colonel who was once one of their own. To bring him in, Michaels and his men will go behind the lines, where they’ll take on 5,000 NVA in the fight of their lives. In this stunning novel, former SEAL Gene Wentz brings to life what it was like to be a SEAL in Vietnam, running an endless tour of top-secret, death-defying operations deep in enemy territory. From the camaraderie to the harrowing recons, from brutal interrogations to incredible, toe-to-toe firefights, here are America’s most feared warriors as you’ve never seen them before.
©1992 Gene Wentz and Betty Abell Jurus (P)2012 Macmillan Audio
The Sparrow
Summary
Emilio Sandoz is a remarkable man, a living saint and Jesuit priest who undergoes an experience so harrowing and profound that it makes him question the existence of God. This experience - the first contact between human beings and intelligent extraterrestrial life - begins with a small mistake and ends in a horrible catastrophe. Sandoz is a part of the crew sent to explore a new planet. What they find is a civilization so alien and incomprehensible that they feel compelled to wonder what it means to be human. The priest is the only surviving member of the crew, and upon his return, he is confronted by public inquisition and accusations of the most heinous crimes imaginable. His faith utterly destroyed, crippled and defenseless, his only hope is to tell his tale. Father John Candotti has been charged with discovering the truth, but the truth may be more than Earth is willing to accept.
©2008 Mary Doria Russell (P)2008 Brilliance Audio
The Secret
Summary
New York Times best-selling author Julie Garwood captures the Highland splendor of medieval Scotland in this breathtaking love story. The inspiration for her acclaimed bestseller Ransom, this classic tale is a passionate masterpiece from one of the best-loved storytellers of all time. Judith Hampton was as beautiful as she was proud and loyal. Her dear Scottish friend from childhood was about to give birth, and Judith had promised to be at her side. But there was another reason for the journey from her bleak English home to the Highlands: to meet the father she had never known, the Laird Maclean. Nothing prepared her, however, for the sight of the Scottish barbarian who was to escort her into his land...Iain Maitland, laird of his clan, a man more powerfully compelling than any she had ever encountered. In a spirited clash of wills and customs, Judith reveled in the melting bliss of Iain's searching kisses, his passionate caresses. Perplexed by her sprightly defiance, bemused by her tender nature, Iain felt his soul growing into the light and warmth of her love. Surely nothing would wrench her from the affection and trust of Iain and his clan...not even the truth about her father, a devastating secret that could shatter the boldest alliance, and the most glorious of loves!
©2013 Julie Garwood (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
An Echo in the Darkness
Summary
Francine Rivers is winner of the ECPA Gold Medallion and many other awards. Her inspirational novels move the hearts and souls of millions of listeners. Following A Voice in the Wind, An Echo in the Darkness is the second book in her remarkable saga set in ancient Rome. As a Roman trader grieves over a lost slave woman, he begins to learn about the faith that gave her enough strength to face death.
©2002 Francine Rivers (P)2002 Recorded Books, LLC
The Last Garden in England
Summary
From the author of the international best seller The Light over London and The Whispers of War comes a poignant and unforgettable tale of five women living across three different times whose lives are all connected by one very special place. Present day: Emma Lovett, who has dedicated her career to breathing new life into long-neglected gardens, has just been given the opportunity of a lifetime: to restore the gardens of the famed Highbury House estate, designed in 1907 by her hero Venetia Smith. But as Emma dives deeper into the gardens’ past, she begins to uncover secrets that have long lain hidden. The year 1907: A talented artist with a growing reputation for her ambitious work, Venetia Smith has carved out a niche for herself as a garden designer to industrialists, solicitors, and bankers looking to show off their wealth with sumptuous country houses. When she is hired to design the gardens of Highbury House, she is determined to make them a triumph, but the gardens - and the people she meets - promise to change her life forever. The year 1944: When land girl Beth Pedley arrives at a farm on the outskirts of the village of Highbury, all she wants is to find a place she can call home. Cook Stella Adderton, on the other hand, is desperate to leave Highbury House to pursue her own dreams. And widow Diana Symonds, the mistress of the grand house, is anxiously trying to cling to her pre-war life now that her home has been requisitioned and transformed into a convalescent hospital for wounded soldiers. But when war threatens Highbury House’s treasured gardens, these three very different women are drawn together by a secret that will last for decades. In this sweeping novel reminiscent of Kate Morton’s The Lake House and Kristin Harmel’s The Room on Rue Amélie, Julia Kelly explores the unexpected connections that cross time and the special places that bring people together forever.
©2021 Julia Kelly. All rights reserved. (P)2021 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tandia
Summary
Tandia is a child of all Africa: half Indian, half African, beautiful and intelligent, she is only 16 when she is first brutalized by the police. Her fear of the White man leads her to join the Black resistance movement. With her in the fight for justice is the one White man Tandia can trust, the welterweight champion of the world, Peekay. Now he must fight their common enemy in order to save both their lives.
©2013 Christine Courtenay (P)2014 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Wolf of the Plains
Summary
The first book in the best-selling Conqueror series featuring Genghis Khan and his descendants. "I am the land and the bones of the hills. I am the winter." Temujin, the second son of the khan of the Wolves tribe, was only 11 when his father died in an ambush. His family were thrown out of the tribe and left alone, without food or shelter, to starve to death on the harsh Mongolian plains. It was a rough introduction to his life, to a sudden adult world, but Temujin survived, learning to combat natural and human threats. A man, a small family, without a tribe was always at risk, but he gathered other outsiders to him, creating a new tribal identity. It was during some of his worst times that the image of uniting the warring tribes and bringing the silver people together came to him. He will become the khan of the sea of grass, Genghis.
©2007 Conn Iggulden (P)2005 Oakhill Publishing Ltd
Bioshock: Rapture
Summary
It was the end of World War II. FDR's New Deal had redefined American politics. Taxes were at an all-time high. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had created a fear of total annihilation. The rise of secret government agencies and sanctions on business had many watching their backs. America's sense of freedom was diminishing... and many were desperate to take that freedom back. Among them was a great dreamer, an immigrant who'd pulled himself from the depths of poverty to become one of the wealthiest and most admired men in the world. That man was Andrew Ryan, and he believed that great men and women deserved better. So he set out to create the impossible: a utopia free from government, from censorship, and from moral restrictions on science, where what you gave was what you got. He created Rapture - the shining city below the sea. But this utopia suffered a great tragedy. This is the story of how it all came to be... and how it all ended.
©2011 Take-Two Interactive Software, Incorporated (P)2012 Tantor
Aliena
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. ALIENA 1140. La construction de la grande cathédrale est sur le point de commencer. À l'appel du clergé, des travailleurs de toute l'Angleterre affluent vers la ville de Kingsbridge, dans l'espoir de racheter leurs péchés par le dur labeur de la pierre. Déterminé à s'emparer du comté de Shiring, William Hamleigh, l'un des prétendants au trône, dresse une armée contre ses rivaux : une guerre civile éclate. Dans son sillage de flammes et de dévastations, le peuple, assoiffé de justice, de vérité ou de vengeance, œuvre à reconstruire la vie qu'on lui a arrachée. 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
Le tatoueur d'Auschwitz
Summary
Sous un ciel de plomb, des prisonniers défilent à l'entrée du camp d'Auschwitz. Bientôt, ils ne seront plus que des numéros tatoués sur le bras. C'est Lale, un déporté, qui est chargé de cette sinistre tâche. Il travaille le regard rivé au sol pour éviter de voir la douleur dans les yeux de ceux qu'il marque à jamais. Un jour, pourtant, il lève les yeux sur Gita et la jeune femme devient sa lumière dans ce monde d'une noirceur infinie. Ils savent d'emblée qu'ils sont faits l'un pour l'autre. Mais dans cette prison où l'on se bat pour un morceau de pain et pour sauver sa vie, il n'y a pas de place pour l'amour. Ils doivent se contenter de minuscules moments de joie, qui leur font oublier le cauchemar du quotidien. Mais Lale a fait une promesse : un jour, ils seront libres, deux jeunes gens heureux de vivre ensemble. Deux personnes plus fortes que l'horreur du monde. L'histoire vraie d'un homme et d'une femme qui ont trouvé l'amour au cœur de l'enfer. >> Ce livre audio en version intégrale vous est proposé en exclusivité par Audible et est uniquement disponible en téléchargement.
©2018 City Éditions. Traduit de l'anglais par Jocelyne Barsse (P)2018 Audible Studios
Magic Lessons
Summary
In an unforgettable novel that traces a centuries-old curse to its source, beloved author Alice Hoffman unveils the story of Maria Owens, accused of witchcraft in Salem, and matriarch of a line of the amazing Owens women and men featured in Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic. Where does the story of the Owens bloodline begin? With Maria Owens, in the 1600s, when she’s abandoned in a snowy field in rural England as a baby. Under the care of Hannah Owens, Maria learns about the “Nameless Arts”. Hannah recognizes that Maria has a gift, and she teaches the girl all she knows. It is here that she learns her first important lesson: Always love someone who will love you back. When Maria is abandoned by the man who has declared his love for her, she follows him to Salem, Massachusetts. Here she invokes the curse that will haunt her family. And it’s here that she learns the rules of magic and the lesson that she will carry with her for the rest of her life. Love is the only thing that matters. Magic Lessons is a celebration of life and love and a showcase of Alice Hoffman’s masterful storytelling.
©2020 Alice Hoffman, Inc. All rights reserved. (P)2020 Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved.
Sharpe's Rifles: The French Invasion of Galicia, January 1809
Summary
Lieutenant Richard Sharpe and a detachment of riflemen join the assault of a strong French force holding the Holy City of Santiago de Compostela. Lieutenant Richard Sharpe and a detachment of Riflemen are cut off from the rest of the army and surrounded. Their only hope of escape is to accept the help of the Spanish, but this assistance comes at a price: to join the assault on the holy city of Santiago de Compostela, held by a strong French force. There is little Sharpe would enjoy more. 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.
©1988 Bernard Cornwell (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
The Mirror & the Light: An Adaptation in 30 Minute Episodes
Summary
If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it? England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, before Jane dies giving birth to the male heir he most craves. Cromwell is a man with only his wits to rely on; he has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. But can a nation, or a person, shed the past like a skin? Do the dead continually unbury themselves? What will you do, the Spanish ambassador asks Cromwell, when the king turns on you, as sooner or later he turns on everyone close to him? With The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion, and courage.
©2020 Hilary Mantel (P)2020 HarperAudio
A View Across the Rooftops
Summary
Would you risk your life to save just one person? An incredible story of love, hope, and friendship; and a testament to humanity and courage in history’s darkest days. 1941, Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Professor Josef Held has never recovered from the loss of his beloved wife - and has no intention of ever letting anyone new into his quiet, safe world. It is a world where the clock ticks steadily in his mathematics classroom, where every equation has a solution. Every day he walks the same route home, past his neighbour Mrs Epstein’s, to a home inhabited only by him and a cat he refuses to even name. But then the Nazis come for the Jews - and Mrs Epstein is killed. And Josef, in an impulsive act of courage, offers his student Michael Blum a place to hide. Michael is everything Josef is not: spontaneous, poetic, and unafraid to love. Even though his passionate relationship with a Dutch girl called Elke strictly is forbidden by the Nazis - for he is Jewish, and she is not. Desperate to give Michael and Elke’s love a chance to survive, Josef gives Michael refuge in his attic: an act of bravery and resistance that will change both of their lives. But as the dark days of war continue, with danger and betrayal at every turn, no-one can be trusted, and no one is safe. If Michael is going to get back to the woman he loves, it is down to Josef - to find the hero inside himself, and do whatever it takes to keep Michael alive. A heartbreakingly beautiful story about love, trust, and courage against the odds, perfect for fans of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Lilac Girls, and The Nightingale.
©2019 Suzanne Kelman (P)2019 Bookouture
Tidelands
Summary
This New York Times best seller from “one of the great storytellers of our time” (San Francisco Book Review) turns from the glamour of the royal courts to tell the story of an ordinary woman, Alinor, living in a dangerous time for a woman to be different. A country at war. A king beheaded. A woman with a dangerous secret. On Midsummer’s Eve, Alinor waits in the church graveyard, hoping to encounter the ghost of her missing husband and thus confirm his death. Until she can, she is neither maiden nor wife nor widow, living in a perilous limbo. Instead she meets James, a young man on the run. She shows him the secret ways across the treacherous marshy landscape of the Tidelands, not knowing she is leading a spy and an enemy into her life. England is in the grip of a bloody civil war that reaches into the most remote parts of the kingdom. Alinor’s suspicious neighbors are watching each other for any sign that someone might be disloyal to the new parliament, and Alinor’s ambition and determination mark her as a woman who doesn’t follow the rules. They have always whispered about the sinister power of Alinor’s beauty, but the secrets they don’t know about her and James are far more damning. This is the time of witch-mania, and if the villagers discover the truth, they could take matters into their own hands. “This is Gregory par excellence” (Kirkus Reviews) “Fans of Gregory’s works and of historicals in general will delight in this page-turning tale” (Library Journal, starred review) that is “superb.... A searing portrait of a woman that resonates across the ages” (People).
©2019 Philippa Gregory (P)2019 Simon & Schuster Audio
The Book of Night Women
Summary
The Book of Night Women is a sweeping, startling novel, a true tour de force of both voice and storytelling. It is the story of Lilith, born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the 18th century. Even at her birth, the slave women around her recognize a dark power that they - and she - will come to both revere and fear. The Night Women, as they call themselves, have long been plotting a slave revolt, and as Lilith comes of age and reveals the extent of her power, they see her as the key to their plans. But when she begins to understand her own feelings and desires and identity, Lilith starts to push at the edges of what is imaginable for the life of a slave woman in Jamaica, and risks becoming the conspiracy's weak link. Lilith's story overflows with high drama and heartbreak, and life on the plantation is rife with dangerous secrets, unspoken jealousies, inhuman violence, and very human emotion - between slave and master, between slave and overseer, and among the slaves themselves. Lilith finds herself at the heart of it all. And all of it told in one of the boldest literary voices to grace the page recently - and the secret of that voice is one of the book's most intriguing mysteries.
©2009 Marlon James (P)2009 Penguin
Behold the Dreamers (Oprah's Book Club)
Summary
A compulsively listenable debut novel about marriage, immigration, class, race, and the trapdoors in the American dream - the unforgettable story of a young Cameroonian couple making a new life in New York just as the Great Recession upends the economy. Named one of BuzzFeed's "Incredible New Books You Need to Read This Summer". Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself; his wife, Neni; and their six-year-old son. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty - and Jende is eager to please. Clark's wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses' summer home in the Hamptons. With these opportunities, Jende and Neni can at last gain a foothold in America and imagine a brighter future. However, the world of great power and privilege conceals troubling secrets, and soon Jende and Neni notice cracks in their employers' façades. When the financial world is rocked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Jongas are desperate to keep Jende's job - even as their marriage threatens to fall apart. As all four lives are dramatically upended, Jende and Neni are forced to make an impossible choice.
©2016 Imbolo Mbue (P)2016 Random House Audio
The Lost Queen
Summary
The Mists of Avalon meets the world of Philippa Gregory in the thrilling first novel of a debut trilogy that reveals the untold story of Languoreth - a forgotten queen of sixth-century Scotland - twin sister of the man who inspired the legend of Merlin. I write because I have seen the darkness that will come. Already there are those who seek to tell a new history.... In a land of mountains and mist, tradition and superstition, Languoreth and her brother Lailoken are raised in the Old Way of their ancestors. But in Scotland, a new religion is rising, one that brings disruption, bloodshed, and riot. And even as her family faces the burgeoning forces of Christianity, the Anglo-Saxons, bent on colonization, are encroaching from the east. When conflict brings the hero Emrys Pendragon to her father’s door, Languoreth finds love with one of his warriors. Her deep connection to Maelgwn is forged by enchantment, but she is promised in marriage to Rhydderch, son of a Christian king. As Languoreth is catapulted into a world of violence and political intrigue, she must learn to adapt. Together with her brother - a warrior and druid known to history as Myrddin - Languoreth must assume her duty to fight for the preservation of the Old Way and the survival of her kingdom, or risk the loss of them both forever. Based on new scholarship, this tale of bravery and conflicted love brings a lost queen back to life - rescuing her from obscurity, and reaffirming her place at the center of one of the most enduring legends of all time.
©2018 Signe Pike (P)2018 Simon & Schuster
A Brief History of Seven Killings
Summary
Winner, The Man Booker Prize, 2015 On December 3, 1976, just before the Jamaican general election and two days before Bob Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica Concert, gunmen stormed his house, machine guns blazing. The attack nearly killed the Reggae superstar, his wife, and his manager, and injured several others. Marley would go on to perform at the free concert on December 5, but he left the country the next day, not to return for two years. Deftly spanning decades and continents and peopled with a wide range of characters - assassins, journalists, drug dealers, and even ghosts - A Brief History of Seven Killings is the fictional exploration of that dangerous and unstable time and its bloody aftermath, from the streets and slums of Kingston in the 1970s, to the crack wars in 1980s New York, to a radically altered Jamaica in the 1990s. Brilliantly inventive and stunningly ambitious, this novel is a revealing modern epic that will secure Marlon James' place among the great literary talents of his generation.
©2014 Marlon James. Recorded by arrangement with Penguin Books. (P)2014 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
Le voyage
Summary
Vingt années se sont écoulées depuis le périple de Claire Beauchamp-Randall dans l'Écosse du XVIIe siècle. Si l'infirmière britannique a refait sa vie depuis, le souvenir de Jamie Fraser et des années tumultueuses vécues ensemble reste intact. Aussi, lorsqu'elle apprend qu'il a survécu à la sanglante bataille de Culloden ayant marqué la défaite de l'armée écossaise, elle se trouve confrontée à un terrible dilemme. En remontant une nouvelle fois le temps, retrouvera-t-elle celui qu'elle a quitté deux décennies auparavant ? Fuite, tempêtes, intrigues politiques et prophéties étranges : la suite d'une série incontournable ! >> Ce livre audio en version intégrale vous est proposé en exclusivité par Audible et est uniquement disponible en téléchargement.
©1997 Baror International / Presses de la Cité pour la traduction française. Traduit de l'anglais (États-Unis) par Philippe Safavi (P)2018 Audible Studios