At the age of nineteen, the twins Josephine and Madeleine Gower lose both their mother and their beloved grandfather. Circumstances force them to leave England and they choose to go to Australia. They determine to make a life for themselves in the young and brash settlement of Melbourne.

Joey is determined to remain unmarried, despite the difficulties this presents. Maddy decides to marry but find that her chosen partner is far from perfect. The saga of Melbourne’s early years unfolds through the tragedies and celebrations of these two women, destined to change the fabric of Melbournian society and make a lasting impact on the character of Australian life.

Rome 1635. As Flanders braces for another long year of war, a Spanish count presents the Vatican with a means of disrupting the Dutch rebels’ booming economy. His plan is brilliant. They just need the right man to implement it.Enter Ludovico da Portovenere, a charismatic spice and silk merchant. Intrigued by the Vatican’s proposal—and hungry for profit—Ludo sets off for Amsterdam. His voyage is interrupted, first by a timid English priest with a message from Rome, then by a storm, then by a pirate raid. The storm brings him a quick-witted young admirer he uses as a spy. The pirate raid brings him a girl, Alina, who won’t go home. Each development has significant consequences for Ludo’s plans and even greater ones for the people he is involved with.Set in a world of international politics and domestic intrigue, The Chosen Man spins an engrossing tale about the Dutch financial scandal known as tulip mania—and how decisions made in high places can have terrible repercussions on innocent lives.

ROBIN HOOD BREAKS BAD: He robbed the rich and gave to the poor... until he became king.

In a cottage near Nottingham, the low-born son of the shire's baron is raised by his peasant mother to respect the poor and keep his honor. "Deeds make a man, Robert. Not a title," she tells her son.

Spanning a half-century in the life and times of Robin Hood, this action packed and erotic Medieval thriller vividly explores the seductive undertow of power as it transforms a legendary hero into a ruthless tyrant.

Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, Little John, King Richard and the legend's other characters are complex figures alive with raw passions, dark impulses, ribald humor and diverse genders.

Prompted by the murder of his legate, in 1209 Pope Innocent III launches a crusade – not against the infidels of the East, but against fellow Christians living peaceably in the south of France. They are the Cathars, regarded as heretics by the Roman Church, and the sect is flourishing. Thousands of knights, landless younger sons, mercenaries and assorted riff-raff pour south with Christian zeal to exterminate men, women and children of the same country. A dilemma soon arises: How to tell a Cathar from an orthodox Catholic? Lovers Bräida and Jourdan are torn apart when Carcassonne falls to the crusaders. Jourdan joins the resistance while Bräida flees with her family to the relative safety of the Pyrenees, neither knowing if they will see one another again. But Bräida is not safe in her mountain retreat, because the Church has found an answer to its dilemma – the creation of the Inquisition. No one can escape its diabolical clutches.This is a story of faith, endurance and the love of liberty in a time of unimaginable cruelty.

Peace reigns in the Kingdom of Leon-Castile, and Antonio Perez returns to Asturias to discover the fate of his family. Whilst there, he reconnects with Jimena, his childhood companion and the girl he once loved. But when his loyal friend Rodrigo and Jimena fall in love, Antonio is consumed by jealousy. As the wedding of two of his closest companions approaches, Antonio must battle his enemies and his inner demons, lest it lead to the ruin of all he holds dear.

Having secured his borders, Alfonso VI of Leon-Castile pushes south against the Moors. When a Moorish raid threatens Castile, Rodrigo leads his men on a campaign of vengeance. But with the venture a credible threat to the uneasy peace Alfonso has brokered with the taifa kings, Rodrigo’s bravado could have dire consequences to himself and the security of the kingdom. With enemies circling, will Rodrigo Diaz cement his reputation as one of the most feared warriors in the land, or will his actions lead to his ruin?

A mere mile from the blood-drenched front lines, Russian refugee and nurse Charlotte Braninov encounters English Lieutenant Robert Fitzgerald, who helps her save the life of another soldier. Robert's calm, courtly manner lingers in Charlotte's mind, a comforting memory amid the deluge of suffering that surrounds her when she returns to the hospital.

Wounded during an unauthorized mission of mercy and then demoted to a Medical Supply Officer, Robert Fitzgerald once more meets the brave young Russian nurse. When Charlotte volunteers to help the Lieutenant learn about his duties in this new life of service, a quiet friendship blooms and love grows in that harshest of soils, even as the war rages on. But human cruelty and endemic disease claw at their lives. Can love survive in a world torn by warfare, greed, and deception?

MAGNIFICENT STORY!
Told with amazing kindness and compassion. It was a gripping, agonizing, heart-rending book that touched my heart on every page. – Amazon 5 stars

This is Book 2 in R J Lynch's James Blakiston Series set in the northeast of England in the 1760s. Lynch's concern is not with the aristocracy, wayward dukes and spoilt princesses - he writes about the people at the bottom of the social heap, for whom every day is a struggle to survive and yet whose humanity stands out as they love, bicker and sometimes fight. In this book, Kate Greener's love for James Blakiston conceived in Book 1 (A Just and Upright Man) is opposed by James's implacable sister, Hannah and Susannah Bent's belief that James is meant for her. In the midst of all this, a serial killer stalks Ryton. But why? And who?

Life was precarious in 1763. When James Blakiston fell, he fell a long way and now he had two struggles on his hands--to bring the murderer of old Reuben Cooper to justice and to deny his love for the beautiful and spirited but low-born Kate Greener. As he builds a picture of the history of the murderous Cooper family over three generations, a missing coat begins to occupy his attention. How did it get from where it was to where it is--and why? A chance remark opens the door to the murderer at last. And Blakiston rejects love. But will love let him go?

Some review headers:

Evokes the plight of the rural poor in the 18th century

A romp through time that will leave you mesmerized!

Great historical mystery!

Historical Fiction is my genre and I enjoy a good mystery … throw in a little romance ...

For almost four decades, Rhys Le Noireau has been a man out of place, trying to fit pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of his life, together.

When his mother, Astral, is hospitalized in a coma, Rhys, a single, successful architect, is tasked with cleaning out her home and setting her affairs in order.

With his estranged twin sister, Renee, breathing fire down his neck, Rhys turns to Annalise Roach, Astral’s loyal Girl Friday, to guide him through the maze that is his mother’s life.

The items they find hidden within the pages of Astral’s most treasured possession - an ancient family Bible - open the portal to a life lived in another place and time.

A place that fits into his soul and forces Rhys to do the unthinkable.
Abandon everything and return to that place, Scotland Bay.

Fredericka is the daughter of a White plantation owner and his Black house slave. Horace is a literate slave-companion to the son of a New York hotel baron.

This first book in the Pocket Full of Seeds Trilogy follows their flight for freedom through nineteenth-century America. It was a time when runaway slaves were hunted, steamships sailed around the Horn to San Francisco, horse-tugged boats navigated the Erie Canal, a midnight tsunami struck Buffalo, Mormons sought a new Zion, and wagon trains lumbered across a continent littered with unmarked graves.

Most of all, this is a story driven by an unquenchable thirst for libertas.

Isabella Queen of England, often called the ‘She-wolf of France’ has been compared to Cercei in Game of Thrones. Persecuted by her husband Edward II and his ‘favourite’ the infamous Hugh Despenser, she escaped only when she was sent to France to negotiate a peace treaty. No longer prepared to be a victim of corrupt men, Isabella took her destiny into her own hands and refused to return unless Despenser was banished from her husband’s side. While in France she met the exiled Roger Mortimer, one of her husband’s bitterest enemies. With Mortimer and other supporters, Isabella gambled on her husband’s unpopularity to invade England with the determination to dispose of Despenser. But the question then arose: What to do about King Edward?
I love a good historical novel, especially one with a strong woman character and Appleyard does not disappoint. She brings the age to life with great attention to detail. Her characters live and breathe passion, romance, ambition, greed, evil, and duplicity

Born into the royal Wittelsbach family of Bavaria, with its legacy of madness, depression and eccentricity, Ludwig II's extravagant and ruinously expensive building projects, coupled with increasingly aberrant behaviour caused the people of his day to wonder. Was Ludwig mad? Was he a genius? Was he just a lonely man, having looked for and given up on love, seeking for some kind of spiritual fulfilment? Even today, we wonder. What was the impetus behind his compulsion to build? And was he really insane or a victim of his own government's scheming.
A BRAG Medallion winner. Appleyard weaves strong stories about historical figures and occurrences with ease, her ability to connect her readers with the characters is flawless. She builds her characters with care, giving them a depth that transcends paper making them more realistic than a history book could. This is the third book of Ms. Appleyard’s I have read; she brings history alive for her readers.