I’ve been a history nut since junior high trips to prehistoric Indian Mounds in Ohio. I transcribed an early town settler’s diary as a high school project. Traveling with my Air Force hubby gave me a window into faraway places. Allan Eckert’s narrative history of pioneer times grabbed my imagination. My children would love these gripping tales of settler versus Shawnee, yet they’d never crack the two-inch thick volume. I tried writing historical fiction on their level by bringing a young protagonist into the story. I had no idea I’d follow that first book with eight more, delving into the history of various famous Ohioans.
Thirteen-year-old Nelly has just moved to Salem, Ohio, a Quaker town with many who support the anti-slavery cause. Her family joins the Underground Railroad, using the secret room Nelly discovers. When she overhears a plot to tar and feather her father, the new editor of the Anti-Slavery Bugle, she realizes there are enemies, even in Salem. Nelly has a chance to fight back when she joins in a rescue, but she learns the hard way that the rescued girl isn’t really free. When Nelly and her best friend at the Quaker girl’s school become the target of a mean trick by a classmate, Nelly wants revenge. Threats against her father stir Nelly to plan retaliation. Or will her faith teach her a better way?
I’m not a feminist and I don’t feel oppressed as a woman. But after reading this book, I’m glad that Elizabeth Cady Stanton hosted the first Women’s Rights Convention in 1858. The young protagonist, Bridie, has experienced some of the wrongs that Mrs. Stanton tries to put right. I enjoyed getting to know the famous activist through Bridie’s eyes. Bridie flees from a cruel master and finds work with “the strangest lady she’s ever met”. Mrs. Stanton comes across as a down-to-earth woman, not the crusader type at all. I laughed at the detail of the two young Stanton boys romping through the cabbages. Kudos to the author for including other events and issues for context—the Irish potato famine, poorhouses, the Free Soil Party, the Erie Canal, and the Underground Railroad. Young ladies will appreciate their privileges after reading this novel.
Celebrate the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment with another historical novel about women's suffrage from the author of The Hope Chest!
Bridie's life has been a series of wrongs. The potato famine in Ireland. Being sent to the poorhouse when her mother's new job in America didn't turn out the way they'd hoped. Becoming an orphan.
And then there's the latest wrong--having to work for a family so abusive that Bridie is afraid she won't survive. So she runs away to Seneca Falls, New York, which in 1848 is a bustling town full of possibility. There, she makes friends with…
Paul Revere’s name is famous, but I loved how this book made his home life real. Sarah, the middle child in a large family, reflects the whispering, the suspicions, and the taking sides among their friends as the British take over Boston. Sarah fears for her father when he begins to ride to warn nearby towns; now he’s a marked man. More than the history, Sarah’s regret at waiting too long to make up with a dear friend warns modern readers to learn from her.
Thirteen-year-old Sarah Revere knows her father is a hero. But she also knows that Paul Revere guards a secret about the start of the Revolutionary War that he'll tell no one--not his new wife, not his best friend, not even his trusted daughter. It seems everyone in her family has secrets. Sarah's even got one of her own--and it's tearing her apart. Reader's guide included.
I was immersed in the sights and smells of 1774 Boston, caught up in the excitement of the Tea Party, and felt the growing tension as the David-and-Goliath war loomed. Johnny, even as his pride brings him low, gets my sympathy because his secret thoughts are like my own. I learned the quirks and strengths of the big names in Revolutionary War history. This classic novel does what the best historical fiction does—transports us to a bygone era and puts skin on the men and women who were merely names in our history books before.
This thrilling Newbery Medal-winning novel about the Revolutionary War is a classic of children's historical fiction.
Fourteen-year-old Johnny Tremain, an apprentice silversmith with a bright future ahead of him, injures his hand in a tragic accident, forcing him to look for other work. In his new job as a horse-boy, riding for the patriotic newspaper The Boston Observer and as a messenger for the Sons of Liberty, he encounters John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Dr. Joseph Warren.
Soon Johnny is involved in the pivotal events of the American Revolution, from the Boston Tea Party to the first shots fired at…
This first-person tale is perfect for boys who like to invent things—several of my young grandsons are in this category. During the Revolutionary War, a young man cobbled together a submarine to attack a British man-o-war ship. Nathan, his cousin, helped build it, though he’s afraid of water! He’s also afraid of the town bully. I love the way the themes work into the plot—facing fear and doing what you must do. Through Nathan we meet Benjamin Franklin, General Israel Putnam, and even glimpse George Washington. Worth the price of the book is the diagram of the “Turtle”, an ingenious invention that did play a part in our nation’s War for Independence.
During the Revolutionary War, fourteen-year-old Nathan joins forces with his older cousin, the inventor David Bushnell, to secretly build the first submarine used in naval warfare.
Through the eyes of the young protagonist, I was immersed in this slice of Martin Luther’s life. The Luther we get to know plays the lute and chuckles at his own jokes, even in the midst of defending his beliefs from those in power. Young Karl Shumacher, Luther’s servant, becomes a key player when they travel to Wurms for the Imperial Council. Later, when Luther is kidnapped and taken to a lonely castle to keep him from being executed for heresy, Karl assists him. Readers (like me) who get hooked on the Jackson’s style of biographies of church leaders can choose from 39 more.
Karl Schumacher was fifteen when he came to the German city of Wittenberg in 1520 seeking an education. He had been very fortunate that the esteemed university professor Doctor Martin Luther, had taken him into his household as a servant. Luther’s promise of tutoring Karl in exchange for his labor was the chance of a lifetime-until a poster on the church door declared his master a heretic!
Karl is asked to travel with Doctor Luther to appear before the emperor’s Imperial Council in the city of Worms. Will his life be at stake as well as Luther’s?…
I’m an Australian USA Today bestselling romance author who writes contemporary romance and uses the pen name Alyssa James to write medieval romance. I think the makeover trope resonates with me because although I’m no beauty queen now, I was definitely an ugly duckling in my teens. For reasons best known to him, my father insisted on close-cropped hair, and financial circumstances dictated out-of-style hand-me-down clothing. After university, I found my own style, but it wasn’t until I was accepted as an international flight attendant that I believed that I couldn’t be all that ugly if Qantas employed me!
Return to Hope Creek is a second-chance rural romance set in Australia.
Stella Simpson's career and engagement are over. She returns to the rural community of Hope Creek to heal, unaware her high school and college sweetheart, Mitchell Scott, has also moved back to town to do some healing of his own.
Mitchell, a former NFL quarterback, doesn't need the complication of encountering Stella again so long after the messy end to their relationship, but as each tries to build a new life, they are drawn together and find their chemistry is just as strong as ever.
Will their love be stronger the second time around?
When two old flames come back to their home town, sparks are bound to ignite. A rural romance from USA Today bestselling author Alyssa J. Montgomery.
A horrific car accident ended former world number-one Stella Simpson’s tennis career, and a betrayal ended her relationship with her fiancé/coach. When a family friend offers to sell her half of a property in the rural community where she grew up, it seems like the perfect place to escape, heal and begin the next phase of her life. Until she discovers that the man who broke her heart ten years ago has bought the…
