Showing titles in Biographical Fiction

The wicked, bawdy Restoration court is no place for a child princess. Ten-year-old Anne cuts an odd figure, but as King Charles' niece, Anne is also a political pawn who will be forced to play her part in the troubled Stuart dynasty. Forced to overcome grief for her lost children, the political manoeuvrings of her sister and her own betrayal of her father, she becomes one of the most fascinating figures of English history.

Alexander's epic quest continues. In a seemingly impossible venture, Alexander and his men storm Persian fortresses and harbours, crippling King Darius' domination of land and sea. Even the legendary Halicarnassus is defeated by the Macedinoan armies. Ruthlessly, Alexander's war machine moves ever onward taking him up into the snow-covered Anatolian highlands, and ever closer to his destiny.

El 8 de enero de 1982, la escultora colombiana Feliza Bursztyn murió en un restaurante de París. Tenía cuarenta y ocho años. En el momento de su muerte repentina la acompañaban su marido y cuatro amigos. Uno de ellos, el escritor Gabriel García Márquez, publicó días después un artículo que incluía tres palabras en apariencia simples, pero misteriosas en el fondo: «Murió de tristeza».

Twenty-two years old and in the grip of a massive addiction, Patrick Melrose is forced to fly to New York to collect his father's ashes. Over the course of a weekend, Patrick’s remorseless search for drugs on the avenues of Manhattan, haunted by old acquaintances and insistent inner voices, sends him into a nightmarish spiral. Alone in his room at the Pierre Hotel, he pushes body and mind to the very edge - desperate always to stay one step ahead of his rapidly encroaching past.

I met Reda on Christmas Eve 2012. I was going home after a meal with friends, at around four in the morning. He approached me in the street, and finally I invited him up to my apartment. He told me the story of his childhood and how his father had come to France, having fled Algeria. We spent the rest of the night together, talking, laughing. At around six o'clock, he pulled out a gun and said he was going to kill me. He insulted me, strangled and raped me. The next day, the medical and legal proceedings began.

James Joyce was her father. Samuel Beckett was her lover. This is her story. A mesmerising fictionalisation of Lucia Joyce's life told for the first time. Paris, 1928. Avant-garde Paris is buzzing with the latest ideas in art, music and literature from artists such as Ford Madox Ford and Zelda Fitzgerald. Lucia, the talented and ambitious daughter of controversial genius James Joyce, is making her name as a dancer. But when Lucia falls passionately in love with budding writer Samuel Beckett, he is banned from the Joyce family home.

Dive into the heart of medieval Ireland with this historical tale of courage, deception, and the relentless pursuit of power. Aoife, the defiant daughter of the dethroned King of Leinster, is thrust from a life of privilege into the heart of political and familial turmoil. Promised in marriage to the formidable Norman warrior, Strongbow, her life becomes a canvas of conflict, painted with the broad strokes of national upheaval and the intricate lines of personal betrayal.

Movie stars and paparazzi flock to Cannes for the glamorous film festival, but Grace Kelly, the biggest star of all, wants only to escape from the flashbulbs. When struggling perfumer Sophie Duval shelters Miss Kelly in her boutique, fending off a persistent British press photographer, James Henderson, a bond is forged between the two women and sets in motion a chain of events that stretches across 30 years of friendship, love, and tragedy.

Barney Panofsky - Canadian expat, wily lover of women, writer, television producer, raconteur - is finally putting pen to paper so he can rebut the charges about him made in his rival’s autobiography. Whether it’s ranting about his bohemian misadventures during the 1950s in Paris, his tumultuous three marriages, or his successful trashy TV company, Totally Unnecessary Productions, he quickly proves that his memory may be slipping, but his bile isn’t.

1816. Mary, 18 years old, is staying in a villa on Lake Geneva with her lover Percy Shelley. She is tormented by his infidelities, haunted by the loss of her baby daughter. Then one evening with friends, as storms rage outside and laudanum stirs their imaginations, Lord Byron challenges everyone to write a ghost story, and something fierce and wild awakens in Mary. Memories surface of the long, strange summer she once spent with a family in Scotland, where she found herself falling in love with the enigmatic Isabella Baxter. She learned tales of mythical beasts, witches and spirits.

Based on a true story, Strandloper tells the extraordinary tale of a nineteenth-century Englishman, William Buckley, who was convicted and transported to Australia. Refusing to accept his fate he escaped and lived among the Aborigines for thirty years. In this visionary novel, Alan Garner is as true to William the Cheshire bricklayer and William the Aboriginal spiritual leader, as William is true to his fate. The result is extraordinary.

"SHantaram" - eto byla prelomlennaya v hudozhestvennoj forme ispoved' cheloveka, kotoryj sumel vybrat'sya iz bezdny i ucelet', razoshedshayasya po miru tirazhom chetyre milliona ekzemplyarov (iz nih polmilliona - v Rossii) i zasluzhivshaya vostorzhennye sravneniya s proizvedeniyami luchshih pisatelej novogo vremeni, ot Melvilla do Hemingueya. Mastityj Dzhonatan Kerroll pisal: "CHelovek, kotorogo "SHantaram" ne tronet do glubiny dushi, libo ne imeet serdca, libo mertv... "SHantaram" - "Tysyacha i odna noch'" nashego veka. Eto bescennyj podarok dlya vsekh, kto lyubit chitat'".

1929—die wilden Zwanziger entfalten noch einmal ihre volle Blüte, doch schon werfen Blutmai, die instabile politische Lage der Weimarer Republik und die wachsenden Wahlerfolge der NSDAP düstere Schatten auf Frieden, Freiheit und Fortschritt. Mit Beginn der Weltwirtschaftskrise zeichnet sich ab, dass dieses Jahr ein letzter Tanz auf dem Vulkan ist.

Autor nás zavádí do půvabné polabské krajiny kolem chatové osady v Kersku, kde od poloviny šedesátých let trávil svůj volný čas. Většina literárních postav má svůj reálný předobraz v lidech z autorova prostředí a máme tak jedinečnou možnost seznámit se s jejich zvláštními zálibami i osudy. V textu se snoubí poetično s realistickým popisem, stylizovaná nadsázka s humornou drobnokresbou, události veselé s událostmi smutnými.

On a Thursday morning in May 1961, a well-mannered twenty-one-year-old named Marlene enters the Fifth Avenue apartment of Lee Radziwill to interview for the position of housekeeper and cook. The stylish wife of London-based Prince Stanislaw Radziwill, Princess Lee is intelligent and creative, with ambitions beyond simply jet-setting. But to the public, she is always First Lady Jackie Kennedy's little sister. As Marlene becomes a trusted presence in the Radziwill household, she observes the dazzling array of famous figures who flit in and out of Lee’s intimate circle

Alice Samuel might be old and sharp-tongued, but she's no fool. Visiting her new neighbours in her Fenland village, she suspects Squire Throckmorton's household is not as God-fearing as it seems and finds the children troubled. What she cannot foresee is that all five daughters will succumb in turn to a terrifying affliction and accuse her of witchcraft—who else to blame than an ugly, black-capped woman with mysterious healing skills?

It's the dawn of the 1930s, and the three privileged Guinness sisters, Aileen, Maureen and Oonagh, settle into becoming wives and mothers: Aileen in Luttrellstown Castle outside Dublin, Maureen in Clandeboye in Northern Ireland, and Oonagh in Rutland Place in London. But while Britain becomes increasingly politically polarised, Aileen, Maureen and Oonagh discover conflict within their own marriages.

Elizabeth's parents warned her that Alexander Blackwell would not make a dependable husband, and only after eloping with him did she learn they may have been right... After their marriage, the couple finds lodgings in London. Alexander looks for work while Elizabeth learns engraving. Before long, though, Alexander is in the Marshalsea, the notorious debtors' prison, and she is left to fend for herself. Alone and penniless, she has a few things going for her: a skill, an idea, and an acquaintance.

This stunning novel tells the true story of the woman behind one of the world’s greatest artists, Vincent Van Gogh. In 1890, Vincent Van Gogh dies penniless, unknown, a man tortured by his own mind. Eleven years later his work is exhibited in Paris and his unparalleled talent finally recognised. The tireless efforts of one woman gave the world one of its greatest creative minds. But twenty-eight-year-old Johanna Van Gogh-Bonger, Vincent’s sister-in-law and the keeper of his immense collection of paintings, sketches and letters, has, until now, been written out of history.

En este audiolibro, la propia Rosa Montero nos habla de la superación del dolor, de las relaciones entre hombres y mujeres, del esplendor del sexo, de la buena muerte y de la bella vida, de la ciencia y de la ignorancia, de la fuerza salvadora de la literatura y de la sabiduría de quienes aprenden a disfrutar de la existencia con plenitud y con ligereza.