Category Archives: Historical Fiction

The Edge of Nowhere

by C H Armstrong

TheThe year is 1992 and Victoria Hastings Harrison Greene—reviled matriarch of a sprawling family—is dying.

After surviving the Oklahoma Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, Victoria refuses to leave this earth before revealing the secrets she’s carried for decades.

Once the child of a loving family during peaceful times, a shocking death shattered her life. Victoria came face to face with the harshness of the world. As the warm days of childhood receded to distant memory, Victoria learns to survive.

No matter what it takes.

To keep her family alive in an Oklahoma blighted by dust storms and poverty, Victoria makes choices—harsh ones, desperate ones. Ones that eventually made her into the woman her grandchildren fear and whisper about. Ones that kept them all alive. Hers is a tale of tragedy, love, murder, and above all, the conviction to never stop fighting.

Publisher

Published by: Penner Publishing

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About the Author

C.H. Armstrong is an Oklahoma native transplanted in Minnesota. A 1992 graduate of the University of Oklahoma, “Cathie”is a life-long lover of books, and staunchly outspoken on subject of banned and challenged books. The Edge of Nowhere is her first novel and was inspired by her own family’s experiences during the 1930s Oklahoma Dust Bowl and The Great Depression.

Aten’s Last Queen

The Forgotten #1

by J. Lynn Else

Aten's"I am King Tut’s wife, but my name is barely a whisper in history’s memory. I was the last of my family to survive the Aten revolution. I had a child at age 12 and was forced to marry three times. But that didn’t mean my story ended badly. My name is Ankhesenamun, my loved ones called me An, and I will stop at nothing to save my family."

Despite the vast treasure found in Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb, there is little left over regarding his bride. From the turbulence of her father’s reign, Akhenaten, who forced monotheism on the country to the mending of these wounds by the now-famous Tutankhamun, her life saw more change than most ancient Egyptians dared even dream about. Evidence left to us about her is this: She was forced to marry her father, her brother, and her grandfather. She gave birth to one healthy baby girl and two stillborn girls. She was widowed at age 12 and 23. She saw four pharaohs crowned within 23 years. After her grandfather took the throne, she disappeared from history.

Ankhesenamun grew up a princess and became a queen at age 13. Her husband, Tutankhamun, was 9. With outside forces try to influence every choice they make, Ankhesenamun finds herself torn between her duties and her desires. In addition, her husband must deal with a crippling deformity that leaves him vulnerable. Meanwhile, Ankhesenamun wrestles a matter of the heart, her own heart. There is a young girl whom was never supposed to have survived the fall of Akhenaten City, a daughter she bore that carries the blood of the heretic in her veins. There are some who will stop at nothing to find this daughter and end the line of Akhenaten once and for all.

Guided by a traveler from the desert wanders whose leader left Egypt in ruin, Ankhesenamun finds herself longing for true love and the ability to worship a God now banned from her world. Can she find a way to escape the game for which she is being played by forces she cannot see? Will it enough to survive the most terrible of all fates -- the threat of her own death and having her name and her family's erased from the walls of history? Because once the new king is crowned, she is dispensable.

With a twist of biblical history interlaced, Ankhesenamun’s voice has a new song to sing which has otherwise been forgotten. Her story weaves through the sands of time as in each chapter she narrates her past and the path her life has been directed to take. Between chapters, Ankhesenamun is dealing with the repercussions of her husband’s death as power-hungry men are grappling for pharaoh’s crown. Using newly discovered facts about Akhenaten’s and Tutankhamun’s genealogy and their reigns, this tale breathes new life into a fascinating and dangerous time in Egypt’s history. Can a lone woman stand against the tides of time which have already consuming her parents, her sisters, and her husband? May the gods have mercy...

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About the Author

J. Lynn Else loves reading and writing about awesome women from antiquity. Besides history, she also gets nerdy with Star Wars, Star Trek, and MST3K. She’s self-published two historical fiction novels set in ancient Egypt, The Forgotten: Aten’s Last Queen and The Forgotten: Heir of the Heretic. Descendants of Avalon, Awakenings book 1, a YA Fantasy with interwoven elements of the legends and people of King Arthur's time, was released through Inklings Publishing in May 2018. Additionally, in July 2018, she self-published a sci fi novella, Strangely Constructed Souls, which asks 'what the price of revenge and how far would you go to right a wrong?'

J. Lynn’s always had a flare for the dramatic, graduating college with a theater major and a dance minor. She lives in Minnesota with her husband and two kids where her shelves are overrun with books, her kitchen is overrun with loose-leaf tea, and her workroom is overrun with Funko Pop figures. She enjoys sketching, reliving her 1990s by watching the latest X-Files episodes, honing her Fruit Ninja skills, and randomly busting out into song and dance. She believes in unicorns and practicing random acts of awesome.

My Life with Stella Kane

by Linda Morganstein

MyIn 1948, Nina Weiss, a snobby college girl from Scarsdale, goes to Hollywood to work at her uncle's movie studio where she's assigned to help publicize a young actress named Stella Kane. Nina is immediately thrown into the declining studio system and repressive fifties Hollywood. Adding to her difficulties is her growing attraction to Stella. When a gay actor at the studio is threatened by tabloid exposure, Nina invents a romance between Stella and the actor. The trio becomes hopelessly entangled when the invented romance succeeds beyond anyone's dreams. This is the "behind-the scenes" story of the trio's compromises and secrets, a story that still has relevance for today.

Publisher

Published by: Regal Crest Enterprises

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About the Author

Linda Morganstein is an award-winning, overeducated writer of who also happens to be the product of a Borscht Belt childhood in the Jewish hotels of the Catskills. In the seventies, she dropped out of Vassar College and drove a VW van to California, where she lived in Sonoma County for many years. Later, she studied with Jane Smiley in Iowa. She currently resides in Saint Paul, Minnesota with her understanding spouse Melanie and her exceptional dog, Courage. In addition to writing, Linda is avid golfer and sourdough bread-baker. In short, she has a phobia for boredom. Due to her Borscht Belt background, she has a distinct interest in humor as an antidote to the complications of life. This includes an arsenal of jokes supplied by her late father, a master comedian.

First Territory

by Richie Swanson

FirstBeautiful Lalooh becomes the ''favor and fancy'' of sixteen-year-old Andrew Eaton as she teaches him Yakama words for the parts of a bear caught by the most powerful Yakama leader in the Pacific Northwest, Chief Kamiakan. One year later Andrew translates at the Walla Walla Treaty Council, helping to establish reservations bitterly resented by tribes from the Nez Perce of the Rocky Mountains to bands on the Columbia. The Yakama War breaks out, 1855-1856, and Andrew helps hunt for Kamiakan and an elusive Indian confederation. He translates across council fires from Lalooh and carries dispatches between one commander pursuing extermination and another seeking truce. A territorial governor, an army major, Jesuit priest, Hudson's Bay trader and Lalooh battle for Andrew's soul and conscience. Yet an officer's order brings him to the darkest of violations, and his love for Lalooh leads him to a little-known event as revealing to American history as Sand Creek, Washita Creek and Wounded Knee.

Publisher

Published by: Sunstone Press

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About the Author

Richie Swanson explored North America by bicycle and backpack from 1977-2005, frequently visiting Indian reservations. He writes bird-conservation articles and short stories about Indian-white relations during the nineteenth century. He advocates for threatened wildlife and habitat on the Mississippi River in Winona, Minnesota.

Heart of a Dove

Dove #1

by Abbie Williams

HeartThe Civil War has ended, leaving the country with a gaping wound. Lorie Blake, a southern orphan sold into prostitution at fifteen, has carefully guarded her aching soul from the disgrace forced upon her every evening. Two years have passed, leaving her with little hope of anything more. Meanwhile, three men – longtime friends – and a young boy with a heart of gold are traveling northward, planning to rebuild their lives in the north and leave behind the horrors of their time as soldiers in the Confederate Army.

Fate, however, has plans of its own, causing their lives to collide in a river town whorehouse. Forced to flee, Lorie escapes and joins them on the journey north. But danger stalks them all in the form of a vindictive whorehouse madam and an ex-Union soldier, insane and bent on exacting revenge. At last, Lorie must come to terms with her past and devastating secrets that she cannot yet bear to reveal.

Heart of a Dove is the first book in a gripping, sweeping romantic saga of pain, unbearable choices, loss and true love set against the backdrop of a scarred, post-Civil War America.

Publisher

Published by: Everheart Books

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About the Author

I am writer Abbie Williams, and I have been addicted to love stories ever since first sneaking my mother's copy of The Flame and the Flower; since then, I've been jotting down stories of my own in notebook after spiral-bound notebook. Well, that is until I got a computer that was equipped with Word, one fine day.

I spend my days with my own true love, our three daughters, and a very busy schedule. I am most happy when I can sneak in a few hours to write and thereby indulge in visiting the characters in my stories.

When I'm not writing, teaching or spending time with my family, you can find me listening to my favorite musical groups of all time: Alison Krauss and Union Station, the Wailin' Jennys, and The Be Good Tanyas. If there's time in the evening, I might watch a few episodes of Hell on Wheels and eat a jar of crunchy peanut butter.

The Good Guy List

by Russ Vanderboom

TheThe Good Guy List is a simple loving gift bestowed upon twin brothers to help them embrace a world bent upon keeping them from those they love most. The Good Guy List is key to the brothers' survival in the quest for justice, peace and redemption as they come of age during the challenging '60s. David and Patrick Joyce want nothing more than to live together as family. With their mother deep in depression after the untimely death of their father, not even the kind and loving intercession by their village of aunts, uncles, neighbors, and friends from their church can keep both twins at home on the farm.

While David remains in North Freedom dairying and building a hugely successful business in Holstein genetics, Patrick becomes an exile from his Wisconsin home, living first with relatives along the shores of Lake Michigan in Indiana, and then following opportunities to play football for the University of Colorado Buffaloes and later studying in Europe.

The brothers cross paths as they come of age and travel the world, each finding love, and both learning the bitter emptiness of loss. Justice and salvation eludes them, however, until they embrace a redeeming gift shared among their greater family, a simple prayer called The Good Guy List.

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About the Author

Russ Vanderboom is native to Wisconsin. He was a Marine in 1970. After serving with the military, he pursued a career in agricultural journalism in Wisconsin before returning to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, to earn a master’s degree in dairy science and a doctorate in endocrinology and reproductive physiology.

Molecular aspects of endocrinology swept him away; his passion for estrogen-regulated mammary gland development in mammals evolved into a keen, driving interest in the pathology of breast cancer in humans. Medical science became the focus of his second career. He combined his interests in science and journalism as the medical science writer for research at the Cleveland Clinic, and then as the senior science writer at the American Association for Cancer Research in Philadelphia.

He currently supports clinical research and studies telomeres in the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, Rochester, Minnesota. He is married and has two children. The Good Guy List is his first novel.

Eve: A Novel

by Elissa Elliott

Eve:In this mesmerizing debut novel, Elissa Elliott blends biblical tradition with recorded history to put a powerful new twist on the story of creation’s first family. Here is Eve brought to life in a way religion and myth have never allowed–as a wife, a mother, and a woman. With stunning intimacy, Elliott boldly reimagines Eve’s journey before and after the banishment from Eden, her complex marriage to Adam, her troubled relationship with her daughters, and the tragedy that would overcome her sons, Cain and Abel. From a woman’s first awakening to a mother’s innermost hopes and fears, from moments of exquisite tenderness to a climax of shocking violence, Eve explores the very essence of love, womanhood, faith, and humanity.

Publisher

Published by: Delacorte Press

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About the Author

Elissa Elliott is a former high school teacher and has optioned her first screenplay. She and her husband, Daniel Elliott, live in Minnesota. Eve is her first novel.