French Historical Fiction

For grieving Nicole Clicquot, saving the vineyards her husband left behind is her one chance to keep a roof over her head and provide a future for her little girl. She ignores the gossips who insist the fields are no place for a woman. But one day, buying fresh croissants at the boulangerie, Nicole is shocked to hear a rumour about her husband. They say he died with a terrible secret. One that brings disgrace on Nicole and turns the whole town against her.

When war arrives, it brings secrets and danger – but it also brings love… France, 1939. As war looms, two women make very different choices. Marie-Louise, a headstrong young woman who sees the atrocities for what they are, is recruited into a secret intelligence service that takes her across...

France, 1940. A hotel on the border. One woman will risk everything in the name of freedom. 'The characters were compelling, the romantic aspect wonderful, and the tension never let up as I raced through the pages' Jill Mansell, Sunday Times bestselling author 'A thrilling page-turner charting...

Brought to you by Penguin. A remarkable performance... As gripping as The Collector and The Magus' Observer Charles Smithson, a respectable engaged man, meets Sarah Woodruff as she stands on the Cobb at Lyme Regis, staring out to sea. Charles falls in love, but Sarah is a disgraced woman, and...

The Schoolteacher of Saint Michel is a heartrending and deeply moving story of love and hope in World War II from the USA Today bestselling author of The Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon. The war taught her to fight. The children taught her to hope... Inspired by real acts of bravery and resistance...

Summer 1923. Lady Eleanor Swift is finally persuaded by her butler, Clifford, to take a villa in the south of France for the season. She plans to do what a glamorous lady abroad should: long lunches on the balcony followed by lazy afternoons lounging by the pool. But when Clifford examines the wine cellar, he discovers there are no decent reds, but there is a very dead body. The victim is famous American movie-star Rex Armstrong. Poor Rex seems to have been stabbed with a sword from the film set. So how did he end up in Eleanor’s villa?

Late spring, 1936. As Kitty Underhay steps onto the sun-drenched station platform in Nice, on orders from Whitehall to track down a missing man, she hopes there will still be time to lie by the pool, preferably with a cocktail in hand. But when she and her husband Matt take a brief evening stroll, instead of finding a perfect croissant, they stumble across a body. Kitty and Matt quickly realise it is Fred Bennett, the man from Whitehall they were hoping to find. Had he simply drunk too much fabulous French wine, or is something fishy going on in this seaside city?

Postwar Paris is alive with optimism, but lavender keeper Luc Ravens and his love, Lisette, remain haunted by the horrors they have endured. Casting their fate to the winds, they set sail for Australia, hoping to rebuild their lives in a land that's full of promise. But trouble has a way of catching up with them.

Jamais un roman québécois de Claude-Henri Grignon ne s’est multiplié à ce point depuis sa parution en 1933. Feuilleton radiophonique puis téléromans refaits puis repris à répétition, cinéma, bande dessinée, l’avare Séraphin et sa pauvre Donalda ont enragé ou fait pleurer plusieurs générations de québécois. Sous la férule du gros curé Labelle, les personnages de ce roman culte s’acharnent à peupler puis développer le territoire à la terre ingrate des Laurentides.

Trevelyan d'Augustin and Lady Callista Talliafaire were secret sweethearts, until the day her father dismissed him with a whip across the face. Ten years and three jiltings later, shy Callie is resigned to a quiet village life as the late earl's spinster daughter. But now Trev has returned from his estates in France, upending everything, dragging her into adventures, stealing Hubert the prize-winning bull, and flinging Callie's heart into mayhem again.

Brought to you by Penguin. Fear your neighbour. Praise the Republic. Preach liberty. Hate monarchy. Speak in whispers. Trust no-one. Revolutionary Paris, 1792: As the city spirals into bloodshed, Henrietta Lightfoot a young Englishwoman runs for refuge to the sumptuous home of Grace Dalrymple...

Newly married to Niccolo, a wealthy envoy to the French emperor, skilled herbalist Livia Valenti feels lost and alone. Her husband is a distant stranger, and their echoing Paris mansion is too far from her fragrant garden in Italy. But then Niccolo fills the shelves with her favourite books and prepares an apothecary room full of rows of shining glass jars. And a beautiful romance begins to blossom. With masked balls, luxurious dinner parties and a new life growing inside her, Livia believes her dreams of love and happiness may finally come true.

Le dernier volet de la trilogie Les Filles de Caleb nous transporte à l'hiver 1958, alors que Blanche franchit le cap de la cinquantaine, entourée de ses deux filles, Élise et Micheline. Avec elles, nous traversons les trépidantes années 1960, puis les turbulentes années 1970, pour suivre leur destinée jusqu'en 1992.

Acadie, 1917. Dans un village acadien de bord de mer, où la vie se déploie au fil de ses saisons et de ses luttes, dans sa beauté et son âpreté, Jean-Baptiste, à peine un homme, et la jolie Angelaine s’aiment éperdument. Du jour au lendemain, leur monde bascule du tout au tout. Devenu orphelin en temps de guerre, désemparé, le jeune homme s’enrôle dans l’Armée canadienne et quitte les rivages de son Acadie natale et sa bien-aimée. Il pense partir au front, mais il se retrouve dans les magnifiques montagnes de la Franche-Comté, à y bûcher rudement le bois à coeur de jour.

Saint-Eustache, 1957. La famille Delorme est tissée serrée. Les parents, heureux propriétaires du dépanneur de quartier sont épaulés par Rosalie, la cadette de la famille. Au gré des rencontres quotidienne, la jeune femme adore s'enquérir des nouvelles des uns et des autres. Généreuse et toujours prête à aider, Rosalie est tout naturellement la première à prendre soin de sa soeur Suzanne, née avec une déficience intellectuelle.

Simone et son mari Tom n’ont toujours pas pardonné à Madeleine l’événement terrible qui a littéralement brisé leur famille; la présence de leurs deux filles ne suffit plus à combler le vide qui les habite depuis ce jour fatidique de juin 1934. Même si elle essaie de se convaincre que sa jumelle n’existe plus pour elle, tous ces tracas minent la jeune femme, d’autant plus que son neveu Arthur la perturbe bien davantage qu’elle ose l’avouer.

Brought to you by Penguin. Read the heartwarming new novel from the international million-copy bestselling author of The Little Paris Bookshop Nothing says love like a book . . . In a little town in the south of France, a young orphan, Marie-Jeanne, discovers the extraordinary power of books to...

At the golden hour, hidden truths and desires come to light . . . In the genteel squares and stuccoed villas of late-Victorian Brighton, Ellen and Reynold Harper - twins, companions, colleagues, - ply their trade as portrait photographers. But at the golden hour, the girls arrive to pose for the...

A USA TODAY bestselling novel! As Paris rebuilds in the aftermath of World War II, Kat Fontaine never expected the skills she learned in a French chateau kitchen to be the key that unlocks the secrets swirling in her new post-war life. "Balancing action-packed scenes with entertaining...

Forced by bankruptcy and scandal into exile in France, Lord Waverly expects never to return to his homeland until, staggering home from a gaming hell in the wee hours of the morning, he encounters a young novice escaping from a convent. When she asks him to take her to England, promising him that her English grandfather will reward him handsomely for her safe conveyance, Waverly reluctantly agrees. Alas, Waverly soon realizes the enormity of his task.