New England Historical Fiction

Abby Kimball has just moved to New England with her boyfriend and is trying to settle in, but the experience is proving to be quite unsettling, to say the least. While on a tour of local historic homes, Abby witnesses a family scene that leaves her gasping for breath - because the family has been dead for nearly a century. Another haunting episode follows, and another, until it seems to Abby that everything she touches is drawing her in, calling to her from the past.

Attorney Cameron Thorne is thrust into a bloody tug-of-war involving secret societies, treasure hunters, and keepers of the secrets of the Jesus bloodline. Joined by Amanda, an enchanting British researcher with secrets of her own, Cam races around New England with only two choices - unravel the 600-year-old mysteries encoded in the ancient artifacts, or die trying.

Thanks to house tamer Hulda Larkin, the mischief infesting Whimbrel House has calmed. But if Hulda’s job is done, what does that mean for Merritt Fernsby, inheritor of the remote Narragansett Bay estate, who’s only now coming to terms with his enchanted place in the world? Merritt has realized his own burgeoning powers, which draw the thoughts of every plant, insect, and dog. His nights are sleepless, with an uncontrollable cacophony of voices that compel a long-overdue search into his uncanny bloodline. It’s not the only puzzle uniting Merritt and his ex-housekeeper, Hulda.

Rhode Island, 1846. Estranged from his family, writer Merritt Fernsby is surprised when he inherits a remote estate in the Narragansett Bay. Though the property has been uninhabited for more than a century, Merritt is ready to call it home—until he realizes he has no choice. With its doors slamming shut and locking behind him, Whimbrel House is not about to let Merritt leave. Ever.

August 1901: A fundraiser for a new Rhode Island Audubon Society brings Emma to Vinland, the Viking-themed seaside home of her relative, Florence Vanderbilt Twombly, where the guest of honor is Edith Roosevelt, wife of Vice President Theodore Roosevelt. Emma's observation of harmless philanthropy is proven wrong the following morning when one of Mrs. Twombly's houseguests from the luncheon becomes mysteriously and dangerously ill. Accompanying police detective Jesse Whyte, Emma discovers a box of petit fours supposedly sent by Mrs. Roosevelt.

In 1760, Deborah Samson is born to Puritan parents in Plympton, Massachusetts. When her father abandons the family and her mother is unable to support them, Deborah is bound out as an indentured servant. From that moment on, she yearns for a life of liberation and adventure. Twenty years later, as the American colonies begin to buckle in their battle for independence, Deborah, impassioned by the cause, disguises herself as a soldier and enlists in the Continental Army.

A young couple buys an historic New England home with plans to restore it to its original time and beauty. But they have scarcely moved in when strange and frightening things begin to happen. From a child's gravestone in the backyard, to a horrific history discovered about previous owners, there is little time for them to enjoy this home.

Seeking a new life, the Oberstrasse family lands on the wild Maine coast in 1753. They find that the American frontier teems with conniving swindlers, hostile French and Indians, killing diseases, and then a powerful movement for independence from Britain. They have come because Christianne has decided that their infant sons will never soldier for the Landgraf of Hesse like their father, hired out to serve King George of England. Expecting to till the soil, Johann finds that opportunity on the rocky coast comes from the forest, not land, so he learns carpentry and trapping.

Thrust into the center of events is Reverend Israel Brewster, an idealistic young minister with a famous grandfather and a tragic past. Meanwhile, Massasoit's son, known as "King Philip" by the English, is tormented by both the present and the past. He is watching the resources and culture of the Wampanoag nation fade away at the hands of the English and desperately wishes to restore hope and security to his people. In a world of religious fervor, devastating sickness, and incessant greed, can the alliance of their forefathers survive?

The Kindred sisters - Ezra and Cinthy - grew up with an abundance of love. Love from their parents, who let them believe that the stories they tell on stars can come true. Love from their neighbours, the Junketts, the only other Black family in town. And love for their adopted hometown of Salt Point, a beautiful New England village perched high up on coastal bluffs. But as the girls hit adolescence, their white neighbours, including Ezra's best friend, Ruby, start to see their maturing bodies and minds in a different way.

Puritans. Quakers. Pirates. Mohawks. Witches. And a brutal war.... If you thought New England was dull in the 1670s, get ready for a history lesson. In the critically acclaimed My Father's Kingdom, debut author James W. George transported his listeners to 1671 New England and the world of Reverend Israel Brewster. Four years later, Brewster is a disgraced outcast residing in Providence and working as a humble cooper, but despite his best efforts, King Philip's War has begun.

New Hampshire, 1865. Marion Abbott is summoned to Brawders House asylum to collect the body of her sister, Alice. She’d been found dead after falling four stories from a steep-pitched roof. Officially: an accident. Confidentially: suicide. But Marion believes a third option: murder. Returning to her family home to stay with her brother and his second wife, the recently widowed Marion is expected to quiet her feelings of guilt and grief. Just when the search for the truth seems hopeless, a stranger approaches Marion with chilling words: I saw her fall.

1549. Katharine Parr, the last of Henry VIII's queens, has been dead for some eight months. Her cousin, Mary Odell, comes to mourn her by the beautiful marble tomb Thomas Seymour has erected at their home, Sudeley Castle. Alone in the peaceful chapel, Mary will never be able to predict the fate of Katharine's resting place in the centuries to come. 1782. Sudeley is a ruin and Katharine's body has lain hidden for decades. But a determined young woman has resolved to find her grave - and pay homage to her legacy.

The year is 1691. Fifteen years have passed since the inconceivable events of King Philip's War. The Reverend Israel Brewster and his family have returned to Middleborough. Brewster has found a new faith, a new pulpit, and a wonderful life as father and husband. Meanwhile Linto, captured in the waning days of the war and sold off into slavery, toils away in bondage. He is serving the cunning sugar baron, Elijah MacTavish, on the island of Bermuda. It is, however, unlike any servitude he could have imagined.

Enthralled with a lavish wedding, the town gossips flourish until the specter of a long-deceased spirit intervenes. Based loosely on a true crime story from the turn of the nineteenth century in New England, this novel uncovers a simple truth of humanity—from the well-off to the working class, everyone falls victim to the transience of joy and the struggles of human nature.

Staid, responsible Elodie Buchanan is the eldest of 10 sisters growing up in a small English market town in 1861. The girls barely know their father, a plant hunter usually off adventuring through China, more myth than man. Then disaster strikes: Mr. Buchanan reneges on his contract to collect an extremely rare and valuable orchid. He will be thrown into debtors' prison while his daughters are sent to the orphanage and the workhouse.

In 1950, a young, beautiful Polish refugee arrives in Hyannisport, Massachusetts, to work as a maid for one of the wealthiest families in America. Alicia is at once dazzled by the large and charismatic family, in particular the oldest son, a rising politician named Jack. Alicia and Jack are soon engaged, but his domineering father forbids the marriage.

Set in an early New England colony, the novel shows the terrible impact a single, passionate act has on the lives of three members of the community: the fiery, tortured Reverend Dimmesdale; the obsessed, vengeful Chillingworth; and the defiant Hester Prynne, who, unwilling to name her partner in adultery, is condemned to wear a scarlet "A" on the breast of her gown for the remainder of her life.

A young Puritan woman gives birth to an illegitimate child in 17th-century New England and must endure public condemnation and the burden of a terrible secret.

Sarah Orne Jewett's fiction depicts, with humor and dignity, the lives and values of the people of New England before the turn of the century. This unabridged collection of four of her best stories, beautifully performed in the dialect of Southern Maine by Tana Hicken, presents the spirit and the humor of a place and an era long past. "Martha's Lady" is the wonderful story of the bond that develops between two young women - one a visiting cousin, the other an awkward and newly employed maid.