Historical Fiction Library

Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, which harvests fiction from different realities. And along with her enigmatic assistant Kai, she's posted to an alternative London. Their mission - to retrieve a dangerous book. But when they arrive, it's already been stolen. London's underground factions seem prepared to fight to the very death to find her book. Adding to the jeopardy, this world is chaos-infested - the laws of nature bent to allow supernatural creatures and unpredictable magic. Irene's new assistant is also hiding secrets of his own.

1940, London. When Cordelia accepts the post of head librarian in Silver Town Library, her mother is more than a little disapproving. The East End has high levels of poverty and illiteracy, and her mother says it’s no place for a woman of her status. But Cordelia is determined to make a difference in these times of strife, and along with her colleagues, Jane and Mavis, she begins to help the local community, making sure everyone knows what the library can offer them. And maybe even a romance will blossom.

London, 1944. Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While the world remains at war, in East London, Clara has created the country's only underground library, built over the railway tracks in the disused Bethnal Green tube station. Down here, a whole community thrives: with hundreds of bunk beds, a café and a theatre offering shelter from the bombs that fall above. Along with her glamorous best friend and assistant librarian, Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground.

Librarian Sylvia Ashe knows nothing about her past, having grown up without a father and a mother who refused to discuss him. When she stumbles upon a diary that suggests she's descended from magicians, she's skeptical. After all, magicians are special, and she's just an ordinary woman who loves books. She seeks answers from a member of the most prominent family of magicians, but she quickly learns that finding the truth won't be easy, especially when he turns out to be as artless as her, and more compelling and dangerous than books.

This novel centres on the friendship of William Beckwith, a young gay aristocrat who leads a life of privilege and promiscuity, and the elderly Lord Nantwich, who is searching for someone to write his biography.

With London still in the grip of war, Cordelia, Mavis, and Jane find themselves facing a new challenge. Determined to make a difference, the librarians band together to organise rent strikes, standing up against dirty landlords and unfair practices. Meanwhile, with the arrival of American GIs in the East End, Cordelia is presented with a temptation too irresistible to bear. Should she follow her head or her heart – stay faithful to her beloved Robert fighting abroad, or enjoy the brief respite from the constant air raids and destruction?

On the day Juliet Lansdown reports to work for the first time at Bethnal Green Library, it isn't the bustling hub she's been expecting. But in the face of German attacks, she's determined to make it a place where all of their neighbours feel safe and welcome. Katie Upwood is thrilled to be working at the library too, though she's only there until she heads off to university in the fall. Sofie Baumann, a Jewish refugee without any family to lean on, finds comfort and friendship in Bethnal Green's quickly growing literary community and escapes to the library every chance she gets.

In Nottingham, England, widow Emma Taylor finds herself in desperate need of a job. She and her beloved daughter Olivia have always managed just fine on their own, but with the legal restrictions prohibiting widows with children from most employment opportunities, she’s left with only one option: persuading the manageress at Boots’ Booklover’s Library to take a chance on her with a job.

A road trip with Gabe and her friends leads Sylvia to discover more about her mother’s veiled past yet throws up several questions, too. The stack of unopened letters addressed to her family will hopefully provide answers. As she delves into the contents, a startling revelation emerges: the letters allude to a clandestine union between two magician families, hinting at the elusive identity of Sylvia’s father. Full of hope, she embarks on a quest to find the author of the letters.

With her sharpened magical senses, Sylvia recognizes invisible writing while cataloging an obscure book for the library. She’s shocked to discover the message, written many years earlier, pleaded for help. She’s even more shocked to discover the author of the message was married to a paper magician. Could there be a connection to Sylvia’s father? With a magical mystery on her hands, Sylvia engages the help of Gabe Glass, and together they follow the clues to the location of two hidden ledgers that implicate a very dangerous individual in an illegal bookmaking scheme.

In the Old Kingdom, a land of ancient and often terrible magics, 18-year-old orphan Terciel learns the art of necromancy from his great-aunt, Tizanael. But not to raise the Dead, rather to lay them to rest. He is the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, and Tizanael is the Abhorsen, the latest in a long line of people whose task it is to make sure the Dead do not return to life.

Librarian-spy Irene is working undercover in an alternative London when her assistant Kai goes missing. She discovers he's been kidnapped by the fae faction and the repercussions could be fatal. Not just for Kai, but for whole worlds. Kai's dragon heritage means he has powerful allies, but also powerful enemies in the form of the fae. With this act of aggression, the fae are determined to trigger a war between their people - and the forces of order and chaos themselves.

Evar and Livira stand side by side and yet far beyond each other's reach. Evar is forced to flee the library, driven before an implacable foe. Livira, trapped in a ghost world, has to recover her book if she's to return to her life. While Evar's journey leads him outside into the vastness of a world he's never seen, Livira's destination lies deep inside her own writing, where she must wrestle with her stories in order to reclaim the volume in which they were written.

Finding an old manuscript in the attic has always been a fantasy of Sylvia’s. She just never expected the fantasy to come true, or for it to lead her to answers about her mysterious family.

When it's your job to save the day—where do you start? Librarian spy Irene has standards to maintain, especially while on probation. And absconding from a mission via a besieged building doesn't look good. But when her escape route home goes up in flames, what's a spy to do? However, it seems gates back to the Library are malfunctioning across dozens of worlds. Worse still, her nemesis Alberich is responsible—and he plans to annihilate the Library itself.

1896. After he brought her home from Jamaica as a baby, Florence's father had her hair hot-combed to make her look like the other girls. But as a young woman, Florence is not so easy to tame - and when she brings scandal to his door, the bookbinder throws her onto the streets of Manchester. Intercepting her father's latest commission, Florence talks her way into the remote, forbidding Rose Hall to restore its collection of rare books. Lord Francis Belfield's library is old and full of secrets - but none so intriguing as the whispers about his late wife.

Odile Souchet is obsessed with books, and working at The American Library in Paris for the formidable Director Dorothy Reeder is all she has ever dreamed of. The Library and its thriving community of students, writers, diplomats and book lovers provide her with a safe haven. When war is declared, the Library is determined to remain open. But then the Nazis invade Paris, and everything changes. The Nazi 'Library Protector' changes the rules overnight, declaring a war on words and making the librarians risk their lives to do their jobs.

When a set of bound manuscripts written on magician-made paper is brought to the Glass Library, Sylvia and the professor send the owner away. After all, the library collects books about magic, not containing it. But the murder of the bookbinder who bound them sees the books returned to the library, along with Gabe in his role as consultant for Scotland Yard. When his investigation uncovers a link to Sylvia’s past, they’re even more determined to find the murderer. But they’re not the only ones searching for answers.

Inez Olivera is left reeling from her cousin Elvira's murder, and her mother's betrayal, and when Tío Ricardo issues an ultimatum about her inheritance, she's left with only one option to consider. Marriage to Whitford Hayes. Former British soldier, her uncle's aide de camp, and one time nemesis, Whit has his own mysterious reasons for staying in Egypt. With her heart on the line, Inez might have to bind her fate to the one person whose secret plans could ruin her.

This audio collection includes the first eight stories from The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne: Dinosaurs Before Dark, The Knight at Dawn, Mummies in the Morning, Pirates Past Noon, Night of the Ninjas, Afternoon on the Amazon, Sunset of the Sabertooth, and Midnight on the Moon. Join Jack and Annie in adventures in time and space!