Historical Books

Wanda Baker’s life was never the same after killing her abusive stepfather. With nowhere to hide, she steals a soldier’s uniform and falls in with a battalion of Confederate soldiers, redefining herself as Jack Logan. Even though done out of necessity, he soon realizes living as a man reflects his true self in more ways than just the clothes he wears. The world finally sees him as the man he knows he is.

After the war, Jack finds work on a horse ranch owned by the widow of a Union soldier, Emma Stevens. She’s the most beautiful woman Jack has ever seen, but being a veteran of the Confederate army that killed her husband isn’t the only thing keeping them apart.

Emma hates that she needs the enemy’s help to manage her husband’s beloved ranch, but with fewer qualified men left after the war, she's forced to accept she has no choice. She and her young son must place their trust somewhere, and Jack is her best hope of keeping the ranch and her husband's legacy intact.

Their differences are too hard to ignore, but only love can heal a heart divided.

 

Miss Beatrice Everson has managed to marry the Earl of Sinclair, solving her family’s disastrous financial problems for good. She should be the happiest woman in London, but a less than satisfactory wedding night has Beatrice fleeing her husband and planning an affair with the dashing Mr. George Smith.

Lady Georgina Smith has a secret she must keep at all costs: she divides her time running a bluestocking salon as Gina, and carousing across London as George. Captivated by Beatrice’s wit and charm, Georgina realizes that her secret is in danger—along with her heart.

When Beatrice discovers that her wedding night has resulted in an unexpected pregnancy, she sees an opportunity to have it all by divorcing Sinclair and marrying George. However, Georgina isn’t sure that a lifetime spent as a man is staying true to herself. Beatrice and Georgina must risk giving up their secrets to finally have their heart’s desire. But is the risk too great to take?

Austin’s killed a man. Escaping his nefarious past and running from those who would force him to live as a woman, Austin dreams of becoming an upstanding man and homesteading alone on the fringes of the wild frontier.

The burgeoning tent township of Molasses Pond is clenched in the bloody fist of the deadliest gunslinger the country has ever known, Lightning Jack McKade. McKade knows who Austin is. In fact, McKade knows more about Austin’s past than Austin does. He had a hand in creating it.

On the last stagecoach until spring, a mail order bride, Sahara Miller, arrives in Molasses Pond. She claims to be Austin’s and has the documentation to prove it. But McKade’s gang will do anything to have her. Now Austin must choose: Strap on his twin six-shooters to protect the bride he never wanted, or turn a blind eye and keep his dream alive.

In 1843, Stephen Hyde appears before the select board of Salisbury, Connecticut, to claim his voting rights. Stephen is effeminate though, and when he approaches the board, other members challenge his maleness. To end the dispute, the board leader summons the town doctor, Dr. Martin Smythe, to examine Stephen. The doctor informs the board that Stephen Hyde is, indeed, a man, and Stephen wins the right to vote. But Stephen has a secret, and three weeks later, he is suffering from increasingly severe menstrual symptoms. The only way he can get pain medication is to visit Dr. Smythe and reveal his true biology. With the truth in the open, Stephen and Martin bond as friends, eventually becoming intimate. Six months into their relationship, both are surprised beyond belief when Stephen becomes pregnant. The two men must then formulate some way to create and keep a family.

What happens when a mask becomes the deepest truth, when a lie reveals the greatest love that was ever given?

Renaissance historian Joanna Valois and transgendered beauty Sara Falier take us spiraling into the past, from New York City during the Stonewall riots, to Venice under the Inquisition, and finally to Nero's Rome. In Venice, they find a sixteenth century heretical book and learn about the woman condemned to death for printing it. The book, a translation of an ancient codex describing the Crucifixion, shattered the lives of nearly everyone who touched it, and 400 years later, could still bring half the world to its knees.