Fiction and Poetry books

A True Crime Thriller − Winner of Two Historical Fiction Awards in 2018 
(IPPY Gold Medal Award and the National Indie Excellence Award)

In this historical murder thriller, author Erika Mailman (also 2007 Bram Stoker finalist for her novel The Witch’s Trinity) brings the true story of the brutal murder of Lizzie Borden’s father and stepmother into new focus by adding a riveting contemporary narrative.

The Murderer’s Maid interweaves the stories of two women, the 19th century servant of infamous Lizzie Borden and the other a 21st century modern-day barista fleeing from an attempt on her life.

Irish maid Bridget Sullivan, trapped by servitude and afraid for her own safety, finds herself an unwilling witness to the tensions in the volatile Borden household. As Lizzie seethes with resentment, Bridget tries to perform her duties and keep her mouth shut.

In 2016, Brooke, the illegitimate daughter of an immigrant maid, is unknowingly connected to the legendary 19th century crime. Brooke struggles to conceal her identity and stay a jump ahead of the men who want to kill her. When she unexpectedly falls in love with Anthony, a local attorney, she has to decide whether to stop running and begin her life anew.

With historical detail and taut, modern storytelling, Erika Mailman writes a captivating novel about identity, choices, freedom, and murder. She offers readers a fresh perspective on the notorious 19th century crime and explores the trials of immigrants seeking a better life while facing down fear and oppression, today and throughout history. Intelligent and detailed, The Murderer’s Maid is a gripping read from beginning to bloody conclusion.

If you have read and enjoyed Lizzie Borden books such as The Life and Trial of Lizzie Borden, A Private Disgrace, The History and Haunting of Lizzie Borden, Parallel Lives, The Secrets of Lizzie Borden, or The Fall River Tragedy; you will love Erika Mailman’s award winning true crime thriller The Murderer's Maid.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, The Book That Changed the World

Monster: Publishing to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and a movie starring Elle Fanning as Mary Shelley, Monster is a brilliant fictionalized biography akin to The Other Boleyn Girl.

Frankenstein: Two centuries ago this year, the young woman who invented science fiction was only 20 when she wrote the book that became Frankenstein. Mary Shelley said, “People ask how I, then a young girl, could think of, and dilate upon, so hideous subject?”

Gothic Romance: Her father gave her a far better education than any woman of the age could hope for and made her the victim of ongoing incest. At 15, she became involved with one of the greatest poets in England and made love to him on her mother’s grave. When she was 16, she escaped from home by running away for a six week walking tour of Europe and formed a ménage a trois with Shelley and her sister.

Mary Shelley - Frankenstein: Her immediate influences were two of the greatest poets of the age. Her lover, Percy Shelley, coached her to expand her understanding of writing. Her mentor, Lord Byron, challenged her to prove she was as good a writer as the best poet-philosophers of the Enlightenment. Both men admired her mind, and both wanted more. By the time she was 20, she published the book that changed the world.

Sherlock Holmes Historical Fiction Thriller

"Novelist and literary historian, Breck England, sheds light on the little-known detective work of super sleuth Sherlock Holmes in America. " ―Leonard Carpenter, author of Conan the Barbarian series

Learn the answers to many tantalizing Sherlock Holmes questions in a book that takes you into the dark place in the life of Holmes B.W. (Before Watson), or, as he said, “before my biographer came to glorify me.”

Historical fiction thriller. The Tarleton Murders, the record of “one of those pretty little problems” Holmes solved in the pre-Watson years, has never been brought to light until now. The discovery of this previously unknown manuscript opens a window onto the mysterious early years when Holmes was struggling to set himself up as a “consulting detective”―a previously unknown profession.

The early Sherlock Holmes. So begins a frantic journey that takes Holmes and his friend from Rome (where they save the Pope) to Paris to London to Liverpool, across the Atlantic during the most dangerous hurricane in twenty years, to the backwoods of Georgia (infested by the Klan), and eventually into the midst of Atlanta’s highest society―with growing awareness of a plot that threatens the very existence of the United States. Along the way we encounter George Bernard Shaw, Joel Chandler Harris, Pope Leo XIII, the artist Mary Cassatt, Moriarty himself―and Moriarty’s wife! And in the midst of the fun we make some astounding discoveries, such as the true identity of Moriarty, the fate of the Vatican Cameos, and to top it all off, Mycroft’s schoolboy nickname.

Also discover:

• How did Holmes know so much about the Ku Klux Klan?
• How did he acquire such a rich acquaintance with America?
• Did he really prevent a Second Civil War?

If you’ve read Sherlock Holmes in America by Martin H. Greenberg or Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Undead Client by M. J. Downing, you’ll love Breck England’s The Tarleton Murders.

If You Loved Titanic, You’re Going to Like Lusitania Lost!

Lusitania Lost: The author of the Conan the Barbarian series turns his novelistic eye to real-life history of World War 1 in a “Titanic meets the Guns of August” spy thriller.

A Lusitania spy thriller: History, romance, action. This is the final voyage of the Lusitania, the world's fastest luxury liner torpedoed by a German U-boat in the first year of the Great War. The story is told above and below decks, in the capitals and battlefields of Europe. We meet world leaders, the swank Broadway party set on shipboard, and the relentless submarine crew who fired the torpedo that launched America into war.

Romance, intrigue and murder: Alma Brady is on the run from a New York mob boss. Desperate to escape Big Jim Hogan and his murderous gang, she joins a group of nurses bound for the Great War in Europe. Their ship is the Lusitania, the most celebrated luxury liner of 1915, with a passenger list of Broadway and Continental celebrities headed for certain doom. Aboard the Lusitania she meets Matthew Vane, a war correspondent who wants to find out what secret weapons may be hidden in the Lusitania cargo hold. During the one-week voyage, the characters are drawn into romance, intrigue and murder, culminating in a disaster whose full harrowing details have never been revealed in history or fiction.

Lusitania horror and hope: Even with the threat of German U-boats and the too-recent Titanic disaster, who can guess that the passengers aboard Lusitania face dangers more horrifying than any on the war-torn battlefields across the Atlantic? Nor does Alma realize how relentlessly her past will pursue her. And, the lover she meets is a daredevil reporter intent on probing the Lusitania’s innermost secrets. His quest may lead them both into even greater peril, or give rise…just possibly…to hope.

A Fatal Car Accident That Leads to Startling Truths About the Home Gina Left Behind

Gina balances between her current life in California and her past in Maine. Torn between the two, she does what any architect will do. She deconstructs her old childhood home piece by piece and with it, the secrets it carries.

In the months following her parents’ fatal car accident in Maine, architect Gina Gilbert is coming apart: anxious with her two young children, alienated by her clients’ grand house dreams, and no longer certain she feels at home in San Francisco.

While she and her sister Cassie are cleaning out their childhood home on the coast of Maine, they stir up painful memories and resentments over family possessions. A legendary collection of historically significant letters is missing from the artifacts they unearth, supporting a decades-old suspicion that their aunt or estranged cousin has stolen them.

Threatened by the loss of the old house and its extraordinary seaside landscape, Gina finds her heart swinging wildly between Maine and California, creating conflict with her husband, Paul. To learn what the Maine house means to her, she approaches it objectively, as an architect, bringing it to life on paper. Her family’s story unfolds room by room: the darkroom from which her gentle but passive father, Ron, ran his photography business, the kitchen where her volatile mother, Eleanor, toiled under the weight of dashed dreams. As children, Gina and Cassie warily navigated rooms permeated with toxic secrets hobbling Eleanor and Ron’s marriage.

As Gina deconstructs the house, startling truths are revealed, changing family history and allowing Gina and Cassie to begin healing family wounds. Gina has the chance to search the recesses of her heart, too, discovering within her a vitalizing compassion and an awakened understanding of what makes a house a home.

If you enjoyed books like The Dancing Girls, The Murmur of Bees, or Little White Secrets; then you’ll love Dream House.

Four Women. Four Generations. One Bond.

The stories of four generations of strong, vibrant women both idiosyncratic and adventuresome, each with a rich tale to tell.

Born at the end of the Nineteenth Century and nestled in South Western Italy, Catarina Pensbene’s life in Perdifumo is full of sun-drenched olive orchards, lush grape vines, delicious peasant food, family and love. Because of an unexpected plunge into an untenable situation, Catarina decides to take a huge risk to become a mail order bride and sets out across the ocean.

Interwoven with Catarina’s Ring is the story of her witty and self-deprecating granddaughter, Juliette Brice. Born and raised in Northern California, Juliette experiences an unfortunate tragedy that serves as the impetus for her to shake up her life, and travel to her grandmother’s homeland, where she enrolls in a six-month cooking class in Lucca, Italy. While abroad, Julliette becomes romantically involved with a handsome Italian man, yet her destiny dictates she is to return to California once her class ends. Through the author's attention to detail and employing both historically accurate and thoroughly modern storytelling, Catarina's Ring serves up Italian delicacies, luminous characters, a delicious escape and completely inspiring story.

If you enjoyed books like Where the Crawdads Sing, When We Believed in Mermaids or Before We Were Yours; then you’ll love Catarina's Ring.

Join a band of curious cats for an adorable reading of William Shakespeare's 154 sonnets. Whether it's friendship, beauty, love or something more saucy, the Bard of Avon has a sonnet for every occasion. Learn what the sonnets mean and read fun facts about the poet, witches, Elizabethan life, and the unfortunate hygiene habits of the 16th century. Despite being written 400 years ago, the sonnets speak to the eternal ups-and-downs of anyone in love and the struggle to fight our mortality with art. And, many centuries later, we have something else in common with Elizabethans: we find kittens to be utterly adorable.* *Well, they also thought they might be tiny, adorable witches in animal form.