historical fiction
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King Richard III sends Richard Taillour west to investigate a seized merchant vessel and the disappearance of two royal commissioners. What he finds aboard the Sint Marie in Axmouth harbour defies all record.
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A tithe surveyor arrives in an Oxfordshire parish in 1843 to map every field and account for every acre. The older records name a settlement called Slyne Birch, cleared by a local lord four centuries earlier. The dead do not want remembrance. They want someone to finish their paperwork.
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A minor landholder disputes a royal tax demand and is pushed into outlawry. Based on the 1225 Yorkshire pipe rolls entry for Robert Hod. Could this be the origin of Robin Hood?
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At White Head Lighthouse, Thomas Darling keeps the lamp burning through a violent storm. Then a half-drowned stowaway brings a warning about his former berth, SS Strumble, an empty ship, recorded lost, and now carrying ticking machinery that can calculate the future, and perhaps alter the coming century
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About a 30-minute read or a 41 minute listen. Jess Harwood returns to her late mother’s home after seven years, uncovering memories and remnants of her mother’s life and secrets. As she begins to help the village with herbal remedies, she discovers a powerful stone, the Eye of the Dracan, which deepens her connection to…
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About a 13-minute read or a 20-minute listen. During the reign of King Stephen, two children of strange green hue were discovered near Woolpit in Suffolk, speaking in an unknown tongue and refusing all common food save raw beans. What follows is not a retelling of that story, but an imagined prelude to it
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About an 11-minute read or 17-minute listen. In 1812, French artist Théodore Géricault painted ‘The Severed Heads’. With a reputation for macabre works, and a morgue supplying him with subjects, this was just one of several. The pair were unknown but France was in the turmoil of post-revolutionary governance, so who could this couple have…
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About an 8-minute read or 14-minute listen. Lady Katherine Bulkeley grapples with a letter concerning the crown’s inquiry into her abbey, feeling the weight of change and uncertainty. In the chapel, she encounters the spirits of Henry and Rosamund, who share insights on legacy, authority, and love.