historical-fiction

Catch on fire with enthusiasm, and people will come for miles to watch you burn

Readers will be swept up by the drama and fast pace of this powerful debut novel._ Reading Today Online, International Reading Association

The world is going crazy, Karl. And when the world is crazy, a sane man is never okay." from The Berlin Boxing Club

All malice, real and imagined, Ralegh's and the KIng's, will die upon the instant stroke of an axe. Be buried with him. His faith, then? Whatever remains will be parted. Some will go with the head and some with the headless body. Let them look for each other on Judgment Day. Perhaps on that day, in the haste of it, the bodies of traitors will have to settle for heads other than their own. Some inevitable mismatching of villians and rogues will take place. And one fine bony fellow will spy his skull upon another's body. Then another. And then maybe we shall be witness to the brawl and battle of the bones...

Both slaves had been oiled until their flesh shined like polished ebony, outlining every detail of their muscles.

The rural, mid-19th-century dialect, coupled with the author's interest in ethnobotany, roots the story deeply in the houses, forests, gardens, and even streambeds of antebellum Virginia. __chool Library Journal

But the tale or narrative set in the past may have its particular time-free value; and the candid reader will not misunderstand me, will not suppose that I intend any preposterous comparison, when I observe that Homer was farther removed in time from Troy than I am from the Napoleonic wars; yet he spoke to the Greeks for 2,000 years and more.

Never bet your money on another man's game.

Through enjoyment we endure.

Exile might satisfy the anger of the living, but it did not appease the dead.

If the sky falls, we shall catch larks./Když nebe padá , zjímáme sk_ivani.

Adele, if you think that, no matter how mad you drive me, that I want to give you up, you are insane, possibly more insane than is healthy.

You are both daring and unscrupulous, and you think fast. I have been looking for a person with those particular characteristics. Also I noticed you speak Babylonian.

A novel, or so-called __iction,_ if deeply researched and conscientiously written, might well contain as much truth as a high-school history textbook approved by a state board of education. But having been designated __istorical fiction_ by its publisher, it is presumed to be less reliably true than that textbook. If fiction were defined as __he opposite of truth,_ then much of the content of many approved historical textbooks could be called __istorical fiction.__ut fiction is not the opposite of truth. Fiction means __reated by imagination._ And there is plenty of evidence everywhere in literature and art that imagination can get as close to truth as studious fact-finding can.

I looked evil in the eye and smiled at it with such power that I felt a little dizzy.Jade Gentry (Polishing Jade)

Most historical accounts were written by fallible scholars, using incomplete or biased resource materials; written through the scholars' own conscious or unconscious predilections; published by textbook or printing companies that have a stake in maintaining a certain set of beliefs; subtly influenced by entities of government and society _ national administrations, state education departments, local school boards, etcetera _ that also wish to maintain certain sets of beliefs. To be blunt about it, much of the history of many countries and states is based on delusion, propaganda, misinformation, and omission.

True, I have raped history, but it has produced some beautiful offspring.

Jealousy is nothing but a fear of being abandoned