Historical Fiction audiobooks

Tides of War - Abridged

By: Steven Pressfield

Narrated by: Derek Jacobi

Length: 7 hours

Abridged: Yes

Brilliant at war, a master of politics, and a charismatic lover, Alcibiades was Athens’ favorite son and the city’s greatest general.

A prodigal follower of Socrates, he embodied both the best and the worst of the Golden Age of Greece. A commander on both land and sea, he led his armies to victory after victory.

But like the heroes in a great... Read more

Affair - Abridged

By: Amanda Quick

Narrated by: Stephanie Beacham

Length: 3 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Charlotte Arkendale knew all there was to know about men. After all, she'd made a career out of steering marriage-minded women away from untrustworthy members of the opposite sex.

Yet nothing could have prepared her for Baxter St. Ives--an arresting stranger too daring, too determined, too dangerous to be her new man-of-affairs. Still, perhaps he... Read more

The Dark Frigate - Abridged

By: Charles Boardman Hawes

Narrated by: Dominick Allen

Length: 5 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In seventeenth century England, a terrible accident forces orphaned Philip Marsham to flee London in fear for his life. Bred to the sea, he signs on with the "Rose of Devon," a dark frigate bound for the quiet shores of Newfoundland.

Philip's bold spirit and knowledge of the sea soon win him his captain's regard. But when the "Rose of Devon" is... Read more

The Midwife's Apprentice - Abridged

By: Karen Cushman

Narrated by: Charlotte Coleman

Length: 2 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: Yes

On a frosty morning sometime in the fourteenth century, in a village somewhere in England, a gift known only as Brat was sleeping in a dung heap.

"You, girl. Are you alive or dead?"

When she opened her eyes, she saw an important-looking woman with a sharp glance and a sharp nose and a wimple starched into sharp pleats. This woman was Jane the... Read more

Gone for Soldiers - Abridged

By: Jeff Shaara

Narrated by: George Hearn

Length: 6 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In Gone for Soldiers, Jeff Shaara carries us back 15 years before the momentous conflict he has so brilliantly chronicled, to a time when the Civil War's most familiar names are fighting for another cause, junior officers marching under the same flag in an unfamiliar land, experiencing combat for the first time in the Mexican-American War.

In... Read more

Catherine Called Birdy - Abridged

By: Karen Cushman

Narrated by: Kate Maberly

Length: 3 hours 1 minute

Abridged: Yes

An abridged audiobook of the historical fiction classic, a Newbery Honor Book.
 
Catherine feels trapped. Her father is determined to marry her off to a rich man—any rich man, no matter how awful.

But by wit, trickery, and luck, Catherine manages to send several would-be husbands packing. Then a shaggy-bearded suitor from the north comes to... Read more

Vanished - Abridged

By: Danielle Steel

Narrated by: Boyd Gaines

Length: 2 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Vanished tells the story of a man and woman faced with an almost unthinkable tragedy—the mysterious abduction of their son.

In the late 1930s, in the shadow of the Lindbergh kidnapping, and as war looms in Europe, Marielle Patterson shares and elegant Manhattan brownstone with her husband, Malcolm, and their little boy, Teddy. Though the... Read more

With This Ring - Abridged

By: Amanda Quick

Narrated by: Janet McTeer

Length: TBA

Abridged: Yes

Leo Drake, the “Mad Monk of Monkcrest,” is notoriously eccentric and unquestionably reclusive.  But he is also a noted antiquities expert, which is why Beatrice Poole has demanded his reluctant assistance.

The freethinking authoress of “horrid novels,” Beatrice is searching for the Forbidden Rings of Aphrodite, a mythic treasure she suspects... Read more

Wicked Widow - Abridged

By: Amanda Quick

Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren

Length: 2 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Scandal is afoot and seduction is in the air in this, Amanda Quick's sixteenth and most deliciously entertaining novel. Now the mistress of Regency-period romantic suspense brings us a notorious widow and a man of mystery as they flirt with danger, fight temptation, and fall into the snare of desire and intrigue....

Madeline Deveridge is all too... Read more

The Surgeon's Mate - Abridged

By: Patrick O'Brian

Narrated by: Tim Pigott-Smith

Length: 5 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are ordered home to bring news of their latest victory. But Maturin is a marked man for the havoc he caused to the French intelligence network in the New World and the British packet carrying them is shadowed by two American privateers.

The chase that follows through the fogs and shallows of the Grand Banks is as... Read more

Desolation Island - Abridged

By: Patrick O'Brian

Narrated by: Tim Pigott-Smith

Length: 5 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Sent to rescue Governor Bligh, former captain of HMS Bounty, Jack Aubrey sets off for Australia in the Leopold with his friend Stephen Maturin and a hold full of convicts in this fifth of the Aubrey/Maturin series.

A beautiful and dangerous spy lurks among these prisoners, as does an even more lethal traveling companion, gaol fever, a treacherous... Read more

The Fortune of War - Abridged

By: Patrick O'Brian

Narrated by: Tim Pigott-Smith

Length: 5 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Captain Jack Aubrey, R.N., arrives in the Dutch East Indies to find himself appointed to the command of the fastest and best-armed frigate in the navy. He and his friend Stephen Maturin take passage for England in a dispatch vessel. But the War of 1812 breaks out while they are en route. Bloody actions precipitate them both into new and... Read more

Cold Sassy Tree - Abridged

By: Olive Ann Burns

Narrated by: Richard Thomas

Length: 2 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: Yes

If the preacher's wife's petticoat showed, the ladies would make the talk last a week. But on July 5, 1906, things took a scandalous turn. That was the day E. Rucker Blakeslee, proprietor of the general store and barely three weeks a widower, eloped with Miss Love Simpson—a woman half his age and, worse yet, a Yankee! On that day,... Read more

City of Light - Abridged

By: Lauren Belfer

Narrated by: Jan Maxwell

Length: 6 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: Yes

NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • “Breathtaking . . . a remarkable blend of murder mystery, love story, political intrigue, and tragedy of manners.”—USA Today

The year is 1901. Buffalo, New York, is poised for glory. With its booming industry and newly electrified streets, Buffalo is a model for the century just beginning.

Louisa Barrett has made... Read more

A Dangerous Fortune - Abridged

By: Ken Follett

Narrated by: Tim Curry

Length: TBA

Abridged: Yes

A breathtaking thriller featuring "political and amorous intrigues, cold-blooded murder, and financial crises" (San Francisco Chronicle), from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Column of Fire

In 1866, tragedy strikes the exclusive Windfield School when a young student drowns in a mysterious accident. His death and its aftermath... Read more

Mystique - Abridged

By: Amanda Quick

Narrated by: Suzanne Bertish

Length: 3 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: Yes

A tantalizing tale of a legendary knight and a headstrong lady whose daring quest for a mysterious crystal will draw them into a whirlwind of treachery–and desire.

When the fearsome knight called Hugh the Relentless swept into Lingwood Manor like a storm, everyone cowered–except Lady Alice. Sharp-tongued and unrepentant, the flame haired beauty... Read more

The Mauritius Command - Abridged

By: Patrick O'Brian

Narrated by: Tim Pigott-Smith

Length: 5 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The fourth of the Aubrey/Maturin series opens with Captain Jack Aubrey gloomily ashore on half-pay until Stephen Maturin arrives with secret orders for Aubrey to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope under a commodore's pennant. Once there he is to mount an expedition against the French-held islands of Mauritius and La Reunion. But the... Read more

Mistress - Abridged

By: Amanda Quick

Narrated by: Harriet Walter

Length: 2 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: Yes

After a year of grand adventures touring the classical ruins of Italy and Greece, Iphiginia Bright returned to England to discover that the real excitement was at home. It seems that her Aunt Zoe has fallen victim to a sinister blackmailer and only Iphiginia can hope to stop the culprit before he can do more harm. Her plan is inspired: Imitating... Read more

Mischief - Abridged

By: Amanda Quick

Narrated by: Harriet Walter

Length: 3 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Imogen Waterstone has always prided herself on being a thoroughly independent young woman, but now she needs a man of implacable will and nerves of iron. That's why she invited Matthias Marshall, infamous Earl of Colchester, to her home in Upper Strickland. Who better than the legendary explorer to help her lay the perfect trap?



Her scheme is... Read more

The Forest - Abridged

By: Edward Rutherfurd

Narrated by: Lynn Redgrave

Length: 5 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: Yes

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Rutherford brings England’s New Forest to life” (The Seattle Times) in this companion to the critically acclaimed Sarum

From the time of the Norman Conquest to the present day, the New Forest, along England’s southern coast, has remained an almost mythical place. It is here that Saxon and Norman kings rode forth with their... Read more

I Thee Wed - Abridged

By: Amanda Quick

Narrated by: Janet McTeer

Length: 3 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: Yes

It isn't easy making a living as a lady's companion when one possesses a sharp tongue and an original mind. That's why Emma Greyson has gone through three such positions in six months. Her current post at a tiresome country house party has her bored to tears—until an extraordinary encounter with the legendary Edison Stokes leads to a secret... Read more

The Reverse of the Medal - Abridged

By: Patrick O'Brian

Narrated by: Tim Pigott-Smith

Length: 5 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The 11th installment in the Aubrey/Maturin series.

Captain Jack Aubrey, R.N., ashore after a successful cruise, is persuaded by a casual acquaintance to make certain investments in the City.  This innocent decision ensnares him in the London criminal underground and in government espionage--the province of his friend Stephen Maturin.  Is Aubrey's... Read more

Memoirs of A Geisha - Abridged

By: Arthur Golden

Narrated by: Elaina Erika Davis

Length: 2 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. Sayuri's story begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old with unusual blue-gray eyes, she is taken from her home and sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. It concludes with... Read more

Booth - Abridged

By: David M. Robertson

Narrated by: Edward Herrmann

Length: TBA

Abridged: Yes

A gripping historical novel set amidst the confusion and chaos of the Civil War, Booth is the story of the only conspirator in the plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln who was not killed or executed--a young man who falls under the spell of the charismatic and captivating world-famous stage actor, and is gradually sucked into the vortex of... Read more