Showing titles in Historical

Long before "Don't ask, don't tell", gays served in the military - sometimes openly - more often in secret. In this volume the author imagines what their lives might have been like. Within, you will find tales of historical fiction mixed occasionally with supernatural horror, including: a French fusilier fighting guerrillas and growing disillusionment in Napoleonic Spain; soldiers encountering the unthinkable during the 1812 occupation and retreat from Moscow; and more.

It is 1914 and The Great War is underway. When the call to arms comes, Nicholas Southwell won't be found hanging back. It's a pity he can't be so decisive when it comes to letting his estate manager Paul Haskell know what he feels before he has to leave for the front line. In the trenches Nicholas meets a fellow officer, Phillip Taylor, who takes him into the unclaimed territory of physical love. Which one will he choose, if he's allowed the choice?

In 1938, while tensions in Europe are reaching a boiling point, four young women with big ambitions enter secretarial school in San Francisco. Motivated to attain the financial stability that eluded their parents, they go to battle for their futures. Moira, of Scottish descent, dreams of being an actress. Ann yearns for the education her Jewish immigrant parents provided for her brother, but not for her. Japanese American Wanda experiences firsthand the racial injustices running rampant in the United States.

Harry George Alexander Bircham: Not necessarily an infamous name in the annals of gay fictional characters - yet. But listeners of Erastes' newest historical novel should prepare themselves for many pages of suspenseful intrigue as the miscreant Bircham, a cultured man of Wildean excesses and humours, will do anything it takes to bend Fate to his will. And that sinister will is to keep the affections and attentions of another English young man.

At 14, Kit St. Denys brought down his abusive father with a knife. At 21, his theatrical genius brought down the house. At 30, his past and his forbidden love - nearly brought down the curtain for good. This is a compelling Victorian saga of two men whose love for each other transcends time and distance and the society that considers it an abomination.

World Fantasy Award winner Tanith Lee channels the allusive Esther Garber to tell these dark, erotic tales of lesbian ardor and obsession. The ''fatal women'' found within these pages lead exotic lives and adventures and have grim secrets. From fin de siecle Paris to Egypt of the 1930s and contemporary England, the Garber novellas create feverish dreams of danger, scandal, and sensuality.

Renad Amdarien's daring escape from the brutal confines of a sorcerer's dungeon has made him a legend throughout the land. Now trusted without question, Renad suffers the truth alone: his former master's sorcery rules him still. Broken both in body and mind, he finds brief solace only in the Gardens, lush sanctuaries of sex and secrets staffed by willing, skilled companions.

An old-fashioned 'they-don't-write-em-like-that-anymore' feel-good Western romance with a kick - and enough mystery and adventure to keep you riveted to the very end. Calico is directed at Western fans of any age, but has strong appeal to a YA readership - particularly to younger members of the GLBT community, who have relatively few positive role models in literature.

By Cecile depicts post-World War II France as it reels from war and recovery. In Paris, an orphan girl, Cecile, finds refuge with an older man. He introduces her to nightclubs, intellectuals, artists (Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Eartha Kitt!), and non-monogamy. When she falls for his mistress, she begins to live a life she deems worthy of writing about...but only under the pseudonym of her husband.

"En route to polite exile in the Galapagos Islands (field work, to quote the dean of my university), I have found myself marooned on a deserted tropical paradise. Deserted, that is, except for my savior, a mysterious American called Marcus. He is an inventor and the proof of his greatness is the marvelous new clockwork arm he has created to replace the unsightly one that was ruined in my shipboard mishap."

Morehead is an explicitly adult novel about Dave Morehead, a young man living in San Francisco during the height of the sexual revolution, in the late 1970s to mid-1980s. It was a time of sexual, evolutionary, and political change, with both glorious and nearly catastrophic consequences. San Francisco was teeming with diversity, and an evolving political base that forever changed the landscape of what had always been a progressive city. Morehead tells the tale of a straight young man living in a gay old city.

Un romanzo storico che non sembra parlare di storia, ma di persone: la vita di due ragazzi che nel 1924, ancora adolescenti, scoprono l'amore e lasciano il piccolo borghetto toscano in cui sono cresciuti. La fuga attraverso l'Italia fascista che si intreccia con il destino delle persone che incontrano.

Set in Calgary in 1982, during the recession that arrived on the heels of Canada’s National Energy Program, The Western Alienation Merit Badge follows the Murray family as they struggle with grief and find themselves on the brink of financial ruin. After the death of her stepmother, Frances "Frankie" Murray returns to Calgary to help her father, Jimmy, and her sister, Bernadette, pay the mortgage on the family home. When Robyn, a long-lost friend, becomes their house guest, old tensions are reignited.

The uneventful life of a jeweler from Tel Aviv changes abruptly in 2011 after Fareed, a handsome young man from Damascus, crosses illegally into Israel and makes his way to the ancient port city of Jaffa in search of his roots. In his pocket is a piece of a famous blue diamond known as "Sabakh". Intending to return the diamond to its rightful owner, Fareed is soon swept up in Tel Aviv's vibrant gay scene, and a turbulent protest movement. He falls in love with both an Israeli soldier and his boyfriend - the narrator of this book - and reveals the story of his family's past.

This short story is set in Europe before the start of World War Two, Jillian tours the clubs as a jazz singer to put a little adventure into her life. She gets more than she bargains for when she does a little favor for the girl who has her eye. She winds up running for her life and discovering a calling that gives her a purpose in life that is bigger than herself.

Being a gay man in the 1940s was not easy. When a zealous journalist discovers Cedric "Sudsey" Mervin's carnal bent and blackmails him on the verge of playing the New Year's Eve Countdown, the popular pianist finds himself renewing acquaintances from the old neighborhood in order to raise needed funds and protect his secret - a situation that entangles him deep within a web of crime, deceit, and a powerful mafia family, and binds his destiny to a rare piano that has already claimed the souls of everyone who ever owned it.

Set in World War II in 1943, Troop Train Nights is a 4,050-word short story about two young G.I.s on a train, on their way to war. One is a closeted gay former swimmer and gymnast, teed off because the army has seen fit to make him a clerk-typist. The other is a womanizing, muscular, overconfident Italian-American paratrooper from Detroit. They are reluctantly paired off on a train trip to a port of call where they will ship overseas. This is the tale of their experiences and an unlikely connection.

Told from three different perspectives, this sweeping saga begins in 1935 Portugal, in the grip of Salazar’s authoritarian regime, where upper-class Jenny enters into an uncommon marriage with the beguiling António. Keeping up appearances, they host salons for the political and cultural elite. In private, Jenny, António, and his lover, Pedro, share a guarded triangle, build a profound relationship, and together raise a daughter born under the auspices of rebellion.

Pregnant at fifteen after gleefully losing her virginity to pansexual neighborhood strongman Francis Anthony Mozzarelli, she is robbed of her baby by a pack of nefarious nuns and her embittered papa has her sterilized without her consent (legal in 1935). With the help of a besotted Francis and her top-secret meatball recipe, a devastated Bella embarks on a riotous quest through Depression-era Coney Island sideshows, the tawdry world of peek-a-boo striptease routines, a queer mob marriage, and a tasty collection of wisdom-filled recipes to find her lost child, herself, and maybe even true love.

When Works Progress Administration editor Millie Lang finds herself on the wrong end of a potential political scandal, she’s shipped off to Montana to work on the state’s American Guide Series—travel books intended to put the nation’s destitute writers to work. Millie arrives to an eclectic staff claiming their missed deadlines are due to sabotage, possibly from the state’s powerful Copper Kings who don’t want their long and bloody history with union organizers aired. But Millie begins to suspect that the answer might instead lie with the town’s mysterious librarian, Alice Monroe.