Ocean State Libraries

In the reign of Charles II, Jordon and his mother, the Dog-Woman, live on the banks of the stinking Thames, where they take in sights ranging from the first pineapple in London to Royalist heads on pikes.

Longing for a life beyond housemaid chores and her drunken father's abuse, Ella Appleby of mid-17th-century England and her sister flee to London and take up with a dashing gentleman with ties to the underworld, unaware that they are being pursued by her former employer's twin brother.

"London, 1664. Twenty years after the English revolution, the monarchy has been restored and Charles II sits on the throne. The men who conspired to kill his father are either dead or disappeared. Baltasar 'Balty' St. Michel is twenty-four and has no skills and no employment. He gets by on handouts from his brother-in-law Samuel Pepys, an officer in the king's navy. Fed up with his needy relative, Pepys offers Balty a job in the New World. He is to...

A novel on the way we interpret events to suit our purpose. The protagonists are four people giving evidence in a murder in 17th century England. One blames the crime on too much authority, another on the lack of it. A look at the controversies of the day, from medical experiments to religious freethinking.

ROYAL SURVIVOR profiles an extraordinarily shrewd man who outlasted his enemies to save the monarchy, even as forces were slowly forming that would make England the cradle of modern democracy.

Fictional story of Catherine of Braganza, who was the wife of English King Charles II, "The Merry Monarch."