18th century -- fiction

From the winter of 1779 until 1781, Abigail Stewart and her family follow the path of her father's Continental Army unit after their Valley Forge home burns down, enduring harsh winters and scarce food, and narrowly escaping danger time and again.
The sequel to The Winter of Red Snow.

Ann Hamilton's family has moved to the western frontier of Pennsylvania, and she misses her old home in Gettysburg. There are no girls her age on Hamilton Hill, and life is hard. But when the Hamiltons survive a terrible storm and receive a surprise visit from George Washington, Ann realizes that pioneer life is exciting and special.

The setting is in 18th-century Naples. Two young suitors, Ferrando and Guglielmo, take up a wager with the older and wiser Don Alfonso that the moment they turn their backs, their sweethearts, the sisters Dorabella and Fiordiligi, will forget them and fall in love with the first person who comes along. To make sure that they can see this for themselves, he tells the two young men to disguise themselves as foreigners, who have heard of the beautiful sisters and to woo them--and so the fun begins.

Always a lover of history, Mary Higgins Clark wrote this extensively researched biographical novel and titled it Aspire to the Heavens, after the motto of George Washington's mother. Published in 1969, the book was more recently discovered by a Washington family descendant and reissued as Mount Vernon Love Story. Dispelling the widespread belief that although George Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis, he reserved his true love for Sally Carey Fairfax, his best friend's wife, Mary Higgins Clark describes the Washington marriage as one full of tenderness and passion, as a bond between two people who shared their lives -- even the bitter hardship of a winter in Valley Forge -- in every way. In this author's skilled hands, the history, the love, and the man come fully and dramatically alive.

"At the age of sixteen, Diego is sent to Barcelona for a European education. In a country chafing under the corruption of Napoleonic rule, Diego follows the example of his celebrated fencing master and joins La Justicia, a secret underground resistance movement devoted to helping the powerless and the poor. With this tumultuous period as a backdrop, Diego falls in love, saves the persecuted, and confronts for the first time a great rival who emerges from the world of privilege.

"Between California and Barcelona, the New World and the Old, the persona of Zorro is formed, a great hero is born, and the legend begins. After many adventures -- duels at dawn, fierce battles with pirates at sea, and impossible rescues -- Diego de la Vega, a.k.a. Zorro, returns to America to reclaim the hacienda on which he was raised and to seek justice for all who cannot fight for it themselves."

First of a series featuring Sir John Fielding, a magistrate who in the 18th century co-founded London's first police force, the Bow Street Runners. The narrator is Jeremy Proctor, a 13-year-old orphan who serves as Fielding's eyes. Fielding is blind. The series opens with the "suicide" of a lord known for his gambling and extra-marital affairs.

"He is invited to the city of Bath, site of England's famous spa, where rakes and lechers and gamesters abound. He rides there in a coach with a beautiful, seemingly innocent young girl who comes to sit at the heart of a plot to gain control of a fabulous fortune.

"Thieves steal letters, highwaymen attack, bludgeoners attempt murder, and shots ring out in the House of God. Despite all this, the Bath social round progresses, at secret gaming parties, grand balls, and the famous waters, where a man is later found murdered.

"Benjamin Franklin must winnow his way through this intrigue, to the truth of a mystery which may be masterminded by his great enemy, the enigmatic Quimp, who governs much of England's crime. Ben is ably aided by his natural son, Nick Handy. Once again his acute intellect and unerring heart prove him to be the archetypal detective."

Claire Randall is leading a double life. She has a husband in one century, and a lover in another... In 1945, Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she innocently touches a boulder in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach, an "outlander"--in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of our Lord...1743. Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire's destiny in soon inextricably intertwined with Clan MacKenzie and the forbidden Castle Leoch. She is catapulted without warning into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life ...and shatter her heart. For here, James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a passion so fierce and a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire...and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

In a battery of events that will make a hero out of an illiterate private, a young Richard Sharpe poses as the enemy to bring down a ruthless Indian dictator backed by fearsome French troops. The year is 1799, and Richard Sharpe is just beginning his military career.