"When the diplomatic embassy from the United States of Europe was freed from the Tower of London, most of its members returned to the continent. But some remained behind in Britain: Oliver Cromwell, sharpshooter Julie Sims, her Scot husband Alex Mackay, and Cromwell's Irish-American self-appointed watchdog Darryl McCarthy. Soon the hunt is on for the most notorious rebel in English history, with King Charles himself demanding Cromwell's head. To make...

As the Thirty Years War continues to devastate seventeenth-century Europe, the power of the United States of Europe, under the leadership of Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, and the modern-day West Virginians mysteriously swept into the past, flourishes, but a French spy and a vengeful assassin targeting Grantville's Mike Stearns and his wife could destroy everything.

It is the year 1636. The United States of Europe, the new nation formed by an alliance between the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus and the West Virginians hurled back in time by a cosmic accident, is on the verge of civil war. His brain injured in the war with Poland, the USE's emperor Gustavus Adolphus is no longer in command. Enter Swedish chancellor Oxenstierna, a leader of aristocratic reaction against democracy. His goal: to assemble the forces...

Daniel Kehlmann masterfully weaves the fates of many historical figures into this enchanting and picturesque book of magical realism and adventure. It is the story of the 17th century vagabond performer and trickster Tyll Ulenspiegel that begins before he is enshrined in rumors and myths. We meet him as a scrawny boy growing up in a quiet village. When his father, a miller with an interest in alchemy and magic, is found out by the church, Tyll is...

Germany, 1659: When a dying boy is pulled from the river with a mark crudely tattooed on his shoulder, hangman Jakob Kuisl is called upon to investigate whether witchcraft is at play in his small Bavarian town. Whispers and dark memories of witch trials and the women burned at stake just seventy years earlier still haunt the streets of Schongau. When more children disappear and an orphan boy is found dead, marked by the same tattoo, the mounting hysteria...