-
The Hounds of Diana - The Romulus and Remus Trilogy - Part I
Alba Longa is the ancient capital of Latium, on the Italian peninsula. The Roman Empire was born from this great city. However, behind the glory of what Rome became is a darker tale of secrecy, betrayal and death. Numitor is a good man and a great diplomat; his brother Amulius an envious plotter and brave conqueror. Their struggle for power will bring out the best of one and the worst of the other. Only one can be king. Rhea Silva (Lillia) is the daughter of Numitor, her first son will become heir to the throne. Her life is thrown into turmoil by events out of her control, putting her and her twin boys in mortal danger. The Hounds of Diana are the secret sect that protects the realm from within. Yet, there are those that would undermine it. Then, there are the Dormienti, the sleepers. Only when the Hounds call, do the Dormienti awaken, and only when death desires it.
£16.99 -
The Green Gates Story
There are certainly many historical accounts of wars, military experiences, and cultural reactions to politics, but many of these works lack a personal and sentimental touch to what it really feels like to endure a battle. In The Green Gates Story, Bernard Fredericks presents a historically accurate, delightfully moving, and honest tale of a British boy who is evacuated from his Liverpool home in WWII. Told from the perspective of a child, Fredericks narrates his memories of an eight-year-old boy who is snatched from the city and transplanted to the country. He shares the triumphs and struggles of a child required to acquaint himself in a new setting and lifestyle. While he manages the heartache of missing his family and friends, the boy is also thrilled and challenged with new adventures as he acclimates to the pace of country-life. From the beginning of his evacuation to his return to home, the boy relates his feelings and doubts about so many events that crop up not only in wartime, but every child's time of coming of age.
£12.99 -
The Diaries Of A Gifted Edwardian Boy
Clarence Smyth is a psychically gifted little boy born in London at the dawn of the 20th Century. He has an extraordinary life meeting and influencing many famous and some infamous people of that era. This book is a rewrite of the classic The Boy Who Saw True, which were actual diaries of a Victorian boy (author unknown).Anyone familiar with that book will remember being frustrated at only reading a part of his story. Although this is set in a slightly later period, it completes the story and weaves in other intrigues as well as Clarence being “watched” because of some of the accurate predictions he makes. There is a dark element to Clarence’s story, but it is told with insight and humour on his part, as we see Clarence go from being a young boy to a man.The Diaries of a Gifted Edwardian Boy is for all ages from young adult to the mature.It is an interesting, amusing and enjoyable read.
£14.99 -
The Broadsword and the Englishman
Growing up in a devout, middle-class English family in China during the Sino–Japanese war leaves its mark on Bill and sets in place a series of events that leads him to join the war effort as a teenager, go down the coal mines of Wales and to eventually migrate to Australia to start afresh. But Bill is tortured by his past. A story set against the backdrop of war, the growth of a nation, the betrayal of a father and the influence of good friends, Bill traverses adulthood as a flawed man. With the support of his loving Welsh wife, Myfanwy, and the influence of his Chinese friends, Bill is forced to face his fears by revisiting the place of his childhood, Shanghai, China. Here, he eventually faces his demons and farewells a good friend, who leaves him with a symbol of peace and strength, his Chinese broadsword.R. G. Harmon has also written The Missionary’s Son and The Prequel to The Broadsword and the Englishman.
£13.99 -
Spitfire Spies
Summer 1940 - Great Britain is in grave peril. With the ‘phoney' war turning into a very real war on the ground and in the air, Hitler's troops storm across an unprepared Europe towards the English Channel. Invasion looms. But the British have a weapon in their arsenal that may be a game changer and bring victory against all odds: the mighty Spitfire.So severe is the threat posed by this remarkable fighter plane that Germany sends two operatives - one a reluctant Englishman, the other a loyal Nazi - on an audacious mission to infiltrate and destroy. Will they achieve their goal or can MI5, with the aid of double agents and a brilliant female pilot, turn the tide of espionage to their advantage? With a literary adroitness reminiscent of an aviator in battle, author John Hughes weaves a tale of intrigue, love and betrayal in a fast-paced thriller of a debut novel which wends its way from the Fatherland via the beaches of Dunkirk to the skies over Southern England.
£14.99 -
Only in India - Stories Untold
India. An exotic land of characteristics and historical tales like no other. From an exposition on chili peppers to an introduction to comedic bridesmaids rituals, from tragic examples of socio-economic prejudices to ironic demonstrations of bureaucratic powers, and from personal reflections on kite flying to factual and clinical addresses on opium, Dr. Jas Singh shows India only as a son of the country can.Only in India—Stories Untold begins with the journey of a young Indian boy learning the differences between men and women, and harboring hopes of seeing movies and experiencing grand adventures in a historical fort. As we follow Singh from his childhood to his teenage years, then his college career, bits of political and war-time lessons, explanations of cultural expectations, and glimpses of life after the independence of British rule are interwoven in this all-encompassing exposure to a country that has been tested, redefined, left behind, missed, but never forgotten.
£15.99 -
Olive
Olive is a story of human endurance spanning over four generations; from the end of the 19th century through to WW-II, during the almost-total destruction of Southampton, a port city in southern England.Olive is the spine of this historical novel. Ostracised at birth by her family, Olive's life is that of an opportunist and black marketeer. She uses her sex, guile and music skills to move up, but there is a price to be paid and the children bear the cost.Olive demonstrates the impact one woman had on those whose lives she touched.
£12.99 -
Napoleon: Uprising
Amidst the turmoil of chaos and revolution, a young Napoleon Bonaparte leaves the safety of his Corsican homeland to be thrust into the corruption of the French aristocracy as he pursues a career in the artillery. Facing riot and rebellion throughout France, Napoleon must fight to protect a society that sees him as an outsider. As the world threatens to crumble around him, Napoleon must prove himself in order to protect his family from those who would destroy all he loves. This outsider, shunned and despised, may well prove to be France’s only hope.
£14.99 -
Into the Skies: A World War I Aviator Story
This story portrays an American who gets caught up in World War One as an ‘aviator' from the beginning to the end, an unusual achievement, which makes for an absorbing tale. The author has taken elements from the memoirs of aviation pioneers, most of which began in the last years of the war, modified them to reflect changes that occurred from 1914 to 1918, and added other adventures. The back story includes some instances from the infancy of flight and the inspiration it provided a boy as he grew up in Dayton, Ohio. As a ‘memoir' of the Great War the book is an exciting and enjoyable read, whilst also providing a chronology of the War from the point of view of a German-American pilot who joined the French Aéronautique Militaire and flew on the side of the French for the duration of the conflict.
£13.99 -
Breaking the Flood
In Breaking the Flood, the first of four novels about the fall of Constantinople, Niccolo Gritti, a nineteen year-old scion of an aristocratic merchant dynasty in mid-15th century Venice, recounts his upbringing, his family’s impoverishment and his decision to take ship in a trading fleet to the eastern Mediterranean. Ambushed by corsairs, Niccolo is pressed as a galley slave. Soon, a fellow oarsman identifies himself as Demetrius Angelos, member of a distinguished military family in Constantinople. Demetrius is desperate to return there, threatened as his city is by the bellicose ruler of the Ottomans, Mehmet II. Eventually, the two young men escape the corsairs’ clutches and Niccolo decides to throw in his lot with Demetrius, journeying with him to the decayed Byzantine capital. At once, Bildungsroman and quest narrative, Breaking the Flood is both vivid and haunting, recreating a forgotten world with cinematic and at times hallucinatory clarity.
£12.99 -
A Village Betrayed
A poignant story of the impact of war on a defenceless French village during the Second World War. Four courageous villagers join the Maquis, the Resistance in Vichy occupied France, to protect their families. They are swept into a treacherous conflict where one false word or brave action can result in the torture and death of people they know and love. One old man and a young girl survive the savage destruction that wipes out the whole community.This novel uses the recorded history of the devastation of many rural villages in the Aveyron, Lot and Tarn departments of the Midi-Pyrénées. Oradour-sur-Glane in the Haute-Vienne Department is a famous memorial to the brutality of the Second World War.
£15.99 -
A Time to Live
1936. Clouds are looming over Europe. Uncertainty hangs in the air. It’s been less than 20 years since The Great War and there’s talk of still darker times ahead.A young Englishman caught in the middle of the Italo-Abyssinian War joins up with the Red Cross Humanitarian Ambulance Team to do what he can to help in the war effort, and forges bonds that will carry with him through the darkest days of Spanish Civil War and beyond. Bonds that will stay forged for the rest of his life.
£16.99