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Winter Hill
The exploits of a first-generation American as he navigates the mean streets of his city through his early years that is balanced with old-world values. His lust for life leads him into dangerous paths that may derail his impossible dream of a life as an aviator.
His quest to satisfy his insatiable desire for a young love combines with an intense love affair with a college co-ed.
His loss of control over his affairs sets in motion a complicated unsolvable dilemma that requires the young man to make a choice between love or his dream of flight.
A kept secret received at the moment of his journey to begin his dream crushes his spirit, but he cannot alter his decision.
He pursues his dream at the loss of his true love.
£14.99 -
Willowbrook Wood
How it was. How it is. How it shall be. For over two thousand years, the animals of Willowbrook Wood have lived side by side, sometimes at peace, more often at war. Empires have risen. Empires have fallen. After two millennia of conflict and strife, the animals of the wood have resolved to end the senseless bloodshed once and for all. The Willowbrook Union, the great pan-species alliance was founded to bring peace and prosperity to all. But now, after several decades of increasing wealth and harmony, the cracks between the species are once again beginning to appear. Economic hardship and a sudden surge in immigrant species have led to increasingly animalist beliefs and a rise in specism. What will the future hold for Willowbrook Wood?
£16.99 -
Wild About Harry
In 1938, Harry Glass is a precocious eight-year-old Jewish boy born and raised in London. Unconstrained by obedience, he is as much the despair of his immigrant parents as they are a puzzle to him. As, indeed, are almost all grown-ups—teachers, neighbours, everyone except his Aunt Lily. At times, he manages to appall even her. Just speaking can become a disaster as his schoolmates’ cuss words roll innocently off his tongue at home. The mood there darkens, too, with the news from Europe.
After the fall of France in 1940, Harry is evacuated to Wales and welcomed into a farm family by everyone except the daughter and a young Welsh nationalist farmhand. But the war reaches into Wales, too, with the bombing of shipyards and chance raids. After being machine-gunned from the air while on a class picnic and later witnessing supposed perfidy, Harry suffers a breakdown and is hospitalised. His ward-mates are recuperating survivors from Dunkirk and wounded Spitfire pilots from the now raging Battle of Britain. Both befriended and bedevilled, Harry comes of age as the world fights for its life.
£9.99 -
Whispers Through Time
This historical drama, part true, part fiction, is based on the mysterious lives of the author’s maternal grandparents’, Walter and Winifred, spanning most of the twentieth century.
Encompassing the Boer Wars, the end of the Victorian era and the Titanic tragedy, the characters not only travel onwards through these times but also to the colonial outposts of the British Empire.
As the first book of a trilogy, Whispers Through Time introduces the personalities, dreams and motivations of Winifred and her family. The mysteries that surrounded her life in the past intrigue her real-life grand-daughter, Heady, who tries to unravel them in the present day.
Why did young Winifred leave London alone on a ship to travel to Australia?
Why especially in June 1912, just months after the Titanic tragedy? Where did her brother, Oscar, disappear to without a trace? And what happened to her beautiful younger sister, Francesca, after her tragic love affair?
Time is an ever-present theme that waxes and wanes like a tide throughout lives. There are the what-if moments, the only if moments and the sad reality that past and present generations can never meet, forever separated by time.
£9.99 -
Trevelyan
It is the end of the 18th century and the end of schooling for four Cornish youngsters. They share their aspirations for the future, not realising there is a price to be paid.
Cornwall is the land of mystery, legends, folktale and myths. Tiny villages with narrow winding streets nestle around rocky cover ideal for landing and distributing contraband. The fishermen are dependent upon the sea in all its moods and are forced to subsidise their catch with smuggled French brandy, tobacco, tea, and silk. The only other possible occupations, the tin mines and the farmed estates, are in the hands of the wealthy few, like Lord Trevelyan. For most Cornishmen life is harsh.
To fulfil her own hopes of a better life, one young girl Karenza, discovers there are secrets to be concealed and seemingly impossible promises to be honoured, played out against an austere and merciless Cornish landscape and the ongoing hostility of the French.
£9.99 -
Trampled Grass
This novel is based on a historical account, going back to early 19th century when Great Britain defeated Napoleon Bonaparte, expanding the empire. That led to the need for considerable manpower. The captain of a ship is not only responsible for navigating the vessel skilfully, but should be a leader to all the naval trainees and junior officers. He should make right decisions which can be harsh, without emotions, for all. This novel tells a story of the kind-hearted Captain Fraser who led his ship to near-disaster on the Thames. After abolition of slavery, the need for farm labourers was filled by a 'new system of slavery' called 'indentured labourers from India'. This novel describes their suffering and what happened to them, which the world hardly knows about.
£15.99 -
To Have and To Hold
In 19th Century England, two small girls are ripped from their families and sold into cotton mill slavery. Lost, confused and alone, Emma and Susie find solace in each other's company. They search for freedom and identity as they battle the cold and miserable conditions and their place of nonentity in the mill. How will their dreams of freedom be achieved?
When not working in the Hell on earth that is the spinning-room, they are locked in the mill garret. Their owners recognize them as 'hands', implements of labour, rather than living, breathing people. Then, one night changes the course of each girl's life. After this one night of freedom Susie's restless nature cannot be calmed, and the two must learn how to survive their newfound freedom, and to discover who they are truly are.
£10.99 -
Time to Move On
It’s the end of the 1950s, Mary, an Irish girl, is nearly 16 years old, struggling with her bleak and lonely life in Western Australia, missing Ireland. Mary grasps at the opportunity of happiness and a different future without foreseeing the dire consequences that follow.
In 1970s, Harry, as a teenager, loses his parents in a car crash. Now homeless and jobless, he finds love while he is struggling with others’ expectations of him.
Each of them finding resolution of their situations – a story that carries you with the narrative, exploring the difficulties of life, infused with issues of culture, religion and identity.
£9.99 -
Thirty Pieces of Silver
The Roman Empire and the world is about to change and over the next several hundred years, millions will die as a result.
In the Middle East a child has been born – a child who will grow into a man who will eventually change the way the world is run. He is a man destined to fulfil a prophecy. A man who will start a global revolution. A man who will shake the very foundations of society. A man whose philosophy will be misinterpreted and twisted to give power to what will become one of the richest organisations on Earth. A man whose name will be used to justify the most horrific deeds this world has ever known.
Caught between the rule of mighty Rome and the power of the High Priests, this man wants to free his people and bring them closer to God. This man will become a legend.
This man is called Jesus.
£9.99 -
The Price of Pearls
During the Napoleonic Wars, England sent many soldiers and spies to France. Many soldiers and sailors had been captured and imprisoned for years, incurring wounds and disablement, even in prison. They could only hope their wives, lovers and other members of the family were well. They just hoped that when families heard they had been captured, it did not cause any problems, but it often did cause broken hearts and aristocratic titles to go to distant relatives, who were not always wealthy enough to maintain properties that had been in the family for generations. Thieving and murder became common. Estates were sold. Many families did not know if their sons were alive or not. Should their daughter marry someone else as they thought her fiancé was possibly dead? It wasn’t until after Napoleon Bonaparte was captured and sent to Elba that life settled down but many hearts were already broken.
£9.99 -
The Wind in the Grass
Life in the village of Hammerwell, situated in a remote part of Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, would appear, on the surface, to be a peaceful rural existence. Set in the period between the two world wars, the order of things is still very much as it has been for hundreds of years. But for Arthur Lever, life suddenly takes a dramatic turn. Set against a background of rural life, seed time, harvest, ploughing and lambing, The Wind in the Grass has lust, romance, cruelty, violence and sudden death. But worst is yet to come for the inhabitants of Hammerwell, insulated from the outside world by the grandeur of The Plain, they are unaware that their lives are about to be devastatingly changed forever.
£9.99 -
The Wild Boy of Van Dieman's Land
What do you think could be the worst thing that could happen to you if you were so hungry you stole a bun?
In Victorian England, any theft at all could see you hung or sent to the other side of the world to a penal colony where you would be taught a lesson you would never forget. Your wickedness must be punished.
Davy’s father dies and he and his family are destitute. In a moment of weakness, ten-year-old Davy steals a bun. Now his troubles really start. He is brutalized and bullied in the prison until his wild behaviour ensures that he is transported to the notorious Van Dieman’s Land. Once he is there, life just gets harder and he begins to earn his name of ‘The Wild Boy.’
Meanwhile, his sister, twelve-year-old Hannah has been left to find work and fend for the family. She takes work in service to the prison chaplain’s family where her ingenuity and courage ensure that she is on the same transportation ship as Davy. Can she save him from life as a convict in the harshest colony of all? Can she ever reunite their shattered family?
£7.99