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The Poet's Trap
Esme lives a contented life in the countryside of Victorian England at Falford Hall. She is becoming a young woman, beautiful and witty with a passion for riding horses with the hall's stable hand, Tom. However, when rumours start to fly about nature of Esme and Tom's relationship, hidden feelings begin to come to light and Esme's loving father decides the best course of action is to separate the two to avoid vicious gossip. Tom is sent to South America to conduct business and make a man of himself and a devastated Esme must abandon her tomboyish nature to come out as a woman in the city of Brighton. With Tom's return scheduled in 18 long months, the star-crossed pair take the test of time, and must battle Esme's snobbish uncle and strict Victorian tradition. How can a stable hand ever win the hand of a Lady without creating a scandal?
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The Past and the Present
1914 - A young Georgina Lawrence has been promised to Lord Bedford, a man she doesn't want to marry. To give her a chance of changing the decision, her parents make her go to an Isle of Wight hotel to consider her future. Here she meets a man unlike any other she's ever known, who changes her life forever.1992 - Helena is struggling to come up with a new idea for her new novel. A trip to the Isle of Wight to refresh her literary skills seems the answer. The hotel in Bembridge is being renovated and Helena explores the grounds. Both women are inexplicably connected with the building, to two men they meet there but what other secrets does the building hold and what impact does it have on their lives?
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The Opportunist
World War I left its impression on many people and many nations. Lives were lost, economies were altered and women's roles were changed as workforces had to adapt. The consequences of international fighting were monumental, but as much as the War set forth great change, it also served as an opening for innovations and new trends. John Carter, unable to physically serve in the war, remains at home in the UK as a temporary head of an industrial company and as the owner of a timber supply business. With men needed at the front, John experiences troubles of a different kind: employing women, searching for qualified help and expanding and converting the industry to suit the demands of war materials. Hunger, illness and heartache strike time and again, but instead of only loss and utmost destruction, The Opportunist shows the tale of one man's success at home in the darkest of times.
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The Magpie
It is December 1913 and Detective Constable Frank Bolam has a murder to solve. The victim is found drowned in the River Wear with a vicious knife wound to his lower back. There are no witnesses and no clues.A few months later another body is found with the same vicious knife wound, followed closely by a further two murders with the victims stabbed in a similar manner. This is a clever killer. No clues are found and Bolam cannot find a way to break the deadlock in his most perplexing case.Having risen from a lowly mining family, Bolam has strong moral values and becomes totally obsessed with the killer and the devastating sadness brought to the victims’ relatives. He vows to bring the murderer to justice, whatever the cost.These are turbulent times, with the country in the middle of an attritional war. In his quest to find the murderer, Bolam follows his hunch and enlists in the army, heading for the trenches to track down a cold-blooded killer in the middle of the most mechanised slaughter the world has known.
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The Last Supper
Leonardo da Vinci, Milan's Renaissance ideal, is tasked with painting The Last Supper but struggles to find the perfect person to model as Christ. Vittorio Dessa, a young farmer, is eventually spotted, plucked from farm life and placed at the heart of an alien world of art and science, aristocracy, politics and intrigue.Initially shocked, Vittorio gradually adjusts to the artist's exuberant manner and ambitious ideas, and after some hesitation, resolves to pursue his own ambitions and venture beyond the safety of the city walls.Thus encouraged, Vittorio's fortunes boom, but ill-equipped to deal with the transformation, his life slowly lapses into one of paranoia, jealousy and eventually murder. The strands of the story climax at Leonardo's very public reveal of The Last Supper painting.
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The Land of Three Houses
William Sterner’s story begins in the late 1700s on the Tohickon Creek in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, during the period known as The Rage for Wheat. His quest to build a fortune based on wheat leads him to Livorno, Tuscany, during the Napoleonic wars where he meets the Enlightenment salonniêre, Madame de Staël. Join him on his journey home to The Land of Three Houses.
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The Lady
This is a story set in a turbulent Cornwall at a time of hunger and crime, but out of desperation, there was also love, laughter and a bond, starting with a wilful girl and her adoring father, who left her far too early, leaving a legacy behind.In the care of trusted friends, she grew up happy and spirited, surrounded by her loving and yet vigilant guardians.Despite their vigilance, ‘the lady’ made a poor choice in a husband. They had two beautiful children just before he met an untimely end, which left more questions than answers and again, the lady is alone. A stranger enters her life. Is he a friend or foe?With love, murder, sadness and bravery, the little group get through the hard winter to face another spring.
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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.
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The Hallenbeck Echo
‘To develop and manufacture a devastating and demoralising weapon, deliverable by air, hitherto unknown by mankind.'In 1933 when Nazi Germany was on the rise, this was the brief issued to the secret K1 research facility, to manufacture a weapon so terrifying to foreign nations that it would deter the use of any specialist weapons against the UK. But what if that weapon was too terrifying? What if the exercises, planned for use on animals, were so horrific that some of the researchers balked at the idea and began to rebel?This is the situation in Stephen F. Clegg's The Hallenbeck Echo where the impact of K1's appalling development continues up until 2007 and brings the police into direct conflict with MI5 as they try to uncover a horrific past which is governed by the Official Secrets Act until 2087. In Walmsfield, Lancashire, historic researcher Naomi Wilkes is asked to investigate the disappearance of a young woman. In London a strange bleeping is heard coming from behind the wall of a house that is being renovated.
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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.
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The German Iscariot
The German Iscariot........... ...............follows RAF pilot Martin Cohen’s escape from Menzenschwand German Prison Camp, taking him to the British Embassy in a neutral Switzerland intent on profit by financing the Wehrmacht war machine. Master of four languages and mentored by MI6, Martin is secreted at the Berne Embassy as an ‘illegal’, charged with investigating the disappearance of operatives from their ‘escape line’. There he uncovers fraud, rivalry and murder, just as the Russian victory at Stalingrad raises doubts on whether Germany will win. Frauleins interfere, brilliant detective work; Martin discovers that a Nazi convoy is to transfer looted gold from a Zurich to a Lucerne bank. He encourages the UK, Russian and US Ambassadors to unite and open a Second Front. The convoy is hi-jacked. Civilians are killed, and the Swiss President declares war on the UK. Colonel-General Strasser, (The German Iscariot) escapes death at the hi-jack; he plans vengeance and death to his enemies within and without the 3rd Reich.
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The Expatriates
It is 1966 and Mike Upjohn is offered a job with the Nassau Telegraph. What seems, at the outset, a wonderful posting soon turns into a complex of Bahamian culture tugging at the tail-end of colonialism. And stuck in the middle is Upjohn's new colleague, Poldi Stein. A budding author, Upjohn decides to put down his journal of the ensuing events in book form, covering Stein's descent from easy-going journalist and property owner to scandal-ridden westerner at odds with the changing balance of power.In The Expatriates, Henry Toledano weaves together a Rum Diary type cultural collision which fizzes along at quite a clip.
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