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The King's Fixer
Thomas Crookes, a depraved 15th century priest driven by an insatiable pursuit of power, resorts to murder and blackmail to rise within the medieval Church, itself rife with corruption maintaining its hold over the people by expounding the threat of hell-fire whilst tolerating iniquity and immorality in its own ranks.
Thomas, full of ambition, ingratiates himself with King Edward IV becoming his close confidant and fixer, thus thrusting him into machination and intrigue at the very heart of the kingdom.
This is medieval society in the raw with its bawdiness, brutality and violence brought to life in colourful detail. The bloody battles of Towton and Tewkesbury, the hunting, feasting, whore-houses, public executions, superstition and bustling markets all combine to make a gritty gripping story in an extremely evocative 15th century setting.
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The Kingdom of Watetu and Songaland
The Kingdom of Watetu and Songaland is an autobiographical story about Mpeki, the princess of the Watetu tribe who realised early that FGM in her tribe was wrong and who sought out to bring about a change, a journey that caused her and her loved ones a lot of pain, because the Watetu tribe practised FGM while the neighbouring tribe, the Songa, appreciated sexuality. The differences that their cultures represented brought about a clash after the prince of Songaland assisted Princess Mpeki to run off after she hindered the mutilation of her sister.
This started a rift between both tribes that resulted in the abduction of the prince of Songaland, and the princess’s sister, whose mutilation the princess had hindered, was bought back by the missionaries. The prince of Songaland ended in Portugal as a slave, making his father furious – reason for a war that lasted for two decades.
It was finally after the abolition of slavery worldwide that the prince of Songaland came back with Mpeki and the missionaries who had travelled with her to help her evade her own mutilation.
Upon the arrival of the prince, his father ordered him to leave the princess, claiming that she was cursed. In fact, the princess was not cursed as all had thought. It was through her sacrifices that the two tribes reunited, becoming one under the prince and princess’s rule in the new kingdom of Watetu and Songaland, a kingdom of peace, justice and harmony. The story ends with a bombastic marriage between the two tribes, the result of the eradication of FGM.
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The Kiss
Set in 1999 on the cusp of a new millennium, Emma Fogle is back living in London. Her interview at the Hadley Gallery Covent Garden goes well and she is soon ensconced in the art world. However, betrayed by the people she had trusted, she becomes out of her depth when ruthless art dealing and the theft of ‘The Kiss’ sketch, which had been on loan for authentication from an elderly Jewish gentleman, takes her friend Alice and ultimately herself to Vienna, Austria. There is hostility and danger in a background of fine art, beautiful architecture and wonderful hospitality. Emma’s belief in her friend’s safety and a strong sense of déjà vu leads the reader on a perilous journey across the Austrian border and into Hungary. Ridden with guilt over Alice’s disappearance, Emma blames herself for agreeing initially for her to have gone. But she knew in her heart that all that had ever mattered was the obsessive love she has for ‘The Kiss’ and its safe return.
When the church bells over Vienna strike midnight to herald the year 2000, will Emma get her desired wish?
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The Lamb Of God
England, the 1460s: the conflict known as the Wars of the Roses, pitting Lancastrian against Yorkist, is at its height. After his terrible experiences at the Battle of Towton and the siege of Bamburgh Castle, Philip Neville is tasked with finding and escorting the recently deposed Henry VI – a man so pious and kind-hearted that many call him ‘the lamb of God’ – to London. During the period of relative peace that follows, Philip, previously disappointed in love, is at last persuaded to take a wife and make his way at court but finds it difficult to rein in his belligerent and insubordinate nature.
Despite his burning hatred for the ambitious nobles who have profited from the war, Philip remains steadfastly loyal to the new king, Edward IV. However, that loyalty is tested as never before when the alliance between the two most powerful men in the country – King Edward and Richard Neville, known as ‘Warwick the Kingmaker’ – begins to fray…
The Lamb of God is the second book in Philip Photiou’s War of the Roses trilogy. The first, The Wrath of Kings, was praised by best-selling author Philippa Gregory for its ‘intense realism and wealth of period detail’: qualities that The Lamb of God displays on every page.£11.99 -
The Last Crucible
With the Union and the Confederacy locked in a vicious and shadowy war for supremacy, The Last Crucible tells the story of one man’s journey to escape it all. Caught in the middle of the chaos, former Union agent, John C. Rhodes, ends up on a brutal and bloody path of discovery. He is no hero, no saint, and no deliverer – just a bad man who unwillingly becomes the champion for good.
John must first contend with his greatest adversary: himself. And there is more to him and his past than he realizes. But the path ahead offers him no peace. John’s efforts to break free of the madness only draws him deeper into the endless war, and deeper into the shadows that he is trying to escape. Old allies become new enemies, and new friends become accomplices in what will be the trial of John’s life.
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The Last Epitaph
In a world ravaged by a religious war that has claimed the lives of billions, scientists race to find a solution in a top-secret lab. Patrick Jarborn is the last hope for humanity, but when the lab is overrun, he and his guardian Gloria must flee for survival. Along the way, they discover Sarah, another test subject with a crucial role in humanity’s future. Together, they embark on a perilous journey through a world they only know from books, facing unimaginable threats as they search for safety. As they navigate the crumbling ruins of civilization, Patrick and Sarah find solace in each other, and hope for a new era of peace. The Last Epitaph is a heart-wrenching tale of survival and the power of love in the face of humanity’s darkest hour.
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The Last Garden
Michael is now an old man, and he decides to grow a garden where none had grown before. As he does so, he looks back on his life and forward to his hopes and fears. Michael reminisces about his past, and he truly wonders if his life has answered the existential questions of why he is here and what the purpose of his life is. Michael is a survivor of life, and so he enjoys nourishing his garden and watching the survival of his plants. He wonders if there is somehow a connection between him creating this garden and his life: what, if anything, can this be? Read on and see what Michael learns as the year unfolds while he tends to his garden.
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The Last Grain of a Dandelion
Jon’s paradisiac world is soon to be destroyed as simply as a child puffing upon a perfect dandelion seed head.
It is set to be one of his life’s testing moments that we all have experienced at one time or another in our own lifetime.
Jon travels to all four corners of our globe, even to the moon. He encounters men, women, and children from all religions and all walks of life from the biggest city to the smallest remote village within less than one of Earth’s years. During this time Jon also coexists with every animal, insect and aquatic world teaching him our planet’s strengths and weakness. His unique knowledge and gift to be channelled to every living human being. Giving him a chance to choose, do and wish not only for ourselves but for another.
The questions remain.
What would you choose?
What would you do?
What would you wish?
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The Last Man
The author is trying to answer many questions that arise every day in the ordinary life of a human being. The main theme is world pandemics, which was a pretext for the depopulation of the planet. But the real story is far beyond that. The creation of the world we know and its inevitable end, which was sped up with the eternal temptation of the human, Being God (borrowed from Salvador Dali’s opera Être Dieu). Those who could not resist the temptation of being God took the fate of the world into their own hands and shaped it in their own image.
… We were born for them, we were educated for them, we lived for them, and we died for them. When they talked about freedom, they were actually talking about slavery. We were slaves, willing slaves, until we became useless eaters. They kept us alive as long as we were useful to them. When we became old jades, they let us out to graze on the poisonous grass. Those who resisted them were destroyed, declared insane, unfit, the worst enemies …
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The Last Wish
Tom isn’t anything to anyone, or at least he wasn’t until the dying wish of his father sent him on a seemingly impossible trek to find a lost wartime lover, unwittingly throwing Tom into a maelstrom of violence, death and romance. An exciting and sometimes humorous escapade which started when a bereaved son had nothing better to do.
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The Last Woman—A Novel of Rebirth
“The serpentine narrative of Kristen-Seraphim continues unabated as the youthful heroes must not only confront themselves and their past in a novel manner, but rebuild their team, half of whom are at first in utter ignorance of any of their once shared accomplishments, let alone the Earth as it is now at hand. Prepare yourself for a blistering ride that will send your imagination into orbit. But around which world?”
With both God and the Devil apparently merged and lost alike, the stunning relief felt by the now veteran half of the heroic community at the appearance of their comrades’ successors is instantly turned to anxiety and shock as Mary discovers she is inexplicably pregnant! By whom, or by what? And then again, who, or what kind of being is now developing before their very eyes? The new Kristen struggles under the weight of the feats of her predecessor and doubts Mike’s enduring love for her. Likewise, both Michelle and Kylie must come to terms with the tragic fates of their previous selves, but this too holds a bizarre twist. Yet their enemies have hardly given up. A continuous assault by anachronistic figures, the appearance of the Smythes’ interdimensional siblings and impossible events that seem to stop time itself all figure to unravel the gains made by the legendary team. The most hoped for and yet dreaded moment prompts their new leader to make for herself an oddly existential sacrifice and thus set the stage for what may be the final showdown with the liminalist forces.
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The Late Developer
Matthew Rawlings is back.
The ex-superintendent of CID cannot leave it alone and this time he is in very real danger – not just likely to get his fingers burnt, but a whole lot more. Unwittingly, he ventures into relationships which carry memories and confrontations equally in dangerous measure.
On a hill, a wild young man, jolted from his enjoyment and pleasure of first sex, comes face to face with shotguns which are loaded with death and menace. Matthew, his home town about to be savaged by a contentious major redevelopment, once again weakens to a cry for help.
As he is embroiled in a world of intrigue and danger, old colleagues wary of his motives question his involvement. Surviving the mystery until the bitter end takes courage and guile, which nearly fail him.
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