1497, Renaissance Rome: As the teenage daughter of Pope Alexander VI, Lucrezia Borgia is a young noblewoman immersed in all the glamor of the Vatican Palace. Yet after a brutal killing shocks the city, Lucrezia learns that a dark truth lies beneath the surface of the Papal Court: in their ruthless quest for power, her father and brother are willing to poison their enemies. Her family are murderers. After discovering that her new husband is next to die, Lucrezia struggles to help him escape from Rome before the assassins strike. Against a barrage of political intrigues, papal spies, and diabolical tricks, Lucrezia uses all her wits to defy her family and save her husband from assassination. But as tragedy looms ever closer, and her plans gradually fail, she finds herself confronting an enemy far more sinister than she ever imagined… INCLUDED INSIDE: - An exclusive excerpt of M. G. Scarsbrook's novel THE MARLOWE CONSPIRACY, an historical thriller set in Elizabethan England, featuring Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare teaming-up to expose a high-level government conspiracy!

     1950s Liverpool. Christmas is one of the most harrowing times of year for the nurses of St Angelus Hospital. The Matron takes on Tilly, a new clerk, to ease the load in the busy festive period. Tilly is bright and hard-working, but she is keeping a secret from her colleagues. Everyday Tilly makes a heartbreaking decision – but she has no other choice. If Matron – with her traditional values and strict discipline – learnt the truth about her new clerk, Tilly's career would be ruined. Could Matron ever forgive the deceit? 'Captivating, phenomenal and touching' 23 REVIEW STREET. 'A funny and sometimes shocking saga. I couldn't put it down' CRISTINA ODONE. 'The characters are engaging ... and the theme of the novel powerful' THE TIMES.

    And you'll be well-equipped to achieve your dreams!

    It's the first in the series to describe their events in the bloodthirsty combat of Indochina. Following the myths and legends about Nazis recruited by the French Foreign Legion to fight in Indochina, Eric Meyer's new book is based on the real story of one such former Waffen-SS man who lived to tell the tale. The Legion recruited widely from soldiers left unemployed and homeless by the defeat of Germany in 1945. They offered a new identity and passport to men who could bring their fighting abilities to the jungles and rice paddies of what was to become Vietnam. These were ruthless, trained killers, brutalised by the war on the Eastern Front, their killing skills honed to a razor's edge. They found their true home in Indochina, where they fought and became a byword for brutal military efficiency.

    Written in the mystical tradition of the Sufi poets, this book recounts the odyssey of the human soul as it travels from the world of creation to the sphere of the absolute, its ultimate goal being reunion with God.

      Amelia - 1942: The inside of my closet held the last bit of my freedom before I was torn from my home and shoved onto a dark train. Our destination was even darker. “Women and children to the right. Men to the left,” they shouted at us. Everything was taken from me, leaving only the smoke filled air, piercing screams, and soul-burning cries.   I was slowly starved and weakened to the bone, but there was a man — a Nazi — who brought me extra food. He called himself a prisoner too, but he scared me, and I wondered if he was the enemy I should fear the most. Emma - Current Day: My grandmother hid her past in an old diary under her bed. The tattered, brown leather book sat there for years until she asked me to find it and read her unspoken words. Now, her stories and secrets are consuming every moment of my life.   She’s dying ... and asking for a man no one in our family has ever heard of.   I never imagined a hand-written book could change my entire life, but it has. It opened my eyes to a new beginning, and I learned that love is not the unsaid word my grandmother has refused to speak. It’s an action — it’s longevity, taboo and sometimes forbidden. Do we fight for what’s wrong, or do we spend our lives searching for what’s right?   Last words were never spoken because love doesn’t stop until a heart is no longer beating.

    It is an age of ruthless rulers, divided churches, fractured dynasties and intrepid traders. It is an age of great cities like Venice and Constantinople; an age of conquerors like Tamerlane who will drown the world in blood; an age when only a hero of exceptional gifts can make a difference.Luke Magoris is that hero. Born the son of one of the Varangian guards who had sworn to keep the secret relic safe, he will find himself committed to a long journey to discover – and try to avoid – his destiny. He will travel from battle to trading fortune, from horse dealing to captivity, and to the love of three very different women and the unrelenting enmity of two remarkable men.The Walls of Byzantium is the first of a series that will leave you impatient and longing for the next.

    

    Rebecca was only eight years old. The killer has never been caught. Growing up, Rebecca vowed that one day she would track him down and make him pay. Now Rebecca is a young police woman in Ontario. She wants to become a homicide detective. Her first investigation is the cold case of a woman who vanished for 16 days and then was found dead in her own home. The brutal crime shocks the remote Canadian town of Conroy. The puzzling case has uncanny similarities to the murder of Rebecca’s mother. Both victims were found strangled in their own kitchens. Can Rebecca keep her emotions together as she closes in on a killer with connections to her family and tragic past? And will she finally get justice for her mother?

    Frustrated by the constraints of his class and station, he sees an opportunity to escape when he by chance meets Charles Booth, author of one of the most comprehensive social surveys of London ever undertaken. But this auspicious encounter has tragic consequences for George who, within six months, is charged with the murder of a young woman. But did he do it?Set at the dawning of a new century, when the rigid class and gender boundaries of the Victorian age were soon to shift and realign, Birdcage Walk is a historical novel that vividly brings to life a real-life Edwardian murder and the possible miscarriage of justice that followed it.

    Determined to give her daughter a better life than the one she herself has lived, the young mother vows to break the newborn’s bonds of poverty and ensure that she fulfills her destiny—to dance with kings. Purely by chance, a drunken nobleman witnesses the birth and makes a reckless promise to return for Marguerite in seventeen years. With those fateful words, events are set into motion that will span three monarchies, affecting the lives of four generations of women.Marguerite becomes part of the royal court of the Sun King, but her fairy-tale existence is torn out from under her by a change of political winds. Jasmin, Marguerite’s daughter, is born to the life of privilege her grandmother dreamed of, but tempts fate by daring to catch the eye of the king. Violette, Marguerite’s granddaughter, is drawn to the nefarious side of life among the nobles at Versailles. And Rose, Violette’s daughter, becomes a lady-in-waiting and confidante to Marie Antoinette. Through Rose, a love lost generations before will come full circle, even as the ground beneath Versailles begins to rumble with the chaos of the coming revolution.An epic generational tale of loves lost, promises kept, dreams broken, and monarchies shattered, To Dance with Kings is a story of passion and privilege, humble beginnings and limitless ambition.

    Framed for the atrocity, former soldier Danny Whelan goes on the run, now Europe’s most wanted man.The plot is underway, the target Britain itself.As the dead are buried and a new government takes power, both Bryce and Whelan realise they have become pawns in a vast conspiracy, one that intends to crush a rebellious Britain and throw open the gates of Europe.And if they are to survive the coup, Bryce and Whelan must stay one step ahead of their enemies, led by a ruthless British politician determined to see them both dead…And Britain transformed for all time.

    He was a city boy, unsure of what lay ahead. When he entered the forest, which would go on to become one of the last strongholds of wild tigers, it had a profound effect on him, changing his life forever.For the next forty years, he studied nearly 200 Ranthambhore tigers, spending every waking moment in close proximity to these magnificent animals. Of the various tigers he observed a handful became extra special, and it is these which come to glorious life in this book. They include Padmini, the Queen Mother, the first tiger the author got to know well; Genghis, the master predator, who invented a way of killing prey in water, the first time this had been observed anywhere in the world; Noon, one of his all-time favourites, who received her name because she was most active in the middle of the day; Broken Tooth, an exceptionally gentle male; Laxmi, a devoted mother, whose methods of raising her cubs revolutionized tiger studies; Machli, the most famous tigress in Ranthambhore, and several more.

    King Ethelred lies dying and the England he knew dies with him; the warring kingdoms of Mercia, Wessex and Northymbria tremble on the brink of great change. One man lives to bear witness to the upheaval: Godwin, barely out of boyhood and destined to become one of his country’s great warriors.When Ethelred’s son Edmund takes the throne, determined to succeed where his father failed, he plucks Godwin from domestic peace to be right-hand man in his loyal shield wall. Godwin must traverse the meadows, wintry forests and fogbound marshes of Saxon England, raising armies of monks, ploughmen and shepherds against the Viking invader. With epic courage and ferocity, Godwin and Edmund repel the butchering Danes in three great battles. But an old enemy, the treacherous Earl Eadric, dogs Godwin’s footsteps, and as the final battle approaches, around the valiant English the trap begins to close.

    His normal life consists of being beaten up by his drunkard father or bullied by the village lads. But at the annual suitability tests for apprenticeships, the young boy finds himself selected by Falk, the guardian of the forest, to be his apprentice and his world is turned upside down. From his new master he learns the skills of archery and how to fight the Dark Ones. And then, on the day of the Spring Ceremony there is another unexpected turn of events. He touches the Stone of the Gods and it illuminates for the first time ever. It isn’t long before a cantankerous wizard turns up and urges Falk and Ahren into action. There is no time to waste, for something evil is awakening. The unlikely trio begin their dangerous journey to Evergreen, the elfish kingdom to get the elves’ help. But time is running out. HE, WHO FORCES has his eyes trained on Ahren and nothing will stop him from destroying the young man. Let yourself be swept into the fantastic world of Jorath by diving into AHREN, THE THIRTEENTH PALADIN (volume 1). For all fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s THE LORD OF THE RINGS and David Edding’s BELGARIAD.