But when Tony disappears into thin air, Maggie's world collapses. Struggling on her own, Maggie cannot tell who her friends are, like Inspector Matthews, to whom Maggie is increasingly drawn.

    He brings this vibrant city's long and noble history alive through the ever-shifting fortunes, fates, and intrigues of half-a-dozen families, from the age of Julius Caesar to the 20th century. Generation after generation, these families embody the passion, struggle, wealth, and verve of the greatest city in the world.

    But as the Argentinian′s tale nears its startling conclusion, his audience is struck with horror at the possibility that Ramon′s clever invention is nothing more than the cunningly disguised chronicle of his own shadowy past.Is Ramon a gifted artist of the imagination or the perpetrator of a terrible act of revenge that defies all forgiveness?

    She has to adapt and make a home for her baby daughter and aging husband amidst boreholes, long drops and Aga stoves.She comes to terms with her neighbours, Joshua, a practising Sangoma, and Ben, a Jewish pig farmer; is educated in the ways of the Practical by her indomitable maid May; and comes of age through her determined efforts to create things of beauty amidst the khakibos - a lawn and poetry. She even restores the family fortune by engaging in a lucrative and uniquely South African venture.

    Much of Clementine’s care falls to their trusty Zulu companion, Joseph One-Shoe, and the unlikely pair form an unbreakable bond.When the two men uncover a large, flawless diamond, James believes he has finally secured their future, but the discovery of the priceless gem comes at a huge cost. A dark bargain is struck to do whatever it takes to return Clementine to a respectable life at the Grant family’s sprawling estate in northern England – while the diamond disappears.Years on, long-buried memories of Clementine's childhood in Africa and her beloved Joseph One-Shoe are triggered, as she questions who she can trust. To solve the mystery of what happened to her loved ones all those years ago, she must confront a painful history and finally bring justice to bear.From the harsh desert of Africa’s Kimberley diamond mine to the misty, green plains of northern England, The Diamond Hunter is a breathtaking adventure story about trust and betrayal, the ultimate quest for truth, and a love that is truly priceless.

     Catherine Howard, the Duke of Norfolk’s niece, is raised in the very free atmosphere of her grandmother’s palace. Here she becomes aware of her own sexuality and the exciting effect she has on the men at court around her. She is also an unknowing part of her uncle’s devious plan to obtain more influence with the king - he pushes her onto the newly-divorced and lovesick King Henry VIII who is looking for a fifth wife. Meanwhile, John Butcher has become a guard in the dreaded Tower of London. He guards the king, witnesses the executions of Anne Boleyn and Thomas More and takes part in the fighting in Ireland. However, when he returns to London, his meeting with Catherine Howard, the king’s fifth queen, produces unexpected and dramatic results. In D. Lawrence-Young’s second Tudor novel we learn how Catherine Howard’s passionate nature mixed with the murky, deadly politics of the Tudor court and a furious king produce a classic story of passionate love, disappointment and revenge on a royal scale.

    However, when Robert brings home a friend from medical school, Giles Kendall, it seems perhaps Pips might fall in love with an acceptable suitor after all. But the year is 1914 and the future is uncertain. Hearing that her father’s friend, Dr John Hazelwood, is forming a flying ambulance corps to take to the front lines, Pips is determined to become one of its nurses and asks Alice Dawson, her maid, to go with her. Robert and Giles offer their services as doctors, and Alice’s brother William joins them as a stretcher bearer. Nothing could have prepared them for the horrific sights they encounter. Moving their unit close to the fighting to offer first aid as quickly as possible puts them all in constant danger. But even amidst the barrage of shelling and gunfire, the unending stream of injured being brought to their post, the love between Pips and Giles survives and blossoms just like the poppies of Flanders fields.

    Contents: A city of the dead, a city of the living --At the rendezvous of victory --Letter from his father --Crimes of conscience --Sins of the third age --Blinder --Rags and bones --Terminal --A correspondence course --Something out there

    Porter Stockman, a smart and talented white reporter, finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time on the day a jury acquits four Los Angeles police officers of assaulting Rodney King.

    Fiction and Hist. Thrillers★★★★★ 4.7-Star Average Reader Review“...this is storytelling at its best...” -- Fortean Times Magazine“...poignant...heartening...insightful...” -- Kirkus ReviewsWith the rambling pioneers of blues music leading an unforgettable cast of characters, this raw, rousing and adventurous debut novel delivers a breathtaking view of life, livin’, love and hate in America in the 20th century, and the mysterious beginnings of the music that provided the soundtrack for it all...THE BLUES.In 1915, in a moonlit room in a boarding house in Texas, Charlie Patton -- the enigmatic inventor of blues music -- founds a shadowy alliance with Huddie ‘Lead Belly’ Ledbetter and Blind Lemon Jefferson. A pact is made, and the seeds of revolution are sown. Back at the Dockery Plantation in the Mississippi Delta, with the help of the likes of Son House, Howlin‘ Wolf, Robert Johnson, and others, Charlie’s plan spreads across the South, and then across the country. But these bluesmen have no way of knowing where this dangerous road will lead. Nor do they know the Ku Klux Klan is watching.In 2002, Franklyn O’Connor -- an adventurous and penniless youth -- sits at a lonely bar in the train station of his small upstate New York hometown holding a one-way ticket to the Crossroads in the Mississippi Delta. There he hopes to track down his deadbeat father, who walked out on his family when Frank was five. With nothing but his rucksack and the unsolicited assistance of a little old man called Furry Jenkins, Frank soon unwittingly drifts into the middle of a combustible racial feud at the intersection of a still divided society. A shocking truth waiting down the line.An adventurous and powerful novel about how, and more importantly why, from the cotton fields of Mississippi, blues music changed the world, and how the world changed one young man.

    84 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more – everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Enemy of God: A Novel of Arthur. This detailed literature summary also contains Topics for Discussion and a Free Quiz on Enemy of God: A Novel of Arthur by Bernard Cornwell.

    Each Anglo Saxon kingdom is overwhelmed in turn by ferocious, battle-hardened Viking warriors who can strike at a time and place of their choosing thanks to their famous longships. Viking armies have conquered Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia. Now they are coming for Wessex and the young king Alfred cannot even rely on his own nobles. Driven to the remote marshes in Somerset, Alfred must regroup his loyal supporters and organize the fight back. He finds some unlikely allies: two young Saxon nobles out for revenge and, above all, Constantinos, a Byzantine soldier and diplomat and his bodyguards who all find their own reasons to fight – and die – in someone else’s war.Viking Storm is the first in an action-packed trilogy that reveals just how narrowly England survived the Vikings, and why Alfred is the only English king known as ‘The Great’. ‘Julian Brazier has shone a light on the Dark Ages and given Alfred the Great the rip-roaring yarn he deserves. This generation has all but forgotten the astonishing achievements of the Saxon King, and how he saved England from a blood-crazed enemy - and re-founded the City of London. Viking Storm is a pacy and suspenseful blockbuster. Alfred lives!’ - Boris Johnson‘New recruits to the territorial army should perhaps consult a copy of Viking Storm, a racy new novel by Julian Brazier, for tips on how to behave under fire. Brazier displays an alarming flair for describing violent conquest’ – Sunday TimesEducated at Wellington and Oxford, Julian Brazier is the Member of Parliament for Canterbury and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Defence responsible for reserve forces. He served for thirteen years as an officer in the Territorial Army, including five years with the SAS Reserves. He is married with three children.Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.

    Take care. Be good." She has no knowledge of her name, her past, or even her species. It takes her a while to realize that she is human — and that the beings who threaten, befriend, and violate her are other people. Some of whom seem to know all about her.In this eerie, blackly funny, and sometimes disorienting novel, Martin Amis gives us a mystery that is as ambitious as it is intriguing, an investigation of a young woman's violent extinction that also traces her construction of a new and oddly innocent self.

    Germany has just declared war on France. Piet Barol, the handsome, irresistible figure of Mason's much-admired, sensuous" History of a Pleasure Seeker," is once again at the center of this ambitious, lush new novel. Barol, a European adventurer living as a poseur in South Africa's Cape Colony, navigates the turbulence and opportunities of this strange land in his blind quest for comfort and riches as thousands of black families have been turned out of their homes by a white government bent on confiscating 90% of the country for the exclusive use of Europeans.Piet and his wife have successfully, grandly lived a life for the past five years as colonials impersonating French aristocrats (the dazzling Vicomte and Vicomtesse Pierre de Barol of the Chateau de Barol on the banks of the Loire River), though in truth, he is Dutch and far from aristocratic and she is American and hardly of the railroad fortune family she so often and casually invokes. Both are wily, and both have large dreams. After years of supremely decadent living, Fortune, which has always favored Piet, has grown tired of him and the Barols' luck is about to run out. They are short of cash and on the verge of ruin.As one last grand effort they have embarked on a furniture business full of possibility. They need wood for the enterprise, and through Piet's charm and guile have come upon the source for their inventory that will make all of them rich. The wood is in a forbidden forest filled with sacred, untouchable trees of fine mahogany which Piet is sure he will be able to extract in exchange for beads and glass trickets. His pursuit of the bewitched trees of the fabled forest of Gwadana takes him deep into the Xhosa [pron. KO-sa] homelands, where unfailing charm, wit and the friendship of two black men are his only allies as he attempts an act of supreme audacity: to steal a forest from its rightful owners -- a Xhosa clan who know to be true that the spirits of their ancestors reside in their magical, ageless trees . . ."

    King Tut's father, Akenaten, the so-called 'heretic pharaoh,' and his wife, Queen Nefertiti, are on the verge of catapulting Egypt into a revolution that will forever divide its people and rip the most powerful empire on the earth from its foundation. Inspired by the actual Hittite and Amarna letters of 14th century BCE, 'Valley of the Kings: The 18th Dynasty' is an epic novel of intrigue, passion, and betrayal, resurrecting the thrilling story of a singular leader whose beliefs were both visionary and disastrous.