After finally tasting triumph with a blockbuster new show, celebration is on the cards. The drop-dead gorgeous man in the front row is merely a bonus.Thierry is the mysterious man who danced through one night of her life, then seemed determined to be forgotten. A keen theatregoer, and a nigh-irresistible face in the crowd, he shows Charlotte what dreams are truly made of, before vanishing completely.Now, Charlotte has a problem. She’s pregnant, and the idea of Thierry never finding out is unconscionable. She resolves to find him, no matter what it takes.Her journey will take her thousands of miles, to Europe, and a series of frustrating dead ends. In Italy, a conversation with a stranger brings disturbing revelations, leaving Charlotte to wonder if the man who stole her heart is indeed the sort of man she wants to be her baby’s father.Still no closer to finding her mystery lover, Charlotte is overwhelmed with terrifying questions. Namely, what did Thierry do that made him want to disappear? Is he really a royal? And will she ever find him, and tell him he’s a father?

    But her homes are havens where peace can be found, away from watchful eyes; sanctuaries of private calm in a whirlwind life of public duty. In The Queen’s Houses, Alan Titchmarsh takes us on a tour of the royal residences, examining the personal family stories behind these magnificent buildings. Through personal reflections, interviews with royal staff and meticulous historical research, Alan looks beyond the formal grandeur of Buckingham Palace, the imposing structure of Windsor Castle and the private escape offered by Balmoral and others. Illustrated with intimate family photographs and evocative memorabilia, The Queen’s Houses offers a glimpse of life behind the state banquets and sovereign duties – a respectful study of the royal family at home.

    And so he has decided to put his thoughts down on paper. In THE CROWN: TRUTH & FICTION, Vickers writes that he does not approve of THE CROWN because 'it depicts real life people in situations which are partly true and partly false, and unfortunately most viewers take it all as gospel truth.'  He accepts that fiction can be a device to illuminate true events, but points out that it can be used to create dangerous, and lasting, false impressions too. THE CROWN has been a highly successful series, watched with intense interest across the globe.  The settings and costumes are of high quality, the acting is good, and it all looks convincing.  Peter Morgan is an intelligent writer, author of the film THE QUEEN, and the stage production of THE AUDIENCE.  The real Queen has previously inspired great performances from actresses such as Prunella Scales and Helen Mirren, and Claire Foy portrays her beautifully. As Vickers writes, 'THE CROWN has done a great job in reminding a younger generation that the Queen and Prince Philip were once young themselves.' One of the devices used in Series 2 is to take two straightforward themes which did happen and clash them against each other to create something which did not.  For example, in Episode 8, yes, the Queen and Prince Philip entertained the Kennedys at Buckingham Palace (on 5 June 1961), and yes, the Queen visited Nkrumah in Ghana (between 9 and 20 November 1961), but the Queen did not go to Ghana for the trivial reason that she wished to pull one over on Mrs Kennedy – she went there to ensure that Ghana remained part of the Commonwealth. Much has been written about the massive budget for this series and the attention to detail.   THE CROWN: TRUTH & FICTION identifies quite a number of mistakes, especially in respect of Orders and decorations.  Having worked on films himself, Hugo Vickers knows how hard it is to make sure these details are correct, and how sometimes shortcuts have to be taken.  But it is not that difficult to get the details right, and so he points out some of these errors.  But these are trivial things in comparison to the things shown as having happened, when they did not. The cruelest and most undeserved victim of the series is Prince Philip, here portrayed as a fractious, bumptious Jack the Lad, very much the villain.  Watching the series, Hugo Vickers concludes that he failed to find the man who, in 1962, was advancing Anglo-German relations through remarks such as, ‘It may be difficult for people to see any virtue in forgiving one’s enemies, but let them reflect that it is much more likely to achieve a better future than stoking the fires of hatred and suspicion.’  This fictional Prince Philip is little more than a self-centred philanderer.  The real Prince Philip told his biographer, Tim Heald: ‘I certainly believe in the need for a “free” press, but there is a difference between freedom and licence and between the honest pursuit of the truth and the cynical pursuit of thoughtless – even vindictive sensationalism.’ THE CROWN: TRUTH & FICTION delivers a sharp message to filmwriters, producers, and their historical advisers: Fiction should help us understand the truth, not pervert it.

     Many of those most closely involved in cracking the Enigma code – Alistair Denniston, Frank Birch, Dilly Knox – had wrestled with German naval codes for most of the First World War. By the end of the war they had been successfully cracking a new code every day, from their secret Room 40 at the Old Admiralty Building, in a London blacked out for Zeppelin Raids. The techniques they developed then, the ideas that they came to rely on, the people they came to trust, had been developed the hard way, under intense pressure and absolute secrecy during the First World War. Operation Primrose Operation Primrose tells the story of the capture of U-110 – and with it a working Enigma machine. One of the biggest secrets of the war, the capture of that one machine turned the tide of the war. Turing and his colleagues at Bletchley Park worked tirelessly to crack the code, and with the working Enigma machine they finally had their break-through moment. This book sets the story, and the Enigma cryptographers, in context – at the heart of the Battle of the Atlantic, when it reached its crescendo in the pursuit of the battleship Bismarck the week after U110 was taken. It sets Bletchley Park in its wider context too, at the heart of an intricate and maverick network of naval intelligence, tracking signals and plotting them to divert convoys around waiting U-boats, involving officers like James Bond’s future creator, Ian Fleming. It also sets out the most important context of all, forgotten in so much of the Enigma history: that Britain’s own naval code had already been cracked, and its signals were being read, thanks to the efforts of Turing’s opposite number, the German naval cryptographer, Wilhelm Tranow. An exciting and enthralling true story ‘Operation Primrose’ is an excellently researched piece on the race for naval supremacy in the Second World War. Alan Turing Mathematician, philosopher, codebreaker. Turing was one of the most original thinkers of the last century - and the man whose work helped create the computer-driven world we now inhabit. But he was also an enigmatic figure, deeply reticent yet also strikingly naïve. Turing’s openness about his homosexuality at a time when it was an imprisonable offence ultimately led to his untimely death at the age of only forty-one. Alan Turing: Unlocking the Enigma seeks to find the man behind the science, illuminating the life of a person who is still a shadowy presence behind his brilliant achievements. Turing was instrumental in cracking the Nazi Enigma machines at the top secret code breaking establishment at Bletchley Park during the Second World War. But his achievements were to be tragically overshadowed by his supposedly subversive views and for his sexuality. Praise for David Boyle: ‘The tone of the book may be gloomy but there is plenty of entertainment value …’ - Anne Ashworth, The Times ‘Exhilarating’ - Daily Mail ‘He tells these stories, on the whole persuasively and with some startling asides.

    Read a succinct account of the life and reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in just one hour.Elizabeth II is the longest lived and, after Queen Victoria, second longest reigning monarch of the United Kingdom. From her coronation in 1953 to her Diamond Jubilee in 2012, Queen Elizabeth II has stood on the world stage as the figurehead for Britain.THE QUEEN: HISTORY IN AN HOUR tells the story of the Queen Elizabeth II’s life and long reign, her royal duties, service during the Second World War, public perception and the transformation of the British Empire into the Commonwealth of Nations under her rule. Essential reading for Royalists and Republicans alike.Love your history? Find out about the world with History in an Hour…

    “They are mistaken. I have not known you long, but I observe in you a natural dignity that cannot be learnt. To me, ma’am, you are every inch a Queen.”In 1837, less than a month after her eighteenth birthday, Alexandrina Victoria – sheltered, small in stature, and female – became Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Many thought it was preposterous: Alexandrina — Drina to her family — had always been tightly controlled by her mother and her household, and was surely too unprepossessing to hold the throne. Yet from the moment William IV died, the young Queen startled everyone: abandoning her hated first name in favor of Victoria; insisting, for the first time in her life, on sleeping in a room apart from her mother; resolute about meeting with her ministers alone.One of those ministers, Lord Melbourne, became Victoria’s private secretary. Perhaps he might have become more than that, except everyone argued she was destined to marry her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. But Victoria had met Albert as a child and found him stiff and critical: surely the last man she would want for a husband….Drawing on Victoria’s diaries as well as her own brilliant gifts for history and drama, Daisy Goodwin, author of the bestselling novels The American Heiress and The Fortune Hunter as well as creator and writer of the new PBS/Masterpiece drama Victoria, brings the young queen even more richly to life in this magnificent novel.

    Once the girls step inside the elegant building - surrounded by luxurious dresses and beautiful accessories - the hardships of their own lives are temporarily forgotten. Serving a variety of curious customers, from glamorous gypsy queens to genuine royalty and stuffy academics to the city's fashionable elite, the store is a place where these young women can forge successful careers, under the ever-watchful eye of flamboyant owner Mr Heyworth. Set against the backdrop of the closing years of the Second World War, and moving into the 1950s, The Shop Girls perfectly captures the camaraderie and friendship of four ambitious young women working together in a store that offered them an escape from the drudgery of their wartime childhoods. Each of the girls' stories will be individually published from July 2014 in fortnightly serialised ebooks, leading up to the release of the complete edition (with bonus material) in September.

    In Queen of Fashion, Caroline Weber shows how Marie Antoinette developed her reputation for fashionable excess, and explains through lively, illuminating new research the political controversies that her clothing provoked. Weber surveys Marie Antoinette's "Revolution in Dress," covering each phase of the queen's tumultuous life, beginning with the young girl, struggling to survive Versailles's rigid traditions of royal glamour (twelve-foot-wide hoopskirts, whalebone corsets that crushed her organs). As queen, Marie Antoinette used stunning, often extreme costumes to project an image of power and wage war against her enemies. Gradually, however, she began to lose her hold on the French when she started to adopt "unqueenly" outfits (the provocative chemise) that, surprisingly, would be adopted by the revolutionaries who executed her. Weber's queen is sublime, human, and surprising: a sometimes courageous monarch unwilling to allow others to determine her destiny. The paradox of her tragic story, according to Weber, is that fashion--the vehicle she used to secure her triumphs--was also the means of her undoing. Weber's book is not only a stylish and original addition to Marie Antoinette scholarship, but also a moving, revelatory reinterpretation of one of history's most controversial figures.

    They would establish a British colony, find gold, and discover a water route to Asia. But what awaited them was far different - fire, hunger, sickness, death, even cannibalism. Here, from the noted historian Marshall W. Fishwick, is the dramatic story of Jamestown and the struggle of its leader, Captain John Smith, who, with the help of Pocahontas, daughter of the Algonquian chief Powhatan, succeeded against all odds.

    There was Rosemary Leveson Gower, the girl he wanted to marry and who would have made the perfect match for a future king; the Prince’s long-term mistress, Freda Dudley Ward, who exerted a pull almost equal to Wallis over her lover, but abided by the rules of the game and knew she would never marry him. Then there was Thelma Furness, his twice-married American lover, who enjoyed a domestic life with him, but realised it could not last forever and demanded nothing more than to be his mistress.In each love affair, Edward behaved like a cross between a little boy lost and a spoilt child. Each one of the three women in this book could have changed the course of history. In examining their lives and impact on the heir to the throne, we question whether he ever really wanted to be king.

    Mike is called to investigate a series of burglaries, which are sending shock waves through the area. Remote farmhouses appear to be the targets, which stretches Mike's small team to the limits. Then, as winter sets in, two dogs are found running loose - Mike fears the owner has gone missing in the dreadful weather and is forced to call on a full-scale search. Throw in a night-time operation in an empty museum, and the harrowing business of taking three children into care against their mother's wishes, and it's quite a case-load for the author of Now Then, Lad, You're Coming With Me, Lad, Not On My Patch, Lad and Just the Job, Lad.

    George V, Wilhelm II and Nicholas II, known in the family as Georgie, Willy and Nicky, were cousins. Between them they ruled over half the world. They had been friends since childhood. But by July 1914 the Trade Union of Kings was falling apart. Each was blaming the other for the impending disaster of the First World War. 'Have I gone mad?' Nicky asked his wife Alix in St Petersburg, showing her another telegram from Willy. 'What on earth does William mean pretending that it still depends on me whether war is averted or not!' Behind the friendliness of family gatherings lurked family quarrels, which were often played out in public. Drawing widely on previously unpublished documents, this is the extraordinary story of their overlapping lives, conducted in palaces of unimaginable opulence, surrounded by flattery and political intrigue. And through it runs the question: to what extent were the King, the Kaiser and the Tsar responsible for the outbreak of the war, and, as it turned out, for the end of autocratic monarchy?

    Indeed, The Sunday Times described her letters as "wonderful . . . brimful of liveliness and irreverence, steeliness and sweetness."Now, in Counting One's Blessings, Shawcross has put together a selection of her letters, drawing on the vast wealth of material in the Royal Archives and at Glamis Castle. Queen Elizabeth was a prolific correspondent, from her early childhood before World War I to the very end of her long life at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and her letters offer readers a vivid insight into the real person behind the public face.

    For over 200 years, the route of the Vladimirka Road has been at the centre of the nation's history, having witnessed everything from the first human footsteps to the rise of Putin and his oil-rich oligarchy. Tsars, wars, famine and wealth: all have crossed and travelled this road, but no-one has ever told its story. In pursuit of the sights, sounds and voices both past and present, Jeremy Poolman travels the Vladimirka. Both epic and intimate, The Road of Bones is a record of his travels - but much more. It looks into the hearts and reveals the histories of those whose lives have been changed by what is known by many as simply The Greatest of Roads. This is a book about life and about death and about the strength of will it takes to celebrate the former while living in the shadow of the latter. Anecdotal and epic, The Road of Bones follows the author's journey along this road, into the past and back again. The book takes as its compass both the voices of history and those of today and draws a map of the cities and steppes of the Russian people's battered but ultimately indefatigable spirit.

    She was not part of Diana's social circle; she was not a family friend. That woman was Simone Simmons, a healer, who devoted herself to the troubled Princess.Simone formed a unique bond with Diana. They met almost everyday and spent hours on the telephone. Diana opened her heart and mind to Simone, who always told the Princess the unvarnished truth. No subject was taboo, and the two women discussed everything and anything, sharing laughter and tears over cups of chamomile tea. Since Diana appreciated and trusted her friend's candor, Simone got to know the Princess in a way no one else has ever done. With Simone, Diana felt confident enough to express her true self.In 1997, Diana told her friend she wanted her to write a book which revealed the truth about her, to "tell it like it is." This is that book. It is truly the last word.With her extraordinary insight into Diana's life, Simone captures the soul of the Princess and creates an intimate and rich portrait of one of the great icons of the 20th Century. In these pages, Simone describes how it really was: who among the royals was good to Diana and who was hateful; her need to be in love and to have an affair; her only fling--with John F. Kennedy, Jr.--at the Carlisle hotel; her real relationship with Paul Burrell; why she inflicted self-harm; how she wanted to move to New York or Los Angeles; how Mother Teresa hurt her; why her relationship with Dodi never would have ended in marriage; and her enduring love for Prince Charles.Though Diana was extremely insecure, with Simone's help and work she became strong and learned that she could heal others around her. DIANA--THE LAST WORD is the fascinating story of how she reached that point. It finally settles the unanswered questions of Diana's life and addresses the many revelations that have materialized since her death.