He only stops travelling when he reaches Kent and there his life is dramatically altered, when he is adopted by a loving old lady and her roguish son Tom.

    Following the life of an abandoned 13 year old who by chance is instrumental in saving a family from robbery and worse. Taken in by the naval Captain Bowers he is placed as a midshipman in his benefactor’s ship. From that time onward with the increasing demands of the conflict with France, Martin Forrest grows up fast. The relationship with his benefactors family is formalized when he is adopted by them and has a home once more. Romance with Jennifer the Captain’s ward links him ever closer to the family. Meanwhile he serves in the West Indies where good fortune results in his gaining considerable wealth personally. With promotion and command he is able to marry and reclaim his birth-right, stolen from him by his step-mother and her lover. The mysterious (call me merely Mr. Smith) involves Martin in more activity in the shadowy world of spies and secret agents. Mainly a question of infiltrating and extricating agents, his involvement becomes more complex as time goes on. A cruise to India consolidates his position and rank with the successful capture of prizes when returning convoying East-Indiamen. His rise to Post rank is followed by a series of events, that sadly culminate in family tragedy. Though still young Martin Forrest-Bowers faces and empty future, yet the mysterious merely Mr. Smith has requested his service. Why does the spymaster require of him, and what lies ahead?

    May 1813. Under covering fire from their navy on Lake Ontario, U.S. troops storm ashore at Niagara. Captain John MacLea and his reformed company of militia fight desperately but they and the other defenders are overwhelmed and forced to retreat.The American force is mightier than it has ever been, spearheaded by Colonel Peter Beauregard, a ruthless spy-master, and James Boydell, a Canadian captain, former friend of MacLea's, and traitor to his country.As the invading army closes in, and with no time left, the hope of an entire army, and all of its men, rests on the shoulders of the most unexpected of people. Failure is not an option. They must succeed, or face total defeat. A brutal, moving action-adventure thriller, steeped in intricate historical research, perfect for fans of Adrian Goldsworthy, Bernard Cornwell and Simon Scarrow.

    Now, she must learn to survive.Forced to be both mother and father to her siblings after Ada’s mother turns to gin, and no longer able to scour the banks of the Thames as mudlarks, Ada turns to picking up cigarette butts from the filthy streets and repurposing the tobacco into a saleable item.Assisted by Elijah the son of a stonemason the Blair family manages to keep a roof over their heads, until their mother’s addiction spirals out of control and they find themselves out on the street.Desperate for safety, Ada takes a risk and is befriended by the well to do Mr Beauregard. But not all things are as they seem and soon Ada is torn from her family and thrown into a world of corruption she could not have imagined.When a chance meeting with Elijah reveals the truth, Ada’s life is at a crossroadsCan Ada leave behind the new life she now finds herself in? Will Elijah ever forgive her for what she has become? Or should Ada let the past remain behind and leave her family in peace.Nell Harte writes sweet and clean Historical Romance.

    

    A collector of classic art and fine wine, Michael's business has provided him with a very good life.But Michael also has a secret. One that could cost him everything if discovered. With the aid of Marlin, a former CIA case officer and his longtime mentor, Michael operates a clandestine organization that protects his company from a global network of intellectual-property pirates who want what he has, even if they have to kill to get it. Together, the two men use whatever means necessary to defend what Michael has spent his life building.Because of his very dangerous life, Michael has forbidden himself from ever getting too close to anyone. That is, until he meets Caitlin Doyle, a beautiful, intelligent, and politically connected campaign strategist working on the upcoming presidential election. While on a weekend vacation to the mountains, Michael and Caitlin come under attack by a group of hired assassins. Barely escaping the sudden, brutal, and well-orchestrated assault, Michael must respond against a powerful and unknown enemy in ways that test his courage and beliefs like never before. With merely a blurred photo of a man's hand to go on, Michael wages a battle that circles the globe – all to hunt down the men who invaded his perfect life.Set against the contrasting worlds of high technology, politics, and espionage, The Archangel Response moves quickly from a defiled Russian monastery to an exploding supertanker in Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor, through the corrupt halls of government in Washington DC to Spain's Running of the Bulls.Ending in a violent confrontation that could cost Michael everything he's worked for, and even the woman he loves, The Archangel Response is a pulse-pounding thriller from first-time author Kevin Harmon that will leave readers shocked and emotionally moved.

    Sicily, 1862. In the newly united Italy, Judge Surra arrives in Montelusa to take charge of the local court, in a town where conflict has been kind to a select few. At first, Surra is baffled by the quaint local customs: cryptic anonymous notes, mutterings in the street, tasty - if tasteless - gifts of disembodied animal heads. However, buoyed by his twin passions for justice and fine dining, Surra is determined to settle into island life, no matter who stands in his way. Distilling his customary humour and tension into this miniature masterpiece, Andrea Camilleri casts an ironic eye on the corruption and charm of a turbulent small town, testing his naïve but noble hero against the darkest arts of the Mafia.This story is available in print as a part of the collection Judges, published by MacLehose Press.

    Ryan is a fifteen-year-old drug dealer desperate not to turn out like his alcoholic father Tony, whose obsession with his unhinged next-door neighbour threatens to ruin him and his family. Georgie is a prostitute whose willingness to feign a religious conversion has dangerous repercussions, while Maureen, the accidental murderer, has returned to Cork after forty years in exile to discover that Jimmy, the son she was forced to give up years before, has grown into the most fearsome gangster in the city. In seeking atonement for the murder and a multitude of other perceived sins, Maureen threatens to destroy everything her son has worked so hard for, while her actions risk bringing the intertwined lives of the Irish underworld into the spotlight . . .Biting, moving and darkly funny, The Glorious Heresies explores salvation, shame and the legacy of Ireland's twentieth-century attitudes to sex and family.

    Gulliver’s Travels is, of course, his world renowned masterpiece in the genre; however, Swift wrote other, shorter works that also offer excellent evidence of his inspired lampoonery. Perhaps the most famous of these is A Modest Proposal, in which he straight-facedly suggests that Ireland could solve its hunger problems by using its children for food. Also included in this collection are The Battle of Books, A Meditation upon a Broomstick, A Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operations of the Spirit and An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity in England.This inexpensive edition will certainly be welcomed by teachers and students of English literature, but its appeal extends to any reader who delights in watching a master satirist wield words as weapons.

    Spanning the centuries from the first wars of the ancient Irish kings through the Celtic Renaissance of Yeats to our own time, they are set in cities, villages, fields and forestsfrom the wild Gaelic western coast to the modern streets of Dublin and Belfast.Part of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

    "A highly ambitious, engaging, and evocative novel and a hauntingly captivating read." -The Sunday IndependentWhat happens when a woman is haunted by the sins of her foremothers–and the men who betrayed them?Facing the birth of her child, and single motherhood, Jo Devereux has spent the last six months in Mucknamore, the Irish village she fled twenty years ago.A trunk of letters and diaries left by her grandmother and great-aunt has revealed a heartbreaking legacy of bitter secrets that have haunted the women of her family for four generations.Now she must find out the ultimate truth: What other secrets and lies lie under her mother’s and grandmother’s unshakeable silence? How does it connect with her failed life as a gender-bending agony aunt in San Franciso? And what of Rory… her lost love, son of her family’s sworn enemies?Will Jo’s mission to uncover the past unlock a possible future together? Or are they about to lose everything all over again?As she pieces together the poisonous fragments of the past, Jo must now face into the guilt and shame that were her legacy and see how she might best redeem them in her own life.

    In Danielle McLaughlin’s stories, the world is both beautiful and alien. Men and women negotiate their surroundings as a tourist might navigate a distant country: watchfully, with a mixture of wonder and apprehension. Here are characters living lives in translation, ever at the mercy of distortions and misunderstandings, striving to make sense both of the spaces they inhabit and of the people they share them with.

    Rich with magic and achingly beautiful, they speak of a land of heroic battles, intense love and warrior ideals, in which the otherworld is explored and men mingle freely with the gods. From the vivid adventures of the great Celtic hero Cu Chulaind, to the stunning 'Exile of the Sons of Uisliu' - a tale of treachery, honour and romance - these are masterpieces of passion and vitality, and form the foundation for the Irish literary tradition: a mythic legacy that was a powerful influence on the work of Yeats, Synge and Joyce.

    Can you imagine Draupadi in a Brothel house? How did she end there and who is responsible for that? Read this short story to meet her and know about her life.

    Meet the man who vacuums bewildered prairie dogs out of their burrows; a frustrated werewolf who roams the streets of Soho getting mistaken for Brian Blessed; a smug carbon-neutral eco-couple; a teenage girl who invites 45,000 MySpace friends to a house party; the author of a business book entitled Highly Successful Secrets to Standing on a Corner Holding Up a Golf Sale Sign and a man whose attempts to teach softball to a group of indolent British advertising executives sparks an international crisis.