Sixty years later, Catherine Bailey became one of the first historians allowed inside. What she discovered when she began reading through the duke's letters was a mystery involving one of the most powerful families in British society in the turbulent days leading up to World War I. The 9th Duke, who had devoted his entire adult life to organizing and cataloging several hundred years' worth of family correspondence, had carefully erased three periods of his life from the record. But why? Filled with fascinating real-life characters, a mysterious death, family secrets, and affairs aplenty. The Secret Rooms is an enthralling, page-turning true story that reads like an Agatha Christie novel.

    Perfect for fans of Nancy Revell and Ellie Dean. In February, 1922, at the western-most entrance to Victoria Station in Manchester, a massive plaque was unveiled. Beneath a vast tiled map showing the lines of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway network, a series of seven bronze panels recorded the names of the men of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway who gave their lives for King and Country in the Great War – a total of 1,460 names.In March, 1940, a group of women of varying ages and backgrounds, stand in front of the memorial, ready to do their bit in this new World War..._________________________________________Mabel is determined to make a fresh start as a railway girl where no one will know the terrible thing she did and she can put her guilt behind her... Or is she just running away?Meanwhile Joan will never be as good as her sister, or so her Gran keeps telling her. A new job as a station clerk could be just the thing she needs to forget her troubles at home.And Dot is further into her forties than she cares to admit. Her beloved sons are away fighting and her husband – well, the less said about him the better. Ratty old sod. She is anxious to become a railway girl just like her dear mam – anything to feel she is supporting the sons she prays for every night. The three women start off as strangers, but soon form an unbreakable bond that will get them through the toughest of times...

    The intensive education that follows offers Henry a model for future excellence; a model that he is doomed to fail.On his accession, he chooses his brother’s widow, Caterina of Aragon, to be his queen. Together they plan to reinstate the glory of days of old and fill the royal nursery with boys.But when their first-born son dies at just a few months old, and subsequent babies are born dead or perish in the womb, the king’s golden dreams are tarnishedChristendom mocks the virile prince. Caterina’s fertile years are ending yet all he has is one useless living daughter, and a baseborn son.He needs a solution but stubborn to the end, Caterina refuses to step aside.As their relationship founders his eye is caught by a woman newly arrived from the French court. Her name is Anne Boleyn. A Matter of Conscience: The Aragon Years offers a unique first-person account of the ‘monster’ we love to hate and reveals a man on the edge; an amiable man made dangerous by his own impossible expectation.The story continues in A Matter of Faith : Book Two of The Henrician Chronicle.

    A collection of the fifth through eighth installments of Bernard Cornwell’s bestselling series chronicling the epic saga of the making of England, the basis for The Last Kingdom, the hit BBC America television series.This ebook collection includes The Burning Land, Death of Kings, The Pagan Lord, and The Empty Throne.

    

    No one forced her to do so. Yet she was compelled to this act by an irresistible force, drawing her on...Godgyfu of Mercia was a real woman, living in one of the most tumultuous and dangerous times in England's history. Born into wealth and privilege, she would die the year following the Battle of Hastings, and all her vast holdings be forfeit to the new Norman conquering king. Yet she did something which was never forgotten.Here is Ride, Godiva's own story, imagined by the author of the beloved Circle of Ceridwen Saga.

    With degrees in both Medicine and Law, at the age of seventeen, Clint still felt empty and dissatisfied. He struck up a bargain with his father, to be allowed four years to go West and see the lands, experience life, then return to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor in the family practice. When he boarded the train west with fifty thousand dollars set up in a bank account, Clint had no way of knowing just how much his life would turn in a completely different way.

    Meet the Air Raid Girls: three young women keen to do their bit during the Yorkshire blitz.Connie's life has taken an unexpected turn since her husband died - she's living at home and working in the family bakery - but night shifts as an ARP Warden give her a firm sense of purpose.Her younger sister Lizzie is eager to play her part too, perhaps as an ambulance driver. Her fiance refuses to support her decision... but does he really know what's best for her?Twenty-year-old Pamela has led a sheltered life, but when her family's home is destroyed in a raid she must learn to stand on her own two feet - helped by new friends.As bombs fall and fires rage, the young women face the destruction of everything they've ever known. Can their fighting spirit prevail? And what of their families and the men they love?A thrilling and heartwarming new story of friendship, love and duty in wartime by the author of The Spitfire Girls, for fans of Elaine Everest and Rosie Hendry.

    

     This is the story of the dramatic final 24 hours of the life of Anne Boleyn. The story is told in a compelling minute by minute countdown which ends with her final walk to the scaffold, and her beheading by the hangman of Calais' sword. The book describes the actions and thoughts of some the leading players during those final 24 hours including Thomas Cranmer, Chapuys, Jane Seymour, Lady Mary, Sir William Kingston, Thomas Wyatt and, of course, the three principle players... Henry VIII - what was he doing as the woman he moved heaven and earth to marry faced execution. Did he feel remorse? Did he feel hatred? Did he feel anything at all? Thomas Cromwell - widely accepted as the engineer behind the downfall of the queen. Did he feel guilt that even Chapuys was not convinced by the charges which sent Anne to her death? Anne Boleyn - just how did she manage to walk to the scaffold and address the the crowd so bravely? How did she cope with the continual postponement of the execution? And what did she think of the men that would send her to the grave? A new take on one of the most infamous days in English history ...the clock is ticking and, for the Queen of England, it cannot be stopped.

    Their dramatic lives are here unfolded in a rich historical biography certain to appeal to fans of Downton Abbey, ‘Georgiana’ and Stella Tillyard’s ‘Aristocrats’.Mary, Madeline and Pamela – the three Wyndham sisters – were painted by John Singer Sargent in 1899. For The Times it was, quite simply, ‘the greatest picture of modern times’. But these beautiful, fin de siecle gentlewomen came to epitomize a vanished world. The languor of their pose reflects the leisured, gilded, existence of the late Victorian aristocracy that was to be dealt a deathblow by the First World War.Yet the lives of these three Wyndham sisters were far more turbulent than their air of calm suggests. Brought up in artistic circles, their childhood was liberal and romantic. Their parents were intimate friends with the Pre-Raphaelites and the girls grew to become leaders of the aesthetic movement. Bowing to convention, they made excellent marriages but found emotional support from others – Mary with Arthur Balfour and the poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt; Pamela with Liberal statesman and ornithologist Edward Grey. Their liaisons shocked society, while the First World War devastated their way of life.‘Those Wild Wyndhams’ is their first ever biography, and is based on the many letters they have left behind – compelling, humorous and brilliantly illuminating. This sparkling debut by Claudia Renton captures them and their age in an unforgettable piece of historical and political biography.

    . . From birth, Polly Harper seems destined for tragedy. Raised by her loving grandparents on Paradise Farm she is unknowingly tangled in a web of secrecy regarding her parentage. When she falls in love with Tobias, the wealthy son of a local landowner of disrepute, her anxious grandparents send her to work in a dairy. There she becomes instantly drawn to the handsome Matt Dinsdale, propelling her further into the depths of forbidden romance and dark family secrets. But tragedy strikes, Polly is forced to confront her past and decide the fate of her future. Will she lose everything, or will she finally realize that her roots and love lie in Paradise?

    “Let the king know. Your servant kept his father’s sheep. There came a lion and a bear and took a lamb out of the flock. And when the lion arose against me, I caught the lion by his beard, and smote him, and slew him. I also slew the bear, my lord. This uncircumcised Philistine will be as one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God. The LORD God that delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear, He will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.”The king’s eyes closed. “I fear to send you, my son. I fear what the giant will do to you. You have yet to witness his great strength.” He hesitated. “But I do believe the LORD is with you. I pray that He is. Our honor, our nation, our lives rest upon you, my servant. Go, and Jehovah be with you.”David left the tent, but only Jonathan followed him. The king’s son walked over to a pole that bore a flag of challenge. It had lain unused on the ground for these past forty days, but now Jonathan hoisted it high and slammed the butt hard into the earth to steady it. The red flag waved defiantly in the small breeze of the late afternoon.A roar of approval rose from the ranks of Hebrew soldiers, and from the valley below, Goliath beheld the challenge flag and beat upon his breastplate in pleased battle lust. He shouted, “Come then! Send me a man that we may fight!”David took a deep breath, eyeing the monstrous giant. Then he bounded down the slope to meet his fate and fulfill the duty of his anointing.

    When war broke out, Nella's younger son joined the army while the rest of the family tried to adapt to civilian life. Writing each day for the "Mass Observation" project, Nella, a middle-aged housewife from the bombed town of Barrow, shows what people really felt during this time. This was the period in which she turned 50, saw her children leave home, and reviewed her life and her marriage - which she eventually compares to slavery. Her growing confidence as a result of her war work makes this a moving (though often comic) testimony, which, covering sex, death and fear of invasion, provides a new, unglamorised, female perspective on the war years. (For example, Nella writes :'Next to being a mother, I'd have loved to write books.' Oct 8, 1939.)

    He had imprisoned them in the caverns of Mt. Hemil. They who ravaged the city of Kushlam...The golden capital... The Gods spoke of a Prophecy then... And now it has come to pass. The dark enemy of yore rises. Only an incarnation of Lord Vishnu has the power to defeat and destroy the enemy of Kushlam. A farmer from Bamiyan, unaware of what destiny has in store for him, is pushed into circumstances beyond his control. Will he accept that he is the prophesised Avatar? Will he save Kushlam from its enemies and free the world from the fear of the trapped monsters who have found a way out of their infallible trap?