But it is there she is given a chance: for a brief, magical interlude in her otherwise harsh existence Amy finds joy in her new position as a lady’s maid. It seems as though her future might finally be assured. But Amy's introduction to the glittering Warminster family comes with its price: it's not long before Amy loses her innocence, and in the most cruel way imaginable. Subsequently caught in a horrid feud between a father and son, she is trapped between the pull of love and duty.Betrayed and alone, Amy is left facing a heartbreaking choice… A poignant and passionate love story from the author of Song of Songs, this is perfect for fans of Diney Costeloe and Margaret Dickinson. Praise for Roses Have Thorns “Good, long, satisfying… full of detail and good characterisation” Bella

    Many of the city's lawyers, businessmen, and other professionals were black, as were all the tradesmen and stevedores. The black community outnumbered the white community by more than two to one. But the white civic leaders, many descended from the antebellum aristocracy, did not consider this progress. They looked around and saw working class white citizens out of jobs. They heard black citizens addressing white neighbors "in the familiar." They hated the fact that local government was run by Republican "Fusionists" sympathetic to the black majority. Rumors began to fly. The newspaper office turned into an arsenal. Secret societies espousing white supremacy were formed. Isolated incidents occurred: a shot was fired through a streetcar bearing white passengers, a black cemetery was desecrated. This incendiary atmosphere was inflamed further by public speeches from an ex-Confederate colonel and a firebrand black preacher. One morning in November, the almost inevitable gunfire began. By the time order was restored, many of the city's most visible black leaders had been literally put on trains and told to leave town, hundreds of black citizens were forced to hide out in the city's cemetery or the nearby swamps to avoid massacre, and dozens of victims lay dead. Based on actual events, Cape Fear Rising tells a story of one city's racial nightmare--a nightmare that was repeated throughout the South at the turn of the century. Although told as fiction, the core of this novel strikes at the heart of racial strife in America.Philip Gerard is the author of five novels and eight books of nonfiction, including Down the Wild Cape Fear: A River Journey Through the Heart of North Carolina and The Patron Saint of Dreams, winner of the 2012 North American Gold Medal in Essay/Creative Nonfiction from The Independent Publisher."[A] complex and convincing . . . story [that] smartly limns the tangled combination of economic, social and visceral elements that led Wilmington to violence . . . " --Publishers Weekly

    She's the one growing up in the mad family, in the mad society, who doesn't want to know what's going on. But things are going on: eight-year-olds collecting very peculiar treasure; babies who might be, or might not be, bombs; schoolgirls bringing guns into schoolyards; and, of course, lots of food and bad, bad sex.If Amelia is to live she needs to change. Can she, though, in a place where people don't know how to look after themselves, and so wouldn't know how to look after one another?The shattering and darkly funny debut novel from the author of Milkman, winner of the Man Booker Prize.

    Well, what if you don’t have no people? Or any you know of? What then? Are you doomed?” This is the nagging question of fifteen-year-old Nell’s life. Born with a cleft palate and left a foundling on the doorstep of a convent, she yearns to know her mother, whose name, she knows, was Jane.When the Mother Superior tries to pawn her off to a mean looking farmer and his beaten down wife, Nell opts for the only alternative she can see: she runs away. A chance encounter with a dime novel exhorting the exploits of Calamity Jane, heroine of the west, gives Nell the purpose of her life: to find Calamity Jane, who Nell is convinced is her mother.Her quest takes her down rivers, up rivers and across the Badlands to Deadwood, South Dakota and introduces her to Soot, a big, lovable black dog, and Jeremy Chatterfield, a handsome young Englishman who isn’t particular about how he makes his way, as long as he doesn't have to work for it. Together they trek across the country meeting characters as wonderful and bizarre as the adventure they seek, learning about themselves and the world along the way.

    A captain during the Revolutionary War, Boone faces court-martial and hanging for such high crimes as betraying his command to the Indians, conspiring to surrender Boonesborough, consorting with the enemy, and accepting favors from the British. And Boone pleads guilty to all of the actions detailed in the charges against him. But he also pleads not guilty to the charge of treason, and to the amazement of the court, he insists on defending himself - disregarding the advice of experienced counsel in favor of a plan only he himself knows. Strong, seemingly irrefutable evidence is added to the prosecution's case with each witness. To a man, they corraborate the capture of Boone and his company by Shawnee Indians, Boone's preferential treatment in the Indian camp.

    Roger Wing is pledging his martial skills to the service of the Lord, but it isn't helping him win over the prettiest girl in the Youth for Christ Mission.

    Marks the seasons of the author's life, her early writing, her work as active media practitioner, and her religio-spiritual writing.

    But he was one of the lucky ones.Returning home, he is reassured to find that things are just the same: the smell of the wharves and warehouses in Tooley Street; the usual hubbub in Dawson Street, where aproned figures stand in doorways discussing the war; the men down The Globe; the children playing tin-can copper in the gutters. And at number 26, Danny's family crowd round to welcome their beloved son home. But, scarred in mind as well as body, Danny is to realise that things have changed.Unable to do heavy work because of his war wounds he must adjust to a different way of life. And, worst of all, his childhood sweetheart, Kathy, didn't wait for him ...

    The tussle between the father and the son was the most poignant and pathetic stories of their lives. Gandhi,who was busy attending meetings and conferences where the fate of forty crore Indians was to be decided, would often find headlines in a newspaper screaming 'Police arrested drunk Harilal for creating a scene on the road'. And sometimes, Harilal himself from the dias of the fundamentalist Muslim organization's meeting - 'I shall continue fighting till Ba and Bapu embrace Islam.'In this book the author tries to make an ardent effort to understand yet another enigmatic facet of human life.

    As a postgraduate she moved to London and worked as a researcher at Amnesty International among other jobs. She started writing the Harry Potter series during a delayed Manchester to London King’s Cross train journey, and during the next five years, outlined the plots for each book and began writing the first novel.Jo then moved to northern Portugal, where she taught English as a foreign language. She married in October 1992 and gave birth to a daughter in 1993. When the marriage ended, she and Jessica returned to the UK to live in Edinburgh, where Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone was eventually completed. The book was first published by Bloomsbury Children’s Books in June 1997, under the name J K Rowling. The “K”, for Kathleen, her paternal grandmother’s name was added at her publisher’s request who thought that a woman’s name would not appeal to the target audience of young boys.The second title in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in July 1998 and was No. 1 in the adult hardback bestseller charts for a month after publication. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was published on 8th July 1999 to worldwide acclaim and spent four weeks at No.1 in the UK adult hardback bestseller charts. The fourth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published on 8th July 2000 with a record first print run of 1 million copies for the UK. It quickly broke all records for the greatest number of books sold on the first day of publication in the UK. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, was published in Britain, the USA, Canada and Australia on 21st June 2003 and broke the records set by Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire as the fastest selling book in history. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was published in the UK, US and other English-speaking countries on 16th July 2005 and also achieved record sales.The seventh and final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published in the UK, US and other English speaking countries in 2007. J K Rowling has also written two small volumes, which appear as the titles of Harry’s school books within the novels. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through The Ages were published in March 2001 in aid of Comic Relief. In December 2008, The Tales of Beedle the Bard was published in aid of the Children’s High Level Group (now Lumos).As well as an OBE for services to children’s literature, J.K. Rowling is the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees including the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord, France’s Légion d’Honneur, and the Hans Christian Andersen Award, and she has been a Commencement Speaker at Harvard University USA. She supports a wide number of charitable causes through her charitable trust Volant, and is the founder of Lumos, a charity working to transform the lives of disadvantaged children.J.K. Rowling lives in Edinburgh with her husband and three children.

    Here, historian Alexander Ivanov reveals their fears and betrayals, privilege and debauchery, conspiracies and rivalries, love and tragedy as they forged Russia into one of the world's greatest empires. No ruler in history has embodied the oppressive domination of these rulers more vividly than Alexander Ivanov's opening subject, Tsar Ivan IV, the first of all the Russian tsars, known to history as Ivan the Terrible. Although a gifted ruler who did much to unite and improve the conditions in his primitive country, Ivan was also a notorious sadist who delighted in torturing and murdering anyone who displeased him. Ivan's death in 1584 ushered in the Time of Troubles, thirty-five years of famine, plague, and war that crippled the nation. A series of rulers attempted to cope with the devastation, beginning with Ivan's successor Boris Godunov. Finally, grasping for stability, Russia's nobles begged young Michael Romanov, the great-nephew of Ivan's beloved wife Anastasia, to take the throne. Michael successfully united the war-torn and ravaged nation and founded a dynasty that would rule for 300 years. The Romanov line produced Russia's most brilliant yet most unconventional sovereign: Peter the Great, a towering figure of a man whose restless, creative mind led him on an inexorable quest to modernize and civilize the still backward nation. The reforms he enacted so enraged nobles and peasants alike that Peter had to quash a series of rebellions to keep his crown. Ruthlessly stifling dissent and massacring rebels, he ultimately cowed the Russian people into submission, achieving a legacy that nearly equaled his ambitions. It was left to a woman - and a foreigner, at that - to lead the nation further out of the darkness. German princess Sophie Friederike Auguste of Anhalt-Zerbst, known to the world as Catherine the Great, absorbed the principles of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and applied them to a country built on the backs of millions of serfs. However ineffective some of her policies, in the end, she made Russia a major player on the European stage. Serfdom was finally abolished in the nineteenth century, but it would be decades before Russian peasants could own land of their own and learn to farm it productively. The boyars and tsars clung to power until the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. The sad fate of the last tsar, Nicholas II, and his family, marked the end of the absolute power that Ivan the Terrible had so exploited. The abuses would continue but under a new and drastically different form of government.

    Eighteen-year-old twins Marie and Vesta Haskins work at the local shoe factory to bring in a few pennies for the family, but they've never given up on their dream of treading the boards in the West End. When a brand new East End club opens its doors, the girls audition for the show and are over the moon to land two nights a week with their cabaret act. But little do they realise that the villainous Scoresby brothers are using the club as a front for a very different line of business.Seeing what is going on behind the smoke and lights of the stage, sensible Marie vows to leave her job at the club before it is too late, but headstrong Vesta has fallen for the Scoresby's handsome right-hand man, Teddy, and unwittingly leads her whole family into the Scoresby's clutches. Will Marie be able to save her family from disaster? Or will Vesta's determination to become a star tear the Haskins family apart?

    But when the Blitz reaches Manchester, she is locked in the cellar by her feckless mother, Lizzie. As bombs rain down from a sky turned blood red with flame, Jess waits for Lizzie to return.But fortunes are fickle, and soon Jess finds herself packed off to live with her tyrant Uncle Bernie, a bullying black marketeer. Though he treats her like a servant, she seeks refuge in the Sally Army and her natural musical talent offers both an escape route and the chance for love.But Uncle Bernie never forgives his niece for refusing to join his illegal schemes and threatens to deprive Jess of her hard-won freedom once and for all. This is a sweeping saga of hope and resilience perfect for fans of Kitty Neale and Rosie Goodwin. Praise for Dancing on Deansgate ‘A heart-wrenching story’ 5* Reader review‘It drew me in straight away’ 5* Reader review‘Another gem from a great writer’ 5* Reader review‘A compelling story of separation and hardship, and heartache overcome at last’ 5* Reader review

    They lost. They lived. In the small Yorkshire town of Cottenly - dominated by the steel works and surrounded by beautiful countryside - Isaac Stanford lives with his wife Emily and their three lovely daughters, known locally as the Stanford lasses. Alice, the eldest, lives only for her work as a secretary and chapel on Sunday. Fair and loving Lizzie is content with her job making umbrellas - until she falls in love with George Crossman and all she desires is to be a wife and mother. And headstrong Ruth, the merry one, is intent upon marrying handsome charmer, Walter Wray, despite warnings from friends and family. Already emotionally damaged by a traumatic childhood, Alice struggles to lead a normal life. Poor but happy with her ever increasing family, with the onset of war, Lizzie faces the threat of losing all she holds dear. And Ruth soon realises she has made a terrible mistake in her marriage as she becomes trapped in a life of poverty and violence. As the years pass each sister is forced to confront her greatest challenge ...

    Their mother is seriously injured and their Dad is away fighting, so the children are sent to their grandfather in Ireland. Sophie is scared - they have never met grandfather but his letters cause such trouble in the house, and their Dad never speaks of him.How will they live in a strange country, with a man who probably hates them - and will the family ever be together again?