Arthur, Duke of Wellington, and Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte were adversaries on an epic scale. Across Europe and beyond, the armies of Great Britain and France clashed, from the Iberian Peninsula to India, from Austerlitz to the final confrontation at Waterloo. What drove the two clever, ambitious, determined men who masterminded these military campaigns? How did the underdog from Corsica develop the strategic military skills and the political cunning that gave him power over swathes of Europe? And how did Wellington, born to be a leader, hone his talents and drive an army to victory after victory?From an outstanding historian and novelist come four epic novels, now available in one volume for the first time, which tell the full story of both these men, from their very early days till the momentous battle at Waterloo which decided the future of Europe.INCLUDES MAPS

    Here the trials and triumphs of the early Muslims as individuals are well-portrayed. Their various paths to Islam - sometimes direct, sometimes long and tortuous, their devotion to the noble Prophet, their endeavours in peace time and their exploits in war - all serve to cast them in a heroic mould. This is the first of two (formerly published as a series of three) books based on original Arabic sources and written in a style that is lively and often gripping. The lives of the Sahabah or Companions of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, is a rich storehouse of knowledge, guidance and inspiration. The men and women whose stories are told here helped to lay the foundations of a new world order, and it is only fitting that they should be more widely known.

    On board were: writers, artists, honeymooners, sportsmen, priests, reverends, fashion designers, aristocrats, millionaires, children, crew and emigrants looking for a better life.This book tells of their lives, and shines the spotlight on: Some of the great ship’s surprising treasures Her fêted voyage from Belfast’s Harland & Wolff shipyard The fascinating museums devoted to her memory, including Titanic Belfast The iconic music and movies Her winged and four-legged passengers The sister ships of Olympic and Britannic Tales of heroism Theories surrounding Titanic’s fatal collision The lifeboats and just how close the SS Californian was on that tragic night How Arctic explorer Ernest Shackleton and the inquiries viewed events These stories and much more lie inside.

    Britain has always been a land of gallows, and every town had its hanging post and local 'turn off man.' First these men were criminals doing the work to save their own necks, and then later they were specialists in the trade of judicial killing. From the late Victorian period, the public hangman became a professional, and in the twentieth century the mechanics of hanging were streamlined as the executioners became adept at their craft. Britain's Most Notorious Hangmen tells the stories of the men who worked with their deadly skills at Tyburn tree or at the scaffolds in the prison yards across the country. Most were steeled to do the work by drink, and many suffered deeply from their despised profession. Here the reader will find the tale of the real Jack Ketch, the cases of neck-stretchers from the drunks like Curry and Askern, to the local workers of the ropes, Throttler Smith and the celebrated Billington and Pierrepoint dynasty. Along with some of the stories of famous killers such as William Palmer and James Bloomfield Rush, here are the bunglings, failures and desperate lives of the notorious hangmen, some who could entertain the vast crowds enjoying the show, and others who always faced the task as a terrible ordeal.

    How will Samantha and Jensen's forbidden love survive? Samantha Loche is a strong and brave woman. She managed to escape the fire that killed her parents and now she is trying to start a new life. Motivated by revenge, she wants the man responsible for this to pay.Jensen Reaves has always been a straight-laced, follow-the-rules kind of guy. Being the first-born son to a wealthy ranching family, he is facing an arranged marriage but he longs for freedom.Their seemingly unrelated paths will suddenly cross and change both their lives forever when one night Jensen finds scared Samantha hiding out in his barn.As the two are closing in on the people responsible for Samantha's tragedy, they will reveal an unimaginable scheme that may tear them apart or unite them forever.Caught between love and duty, can a romance so pure resist to burst in flames?"The Rancher’s Unexpected Love" is a stand-alone Western Historical Romance Novel with no cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.

    In his quest to establish a new life for himself, he will encounter challenges at every turn. Natural disasters, a lost gold shipment, old enemies and outlaws will all stand in his way as he tries to build a future with next-door neighbor Kate. When he's fighting for family and friends, Chance is a force to be reckoned with.

    Not knowing how to deal with the unfamiliar and intense emotions he ignites within her, she lets herself burn in his fire. Still haunted by his fiancé's unsolved murder, Gerard Watton, the Duke of Hadminster, has thrown himself into his business. However, that changes when his sister's captivating governess brings forth feelings he thought himself unable to experience ever again. But as tension and feelings run wild, someone threatens to snatch his happiness away from him a second time. When someone tries to poison Elizabeth, the crippling fear of the past repeating itself resurfaces, and Gerard is hard-pressed to act fast. For one is an accident, two is a tragedy, but three is murder...

    has been fully revised. Packed with 75% new material, L.A. Bizarro boasts scores of fresh discoveries plus original photos presented in luscious, lurid color. Connoisseurs of the weird and wonderful, Anthony Lovett and Matt Maranian steer readers into a world of culinary curiosities, morbid museums, sexual sideshows, and dipsomaniacal dives. From pet cemeteries to piata district, hundreds of odd and outr delights are laid bare for visitors and Angelenos alike.

    It is #25 in their Mysterious Profiles" series. In this book, Jacqueline Winspear tells about the "origins" of Maisie Dobbs, the heroine of her popular mystery series. This booklet is NOT to be confused with her full-length mystery with the same title.

    Refuting the common understanding that in Georgian times the daughters of merchants, the wives of lawyers, and the sisters of gentlemen lost female freedoms and retreated into their homes, Vickery shows that these women experienced expanding social and intellectual horizons. As they embraced a world far beyond the boundaries of their own parishes through their tireless writing and ravenous reading, genteel women also enjoyed an array of emerging new public arenas—assembly rooms, concert series, theater seasons, circulating libraries, day-time lectures, urban walks, and pleasure gardens.Based on the letters, diaries, and account books of over one hundred women from commercial, professional, and gentry families, this book transforms our understanding of the position of women in Georgian England. In their own words, they tell of their sometimes humorous, sometimes moving experiences and desires, and of their many roles, including kinswoman, wife, mother, housekeeper, consumer, hostess, and member of polite society. By the nineteenth century, family duties continued to dominate women’s lives, yet, Vickery contends, the public profile of privileged women had reached unprecedented heights.

    A comprehensive guide to Amor Towles' acclaimed new novel 'A Gentleman in Moscow', this discussion aid includes a wealth of information and resources: useful literary and historical context; an author biography; a plot synopsis; analyses of themes & imagery; character analysis; twenty thought-provoking discussion questions; recommended further reading and even a quick quiz. For those in book clubs, this useful companion guide takes the hard work out of preparing for meetings and guarantees productive discussion. For solo readers, it encourages a deeper examination of a multi-layered text.

    After being freed at the age of 57, she begins a tireless search for her only remaining family member, her daughter Eliza Jane. What Clara accomplishes in her 28 years of freedom will simply astound you! I first wrote about Clara Brown in my book Unbreakable Dolls, Too. This single story eBook is the expanded version, with much more information and 9 photos.

    The century that followed was an era of vigorous expansion and large-scale projects, of rapidly changing culture and commerce, as huge numbers of people arrived in the shining city, drawn by its immense wealth and power and its many diversions. Borrowing a phrase from Daniel Defoe, Jerry White calls London this great and monstrous thing, the grandeur of its new buildings and the glitter of its high life shadowed by poverty and squalor."A Great and Monstrous Thing" offers a street-level view of the city: its public gardens and prisons, its banks and brothels, its workshops and warehouses and its bustling, jostling crowds. White introduces us to shopkeepers and prostitutes, men and women of fashion and genius, street-robbers and thief-takers, as they play out the astonishing drama of life in eighteenth-century London. What emerges is a picture of a society fractured by geography, politics, religion, history and especially by class, for the divide between rich and poor in London was never greater or more destructive in the modern era than in these years.Despite this gulf, Jerry White shows us Londoners going about their business as bankers or beggars, reveling in an enlarging world of public pleasures, indulging in crimes both great and small amidst the tightening sinews of power and regulation, and the hesitant beginnings of London democracy."

    Being rather desperate, when her mother comes to her with a mail-order-bride ad and a set of heart-warming letters from the author, she jumps at her only chance and goes west. Upon her arrival, instead of the eloquent and thoughtful man portrayed in the letters, she finds a hard-working rancher and father, rather short on words and emotionally distant. Although shocked at first, Catherine can’t help but feel charmed by his looks and his kind soul. Will she ever have the chance to break through the walls around his heart before it’s too late?Elias is a widower set on trying to create a better life for his children, but running his ranch on the outskirts of town with two kids is far too demanding. Under these complicated circumstances, looking for a mail-order bride to help him shoulder the responsibilities of the ranch and childrearing, seems to be the simplest solution. However, when Catherine arrives looking breathtaking, he realizes that his life will never be the same again. Expressing his emotions has always been quite a challenge for him, but Catherine makes him want to try. How will he finally trust his heart and let go of his trauma in order to fully devote himself to her?Right when the two of them start to feel closer to each other, a shadow from Catherine’s past appears, threatening to destroy everything they hold dear. Will they let the past ruin their newly created dreams, or will the sunlight of their love destroy any darkness heading towards them menacingly?

     With freedom secured, the general has been persuaded to accept a second term as president of the new nation. But in his heart he wants to go back to being a farmer. And being a farmer means he has slaves. Leading a nation is a demanding and often lonely business and Lady Washington is unable to persuade her husband to give up his public ‘duty’. At least she has help. Oney Judge is her ‘personal servant’ – and soon-to-be confidante. Oney is a ‘quadroon’ – three parts white and one part black. So, unlike the white people who so recently gained their independence from the Mother Country, Oney is not free. She is Lady Washington’s inherited property, though the word ‘slave’ is never spoken. Oney works in “the big house” at Mount Vernon, sewing dresses and serving tea. Lady Washington treats her as well as her own grandchildren. But though she is often mistaken as a Washington relative by visitors, Oney remains in bondage. In the spring of 1796, Lady Washington tells Oney that she will make her granddaughter Eliza a nice wedding gift. Oney soon discovers this does not mean sewing a negligee or a quilt for a gift. No, it means that she will be the gift. This is the day that Oney decides to escape – to put her forced bondage behind her and make her bid for freedom. On May 21, 1796, Oney walks straight past the Washingtons and out the front door. Although they make several attempts to capture her, she lives the rest of her life in freedom. Diana Rubino’s Oney: My Escape From Slavery is a painstakingly re-imagined account of a true and painful story told generations on. At its heart is the paradox of liberty – for an individual, for a race, for a nation. In a modern world where cultures and histories collide, it is a timely reminder of perspectives on ‘slavery’ and ‘freedom’ that we may have become blind to. It is a big, strong, uplifting book with a soul. Diana Rubino specialises in historical romance, sometimes with a touch of the paranormal, her favourite areas being Medieval and Renaissance England and all American history. A longtime member of Romance Writers of America, the Richard III Society, and the Aaron Burr Association, she recently completed a romantic thriller about Alexander Hamilton and biographical novels about Eliza Jumel Burr and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s wife Sophia. Piper G Huguley is a two-time Golden Heart® finalist and is the author of Migrations of the Heart, a three-book series of historical romances set in the early 20th century featuring African American characters. Huguley is also the author of the Home to Milford College series. Her new series Born to Win Men starts with A Champion’s Heart, which was named by Sarah MacLean of The Washington Post as a best romance novel selection for December 2016.