Here, from award-winning historian Ian Grey, is its dramatic story - from the establishment of the first ruling dynasty by a Viking prince to the invasions of Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan to the rise of the tsars, whose domination of their country stretched nearly four centuries until the violent overthrow of Nicholas II in 1918.

    The ensuing events brought a Spanish word, armada, into the English language and created a host of legends. Intrepid English sea dogs in tiny ships, it was said, had bravely faced down towering Spanish galleons. Finally, a storm sent by a vengeful God wrecked most of that proud fleet on its way home. Award-winning author Jay Williams sheds new light on the traditional picture. Although the English were superior sailors, the two fleets were evenly matched. Moreover, the battle emerges as the high point of a four-year cold war between England and Spain. Only when set in the context of a Europe bitterly divided between Catholics and Protestants can the contest be fully understood. The personalities of Queen Elizabeth I of England and King Philip II of Spain and their commanders - especially Francis Drake - are also key to this dramatic story.

    Yet these sisters always manage to come together in times of need.When Savannah, the youngest sister, is faced with a life-altering illness, which threatens her lifelong desire to have children, one of her sisters offers to give her the ultimate gift- to become her surrogate.While Savannah is overwhelmed with happiness and gratitude about her impending motherhood, not everyone in the family shares her sentiments. In fact, the upcoming bundle of joy has created a discord that this family may never be able to overcome.

    Instead, she got a nightmare.Concert violinist, Lily Gundersen broke her fingers. How? She mustn’t say. With her career over, she worries she’s going insane despite her perfect marriage and picturesque home. But after a car crash kills a young family and leaves her own body broken, she begins to suspect her husband’s involvement.Staying with him to protect her children, Lily slowly sees the scope of her controlling spouse’s grand gaslighting plan. But her hunt for damning evidence exposes the twisted man’s scheme for something far worse than a life of abuse.Can one traumatized woman reclaim the music within to defy a monster?The Love Trap is a chilling, standalone psychological thriller. If you like cunning villains, bold heroines, and stories chock full of twists and turns, then you’ll lose yourself in Caroline Goldsworthy’s mesmerizing tale.Step into The Love Trap and uncover the truth today!

    We’ve all heard of fake news, but what about fake history? Dominic Sandbrook explores two and a half millennia of human history, travelling from the American Deep South to the air raid shelters of wartime Britain, to discover how the past has constantly been manipulated....3h 30min

    Now this legendary battle is re-created in a groundbreaking book by an eminent British military historian making his major American debut. Revealing how and why Napoleon fell in Belgium in June 1815, The Battle of Waterloo definitively clears away the fog that has, over time, obscured the truth.With fresh details and interpretations, Jeremy Black places Waterloo within the context of the warfare of the period, showing that Napoleon’s modern army was beaten by Britain and Prussia with techniques as old as those of antiquity, including close-quarter combat. Here are the fateful early stages, from Napoleon’s strategy of surprise attack—perhaps spoiled by the defection of one of his own commanders—to his younger brother’s wasteful efforts assaulting the farm called Hougoumont. And here is the endgame, including Commander Michel Ney’s botched cavalry charge against the Anglo-Dutch line and the solid British resistance against a series of French cavalry strikes, with Napoleon “repeating defeat and reinforcing failure.”More than a masterly guide to an armed conflict, The Battle of Waterloo is a brilliant portrait of the men who fought it: Napoleon, the bold emperor who had bullied other rulers and worn down his own army with too many wars, and the steadfast Duke of Wellington, who used superior firepower and a flexible generalship in his march to victory.With bold analysis of the battle’s impact on history and its lessons for building lasting alliances in today’s world, The Battle of Waterloo is a small volume bound to have a big impact on global scholarship.

    56 of them did not return. Despite these catastrophic losses, the raid became an enormous propaganda triumph. The survivors were feted as heroes and became celebrities of their time.They had been brought together for one specific task – so what happened next? Of the 77 men who made it home from that raid, 32 would lose their lives later in the war and only 45 survived to see the victory for which they fought.Few are aware of the extent of the Dambuster squadron’s operations after the Dams Raid. They became the ‘go to’ squadron for specialist precision attacks, dropping the largest bombs ever built on battleships, railway bridges, secret weapon establishments, rockets sites and U-boat construction pens. They were involved in attempts on the lives of enemy leaders, both Hitler and Mussolini, created a ‘false fleet’ on D-day which fooled the Germans, and knocked out a German super gun which would have rained 600 shells an hour on London.In ‘After The Flood’, John Nichol retraces the path of 617 Squadron’s most dangerous sorties as their reputation called them into action again and again.

    But she's more different than she knows.When tragedy strikes and her life crumbles, it triggers a special power within her. Haven is a Source – someone who can generate and unleash powerful bursts of energy. Soon she is on the run from a sinister group that will do anything to extract her ability, no matter the cost.18-year-old Colton Ross is fresh out of high school. He's just beginning to scratch the surface of his power as a Conduit — one who can absorb and redirect the energy that exists all around us: light, electricity, even gravity. A mysterious offer to learn more about his troubled past will send him crashing right into Haven.Together, they are pulled into the middle of a secret war – a war of heroes and villains, light and dark, love and hate. Telling one from the other isn’t easy – and making the wrong choice could lead to the destruction of everything they hold dear.Superpowers, intense action, epic adventure, and mind-bending time travel combine in this thrilling Young Adult fantasy action series, recommended for fans of X-Men and Steelheart.

    A novel of family, love, and learning to be kind to yourself by award-winning, bestselling Irish author, Aimee Alexander. Grace Sullivan flees Dublin with her two teenage children, Jack and Holly, returning to the sleepy West Cork village where she grew up. No one in Killrowan knows what Grace is running from - or that she's even running. She'd like to keep it that way. Taking over from her father, Des, as the village doctor offers a real chance for Grace to begin again. But will she and the family adapt to life in a small rural community? Will the villagers accept an outsider as their GP? Will Grace live up to the doctor that her father was? And will she find the inner strength to face the past when it comes calling? Season of Second Chances is a heart-warming story of friendship, love and finding the inner strength to face a future that may bring back the past. Perfect for fans of Call The Midwives, The Durrells, Doc Martin and All Creatures Great and Small. The villagers of Killrowan will steal into your heart and make you want to stay with them forever.

    And pretty soon, it begins to take off … Christy Grimes thinks the book club will help his beloved wife in her recovery from a stroke, but little does he know the effect it will have on him. Liz Broderick hopes the book club will distract her from her grief. But a greater distraction than books lies in store. Caught up in working hard to support his ex-wife, Matt Bollinger reckons the book club will be a good way to meet new people. But while romance beckons, sabotage is not far behind. Disgraced poet Nick Barry is in search of the perfect story to relaunch his career, and he expects the book club will be the perfect place for some market research. But Nick finds a bigger story than he bargained for. With sadness, joy, money, sex, betrayal – and a few novels thrown in for good measure – those cold winter nights are about to heat up...

    When their mother dies in childbirth, Moira and Julia O'Leary are left to rear their infant sister, Ann, while their father, a sheep farmer, despairs. After Ann dies, Moira and Julia depart Cork for Boston, but the painful secret behind Ann's death haunts their new lives and presages the confusion that will come to trouble the next generation. Moira and Julia have always been strikingly different, but theirs is a mercilessly dependable relationship -- Moira's boldness is fortified by Julia's quiet inner purpose, and Julia lives vicariously through her sister's impulsive actions. Moira's Crossing charts their shared journey through marriage, children, and life on the coast of Maine. At once an examination of the troubled intimacy of sisterhood and an inquiry into the meaning of faith, Moira's Crossing is also a story of what we leave behind and who we become because of it.

    They find a safe haven in the isolated Norfolk village where Seb was born. Yet this idyllic rural setting has its own murderous secrets and a terrible crime requires our hero to play the sleuth once more.Even away from London, Seb and Emily are not as safe as they believe - their enemies are closer than they know and danger lurks at every twist and turn. The sixth Sebastian Foxley medieval murder mystery from bestselling author Toni Mount brings the medieval era to life once again.

    because once this killer has you in his sights, he doesn't stop until you're dead. Talia is chasing a shadow of a terrorist who has haunted her international family for years across Europe to rescue her kidnapped daughter. The shadow is her long dead husband. Its a wild chase to the ultimate decision. Does she kill him or walk away?

    At the height of their fame, The Nolan Sisters were one of the biggest acts around, touring with Frank Sinatra, performing at the Royal Variety Performance and travelling around the world to play for their adoring fans.Surrounded by a bevy of loving sisters, two protective brothers and parents who wanted to see their children succeed, how could Anne Nolan's childhood have been anything but idyllic? And yet behind the fairytale script - the fame and glitz lay hidden a dark family secret that has, until now, never been told.Anne's story - which starts in her birthplace Dublin and moves to the Northern club scene of Blackpool - tells of this other life - one that had to remain hidden, one of fear and pain that has cast a terrible shadow over her entire life. After so many years of silence, she has decided the time has come to speak of the brutal truth behind the carefully cultivated image, that was The Nolans.

    Rowling is today: author of a series of childrens books which shaped the imagination of a generation. Rooted in the heyday of the British Empire, Swallows and Amazons and its sequels described a nostalgic Utopia.Yet before that, Arthur Ransome, famous for different reasons. Between 1917 and 1924, as Russian correspondent for the Daily News and Manchester Guardian, he was an uncritical apologist for the Bolshevik regime, with unique access to the revolutionary leaders. As the Red Army engaged with an Allied invasion of Russia, Ransome was conducting a love affair with Evgenia Shelepina, private secretary to Leon Trotsky, then Soviet Commissar for War. As the intimate friend of Karl Radek, the Bolshevik Chief of Propaganda, he denied the Red Terror and compared Lenin to Oliver Cromwell. No English journalist was considered more controversial, or more damaging to British security. This is a fascinating, often chilling revision of an English icon through the most formative decade of the twentieth century.