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To Sleep No More by Dinah Lampitt


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The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter


Rod Duncan - 2014
    She is trying to solve the mystery of a disappearing aristocrat and a hoard of arcane machines. In her way stand the rogues, freaks and self-proclaimed alchemists of a travelling circus. But when she comes up against an agent of the all-powerful Patent Office, her life and the course of history will begin to change. And not necessarily for the better…

The Lost Apothecary


Sarah Penner - 2021
    Rule #1: The poison must never be used to harm another woman.Rule #2: The names of the murderer and her victim must be recorded in the apothecary’s register.One cold February evening in 1791, at the back of a dark London alley in a hidden apothecary shop, Nella awaits her newest customer. Once a respected healer, Nella now uses her knowledge for a darker purpose - selling well-disguised poisons to desperate women who would kill to be free of the men in their lives. But when her new patron turns out to be a precocious twelve-year-old named Eliza Fanning, an unexpected friendship sets in motion a string of events that jeopardizes Nella’s world and threatens to expose the many women whose names are written in her register.In present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, reeling from the discovery of her husband’s infidelity. When she finds an old apothecary vial near the river Thames, she can’t resist investigating, only to realize she’s found a link to the unsolved “apothecary murders” that haunted London over two centuries ago. As she deepens her search, Caroline’s life collides with Nella’s and Eliza’s in a stunning twist of fate - and not everyone will survive.

The Collier's Wife


Chrissie Walsh - 2020
    When Amy visits her husband Hugh at Beckett's Park Hospital, he doesn't recognise her. Broken after serving four devastating years in the First World War, Hugh is a shadow of the man he once was. Can he ever again be the man Amy knew and loved?Barnsborough, 1912. The first time Hugh and Amy meet, the connection between them is instant and electric. While a librarian's assistant and a collier might not be the most conventional pair, the two come together over a love of books that quickly turns into more. Neither suspects their families have secrets that threaten to tear them apart...True love's path is rarely simple... but can Hugh and Amy find their way back to each other?

Blood on the Crown


Griff Hosker - 2018
    Will son of Harry is about to join one of the freebooting mercenaries who serve the Black Prince in Gascony and Spain. Soldiers of fortune they fight for pay and for loot. Circumstances mean that he comes to the attention of the heir to the English throne, Prince Edward and is chosen as the body guard for his sons, Edward and Richard. When the Black Prince dies before his father and his elder brother Edward also dies, a young Richard of Bordeaux becomes heir to the throne and Will has a greater responsibility than he expected. He becomes King at the age of just ten. Intrigue, attempted murder and a revolt by the peasants of Kent, Essex and London put both the young King and his bodyguard in mortal danger. Based on the actual events of the years 1367- 1382 the novel shows the struggle for the crown through the eyes of a young warrior.

Beyond the Moon


Catherine Taylor - 2019
    Part war story, part timeslip, part love story – and at the same time a meditation on the themes of war, mental illness, identity and art, Beyond The Moon is an intelligent, captivating debut novel, perfect for book clubs.In 1916 1st Lieutenant Robert Lovett is a patient at Coldbrook Hall military hospital in Sussex, England. A gifted artist, he’s been wounded fighting in the Great War. Shell shocked and suffering from hysterical blindness he can no longer see his own face, let alone paint, and life seems increasingly hopeless. A century later in 2017, medical student Louisa Casson has just lost her beloved grandmother – her only family. Heartbroken, she drowns her sorrows in alcohol on the South Downs cliffs – only to fall accidentally part-way down. Doctors fear she may have attempted suicide, and Louisa finds herself involuntarily admitted to Coldbrook Hall – now a psychiatric hospital, an unfriendly and chaotic place.Then one day, while secretly exploring the old Victorian hospital’s ruined, abandoned wing, Louisa hears a voice calling for help, and stumbles across a dark, old-fashioned hospital room. Inside, lying on the floor, is a mysterious, sightless young man, who tells her he was hurt at the Battle of the Somme, a WW1 battle a century ago. And that his name is Lieutenant Robert Lovett…*NB Contains graphic descriptions of war violence and injuries, as well as profanity and mild sex.

Uneasy Lies the Crown, A Novel of Owain Glyndwr


N. Gemini Sasson - 2012
    But when Henry of Bolingbroke, the Duke of Lancaster, usurps the throne of England from his cousin Richard II, that tranquility is forever shattered. What starts as a feud with a neighboring English lord over a strip of land evolves into something greater—a fight for the very independence of Wales.Leading his crude army of Welshmen against armor-clad columns of English, Owain wins key victories over his enemies. After a harrowing encounter on the misty slopes of Cadair Idris, the English knight Harry Hotspur offers Owain a pact he cannot resist.Peace, however, comes with a price. As tragedies mount, Owain questions whether he can find the strength within himself not only to challenge the most powerful monarch of his time, but to fulfill the prophecies and lead his people to freedom without destroying those around him.

Three Novels of Ancient Egypt: River God / The Seventh Scroll / Warlock


Wilbur Smith - 2003
    

The Fortune Hunter


Daisy Goodwin - 2013
    Bored with the stultifying etiquette of the Hapsburg Court and her dutiful but unexciting husband, Franz Joseph, Sisi comes to England to hunt. She comes looking for excitement and she finds it in the dashing form of Captain Bay Middleton, the only man in Europe who can outride her. Ten years younger than her and engaged to the rich and devoted Charlotte, Bay has everything to lose by falling for a woman who can never be his. But Bay and the Empress are as reckless as each other, and their mutual attraction is a force that cannot be denied.Full of passion and drama, THE FORTUNE HUNTER tells the true story of a nineteenth century Queen of Hearts and a cavalry captain, and the struggle between love and duty.

Cloud Cuckoo Land


Anthony Doerr - 2021
    Restless, insatiably curious, Anna learns to read, and in this ancient city, famous for its libraries, she finds a book, the story of Aethon, who longs to be turned into a bird so that he can fly to a utopian paradise in the sky. This she reads to her ailing sister as the walls of the only place she has known are bombarded in the great siege of Constantinople. Outside the walls is Omeir, a village boy, miles from home, conscripted with his beloved oxen into the invading army. His path and Anna’s will cross.Five hundred years later, in a library in Idaho, octogenarian Zeno, who learned Greek as a prisoner of war, rehearses five children in a play adaptation of Aethon’s story, preserved against all odds through centuries. Tucked among the library shelves is a bomb, planted by a troubled, idealistic teenager, Seymour. This is another siege. And in a not-so-distant future, on the interstellar ship Argos, Konstance is alone in a vault, copying on scraps of sacking the story of Aethon, told to her by her father. She has never set foot on our planet.

Mageblood


Christopher Johns - 2020
    Gifts from the game gods for every person. The perfect magic for every user.Seth, a popular streamer, can’t wait to see what this new world has in store. It’s sure to be a blast for a guy who always plays a caster, and his friends are going to be right in the thick of it with him! The game boasts algorithms designed to read biometrics and brain patterns to find the perfect magical fit for the user—magic so personalized that no two casters will ever be the same. In fact, the game company is so sure they will always be right that you can’t remake your character.The unthinkable happened. The safeties and the guarantees failed, not just once but apparently only to them. The company has informed them that the system is infallible: there is nothing they will do. Players must use what they are given, so Seth and his team have no other choice—they need to grind it out and evolve their gifts in time to stream.Loading… Welcome to Mephisto’s Magic Online!

The Song of Heledd


Judith Arnopp - 2012
    The illicit liaison triggers a chain of events that will destroy two kingdoms and bring down a dynasty.Set against the backdrop of the pagan-Christian conflict between kings Penda and Oswiu The Song of Heledd sweeps the reader from the ancient kingdom of Pengwern to the lofty summits of Gwynedd where Heledd battles to control both her own destiny and that of those around her. Judith Arnopp has carried out lengthy research into the fragmented ninth century poems, Canu Llywarch Hen and Canu Heledd, and the history surrounding them to produce a fiction of what might have been.

A School for Unusual Girls


Kathleen Baldwin - 2015
    Napoleon is exiled on Elba. Europe is in shambles. Britain is at war on four fronts. And Stranje House, a School for Unusual Girls, has become one of Regency England’s dark little secrets. The daughters of the beau monde who don’t fit high society’s constrictive mold are banished to Stranje House to be reformed into marriageable young ladies. Or so their parents think. In truth, Headmistress Emma Stranje, the original unusual girl, has plans for the young ladies—plans that entangle them in the dangerous world of spies, diplomacy, and war.After accidentally setting her father’s stables on fire while performing a scientific experiment, Miss Georgiana Fitzwilliam is sent to Stranje House. But Georgie has no intention of being turned into a simpering, pudding-headed, marriageable miss. She plans to escape as soon as possible—until she meets Lord Sebastian Wyatt. Thrust together in a desperate mission to invent a new invisible ink for the English war effort, Georgie and Sebastian must find a way to work together without losing their heads—or their hearts…

Hyde


Daniel Levine - 2014
    Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from the monster's perspective, Hyde makes a hero of a villain. As a bonus, Stevenson's original novel is included at the back. Mr. Hyde is hiding, trapped in Dr. Jekyll's surgical cabinet, counting the hours until capture. As four days pass, he has the chance, finally, to tell the story of his brief, marvelous life.We join Hyde, awakened after years of dormancy, in the mind he hesitantly shares with Jekyll. We spin with dizzy confusion as the potions take effect. We tromp through the dark streets of Victorian London. We watch Jekyll's high-class life at a remove, blurred by a membrane of consciousness. We feel the horror of lost time, the helplessness of knowing we are responsible for the actions of a body not entirely our own.Girls have gone missing. Someone has been killed. The evidence points to Mr. Hyde. Someone is framing him, terrorizing him with cryptic notes and whisper campaigns. Who can it be? Even if these crimes weren't of his choosing, can they have been by his hand?Though this classic has been often reinvented, no one ever imagined Hyde's perspective, or that he could be heroic. Daniel Levine changes that. A mesmerizing gothic, Hyde tells the fascinating story of an underexamined villain.

The Violent Century


Lavie Tidhar - 2013
    Nations race to harness the gifted, putting them to increasingly dark ends. At the dawn of global war, flashy American superheroes square off against sinister Germans and dissolute Russians. Increasingly depraved scientists conduct despicable research in the name of victoryBritish agents Fogg and Oblivion, recalled to the Retirement Bureau, have kept a treacherous secret for over forty years. But all heroes must choose when to join the fray, and to whom their allegiance is owed—even for just one perfect summer’s day.From the World Fantasy and Campbell award-winning author of Central Station comes a sweeping novel of history, adventure, and what it means to be a hero.

The Apothecary's Daughter


Jane A. Adams - 2000
    No one can tell him who did it. Or why.Anchorless and alone, he moves to his aunt’s country cottage. What he needs is perspective.BUT THE PAST ISN’T DONE WITH HIM YET.Instead, he is tormented by visions of Kitty Hallam, a troubled young woman accused of witchcraft. Back in 1643.Is she a figment of Flowers’ imagination or something more?Whatever the truth, Flowers can’t help but be drawn into Kitty’s world, sensing their stories are intertwined somehow.BUT WILL THEIR UNLIKELY CONNECTION PROVE TO BE KITTY’S UNDOING?With this hauntingly evocative tale of two lost souls, Jane Adams has crafted a police procedural like no other. Her unique blend of intrigue, romance and history will captivate fans of Kate Mosse, Barbara Erskine, Alex North and Stephen King.