A handsome black top hat changes penniless Benito Badoglio's life.

    He was a guy who rarely cycled or had an adventure, a guy who was scared of the fairground rides as a child. But one day he changed; he became a guy with a quest. Armed with a bicycle, a toy bear and some optimism he flew to the north of Alaska and for the next two years rode it to the southern tip of South America in Argentina. This is his tale.

    Purely an advisory role, they are told.Harry Delhaze is on a lonely path to self-destruction; George Marriott has promises to keep. It seems to them like the easiest money they’ll ever make.They couldn’t be more wrong.They are forced to battle frostbite in the Atlas Mountains and endure the baking deserts of the sub-Sahara; they are traded, kidnapped, and used as pawns in high-stakes political rivalries; they encounter women who worship cannons for fertility and magician-warlords who talk to the dead and play bloody games of chess with living slaves; and the three muzzle-loading cannon the Sultan has hired them to command are antiques that could explode in their faces at any moment.Then there is the Lord of the Atlas himself, Amastan el-Karim, who harbors a shocking secret that could cost them both their lives – or give one of them a reason to live again.An epic historical adventure that evokes the beautiful and the barbaric of nineteenth century Morocco that transports the reader to a now-lost world of ancient medinas, crumbling palaces, and wild mountain passes.

    A crowd forms, hoping to catch a glimpse of the magical creature. One crate after another is unpacked: a zebra, a leopard, and a baboon. There's no mermaid, but in the final two crates is something almost as magical—a pair of young elephants, in poor health but alive.Seeing a unique opportunity, a wealthy sugar merchant purchases the elephants for his country estate and turns their care over to a young stable boy, Tom Page. Tom's family has long cared for horses, but an elephant is something different altogether. It takes time for Tom and the elephants to understand one another, but to the surprise of everyone on the estate, a remarkable bond is formed.The Elephant Keeper, the story of Tom and the elephants, in Tom's own words, moves from the green fields and woods of the English countryside to the dark streets and alleys of late-eighteenth-century London, reflecting both the beauty and the violence of the age. Nicholson's lush writing and deft storytelling complement a captivating tale of love and loyalty between one man and the two elephants that change the lives of all who meet them.

    An entertaining quest filled action adventure.” "I am not usually a fan of action and suspense novels, but must say I enjoyed this novel very much. If you like Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt (His earlier novels), James Rollins or Matthew Reilly, then check it out. "...a terrific book with a likable protagonist, skilled plotting and interesting characters. This gripping quest for lost artifacts mystery had me hooked from the first chapter." WARNING - You will be hooked from the first page! An exciting archaeological thriller spanning more than 2000 years. Beginning with the construction of Solomon's Temple, the Fall of Jerusalem, the creation of the Copper Scrolls and the forming of the Knights Templar and their mysterious tunnelling under the Temple Mount. The story then takes us into the trap-riddled catacombs beneath Rosslyn Chapel, on to Rennes-le-Chateau, into the Tomb and beyond. Tag line: In the catacombs beneath Rosslyn Chapel, one man finds a secret they have spent centuries searching for.They are coming to claim it. Back Cover Text: A hunt for a treasure becomes a Quest for the truth. 960BC Solomon’s Temple is completed. 70AD Fall of Jerusalem and the Temple Treasure is Lost 1119AD The Knights Templar tunnel under the Temple Mount. Nine years later they find what they have been searching for and return to France. They become the richest and most powerful order the world has known. 1446 Sir William St Clair builds Rosslyn Chapel. 1891 Berenger Sauniere, a penniless priest of the small French village of Rennes-le-Château, discovers a parchment hidden in his church - it turns him into a man of great wealth. 1952 The Copper Scroll is discovered in a cave in Qumran. It is a Treasure map believed to have been written around the time Jerusalem fell. All are connected Part of a Secret buried for centuries. A secret many have been searching for without success. Ancient Families, Secret Orders, innocents wronged. All have suffered. All seek revenge. The Secret will give it to them. They just have to find something that went missing over 2000 years ago. BEGINNINGS is the first book of the Tomb, the Temple, the Treasure and thus continues in book 2 - The Priest's Secret. If you downloaded Beginnings before 28/9/2014, please update the book file via your kindle updated content in your “Manage Your Content and Devices” to the new professionally edited version.

    They should have finished the job.Con Veley is only 17 years old when the Canton outlaw gang destroys his world. He makes a vow over his parent’s grave to give them vengeance and justice. So begins a pursuit that will take him from his home state of New York across the country and into the wild, lawless territories of western America.His journey will bring him into contact with many good folks that help him grow into a man as he follows the wreckage left by the outlaws he is hunting.Book 1 – Pursuit, The Guns of Connor Veley, begins a new western series that will take a young man and teach him what he needs to know to survive in the wild west of America.

    It’s a story of a world peopled by those who often live on the frayed edges of society, who shun the world in which most people thrive. It’s a story in which college students and “fish hippies” work in canneries alongside survivalists, rednecks, religious freaks, and deckhands with damning secrets in dangerous waters, driven by the need to feed an insatiable appetite for adventure.This is the heart of the world Atcheson found himself in at the age of eighteen. Having never even seen the ocean, he took his first job on the Lancer with Darwin Wood, a man so confounding, so complex and so frightening, that it’s hard to believe Atcheson walked away from that job unscathed. Forced to buddy up with a murderer in order to cope, Atcheson began to question his deeply ingrained ideas of success and status. The resulting conflict would finally resolve itself fifteen years later, in the least likely of places: on the Bering Sea, aboard a boat in peril, during a night of terror that would reshape the lives of everyone involved.Reminiscent of The Perfect Storm and Into the Wild, Dead Reckoning is not only an intimate look at life at sea, but also an insider’s view into one of Alaska’s small communities, and the myriad of upstarts, dropouts, and rogues that color its landscape.

    Following an incident with an escaped tiger, Jaffy goes to work for Mr. Charles Jamrach, the famed importer of exotic animals, alongside Tim, a good but sometimes spitefully competitive boy. Thus begins a long, close friendship fraught with ambiguity and rivalry. Mr. Jamrach recruits the two boys to capture a fabled dragon during the course of a three-year whaling expedi­tion. Onboard, Jaffy and Tim enjoy the rough brotherhood of sailors and the brutal art of whale hunting. They even succeed in catching the reptilian beast. But when the ship’s whaling venture falls short of expecta­tions, the crew begins to regard the dragon—seething with feral power in its cage—as bad luck, a feeling that is cruelly reinforced when a violent storm sinks the ship. Drifting across an increasingly hallucinatory ocean, the sur­vivors, including Jaffy and Tim, are forced to confront their own place in the animal kingdom. Masterfully told, wildly atmospheric, and thundering with tension, Jamrach’s Mena­gerie is a truly haunting novel about friendship, sacrifice, and survival.

    When she arrives at a strange house in the wintry woods, a peek in the window reveals that the footprints Kikko had been following did not belong to her father at all, but to a bear in a long coat and hat! Alice in Wonderland meets Little Red Riding Hood in this charmed tale.

    Amid an English landscape that attests to more than a millennium of human activity, two teenaged boys are at the focus of bizarre events in which the past penetrates the present.

    He brings with him a teacup full of earth from the place where he grew up, and sets off to sea. Some days, the journey is peaceful, and the skies are cloudless and bright. Some days, storms threaten to overturn his boat. And some days, the smallest amount of hope grows into something glorious. At last, the boy finds land, but it doesn't feel complete . . . until another traveler joins him, bearing the seed to build a new home.

    “I’m sorry” the figure whispers, as it places the bundle on the cold stone of the work-house steps, “There is no other way.”For Frances Noel, a nobody’s child-work house waif, named simply for the day she was found, Christmases somehow seemed alive with promise and the possibility of miracles. So, when Frances is chosen to work in a grand house, more beautiful than she has ever seen, Frances believes that her miracle has arrived. But the beautiful house holds no comfort for a nobody such as Frances, as she suffers the tyrannical rule of the housekeeper and the unwanted attentions of Master Felix Ainsworth, the son of the house.But Ainsworth house holds a deep and dark secret that sheds its gloom over all who dwell within. The only joy in Frances’ life is Peter Gibson, the gentle-eyed stable lad who has become her friend. Christmas after Christmas, their friendship deepens, until a terrible event occurs that tears them apart.What is the secret that brings doom to all those who dwell in Ainsworth house? Why are the house keeper and the young Master so cruel? Will Frances ever be able to make amends to Peter, or are Christmas miracles simply a foolish child’s dream?Nell Harte writes clean and sweet historical fiction.

    Rocks can build, sparkle, and tell a story. They can be memories. They can even be a little bit magic. This ode to curiosity and creative play from New York Times bestselling author Pat Zietlow Miller and acclaimed illustrator Katie Kath is bound to inspire.

    He goes about his day, calling on a friend, going to the store for his mom and visiting his grandfather's grave. But all the while, his mind strays to his father who is digging for coal deep under the sea.Written by Joanne Schwartz, this beautifully understated and haunting story brings a piece of history to life. Stunning illustrations by Sydney Smith, the award-winning illustrator of Sidewalk Flowers, show the striking contrast between a sparkling seaside day and the darkness underground where the miners dig.--front flap

    In time they're joined by rugged farmhand Tom, come to lend some muscle to Ellen's ageing father, who has begun to find sheep farming hard to manage alone. Almost inevitably romance grows between Ellen and the new arrival but once married however, Ellen discovers that Tom has a brutish side to his character. As war in Europe spreads, she begins to dream of him leaving for the trenches as a way for her to escape.Even with Tom fighting abroad however, the family can not hide from the realities of war as a group of POWs are brought to their valley to build a reservoir. And amongst the men, sworn enemies and shunned by all the locals, Ellen finds a gentler heart that she finds difficult to resist...