On the first day that Chagak’s womanhood is acknowledged within her Aleut tribe, she unexpectedly finds herself betrothed to Seal Stalker, the most promising young hunter in the village. A bright future lies ahead of Chagak—but in one violent moment, she loses her entire way of life. Left with her infant brother, Pup, and only a birdskin parka for warmth, Chagak sets out across the icy waters on a quest for survival and revenge.In My Sister the Moon, Gray Bird wanted only sons. His daughter, Kiin, would have been killed at birth to make way for a male heir if not for the tribal chief, Kayugh, who claimed the infant as a future wife for one of his two young sons. Sixteen years later, Kiin is caught between the two brothers: one to whom she is promised, the other whom she desires. But the evil spawned by her own family takes her far from her people to a place where savage cruelties, love, and fate will strengthen and change her, and lead her to her ultimate destiny.And in Brother Wind, in the tribe of the First Men, courageous, beautiful Kiin, an accomplished ivory carver, is finally content with her hard-won life, which includes twin sons and a loving warrior husband. When she is suddenly pulled back into her nightmarish former existence as slave to the Raven, shaman of the Walrus People, her husband’s brother, Samiq, vows to bring her back to their tribe. Across the land, Kukutux, the wife of a Whale Hunter, finds the loss of her husband and the hostility of her clan too much to bear. The lives of Kiin, Samiq, and Kukutux, and the paths of their tribesmen will converge in a final dramatic confrontation that tests the strength of their hearts and spirits against the cruelty of man, nature, and fate.

    And then the accident happened. The Present Day: Left blind and without her family, Amy feels she needs to get away. On a trip along the Camino, she is accompanied by the mysterious and troubled Luke. Having been set up to help Amy by a mutual friend, Luke finds he is also running from his past…1314: A Templar Knight, Luc, is also running. He meets the wife of a former comrade, now blinded in a terrifying attack: Aimee. Taking her under his wing, they must journey together through a dangerous world. As they travel through the stunning scenery of Northern Spain, this couple, so very like Luke and Amy, emerge from the shadows of time carrying a treasure of inestimable value. Chasing Shadows is an enchanting novel about the search for happiness, fulfilment… and love. Praise for T. A. Williams ‘T. A. Williams has that gorgeous way of writing a feel good story and something which will easily make you smile… he’s absolutely backed up that men can write chick-lit.’ Reviewed The Book‘Fantastic story by an entertaining author!’ Gilbster‘A superbly crafted, heartwarming tale’ Splashes into Books‘I had my doubts as to whether a ‘bloke’ would get it! To get beneath the skin of a woman and process how she'd feel in various scenarios. Let's just say I don't have any longer – you nailed it.’ Crooksonbooks

    A large man with big appetites - his nickname Kubu means hippo in the Setswana language. He is happily married and lives in the capital, Gaborone.Twenty-first century Botswana is a country with real issues and real murders. In this collection of stories - one never previously published - Kubu investigates three mysterious deaths. A man is stabbed outside a bar. Is it just a jealous fight or is there something much more sinister behind it? A man suffers a gruesome death in a country town. Is it the result of witchcraft, or could there be another cause? A policeman is shot dead at close range in his own home. Is it the colleagues of a man he killed who was resisting arrest? And what of his wife's alibi?In the last story of the collection, The Haunting, a very unusual detective in South Africa solves a strange disappearance and fraud in a most unconventional way.Finally, author Michael Stanley interviews Detective Kubu himself in Gaborone until Kubu amusingly turns the tables!This entertaining collection of Kubu's shorter adventures is not to be missed by his many fans. And if you haven't met Kubu yet, then a treat is in store for you.Michael Stanley is the pen name of two South Africans - Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip - who write fiction together. Their novels - all featuring Detective Kubu - are A CARRION DEATH, THE SECOND DEATH OF GOODLUCK TINUBU (A DEADY TRADE in the UK), DEATH OF THE MANTIS, and DEADLY HARVEST. The books have been shortlisted for a variety of awards, and DEATH OF THE MANTIS won the BARRY AWARD for best paperback original in 2012.

    But to many it is a vaguely recognizable name – a flippant tag for “the most remote place on earth.” With this fabled city as his goal, author Rick Antonson began a month-long trek. His initial plan? To get a haircut. Aided by an adventuresome spirit, Rick endures a forty-five hour train ride, a swindling travel agent, “Third World, three-lane” roads, rivers, and a flat deck ferry boat before finally reaching Timbuktu. Rick narrates the history of this elusive destination through the teachings of his Malian guide Zak, and encounters with stranded tourists, a camel owner, a riverboat captain, and the people who call Timbuktu home.Antonson’s eloquence and quiet wit highlight the city’s myths—the centuries old capital and traveler’s dream—as well as its realities: A city gripped by poverty, where historic treasures lie close to the sands of destruction. Indeed, some 700,000 ancient manuscripts remain there, endangered. Both a travelogue and a history of a place long forgotten, To Timbuktu for a Haircut emerges as a plea to preserve the past and open cultural dialogues on a global scale.The second edition of this important book outlines the volatile political situations in Timbuktu following the spring 2012 military coup in Mali and the subsequent capture of the city by Islamic extremists. Literally, it is a race against time to save the city’s irreplaceable artifacts, mosques, and monuments, and to understand why Timbuktu’s past is essential to the future of Africa.

    Spanning six decades, these three novels follow a man and his family as they struggle to adapt to life in a new world. From the death of Queen Victoria through the swinging sixties, this acclaimed saga is an unforgettable story of a farming family and a vanishing way of life.  Long Summer Day: Lt. Paul Craddock returns to England after the Boer War to resume civilian life. His father has died, leaving Craddock heir to a scrap-metal business. But instead of continuing the family business, he purchases an auctioned-off thirteen-hundred-acre estate, Shallowford, where he will be changed by his love for two women: fiercely independent Grace Lovell and lovely, demure Claire Derwent.  Post of Honour: Through hard work and love of the land, Craddock has transformed his sprawling estate and enjoys a peaceful country life with his wife and three children. But war has begun its inevitable march across England, and this remote corner of Devon cannot escape its destruction. As the Great War ends and another threatens to erupt, Craddock’s faith and the strength he derives from his family must sustain him and his village through trying, tumultuous times.  The Green Gauntlet: Though Craddock’s village has endured despite the sorrows of war, he has new perils to face. Emerging property laws threaten his livelihood, dividing his family over the future of his beloved Shallowford. For his sons and daughter, the fifties and sixties will be a time of discovery and change that will resonate in the lives of their own children.

    Locked Doors is the second of her Nurse Hilda Adams stories. Nurse Adams is charged with the care of two young boys in a home full of conundrums. Both parents are fearful but refuse to leave their home and won't say why. The rugs have been rolled up and the furniture piled into the middle of each room. Their anxiety is catching, as Miss Adams too furtively watches for danger as she searches for clues. Why, she wonders, do they lock every door in the house? And who or what is the menace that terrifies them?

     When Leif the Lucky and his Viking explorers linked Europe and America with their settlement at Vinland it marked a profound change in the world. Suddenly, almost every region on earth was in touch with its neighbours, spanning continents and oceans. For a few years, it was in theory possible to send a message all the way round the world. At the time, no one could possibly have known this, or what it would lead to. But in hindsight the early 11th century gives us a brief hint of today’s global unity. But what was the world like 1,000 years ago? What would a traveller have seen as they ventured across the continents? John Man circles the globe at the turn of the millennium to explore its major cultures, revealing many surprises. Islam was confident and curious, Europe was just awakening after its dark-age slumber, and Asia was home to the world’s most refined civilizations, while some aboriginal peoples were modifying age-old ways in Australia, Africa and the Americas. A Viking Odyssey is a fascinating and sumptuous account of the world in the year 1,000, bringing to life the diversity of human cultures, from hunter-gatherers to sophisticated city-dwellers, and the links between them. This book is a revised edition of Atlas of the Year 1,000, with new contributions from John Man. “A splendidly conceived and executed idea.” Dr. John Roberts, The New Penguin History of the World. “Just brilliant. A real contribution to world history.” Prof. Robert Moore, University of Newcastle. “A splendid accomplishment.” Dean R. Snow, Professor and Head of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University. “A wealth of fascinating information.” Ray Inskeep, formerly Professor of Archaeology, University of Cape Town. “A fascinating snapshot of all corners of the world at the dawn of the global age” David Northrup, Dept of History, Boston College, USA. “A fresh look at the world at the dawn of the past millennium”. Science News. “The most original of all the spate of books that came out during the millennium.” Michael Palin. JOHN MAN is a bestselling historian and traveller specializing in Central Asia (in particular Mongolia). Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection is a best-seller in 21 languages. His other books include Attila the Hun, Kublai Khan, The Terracotta Army, and The Great Wall. In 2014, Xanadu was published in the US as Marco Polo, to accompany the Netflix TV series. His most recent book, Saladin, appeared in April 2015. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

    The representatives of the thirteen colonies who approved the Declaration of Independence in 1776 charted a collision course, aware of the obstacles in their path and the risks they were taking. The events that led to their decision took place over a period of nearly 300 years. Looking back, the wonder is that it culminated so quickly. For a century after its discovery, the New World was little more than a lode to be mined by adventurers seeking profits. It wasn't until the end of the sixteenth century that serious efforts were made to establish permanent colonies. Even then, the perils of the journey and threats of starvation inhibited settlement. But settlers gradually came, spurred, in part, by the fear of religious persecution, but above all, drawn by the hope of owning land. They were a mixed lot: English Separatists from Leiden, French Huguenots, Dutch burghers, Mennonite peasants from the Rhine Valley, and a few gentleman Anglicans. But they shared a quality of toughness. Here is their story from award-winning historian Louis B. Wright.

    A cousin to the popular best-in-breed show, agility competitions resemble doggie boot camp: dogs scamper across teeter-totters, jump tires, and scoot down tunnels-without leashed guidance from a human. Taking home ribbons requires a focused handler and a cooperative dog. Robert Rodi is a self-proclaimed Blue-stater who prefers fine wine and Italian literature (in "Italian") to SUVs and suburban sprawl. His dog Dusty's scrawny build and skittish personality make him an unnatural competitor. Nevertheless, Rodi recounts a year filled with victories, failures, and hysterical personalities, and the loving bond between one man and his bug-eyed dog.

    On the journey, he faces a variety of physical and mental obstacles. The book is written in diary format, at turns poignant and funny in a light, pacey style.

    And that is to be fiercely, inarguably and masterfully talented.No one knows who fathered eleven-year-old Satomi, and the women of her 1950s Japanese mountain town find her mother's restless sensuality a threat. Satomi's success in piano competitions has always won respect, saving her and her mother from complete ostracism. But when her mother's growing ambition tests this delicate social balance, Satomi's gift is not enough to protect them. Eventually, Satomi is pushed to make a drastic decision in order to begin her life anew. Years later, Satomi's choices echo in the life of her American daughter, Rumi, a gifted authenticator of Asian antiques. Rumi has always believed her mother to be dead, but when Rumi begins to see a ghost, she wonders: Is this the spirit of her mother? If so, what happened to Satomi?Picking Bones from Ash explores the struggles women face in accepting their talents, and asks what happens when mothers and daughters dare to question the debt owed each other. Fusing imagination and suspense, Marie Mutsuki Mockett builds a lavish world in which characters journey from Buddhist temples to the black market of international antiques in California, as they struggle to understand each other across cultures and generations."Marie Mockett brings postwar Japan into the 21st Century with sensitivity and grace, drawing the lives of three women to illuminate the tension between two cultures. Picking Bones from Ash is a lovely book."—KIT REED"In Marie Mockett's first novel—which ranges in confident and lovely prose from a mountain town in mid-century Japan to an antiques business in contemporary San Francisco—temples, ghosts, and oni demons aren't inert markers of exoticism: they're embedded in a lived web of human relationships and everyday tasks. Beginning in a world as solid as Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres, Picking Bones from Ash takes the reader down a rabbit-hole as matter-of-factly supernatural as that of Haruki Murakami's Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. This wiry and delicate novel, as grounded as it is surreal, goes down like a tall glass of water. Except it's spiked: like Rumi, the younger of Mockett's two heroines, you will be haunted until you finish this book." —ELLIS AVERY"Remarkable and arresting, this debut has the pleasures of a fairy tale and a novel at the same time. Mockett probes the family mythology of a very peculiar line of talented Japanese women who may or may not be descended from the Princess of the Moon, and spins the tale of how they survived post-war Japan, modernity and life in America. A spellbinding new talent." —ALEXANDER CHEE "Mockett has made an impressive debut with Picking Bones from Ash. Here, she creates a fully-absorbing world with vivid characters who search for what was painfully lost to them. Mockett is a beautiful writer." —MIN JIN LEE, author of Free Food for Millionaires

    William has his running-away money ready to go, he's just been waiting until he's older than twelve to leave. When his big brothers flush his sister's pet guinea pig down the toilet, she insists they leave now. And take the two littlest Baggetts with them. So they head out in the middle of the night, ready to escape to their aunt Fiona's house. Unfortunately the trip doesn't go exactly as planned. It's not so easy traveling with two little kids, and some help from a lonely rich girl makes it even more complicated. Will they ever make it to Aunt Fiona's? And if they do, will she let them stay? This is the story of four children who learn that sometimes you have to run away before you can find your way home.

    But it's only recently that scientists have pieced together the elusive, compelling saga of that epic migration. And the more we learn about them, the more we must marvel at the courage, adaptability, enterprise, and enduring resilience of the First Americans. Most of us know little about the early Americans and the wonders they achieved. Some of them learned to hunt forty-ton whales from dugout canoes; others built a vast system of canals that irrigated crops on tens of thousands of acres. Fully a thousand years before the pyramids at Giza went up, people on the Mississippi River were constructing even larger pyramidal earthworks, and later, a thousand miles to the north, others built a city that would remain the largest in North America until after the Revolutionary War. In the cradle of civilization that evolved in Central America, the Olmecs, Mayans, and Aztecs built complex cultures and dazzling cities whose monumental structures and works of art still have the power to awe and inspire. This book describes the peopling of North and Central America and examine their amazing societies - the farmers and cliff-dwellers of the Southwest United States, the mound-builders of the Midwest, the Northwest Coast whale-hunters with their potlatches and totem poles, and the mighty, gods-driven cultures of Mesoamerica. It is a saga as breathtaking as it is surprising.

    She leads her vibrant church of St. Giles’ with compassion and sass. Her busy days involve match-making, meddling, and saving the city’s beloved lesbian landmark, The Carlos Club. Alma meets the intriguing Rabbi Naomi Cohen there, and she’s smitten. Death comes to the church’s door… When the proprietor of The Carlos Club turns up dead on the steps of St. Giles’, Naomi’s brother is the number one suspect. She needs help exonerating him, and Alma’s knowledge of the neighborhood makes her the perfect priest to solve the case. If only Alma’s ex-boyfriend, homicide detective Cesar Garza will accept her help. She still feels the pull of their old connection, but she’s convinced the sexy-smart rabbi is her perfect mate. . . Too bad Naomi is playing by different rules. Can Alma solve the case before the murderer silences her forever? About the Reverend Alma Lee Mystery Series Meet the Rev. Alma Lee, the next priest-detective in a long line of clergy sleuths from Father Brown to Clare Fergusson, Brother Cadfael to Sydney Chambers. Only, instead of a rural village, Alma’s turf is San Francisco—gritty, gay, and glorious. Her methods border on the absurd, and she has more attractive admirers than anyone who’s taken holy orders has a right to. If she's on the case, the murderer doesn't stand a chance.

    On the run he encounters Alice, an Irish indentured servant, committing what appears to be an act of murder as she burns down a shack in the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina.Faced with the threat of capture, Bledsoe and Alice become reluctant allies. An epic tale unfolds as their quest for freedom pulls them from swamp to city, from North Carolina to Virginia. Somewhere between injustice and loss, they discover a hidden place that seems an Eden, where their bond and love are forged.But the Confederate army is on the march and soon tramples their tenuous freedom. Separated, they are cast into fates they never imagined. Through it all, the hope of deliverance drives them onward and the memory of their Edenland remains, burning bright against the darkness of slavery and the American Civil War.