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The Eagle and The Dove
Titus Flavius Vespasianus was a Roman emperor who reigned from 69 to 79 AD. The fourth and last in the ‘Year of the 4 Emperors’, he founded the Flavian dynasty that ruled the Empire for 27 years.
The empire was starting to enjoy 10 years of peace since Nero and, during this period, Rome had ambition. One of those ambitions was to return to the land of druids and blue painted warriors after years of complete oblivion. Britain was a ripe fruit ready to be easily harvested. Or was it?
Octavius Andreasius Salvinius, Praefectus Castrorum and third in command of Legion XX Valeria Victrix, embarked on an epic journey all around the Roman Empire, hoping to obtain his last victory laurels before leaving the army after more than 20 years of service fighting the enemies of Rome.
He recalls past disasters, overcoming appalling weather conditions, defeating feared tribes coming from the hills of Caledonia, avoiding falling into the trap of imperial politics, had been led by the most prestigious Roman generals whose names became legendary, who belong to history, and finally found unexpectedly love at the tender age of 50 years old.
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The Darkness
Northern Ireland in 1971-72 is a time of extreme violence that tests the people and the security forces to their limits. A soldier turned terrorist sworn to kill his former comrades. Slaughter on the streets as bombs shatter the lives of the innocents.
Bomber Brown finds himself in the thick of the action. Sometimes with his elite recce platoon but often on his own, relying on his training and initiative to survive when faced with the man determined to kill him! Face to face, gun to gun! The survivor will be the one with the steady hand, deadliest aim, and the will to win!
“The dream was back and no matter how many times Bomber shot the man he couldn’t kill him. He just had to watch the man's mouth uttering words that he couldn’t hear!”
There was no escape from the dream, so Bomber screamed at God to help him!
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The Dance of Darkness
Time had not died.
It was still flowing like her blood.
Her mind had become what it had endured and more; for now, with the dust, she saw butterflies floating in her room – here, there, everywhere.
Infused with lyricism and the romantic aura of pre-colonial India, The Dance of Darkness is a story about a bewildered town with only women, girls and hijras. Raised as dancers and lovers, the girls Surma, Parveen, and Dilchasp traverse through their usual routines until the presence of one man triggers all that the town has ever wished for – love and freedom.
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The Dagger and the Rosary
Sicily in 1693 is recovering from a devastating earthquake and struggling under the oppression of the Spanish Inquisition. Raids from Barbary pirates menace the coastline, while European Princes plot against each other. Meanwhile, the sixteen-year-old Bernardo has been brought up in an isolated Benedictine Abbey since being orphaned seven-years before. Now an unexpected journey will introduce him to this chaotic and often cruel world, where his faith will be tested.
Rescuing a young girl, Agata, from Barbary pirates will reveal his presence to an old family enemy, as well as introducing him to a secret brotherhood, and to the confusion of adolescent love. However, as love deepens, the petite Agata does not remain a victim for long, growing into a beautiful woman and determined avenger. Family secrets and desperate journeys threaten to tear them apart but will ultimately lead them both to find out what is most important in life.
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The Caledonians
Scottish history master Mr Petrie has the gift of eternal life. Working for a group of mystical superior beings, his time-travelling missions land him in all sorts of death-defying scrapes and encounters, sometimes with famous and ruthless people. To help him in his dangerous work, he's told to find a young apprentice. Duncan Dewar could be a candidate but has his own secrets too, and without realising it, their lives are indelibly linked.
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Tales Of The Hove Amber Cup
During roadworks in Hove, a Bronze Age tomb of exceptional size was unearthed. Inside was an oak tree coffin containing the skeleton of a tall male, and accoutrements showing him to have been of high social status. There was a bronze dagger, an axe and a whetstone. Resting on his breastbone he held a cup, shaped like a modern item of breakfast crockery but with a rounded base. It was made of Baltic amber. Who was this person? Why was the cup made of amber so dear to him? Amber, that offspring of sunshine and trees, has the Baltic Sea as a godmother. How did he come by it? Was he a trader? How far did he travel? Did he bring home new ideas together with exciting spices and artefacts no one there had seen before? All answers can only be speculative conjectures. The cup having been found in Hove does prove though, that Albion had contact with the Baltic Sea. Tales of the Hove Amber Cup is a celebration of this 3000-year-old British treasure.
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Stones of Destiny
One man’s greed can change the course of history forever…
FIFTH CENTURY BC, ATHENS
Humble sculptor, Nikodimos, toils away in his workshop to create a sumptuous marble masterpiece of Athena Parthenos destined for the Parthenon.
NINETEENTH CENTURY AD, ATHENS
Lord Quimby, blinded by greed, plunders the ancient Parthenon of its dearest treasures, watched by his helpless nephew.
PRESENT DAY
Young Cambridge student, Max Perceval, discovers a dark secret about his late ancestor and realises all is not what it seems in the Museum of Classical Antiquities.£3.50 -
Stay and Die
Las Vegas, New Mexico Territory in 1879, when the railroad arrives, is a boomtown for men and women of dubious virtue from all over the West. Gamblers, gunmen, crooks, shady ladies, they all drift in, and the result is explosive.In this febrile and dangerous environment, real historical characters interact with fictional ones to create an atmosphere of tension which will climax in violence and passion.John Joshua Webb is one of those who arrive in town looking for action. Josh will run into old friends from Dodge like Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, and will cross paths with the likes of Jesse James and Billy the Kid.But most of all he will have to deal with the sinister éminence grise of the wide-open town, Hoodoo Brown, who first hires Josh, but then needs him gone.Josh will find love and lose it, and he will have to decide whether to leave, and live, or stay and die…
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Spoils of War
On his 21st birthday, Glenn spies his rogue of a grandad making his way through the throng of the party to where he stood at the bar. Victor is a war veteran and a hero from Dublin, but these days, fifty years later, he is seen usually outside of a pub. Loved by all the men and despised by the women, what secrets does he hide?
He tells Glenn a fantastic story of hidden war treasure and challenges his grandsons to go to North Africa and find it. The story is laughed off until Victor’s untimely death leaves the full-written story and a pot of money. The grandsons feel they have to follow Victor’s footsteps, and so begins across continents an adventure of murder, treasure hunting and love…
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SOE Agent Code Name LILLY
Mary Dumont is a third officer in the Women’s Royal Naval Service working at the Admiralty Communications Centre in London in 1942 where she is recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to become a wireless operator-saboteur. Parachuted into France, Mary joins a small band of resistance fighters where she leads a double life, a schoolteacher by day, a wireless operator by night; all goes horribly wrong, Mary is captured and tortured by an SS major who is determined to obtain both her codes and the names of her companions. Mary makes a daring escape during an air raid, unknown to her, German Intelligence has infiltrated SOE, a double agent known to Mary has also been parachuted into France to capture a Dutch scientist who is escaping to England with plans for the German V1 flying bomb. Evading capture, Mary’s resistance cell must get the scientist to England before he can be handed over to the Gestapo, but first Mary must eliminate the German double agent. Just when she thinks it is safe on returning to England, Mary and her companions discover the identity of the traitor within SOE, they must try to eliminate him before he can return the scientist to the Germans.
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See You In Ezra Street
See You in Ezra Street captures the dramatic uncertainty of a young woman striking up new roots, dealing with her love affair, while absorbing the dramatic lessons from her grandfather’s life in colonial India.
Born and raised in Sweden, the introverted life of Tanushree Roy Choudhury, a young music scholar with Indian roots, takes a dramatic turn when she suddenly gets strong hallucinations about her family’s past and starts searching for answers. Answers which her parents had always left unknown. Her research takes her from Berlin to London, where she again meets Joshua Salisbury, a shy and secretive physicist she had not only met once before, but whose eyes she was never able to forget. When by chance the two of them find out that their grandfathers – despite their different religious and cultural backgrounds – had been close friends and classmates in Calcutta in the early 1900s, they continue Tanushree’s search together. The revealing and candid diary entries, photographs and correspondence that Joshua’s family has kept teaches them about differences in values embracing religion, nationality, obedience to elders and romantic rivals in the lives of their grandfathers Isiah Cohen and Debendranath Roy Choudhury. They soon see themselves confronted with not only a hidden and to them unknown love affair, but also with the heavy impacts of war-split India on their close ancestors’ lives – deaths in the family and losing one’s home – startling events which even after seven decades have an impact on the present.
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Sanjog A Novel
1946, Dehra Dun, India. The Radcliffe line is drawn and the largest mass migration in history is taking place. 1960, Nairobi, Kenya. A young man is starting a new life as an immigrant Indian with his young family. 2017, Halifax, Canada. A society wedding is bringing family, friends and foreigners together who have not seen each other for years. Three countries, two rivals, two female abductions. Set against a backdrop of post-partition India and Pakistan, 1960s' Kenya and modern-day Atlantic Canada, this tale follows the story of two families, united by heritage, torn apart by hatred. It retells the tragedies of partition violence and the fight to restore human dignity when all is lost. The story of families ripped apart and long-lost buried secrets finally culminate in an outpouring of pent-up grief and injustice that must be avenged. The plight of two women, bound together by history, yet torn apart by time. Sareeta desperately trying to reunite her family against the tides of bygone generations and migration. Gori trying to claw her way out of a poverty, inflicted on her by circumstance and revenge. Women so similar and yet so wildly apart that the idea of any reconciliation seems to be beyond reason. Accented with family recipes handed down through three generations, Sanjog - A Novel will take you back in time to one of the most turbulent events in human history and bring you through a story of love, malice and redemption.
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