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The Tin Cry
The year is 1890, and stream tin has been sensationally discovered in southern Stewart Island of New Zealand. Elizabeth - young, gentile, sheltered, and fresh off the boat from Scotland - has arrived in remote and rugged Port Pegasus to meet George, her betrothed, who is running the only miner’s hotel there. But it is a chance meeting with miner who ends up capturing her heart, convincing her that her future is far different from what her family back home had in mind. Playing out alongside is the professional struggle between Professor James Black of Otago University, whose fervour to find the tin-lode caused the whole crazy tin rush in the first place, and his nemesis, staunch government geologist Alexander Mackay, who becomes hell bent on bringing everyone to their senses. As the rush implodes, the end is climatic for all concerned.A well-researched story of historical fiction which accurately records New Zealand’s only tin rush, The Tin Cry takes its name from the scientific term describing the noise a bar of tin makes when it is continually bent back and forth until it eventually breaks.
£9.99 -
The Sword of Calais
1536. Henry VIII schemes to be rid of his wife to marry another. Anne Boleyn is found guilty of her sins and the king sends to Calais for Europe’s best sword executioner.Jean Rombaud will be paid 100 crowns, a huge sum which will help him establish the fencing school he has always desired. With Raoul, his nephew, they are also requested to escort a noble’s daughter, Roselyn back to London from Calais. A bond develops between Raoul and Roselyn on the journey but arriving home she is shocked to discover her marriage has been arranged to Nigel, who she hates.After Anne’s execution, there are celebrations for Henry’s betrothal. Roselyn persuades Raoul to join with her in merry-making. She drinks too much, Raoul takes her home but is accused of kidnapping her by Nigel, they fight and Nigel is badly wounded.Raoul is sentenced to death. Nigel’s father is an old foe of Jean. They once fought a duel over Nigel’s mother, now old wounds are opened and they challenge each other once more.Jean is given an ultimatum by Thomas Cromwell. If he wins the duel, he must become the executioner of his nephew.
£6.99 -
The Spanish Armada
History records that in 1588, the vast Spanish Armada was defeated by the English navy. The English set many of their own ships on fire, then sent the ships at the enemy, scattering them. The Spanish fleet were forced to attempt the dangerous return to Spain via the north of Scotland. Battered by violent winds, even further losses were visited upon the already badly beaten fleet, smashed by the waves and run aground on the shore.But what if the Spanish had succeeded in their invasion plan? What if the had defeated the English navy, and successfully conquered England? In this extraordinary work of alternative-history, follow the many surprising and larger-than-life characters as they navigate a world upended by this momentous historical moment, and discover the far-reaching implications of the Spanish Armada's victory in this gripping new novel, Spanish Armada.
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The Right to Ride Astride
The Right to Ride Astride is set in the year 1831 in Northwest England and is the story of two young women, Hannah – 22 – masculine and plain, who hates men; and Sarah –18 – feminine and attractive, who knows how to manipulate men. These women defy the customs as written in the Holy Book, whereby the duty of a female is to marry and obey her husband. Hannah, illegitimate, having spent her entire life in boarding schools, where her only friends were horses, meets Sarah, an orphan, whose entire family has been killed by mining disasters or disease, and is alive because she chose to work in a brothel instead of a mine. When Hannah manages to ride a large and fast stallion named Hannibal, who, until this time, has never been ridden, Hannah and Sarah realize they cannot only survive, but with the help of a powerful family, they can prosper.
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The Reluctant Hero
Chris just wanted to be an aeronautical engineer, but events and WWll changed it all.Christopher Darby's father wants him to follow a medical career and become a doctor like himself. But Chris knows his real love is engineering, especially aeroplanes, and he wants it to be his career. A chance encounter, the summer after leaving school in 1935, lands him a job working with planes. Chris is given the opportunity to learn to fly a plane and a long, exciting aeronautical career is sparked. Although Chris initially begins work in the Rolls Royce car factory upon completing his engineering studies, the outbreak of war changes everything. Drawn to do his bit for the country, Chris joins the Royal Air Force and is back working with planes once again. What follows is an exciting, varied and dangerous career serving his country. Never far from action and danger, Chris must rely on his expert knowledge and the trusted colleagues he meets along the way to survive.
£11.99 -
The Power of Four
A sperm whale, an estuarine crocodile, a sabre-tooth tiger and a mastodon, all threatened with extinction, prelude this story of four men destined to set a course for the future of the world.It is 25 BC and four slaves row in a galley for the Roman Empire: Britannius, sentenced for committing rape; Himilco, for molestation and treason; Enoch, for wounding a centurion and implicated in supplying the asps for Queen Cleopatra's suicide; and Hanno, for killing his owner.Following a shipwreck, three of them are recaptured but the fourth escapes. And so starts an epic journey for all four that spans the entire world with their individual adventures. Constantly hounded and pursued by the overseer from the original galley, each is re-captured, escapes again, and thinks about the reason for the journeys, especially after they all unexpectedly meet again after years on the run.What is it all for? It will take the universe to explain...
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The Poet's Trap
Esme lives a contented life in the countryside of Victorian England at Falford Hall. She is becoming a young woman, beautiful and witty with a passion for riding horses with the hall's stable hand, Tom. However, when rumours start to fly about nature of Esme and Tom's relationship, hidden feelings begin to come to light and Esme's loving father decides the best course of action is to separate the two to avoid vicious gossip. Tom is sent to South America to conduct business and make a man of himself and a devastated Esme must abandon her tomboyish nature to come out as a woman in the city of Brighton. With Tom's return scheduled in 18 long months, the star-crossed pair take the test of time, and must battle Esme's snobbish uncle and strict Victorian tradition. How can a stable hand ever win the hand of a Lady without creating a scandal?
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The Past and the Present
1914 - A young Georgina Lawrence has been promised to Lord Bedford, a man she doesn't want to marry. To give her a chance of changing the decision, her parents make her go to an Isle of Wight hotel to consider her future. Here she meets a man unlike any other she's ever known, who changes her life forever.1992 - Helena is struggling to come up with a new idea for her new novel. A trip to the Isle of Wight to refresh her literary skills seems the answer. The hotel in Bembridge is being renovated and Helena explores the grounds. Both women are inexplicably connected with the building, to two men they meet there but what other secrets does the building hold and what impact does it have on their lives?
£6.99 -
The Opportunist
World War I left its impression on many people and many nations. Lives were lost, economies were altered and women's roles were changed as workforces had to adapt. The consequences of international fighting were monumental, but as much as the War set forth great change, it also served as an opening for innovations and new trends. John Carter, unable to physically serve in the war, remains at home in the UK as a temporary head of an industrial company and as the owner of a timber supply business. With men needed at the front, John experiences troubles of a different kind: employing women, searching for qualified help and expanding and converting the industry to suit the demands of war materials. Hunger, illness and heartache strike time and again, but instead of only loss and utmost destruction, The Opportunist shows the tale of one man's success at home in the darkest of times.
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The Magpie
It is December 1913 and Detective Constable Frank Bolam has a murder to solve. The victim is found drowned in the River Wear with a vicious knife wound to his lower back. There are no witnesses and no clues.A few months later another body is found with the same vicious knife wound, followed closely by a further two murders with the victims stabbed in a similar manner. This is a clever killer. No clues are found and Bolam cannot find a way to break the deadlock in his most perplexing case.Having risen from a lowly mining family, Bolam has strong moral values and becomes totally obsessed with the killer and the devastating sadness brought to the victims’ relatives. He vows to bring the murderer to justice, whatever the cost.These are turbulent times, with the country in the middle of an attritional war. In his quest to find the murderer, Bolam follows his hunch and enlists in the army, heading for the trenches to track down a cold-blooded killer in the middle of the most mechanised slaughter the world has known.
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The Last Supper
Leonardo da Vinci, Milan's Renaissance ideal, is tasked with painting The Last Supper but struggles to find the perfect person to model as Christ. Vittorio Dessa, a young farmer, is eventually spotted, plucked from farm life and placed at the heart of an alien world of art and science, aristocracy, politics and intrigue.Initially shocked, Vittorio gradually adjusts to the artist's exuberant manner and ambitious ideas, and after some hesitation, resolves to pursue his own ambitions and venture beyond the safety of the city walls.Thus encouraged, Vittorio's fortunes boom, but ill-equipped to deal with the transformation, his life slowly lapses into one of paranoia, jealousy and eventually murder. The strands of the story climax at Leonardo's very public reveal of The Last Supper painting.
£9.99 -
The Land of Three Houses
William Sterner’s story begins in the late 1700s on the Tohickon Creek in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, during the period known as The Rage for Wheat. His quest to build a fortune based on wheat leads him to Livorno, Tuscany, during the Napoleonic wars where he meets the Enlightenment salonniêre, Madame de Staël. Join him on his journey home to The Land of Three Houses.
£9.99
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