Search results for ""Author Edward Rutherfurd""

PRAISE FOR SARUM 'A high-speed cavalcade of our island story' DAILY EXPRESS'Supremely well crafted and a delight to read' CHICAGO TRIBUNE'A thundering good read' THE BOOKSELLER'A richly imagined vision of history' SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE _______________________________FIVE INTERCONNECTED FAMILIESSarum weaves an enthralling saga of five families - the Wilsons, the Masons, the family of Porteus, the Shockleys, and the Godfreys - who reflect the changing character of Britain.CENTURIES OF TURMOIL AND TYRANNYIn a novel of extraordinary richness, the whole sweep of British civilization unfolds through the story of one place, Sailsbury, from beyond recorded time to the present day. The landscape - as old as time itself - shapes the destinies of the five families.AN EPIC SAGATracing historical moments from the Ice Age through to the present day, all set against the backdrop of an ever-changing England, Sarum is a novel of breathtaking scope, perfect for fans of Ken Follett and Diana Gabaldon.

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City of love. City of splendour. City of terror. City of dreams.Inspired by the haunting, passionate story of the city of lights, this epic novel weaves a gripping tale of four families across the centuries: from the lies that spawn the noble line of de Cygne to the revolutionary Le Sourds who seek their destruction; from the Blanchards whose bourgeois respectability offers scant protection against scandal to the hard-working Gascons and their soaring ambitions. Over hundreds of years, these four families are bound by forbidden loves and marriages of convenience; dogged by vengeance and murderous secrets; torn apart by the irreconcilable differences of birth and faith, and brought together by the tumultuous history of their city. Paris bursts to life in the intrigue, corruption and glory of its people. Beloved author of Sarum, London and New York, Edward Rutherfurd illuminates Paris as only he can: capturing the romance and everyday drama of the men and women who, in two thousand years, transformed a humble trading post on the muddy banks of the Seine into the most celebrated city in the world.

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In this vast and gorgeous tapestry of a novel, serf and master, Cossack and tsar, priest and Jew are brought together in a family saga which unrolls through centuries of history to reveal that most impenetrable and mysterious of lands - Russia. Through the life of a little town east of Moscow in the Russian heartland, Edward Rutherfurd creates a sweeping family saga from the baffling contradictions of Russia's culture and her peoples - bleak yet exotic, brutal but romantic, land of ritual yet riddled with superstitious fears. From Russia's dawn and the cruel Tatar invasions to Ivan the Terrible and the wild Cossacks, from Peter, Catherine and the days of War and Peace to the drama of the Revolution and the extraordinary events of today - here is Russia's story in a spellbinding novel - history recreated with breathtaking detail and passion.

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A grand, epic story that tells the history of the greatest city in the world, from Roman times to the present day.London has perhaps the most remarkable history of any city in the world. Now its story has a unique voice.In this epic novel Edward Rutherfurd takes the reader on a magnificent journey across sixteen centuries from the days of the Romans to the Victorian engineers of Tower Bridge and the era dockland development of today. Through the lives and adventures of his colourful cast of characters he brings all the richness of London's past unforgettably to life.

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Following the critically acclaimed success of Dublin, this riveting sequel takes the story of Ireland from the seventeenth century onwards, picking up at the Reformation, and with it, the devastating arrival of Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell heralds the inauguration of two hundred years of Protestant dominance, throughout which many of the Irish people were impoverished and dispossessed. Dublin is made a Protestant capital, and Catholics become an underclass.Set against the dramatic backdrop of Irish political history, this powerful saga is brought to its conclusion. Journeying through the centuries right the way up to the twentieth century's Easter Rising and Independence, passing through turbulent milestones such as The Year of the French, the Famine and The Home Rule Movement of Parnell along the way.

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THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER'Bravo; this is a big, complex and utterly involving portrait of 19th-century China' THE TIMESThe internationally bestselling author portrays the great clash of East and West in his new epic: China China in the nineteenth century: a proud and ancient empire forbidden to foreigners. The West desires Chinese tea above all other things but lacks the silver to buy it. Instead, western adventurers resort to smuggling opium in exchange.The Qing Emperor will not allow his people to sink into addiction. Viceroy Lin is sent to the epicentre of the opium trade, Canton, to stop it. The Opium Wars begin - heralding a period of bloody military defeats, reparations, and one-sided treaties which will become known as the Century of Humiliation. From Hong Kong to Beijing to the Great Wall, from the exotic wonders of the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City, to squalid village huts, the dramatic struggle rages across the Celestial Kingdom. This is the story of the Chinese people, high and low, and the Westerners who came to exploit the riches of their ancient land and culture.We meet a young village wife struggling with the rigid traditions of her people, Manchu empresses and warriors, powerful eunuchs, fanatical Taiping and Boxer Rebels, savvy Chinese pirates, artists, concubines, scoundrels and heroes, well-intentioned missionaries and the rapacious merchants, diplomats and soldiers of the West. Fortunes will rise and fall, loves will be gained and lost.This is an unforgettable tale told from both sides of the divide. The clash of worldviews, of culture and heritage, is shown in a kaleidoscope of jaw-dropping set pieces. China is a feat of the imagination that will enthral, instruct and excite, and show us how things once were, and how the turmoil of the nineteenth century led to modern China's revolution and rebirth.

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_________________________A sweeping, epic novel of the greatest city in the world.From the empty grandeur of the New World to the skyscrapers of the City that Never Sleeps, from the intimate detail of lives long forgotten to those lived today at breakneck speed, Edward Rutherfurd's acclaimed novel is a true epic.The novel begins with a tiny Indian fishing village and the Dutch traders who first carved out their hopes amidst the splendour of the wilderness. The British settlers and merchants followed, with their aristocratic governors and unpopular taxation which led to rebellion, war, the burning of the city and the birth of the American Nation. Yet a country that had already rent itself asunder once did so again over slavery. As the country fought its bloody Civil War, the city was torn apart by deadly riots. Hopes and dreams, greed and corruption - they have always been the companions of freedom and opportunity in the city's teeming streets. As the immigrant ships berthed next to Ellis Island in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, they poured more and more Germans, Irish, Italians and Jews into the churning ethnic mix of the city. Deals were struck, politicians corrupted, men bought or assassinated, heiresses wooed, fortunes were speculated on Wall Street and men became rich beyond the dreams of avarice. The heady seesaw of wealth and poverty was seen in the Roaring Twenties and the Great Crash, the city's future symbolised by its buildings which literally touched the sky: the Empire State, the Chrysler Building, the Twin Towers. Rutherfurd tells this irresistible story through a cast of fictional and true characters whose fates interweave in the rise and fall, fall and rise of the city's fortunes. It is the story of how in four centuries New York became the envy of the world. And in telling the story through the lens of New York, Rutherfurd brings the story of America itself to unforgettable life in this epic masterpiece.

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Edward Rutherfurd's great Irish epic reveals the story of the people of Ireland through the focal point of the island's capital city. The epic begins in pre-Christian Ireland during the reign of the fierce and powerful High Kings at Tara, with the tale of two lovers, the princely Conall and the ravishing Deirdre, whose travails echo the ancient Celtic legend of Cuchulainn. From this stirring beginning, Rutherfurd takes the reader on a graphically realised journey through the centuries. Through the interlocking stories of a powerfully-imagined cast of characters - druids and chieftains, monks and smugglers, merchants and mercenaries, noblewomen, rebels and cowards - we see Ireland through the lens of its greatest city.

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A remarkable and ambitious novel whose central character is not a man or a woman, but the ancient New Forest of England.Few places lie closer to the heart of the nation's heritage than the New Forest. Now Edward Rutherfurd weaves its history and legends into compelling fiction, from the mysterious killing of King William Rufus to treachery and witchcraft, smuggling and poaching: this is an epic tale of well-born ladies, lowly woodsmen, sailors, merchants and Cistercian monks. The feuds, wars, loyalties and passions of generations reach their climax in a crime that shatters the decorous society of Jane Austen's Bath, and whose ramifications continue through the age of the Victorian railway builders to the ecologists of the present day.

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