Search results for ""Myrmidon Books Ltd""

Hou-ming, city of ghosts, central China, 1304 - In a vast graveyard created by Mongol slaughter, three children meet amidst the decaying ruins and forge a friendship that will determine their destinies. As the years pass they separate, finding different paths in life. Yun Shu, cruelly rejected by her father for refusing to bind her feet, seeks solace as a Daoist nun. Hsiung, enslaved by the Mongols when just a boy, becomes a ruthless rebel warlord determined to drive the invaders from his native land. Teng, an artist and scholar, last son of a once noble family ruined by the new Mongol dynasty, risks his life to preserve the culture he reveres. For the three friends to come together, they must endure war, treachery greed and the casual abuse of power. To win honour and unexpected love they must overcome dangerous enemies and conflicts in the depths of their hearts. Each of them, through clouds of troubles, must earn the Mandate of Heaven.

Read more less

Central China, 1264. When Mongol armies storm into the Middle Kingdom, the descendents of Yun Cai (Taming Poison Dragons) are trapped in a desperate siege that will determine the fate of the Empire. Guang and Shih are identical twins, one a heroic soldier idolised by the city he defends, the other a humble doctor. In the midst of war, jealous conflicts over Shih's wife and concubine threaten to tear the brothers apart. Enemies close in on every side - some disturbingly close to home. Can the Yun family survive imprisonment, ruthless treachery and Kublai Khan's bloody hordes? Or will their own reckless passions destroy them first? "Breaking Bamboo" is the second instalment of a trilogy set in Song and Yuan Dynasty China, charting the trials and adventures of the Yun clan.

Read more less

Mark did what people aren't supposed to do. He left his home, his job, his wife, his friends, his seven month old baby...everything. He set out with only two things. One was a flyer advertising a nightclub, with an address written on the back in spidery pencil. The other was a small, hard bag of the sort that photographers carry their lenses in. But this bag did not contain photographic equipment. It contained GBP40,000 in cash. But it is not so easy to start again. Mark must find his way in a new town where no one will talk about their past, and where mobile phones don't work. He soon discovers that this is not all that's strange about this nameless town. Friendships turn into a web of deceit and motives are always suspect. Mark's journey, both physical and metaphysical, takes him through layers of reality and towards refuge of an unexpected kind.

Read more less

'I guess the end justifies the means. At least that's what I believe. Most of the time'. After the accident, DC Cameron Stone had spent three months in intensive care before he could even recall what happened: the high speed pursuit of a vice baron through the night streets of Glasgow that had not only almost finished him but had taken the life of a teenage mother and her child. Then there'd been the message from Audrey on the back of a 'get well soon' card announcing that she had left him and taken their young son, Mark, with her. Booze, anti-depressants and therapy have all failed to enable him to resume his old job.So now Stone lives in a one-room flat in the worst part of town. He pays the rent by running errands for a private detective agency. His tasks include tracking down a teenage runaway and surveillance for a woman who thinks her husband is sleeping with her sister. He's also paid by his former colleagues, doing the work that's not quite clean enough for them to do themselves - like putting the fear of God into Jason Campbell, a newly released sex offender whose been seen hanging around the local High School in his soft-top Mercedes.Stone is having a bad week. Audrey is getting difficult about contact arrangements for Mark. She's moved into the pulsh home of a plastic surgeon: there's talk of marriage - and adoption for Mark. He finds his runaway in a brothel and just gets roughed-up for his trouble. There's the knife wielding kids who try to mug him on the stairs and the daubing on his front door: Burn in Hell Baby Killer. The only brightness on his horizon is his growing friendship with Liz, the sunny Irish nurse who lives on the next floor. But then petrol is poured through his letterbox and his flat ablaze. And now a stranger has turned up at the school and driven off with his son...

Read more less

"The Painted Messiah" is an intelligent and superior example of a genre whose popularity shows no signs of abating. It combines a blistering action thriller set in the streets of Zurich and on the lakes and wooded slopes of Switzerland with a compulsive and convincing account of first century Romano-Judaean politics and the real reason for Pontius Pilate's condemnation and execution of Christ. A legend persists that, after the 'scourging', Pilate commanded that his victim be painted from life. Somewhere, the painting survives, the only true image of Christ, granting the gift of everlasting life to whoever possesses it. Kate Kenyon, the wealthy young widow of an English aristocrat killed on a Swiss mountain, has an addiction to mortal risk. She feeds it by engaging in the armed robbery of priceless artefacts with her accomplice and lover Ethan Brand, a Tennessean who owns a bookshop in Zurich. Their latest target is a priceless 'Byzantine' icon hidden in the tower of a chateau by Lake Lucerne. So far they have never had to shoot anyone. This time will be different. Thomas Malloy is a retired CIA man looking for his first lucrative freelance assignment. His chance comes with a presidential favour to a rich but ailing televangelist. Malloy's task seems simple enough: pick up the preacher's newly acquired painting from a Zurich bank and get it to the airport. But, once in Switzerland, Malloy's old friend, the enigmatic Contessa Claudia de Medici tries to warn him off his mission. Sir Julian Corbeau is an international criminal holed up in Switzerland to avoid US extradition proceedings. He is also the sadistic head of the modern Knights Templar. He had the painting and now he desperately wants it back as well as to wreak a bloody revenge upon those who stole it. As the contenders vie for possession the bullets fly, the body count rises and the secrets of the portrait gradually unfold. We learn how and why it came to be painted and how an object depicting the Light of the World could exert such a baleful and malignant influence on those who possess it.

Read more less

The Vale of the Red Horse, Edgehill, Warwickshire, October, 1642. Bitter divisions that have grown unchecked in the kingdoms of the Stuart dynasty are about to engulf England in a bloody civil war. 30,000 men have gathered to determine the fate of nations and to pursue their own ideals and enmities through brutal and bloody combat. Many have never handled a weapon or strayed far from their native shire. Among them are Anthony Sedley the Birmingham iron worker and Leveller, Robbie Needham, an embittered lead miner from Derbyshire who picks up a pike for his king, George Merrick, the young Oxford graduate whose prospects have been blighted by court corruption, Hywel Lloyd, a proud Welsh hill farmer, and William Bennet the struggling merchant who has staked everything to raise a company for the parliamentary cause. Then there are the half-brothers, Ralph and Francis Reeve, sons of a Suffolk farmer. Pious Francis has abandoned his studies at Cambridge to make England a New Jerusalem, cleansed of sin and filth. He despises his carefree brother and the father who seems to favour him. Caught cuckolding a London merchant, Ralph has forfeited his apprenticeship and indenture money. He dreams of restoring his honour and his fortune when he returns to London with the king's victorious army. But first the brothers must face each other in the Vale of the Red Horse, the horse whose rider is War... God's vindictive wrath!

Read more less

'Goodbye! There's my good girl.' The German got hold of Papa's arm roughly and said, 'Come on!' They got in the car and sped away, leaving the two breathless girls standing on the street corner, staring at where the car had been. 'What on earth was all that about? Why has my Daddy gone with that German?' It made no sense. It made no sense at all. France, 1940: The British have retreated, evacuating their forces from Dunkirk. Nell and her girls stand on the beach on a clear day and see the outline of Dover Castle but it will be four and a half long years before they return to Britain. Jeanne, her sisters and their mother Nell are left to fend for themselves in occupied France when her father is arrested by the Nazis and taken to an internment camp.Proudly British, they have also been raised speaking French. Nell is determined to keep going, keep food on the table and see her girls continue in education. She takes in washing, teaches English and tries growing vegetables but the soil is too poor. They apply for Red Cross Parcels but are told, as they are not behind barbed wire, they don't qualify.Yet amid the struggles come great friendships and pleasure in the smallest things; the rare treat of a piece of cake or tart, a Christmas tree decorated with cotton or singing in church. Jeanne's sisters are distinct personalities, one bookish and quiet, the other outgoing. Letters from her interned husband Tom Sarginson and occasional visits to see him only temporarily eases the pain of being parted. Nell falls in love with a kindly German soldier. When liberation comes in 1944 Nell and the girls' excitement is tempered by a shocking event in their then home village of Rieux-en-Cambresis. There follows an exhilarating and frustrating stay in newly liberated Paris and the shock of arriving back in the war weary Britain of late 1944. Nell and the Girls is a remarkable, dramatic and heartwarming true story of a family told from the viewpoint of young Jeanne Sarginson, later Gask.

Read more less

Orphaned and trapped in an abusive marriage, Henrietta Howard has little left to lose. She stakes everything on a new life in Hanover with its royal family, the heirs to the British throne. Henrietta's beauty and intelligence soon win her the friendship of clever Princess Caroline and her mercurial husband, Prince George. But, as time passes, it becomes clear that friendship is the last thing on the hot-blooded young prince's mind. Dare Henrietta give into his advances and anger her violent husband? Dare she refuse? Whatever George's shortcomings, Princess Caroline is determined to make the family a success. Yet the feud between her husband and his obstinate father threatens all she has worked for. As England erupts in Jacobite riots, her family falls apart. She vows to save the country for her children to inherit - even if it costs her pride and her marriage. Set in the turbulent years of the Hanoverian accession, Mistress of the Court tells the story of two remarkable women at the centre of George II's reign.

Read more less

Western China, 1196: Yun Cai, a handsome and adored poet in his youth, is now an old man, exiled to his family estates. All that is left to him are regrets of a growing sense of futility and helplessness and the irritations of his feckless son and shrewish daughter-in-law. But the 'poison dragons' of misfortune shatter his orderly existence. First, Yun Cai's village is threatened with destruction by a vicious civil war. His wayward second son, a brutal rebel officer seems determined to ruin his entire family. Meanwhile, Yun Cai struggles to free an old friend, P'ei Ti, from a hellish prison- no easy task when P'ei Ti is the rebels' most valuable hostage and Yun Cai considers himself merely a spent, and increasingly frightened old man. Throughout these ordeals, Yun Cai draws from the glittering memories of his youth, when he journeyed to the capital to study poetry and join the upper ranks of the civil service: how he contended with rivalry and enmity among his fellow students and secured the friendship of P'ei Ti. Above all, he reflects on a great love he won and lost: his love for the beautiful singing girl, Su Lin, for which he paid with his freedom and almost his life.Yun Cai is forced to reconsider all that he is and all that he has ever been in order to determine how to preserve his honour and all that he finds he still cherishes. Only then can summon the wit and courage to confront the warlord General An-Shu and his beautiful but cruel consort, the Lady Ta-Chi.

Read more less

He's been depicted as a serious thinker, a master of deduction, a hopeless addict, a bare-knuckle fighter. His companion is abumbler, a sympathetic equal, someone helpless in the face of his friend's social inadequacies. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson remain the most-adapted fictional characters of all time. In 2010, when Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman stepped into the roles, they managed to meld many previous incarnations into two glorious performances. Over Sherlock's first three seasons, the BAFTA-winning series created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat has brought new life to stories almost 130 years old and created a worldwide fandom unlike any other. Investigating Sherlock, written by bestselling author NikkiStafford, examines each episode through in-depth and fun analysis, exploring the character development and cataloguingevery subtle reference to the original stories. Containing revealing exclusive interviews from experts of the Sherlock Holmesphenomenom, and with biographies of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, as well as Arthur Conan Doyle.

Read more less

ME 46 BCDreaming of service to the great Gaius Julius Caesar, the young Tuscan knight, Quintus Dellius, secures the patronage of the youngest of his generals, the dissolute Cornelius Dolabella. Dellius distinguishes himself in Caesar's Spanish war against Pompey, becomes a tribune of cavalry in Caesar's army and looks forward to an assured and glittering career. But when his hero is assassinated the Roman republic is plunged into chaos as both his heirs and enemies jostle for power. In the civil wars that follow, Dellius is soon caught up in a maelstrom of shifting allegiances and the young soldier will need to discover reserves of both tenacity and ruthlessness if he is to survive.As he journeys from the orgiastic salons of Rome's Palatine Hill to the Palaces of Alexandria, the rocky fortresses of Judea and the bloody field of Philippi, he manages to incur the enmity both of Egypt's queen and Rome's future emperor, but also to snare the affections of a beautiful and cunning young senator's wife, Livia Drusilla.

Read more less

And the Dawn Came Up Like Thunder is the experience of an ordinary soldier captured by the Japanese at Singapore in February 1942. Leo Rawlings' story is told in his own pictures and his own words; a world that is uncompromising, vivid and raw. He pulls no punches. For the first time the cruelty inflicted on the prisoners of war by their own officers is depicted as well as shocking images of POW life. This is truly a view of the River Kwai experience for a 21st Century audience.The new edition includes pictures never before published as well as an extensive new commentary by Dr Nigel Stanley, an expert on Rawlings and the medical problems faced on the Burma Railway. More than just a commentary on the history and terrible facts behind Rawlings' work, it stands on its own as a guide to the hidden lives of the prisoners.Most of the pictures are printed for the first time in colour as the artist intended, bringing new detail and insight to conditions faced by the POWs as they built the infamous death railway, and faced starvation, disease and cruelty.Pictures such as those showing the construction of Tamarkan Bridge, now famed as the prototype for the fictional Bridge on the River Kwai, and those showing the horrendous suffering of the POWs such as King of the Damned have an iconic status. Rawlings' art brings a different perspective to the depiction of the world of the Far East prisoners. For the first time the pictures and original texts are printed in a large format edition, so that their full power can be experienced.The new edition includes an account of how Rawlings' book was published in Japan by Takashi Nagase (well known from Eric Lomax's book The Railway Man) in the early 1980s. Rawlings visited Nagase in 1980 and at last reconciled himself to his experiences as a POW.

Read more less

Young Richard Fitz-Eustace's return from Palestine is far from joyous. Damned by leprosy he must bid his mother, grandmother and sisters a final and sorrowful farewell and leave his estates at Halton Castle forever. Condemned to shun the company of others he must now find a place of solitude where he can seek forgiveness for sins committed in the Holy Land for which he is certain he has earned God's curse. Resolved to live out his life as a hermit, he journey's north into the newly named county of Lancashire. But this is no arbitrary journey; there is one last obligation undertaken for his grandmother: that he will seek out her kinsman, Sir Robert de Lacy, at Cliderhou Castle and there press his consideration of her claim to his estate. Meanwhile, at Halton, Richard's headstrong fourteen-year-old sister, Johanna is distraught. The fate of her beloved elder brother has done more than leave her bereft. Her other brother, ruthless and ambitious Roger has returned to take his place as head of the family. He and Johanna's mother have contrived a marriage for her to a wealthy old landowner, and without Richard's protection there seems little she can do about it- unless of course she can escape and find him.

Read more less

Western China, 1196: Yun Cai, a handsome and adored poet in his youth, is now an old man, exiled to his family estates. All that is left to him are regrets of a growing sense of futility and helplessness and the irritations of his feckless son and shrewish daughter-in-law. But the 'poison dragons' of misfortune shatter his orderly existence. First, Yun Cai's village is threatened with destruction by a vicious civil war. His wayward second son, a brutal rebel officer seems determined to ruin his entire family. Meanwhile, Yun Cai struggles to free an old friend, P'ei Ti, from a hellish prison - no easy task when P'ei Ti is the rebels' most valuable hostage and Yun Cai considers himself merely a spent, and increasingly frightened old man.Throughout these ordeals, Yun Cai draws from the glittering memories of his youth, when he journeyed to the capital to study poetry and join the upper ranks of the civil service: how he contended with rivalry and enmity among his fellow students and secured the friendship of P'ei Ti. Above all, he reflects on a great love he won and lost: his love for the beautiful singing girl, Su Lin, for which he paid with his freedom and almost his life. Yun Cai is forced to reconsider all that he is and all that he has ever been in order to determine how to preserve his honour and all that he finds he still cherishes. Only then can summon the wit and courage to confront the warlord General An-Shu and his beautiful but cruel consort, the Lady Ta-Chi.

Read more less

May 20th. Mrs Mary Lincoln admitted today - from Chicago - Age 56 - Widow of ex-President Lincoln - declared insane by the Cook County Court May 19th - 1875. This is the Patient Progress Reports for Bellevue Place Sanatorium.Incarcerated in an insane asylum after committal proceedings instigated by her own son, Mary Lincoln resolves to tell her own story in order to preserve and to prove her own sanity. Mary Todd Lincoln the original 'First Lady' is a figure of some notoriety in the USA: British readers introduced to her for the first time will encounter a fascinating, complex and captivating heroine of history.

Read more less

Under the Flavian Emperors the Roman public's hunger for gladiatorial combat has never been greater. The Emperor Domitian's passion for novelty and variety in the arena has given rise to a very different kind of warrior: the Gladiatrix. Lysandra, member of an ancient Spartan sect of warrior priestesses, is the sole survivor of a shipwreck off the coast of Asia Minor who finds herself the property of Lucius Balbus owner of the foremost Ludus for female gladiators in the Eastern Empire. Lysandra's Spartan pride refuses to accept her new status as a slave. Her deadly combat skills not only enable her to survive but win the adoration of the crowds, the respect of her Lanista, Balbus, and the admiration of Sextus Julius Frontinus, the provincial governor. But Lysandra's hubris has stirred up the ethnic factions of the ludus attracting the enmity of the Dacian warrior, Sorina, Gladiatrix Prima and leader of the Barbarian faction as well as inciting the hatred of the sadistic Numidian trainer Nastasen. Meanwhile Frontinus and Balbus plan the ultimate combat spectacle for the visit of the emperor's emissary, Trajanus, that will involve Lysandra in her greatest and deadliest trial.

Read more less

In the second novel of the visceral Divided Kingdom series, the Royalist army attacks Bristol, where the Reeve brothers, carefree and dissolute Ralph and embittered and fanatical Francis clash again.

Read more less

LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016 'Chop off my head and hawk it to the highest bidder. I'm the Anatomist's Dream, did you know? That's what they call me.' ...In a small salt-mining town, Philbert is born with a 'taupe', a disfiguring inflammation of the skull. Abandoned by his parents and with only a pet pig for company, he eventually finds refuge in a traveling carnival, Maulwerf's Fair of Wonders, as it makes its annual migration across Germany bringing entertainment to a people beset by famine, repression and revolutionary ferment. Philbert finds a caring family in Herman the Fish Man, Lita the Dancing Dwarf, Frau Fettleheim the Fattest Woman in the World, and an assortment of 'freak show' artists, magicians and entertainers. But when Philbert meets Kwert Tospirologist and Teller of Signs he is persuaded to undergo examination by the renowned physician and craniometrist Dr Ullendorf, both Kwert and Philbert embark on an altogether darker and more perilous journey that will have far-reaching consequences for a whole nation.

Read more less

Hou-ming, city of ghosts, central China, 1304 - In a vast graveyard created by Mongol slaughter, three children meet amidst the decaying ruins and forge a friendship that will determine their destinies. As the years pass they separate, finding different paths in life. Yun Shu, cruelly rejected by her father for refusing to bind her feet, seeks solace as a Daoist nun. Hsiung, enslaved by the Mongols when just a boy, becomes a ruthless rebel warlord determined to drive the invaders from his native land. Teng, an artist and scholar, last son of a once noble family ruined by the new Mongol dynasty, risks his life to preserve the culture he reveres. For the three friends to come together, they must endure war, treachery greed and the casual abuse of power. To win honour and unexpected love they must overcome dangerous enemies and conflicts in the depths of their hearts. Each of them, through clouds of troubles, must earn the Mandate of Heaven.

Read more less

Harmattan (n. A dry, dusty wind that blows from the Sahara- probably from the Arabic haram, a forbidden or accursed thing). Haoua is a young girl growing up in a remote village in the Republic of Niger. Spirited independent and intelligent, she has benefited from a stable home life and a loving and attentive mother and enjoys working and playing with her siblings and friends. Haoua worships her elder brother, Abdelkrim, a serving soldier who sends money home to support the family. But, on his last home visit, Abdelkrim quarrels with their father accusing him of gambling away the money he sends and being the cause of their mother's worsening health. It also emerges that their father plans to take a second wife. Despite this Haoua finds contentment in her schoolwork, her dreams of becoming a teacher and in writing assiduously to the family in Ireland who act as her aid sponsors. But for Haoua, there are new storm clouds on the horizon: as civil strife mounts in Niger, she begins to fear for Abdelkrim's safety; Her mother's illness is much more serious and further advanced than anyone had recognised; and her father's plans are turning out to be far more threatening than she could have ever imagined. Approaching her twelfth birthday, Haoua feels alone and vulnerable for the very first time in her life.

Read more less

I'll say it was always dark. I never saw your face.' 'Is that a promise? Are you going to keep your word, if I trust you?' 'YES!' Will Booker stood up. 'You know , I think I believe you , Missy. Just so you believe me...' The gunshot came as a surprise. Missy heard the echo crackling back from the trees as she was gasping at the incredible pain in her cheat. She tasted mud, her scream strangling in her throat. The next bullet jolted her, hitting below the ribs. She heard the second echo from the trees. She saw the smoke rising oddly from Will's jacket pocket. Ten years ago, sleepy Shiloh Springs was shaken as five teenagers were clubbed and shot to death and a sixth left for dead. But now the killer's conviction has been overturned after allegations that his rights were violated on his arrest. Rick Trueblood is a careworn private investigator working for the Shiloh County prosecutor's office; a veteran loner still grieving for a daughter murdered eight years ago- a crime he has never been able to solve. The judge has allowed just sixty days for the prosecutor's office to find enough evidence to retry the case. But as Rick struggles to re-investigate a trail long gone cold he starts to uncover a rat's nest of intrigue and duplicity with ramifications that lead closer to home than he could have possibly imagined. Booker in the meantime is out on bail. All he wants with his freedom is to kidnap and murder the two adolescent daughters of the minister who brought him to faith. When Booker finally snatches the girls, the local authorities follow procedures and file reports. Rick, on the other hand, has learned something about the way Booker thinks. In the desperate hours that follow, Rick recovers his instinct for the hunt, and with it, quite unexpectedly, a renewed passion for life.

Read more less

Central China, 1264. When Mongol armies storm into the Middle Kingdom, the descendents of Yun Cai (Taming Poison Dragons) are trapped in a desperate siege that will determine the fate of the Empire. Guang and Shih are identical twins, one a heroic soldier idolised by the city he defends, the other a humble doctor. In the midst of war, jealous conflicts over Shih's wife and concubine threaten to tear the brothers apart. Enemies close in on every side - some disturbingly close to home. Can the Yun family survive imprisonment, ruthless treachery and Kublai Khan's bloody hordes? Or will their own reckless passions destroy them first? "Breaking Bamboo" is the second instalment of a trilogy set in Song and Yuan Dynasty China, charting the trials and adventures of the Yun clan.

Read more less

Tea...a beverage brewed from the fermented dried leaves of the shrub Camellia sinensis and imbibed by all the great civilisations in the galaxy's history; a source of refreshment, stimulation and, above all else, of moral fibre - without which the British Space Empire must surely crumble to leave Earth at the mercy of its enemies. Sixty per cent of the Empire's tea is grown on one world - Urn, principal planet of the Didcot system. If Earth is to keep fighting, the tea must flow. When a crazed cult leader overthrows the government of Urn, Isambard Smith and his vaguely competent crew find themselves saddled with new allies: a legion of tea-obsessed nomads, an overly-civilised alien horde and a commando unit so elite that it only has five members. Only together can they defeat the self-proclaimed God Emperor of Didcot and confront the true power behind the coup: the sinister legions of the Ghast Empire and Smith's old enemy, Commander 462.

Read more less

In the 25th Century the British Space Empire thrives in Earth's corner of the Milky Way. The only threat is the gathering menace of the evil Ghast Empire whose arachnoid stormtroopers are hell bent on galactic domination and the extermination of all humanoid life. Captain Isambard Smith is the square-jawed, courageous and somewhat asinine new commander of the clapped out and battle damaged light cruiser John Pym. His entire crew comprises his trusted friend Suruk, a seven foot tusked and mandibled headhunter, his android pilot, who is secretly a fugitive sex toy, and a hamster called Gerald. Their mission is a simple one: to collect new-age herbalist Rhianna Mitchell from the laid back New Francisco orbiter and bring her back to Earth. Straightforward enough - except the Ghasts want her too and, in addition to a whole fleet of Ghast warships, Smith has to confront void sharks, a universe-weary android assassin and John Gilead, psychopathic naval officer from the fanatically religious Republic of Eden.

Read more less

LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016"Chop off my head and hawk it to the highest bidder. I'm the Anatomist's Dream, did you know? That's what they call me." In a small salt-mining town, Philbert is born with a 'taupe', a disfiguring inflammation of the skull. Abandoned by his parents and with only a pet pig for company, he eventually finds refuge in a traveling carnival, Maulwerf's Fair of Wonders, as it makes its annual migration across Germany bringing entertainment to a people beset by famine, repression and revolutionary ferment. Philbert finds a caring family in Herman the Fish Man, Lita the Dancing Dwarf, Frau Fettleheim the Fattest Woman in the World, and an assortment of 'freak show' artists, magicians and entertainers. But when Philbert meets Kwert Tospirologist and Teller of Signs he is persuaded to undergo examination by the renowned physician and craniometrist Dr Ullendorf, both Kwert and Philbert embark on an altogether darker and more perilous journey that will have far-reaching consequences for a whole nation.

Read more less

Will could never have predicted how much his life would change when he is knocked from his bicycle by a hit-and-run driver whilst returning home from the London clinic where he works as a psychotherapist. His wife, Lara, takes him to an A&E where he is diagnosed with concussion. Having cancelled his clients’ upcoming appointments, he spends much of the following week in fitful sleep whilst Lara goes out to work. When Will returns to his practice, something is very weird and very wrong. It seems that Will – or a form of Will – held the appointments with his regular clients whilst he was at home asleep. This Will gave some shocking therapy that was completely out of character for him – and he finds himself bringing up things in their history of which they themselves have no memory. The sessions go badly. Will’s one new client is Guy, who claims to be regularly disturbed in his flat by his sister, dressed in a red sweater and white jeans and who has been dead for five years. Walking home, Will passes the London Eye. A young woman in a gondola smiles at him and takes his picture. She wears a red sweater and white jeans. When Will takes Lara to a restaurant, the same woman appears at the next table and, to Lara’s consternation, smiles at Will. Later, she appears at his studio, having made an appointment. She says her name is Emma, that she is indeed Guy’s sister and is dead. She wants Will to be her therapist. Will refuses, telling her to see her doctor. But Emma clearly has other plans. Chance encounters with her become more frequent and more bizarre. What’s more, as they start to take a toll on Will’s marriage, his livelihood and even his sense of self, it seems that Emma knows a lot more about Will than she should.

Read more less

Lysandra is back and she's going to war! In the dirt of the Flavian Amphitheatre, known to history as the Coliseum, lies the bloodied body of Spartan priestess, Lysandra, cut down by Rome's adored Gladiatrix Prima, the beautiful and deadly Illeana, the Midnight Falcon. At the edge of the underworld, the goddess Athene offers Lysandra's spirit a stark choice: reside eternally amid the fields of Elysium or return to a life full of pain and sorrow but that will secure Lysandra a glorious place in legend for generations to come. And now it seems that Lysandra's destiny also lies to the east, and the prospect of a final and bloody reckoning with an old and hated adversary. Lysandra is back and she's going to war! The third adventure in this visceral series inspired by the famous Gladiatrix stele found near Halicarnassus in the 19th century. Sequel to Gladiatrix and Roma Victrix.

Read more less

'Trust me. I know where I'm going.' Angus MacGrath, artist, sailor and navigator, is lost ― caught between a remote wife, a disapproving father and a son seeking guidance. Far from his coastal village in Nova Scotia, war rages in Europe, and among the missing is Angus's adventurous brother-in-law whose unknown fate sets Angus on an uncharted course, with profound consequences for those he loves and those he comes to love. Angus defies his pacifist upbringing and enlists to find his wife's brother. Though assured a safe job as a military cartographer in London, he is assigned instead to the infantry to the blood-soaked mud of France, where his search begins. At home his young son, once wide-eyed about the war, must navigate uncertain loyalties in a village succumbing to war fever. Separated by the ocean they once sailed together, Angus and his son search for what it takes to survive, each trying in his own way to return to the other. Every character in this exquisitely told story seeks to protect what matters most in the face of war's upheaval.

Read more less

“I am not in danger . . . I am the danger.” With those words, Breaking Bad’s Walter White solidified himself as TV’s greatest antihero. Wanna Cook? explores the most critically lauded series on television with analyses of the individual episodes and ongoing storylines. From details such as stark settings, intricate camerawork, and jarring music to the larger themes, including the roles of violence, place, self-change, legal ethics, and fan reactions, this companion book is perfect for those diehards who have watched the Emmy Award–winning series multiple times as well as for new viewers. Wanna Cook? elucidates without spoiling and illuminates without nit-picking. A must have for any fan’s collection.

Read more less

I turned thirty-seven that summer, older than Dante when he toured Hell, but only by a couple of years - Life couldn't be better for David Albo, an associate professor of English at a small mid-western university. He lives in an idyllic, out-of-town, plantation-style mansion with a beautiful and intelligent wife and an adoring teenage stepdaughter. As he returns to the university after a long and relaxing sabbatical, there's a full professorship in the offing - and, what's more, he's managed to stay off the booze for two whole years. But, once term begins, things deteriorate rapidly. The damning evidence that he has sexually harassed his students is just the beginning as Dave finds himself sucked into a vortex of conspiracy, betrayal, jealousy and murder. Unless he can discover quickly who is out to destroy him, all that he is and loves is about to be stripped away.

Read more less

Major-General Farhan Al-Balawi is a loyal soldier in the Saudi Arabian army who dotes on his beloved daughter, Maryam, his pride in her learning and independent spirit sharpened by the death of his elder son and his estrangement from the younger who has opted to pursue a hedonistic western lifestyle in the USA. Despite the love she shares with her family, her respect for her father, the pride she takes in her Arabian heritage and her loyalty to Islam, Maryam yearns for travel and the opportunity to continue her education in a European university. But then Farhan announces that Maryam is to marry - the fulfilment of a solemn promise made before Maryam was born and to a man who once saved Farhan's life - that Farhan's daughter would one day marry his old army comrade's son. Maryam endeavours to stifle her bitter disappointment, and to honour her father's wishes she complies with the betrothal. Then she meets Joe, an American dentist- and a Jew. As Joe and Maryam pursue an increasingly intimate clandestine relationship they dare to dream of freedom and of a life together. But Joe is gradually drawing the attention of the Muttawa, the feared religious police, and when Maryam realises that she is pregnant it is then that her trials really begin.

Read more less

From the depths of Space a new foe rises to do battle with mankind: the British Space Empire is threatened by the lemming-people of Yull, ruthless enemies who attack without mercy, fear or any concept of self preservation. At the call of their war god, the Yull have turned on the Empire, hell bent on conquest and destruction in their rush towards the cliffs of destiny. When the Yullian army is forced to retreat at the battle of the River Tam, the disgraced Colonel Vock swears revenge on the clan of Suruk the Slayer, Isambard Smith's homicidal alien friend. Now Smith and his crew must defend the Empire and civilise the stuffing out of a horde of bloodthirsty lemming-men - which would be easy were it not for a sinister robotics company, a Ghast general with a fondness for genetic engineering and an ancient brotherhood of Morris Dancers - who may yet hold the key to victory.

Read more less

On Christmas Eve in snow-covered Santa Fe, New Mexico, tens of thousands of pedestrians stroll through its festively decorated streets. Among them is Paul Kagan, a spy on the run trying desperately to protect a special package; a baby who just might be the key to a lasting peace in the Middle East. He is pursued closely by three extremely dangerous men, members of the Russian mafia who he has just betrayed. Attempting to elude his hunters, Kagan seeks refuge in a quiet house on the outskirts of the town. Once inside he discovers it is occupied by a woman and her 12-year-old son hiding from other evils and whom he has now put in mortal danger as his hunters manage to track him down. In the following tense hours, Kagan tries to calm the woman and the boy by telling them the spy's version of the traditional Nativity story as he prepares the house for the onslaught he knows to be coming.

Read more less

Kate Kenyon, the wealthy young widow of an English aristocrat, has an addiction to mortal risk. She feeds it by engaging in the armed robbery of priceless artefacts with her accomplice and lover Ethan Brand. Their latest target is a priceless 'Byzantine' icon hidden in the tower of a chateau by Lake Lucerne. So far they have never had to shoot anyone. This time will be different. Thomas Malloy is a retired CIA man looking for his first lucrative freelance assignment. His chance comes with a presidential favour to a rich but ailing televangelist. Malloy's task seems simple enough: pick up the preacher's newly acquired painting from a Zurich bank and get it to the airport. But, once in Switzerland, Malloy's old friend, the enigmatic Contessa Claudia de Medici tries to warn him off his mission. Sir Julian Corbeau is an international criminal holed up in Switzerland to avoid US extradition proceedings. He is also the sadistic head of the modern Knights Templar. He had the painting and now he desperately wants it back and swears to wreak a bloody revenge upon those who stole it.

Read more less

The story is set in a near future Britain in the direst quarter of an unnamed city. This is a landscape of tower blocks of huge street lamps that turn the world a shade of greyish orange - beneath which all human activity seems suspect - of winding paths and foot bridges over never quiet motorways. A government initiative to deal with increasing opposition to unpopular council tax rises contracts bands of citizen volunteers to collect payment. Francine O'Brallahan aka Bulletproof Suzy, a highly intelligent though somewhat violent member of the urban underclass, recruits three other young females, her 'little ladies', to exploit the opportunity to earn enough cash to find a better life. Suzy's middle class, politically correct friend, Joanne disapproves of the venture and their friendship is broken. Joanne is found brutally murdered outside Suzy's tower block not long afterwards. Suzy and her crew set about finding the killer to exact retribution in the only way that they know, but there are two deadly and ominous complications: as far as the city police are concerned, Suzy herself remains the prime suspect and there appears to be damning video evidence to back up their theory; and there is a menacing new gang infiltrating Suzy's neighbourhood - they're numerous, sophisticated and armed to the teeth and they're after Suzy's blood. Ian Brotherhood's debut novel seems destined to become a modern cult classic. Suzy's narrative is pacy, fresh and idiosyncratic and her character is an astonishing creation-perhaps the first significant female anti-hero of the 21st century. This is a short sharp left hook of a book, and it hits the spot.

Read more less