A Close Run Thing

Waterloo, 1815As the war against Bonaparte rages to its bloody end upon the field of Waterloo, a young officer goes about his duty in the ranks of Wellington's army. He is Cornet Matthew Hervey of the 6th Light Dragoons -- a soldier, gentleman and man or honour, who suddenly finds himself allotted a hero's role ...Momentous times call for momentous acts: as the Napoleonic Wars escalate, Cornet Hervey faces decisions, both military and romantic, which will change the course of his life, and possibly the outcome of Waterloo...'I have never read a more enthralling account of a battle ... This is the first in a series of Matthew Hervey adventures. The next can't come soon enough for me'Daily Mail
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The Empire of the Senses

A sweeping, gorgeously written debut: a novel of duty to family and country, the dictates of passion, and blood ties unraveling in the charged political climate of Berlin between the world wars. Lev Perlmutter, an assimilated, cultured German Jew, enlists to fight in World War I, leaving behind his gentile wife, Josephine, and their children, Franz and Vicki. Moving between Lev's and Josephine's points of view, the first part of the novel focuses on Lev's experiences on the Eastern Front--both in war and in love--which render his life at home a pale aftermath by comparison. The second part of the novel takes us to Berlin, 1927--28. Now young adults, the Perlmutter children grapple with their own questions: Franz, drawn into the Nazi brown shirt movement, struggles with his unexpressed homosexuality; Vicki, seduced by the Jazz Age and everything new, bobs her hair and falls in love with a young man who wants to take her to Palestine. Unlike many...
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Pattern of Shadows

Mary is a nursing sister at a Lancashire prison camp for the housing and treatment of German POWs. Life at work is difficult but fulfilling; life at home a constant round of arguments – often prompted by her fly-by-night sister, Ellen, the apple of her shorttempered father's eye. Then Frank turns up at the house one night – a guard at the camp, he's been watching Mary for weeks – and won't leave until she agrees to walk out with him. Frank Shuttleworth is a difficult man to love and it's not long before Mary gives him his marching orders. But Shuttleworth won't take no for an answer and the gossips are eager for their next victim, for the least hint at fraternization with the enemy. Now, not only Mary's happiness but her very life is threatened by the most dangerous of wartime secrets...
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To Love Anew

Hannah Talbot has no one. Forced to leave the only home she's ever known, she works for a cruel employer who brutally takes the one thing she has left—her dignity. When she is banished from London, she is certain God has turned his back on her. John Bradshaw was a successful businessman whose untamed spirit sometimes wanted more. When he is betrayed by those closest to him, he loses everything—his wife, his business, even his freedom. John's and Hannah's paths are about to cross. Aboard a ghastly, nineteenth-century prison ship from London to Australia, John and Hannah must keep hope alive and trust God's unconditional love.
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Katherine's Story, 1848

Trouble is brewing at Vandermeer Manor and it is up to Katherine and Elizabeth to reveal the truth before it's too late in the fourth book of a fascinating historical fiction series.Twins Katherine and Elizabeth Chatswood are on their way to visit their distant relatives at Vandermeer Manor in Rhode Island. Wedding bells will soon be ringing for their father's cousin, John Vandermeer, in the most magnificent event on either side of the ocean since the twins' birthday ball a few months ago. John Vandermeer's fianceé is the famous writer, Anna DuMay. The girls are instantly struck by her kindness and independent nature. Anna is a woman at the forefront of the social changes beginning to take place in America and she has many friends who attended the Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention that summer. But then something very precious inside the manor gets vandalized, and the groom threatens to call the wedding off, believing that Anna might have...
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A Wartime Secret

A Wartime Secret is the moving short story of a family torn apart by war, from bestselling author Annie Murray.Some lies are harder to hide . . .Grace and Ted Chapman married at the beginning of the war, but then Ted was called up to fight . . . Grace was left alone, fearful that her beloved Ted would never return. With the passage of time, Grace began to create a new life and found comfort in the arms of another man. Then along came the birth of a little girl, baby Barbara.One morning, Grace receives a telegram out of the blue, she learns that Ted is alive and on his way home. News of his return sends Grace into a sick panic and she begs her sister Joan to look after her daughter. When Ted returns back to Birmingham, he is shell-shocked and fragile - all the while Grace is tormented. Just how far is Grace willing to go, in order to protect her secret?
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Birmingham Rose

SynopsisBook 1Life is bleak for Rose Lucas, a spirited, intelligent girl, born into a large family in the slums of pre-war Birmingham. But her friendship with Diana, daughter of a vicar from middle-class Moseley, gives her hope. She learns to aspire to a different kind of existence, vowing never to become a child-bearing drudge like her mother. Life, however, never follows the way of dreams. After a childhood marked by tragedy, Rose eventually finds and loses the love for which she has striven so hard. From Italy, where she has travelled during the Second World War, she is forced to return to Birmingham and an unhappy marriage, her hopes and illusions shattered. But Rose will not be defeated and she, too, is determined to rise once again above the devastation of her life ...Collect the Birmingham set: "Birmingham Friends Birmingham Blitz".
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Alexandrian Summer

"A powerful novel of tensions–sexual, familial, religious, and political–and an affecting but unsparing portrait of the petit bourgeois world of Egyptian Jews standing obliviously on the edge of a precipice. Alexandria-–sensual and enchanting-–shimmers in these pages." —Dalia Sofer, author of The Septembers of Shiraz"A fine work of art . . . riveting from the first page to the last."—Zo Haderekh"A reason to rejoice. . . . You can't help but keep on smiling with great pleasure."—Maariv"A profound literary experience."—AhshavAlexandrian Summer is the story of two Jewish families living their frenzied last days in the doomed cosmopolitan social whirl of Alexandria just before fleeing Egypt for Israel in 1951. The conventions of the Egyptian upper-middle class are laid bare in this dazzling novel, which exposes startling sexual hypocrisies and portrays a now vanished...
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Bridget Crack

The kind of book that keeps you reading past midnight, holding on for dear life. There's a sense of menace on every page. An incredible debut by a brilliant new talent.'Rohan Wilson, author of To Name Those LostVan Diemen's Land, 1826.When Bridget Crack arrives in the colony, she is just grateful to be on dry land. But finding the life of an indentured domestic servant intolerable, she pushes back and is punished for her insubordination-sent from one place to another, each significantly worse than the last. Too late, she realises the place she has ended up is the worst of all: the 'Interior,' where the hard cases are sent-a brutally hard life with a cruel master, miles from civilisation.She runs from there and finds herself imprisoned by the impenetrable Tasmanian wilderness. What she finds there-what finds her-is Matt Sheedy, a man on the run, who saves her from certain death. Her precarious existence among volatile and murderous bushrangers is a different...
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A Curious Life for a Lady

Isabella Bird was a woman of remarkable gifts. In 1872, at the age of forty, this rather earnest daughter of a country parson abandoned the rectory nest and began her pioneering journeys to some of the most inhospitable corners of the world. Undismayed by discomfort or danger she was to spend almost thirty years travelling - to the Rocky Mountains, the Sandwich Isles, to Japan, Malaya, Kashmir and Tibet, to Persia, Korea and China - where an indomitable spirit, an unassuming cordiality and, above all, a limitless capacity for being interested won her universal welcome. Her accounts of her experiences became best-selling books and established for Isabella Bird a reputation as one of the great travel writers of her day.'Miss Barr has her measure. She and Miss Bird are well suited. The style of both is fresh, energetic, visual, making an enchanting book.'Evening Standard 'Rich and riotous as her intrepid heroine moves at the speed...
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Criminal Masterminds

Criminals and their crimes have fascinated us for many years and sometimes it is hard not to be impressed by the sheer brilliance of their intellectual capabilities. The title evil genius springs to mind when one thinks of the way they plan their complex crimes down to the very last detail. This book recounts the stories of more than fifty of the most ruthless, devious and notorious criminals of all time and describes the way they masterminded their crimes.Contents:Ancient Evil including Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and Marquis de SadeFemale Fiends including Countess Bathory and Lucretia BorgiaOrganised Crime including The Mafia, Triads, The Krays, The Medellin Cartel, Lucky Luciano and Al CaponeSpies and Double Agents including Mata Hari, Klaus Fuchs and The Cambridge SpiesMurderers, Outlaws and Thieves including Bonnie and Clyde, Machine Gun Kelly and Pretty Boy FloydTerrorists including Abu Nidal, Baader Meinhof, Carlos the Jackal and Osama Bin...
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Nemesis

The fools killed his family...then made him a lawman. This wild and wooly western, in the Louis L'amore tradition, comes from renowned author L. J. Martin, whose over 20 novels have brought compelling reading to so many. McBain, broken and beaten from the Civil war, is reluctant to return to his family, as a snake dwells in his belly and he can't get the images out of his mind...until he learns his sister and her family have been murdered. Then it's retribution time.ReviewL.J. Martin gives his readers such realistic and well-written dialog it makes you feel as if you are standing in the saloon watching this all unfold. The story here is at times rough to take but completely necessary to make sure you understand this is a period in history where only the strong survive.~ Mary Gramlich About the AuthorL. J. Martin is the author of 22 novels (westerns, historicals, mysteries, and thrillers), and has a number of screenplays, one of which was optioned by a major NBC approved producer. He's also written five non-fiction books, KILLING CANCER (he's a two time cancer survivor), WRITE COMPELLING FICTION, an instructional work for aspiring authors, MYRTLE MAE & THE CREW, a book of cartoons, FROM THE PEA PATCH, a conservative political series of essays, and COOKING WILD & WONDERFUL, a cookbook with story content. He and Kat live in Montana in the Spring, Summer, and Fall and on the California coast in the Winter. His wife, Kat Martin, is a NYT bestsellling, internationally published, romantic suspense and historical romance author published in over a dozen foreign languages and in 2 dozen countries. When not writing, L. J. is cooking and developing recipes for his webpage wolfpackranch.com, hunting, fishing, or hauling his cameras around the high country, or promoting their careers. He has two dozen novels and non-fiction works listed on Amazon and Kindle.
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