Rome and the Romans are obsessed with chariot racing. Lepo was the rising star of the Purples, a new team created by the psychotic Emperor Domitian with big money backing. Suspicion immediately falls on Lepo's greatest rival, Agathon, a young man emerging from a rival team, the Golds. Convinced of his guilt, a lynch mob is hunting him. The Golds fa...

In the smouldering ruins of post-war Germany, Ethel Gathers - an American woman longing for a child - spots a group of mixed-race children following a nun through the cobbled streets. Compelled by a force she can't explain, Ethel follows them and uncovers a hidden community of abandoned children, born to Black soldiers and German women. Determined...

When nobleman Thomas Boleyn, lord of Hever Castle, is called to London in 1509 to present himself to a newly anointed King Henry VIII, he sets in train events that ensure the Boleyn name will never be forgotten. Years later, as Henry VIII relentlessly pursues Thomas' daughter Anne Boleyn to be his queen, Hever Castle becomes her escape, a place whe...

Following the Year of the Five Emperors, three are left in the field. A final bloody confrontation is inevitable as the ruthless Septimius Severus advances through Cappadocia and Cilicia on the heels of the retreating legions of the Emperor in the East, Percennius Niger. Co-opted into Severus's legions are two veterans who, after long service, now...

1191. For Will Bowman, newly restored to the service of King Richard 'Lionheart', the war against Saladin in the Holy Land now reaches its bloody climax. HERO No soonder is it over than the skulduggery of traitors conspiring against Richard's kingdom threatens the outbreak of yet more conflict. WARRIOR Torn between his destiny and his allegiance, W...

1360: Having left her days of rebellion behind, Jeanette of Kent has finally found contentment as a wife and mother. Then, she is delivered a new blow: her beloved husband, Thomas Holland, has died on duty overseas. Though broken, Jeanette readies herself once more to fight to protect what is hers. And when Prince Edward, heir to the throne and her...

Cannae, 216 BC - Under a blisteringly hot sun, Hannibal Barca, perhaps the most skilful general in history, leads his army against the unstoppable might of Rome. His soldiers are outnumbered two to one. The momentous battle will determine the Roman Republic's fate. By the day's end, tens of thousands of men will be dead, the ground saturated in blo...

Winner of the Carnegie Medal, Tamar is Mal Peet's astonishing novel about love, lies and secrets in a time of war.When her grandfather dies, Tamar inherits a box containing a series of clues and coded messages. Out of the past, another Tamar emerges, a man involved in the terrifying world of resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Holland half a centu...

A stunningly designed new collectible edition of Hemingway's enduring classic Long considered one of the best American novels of our time, A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable tale of an American ambulance driver and his passionate affair with a beautiful English nurse. Set against the backdrop of World War I, this gripping, semi-autobiographic...

Brought to you by Penguin.Gripping, terrifying, an unputdownable read. Discover Graham Greene's most iconic novel.A gang war is raging through the dark underworld of Brighton. Seventeen-year-old Pinkie, malign and ruthless, has killed a man. Believing he can escape retribution, he is unprepared for the courageous, life-embracing Ida Arnold. Greene'...

Brought to you by Penguin. Enter a vanished and unjust world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where black maids raise white children, but aren't trusted not to steal the silver...There's Aibileen, raising her seventeenth white child and nursing the hurt caused by her own son's tragic death; Minny, whose cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue; and whi...

A secret letter. A wartime promise. A courageous act of love...Singapore, 1942: The war is drawing ever closer, and Dorothy faces a heart-rending choice to flee the country she has come to call home. With warplanes advancing across the ocean, she is boarding a boat full of evacuees when something is urgently pressed into her arms. As enemy fire cut...

London, 1939. When war breaks out on librarian Joyce Kindred's doorstep and a call for help rings out across the libraries of London, she's determined to act. Joyce knows only the world of books can offer safety and comfort to her neighbourhood - and she will make sure no one is left behind. Occupied Poland, 1942. Dorotha knows any chance of her es...

At the close of the eighteenth century, Angel Kelly, an Irishman, sets sail from Liverpool aboard the Atlas with the intention of creating a Utopian commune in Brazil. But when a mutiny takes place on the ship, he finds himself stranded upon the coast of an unnamed Spanish colony in Latin America. In the aftermath, Kelly becomes unwittingly caught...

Laura, an impoverished Cornish girl, meets her husband when they are both in service in Teignmouth in 1916. They have a baby, Charles, but Laura's husband returns home from the trenches a damaged man, already ill with the tuberculosis that will soon leave her a widow. In a small, class-obsessed town she raises her boy alone, working as a laundress,...

London, 1923. Cyril Black is finally out of prison. Rather than going home to his wife and son, he visits his mistress only to find that she's given birth to his daughter - and wants nothing to do with her. His wife, Florrie, reluctantly agrees to take them in. But there's no love in her heart for another woman's child... 1939. At sixteen, Penny Bl...

And so, I am mad after all...The shackles gouge my wrists, disturbing the scars of Strangeways Prison's fetters. But no matter; if I bleed, I will not die: I am already dead. Named after the funeral flower, Lily has walked hand-in-hand with death for as long as she can remember. But the fact that death has chosen to follow her through life can hard...

Rome, Father Asser is waiting to die. His idealism has landed him in a papal prison on trumped-up charges of heresy, until salvation arrives in an unexpected form. Cardinal Balotelli also dreams of a better world, free from the ravages of the Norlanders. He has a vital job for Asser, one that could shape the future of Europe. Wessex, King Aethelwol...

Brought to you by Penguin.WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE 2024Like a long winter's dream, this haunting and visionary new novel from 2024 Nobel Prize winner Han Kang takes us on a journey from contemporary South Korea into its painful historyBeginning one morning in December, We Do Not Part traces the path of Kyungha as she travels from the...

Brought to you by Penguin.'One of the best books I've ever read' Richard OsmanA damaged survivor of the First World War, Tom Birkin finds refuge in the quiet village church of Oxgodby where he is to spend the summer uncovering a huge medieval wall-painting. Immersed in the peace and beauty of the countryside and the unchanging rhythms of village li...

They joined for their country. They fought for each other. When war breaks out in 1914, Mark Fenner and his Sheffield friends immediately flock to Kitchener's call. Amid waving flags and boozy celebration, the three men - Fen, his best friend Locky and self-assured Frank, rival for the woman Fen loves - enlist as volunteers to take on the Germans a...