Thrilled at his first command, a little brig sloop called Teazer, Thomas Kydd must race to bring his ship to battle readiness - he is desperately needed to defend Malta against Barbary corsairs, ferocious privateers and the French who are frantically trying to rescue the remnants of their army in the Levant. But his jubilation does not last long -...

Thomas Kydd, a wig-maker from Guildford, is seized by the press gang to be a part of the crew of the 98-gun line-of-battle ship. The ship sails immediately and Kydd has to learn the realities of shipboard life fast. Despite all that he goes through in danger of tempest and battle, he comes to admire the skills and courage of the seamen. CONTAINS ST...

In 1941, Irene Nemirovsky sat down to write a novel that would convey the magnitude of what she was living through, not in terms of battles and politicians, but by evoking the domestic lives and personal trials of the ordinary citizens of France. Set during a year that begins with France's fall to the Nazis in June 1940, this audiobook falls into t...

The life of Lady Jane Grey, the 'nine day Queen', is all too often remembered as just a line in a history book, but this debut novel reveals the full fascinating and tragic story - a tale of treachery, power struggles, and religious turmoil in the Tudor court. Winner of the Highland Children's Book Award.

Leaving the valley that has become her home with Jondalar, the handsome man she has nursed back to health and come to love, Ayla embarks on a journey that will lead her to the Mamutoi - the Mammoth Hunters. CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE AND/OR ADULT THEMES.

One fine day, A.D. 70, Sosia Camillina quite literally runs into Marcus Didius Falco on the steps of the Forum. It seems Sosia is on the run from a couple of street toughs, and after a quick and dirty rescue, P.I. Falco wants to know why. Falco finds out that Sosia, the niece of a highly placed senator, holds the secret to a stockpile of silver pig...

Thomas Kydd has dragged himself up in the navy from press-ganged seaman to captain of his own ship. Now he faces disgrace. After losing favour with his superiors, and suffering terrible personal tragedy, Kydd and his ship are sent to guard the Channel Islands from Napoleon's forces. When he is brutally betrayed off the Normandy Coast and removed fr...

Anton Lesser and Anna Madeley star in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of the fourth novel in Lindsey Davis's bestselling series featuring Roman private eye Falco. The Iron Hand of Mars sees Falco being dispatched to one of the most hostile parts of the Empire to deliver a new standard - an iron hand - to one of the legions. Germania is col...

Returning to Rome after his mission to Germania, Falco finds that his mother is being harassed by a centurion named Censorinus, who says he is chasing a debt owed to him by Falco's brother Festus. Censorinus claims that Festus was involved in a syndicate, shipping valuable statues from Greece - and that even when his ship sunk, Festus had guarantee...

Ayla is a courageous and indomitable young woman whose story begins when she is a five-year-old orphan adopted by the Clan, a group of Neanderthal people. Ayla is cared for by the Clan's medicine woman Iza and its wise holy man Creb. Iza teaches her how to find food and the healing skills known only to her line, but Ayla must also learn the ways of...

Ayla leaves the safety of the Clan who raised her and sets out alone on an epic journey of discovery. A hostile land awaits her, and her need for human companionship and love remains unfulfilled.

Inspired by the real-life memoirs of a Victorian Inspector in Scotland, James McLevy prowls the dark streets of 1860s Edinburgh bringing criminals to justice, with the assistance of Constable Mulholland. Counterfeiters are at work in the city in The Second Shadow, and McLevy is under pressure to secure rapid convictions. But his mind is more on the...

Around 117 AD the Roman Ninth Legion was ordered to put down an uprising among the Caledonian tribes. Four thousand men vanished without a trace into the swirling mists of the north of Roman Britain. Many years after their disappearance, a young centurion, Marcus Aquila, sets out to discover the truth about what happened to the legion and to its Fi...

BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS is an enchanting tale that captures the magic of reading and the wonder of romantic awakening. An immediate international bestseller, it tells the story of two hapless city boys exiled to a remote mountain village for re-education during China's infamous Cultural Revolution. There the two friends meet the da...

Set in Russia 1913, Frank Reid arrives home from work on a day just like any other to find that his wife has left him. How should he cope? 'The Beginning of Spring' tells the story of how the family copes with this unexpected event, set against a turbulent political backdrop.

A historical novel on the corruption of innocence, using the famous painting by Vermeer as an inspiration. Griet, the young daughter of a tilemaker in 17th century Holland, obtains her first job as a servant in Vermeer's household. Tracy Chevalier shows us, through Griet's eyes, the complicated family, the society of the small town of Delft, and li...

The sequel to 'The Clan of the Cave Bear'. Life on the glacial continent of the last Ice Age, when two kinds of human beings, Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon, shared the earth, is an exotic, primeval world where the beautiful Ayla leaves the safety of the clan who raised her and sets out alone on a journey of discovery. CONTAINS ADULT THEMES.

Where else to enjoy the last days of summer than on the beautiful Bay of Naples? All along the coast, the Roman Empire's richest citizens are relaxing in their luxurious villas. The world's largest navy lies peacefully at anchor. Only one man is worried. The engineer Marcus Attilius has just taken charge of the Aqua Augusta, the enormous aqueduct t...

Arthur and George grew up worlds apart in late 19th-century Britain: Arthur in shabby-genteel Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village. Arthur becomes a doctor then a writer; George a solicitor in Birmingham. Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age, while George remains in hard-working obscurity. But as t...

In 1666, The Great Plague scorched London whilst the north of England remained untouched until, in a small community of leadminers and hill farmers, a bolt of cloth arrived from the capital. The tailor who cut the cloth had no way of knowing that the damp fabric carried with it bubonic infection. So begins the 'Year of Wonders', based on real-life...

Read in the style of a secret diary, this famous sequel to I, Claudius gives a wry and human view of the Roman world, bringing to life some of the most scandalous and violent times in history. Claudius has survived the murderous intrigues of his predecessors to become, reluctantly, Emperor of Rome. He recounts his surprisingly successful rule; how...