Search Results for:

A highly personal, anecdotal family memoir of the Wellington legacy.

Jane Wellesley is a member of one of Britain’s most illustrious families. Her father, the 8th Duke of Wellington, was born in 1915, a hundred years after the first Duke’s momentous victory over Napoleon at Waterloo, but only a little over sixty years after the death of his celebrated ancestor. When the ‘Iron Duke’ died Queen Victoria wept with the nation, mourning the loss of ‘the greatest man England has known’. A million and a half people swarmed London’s streets to watch his cortege pass on its way to St Paul’s.

Few facts can now be added about the public man, but Jane’s family memoir animates the First Duke as husband and father, as brother and several degrees of grandfather. Her journey through this richly compelling family history begins and ends with the first Duke, visiting the battlefield of Waterloo with her father to set her fascinating tale in motion. Through her parents she reaches back to earlier generations, weaving together characters and places, establishing connections, and exploring in greater depth than usual the Wellington women, who are often reduced to footnotes in conventional histories. She unearths memories, visits places from her parents’ past, and discovers much about the lives of her grandparents and the generations before them.

Most of us view the First Duke of Wellington as an iconic figure, whose name has been claimed by pubs, squares, streets, and, of course, rubber boots. In this highly personal account, the public man gives way to the private, and Wellington’s legacy is seen through the eyes of those who have followed in his footsteps. Jane Wellesley triumphantly succeeds in wresting the Duke from his lonely column to reclaim him for his family, and so for the reader.

Brendan Doyle is a twentieth-century English professor who travels back to 1810 London to attend a lecture given by English romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This is a London filled with deformed clowns, organised beggar societies, insane homunculi and magic.

When he is kidnapped by gypsies and consequently misses his return trip to 1983, the mild-mannered Doyle is forced to become a street-smart con man, escape artist, and swordsman in order to survive in the dark and treacherous London underworld. He defies bullets, black magic, murderous beggars, freezing waters, imprisonment in mutant-infested dungeons, poisoning, and even a plunge back to 1684.

Coleridge himself and poet Lord Byron make appearances in the novel, which also features a poor tinkerer who creates genetic monsters and a werewolf that inhabits others’ bodies when his latest becomes too hairy.

A spellbinding novel of love and courage set in the England, Italy and Florence Nightingale’s Crimea.
A Richard and Judy Book Club bestseller – includes a fascinating and moving brand new final chapter.

Russia, 1854. As the Crimean War grinds on, Rosa Barr – young, headstrong and beautiful – travels to the battlefields, determined to join Florence Nightingale and save as many of the wounded as she can.

For Mariella, Rosa’s cousin, the war is contained within the pages of her scrapbook, her sewing circle, and the letters she receives from Henry, her fiancé, a celebrated surgeon who has also volunteered to work within the shadow of the guns. But when Henry falls ill, and Rosa’s communications cease, Mariella finds herself drawn inexorably towards the war.

Following the trail of her elusive and captivating cousin, Mariella’s epic journey takes her from the domestic restraint of Victorian England to the ravaged landscape of the Crimea. As she ventures deeper into the dark heart of the conflict, Mariella discovers her own strengths and passions through Rosa’s tough lessons of concealment, faithfulness and love.

When Henry falls ill and is sent to recuperate in Italy, Mariella impulsively decides she must go to him. But upon their arrival at his lodgings, she and her maid make a heartbreaking discovery: Rosa has disappeared.
Following the trail of her elusive and captivating cousin, Mariella’s epic journey takes her from the domestic restraint of Victorian London to the ravaged landscape of the Crimea and the tragic city of Sebastopol. As she ventures deeper into the dark heart of the conflict, Mariella’s ordered world begins to crumble and she finds she has much to learn about secrecy, faithfulness and love.

‘This is everything a good historical romance should be’ GOOD BOOK GUIDE

‘This book is little short of masterful. ..This is easily one of my favourite books of the last decade.’ Goodreads 5 stars

‘Absolutely loved this book, a real insight to women of a certain time’ Goodreads 5 stars

‘Feels like a dramatic, sweeping, tragic historical epic that you could imagine as a brilliant costume drama film’ Goodreads 5 stars

The life of Henry Kissinger seen through one seminal year – 1973.

‘In his masterly new book, distinguished historian Sir Alistair Horne spotlights the man at the epicentre of the events that shook the decade’ Andrew Roberts

‘Compelling … brilliantly analysed … the fascinating story is retold with vigour and shrewdness’ DAILY TELEGRAPH

‘A fun and lively book: at its best, it casts new light on the peculiar relationship between Nixon and Kissinger, the ultimate “odd couple” ‘ SUNDAY TIMES

1973 was a seminal year in world history. The outbreak of the ‘Yom Kippur War’ took both Israel and the US by surprise, the Vietnam War finally ended, it was the year of détente with the Soviet Union, but the US executive was in a state of collapse following Watergate, and the year ended with the Muslim-initiated energy crisis, which brought the Western world to the brink of economic disaster – a story of deepest relevance today.

This book is the biography of Kissinger – the first he has authorised – viewed through the events of this crucial year. A story of his extraordinarily imaginative aims, his near successes, and, as he admits, his ultimate failures.

How the age of the great WWI aces came to an end in the skies over the Western Front

At the beginning of 1918 the great aces seemed invincible. Flying above the battlefields of the Western Front, they cut a deadly swathe through the ranks of their enemies, as each side struggled to keep control of the air. Some were little more than boys when they started to fly, yet they were respected and feared as some of the deadliest killers in the sky. But as the press of fighting increased with the great offensives of 1918, nervous stress and physical exhaustion finally began to take their toll – and one by one the aces began to fall.

This book charts the rise and fall of the WWI aces in the context of the vast battles that were taking place in 1918. It shows the vital importance of reconnaissance, and how large formations of aircraft became the norm – bringing an end to the era of the old, heroic ‘lone wolves’. As the First World War came to a close very few of the aces survived. This epic history of the final year of the air war is both a chronicle of the ways in which 1918 changed aerial combat forever, and a requiem for the pioneers of aerial combat who eventually became the victims of their own brilliant innovations.

How the age of the great WWI aces came to an end in the skies over the Western Front

At the beginning of 1918 the great aces seemed invincible. Flying above the battlefields of the Western Front, they cut a deadly swathe through the ranks of their enemies, as each side struggled to keep control of the air. Some were little more than boys when they started to fly, yet they were respected and feared as some of the deadliest killers in the sky. But as the press of fighting increased with the great offensives of 1918, nervous stress and physical exhaustion finally began to take their toll – and one by one the aces began to fall.

This book charts the rise and fall of the WWI aces in the context of the vast battles that were taking place in 1918. It shows the vital importance of reconnaissance, and how large formations of aircraft became the norm – bringing an end to the era of the old, heroic ‘lone wolves’. As the First World War came to a close very few of the aces survived. This epic history of the final year of the air war is both a chronicle of the ways in which 1918 changed aerial combat forever, and a requiem for the pioneers of aerial combat who eventually became the victims of their own brilliant innovations.

The story of the huge mobile battles of 1918, which finally ended the Great War.

1918 was the critical year of battle as the Great War reached its brutal climax. Warfare of an epic scale was fought on the Western Front, where ordinary British soldiers faced the final test of their training, tactics and determination. That they withstood the storm and began an astonishing counterattack, is proof that by 1918, the British army was the most effective fighting force in the world. But this ultimate victory came at devastating cost.

Using a wealth of previously unpublished material, historian Peter Hart gives a vivid account of this last year of conflict – what it was like to fight on the frontline, through the words of the men who were there. In a chronicle of unparalleled scope and depth, he brings to life the suspense, turmoil and tragedy of 1918’s vast offensives.

The story of the huge mobile battles of 1918, which finally ended the Great War.

1918 was the critical year of battle as the Great War reached its brutal climax. Warfare of an epic scale was fought on the Western Front, where ordinary British soldiers faced the final test of their training, tactics and determination. That they withstood the storm and began an astonishing counterattack, is proof that by 1918, the British army was the most effective fighting force in the world. But this ultimate victory came at devastating cost.

Using a wealth of previously unpublished material, historian Peter Hart gives a vivid account of this last year of conflict – what it was like to fight on the frontline, through the words of the men who were there. In a chronicle of unparalleled scope and depth, he brings to life the suspense, turmoil and tragedy of 1918’s vast offensives.

The next caper in the Sister Pelagia mystery from the bestselling author of THE WINTER QUEEN.

Returning from the Synod in St Petersburg – and an official rebuke of her crime-fighting ways – Sister Pelagia finds herself aboard a steamer dodging pickpockets, zealots and a sinister man with a detachable eye.

But a brutal murder in the next cabin spells the end of her sleuthing retirement, and the start of an investigation that will take her to the Holy Land and far beyond.

Pelagia’s journey is peppered with tales of miracles and roosters, and caves that act as portals to other worlds. But an assassin is closing in, pursuing the sister to the land of the Gospels where her criminal enquiry becomes a spiritual enquiry as she sets down her knitting needles to question the very foundations of her faith…

Sister Pelagia, bespectacled, freckled, woefully clumsy and possessed of a not very nunnish aptitude for solving crimes, returns in a tale of monastic intrigue, murder and adventure.

Just as the dust from the case of the White Bulldog begins to settle in the small Russian town of Zavolzhsk, its sleepy rural existence is shaken up once again by the arrival of a desperately frightened monk who seeks the help of the bishop, Mitrofanii.

The monks have been troubled by visions of a dark, hooded figure that appears to walk on the waters of the vast Blue Lake surrounding their monastery. Sceptical of ghost stories, Mitrofanii sends first his clever young ward, then two of his most trusted advisors, to investigate the mystery. All meet with unexpected fates.

Finally Sister Pelagia takes matters into her own hands and, adopting a number of ingenious disguises, she ventures across the Blue Lake in search of answers. As she delves deeper into the layers of secrecy that cloak the islanders, and as the body count continues to rise, Pelagia begins to realise that an encounter with a ghost may be the least of her problems…

Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, through the never-before-told story of how one priory was saved and become Durham’s mighty cathedral

What happened to the monks, their orders and the communities they served after Henry VIII’s break with Rome in 1536? In THE LAST OFFICE Geoffrey Moorhouse reveals how the Dissolution of the Monasteries affected the great Benedictine priory at Durham, drawing for his sources on material that has lain forgotten in the recesses of one of our great cathedrals.

The quarrel between Henry VIII and the papacy not only gave birth to the Church of England but heralded the destruction of the 650 or so religious houses that played a central role in the spiritual and economic life of the nation. Durham proved to be the exception. On New Year’s Eve 1539, the monks sang the last compline. Next morning the priory and its community were surrendered into the hands of the King’s commissioners. But then nothing happened. An interregnum lasted 16 months before the priory was reborn as the new cathedral church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin, part of the new Church of England. The Prior became the Dean and 12 monks were retained as prebendaries.

In Geoffrey Moorhouse’s original and absorbing study, one of the great catalytic events of our past comes alive through the personalities and events at one key monastery.

The rise and fall of the business of slave trading – by a bestselling historian

The Atlantic slave trade was one of the largest and most elaborate maritime and commercial ventures. Between 1492 and about 1870, ten million or more black slaves were carried from Africa to one port or another of the Americas.

In this wide-ranging book, Hugh Thomas follows the development of this massive shift of human lives across the centuries until the slave trade’s abolition in the late nineteenth century.

From the author of Richard and Judy Book Club choice, THE ROSE OF SEBASTOPOL

‘A first-rate historical romance: it’s hard to think it will be bettered this year’ INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

When two strangers enters the manor of a brilliant alchemist and his talented young daughter, nothing will remain the same…

Dark secrets haunt the manor house at Selden in Buckinghamshire, where Emilie Selden, motherless, fiercely intelligent and beautiful, has been raised in near isolation by her father. John Selden, student of Isaac Newton, is conducting a secret experiment. He aims to turn Emilie into a brilliant natural philosopher and alchemist and fills her with knowledge while recording every step she takes.

In the spring of 1725, when Emilie is eighteen, father and daughter begin their most daring adventure – an attempt to breathe life into dead matter. But they are interrupted by the arrival of two strangers. During the course of a sultry August, Emilie is caught up in the passion of first love and, listening for the first time to her heart rather than her head, she makes her choice – with consequences that are far-reaching and tumultuous.

The story of London, told through twelve of its most seminal buildings.

‘Excellent …this is an imaginative book that finds a convincing new way to tell the story of one of the most written-about cities in the world’ INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

‘Hollis has a fine eye for architecture, and engagingly describes neo-classical marvels as well as the Labour government’s dockside folly of the Millennium Dome… Hollis is good company’ SPECTATOR

In a sweeping narrative, from its mythic origins to the glittering towers of the contemporary financial capital, THE STONES OF LONDON tells the story of twelve London buildings in a kaleidoscopic and unexpected history of one of the world’s most enigmatic cities.

From the Roman forum to the Gherkin, Regent Street to the East End, the Houses of Parliament to Greenwich Palace, London’s buildings are testament to the richness of its past. Behind the facades of these buildings lie the stories of the people, ideas and events that took place within them and that caused their creation. They all have very human stories, of the men and women who dreamed and lived their lives in London, leaving their imprint upon the fabric of the capital.

The story of London, told through twelve of its most seminal buildings.

In a sweeping narrative, from its mythic origins to the glittering towers of the contemporary financial capital, THE STONES OF LONDON tells the story of twelve London buildings in a kaleidoscopic and unexpected history of one of the world’s most enigmatic cities.

From the Roman forum to the Gherkin, Regent Street to the East End, the Houses of Parliament to Greenwich Palace, London’s buildings are testament to the richness of its past. Behind the facades of these buildings lie the stories of the people, ideas and events that took place within them and that caused their creation. They all have very human stories, of the men and women who dreamed and lived their lives in London, leaving their imprint upon the fabric of the capital.

A pyschological thriller in which four women are stalked – possibly by a war criminal or someone closer to home

Four women work at the Danish Centre for Genocide Studies. When two of them start receiving death threats, they suspect they are being stalked by Mirko Zigic, a Bosnian torturer and war criminal. But perhaps he is not the person behind the threats – it could be someone in their very midst. Much of the drama created revolves not only around the scary sense of a killer prowling in the shadows but also around the manipulative games being played between the women in the office as they come under pressure and turn on each other.

The irony is that these betrayals and persecutions are taking place amongst professionals who daily analyse cases of appalling cruelty. Now and again, the narrative is broken with extracts from ‘articles’ dealing with crimes against humanity and the pyschology of evil. Whilst the women apply this to their work with genocide (and the killer), there are parallels to their own behaviour.

Superbly readable and revealing letters, full of malice and gossip, from a master historian

When they met in 1947 Trevor-Roper, a young historian at Christ Church, Oxford, was 33. Berenson, the world-famous art critic, was 82, frail but still intensely curious about the world. Trevor Roper promised to write to him and his letters continued until Berenson’s death in in 1959. Elegantly constructed, beautifully and precisely written, they are shot through with high-octane malice, sharp judgements and blistering comments, and many wonderfully funny episodes.

Trevor-Roper was an intellectual heavyweight, but subjects range widely: several brilliant set-pieces on Oxford college elections, books, journalism, publishing, politics (postwar Europe, ex-Nazis and collaborators, the Cold War, Suez, etc), history and history-writing, personal life (including marriage to Earl Haig’s daughter Alexandra after her messy divorce), travel, gossip, and so on.

He has a memorable journey on a pilgrims’ bus in Persia, goes behind the Iron Curtain to meet Communist dignitaries and speeds in his glamorous grey Bentley to visit duchesses in the Scottish borders. Figures in the letters include Evelyn Waugh, Isaiah Berlin, A.L. Rowse, Anthony Eden, Gerald Brenan, A.J.P.Taylor, Arnold Toynbee, Dimitri Shostakovitch, C.S. Lewis and Harold Macmillan.

An epic true story of treachery, revenge and courage

The Indian Mutiny is a real page-turner, an epic story with surprising modern parallels. Fomer army officer-turned-TV scriptwriter, Julian Spilsbury is the ideal author to take us back to the desperate summer of 1857 when thousands of Indian soldiers mutinied. They murdered their officers, hunted down the women and children and burned and slaughtered their way to Delhi. The tiny British garrison at Lucknow held out against all odds; the one at Cawnpore surrendered only to be betrayed and massacred.

Modern Indian accounts call this ‘the first war of liberation’, but as Julian Spilsbury reveals, 80 per cent of the so-called ‘British’ forces were from the sub-continent. Sikhs, Gurkhas and Afghans fought alongside small numbers of British soldiers. Together, they faced terrible odds and won. In the process they created a new army that would play a vital role in the Allied forces in both World Wars.

Julian Spilsbury weaves the story together from some of the most vivid eyewitness accounts ever written. From the women and children hiding from blood-crazed mobs, to the epic battles that decided the campaign, to the grisly revenge exacted by the British forces, this is a gripping recreation of the greatest crisis of Empire.

An epic true story of treachery, revenge and courage

The Indian Mutiny is a real page-turner, an epic story with surprising modern parallels. Fomer army officer-turned-TV scriptwriter, Julian Spilsbury is the ideal author to take us back to the desperate summer of 1857 when thousands of Indian soldiers mutinied. They murdered their officers, hunted down the women and children and burned and slaughtered their way to Delhi. The tiny British garrison at Lucknow held out against all odds; the one at Cawnpore surrendered only to be betrayed and massacred.

Modern Indian accounts call this ‘the first war of liberation’, but as Julian Spilsbury reveals, 80 per cent of the so-called ‘British’ forces were from the sub-continent. Sikhs, Gurkhas and Afghans fought alongside small numbers of British soldiers. Together, they faced terrible odds and won. In the process they created a new army that would play a vital role in the Allied forces in both World Wars.

Julian Spilsbury weaves the story together from some of the most vivid eyewitness accounts ever written. From the women and children hiding from blood-crazed mobs, to the epic battles that decided the campaign, to the grisly revenge exacted by the British forces, this is a gripping recreation of the greatest crisis of Empire.

The dramatic story of Elizabeth’s first ten years on the throne and the unexplained death that scandalised her court.

Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558 a 25-year-old virgin – the most prized catch in Christendom. For the first ten years of her reign, one matter dominated above all others: the question of who the queen was to marry and when she would produce an heir.

Elizabeth’s life as England’s Virgin Queen is one of the most celebrated in history. Christopher Skidmore takes a fresh look at the familiar story of a queen with the stomach of a man, steadfastly refusing to marry for the sake of her realm, and reveals a very different picture: of a vulnerable young woman, in love with her suitor, Robert Dudley. Had it not been for the mysterious and untimely death of his wife, Amy Robsart, Elizabeth might have one day been able to marry Dudley, since Amy was believed to be dying of breast cancer.

Instead, the suspicious circumstances surrounding Amy Robsart’s death would cast a long shadow over Elizabeth’s life, preventing any hope of a union with Dudley and ultimately shaping the course of Tudor history. Using newly discovered evidence from the archives, Christopher Skidmore is able to put an end to centuries of speculation as to the true causes of her death.

The dramatic story of Elizabeth’s first ten years on the throne and the unexplained death that scandalised her court.

Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558 a 25-year-old virgin – the most prized catch in Christendom. For the first ten years of her reign, one matter dominated above all others: the question of who the queen was to marry and when she would produce an heir.

Elizabeth’s life as England’s Virgin Queen is one of the most celebrated in history. Christopher Skidmore takes a fresh look at the familiar story of a queen with the stomach of a man, steadfastly refusing to marry for the sake of her realm, and reveals a very different picture: of a vulnerable young woman, in love with her suitor, Robert Dudley. Had it not been for the mysterious and untimely death of his wife, Amy Robsart, Elizabeth might have one day been able to marry Dudley, since Amy was believed to be dying of breast cancer.

Instead, the suspicious circumstances surrounding Amy Robsart’s death would cast a long shadow over Elizabeth’s life, preventing any hope of a union with Dudley and ultimately shaping the course of Tudor history. Using newly discovered evidence from the archives, Christopher Skidmore is able to put an end to centuries of speculation as to the true causes of her death.

A truly historical document that leaves for posterity the intellectual and spiritual teachings of His Holiness Pope John Paul II

A truly historical document, Memory and Identity contains Pope John Paul II’s personal thoughts on some of the most challenging issues and events of his turbulent times. Pope for over 26 years, he was one of the world’s greatest communicators and this moving book provides a unique insight into his intellectual and spiritual journey and pastoral experience.

Each chapter suggests the answer to a question which either exercised his mind or which he provoked in discussion with laymen and priests. Using the encounters at his summer residence of Castel Gandolfo where conversations took place with leading intellectuals – philosophers as well as theologians – Pope John Paul II addressed in his book many of the questions which arose from these discussions.

Here he leaves for posterity an intellectual and spiritual testament in an attempt to seek the answer to defining problems that vex our lives.

‘A tour de force of biography, history, politics, philosophy and experimental science’ ECONOMIST

The remarkable and inspiring story of how London was transformed after the Great Fire of 1666 into the most powerful city in the world, and the men who were responsible for that achievement.

‘Wonderfully rich and informative … a rare achievement’ Tom Holland

‘Fascinating’ Lucy Moore

‘An ingenious and fluent overview of extraordinary men at an extraordinary moment, with St Paul’s standing as its symbolic heart’ SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Opening in the 1640s, as the city was gripped in tumult leading up to the English Civil War, THE PHOENIX charts the lives and works of five extraordinary men, who would grow up in the chaos of a world turned upside down: the architect, Sir Christopher Wren; gardener and virtuosi, John Evelyn; the scientist, Robert Hooke; the radical philosopher, John Locke and the builder, Nicholas Barbon.

At the heart of the story is the rebuilding of London’s iconic cathedral, St Paul’s. Interweaving science, architecture, history and philosophy, THE PHOENIX tells the story of the formation of the first modern city.

*Perfect for fans of ITV’s epic drama series, THE GREAT FIRE*

Opening in the 1640s, as the city was gripped in tumult leading up to the English Civil War, THE PHOENIX charts the lives and works of five extraordinary men, who would grow up in the chaos of a world turned upside down: the architect, Sir Christopher Wren; gardener and virtuosi, John Evelyn; the scientist, Robert Hooke; the radical philosopher, John Locke and the builder, Nicholas Barbon.

At the heart of the story is the rebuilding of London’s iconic cathedral, St Paul’s. Interweaving science, architecture, history and philosophy, THE PHOENIX tells the story of the formation of the first modern city.