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The Stationery Shop of Tehran
by Marjan KamaliPre-order THE LION WOMEN OF TEHRAN, a heartfelt, epic new novel of friendship, betrayal and redemption, coming November 2024.*** If you read The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul and enjoyed The Beekeeper of Aleppo, you will love The Stationery Shop of Tehran *** 1953, Tehran. In a small shop in a country on the brink of unrest, two people meet for the very first time. Roya loves nothing better than to while away the hours in the stationery shop run by Mr Fakhri. The store, stocked with fountain pens, shiny ink bottles, and thick wads of writing paper, also carries translations of literature from all over the world. Bahman, with his burning passion for justice, is like no one else she has ever met. But all around them, as their relationship blossoms, life in Tehran is changing. Suddenly, shockingly, violence erupts: a coup d'etat that forever changes their country's future, as well as their own.Marjan Kamali's beautiful novel explores themes of love and loss, and delivers and unforgettable ending. &‘An enchanting romance&’ MY WEEKLY &‘Simultaneously briskly paced and deeply moving, this will appeal to fans of Khaled Hosseini and should find a wide audience&’BOOKLIST &‘Evocative, devastating, and hauntingly beautiful… This book broke my heart again and again&’Whitney Scharer, author of THE AGE OF LIGHT &‘What a pleasure — a novel that is all at once masterfully plotted, beautifully written, and populated by characters who are arresting, lovable and so real&’Elinor Lipman, author of TURPENTINE LANE &‘A beautiful and sensitive novel that I loved from the first page&’Alyson Richman, international bestselling author of THE LOST WIFE &‘A beautifully immersive tale … brings to life a lost and complex world and the captivating characters who once called it home&’Jasmin Darznik, New York Times bestselling author of THE GOOD DAUGHTER and SONG OF A CAPTIVE BIRD &‘A sweeping romantic tale of thwarted love&’KIRKUS REVIEWS &‘The unfurling stories… will stun readers… For those who enjoy getting caught up in romance while discovering unfamiliar history of another country&’LIBRARY JOURNAL &‘Grab your tissues'BOSTON MAGAZINE &‘A tender story of enduring love.&’MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE &‘I! Am! Obsessed! With! This! Book!&’COSMOPOLITAN.COM
The Steel Seraglio
by Mike Carey Linda Carey Louise Carey&“A confident One Thousand and One Nights for our present . . . Furious pop entertainment—full of sex, passion, violence, and magic.&” —Slant magazine This is the story of the legendary City of Women, told through the tales of those who founded it, championed it, and made it flourish. When the city of Bessa undergoes a violent coup, its lazy, laissez-faire ruler, Bokhari Al-Bokhari, is replaced by the religious zealot Hakkim Mehdad. With little use for the pleasures of the flesh, Hakkim sends his predecessor&’s 365 concubines to a neighboring sultan as a gift. But when the new sultan discovers the concubines are harboring Al-Bokhari&’s youngest son—a child who might grow up to challenge his rule—he repents of his mercy and sends his soldiers to slaughter the seraglio down to the last woman and child. What he doesn&’t count on is a concubine trained in the art of murder—or the courage and fortitude of the women who will rise up with her to forge their own city out of the unforgiving desert. It&’s an undertaking beset with challenges: hunger and thirst, Hakkim&’s relentless hate, and the struggle to make a place for themselves in a world determined to underestimate and undermine them. Through a mosaic of voices and tales, we learn of the women&’s miraculous rise, their time of prosperity—and how they carried with them the seed of their own destruction. &“A thrilling tale.&” —Publishers Weekly &“A masterful, engaging and utterly fascinating story by three wonderful writers.&” —SFRevu.com &“The Steel Seraglio brings its alternate world of struggle, politics and magic very much to life.&” —Locus
The Steel Tsar
by Michael MoorcockIn his epic adventures in the alternative Twentieth Centuries, Chrononaut Oswald Bastable, member of the League of Temporal Adventurers, has crossed and re-crossed many different time-streams. Some of his previous experiences have been told in The Land Leviathan and The Warlord of the Air.Now, in what may be the last communication from him, he tells of a world in which the Bolshevik Revolution never happened...The Steel Tsar finds him travelling backwards in time from a shell-shocked Singapore to a Russian Empire seething with conflict and preyed on by motley bands of rogues and adventurers. Here he meets up with fellow-time-traveler Miss Una Persson, and together they change the course of a history whose legendary deeds exceed the bounds of everyday imagination and glitter in the exuberant land of the eternal present.
The Steel Wave: A Novel of World War II
by Jeff ShaaraBONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jeff Shaara's No Less Than Victory. Jeff Shaara, America’s premier author of military historical fiction, brings us the centerpiece of his epic trilogy of the Second World War. General Dwight Eisenhower once again commands a diverse army that must find its single purpose in the destruction of Hitler’s European fortress. His primary subordinates, Omar Bradley and Bernard Montgomery, must prove that this unique blend of Allied armies can successfully confront the might of Adolf Hitler’s forces, who have already conquered Western Europe. On the coast of France, German commander Erwin Rommel fortifies and prepares for the coming invasion, acutely aware that he must bring all his skills to bear on a fight his side must win. But Rommel’s greatest challenge is to strike the Allies on his front, while struggling behind the lines with the growing insanity of Adolf Hitler, who thwarts the strategies Rommel knows will succeed. Meanwhile, Sergeant Jesse Adams, a no-nonsense veteran of the 82nd Airborne, parachutes with his men behind German lines into a chaotic and desperate struggle. And as the invasion force surges toward the beaches of Normandy, Private Tom Thorne of the 29th Infantry Division faces the horrifying prospects of fighting his way ashore on a stretch of coast more heavily defended than the Allied commanders anticipate–Omaha Beach. From G.I. to general, this story carries the reader through the war’s most crucial juncture, the invasion that altered the flow of the war, and, ultimately, changed history.
The Steel Wave: A Novel of World War II #2
by Jeff ShaaraJeff Shaara, America's premier author of military historical fiction, brings us the centerpiece of his epic trilogy of the Second World War. General Dwight Eisenhower once again commands a diverse army that must find its single purpose in the destruction of Hitler's European fortress. His primary subordinates, Omar Bradley and Bernard Montgomery, must prove that this unique blend of Allied armies can successfully confront the might of Adolf Hitler's forces, who have already conquered Western Europe. On the coast of France, German commander Erwin Rommel fortifies and prepares for the coming invasion, acutely aware that he must bring all his skills to bear on a fight his side must win. But Rommel's greatest challenge is to strike the Allies on his front, while struggling behind the lines with the growing insanity of Adolf Hitler, who thwarts the strategies Rommel knows will succeed. Meanwhile, Sergeant Jesse Adams, a no-nonsense veteran of the 82nd Airborne, parachutes with his men behind German lines into a chaotic and desperate struggle. And as the invasion force surges toward the beaches of Normandy, Private Tom Thorne of the 29th Infantry Division faces the horrifying prospects of fighting his way ashore on a stretch of coast more heavily defended than the Allied commanders anticipate--Omaha Beach. From G.I. to general, this story carries the reader through the war's most crucial juncture, the invasion that altered the flow of the war, and, ultimately, changed history.
The Steep Atlantick Stream: A Memoir of Convoys & Corvettes
by Robert HarlingFirst published in 1946, this atmospheric memoir of the battle of the Atlantic offers one of the most original accounts of war at sea aboard a corvette, escorting convoys in both the North and South Atlantic. The author, an RNVR lieutenant, experienced the terrors of U-boat attacks and the hardships of autumn gales as well as the relief of shore runs in ports as far apart as Halifax and Freetown. The narrative begins with Harling’s voyage from the Clyde to New York on the Queen Mary (or QM, as she was known during her martial career), on route to join a newly-built corvette in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He was to be her First Lieutenant, and his service at sea started in the spring of 1941, just as the battle of the Atlantic was entering its most crucial stage. During the first east-bound convoy he was to experience attacks by U-boats, the loss of merchant vessels and a steep learning curve as the ship’s crew struggled to live in the harsh wartime conditions. Later that summer they made return voyages to Iceland where runs ashore offered some solace from dangerous days at sea. Time was also spent in the South Atlantic with voyages to Freetown and Lagos, before a short interlude when he experienced the excitement of fighting with Coastal Forces. The corvette subsequently returned to escorting convoys from Halifax to Europe. His narrative is both serious and humorous, and his picture of wartime Britain, his descriptions of being buffeted by great storm-tossed seas in the ‘cockleshell corvettes’, and the recounting of grim losses are all too real and authentic. His story ends as he leaves his ship after a violent cold developed into pneumonia, and soon afterwards he hears the heart-breaking news of her loss, along with the captain and half the crew, after being torpedoed. He is left to ponder on the many tombless dead consigned by the war to the Steep Atlantick Stream.
The Sten Gun
by Leroy ThompsonThe Sten submachine gun - officially the 'Carbine, Machine, Sten' - was developed to fulfil the pressing British need for large quantities of cheaply produced weapons after Dunkirk, when German invasion was a very real possibility. Over four million were built during World War II, and the Sten was widely used by airborne troops, tankers, and others who needed a compact weapon with substantial firepower. It proved especially popular with Resistance fighters as it was easy to conceal, deadly at close range, and could fire captured German ammunition. Using stamped-metal parts that required minimal welding, the Sten's design was so simple that Resistance fighters were able to produce them in bicycle shops.The Sten influenced the development of other inexpensive, easy-to-produce submachine guns, such as the Australian Austen and the US M3 'Grease Gun', while copies of the Sten were produced in Argentina, France, Norway, Denmark, Poland, and even Nazi Germany. In the years after World War II, the Sten was used in Korea and in counterinsurgency campaigns in Malaya and Kenya. During the 1948 Palestine War, locally produced Stens were employed by Israeli forces; in 1984 Indira Gandhi was assassinated by one of her Sikh bodyguards using a Sten.Its postwar successor in British service, the Sterling, owed much to the Sten; early examples saw combat at Arnhem in 1944 and it remained in service as late as 1988. Suppressed versions of the Sterling were used by British, Australian and New Zealand SAS forces, and the weapon even saw action with US Special Forces troops until the early days of the Vietnam War.Featuring vivid first-hand accounts, specially commissioned full-colour artwork and close-up photographs, this is the fascinating story of the mass-produced submachine gun that provided Allied soldiers and Resistance fighters with devastating close-range firepower.
The Stepney Doorstep Society: The remarkable true story of the women who ruled the East End through war and peace
by Kate ThompsonThe unsung and remarkable stories of the women who held London's East End together during not one, but two world wars. 'Inspiring tales of courage in the face of hardship' Mail on Sunday'Inspiring . . . Takes you back to a time of community and helping one another' 5***** Reader Review'It made me laugh and gasp in equal measure' 5***** Reader Review______ Meet Minksy, Gladys, Beatty, Joan and Girl Walker . . . While the men were at war, these women ruled the streets of the East End. Struggling against poverty to survive, and fighting for their community in our country's darkest hours. But there was also joy to be found. Across the East End the streets were alive - you need only walk a few steps for a smile from a neighbour or a strong cup of tea. From taking over the London Underground, standing up to the Kray twins and crawling out of bombsites, The Stepney Doorstep Society tells the vivid and moving stories of the matriarchs who remain the backbone of the East End to this day. ______ 'Kate Thompson's study of five working-class women who lived through the blitz shows how informal collectives can provide lasting support and inspiration . . . [a] fascinating account' Guardian 'An important glimpse into a vanishing world' Sunday Express'One of the best books I have read in recent years' 5***** Reader Review 'Crammed full of fascinating stories' BBC 2 Steve Wright'Fascinating . . . It was fascinating to hear how these women kept going' 5***** Reader Review 'Astonishing' Radio 5 Live
The Sterling Years: Small Arms and the Men
by James EdmistonThis is the story of the manufacture, development and usage of one of the most famous submachine Guns ever produced by a British Firm Designed at the end of WW2 it saw limited use on a trial basis, carried by paratroopers during the battle of Arnhem, but since the British Forces had plenty of Sten guns at the time, and tests between the two types of weapon were inconclusive, it was not until 1953, that with a few adjustments, the Weapon was formally adopted by the British Army Whilst not the most accurate of weapons, it was extremely useful in urban warfare and regarded as one of the most reliable submachine Guns throughout the world until it was withdrawn in 1988. A total of over 400,000 were manufactured. Sterling built them for the British armed forces and for overseas sales. The Sterling Guns was used as the basis for the weapons used by Storm Troopers in the Star Wars films.
The Stick Soldiers
by Hugh Martin Cornelius EadyAt age nineteen, Hugh Martin withdrew from college for deployment to Iraq. After training at Fort Bragg, Martin spent 2004 in Iraq as the driver of his platoon sergeant's Humvee. He participated in hundreds of missions including raids, conducting foot patrols, clearing routes for IEDs, disposing of unexploded ordnance, and searching thousands of Iraqi vehicles. These poems recount his time in basic training, his preparation for Iraq, his experience withdrawing from school, and ultimately, the final journey to Iraq and back home to Ohio.Hugh Martin holds an MFA from Arizona State University. He is a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.
The Stick Soldiers (New Poets of America #35)
by Hugh MartinAt age nineteen, Hugh Martin withdrew from college for deployment to Iraq. After training at Fort Bragg, Martin spent 2004 in Iraq as the driver of his platoon sergeant's Humvee. He participated in hundreds of missions including raids, conducting foot patrols, clearing routes for IEDs, disposing of unexploded ordnance, and searching thousands of Iraqi vehicles. These poems recount his time in basic training, his preparation for Iraq, his experience withdrawing from school, and ultimately, the final journey to Iraq and back home to Ohio.Hugh Martin holds an MFA from Arizona State University. He is a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.
The Stigma of Surrender: German Prisoners, British Captors, and Manhood in the Great War and Beyond
by Brian K. FeltmanApproximately 9 million soldiers fell into enemy hands from 1914 to 1918, but historians have only recently begun to recognize the prisoner of war's significance to the history of the Great War. Examining the experiences of the approximately 130,000 German prisoners held in the United Kingdom during World War I, historian Brian K. Feltman brings wartime captivity back into focus. Many German men of the Great War defined themselves and their manhood through their defense of the homeland. They often looked down on captured soldiers as potential deserters or cowards--and when they themselves fell into enemy hands, they were forced to cope with the stigma of surrender. This book examines the legacies of surrender and shows that the desire to repair their image as honorable men led many former prisoners toward an alliance with Hitler and Nazism after 1933. By drawing attention to the shame of captivity, this book does more than merely deepen our understanding of German soldiers' time in British hands. It illustrates the ways that popular notions of manhood affected soldiers' experience of captivity, and it sheds new light on perceptions of what it means to be a man at war.
The Stolen Child: A Novel
by Ann Hood“Hood is a generous, practiced storyteller.” —Heller McAlpin, NPR An unlikely duo ventures through France and Italy to solve the mystery of a child’s fate in this moving, page-turning novel from “a gifted storyteller” (People). For decades, Nick Burns has been haunted by a decision he made as a young soldier in World War I, when a French artist he’d befriended thrust both her paintings and her baby into his hands—and disappeared. In 1974, with only months left to live, Nick enlists Jenny, a college dropout desperate for adventure, to help him unravel the mystery. The journey leads them from Paris galleries and provincial towns to a surprising place: the Museum of Tears, the life’s work of a lonely Italian craftsman. Determined to find the baby and the artist, hopeless romantic Jenny and curmudgeonly Nick must reckon with regret, betrayal, and the lives they’ve left behind. With characteristic warmth and verve, Ann Hood captures a world of possibility and romance through the eyes of a young woman learning to claim her place in it. The Stolen Child is an engaging, timeless novel of secrets, love lost and found, and the nature of forgiveness.
The Stolen Lady: A Novel of World War II and the Mona Lisa
by Laura MorelliFrom the acclaimed author of The Night Portrait comes a stunning historical novel about two women, separated by five hundred years, who each hide Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa—with unintended consequences.France, 1939 At the dawn of World War II, Anne Guichard, a young archivist employed at the Louvre, arrives home to find her brother missing. While she works to discover his whereabouts, refugees begin flooding into Paris and German artillery fire rattles the city. Once they reach the city, the Nazis will stop at nothing to get their hands on the Louvre’s art collection. Anne is quickly sent to the Castle of Chambord, where the Louvre’s most precious artworks—including the Mona Lisa—are being transferred to ensure their safety. With the Germans hard on their heels, Anne frantically moves the Mona Lisa and other treasures again and again in an elaborate game of hide and seek. As the threat to the masterpieces and her life grows closer, Anne also begins to learn the truth about her brother and the role he plays in this dangerous game. Florence, 1479 House servant Bellina Sardi’s future seems fixed when she accompanies her newly married mistress, Lisa Gherardini, to her home across the Arno. Lisa’s husband, a prosperous silk merchant, is aligned with the powerful Medici, his home filled with luxuries and treasures. But soon, Bellina finds herself bewitched by a charismatic monk who has urged Florentines to rise up against the Medici and to empty their homes of the riches and jewels her new employer prizes. When Master Leonardo da Vinci is commissioned to paint a portrait of Lisa, Bellina finds herself tasked with hiding an impossible secret. When art and war collide, Leonardo da Vinci, his beautiful subject Lisa, and the portrait find themselves in the crosshairs of history.
The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau: A Novel
by Kristin HarmelKristin Harmel, the New York Times bestselling author who “is the best there is at sweeping historical drama” (Kelly Harms, author of The Seven Day Switch), returns with an electrifying new novel about two jewel thieves, a priceless bracelet that disappears in 1940s Paris, and a quest for answers in a decades-old murder. <P> Colette Marceau has been stealing jewels for nearly as long as she can remember, following the centuries-old code of honor instilled in her by her mother, Annabel: take only from the cruel and unkind, and give to those in need. Never was their family tradition more important than seven decades earlier, during the Second World War, when Annabel and Colette worked side by side in Paris to fund the French Resistance. <P> But one night in 1942, it all went wrong. Annabel was arrested by the Germans, and Colette’s four-year-old sister, Liliane, disappeared in the chaos of the raid, along with an exquisite diamond bracelet sewn into the hem of her nightgown for safekeeping. Soon after, Annabel was executed, and Liliane’s body was found floating in the Seine—but the bracelet was nowhere to be found. <P> Seventy years later, Colette—who has “redistributed” $30 million in jewels over the decades to fund many worthy organizations—has done her best to put her tragic past behind her, but her life begins to unravel when the long-missing bracelet suddenly turns up in a museum exhibit in Boston. If Colette can discover where it has been all this time—and who owns it now—she may finally learn the truth about what happened to her sister. But she isn’t the only one for whom the bracelet holds answers, and when someone from her childhood lays claim to the diamonds, she’s forced to confront the ghosts of her past as never before. Against all odds, there may still be a chance to bring a murderer to justice—but first, Colette will have to summon the courage to open her own battered heart. <b>New York Times Bestseller</b>
The Stolen Train
by Robert AshleyCan the small band of Union soldiers really make their daring plan work? Can they steal a train from the Confederates in broad daylight and run it all the way to Chattanooga?If they succeed, the war would be shortened by months. If they fail, they face a spy’s punishment: death by hanging.This thrilling story is based on one of the most dramatic and heroic incidents of the Civil War.
The Stone Canal: Book Two: The Fall Revolution Series (Fall Revolution Ser. #2)
by Ken MacLeod'There is more than a hint of a heroic ethic here, though the hero in question may be more like Milton's Satan than Captain Future. As much fun as [MacLeod's] books provide, it's that fierceness, that seriousness of purpose, that powers their engines and makes me want to read on.' - Locus'McLeod is writing revolutionary SF . . . A nova has appeared in our sky.' - Kim Stanley RobinsonLife on New Mars is tough for humans, but death's only a minor inconvenience. The machines know their place, and only the Abolitionists object.Until a young man walks into Ship City, a clone who remembers Jon Wilde's life as an anarchist with nuclear capability, who was accused of losing World War 3. He also remembers Dave Reid, the city's boss, who haunts Wilde's memory to the end ... a cold death in Kazakhstan. In Reid's cyborg concubine, Dee Model, both men see the image of their obsessions, and information that wants to be free. But she has ideas of her own ...THE STONE CANAL moves from the recent past into a distant future, where long lives and strange deaths await those who survive the wars and revolutions to come.The acclaimed second novel in the Fall Revolution sequence.Books by Ken MacLeod:Fall RevolutionThe Star FractionThe Stone CanalThe Cassini DivisionThe Sky RoadEngines of LightCosmonaut KeepDark LightEngine CityCorporation Wars TrilogyDissidenceInsurgenceEmergenceNovelsThe Human FrontNewton's WakeLearning the WorldThe Execution ChannelThe Restoration GameIntrusionDescent
The Stone Canal: Book Two: The Fall Revolution Series (Fall Revolutions #2)
by Ken MacLeod'There is more than a hint of a heroic ethic here, though the hero in question may be more like Milton's Satan than Captain Future. As much fun as [MacLeod's] books provide, it's that fierceness, that seriousness of purpose, that powers their engines and makes me want to read on.' - Locus'McLeod is writing revolutionary SF . . . A nova has appeared in our sky.' - Kim Stanley RobinsonLife on New Mars is tough for humans, but death's only a minor inconvenience. The machines know their place, and only the Abolitionists object.Until a young man walks into Ship City, a clone who remembers Jon Wilde's life as an anarchist with nuclear capability, who was accused of losing World War 3. He also remembers Dave Reid, the city's boss, who haunts Wilde's memory to the end ... a cold death in Kazakhstan. In Reid's cyborg concubine, Dee Model, both men see the image of their obsessions, and information that wants to be free. But she has ideas of her own ...THE STONE CANAL moves from the recent past into a distant future, where long lives and strange deaths await those who survive the wars and revolutions to come.The acclaimed second novel in the Fall Revolution sequence.Books by Ken MacLeod:Fall RevolutionThe Star FractionThe Stone CanalThe Cassini DivisionThe Sky RoadEngines of LightCosmonaut KeepDark LightEngine CityCorporation Wars TrilogyDissidenceInsurgenceEmergenceNovelsThe Human FrontNewton's WakeLearning the WorldThe Execution ChannelThe Restoration GameIntrusionDescent
The Stone Carvers
by Jane UrquhartSet in the first half of the twentieth century, but reaching back to Bavaria in the late nineteenth century, The Stone Carvers weaves together the story of ordinary lives marked by obsession and transformed by art. At the centre of a large cast of characters is Klara Becker, the granddaughter of a master carver, a seamstress haunted by a love affair cut short by the First World War, and by the frequent disappearances of her brother Tilman, afflicted since childhood with wanderlust. From Ontario, they are swept into a colossal venture in Europe years later, as Toronto sculptor Walter Allward's ambitious plans begin to take shape for a war memorial at Vimy, France. Spanning three decades, and moving from a German-settled village in Ontario to Europe after the Great War, The Stone Carvers follows the paths of immigrants, labourers, and dreamers. Vivid, dark, redemptive, this is novel of great beauty and power.
The Stone Frigate: The Royal Military College's First Female Cadet Speaks Out
by Kate ArmstrongA memoir from the first female cadet admitted to the Royal Military College of Canada. Kate Armstrong was an ordinary young woman eager to leave an abusive childhood behind her when she became the first female cadet admitted to the Royal Military College of Canada. As she struggled for survival in the ultimate boys’ club, she called on her fierce and humourous spirit to push back against the whims of a domineering and patriarchal organization. Later in life, feeling unfulfilled in her post-military career, she realized that finding her true path forward meant she had to go back to the beginning and revisit the truth of what she had experienced all those years ago.
The Stone Ponies (Black Sabre #4)
by Tom WillardFranklin LeBaron Sharps is a young paratrooper sent to Vietnam in 1965 with the celebrated 101st Airborne Division-- the Screaming Eagles. The great-grandson of Sergeant Major Augustus Sharps and the son of Brigadier General Samuel Sharps, a former Tuskegee Airman, Franklin fights a war on two fronts; in Vietnam, he is determined to repay the Viet Cong for their killing of his brother, and at home, he fights against his father's attempts to reconcile with the family he deserted. Drawing on his own experience as a paratrooper in Vietnam, Tom Willard takes a brutally graphic look at the war in its early years: a time when the United States was sorely divided and its military heroes suffered bravely both abroad and at home.
The Stone Rose: The Rose Trilogy (The She-Wolves Trilogy #3)
by Carol McGrath'A real tour de force of gripping writing, rich historical detail and complex, fascinating characters. Superb!' NICOLA CORNICK on The Stone Rose_________________EARLY READERS ARE GRIPPED BY THE STONE ROSE!* 'Springs to vivid life for the reader . . . A compulsive read' ANNE O'BRIEN* 'An enticing and intriguing tale of a woman who is driven to desperate and ruthless lengths to protect those she loves' ALEXANDRA WALSH* 'Carol McGrath really got into Isabella's head . . . Enlightening' SHARON BENNETT CONNOLLY* 'Bold and compelling' JENNY BARDEN* 'A novel that's a definite page-turner' LIZ HARRIS_________________London, 1350. Agnes, daughter of a stonemason, is struggling to keep her father's trade in a city decimated by plague. And then she receives a mysterious message from the disgraced Queen Isabella: mother of King Edward III, and widow of Edward II. Isabella has a task that only Agnes can fulfil. She wants her truth to be told.Much has been whispered of the conflicts in Isabella and Edward's marriage. Her greed and warmongering. His unspoken love for male favourites. But as Agnes listens to Isabella, she learns that she can be of help to the queen - but can either woman choose independence, follow her own desires, and survive? The sweeping third instalment of Carol McGrath's acclaimed She-Wolves Trilogy: the gripping series exploring the tumultous lives and loves of three queens of England - and of three women who lived in their shadow.Based on the extraordinary true story of the female stonemason who carved a queen's tomb!
The Stone Rose: The Rose Trilogy (The She-Wolves Trilogy #3)
by Carol McGrath'A real tour de force of gripping writing, rich historical detail and complex, fascinating characters. Superb!' NICOLA CORNICK on The Stone Rose_________________EARLY READERS ARE GRIPPED BY THE STONE ROSE!* 'Springs to vivid life for the reader . . . A compulsive read' ANNE O'BRIEN* 'An enticing and intriguing tale of a woman who is driven to desperate and ruthless lengths to protect those she loves' ALEXANDRA WALSH* 'Carol McGrath really got into Isabella's head . . . Enlightening' SHARON BENNETT CONNOLLY* 'Bold and compelling' JENNY BARDEN* 'A novel that's a definite page-turner' LIZ HARRIS_________________London, 1350. Agnes, daughter of a stonemason, is struggling to keep her father's trade in a city decimated by plague. And then she receives a mysterious message from the disgraced Queen Isabella: mother of King Edward III, and widow of Edward II. Isabella has a task that only Agnes can fulfil. She wants her truth to be told.Much has been whispered of the conflicts in Isabella and Edward's marriage. Her greed and warmongering. His unspoken love for male favourites. But as Agnes listens to Isabella, she learns that she can be of help to the queen - but can either woman choose independence, follow her own desires, and survive? The sweeping third instalment of Carol McGrath's acclaimed She-Wolves Trilogy: the gripping series exploring the tumultous lives and loves of three queens of England - and of three women who lived in their shadow.Based on the extraordinary true story of the female stonemason who carved a queen's tomb!
The Stonewall Brigade
by John Selby Michael Roffe"Look! There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians!" With these words General Bee ensured the reputation of Thomas Jonathan Jackson and his troops who were fighting alongside him at the battle of the First Bull Run (July 1861). This reputation was enhanced in Jackson's Shenandoah Valley campaign and other operations where the Stonewall Brigade 's actions gained the praise of their Confederate compatriots and the respect of their enemies. This book examines the uniforms, equipment, history and organization of the Brigade and its combat experience during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Detailed maps and contemporary illustrations accompany this account of their major engagements.
The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic
by Mike DuncanFrom the creator of the award-winning podcast series The History of Rome and Revolutions comes the "remarkably engaging" (Washington Post) history of the bloody battles, political machinations, and human drama that set the stage for the fall of the Roman Republic. The Roman Republic was one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of civilization. Beginning as a small city-state in central Italy, Rome gradually expanded into a wider world filled with petty tyrants, barbarian chieftains, and despotic kings. Through the centuries, Rome's model of cooperative and participatory government remained remarkably durable and unmatched in the history of the ancient world. In 146 BC, Rome finally emerged as the strongest power in the Mediterranean. But the very success of the Republic proved to be its undoing. The republican system was unable to cope with the vast empire Rome now ruled: rising economic inequality disrupted traditional ways of life, endemic social and ethnic prejudice led to clashes over citizenship and voting rights, and rampant corruption and ruthless ambition sparked violent political clashes that cracked the once indestructible foundations of the Republic. Chronicling the years 146-78 BC, The Storm Before the Storm dives headlong into the first generation to face this treacherous new political environment. Abandoning the ancient principles of their forbearers, men like Marius, Sulla, and the Gracchi brothers set dangerous new precedents that would start the Republic on the road to destruction and provide a stark warning about what can happen to a civilization that has lost its way.