Fiction

Ruby in Her Navel 15% off

Unsworth, Barry Normal price £17.99 — Discount price £15.29 — You save £2.70  <convert> 

Thurstan, a young Norman and would-be Knight at the Court of King Roger in Palermo, has been in love since boyhood with Lady Alicia, now returned a widow from the Holy Land. At the same time, he is enthralled by the earthy sensuality of the dancer, Nesrin, whose troupe he brings to Court to dance for the King. In a compelling tale of love, passion, intrigue and treachery, Thurstan finds himself caught in a tangle of plots, counter-plots and deceptions that threaten to destroy him. Set in twelfth-century against the backdrop of the Crusades, Barry Unsworth's brilliant new novel tells the story of how the war between Islam and Christendom impinges on both Thurstan's mind and his heart. His journey towards freedom and love, driven along by the forces of history in the making, is both moving and unforgettable.

Imperium 20% off

Harris, Robert Normal price £17.99 — Discount price £14.39 — You save £3.60  <convert> 

When Tiro, the confidential secretary of a Roman senator, opens the door to a terrified stranger on a cold November morning, he sets in motion a chain of events which will eventually propel his master into one of the most famous courtroom dramas in history. The stranger is a Sicilian, a victim of the island's corrupt Roman governor, Verres. The senator is Cicero, a brilliant young lawyer and spellbinding orator, determined to attain imperium - supreme power in the state. This is the starting-point of Robert Harris' most accomplished novel to date. Compellingly written in Tiro's voice, it takes us inside the violent, treacherous world of Roman politics, to describe how one man - clever, compassionate, devious, and vulnerable - fought to reach the top. 'Sometimes it is foolish to articulate an ambition too early - exposing it prematurely to the laughter and skepticism of the world can destroy it before it is even properly born. But sometimes the opposite occurs, and the very act of mentioning a thing makes it suddenly seem possible, even plausible. That was how it was that night.

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Innocent Traitor 15% off

Weir, Alison Normal price £12.99 — Discount price £11.04 — You save £1.95  <convert> 

Alison Weir, one of our finest popular historians, has now fulfilled a life's ambition to write historical fiction. She has chosen as her subject the bravest, most sympathetic and most wronged woman of Tudor England, Lady Jane Grey. Lady Jane Grey was born into the most dangerous of times. Child of a scheming father and a ruthless mother for whom she is a pawn in a dynastic game with the highest stakes, she lived a life in thrall to political machinations and lethal religious fervour. Growing up with the future Queen Elizabeth and her reluctant nemesis, Mary, she soon learns the truth of the values imparted to her by Henry VIII's last Queen, Katherine Parr. Her honesty, intelligence and strength of character carries the enthralled reader through all the vicious twists of Tudor power politics, to her nine-day reign and its unbearably poignant conclusion. Alison Weir states: 'Lady Jane Grey's story is compelling and shocking. She was a young girl of royal blood who was used by greedy and unscrupulous men to satisfy their own ambitions.

Having been the victim of abuse in childhood, she was sold into an unhappy marriage and forced to accept a crown she did not want, then tragically paid the price of her so-called treason.' 'After publishing nine history books, writing this novel filled me with a heady sense of freedom. No longer was I tied to sources and to the strict discipline of historical interpretation, but I could give my imagination free reign. Thus it was wonderful to be creative, and even provocative, at the same time as being historically accurate to a degree.'

Condottiere 15% off

Crockett, Edward J. Normal price £9.99 — Discount price £8.49 — You save £1.50  <convert> 

Fourteenth-century Europe is writhing in the grasp of the Black Death, and in Britain, the Hundred Years' War drags painfully on; danger, uncertainty and desperation are indiscriminate. During this unstable time, English knight Sir John de Hawkwood, veteran of the battles of Crecy and Poitiers, leads his White Company into the war-torn territory of medieval Italy, and begins a chequered career in the service of the warring Italian city states - Pisa, Florence, Milan and Rome. Exploring the enigma of Hawkwood, knight, mercenary and freebooter extraordinaire, "Condottierre" is a novel of kings and princes, popes and anti-popes, dukes and despots, saints and sinners. Against a backdrop of plague and pestilence, internecine conflict and shifting allegiances, Crockett weaves a complex web of loyalty and betrayal, ambition and intrigue, simmering hatred and enduring love. Based on exhaustive research this is a splendidly realised historical fiction and an evocative and truly compelling adventure.

Gotz and Meyer 15% off

Albahari, David Normal price £6.99 — Discount price £5.94 — You save £1.05  <convert> 

During World War II, the Nazis killed thousands of Belgrade's Jews by the simple method of carbon monoxide poisoning in the back of specially-designed trucks. This is the bleakly humorous story of two of the truck drivers that carried out the will of the Third Reich.

Boleyn Inheritance 20% off

Gregory, Philippa Normal price £17.99 — Discount price £14.39 — You save £3.60  <convert> 

From the bestselling author of "The Other Boleyn Girl" comes a wonderfully atmospheric evocation of the court of Henry VIII, and the one woman who destroyed two of his queens. The year is 1539 and the court of Henry VIII is increasingly fearful at the moods of the ageing sick king. With only a baby in the cradle for an heir, Henry has to take another wife and the dangerous prize of the crown of England is won by Anne of Cleves. She has her own good reasons for agreeing to marry a man old enough to be her father, in a country where to her both language and habits are foreign. Although fascinated by the glamour of her new surroundings, she senses a trap closing around her. Catherine is confident that she can follow in the steps of her cousin Anne Boleyn to dazzle her way to the throne but her kinswoman Jane Boleyn, haunted by the past, knows that Anne's path led to Tower Green and to an adulterer's death.