A Horatio Hornblower Tale of the Sea. 1805, and Hornblower is both humbled and honoured in quick succession . . . After near disaster on board a canal barge, Horatio Hornblower is given his first assignment as Captain, taking charge of the Atropos, a 22-gun sloop that will act as flagship for the funeral procession of Lord Nelson. Soon the Atropos is part of the Mediterranean fleet's assault upon Napoleon, and Captain Hornblower must execute a bold and daring salvage operation for buried treasure lying deep in Turkish waters. Under the guns of a suspicious port captain and the threat of a Spanish frigate more than double Atropos's size, Hornblower must steer his ship unscathed and triumphant. . . This is the fourth of eleven books chronicling the adventures of C.S. Forester's inimitable nautical hero, Horation Hornblower. 'I recommend Forester to every literate I know' Ernest Hemingway 'I find Hornblower admirable, vastly entertaining' Sir Winston Churchill

LONGLISTED FOR THE WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE WRITING PRIZE 2022. An action-packed historical novel featuring Danish warrior Styrkar, and his journey through the violent Norman Conquest as he fights for vengeance. The champion of a dead king has nothing left to lose... And nothing more to fear. Hastings, 1066. Styrkar the Dane stumbles wounded and delirious from the corpse-strewn battlefield of Senlac Hill. He has watched his king butchered at the hands of foreign knights, seen his countrymen defeated in battle, and he will not stop until there is a reckoning. Styrkar embarks on a bloody quest to avenge his dead master, becoming an outlaw in the wilds and earning a fearsome reputation. When a Breton knight seeks to track down this fugitive and make his own name, he can little envisage the task he has set himself. For Styrkar, the Red Wolf, last surviving housecarl to King Harold Godwinson, will carve the story of his vengeance in Frankish flesh... or die in the attempt. Praise for Richard Cullen: 'Richard Cullen's writing is as sharp as the blade wielded by Styrkar, the series' protagonist, who cuts a bloody swathe through his Norman enemies on his quest for vengeance. Styrkar is a great heroic creation, and the Wolf of Kings series places Cullen in the top tier of historical action and adventure authors' Matthew Harffy 'Oath Bound is a terrific novel... It's a brutal yet compelling tale, and one that gripped me from the first page to the last' Paul Fraser Collard, author of FugItive 'A perfect example of tight, gritty, character-driven storytelling' Luke Scull, author of The Grim Company (on Herald of the Storm)

*Brand new tie in book to the new Assassin's Creed: Syndicate* A disgraced Assassin. A deep-cover agent. A quest for redemption. 1862, and with London in the grip of the Industrial Revolution, the world's first underground railway is under construction. When a body is discovered at the dig, it sparks the beginning of the latest deadly chapter in the centuries-old battle between the Assassins and Templars. Deep undercover is an Assassin with dark secrets and a mission to defeat the Templar stranglehold on the nation's capital. Soon the Brotherhood will know him as Henry Green, mentor to Jacob and Evie Frye. For now, he is simply The Ghost. Assassin's Creed: Underworld is the eighth gripping novel from Oliver Bowden set in the immersive world of Assassin's Creed.

In Lysistrata a band of women tap into the awesome power of sex in order to end a war.

@PussyWhip What's something we can leverage against men? What's the one thing we're good for again? It's on the tip of my tongue.
From "Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less"

Multimillion copy bestselling author Wilbur Smith returns with a brand-new historical epic, set against the backdrop of the American revolution. The Courtney family is torn apart as three generations fight on opposing sides of a terrible war that will change the face of the world forever.

1774. Rob Courtney has spent his whole life in a quiet trading outpost on the east coast of Africa, dreaming of a life of adventure at sea. When his grandfather Jim Courtney dies, and the mysterious Captain Cornish calls into the fort, Rob takes his chance and stows away on Marston's ship as it sails to England. Arriving in London, Rob is seduced by the charms of the big city and soon finds himself desperate and penniless. That is until the navy comes calling. Rob enlists and is sent across the Atlantic on a ship to join the war against the rebellious American colonists. But on the other side of the Atlantic, unbeknownst to Rob, his distant cousins Cal and Aidan Courtney are leading a campaign against the British in a quest for American Independence.

When Aidan is killed in a fierce battle with British troops, Cal vows he will not rest until he has avenged his brother's death, by driving the British out of America - by whatever means necessary...

A powerful new historical thriller by the master of adventure fiction, Wilbur Smith, of families divided and a country on the brink of revolution.

From the Edgar Award-winning writer Robert Goddard comes a captivating new historical thriller, set at the tail end of World War I and featuring the devilishly charismatic James Max Maxted, a Royal Flying Corps veteran who has a knack for getting himself in trouble. In the spring of 1919, Paris is filled with delegates working towards the Treaty of Versailles--British diplomat Sir Henry Maxted among them. But before his work is done, he turns up dead outside a Montparnasse apartment building. The French police conclude that Sir Henry tripped and fell from the roof, but when his son Max is sent to Paris to collect the body, it quickly becomes clear that there is more to the story, starting with the beautiful woman whose apartment Sir Henry often visited. What begins as an innocent inquiry into his father's death soon leads Max into a perilous world of secret allegiances, international espionage, and double- and triple-crosses. The Ways of the World is a vivid, visceral thriller at the crossroads of history, where one spilled secret has the power to change the fate of empires.

'Best historical novelist' - Stephen King 'A master storyteller' - Sunday Times 'Wilbur Smith is one of those benchmarks against whom others are compared' -The Times 'No one does adventure quite like Smith' - Daily Mirror A FAMILY IN TURMOIL. A COUNTRY IN RUINS. A nail-biting story of courage, bravery, rebellion and war from number one bestselling author, Wilbur Smith. The war is over, Hitler is dead - and yet his evil legacy lives on. Former Special Operations Executive, Saffron Courtney, and her beloved husband, Gerhard, only just survived the brutal conflict, but Gerhard's Nazi brother, Konrad, is still free and determined to regain power. As a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse develops, a plot against the couple begins to stir. One that will have ramifications throughout Europe. . . Further afield in Kenya, the last outcrop of the colonial empire is feeling the stirrings of rebellion. As the situation becomes violent, and the Courtney family home is under threat, Saffron's father, Leon Courtney, finds himself caught between two powerful sides - and a battle for the freedom of a country. BOOK 18 IN THE EPIC HISTORICAL SAGA OF THE COURTNEY FAMILY, FROM INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER WILBUR SMITH

Ursula's visit to her Devon relatives leads to murder, mayhem and a possible plot to free Mary, Queen of Scots in the latest Ursula Blanchard Tudor mystery. February, 1586. When the queen's spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, learns that Ursula is to visit her relatives in Devon, he asks her to find out what has happened to two of his local agents, who have been strangely silent recently. On arrival in the small Devon village of Zeal Aquatico, Ursula discovers that both spies in question have met with mysterious - and fatal - accidents. Or is there more to it than that? What did the two spies find out that got them killed? Is there any truth to the rumours that King Philip of Spain, in league with the queen's cousin, Mary Stuart, intends to launch an invasion from the south coast? As Ursula pursues her investigations, it becomes clear that someone in Zeal Aquatico is determined to stop her finding out the truth ... whatever it takes.

Regency England, August 1812: Sebastian St. Cyr's plans to escape the heat of London for a honeymoon with his new bride, Hero Jarvis, are shattered when the murdered body of Hero's good friend Gabrielle Tennyson is discovered drifting in a battered boat at the site of a long-vanished castle known as Camlet Moat. Missing and also presumed dead are Gabrielle's two young cousins. Still struggling to define the nature of their new marriage, Sebastian and Hero find themselves occasionally working at cross-purposes as their investigation uncovers dark secrets at the heart of the Tennyson family and an enigmatic young French lieutenant who is concealing mysteries of his own. Sebastian and Hero's race to unmask a ruthless killer and unravel the puzzle of the missing children puts both their lives and their growing love for each other at risk as they're threatened by powerful men in high places...and by a tall, dark stranger who may hold the key to Sebastian's own parentage.

'Every step the Scarlet Pimpernel takes on French soil is fraught with danger' The French Terror is raging, and few are safe from the threat of the guillotine. Sir Percy Blakeney, a foppish Englishman, decides to rescue imprisoned aristocrats before they can be executed. Showing great daring and aided by a band of brave comrades, he disguises himself as the formidable Scarlet Pimpernel. But will his beautiful French wife Marguerite unwittingly prove his downfall? Baroness Orczy's swashbuckling 1905 novel set the standard for all future tales of masked avengers and was later adapted into a famous stage play and several film versions. The Penguin English Library - collectable general readers' editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War.

'Don't you see that we are buried alive?' When Allan Quatermain is approached by Sir Henry Curtis and his friend Captain Good to search for Sir Henry's missing brother, deep in the African interior, he agrees to lead their expedition. Quatermain has a map to the fabled King Solomon's Mines, whose treasure the missing man sought to attain. Their journey takes them to Kukuanaland, where they find a warrior tribe in thrall to King Twala. Soon the white men are embroiled in a desperate tribal battle, and Quatermain's expedition can only reach its goal with the aid of Gagool, the ancient 'mother' no one trusts. Haggard's exciting adventure story captivated readers when it was first published in 1885. It helped inaugurate a wave of 'lost world' romances inspired by the exploits of British explorers in colonial Africa. This new edition looks at Haggard's own African experiences and unlikely literary success, and his ambivalent attitude to the native tribes and the ravages of the British Empire. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Warrior of Rome: The Amber Road is the sixth book in Harry Sidebottom's Warrior of Rome series. AD 264 - The Roman Empire is torn in two. The western provinces - Gaul, Spain and Britain - have been seized by the pretender Postumus. To the east, on the plains of northern Italy, the armies of the emperor Gallienus muster. War is coming. Everyone must choose a side. On a mission shrouded in secrecy and suspicion, Ballista must journey The Amber Road to the far north to Hyperborea, back to his original home and the people of his birth. A fearsome, masked warlord attacks, bringing fire and sword against the Angles. Yet not all welcome Ballista`s return. Does treachery pose the greatest danger? Dr Harry Sidebottom is a leading authority on ancient warfare - he applies his knowledge with a spectacular flair for sheer explosive action and knuckle-whitening drama. Fans of Bernard Cornwell will love Sidebottom's recreation of the ancient world. Praise for Harry Sidebottom: 'Sidebottom's prose blazes with searing scholarship' The Times 'The best sort of red-blooded historical fiction' Andrew Taylor, author of The American Boy Dr. Harry Sidebottom is Fellow of St Benets Hall, and Lecturer at Lincoln College, Oxford - where he specializes in ancient warfare and classical art.

Discover your new favourite fantasy series the epic and spellbinding first instalment in Empire of Salt 'One of the best fantasy novels I've read' 5***** READER REVIEW ______ The city of Darien lies at the heart of a dying empire. Twelve families race for a throne soon to be made vacant - by murder or civil war. Into this fevered, hungry city come six strangers: An orphan and an old swordsman. A hunter and a pitiless killer. A young thief and a cynical chancer. As the sun sinks the city will know no slumber. For long dormant passions have awoken. Fortunes will be won and lost. Lives will be staked and claimed. And a story long waiting to be told will catch fire in the telling . . . ______ Readers are captivated by EMPIRE OF SALT: 'Enough machinations, conspiracies and controversies to rival Game of Thrones' 5***** Reader Review 'I'm a huge fan of Iggulden, but this takes it to another level' 5***** Reader Review 'A must-read and a very welcome addition to the genre' 5***** Reader Review

In Kristin Lavransdatter (1920-1922), Sigrid Undset interweaves political, social, and religious history with the daily aspects of family life to create a colorful, richly detailed tapestry of Norway during the fourteenth-century. The trilogy, however, is more than a journey into the past. Undset's own life—her familiarity with Norse sagas and folklore and with a wide range of medieval literature, her experiences as a daughter, wife, and mother, and her deep religious faith—profoundly influenced her writing. Her grasp of the connections between past and present and of human nature itself, combined with the extraordinary quality of her writing, sets her works far above the genre of "historical novels." This new translation by Tina Nunnally—the first English version since Charles Archer's translation in the 1920s—captures Undset's strengths as a stylist. Nunnally, an award-winning translator, retains the natural dialog and lyrical flow of the original Norwegian, with its echoes of Old Norse legends, while deftly avoiding the stilted language and false archaisms of Archer's translation. In addition, she restores key passages left out of that edition.

Undset's ability to present a meticulously accurate historical portrait without sacrificing the poetry and narrative drive of masterful storytelling was particularly significant in her homeland. Granted independence in 1905 after five hundred years of foreign domination, Norway was eager to reclaim its national history and culture. Kristin Lavransdatter became a touchstone for Undset's contemporaries, and continues to be widely read by Norwegians today. In the more than 75 years since it was first published, it has also become a favorite throughout the world.