Traitor's Blood, the first in The Civil War Chronicles, Michael Arnold's acclaimed series of historical thrillers, sees battle-scarred hero Captain Stryker, 'the Sharpe of the Civil War', confront his nemesis. 'Stands in comparison with the best of Cornwell' Yorkshire Post Once seen in the heat of battle, Captain Stryker is never forgotten. A hardened veteran of the wars in the Low Countries, he has come home to England to seek revenge on the man who left him for dead and scarred him for life. Stryker is driven by loyalty rather than conviction to serve King Charles's cause. He has no truck with aristocracy, preferring the company of a handful of trusted men, including sometime actor Lancelot Forreseter and his foul-mouthed sergeant, Skellen. But when the existence of a dangerous spy at the heart of the Royalist establishment is discovered, it is Stryker whom Prince Rupert chooses to capture the man before he realises the game is up. Lightly armed and with only a handful of men, Stryker must journey across a country riven by bitterness and beset by marauding bands of soldiers in a race against time. But unbeknown to Stryker, someone else is also closing in on his quarry, someone whom Stryker has sworn to kill: Captain Eli Makepeace, his nemesis, the man who nearly destroyed him . . .

In this spellbinding novel, a young man journeys from California to Cairo to unravel centuries-old family secrets.

Joseph, a literature student at Berkeley, is the son of a Jewish mother and a Muslim father. One day, a mysterious package arrives on his doorstep, pulling him into a mesmerizing adventure to uncover the tangled history that binds the two sides of his family. For generations, the men of the al-Raqb family have served as watchmen of the storied Ibn Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo, built at the site where the infant Moses was taken from the Nile. Joseph learns of his ancestor Ali, a Muslim orphan who nearly a thousand years earlier was entrusted as the first watchman of the synagogue and became enchanted by its legendary—perhaps magical—Ezra Scroll. The story of Joseph’s family is entwined with that of the British twin sisters Agnes and Margaret, who in 1897 depart their hallowed Cambridge halls on a mission to rescue sacred texts that have begun to disappear from the synagogue.

The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is a moving page-turner of a novel from acclaimed storyteller Michael David Lukas. This tightly woven multigenerational tale illuminates the tensions that have torn communities apart and the unlikely forces—potent magic, forbidden love—that boldly attempt to bridge that divide.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy meets Agent Carter meets X-Men in this classic British espionage story where a young woman must go undercover and use her superpowers to discover a secret Nazi plot and stop an invasion of England. In 1936, there are paranormal abilities that have slowly seeped into the world, brought to the surface by the suffering of the Great War. The research to weaponize these abilities in England has lagged behind Germany, but now it's underway at an ultra-secret site called Monkton Hall. Kim Tavistock, a woman with the talent of the spill-drawing out truths that people most wish to hide-is among the test subjects at the facility. When she wins the confidence of caseworker Owen Cherwell, she is recruited to a mission to expose the head of Monkton Hall-who is believed to be a German spy. As she infiltrates the upper-crust circles of some of England's fascist sympathizers, she encounters dangerous opponents, including the charismatic Nazi officer Erich von Ritter, and discovers a plan to invade England. No one believes an invasion of the island nation is possible, not Whitehall, not even England's Secret Intelligence Service. Unfortunately, they are wrong, and only one woman, without connections or training, wielding her talent of the spill and her gift for espionage, can stop it.

The new book set in the universe of Assassin's Creed. Reliving the memories of his ancestor who fought beside Joan of Arc, high-ranking Templar Simon Hathaway slowly uncovers secrets of the past that could dangerously impact his present . . . and that of the entire Templar order. An endless conflict. An old wrong. A new revelation. Simon Hathaway, member of the Templar Inner Sanctum, brings a cool head and detached manner to his new role as Head of Abstergo Industry's Historical Research Division. But Simon also has an insatiable curiosity, and is fascinated by the thought of experiencing history first-hand through his ancestor Gabriel Laxart, who fought alongside the legendary Joan of Arc. When he enters the newly-designed Animus for its initial project, Simon finds himself unprepared for what he discovers: how deep the conflict between the Templars and the Assassins goes, and what his ancestor is willing to do for the woman he loves. And as he slowly uncovers secrets of the past, Simon is confronted with the most dangerous truth of all: Who is the heretic . . . and who is the true believer?

'Fire as she bears. Rake her, lads.' Winter, 1793. Newly promoted Master and Commander Charles Hayden's orders are to deliver the frigate HMS Themis to Lord Admiral Hood, whose fleet is sheltering in the Mediterranean. Only hours out of port, however, and the Themis is engaging with the French navy. Hayden's destination is Toulon, a French port under Lord Hood's protection. But there Hayden's captaincy and seamanship are stretched to their limits. For Toulon holds a deadly surprise for the unwary . . . A Battle Won is the brilliant second instalment in the epic maritime adventures of Charles Hayden. A masterpiece in the tradition of Bernard Cornwell and Patrick O'Brian.

Lukitt Bachman is waiting in his Lanterne de Mortes, a Tower of the Dead, in the middle of a cemetery. He's had a complicated life: son of a Herrnhuter Brother thrown out of his sect; help-meet to a pastor; sailor; fisherman; boar-hunter; and student and lecturer, exploring the varied histories of the Knights Teutonic and the bone-chapels their descendants left behind them. He has become an assassin and a murderer, learned the terrible highs and lows of friendships made and lost, and is awaiting now his last remaining friend to set him free so he can put right past wrongs. As Lukitt is let loose on a world gone mad, can this avenging angel finally find solace for his soul?

Ravindra is back, and close to his dream of becoming the Demon King Ravana once and for all - unless Vikram, Amanjit, Deepika and Ras find their own powers, evil will overwhelm the world . . . Bollywood superstar Sunita Ashoka's reality show Swayamvara Live! has ended in bloodshed and disaster, and Vikram, Amanjit and Rasita are on the run, accused of her murder. And just like the heroes of the Ramayana, they soon find themselves beset by the same perils as Rama, Laksmana and Sita. When an unexpected death forces Vikram into the open, they start to despair - but there is some hope: Amanjit's warrior skills are returning, Rasita is beginning to remember her own past lives, and Deepika is awakening to terrifying new powers. But the enemy, Ravindra, has also found allies: the nightmarish Rakshasa army. Memories and legends are coming alive all over India. The fight to the finish has begun . . . 'David Hair hasn't just broken the mould. He's completely shattered it' - Bibliosanctum on The Pyre

THE EVIL WRATH Cambodia, 1978. Amid the Khmer Rouge's crazed genocide, soldier-of-fortune Jack Elliott is given the impossible task of rescuing a family from the regime. THE PAINFUL TRUTH Eighteen-year-old orphan and budding journalist Lisa Robinson has received the impossible news that her father is, in fact, alive. His name - Jack Elliott. THE NOBLE PATH As Jack tracks the hostages and Lisa traces her heritage, each is intent on reuniting a family. Yet to succeed, so must run a dangerous gauntlet of bullets and betrayal.

Conn Iggulden is back with the spellbinding third instalment in the EMPIRE OF SALT trilogy.

Is he in heaven?-Is he in hell? That demmed, elusive Pimpernel? Sir Percy Blakeney lives a double life in the England of 1792: at home he is an idle fop and a leader of fashion, but in abroad he is the Scarlet Pimpernel, a master of disguise who saves aristocrats from the guillotine. When the revolutionary French state seeks to unmask him, Percy's estranged, independent wife, Marguerite, unwittingly sets their agent on her husband's track. Percy's escapades, and Marguerite's daring journey to France to save him from the guillotine, keep the reader turning the pages of Baroness Orczy's well-paced romantic adventure. Written in just five weeks in 1903, Baroness Emma Orczy's bestseller has been the basis of multiple adaptations. Rooted in the upheaval of Orczy's Hungarian childhood, and in the anxious nationalism of turn-of-the-century Britain, the story of the Scarlet Pimpernel provided a blueprint not only for subsequent historical swashbucklers, but for superheroes from Zorro to Superman. The edition places the book The Scarlet Pimpernel within the context of the elite and popular literature of the turn of the century. Orczy's novel is close in kin to such contemporary political thrillers as Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent (1907); tales that channelled contemporary concerns about refugees and enemies within.

Written in 1967-72,The Deer and the Cauldron was Louis Cha's last, and by many considered his best, Martial Arts novel. It is a sprawling work covering twenty odd years of the early reign of the Emperor Kangxi. In historical terms, the novel begins sometime after the death of Koxinga in 1662 and the Ming History purge of 1682/3, and before the death of Oboi in 1669. It covers the period of the rebellion of the "Three Feudatories" , and the surrender of Formosa to the Manchus in 1683, before ending shortly after the signing of the Treaty of Nertchinsk in 1689. The plot moves from the pleasure-houses of Yangzhou to Peking and the Imperial Court and the sacred mountain of Wu-tai-shan to a desolate island off the north-east coast of China, base for the fanatical drug-taking Sect of the Mystic Dragon, through the frozen north-east to Fort Albazin to Moscow and the boudoir of Princess Sophia; before finally returning to the birthplace of the protagonist, Yangzhou. The Deer and the Cauldron introduces a vast array of underworld characters, all of them members of the so-called Brotherhood of River and Lake - material arts practitioners of every school and shape and size, outlaw secret society members (especially the Triads), singsong girls, innkeepers, gamblers, beggars, salt-smugglers, itinerant (and often fighting) monks and Taoists, herbalists, butchers, and boatmen. We also encounter dissident literati (Gu Yanwu, Huang Zongxi, Lu Liuliang), corrupt magistrates, ruthless petty Yamen officers, members of the fallen Imperial family of the Ming dynasty, the Paladins of Prince Mu, the descendants of Koxinga, eunuchs (including one aged and wheezing eunuch who practices a particularly lethal form of kungfu), Tibetans, Mongols, Cossacks, the Emperor Kangxi himself, the Dowagers Empress and a host of pretty girls of various origins. The novel's protagonist, a young rogue called Trinket, was born in a Yangzhou whorehouse. His nom de guerre is Little White Dragon but he has many guises and is also known as Grand Master of the Greenwood Lodge of the Triad Society, the eunuch Brightie, the Bannerman Captain Huachahuacha, the Zen Brother Claritas, Duke of Albazin, Grand Patriarch of the Sect of the Mystic Dragon, among others. Trinket is one of the truly unforgettable characters in Chinese fiction; he is the prankster, the larrikin, the trickster who breaks every known convention (of both worlds he inhabits, the high and low), the singsong girls's son whose ultimate dream is to run his own bordello, the perfect anti-hero, the subversive antithesis of the true xia, the apotheosis of the liumang. And yet he has a highly developed sense of friendship, loyalty and honour. His ambivalent, and touching, relationship with the emperor Kangxi is one of the recurring themes of The Deer and the Cauldron.

'What a joy! Reads like a classic nineteenth-century mystery with a twist, richly dark and full of gaslit menace' LESLEY THOMSON. They will see me hang for this. London, 1855. In the grey mist of the early morning a body is dumped on the shore of the Thames by a boatman in a metal canoe. The city is soon alive with talk of the foreign killer and his striking accomplice: a young woman dressed in widow's weeds. Branna 'Birdie' Quinn's sleeplessness led her to the river that morning, but was it only thoughts of her drowned husband that kept her awake? She has always been wilful, haughty, different... but is she a murderess? To clear her name, Birdie must retrace the dead man's footsteps to Orkney and the far north. A dangerous journey for a woman alone, but one she must make in order to save her neck from the hangman's noose. This gripping, richly layered historical thriller is perfect for fans of The Familiars, The House Between Tides and The Confessions of Franny Langton. Reviews for Clare Carson: 'Superb storytelling, clever and convoluted plotting, and a wonderful sense of time and place' CRIME REVIEW. 'Meaty, beautifully written and original' IRISH INDEPENDENT. 'Original and absorbing' LITERARY REVIEW.

FROM THE #1 BESTSELLER 'Deadly conspiracies, bone-crunching action and a tormented hero with a heart . . . packs a real punch' Andy McDermott Even when ex-SAS major Ben Hope is taking a holiday, trouble seems to find him. What started as a relaxing trip to the Deep South spirals into a nightmare when he's wrongly accused of a vicious murder and forced to go on the run. Target of a state-wide manhunt, the only way Ben can prove his innocence is to unearth a long-forgotten secret and track down the killers who slaughtered an innocent woman in a vendetta dating back generations. His quest takes him into the wild heart of Louisiana's swampland, where all hell's about to break loose. The bad guys will soon discover they made a big mistake... The Ben Hope series is a must-read for fans of Dan Brown, Lee Child and Mark Dawson. Join the millions of readers who get breathless with anticipation when the countdown to a new Ben Hope thriller begins... Whilst the Ben Hope thrillers can be read in any order, this is the eighteenth book in the series.

An epic novel of the American Civil War from the bestselling author of THE TIN ROOF BLOWDOWN. Set mainly in Louisiana during the years 1861-1868, this passionate novel of men, women and war tells the story of the author's ancestor, Confederate soldier Willie Burke, during the American Civil War. A classic Burke hero, Willie is soon in conflict with his superiors. The characters who people these pages, many of them based on real historical figures, are as memorable as any Burke has created. Mulatto, Flower Jamison, victim of terrible abuse who is determined to better herself; Abigail Dowling, whose Unionist sympathies put her in constant danger; Colonel Ira Jamison, rotten to his core yet who would rise from a cesspit smelling of roses...

From bestselling historian Adrian Goldsworthy, a profoundly authentic, action-packed adventure set in Roman Britain.

AD 100: BRITANNIA.
THE EDGE OF THE ROMAN WORLD.

Flavius Ferox is the hardbitten centurion charged with keeping the peace on Britannia's frontier with the barbarian tribes of the north. Now he's been summoned to Londinium by the governor, but before he sets out an imperial freedman is found brutally murdered in a latrine at Vindolanda fort – and Ferox must find the killer.

As he follows the trail, the murder leads him to plots against the empire and Rome itself, and an old foe gathering mysterious artefacts in the hope of working a great magic. Bandits, soldiers, and gladiators alike are trying to kill him, old friends turn traitor, and Ferox is lured reluctantly to the sinister haunts of the old druids on the isle of Mona, and the bitter power struggle among the Brigantes, the great tribe of the north...

'An instant classic of the genre' HARRY SIDEBOTTOM.

'An authentic, enjoyable read' THE TIMES.

King and Country. No matter the cost.

With the backing of his uncle, General Penrod Ballantyne, young Leon Courtney joins the King's Rifles of Nairobi. When he becomes discouraged by the dishonesty of army life, his uncle recruits him for a special mission - spying on the Germans in East Africa, whom the General suspects are preparing for the Kaiser's war. Posing as a professional game hunter Leon is tasked with gathering information on one of his clients, wealthy industrialist Otto Von Meerbach. Leon finds himself falling for Von Meerbach's beautiful mistress, but never forgets that his real mission is to destroy the enemy.

But how easy will he find his task when his true enemy is closer to home than Leon ever expected?

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Cari Mora, written by Thomas Harris. ________________________________ From the creator of Hannibal Lecter and The Silence of the Lambs comes a story of evil, greed and the consequences of dark obsession. ________________________________ Twenty-five million dollars in cartel gold lies hidden beneath a mansion on the Miami Beach waterfront. Ruthless men have tracked it for years. Leading the pack is Hans-Peter Schneider. Driven by unspeakable appetites, he makes a living fleshing out the violent fantasies of other, richer men. Cari Mora, caretaker of the house, has escaped from the violence in her native country. She stays in Miami on a wobbly Temporary Protected Status, subject to the iron whim of ICE. She works at many jobs to survive. Beautiful, marked by war, Cari catches the eye of Hans-Peter as he closes in on the treasure. But Cari Mora has surprising skills, and her will to survive has been tested before. Monsters lurk in the crevices between male desire and female survival. No other writer in the last century has conjured those monsters with more terrifying brilliance than Thomas Harris. Cari Mora, his sixth novel, is the long-awaited return of an American master. ________________________________ `The last two decades of 19th century popular fiction were dominated by Conan Doyle and Sherlock Homes. A century on, suspense literature has achieved their equals in Thomas Harris.' GUARDIAN `Harris's writing bears the hallmarks of honed perfection.' THE TIMES

'The Balloonist' is both an intense love story and a science fiction adventure. It is centred on an attempt by a Swedish scientist, an American journalist and a French speaking adventurer, to become the first people to set foot on the North Pole, to arrive there, and return, borne on the wind by a huge red and white balloon.