Dirk Aruseb was seventeen years old when Abraham Morris fetched him from the Pella orphanage to join the Bondelswarts. Dirk couldn’t wait to conquer the accursed Schutztruppe alongside legendary Kaptein Jakob Marengo, successor to Hendrik Witbooi and Jonker Afrikaner. But when he arrived at Schansvlakte deep in Namaland, Dirk was warned that he first had to master many life skills before he could join the war: be humble, be patient, be merciful. Find your eland, tame your butcherbird.

But for Dirk war was an adventure – as long as he could kill the German enemy, he was content. It didn’t matter what commander Nana Kruiper, or Klara Morris, her second in command, tried to teach him: that the liberation struggle of the Bondelswarts meant more than protecting Namaland – their promised land – at all costs.

Crimson Sands is set in Namaland – from German-South-West Africa to the Cape Colony – from 1904 to 1922, when thousands of Bondelswarts were shot down by Jan Smuts’s fighter planes. It is an epic, panoramic war novel, traversing southern Africa from Tsumeb to Upington, from internment camps in Windhuk to the dry riverbeds of the Fish River Canyon. Jeremy Vearey conjures a mesmerising tale across an arid landscape of sand, shrub and dune, evoking voices and stories long gone.

A familiar foe. A battle for the heart of a country at war with itself.

South Africa, 1899 - the smouldering hostility between the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State and the British colonies of the Cape and Natal is about to burst into flame. War is coming and no one can prevent it. Colonel Penrod Ballantyne, hero of Abu Klea and Omdurman, is sent to Mafeking, 'the place of stones', to recruit and train men for the fighting ahead. Amber, his wife, the successful novelist, accompanies him - eager to see more of the country her husband is about to risk his life for. But when war is declared, Amber must flee with their baby son and pray for her husband's survival against impossible odds.

Eight hundred miles to the south, in Cape Town, Ryder Courtney - adventurer, maverick, industrialist - is using his wealth and connections to bankroll the British war effort. His artist wife Saffron, frustrated by stuffy Cairo society, has joined him with their three children. There is peace in the Courtney household, or so Saffron believes, until their eldest son, Leon, stows away on a train to the front line, determined to join his distinguished uncle, Penrod Ballantyne, in changing the course of history. Saffron and Ryder have no choice but to leave the safety of the Cape Colony and follow. Leon is convinced that his parents are without honour and courage. Little does he realise that he has no chance of escaping the people they used to be.

Two families torn apart, caught up in a battle for the heart of a country at war with itself.

The Courtneys and the Ballantynes come together once again in the sequel to the worldwide bestsellers The Triumph of the Sun and King of Kings.

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.

A brand-new Egyptian novel from the master of adventure fiction, Wilbur Smith.

In the heart of Egypt, under the watchful eye of the gods, a new power is rising.

In the city of Lahun, Hui lives an enchanted life. The favoured son of a doting father, and ruler-in-waiting of the great city, his fate is set. But behind the beautiful façades a sinister evil is plotting. Craving power and embittered by jealousy, Hui's stepmother, the great sorceress Isetnofret, and Hui's own brother Qen, orchestrate the downfall of Hui's father, condemning Hui and seizing power in the city. Cast out and alone, Hui finds himself a captive of a skilled and powerful army of outlaws, the Hyksos. Determined to seek vengeance for the death of his father and rescue his sister, Ipwet, Hui swears his allegiance to these enemies of Egypt. Through them he learns the art of war, learning how to fight and becoming an envied charioteer.

But soon Hui finds himself in an even greater battle - one for the very heart of Egypt itself. As the pieces fall into place and the Gods themselves join the fray, Hui finds himself fighting alongside the Egyptian General Tanus and renowned Mage, Taita. Now Hui must choose his path - will he be a hero in the old world, or a master in a new kingdom?

Wanneer Rut se skoonmoeder Naomi wil teruggaan na Bethlehem waar sy vandaan kom, volg Rut haar.

In Bethlehem vind Naomi haar ou woonhuis en grond beset deur Boas en sy moeder Ragab. Tog is dit juis Ragab se skarlakenverlede wat haar empatie met almal gee. Hier triomfeer een van die mooiste Bybelse liefdesverhale, dié van Rut en Boas.

Barend Vos herskep dit met eietydse dialoog en ’n sensitiwiteit wat van hierdie Bybelse figure onthoubare individue met hulle deugde én ondeugde maak.

Transport yourself from the canals of Amsterdam, across the waves, to the rough-and-tumble frontier town at the Cape of Good Hope. From the author of the bestselling The Pearler's Wife, a riveting novel of seventeenth-century romance and intrigue.

In 1683 life is gruelling for the young women in Amsterdam’s civic orphanage. The sole light in Johanna Timmerman’s existence is her forbidden love for Frans, an orphan in the boys’ section who has a smile like sunshine. Then he is gone, whisked across the globe to the Dutch East India Company’s nascent colony at Good Hope.

Floriane Peronneau’s privileged world is pleasant and fulfilling until she discovers that it is all built on lies. Far from being the devoted gentleman he seems, her husband Claes is a womanizing degenerate who has led them to the edge of ruin. And the forces are closing in on him.

While Johanna’s love drives her to make a shocking bargain to secure passage to the Cape, Floriane is caught in a terrifying game of cat and mouse. The two women’s lives could not be more different. Yet, on the long, dangerous voyage to the southern tip of Africa, they will become the best of friends – and co-conspirators...

From the author of When God was a Rabbit and Tin Man, Still Life is a big-hearted story of people brought together by love, war, art and the ghost of E.M. Forster.

We just need to know what the heart’s capable of, Evelyn.
And do you know what it’s capable of?
I do. Grace and fury.

1944, in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa, as the Allied troops advance and bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening together.

Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier, Evelyn Skinner is a sexagenarian art historian and possible spy. She has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the wreckage and relive memories of the time she encountered EM Forster and had her heart stolen by an Italian maid in a particular Florentine room with a view.

These two unlikely people find kindred spirits in each other and Evelyn’s talk of truth and beauty plants a seed in Ulysses’ mind that will shape the trajectory of his life – and of those who love him – for the next four decades.

Moving from the Tuscan Hills and piazzas of Florence, to the smog of London’s East End, Still Life is a sweeping, joyful, richly-peopled novel about beauty, love, family and fate.

A spellbinding historical novel that brilliantly imagines one of the greatest manhunts in history: the search for two Englishmen involved in the killing of King Charles I and the implacable foe on their trail—an epic journey into the wilds of seventeeth-century New England, and a chase like no other.

1660 England. General Edward Whalley and his son-in law Colonel William Goffe board a ship bound for the New World. They are on the run, wanted for the murder of King Charles I—a brazen execution that marked the culmination of the English Civil War, in which parliamentarians successfully battled royalists for control.

But now, ten years after Charles’ beheading, the royalists have returned to power. Under the provisions of the Act of Oblivion, the fifty-nine men who signed the king’s death warrant and participated in his execution have been found guilty in absentia of high treason. Some of the Roundheads, including Oliver Cromwell, are already dead. Others have been captured, hung, drawn, and quartered. A few are imprisoned for life. But two have escaped to America by boat.

In London, Richard Nayler, secretary of the regicide committee of the Privy Council, is charged with bringing the traitors to justice and he will stop at nothing to find them. A substantial bounty hangs over their heads for their capture—dead or alive. . . .

Robert Harris’s first historical novel set predominantly in America, Act of Oblivion is a novel with an urgent narrative, remarkable characters, and an epic true story to tell of religion, vengeance, and power—and the costs to those who wield it.

A brilliantly original voice-driven debut about defying expectations, set in the Georgia Gold Rush.

It is 1815 in the small town of Heron's Creek, Georgia, when Yip Tolroy - mute, medical anomaly & social outcast - is born. His father has disappeared in mysterious circumstances, so he is raised by his mother: a powerful, troubled, independent woman who owns and runs a general store. She struggles to manage his needs, leaving Yip to find the means of asserting himself in an unforgiving, hostile environment. With the help of a retired doctor, he begins to transform his life by learning to read and write, his portal into the community a piece of slate and a supply of chalk.

And then at the age of 15, Yip's life is altered irrevocably. In the space of a few days he witnesses the discovery of gold, meets his faithful friend and comrade Dud Carter, and commits a grievous crime. Thrust unwittingly into a world of violence and sin, Yip and Dud are forced to leave town and embark on an odyssey that will introduce them to the wonder and horror of the American frontier until the revelation of a secret means they must return to Heron's Creek and the fate that awaits them.

A sweeping story of love, adventure and adversity, The Map of Bones by Kate Mosse is the sequel to the number one bestselling The Ghost Ship.

'Mosse is a master storyteller' – Madeleine Miller, bestselling author of Circe

Olifantshoek, Southern Africa, 1688. When the violent Cape wind blows from the south-east, they say the voices of the unquiet dead can be heard whispering through the deserted valley. Suzanne Joubert, a Huguenot refugee from war-torn France, arrives in search of her cousin – the notorious she-captain and pirate commander Louise Reydon-Joubert – who landed at the Cape of Good Hope more than sixty years before, then disappeared without a trace . . .

Franschhoek, Southern Africa, 1862. Nearly one hundred and eighty years after Suzanne’s perilous journey, another intrepid woman of the Joubert family – Isabelle Lepard – has journeyed to the small frontier town once known as Oliftantshoek in search of her long-lost relations. Intent on putting the women of her family back into the history books, she quickly discovers that the tragedies and crimes of the past are far from over. Isabelle faces a race against time if she is not only going to discover the truth, but also escape with her life . . .

Painstakingly researched and beautifully told, The Map of Bones is the fourth – and final – novel of The Joubert Family Chronicles, following the bestselling The Burning Chambers, The City of Tears and The Ghost Ship.

If you were given the opportunity to disappear and start your life again, would you take it?

Paris 1933. Four people's lives are dramatically torn apart by a single terrifying event. Two days before Christmas the express train to Strasbourg crashes into a local train in the winter darkness outside Paris. On board is Gilles Malroux, a man with a shady past and a strong reason to avoid the police. In the mayhem of the crash he is badly injured but to avoid capture by the police he swaps identity papers with one of the other victims of the impact. Gilles tries to flee in the dark but finds himself taken to the house of a woman he doesn't know but who calls him Davide. She nurses him. But is the bitter medicine in the spoon she puts to his lips healing him or harming him?

Camille Malroux is Gilles' sister. She works for the French Civil Service and is trying to climb the ladder of respectability after a childhood in poverty. When she is informed by police that her brother is seriously injured in hospital, she rushes to his bedside, only to discover it is not Gilles. It is a heavily bandaged stranger. He is unconscious and has her brother's identity papers in his locker. Only by digging to discover the true identity of the bandaged man in the hospital bed can she hope to trace Gilles.

But Gilles is sinking into further danger. He is drugged. A priest and a doctor hover over him, as if waiting for him to die, and constantly the woman who calls him Davide is at his side. What is it she wants from him?

The Crash is thrilling historical fiction about identity, revenge and survival.

From the author of A Witch in Time comes a magical story spanning from Jazz Age Paris to modern-day America of family secrets, sacrifice, and lost love set against the backdrop of a mysterious circus.

Paris, 1925: To enter the Secret Circus is to enter a world of wonder - a world where women weave illusions of magnificent beasts, carousels take you back in time, and trapeze artists float across the sky. Bound to her family's circus, it's the only world Cecile Cabot knows until she meets a charismatic young painter and embarks on a passionate affair that could cost her everything.

Virginia, 2004: Lara Barnes is on top of the world, but when her fiance disappears on their wedding day every plan she has for the future comes crashing down. Desperate, Lara's search for answers unexpectedly lead to her great-grandmother's journals.

Swept into a story of a dark circus and ill-fated love, secrets about Lara's family history come to light and reveal a curse that has been claiming payment from the women in her family for generations. A curse that might be tied to her fiance's mysterious fate...

FATE CAN BE CHANGED. CURSES CAN BE BROKEN.

In a shabby house in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil. But when her scheming mistress discovers her scullion is hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to win over the royal court.

Determined to seize this chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of power-hungry nobility, desperate kings, holy men and seers, where the lines between magic, science and fraud blur. With the pyres of the Inquisition burning, she must use every bit of her wit and resilience to win fame and hide the truth of her ancestry – even if that means enlisting the help of an embittered immortal familiar, whose own secrets could cost her everything.

From Sunday Times bestselling author comes a bewitching novel, brimming with peril in a world where a woman’s ambition can prove deadly.

1866. In a coastal village in southern England, Nell picks violets for a living. Set apart by her community because of the birthmarks that speckle her skin, Nell’s world is her beloved brother and devotion to the sea.

But when Jasper Jupiter’s Circus of Wonders arrives in the village, Nell is kidnapped. Her father has sold her, promising Jasper Jupiter his very own leopard girl. It is the greatest betrayal of Nell's life, but as her fame grows, and she finds friendship with the other performers and Jasper’s gentle brother Toby, she begins to wonder if joining the show is the best thing that has ever happened to her.

In London, newspapers describe Nell as the eighth wonder of the world. Figurines are cast in her image, and crowds rush to watch her soar through the air. But who gets to tell Nell’s story? What happens when her fame threatens to eclipse that of the showman who bought her? And as she falls in love with Toby, can he detach himself from his past and the terrible secret that binds him to his brother?

Moving from the pleasure gardens of Victorian London to the battle-scarred plains of the Crimea, Circus of Wonders is an astonishing story about power and ownership, fame and the threat of invisibility.

One family's search for a better life: an immersive, kaleidoscopic debut for fans of Half of a Yellow Sun, Homegoing and Pachinko.

India, 1898. Pirbhai is thirteen when he steps into a dhow on the vague promise of work. His family is suffering and he will do anything to help. Yet the boat takes him to labour for the British on the East Africa Railway. He has no money, no voice, no power. He makes impossible choices in the name of survival.

Sonal is fierce and loving, always willing to fight for what she believes in. When Pirbhai, weathered from his time on the railway but not broken, walks into her father's shop, she knows he is part of her future, and together they set out for a new life in Uganda.

So begins the story of their family as they scatter across the world, fleeing the brutality of Idi Amin, forging new lives in London, marching for equality in 1990s Canada, searching for a safe mooring. But under everything lies a secret. And one day, a letter arrives that will fan its embers into a flame.

From the Booker-shortlisted, million-copy bestselling author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves comes an epic novel about the infamous, ill-fated Booth family. Charmers, liars, drinkers and dreamers, they will change history forever.

Junius is the patriarch, a celebrated Shakespearean actor who fled bigamy charges in England, both a mesmerising talent and a man of terrifying instability. As his children grow up in a remote farmstead in 1830s rural Baltimore, the country draws ever closer to the boiling point of secession and civil war. Of the six Booth siblings who survive to adulthood, each has their own dreams they must fight to realise - but it is Johnny who makes the terrible decision that will change the course of history - the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Booth is a riveting novel focused on the very things that bind, and break, a family.

In this dazzling thriller, New York Times bestselling author Joseph Kanon gives us his richest setting yet: pre-World War II Shanghai, where glamour and squalor exist side by side and murder is just a cost of doing business. A love affair against all odds, a city dancing on the rim of a volcano—Shanghai is the story of a political haven that becomes a minefield of conflicting loyalties.

After the violence of Kristallnacht (1938), European Jews, now desperate to emigrate, found the consular doors of the world closed to them. Only one port required no entry visa: Shanghai, a self-governing Western trading enclave in what was technically Chinese territory, a political anomaly that became an escape hatch—if you were lucky enough to afford a ticket on one of the great Lloyd liners sailing to the East and safety.

Daniel Lohr was one of the lucky ones—lucky enough to have escaped the Gestapo when his colleagues in the resistance were caught, lucky to have an uncle waiting in Shanghai, lucky to find a casual shipboard flirtation turn unexpectedly passionate. But even lucky refugees have to confront the reality of Shanghai. With all their assets, and passports confiscated by the Nazis, they arrive penniless and stateless in a tumultuous, nearly lawless city notorious for vice. When you can sink fast, how far are you willing to go to survive? What lines do you cross? As Daniel tries to navigate his way through his uncle’s world in Shanghai’s fabled nightlife, he finds himself increasingly ensnared in a maze where politics and crime are two sides of the same shiny coin. The trick, his uncle tells him, is to stay one step ahead.

But how do you stay ahead of murder? How do you outrun your own past?

In the tradition of All The Light We Cannot See and The Nightingale, comes an incandescent debut novel about a young Dutch man who comes of age during the perilousness of World War II.

Beginning in the summer of 1939, fourteen-year-old Jacob Koopman and his older brother, Edwin, enjoy lives of prosperity and quiet contentment. Many of the residents in their small Dutch town have some connection to the Koopman lightbulb factory, and the locals hold the family in high esteem. On days when they aren't playing with friends, Jacob and Edwin help their Uncle Martin on his fishing boat in the North Sea, where German ships have become a common sight. But conflict still seems unthinkable, even as the boys' father naively sends his sons to a Hitler Youth Camp in an effort to secure German business for the factory.

When war breaks out, Jacob's world is thrown into chaos. The Boat Runner follows Jacob over the course of four years, through the forests of France, the stormy beaches of England, and deep within the secret missions of the German Navy, where he is confronted with the moral dilemma that will change his life - and his life's mission - forever.

Epic in scope and featuring a thrilling narrative with precise, elegant language, The Boat Runner tells the little-known story of the young Dutch boys who were thrown into the Nazi campaign, as well as the brave boatmen who risked everything to give Jewish refugees safe passage to land abroad. Through one boy's harrowing tale of personal redemption, here is a novel about the power of people's stories and voices to shine light through our darkest days, until only love prevails.

A Welsh princess. A Roman general. Their love story lost to time…

The land of the Silures, 382 AD

Elen is a princess promised to a general of Rome. Macsen came to Wales seeking an alliance that would advance his quest for power.

Despite warnings her marriage is destined for heartache, Elen is determined to honour her vows.

But this union will change her destiny forever…

Camp Meadow, 2024

Cadi is a writer who has discovered Elen’s lost story. As she puts pen to paper, she hears the sound of ghostly marching feet.

Opening the gate to the ancient meadow behind her cottage, could the secret behind Elen’s fate lie closer than she thinks?

But someone is desperate to keep the past buried, plotting to destroy the meadow…

Can Cadi uncover Elen’s story before it’s lost to time?

Dirk Aruseb was sewentien toe Abraham Morris hom uit die Pella-weeshuis kom haal het om by die Bondelswarts aan te sluit. By Schansvlakte begin die eerste van Dirk se lewenslesse: wees nederig, geduldig, en genadig. Vind jou eland, tem jou janfiskaal.

Rooisand speel af in Namaland – van Duits-Suidwes-Afrika tot die Kaapkolonie – vanaf 1904 tot 1922. Dit is ’n epiese oorlogsroman wat strek van Tsumeb tot Upington, van Windhuk se interneringskampe tot die droë rivierlope van die Visrivier.

Summer 1914. A world on the brink of catastrophe.

In London, 26-year-old Venetia Stanley – aristocratic, clever, bored, reckless – is having a love affair with the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, a man more than twice her age. He writes to her obsessively, sharing the most sensitive matters of state.

As Asquith reluctantly leads the country into war with Germany, a young intelligence officer is assigned to investigate a leak of top secret documents – and suddenly what was a sexual intrigue becomes a matter of national security that will alter the course of political history.

Seamlessly weaving fact and fiction in a way that no writer does better, Precipice is the thrilling new novel from Robert Harris.

Sw eeping across tw o generations, from the ghettos of Europe during the Second World War to the enclaves of New York's Fifth Avenue, The Hidden Girl traces the life of Leah Thompson, w ho rises from humble beginnings in rural Yorkshire to take the modelling w orld by storm.

But her fateful association w ith the Delancey family dominates her life. The secrets they hide from one another start to explode into nightmares of thw arted ambition, forbidden love, revenge and murder . . . culminating in a fatal, forgotten prophecy from the past.

This title was previously published as Hidden Beauty by Lucinda Edmonds, and has been rewritten and reimagined by her son, Harry Whittaker, for Lucinda Riley fans the world over.

Paris, 1958. A skirmish in a world-famous restaurant leaves two men dead and the restaurant staff baffled. Why did the head waiter, a man who’s been living in France for many years, lunge at his patrons with a knife?

As the man awaits trial, a journalist hounds his long-time friend, hoping to expose the true story behind this unprecedented act of violence.

Gradually, the extraordinary story of Pitso Motaung, a young South African who volunteered to serve with the Allies in the First World War, emerges. Through a tragic twist of fate, Pitso found himself on board the ss Mendi, a ship that sank off the Isle of Wight in February 1917. More than six hundred of his countrymen, mostly black soldiers, lost their lives in a catastrophe that official history largely forgot. One particularly cruel moment from that day will remain etched in Pitso’s mind, resurfacing decades later to devastating effect.

Dancing The Death Drill recounts the life of Pitso Motaung. It is a personal and political tale that spans continents and generations, moving from the battlefields of the Boer War to the front lines in France and beyond. With a captivating blend of pathos and humour, Fred Khumalo brings to life a historical event, honouring both those who perished in the disaster and those who survived.

It’s 1899 and Philippa’s fiancé Nduku has just broken off their engagement. She is heartbroken – after all, she has followed him from Kimberley, where they first met, to the goldfields of Johannesburg. In this bustling new city, tensions are mounting between the South African Republic and the gold-hungry British Empire. When war is declared, the mines are shut down and migrant workers ordered to leave town.

But how do you get home and out of harm’s way when there are no running trains and home is hundreds of kilometres away? You walk. Over perilous terrain Nduku and Philippa and seven thousand others walk to Natal. Disguised as a mineworker’s wife, for Philippa is white, she and Nduku talk about their true histories, about their fears and hopes, and with every footfall the possibility of lasting happiness seems within reach – if only they can survive, and if only they can weather the storm of an unexpected third player in their troubled romance.

Set during an incredible event in South African history, The Longest March is a tale of heady determination, and a tribute to the perseverance and courage of ordinary men and women when faced with extraordinary circumstances.

Imagine waking up and a wall has divided your city in two. Imagine that on the other side is your child...

Lisette is in hospital with her baby boy. The doctors tell her to go home and get some rest, that he’ll be fine.

When she awakes, everything has changed. Because overnight, on 13 August 1961, the border between East and West Berlin has closed, slicing the city - and the world - in two.

Lisette is trapped in the east, while her newborn baby is unreachable in the west. With the streets in chaos and armed guards ordered to shoot anyone who tries to cross, her situation is desperate.

Lisette's teenage daughter, Elly, has always struggled to understand the distance between herself and her mother. Both have lived for music, but while Elly hears notes surrounding every person she meets, for her mother - once a talented pianist - the music has gone silent.

Perhaps Elly can do something to bridge the gap between them. What begins as the flicker of an idea turns into a daring plan to escape East Berlin, find her baby brother, and bring him home....

Based on true stories, The Silence in Between is a page-turning, emotional epic that will stay with you long after you finish reading.