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The first book in a brand new trilogy from the author of Prospero’s Children.Bartlemy Goodman, is one of the Gifted. An albino of Greek parentage, he was born in Byzantium amidst the decline of the Roman Empire. He now resides at Thornyhill house, England, with his dog, Hoover.One warm evening, a young homeless woman holding a baby turns up on Bartlemy's doorstep, and sensing destiny at work, he lets them stay. Annie and her son Nathan thrive in the small community of Thornyhill, but when more strangers arrive in the village, sinister happenings begin to occur.

‘Addictive, charming and gleaming with Jazz Age glitz’ The LadyThe fabulous new novel from the author of The Girl Who Came HomeDolly Lane is a dreamer; a downtrodden maid who longs to dance on the London stage, but the outbreak of war takes everything from her: Teddy, the man she loves – and her hopes of a better life.When she secures employment as a chambermaid at London’s grandest hotel, The Savoy, Dolly’s proximity to the dazzling guests makes her yearn for a life beyond the grey drudgery she was born into. Her fortunes take an unexpected turn when she responds to an unusual newspaper advert and finds herself thrust into the heady atmosphere of London’s glittering theatre scene and into the sphere of the celebrated actress, Loretta May, and her brother, Perry.All three are searching for something, yet the aftermath of war has cast a dark shadow over them all. A brighter future is tantalisingly close – but can a girl like Dolly ever truly leave her past behind?

From the Booker Prize-wining author of ‘Offshore’ and ‘the Blue Flower’ – this Booker Prize-shortlisted novel centres on Cambridge Fellow Fred Fairly’s search for a rational riposte to love.In 1912 Fred Fairly is a Junior Fellow at the college of St Angelicus in Cambridge, where for centuries no female, not even a pussy cat, has been allowed to set foot («though the starlings couldn't altogether be regulated»). Fred lectures in physics and the questionable nature of matter and worries about the universal problem known in Cambridge at the time as ‘the absurdity of the Mind-Body Relationship’. To Fred this is tormenting rather than absurd. The young woman beside him when he wakes up one evening in the Wrayburns’ spare bedroom might help resolve it, but how can he tell if she is quite what she seems? Fred is a scientist. To him the truth should be everything, and indeed he thinks it is. But scientists make mistakes.The Gate of Angels is a funny, touching and inspiring look at male-female relationships and the problems caused by thinking just a little too much.

‘It’s the book you should give someone who thinks they don’t like novels … Here is surely a future prizewinner that is easy to read and impossible to forget’ Melissa Katsoulis, The TimesThe things history will do at the bidding of loveOn a warm Sunday afternoon, Nazia and Sharif are preparing for a family barbecue. They are in the house in Sheffield that will do for the rest of their lives. In the garden next door is a retired doctor, whose four children have long since left home. When the shadow of death passes over Nazia and Sharif’s party, Doctor Spinster’s actions are going to bring the two families together, for decades to come.The Friendly Ones is about two families. In it, people with very different histories can fit together, and redeem each other. One is a large and loosely connected family who have come to England from the subcontinent in fits and starts, brought to England by education, and economic possibilities. Or driven away from their native country by war, murder, crime and brutal oppression – things their new neighbours know nothing about. At the heart of their story is betrayal and public shame. The secret wound that overshadows the Spinsters, their neighbours next door, is of a different kind: Leo, the eldest son, running away from Oxford University aged eighteen. How do you put these things right, in England, now?Spanning decades and with a big and beautifully drawn cast of characters all making their different ways towards lives that make sense, The Friendly Ones, Philip Hensher’s moving and timely new novel, shows what a nation is made of; how the legacies of our history can be mastered by the decision to know something about people who are not like us.

Tyrannised by Bloody Mary and the Virgin Queen, Ladies Jane, Katherine and Mary Grey feared love was unthinkable.A gripping and bittersweet tale of broken families and broken hearts, courage and conviction, The Fallen Queen recounts an astonishing chapter in the hard-won battle for the Tudor throne.Led by love into the jaws of fate….Lady Jane Grey is crowned Queen at the behest of Edward VI. Her reign lasts only nine days before she is executed for treason.Lady Jane’s two sisters, Katherine and Mary, live on into Elizabeth I’s reign but in family misfortune they are bound, inspiring the Queen’s wrath against them.In secret, Katherine and Mary risk everything and disobey the royal order by marrying the men they love. Will their treachery be discovered? And must they face imprisonment in the Tower of London, just as their sister did before them?A stunning tale of treachery and treason, The Fallen Queen gives an unforgettable voice to three extraordinary sisters at the heart of a devastating conflict. Perfect for fans of The Tudors and Philippa Gregory’s The White Queen.

The first, intimate portrait of the Orange Order.If there is any more controversial body of men (and, with the exception of Ruth Dudley Edwards, who has been admitted to an honorary position in her very own lodge, they are all men) in the British Isles, it is hard to think who they might be. To most outsiders, grown men parading in bowler hats, white gloves, coloured sashes or collarettes, rolled umbrellas and banners showing scenes from the Old Testament or from a war that ended three centuries ago, are anachronistic, silly and provocative; to their enemies they are triumphalist bigots; to most of their members, the lodges’ parades are a commemoration of the courage of their forefathers, a proud declaration of their belief in civil and religious freedom, a demonstration of their Britishness, a chance to catch up with old friends and a jolly day out.Ruth Dudley Edwards is an unlikely Joan of Arc for the Orangemen, but that she is; a trusted and liked sympathizer, a woman, a Catholic from southern Ireland; one who sees them as possibly rather bumptious and certainly their own worst enemy, endlessly outpaced by the nimble Republicans in terms of PR (which the Orangemen scorn to meddle with). She has written a fond but not uncritical, indeed rather exasperated, portrait of this tribe, with lashings of insider detail and revelation which no one else could hope to obtain.

A heart-warming story of friendship and family during the first Christmas of World War Two.Autumn 1939 and London prepares to evacuate its young. In No 5 Jubilee Street, Bermondsey, ten-year-old Connie is determined to show her parents that she’s a brave girl and can look after her twin brother, Jessie. She won’t cry, not while anyone’s watching.In the crisp Yorkshire Dales, Connie and Jessie are billeted to a rambling vicarage. Kindly but chaotic, Reverend Braithwaite is determined to keep his London charges on the straight and narrow, but the twins soon find adventures of their own. As autumn turns to winter, Connie’s dearest wish is that war will end and they will be home for Christmas. But this Christmas Eve there will be an unexpected arrival…

‘The Emperor Waltz’ is a single novel with three narrative strands: fourth-century Rome, 1920s Germany, and 1980s London. In each place, a small coterie is closely connected and separated from the larger world. In each story, the larger world regards the small coterie and its passionately-held beliefs and secrets with suspicion and hostility.It is the story of eccentricity, its struggle, its triumph, its influence – but also its defeat.

Perfect for fans of Memoirs of a Geisha and Empress Orchid – ‘The Embers of Heaven’ is a magical epic, with delightful characters, an intriguing scenario and a real feeling of place and history. It has a wonderful combination of character, romantic lives, and spiritual quest, set against a credible historical background.In ‘The Secrets of Jin-Shei,’ eight women pledge themselves as sisters in the name of jin-shei, the unbreakable bond, the promise that lasts a lifetime. This sisterhood shapes their lives, their country and their world. ‘The Embers of Heaven’ begins four hundred years later. In eighteenth-century Syai, and its capital city of Linh-an, things have changed beyond recognition.On the face of it, women are more equal than they have ever been. But the men run the machines, the factories, and the technology. Women have lost the ability to weave their fates and influence the course of events. The foundation of an empire once rested on jin-shei and its customs. It connected women from every walk of life and formed a bond that empowered every woman who swore the oath. The advancement of printing, the developments of technology and the changes in society seem to have improved the daily lives of the underclass, but women have been stripped of this sacred pact.Amais is heir to her poet-ancestress's manuscripts and journals. The journals are all in jin-ashu, the women's tongue, taught sketchily to Amais by her mother. Amais has the clear vision of an outsider looking in. Combined with her deep and instinctive bond to her ancestors and her culture, she determines to reinvent the Women's Country and bring the jin-shei back. But just as her crusade begins, she and her family are caught up in the whirlwind of the Golden Rising – a people's revolution that is fated to destroy much that was once valuable, gracious and beautiful.

I asked the sailor what an Elephant looked like; he replied that it was like nothing on earth.In the middle of the 18th century, a ship docks at Bristol with an extraordinary cargo: two young elephants. Bought by a wealthy landowner, they are taken to his estate in the English countryside. A stable boy, Tom Page, is given the task of caring for them.The Elephant Keeper is Tom’s account of his life with the elephants. As the years pass, and as they journey across England, his relationship with the female elephant deepens in a startling manner. Along the way they meet incredulity, distrust and tragedy, and it is only their understanding of each other that keeps them together.Christopher Nicholson’s charming and captivating novel explores notions of sexuality and violence, freedom and captivity, and the nature of story-telling – but most of all it is the study of a profound and remarkable love between an elephant and a human being.

Rich and epic Historical Fiction set against the backdrop of the Great Famine. Perfect for fans of Winston Graham and Ken Follett.Boston in the 1850s is the hub of the universe: gateway to America’s temples of commerce and learning; liberal, sophisticated – the very best place in all of the New World for a woman to be.After being ripped from her homeland of Ireland, thrust into the harsh and unforgiving landscape of Australia, it is here that Ellen O’Malley hopes to find the stability of a new life and a new love; Lavelle, the man who adores her.But Ellen, desperate to shake off the Old World, is driven by her own demons to put everything at risk. And Boston, on the brink of Civil War, seems only to mirror her own conflict, to sound the knell of her own battle for survival.A powerful and compelling tale of lives and loves dislocated, The Element of Fire captures emotions as timeless as life itself.

The latest title in the much-loved Element Encyclopedia series, The Element Encyclopedia of Celts explores the history, culture, and mythology of these great peoples.A comprehensive guide of Celtic history and culture, The Element Encyclopedia of the Celts tells the stories of these grand peoples and their way of life, including their heroic gods and goddesses, incredible myths and legends, and their everyday lives through their language, customs, and society. Encompassing their iron-age beginnings, European colonization, the various strands of ‘Celticness’ (race, politics, and culture), as well as the Celtic Tiger of today, this encyclopedia gets to the very heart of Celtic origin and meaning, as well as delving into the cultural and mythical background that draws so many to claim their Celtic roots today.Including:• The Celtic People and Their Way of Life• Celtic Places• Celtic Religion• Myths, Legends, and Stories• Symbols, Ideas, and Archetypes• Celtic Twilight and RevivalAccompanied by illustrations and maps, which show the spread of Celts across the globe, as well as the symbols of Celtic mythology and religion