Showing results for "Helen" in Historical

Chuck Kelso is an idealist. When he steals a top-secret NATO memorandum, he only intends to leak it to the press; but it is soon in the hands of a Russian agent, a man who has spent nine years quietly working himself into the fabric of Washington society. Within hours it has reached the KGB, and the CIA’s top man in Moscow has had his cover blown. For British agent Tony Lawton, hunting down the Russian operative—the "agent in place"—is a welcome challenge. But for Chuck’s brother, the journalist Tom Kelso, and his beautiful wife, Thea, the affair has unleashed a very special terror.

The New York Times bestseller from Margaret George, author of Mary, Called Magdalene and Elizabeth I With her amazing ability to summon the voices of historical characters, Margaret George tells the story of the woman whose face "launched a thousand ships" in Helen of Troy. Laden with doom...

Set in the town of Travnik, Bosnian Chronicle presents the struggle for supremacy in a region that stubbornly refuses to submit to any outsider. The era is Napoleonic and the novel, both in its historical scope and psychological subtlety, Tolstoyan. In its portrayal of conflict and fierce ethnic loyalties, the story is also eerily relevant. Ottoman viziers, French consuls, and Austrian plenipotentiaries are consumed by an endless game of diplomacy and double-dealing.

1812. In Bath and London, Jane Austen's characters are attending balls, and the Bridgerton family are making waves in Regency high society. But these are the grimy streets of Liverpool: a city where the extreme wealth of international commerce meets brothels and brawls, smugglers and secrecy; where both high and low society operate amidst revolutionary rumblings from France and the shadow of the recently abolished slave trade.

Under the Mediterranean sun, a drama begins in a café in Málaga. For Ian Ferrier, an employee of the United States Space Agency on holiday to visit his old friend Jeff Reid, it means the startling discovery that Reid is not just a wine exporter, but rather engaged in smuggling communist defectors to the West. Events take a turn for the worse when Ferrier, a stranger to the deadly world of espionage, must take sole charge of a high-ranking KGB agent. Alone in an frighteningly alien landscape, he can afford no mistakes when choosing whom to trust …

A phone call prompts Bill Lammiter, a young American playwright, to follow a former girlfriend to Rome. There, Lammiter saves a mysterious Italian girl from a beating and the fat is in the fire. A kidnapping, a battle in a Renaissance villa, a shrewd gamekeeper, a chance snapshot and a touring preppy contribute to the excitement and suspense of this Cold War thriller.

Helen believed she could escape her destiny and save her people from utter destruction. After defying her family and betraying her intended husband, she found peace with her beloved Theseus, the king of Athens and son of Poseidon. But peace did not last long. Cruelly separated from Theseus by the gods, and uncertain whether he will live or die, Helen is forced to return to Sparta. In order to avoid marriage to Menelaus, a powerful prince unhinged by desire, Helen assembles an array of suitors to compete for her hand.

Set in the underground bar and club scene of 1970s Tokyo, Set My Heart On Fire tells the story of Izumi in her turbulent twenties. Through a series of disarmingly frank vignettes, author Izumi Suzuki presents an unforgettable portrait of a young woman encountering missteps and miscommunication, good music and unreliable men, powerful drugs and disorientating meds. Izumi usually keeps her relationships short but complicated, until she meets Jun.

1920. Poppy Denby, an aspiring journalist, arrives in London to look after her ailing Aunt. She encourages Poppy to apply for a job at The Daily Globe, but on her first day, a senior reporter is killed and Poppy is tasked with finishing his story. It involves the mysterious death of a suffragette seven years earlier - an event some powerful people would prefer forgotten....

A book of unparalleled scope and vision, Your Name Here is a spectacular honeycomb of books-within-books. In this death-defying feat of ambition, collaborators Helen Dewitt and Ilya Gridneff weave together America’s “War on Terror,” countless years of literary history, authorial sleight of hand, Scientology, dream analysis, multiple languages, emails, images, graphs, into something wondrous and unique.

The acknowledged ‘queen of Regency romance’, best-selling author Georgette Heyer, also penned a dozen delightful mystery novels. Included here are dramatisations of four of her finest stories from both genres, full of her characteristic wit, charm and period detail.

This is the story of a young Liverpool woman widowed in the Second World War before she can know the happiness of having a family. With the blessing of her mother, with whom she runs a B&B, she goes to Normandy to see where her husband was killed in the D-Day landings. Once she is there, she meets an impoverished French poultry farmer, now reduced to driving a beaten up (and still rare) taxi and looking after his old mother and dying brother. Will these two find happiness together?

Miss Phoebe Astin of The Economic Undertaker has applied her mortician skills to many faces, but a beautiful young debutante needed little work, or so she thought. When the debutante's spirit appears to her, insisting she was murdered and demanding Phoebe do something about it, Phoebe agrees. She has, after all, helped many of her ghostly clients before they move on to the next world.

Miss Phoebe Astin of The Economic Undertaker is not just a talented mortician, but a medium for the spirit world and often enjoys the company of her clients before they move on to the next world. When her funeral director brothers, Julius and Ambrose, bring the deceased Mrs. Henriette Tochborn to her workroom, there is much interest as the lady was quite well known for her tragedy—twenty years prior, her child was kidnapped and never found.

Miss Phoebe Astin and her brothers, Julius and Ambrose, lead an unconventional life working in the family funeral business, The Economic Undertaker. But Phoebe is not just a talented mortician; she is a medium for the spirit world, and often enjoys the company of her clients before they move on to the next world. When a gentleman lingers behind before passing over to the other side and begs her to investigate his murder, Phoebe contacts her brother's friend, Detective Harland Stone, to explain her concerns.

Alicia Woodman was born into a home that should have been filled with comfort and joy. Her mother Elizabeth was bright and vivacious, Humphrey Woodman was a prosperous businessman. But Alicia was not Humphrey’s child and he would have nothing to do with her, and before long Elizabeth, too, turned her back on her daughter. It was left to Polly Ford, widow of a dock labourer, to bring Alicia up, to teach her to say ‘Yes, Mama’ and to give the child the love she so desperately needed.

Peggy Delaney was a Lancashire girl born and bred, beginning to live again after the heartache of the war. Ajit Singh was a charming young Indian student, shortly to return to his homeland and an arranged marriage. When Peggy and Ajit fell in love, each one knew the future would not be easy. But as they began their new life, far from their homes and their families, they found that love could bring two worlds together.

Lovely Anasuyabehn had been brought up to obey her loving father in all things. But as soon as she set eyes on Tilak, the brilliant new professor at Shahpur University, she knew she could not marry Mahadev, the wealthy moneylender selected to be her husband. The trouble was that Tilak was not of her caste or religion, and shocked her community with his modern ideas.

Life in a Liverpool tenement block is a grim struggle for Martha Connelly and her poverty-stricken family, as every day renews the threat of homelessness, hunger and disease. Family warmth remains constant however, despite the misery and disquiet of the slum surroundings, and the indomitable neighbourhood puts up a relentless fight for survival. Helen Forrester’s poignant novel relays bleakness and hardships, but celebrates also the spirit of unified hope and the restorative values of the close-knit community.

From Liverpool’s best-loved author comes a superb novel of loss and grief, love and hope, set on Merseyside in 1920.