Showing results for "the quest" in Historical

She is omnivorous. No matter age or appearance, physical frailty or imperfection. It is not their flesh that feeds her appetites, but their souls. She devours young and old, men and women. She leaves only a desiccated husk. An unspeakable evil. An impossible gift. Renowned magus Taita is now over 100 years old and has ascended to a new level of wisdom and understanding about his world. But he must prepare himself for the biggest threat Egypt has ever faced: the great plagues and the failure of the Nile, brought about by the fire witch Eos, an ancient force of sheer evil.

Most people believe that the Khandavaprastha forest was burned down to build Indraprastha. But this belief is wrong. According to the Mahabharata, Indraprastha was built before Khandavaprastha forest was destroyed and only seven creatures survived the massacre and conflagration. So, what is the truth about the burning of the Khandavaprastha forest by Agni, aided by Lord Krishna and Arjuna?

‘Fantasy as it ought to be written’ George R.R. Martin The gripping finale to Robin Hobb’s classic Farseer Trilogy. With the king no longer living and the heir, Verity, missing and declared dead, Prince Regal has treacherously seized the throne. Regal’s torture has left Fitz more dead...

As a Victorian clergyman's daughter, Edith Worms has seen everything—until a mythical salamander tumbles out of the fireplace into her lap. When a letter arrives from estranged relatives, Edith is swept away to a crumbling gothic Abbey in the wilds of Yorkshire. Wormwood Abbey isn't just full of curious beasts and ancient family secrets: there's also a tall, dark, and entirely too handsome neighbor who is strangely reluctant for her to leave.

Brought to you by Penguin. ‘Here, indeed, be monsters, myriad adventures and machinating gods. Fry is a personable and passionate narrator’ -- Mail on Sunday 'A romp through the lives of ancient Greek gods. Fry is at his story-telling best . . . the gods will be pleased' -- Times Shortlisted...

While her older sister is being presented to London Society for the season, Lydia Bramwell is sent to her Aunt Camilla in the Sussex countryside. High-spirited Lydia expects a very dull visit, but her sojourn to the village of Diddlington is not as idyllic as she anticipates . . . A charred and bludgeoned corpse is found in the woods, and suspicion falls on Lydia's aunt's suitor, an intriguing Frenchman. Convinced of his innocence, Lydia enlists the help of her new friend, John Savidge, to catch the real killer. 

The daughter of a murdered businessman joins forces with a New York City cop in a perilous hunt for history's most coveted treasure. Claire Andrews loved her father dearly, but now he's dead, brutally slain after attempting to sell an irreplaceable, possibly priceless saltcellar encrusted with rare gems. Leaving the Midwest for New York City, she seeks the help of Detective Artie Modelstein of the NYPD's Frauds/Jewels Squad, hoping to recover the lost treasure and clear her father's sullied name.

With starvation stalking in 1915 Alaska, Leah welcomes her brother Jacob's dogsled full of supplies. But not until she unwraps the scarf-covered sled driver does she realize she's been embracing Jacob's friend Jayce, the man who broke her heart a decade ago. Although she insists that Jacob get rid of Jayce immediately, a sudden snow storm and a disabling injury delay his departure.

England 1616. Robert Belstrang, ex-magistrate bored with country life, comes to London to investigate the strange disappearance of Thomas Jessop, son of a poor Catholic neighbor. He locates the youth in Bedlam asylum, silent and starving himself. When he tries to free Jessop, he is warned off the case by a politic lawyer, Anstis. Soon after, Belstrang finds himself drugged, robbed and falsely imprisoned. Once released Belstrang persists in his investigation, but he is thwarted at every turn: unseen forces are at work who seemingly want Thomas Jessop to die. 

This story is set at the end of the 10th century and charts the journey of a young warrior, whose father, Bersi, is killed during a raid on Wessex. Sven Bersisson has to grow up quickly and to follow in his father’s footsteps. Sweyn Skull Taker, his uncle, becomes his foster father and they raid Wessex and Frankia, where the young warrior becomes a man. King Sweyn Forkbeard, the king of Denmark, uses their clan to help in his dream of defeating the Norwegians and then taking the throne of England. 

1944 - The Isle of Wight: 16 year-old Constance’s life on the island is sheltered until the death of her brother, brings the reality of war crashing down around her. He leaves behind his pregnant widow, Ginny. When Constance meets a handsome Canadian airforce man, she’s eager to escape her grief and be swept up by first love. It’s a love which has ramifications she could never envisage. Present day: When young British backpacker, Isabel Stark happens across a car accident on a lonely stretch of road in the South Island of New Zealand her life changes forever.

Confident and strong willed, Kelly Maguire knew from a young age that he could accomplish great things. A constant and abiding love of the ocean would prove to be the making of him. When the call of war is heard in the early 1910s, Kelly knows that he must answer it. Enlisting in the Royal Navy, he hopes to win both the war and personal glory. But from the barbarous battles of Gallipoli to the nightmarish action at Antwerp, Kelly, along with his young shipmates, begins to learn the trials a sailor must face, trials that will forge him from a boy into a man.

A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.

After the gods warred and drove themselves to extinction, the cataclysm of their fall shattered the land of Vigrið. Now a new world is rising, where power-hungry jarls feud and monsters stalk the woods and mountains. A world where the bones of the dead gods still hold great power for those brave - or desperate - enough to seek them out. As whispers of war echo across the mountains and fjords, fate follows in the footsteps of three people.

Hrolf the young Viking has left the service of Jarl Dragonheart and sails with Jarl Gunnar Thorfinnson. When they find a home off the Frankish coast they begin to accumulate a vast fortune which earns them the enmity of other Vikings. The novel culminates in a bloody battle where Viking fights Viking but Hrolf begins to fulfill his destiny as Hrolf the Horseman!

Italy, 1937. In a tiny village in rural Lombardy, Graziella Ponti is born into a loving family. Though they are not rich and life is full of challenges, Graziella and her family are content and safe, surrounded by the tightly knit community of Pieve Santa Clara. But when the shadow of World War Two falls across the village with the arrival of Nazi soldiers, nothing in young Graziella’s life will ever be the same again.

AD 1045. Godwin of Wessex, one of the most powerful earls in the country, prepares for the marriage of his daughter to King Edward of England. The mood is jubilant, his family's relationship with the Crown secured through matrimony. But one man seeks to undermine him at every opportunity.

Anno Domini 1040. Christianity has swept unstoppably across Scandinavia, leaving few enclaves of the old ways clinging on to their fading world as King Olof of Sweden works to convert his people. A young warrior, Halfdan, has witnessed the ‘mercy' of the Christian lords, watched his people attacked, his village burned and the Odin stone toppled as heretical. Watched his father cut down by an ambitious Christian jarl and his zealous priest. Among the ashes of his world, he vowed an oath of vengeance before all the gods.

James of Ecclestone is one such youth and when he runs away to become a billman fighting the Yorkist pretender, Lambert Simnel, he begins a journey that will shape him from a youth to a man, a wild child to a Tudor warrior. Set against the backdrop of the early years of King Henry VII’s reign, this fast-moving novel takes us from the Battle of Bramham Moor to the siege of Boulogne. Beginning with the battle of Bosworth field and ending with the Skirmish of Glastonbury Tor, we see an England changing from Yorkist to Lancastrian and James of Ecclestone becoming a warrior of renown.

February 1981. The Cold War is in full swing. Richard Brodick decides to follow in his father’s footsteps, joining Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. As a contract ‘head agent’ based in Pakistan, Brodick’s job is to train Afghans to capture video of the war against the Soviets. However, he finds himself in a murky world of blurred lines and conflicting stories, where he cannot trust anything he has been told, by anyone. What he had thought would be an adventure spying on the Soviets and their Afghan communist allies turns sour when he's ordered to kill his best friend.