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SHORTLISTED FOR THE HISTORICAL WRITERS' ASSOCIATION GOLD CROWN AWARD 2022. A disgraced warrior must navigate a course between honour and shame, his people and the Roman Empire, in the first of a trilogy set in the second century AD from the author of Smile of the Wolf. AD173. The Danube has frozen. On its far banks gather the clans of Sarmatia. Winter-starved, life ebbing away on a barren plain of ice and snow, to survive they must cross the river's frozen waters. There's just one thing in their way. Across the ice lies the Roman Empire, and deployed in front of them, one of its legions. The Sarmatians are proud, cast as if from the ice itself. After decades of warfare they are the only trib...
A defeated king stands on top of a pyre. His conqueror, the Persian ruler Cyrus, signals to his guards; they step forward and touch flaming torches to the dry wood. Croesus, once the wealthiest man of the ancient world, is to be burned alive. As he watches the flames catch, Croesus thinks back over his life. He remembers the time he asked the old Athenian philosopher, Solon, who was the happiest man in the world. Croesus used to think it was him. But then all his riches could not remove the spear from his dying elder son's chest; could not bring his mute younger son to speak; could not make him as wise as his own chief slave; could not bring his wife's love back; could not prevent his army from being torn apart and his kingdom lost. As the old philosopher had replied, a man's happiness can only be measured when he is dead. The first coils of smoke wrap around Croesus' neck like a noose...
A SUNDAY TIMES HISTORICAL NOVEL OF THE YEAR. Tenth-century Iceland. In the midwinter darkness, on the lifeless black soils of a newly settled land, two friends kill a man. Kjaran, an itinerant storyteller, and Gunnar, a once-feared warrior, must make a choice: conceal the deed or confess to it and pay the blood price to the dead man's brothers. For the right reasons, they make the wrong choice. Kjaran and Gunnar's fateful decision will leave them fighting for their lives, fighting to retain their humanity as Iceland's unyielding code of honour ignites a remorseless blood feud that will consume all it touches. 'Smile of the Wolf bares its fangs from the first page. Like a medieval tapestry, the storytelling is rich with imagery. Readers will be lured spellbound into this lyrical and evocative Icelandic saga. It deserves huge success' DAVID GILMAN.
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Ten years after the fall of Babylon, Cyrus's army is on the march again. His slave Croesus, no longer a young man, accompanies him as always, as does the king's son and heir Cambyses, who has inherited none of his father's diplomacy or charisma and all of his vanity and violence. When the warriors of Persia are unexpectedly crushed in battle Cyrus is put to death, and Cambyses assumes the throne. Croesus, once a king himself, is called upon to guide the young man; but the young man cannot be guided, and after taking offence at an insult by an Egyptian ruler, Cambyses takes the full force of his father's empire to Africa for bloody and brutal vengeance...
The brief poems of Tim Leach's CORNCURLS FOR THE MEDULLA OBLONGATA are full of pith and vinegar, the snap of sharp wit thrown off by their taut, energetic lines.
'An extraordinary debut ... River of Ink is what historical fiction should be: immersive, illuminating and captivating' The Times 'Vivid and compelling' Mail on Sunday 'A powerful and timely fable about freedom, resistance and the secret might of the weak' Financial Times _____________ From his humble village beginnings, Asanka has risen to the prestigious position of court poet in the great island kingdom of Lanka, delighting in a life of ease. But when the ruthless Kalinga Magha violently usurps the throne, Asanka's world is changed beyond imagination. To his horror, the king tasks him with the translation of an epic poem designed to civilise his subjects and snuff out the fires of rebellion... Asanka has always believed that poetry makes nothing happen, but as lines on the page become cries in the street he learns that true power lies not at the point of a sword, but in the tip of a pen.
A brilliant and strikingly original debut novel, The Last King of Lydia imagines the bloody rise and fall of Croesus, 'the richest man on earth', and powerfully shows how happiness, even for those who have everything, is so often elusive. A defeated king stands on top of a pyre. His conqueror, the Persian ruler Cyrus, signals to his guards; they step forward and touch flaming torches to the dry wood. Croesus, once the wealthiest man of the ancient world, is to be burned alive. As he watches the flames catch, Croesus thinks back over his life. He remembers the time he asked the old Athenian philosopher, Solon, who was the happiest man in the world. Croesus used to think it was him. But then all his riches could not remove the spear from his dying elder son's chest; could not bring his mute younger son to speak; could not make him as wise as his own chief slave; could not bring his wife's love back; could not prevent his army from being torn apart and his kingdom lost. As the old philosopher had replied, a man's happiness can only be measured when he is dead. The first coils of smoke wrap around Croesus' neck like a noose...
Outwardly, 'Britain's most experienced teenage Alpinist' is a brave young mountaineer. But he's not experienced at all, at least not in the way he really wants to be. Behind his death-defying climbs there lurks a great deal of fear – fear of the opposite sex, fear of failure, fear of not being 'man enough'. He seeks manhood in the mountains, yet he believes he will only truly gain it by losing something. Harrowing escapades in Scotland, the Alps and Alaska are interspersed by excruciating sexual encounters and unsettling hitch-hiking rides. When the mountains fail him, he seeks meaning with a religious cult in Colorado. Eventually he succeeds in his quest, only to find that he's lost more than he bargained for. Virgin on Insanity by Steve Bell is a coming-of-age story of high adventure, youthful insecurity and immature love. The situations might be extreme, but the deeper issues will be familiar to many.
What could be more delightful than to colour in the amazing plumage of true-to-life birds of paradise? This beautiful book contains illustrations of 39 different birds of paradise, drawn by Andrew Leach, from the work of Dr Edwin Scholes and photojournalist Tim Laman from a Cornell Lab of Ornithology expedition. The photographs are also included as a wonderful bonus and to show the dazzling colours of these remarkable birds. There have been more than 12 million views of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s introductory video to the birds of paradise project on YouTube alone.