Through endless years of glacial winter, artist Hera has known loss: her brother`s arrest & imprisonment on terrorism charges, her mother`s resulting death, & the collapse of normal life in a devastated London. Her one comfort has been her relationship with Raphael. As the thaw begins, can she track down her elusive lover? ...

` Every day when I stand on high ground & look towards the Tower, to where the river used to be, I see it melt a little more.` Hera has known great loss over decades of endless winter. The first snows coincided with the arrest of her brother on terrorism charges, & since then she has witnessed the total collapse of normal life in a devastated London. Her only source of comfort through it all has been her relationship with Raphael. Now, as the thaw begins, can she at last track down her elusive lover? Within this compelling vision of a dystopian near-future, Roma Tearne offers us a moving study of human endurance. ...

Set during the Hundred Years War, the protagonist of The White Company is a cloister-raised young nobleman who discovers that his father`s will stipulated he travelled for a year before taking his vows. Setting off on his adventures, he finds himself part of the White Company
- a group of mercenary archers en route to France. The horror of fighting awaits him
- but so does the promise of valour. This is a lively & action-packed account of the exploits of a crew of Saxon archers, realistic & incredibly atmospheric in its depictions of medieval life, with a satisfying & compelling combination of breathless adventure & romantic chivalry.

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` One of Allingham`s very best` Observer Eric Crowther collected secrets & used them as weapons. Delighting in nothing more than torturing those around him with what he knew, there is no shortage of suspects when he is found dead in the White Cottage. Chief Inspector Challenor & his son Jerry will have to look deep into everyone`s past
- including the victim`s
- before they can be sure who has pulled the trigger. The fact that Jerry is in love with one of the suspects, however, might complicate things. The White Cottage Mystery was Margery Allingham`s first detective story, originally written as a serial for the Daily Express in 1927 & published as a book a year later.

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One man`s perilous quest to cross Antarctica in the footsteps of Shackleton. Henry Worsley was a devoted husband & father & a decorated British special forces officer who believed in honour & sacrifice. He was also a man obsessed. He spent his life idolizing Ernest Shackleton, the 19th-century polar explorer, who tried to become the first person to reach the South Pole & later sought to cross Antarctica on foot. Shackleton never completed his journeys, but he repeatedly rescued his men from certain death & emerged as one of the greatest leaders in history. Worsley felt an overpowering connection to those expeditions. He was related to one of Shackleton`s men, Frank Worsley, & spent a fortune collecting artefacts from their epic treks across the continent. He modelled his military command on Shackleton`s legendary skills & was determined to measure his own powers of endurance against them. He would succeed where Shackleton had failed, in the most brutal landscape in the world. In 2008, Worsley set out across Antarctica with two other descendants of Shackleton`s crew, battling the freezing, desolate landscape, life-threatening physical exhaustion & hidden crevasses. Yet when he returned home he felt compelled to go back. On November 2015, at age 55, Worsley bid farewell to his family & embarked on his most perilous quest: to walk across Antarctica alone. David Grann tells Worsley`s remarkable story with the intensity & power that have led him to be called `simply the best narrative nonfiction writer working today`. Illustrated with more than 50 stunning photographs from Worsley`s & Shackleton`s journeys, The White Darkness is both a gorgeous keepsake volume & a spellbinding story of courage, love & a man pushing himself to the extremes of human capacity. Praise for David Grann`s Killers of the Flower Moon `A riveting true story of greed, serial murder & racial injustice` JON KRAKAUER `A fiercely entertaining mystery story & a wrenching exploration of evil` KATE ATKINSON `A fascinating account of a tragic & forgotten chapter in the history of the American West` JOHN GRISHAM ` Disturbing & riveting... Grann has proved himself a master of spinning delicious, many-layered mysteries that also happen to be true... It will sear your soul` DAVE EGGERS, New York Times Book Review ` An extraordinary story with extraordinary pace & atmosphere` Sunday Times `A marvel of detective-like research & narrative verve` Financial Times ...

When she is eleven years old, Martine is orphaned & sent to live with her grandmother on a game reserve in South Africa. Her grandmother seems strangely unwelcoming & Martine has a difficult time settling in at her new school, where she is conspicuously an outsider. But she has an ally in Tendai
- one of the keepers on the reserve, from whom she learns the lore & survival techniques of the bush, & in Grace
- who instantly senses there is something special about Martine. There are secrets about Sawubona (the reserve) just waiting to be revealed, & rumours too about a fabled white giraffe
- a trophy for hunters everywhere. One night Martine, lonely & feeling slightly rebellious too, looks out of her window & see a young albino giraffe
- silver, tinged with cinnamon in the moonlight. This is the beginning of her mysterious & magical adventures
- her discovery of her gift of healing & a secret valley that she travels to with the giraffe, where she`ll find clues about her past & future. Above all it`s is a heart-warming story, full of charm & atmosphere, & Martine`s sheer delight in her giraffe friend & the fantastic landscape which is theirs to explore.




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When 10-year-old Simon Gough went to Majorca in 1953 he thought he had landed in paradise. Far from the misery of his English boarding school & his parents` divorce, he fell in love
- with the tiny village of Deya, with his wild cousin Juan & most of all with his beloved ` Gr&-Uncle` Robert. When he returned in 1960, paradise had been overrun by beatniks & marijuana
- & Simon liked it all the more. But soon he fell for the enchanting Margot Callas, Robert Graves` muse. He found himself entangled in a web of lies & deceit & playing a game whose rules he didn`t underst&. The repercussions would haunt him for the rest of his life.

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Drawing closely on Bulgakov`s personal experiences of the horrors of civil war as a young doctor, ” The White Guard” takes place in Kiev, 1918, a time of turmoil & suffocating uncertainty as the Bolsheviks, Socialists & Germans fight for control of the city. It tells the story of the Turbins, a once-wealthy Russian family, as they are forced to come to terms with revolution & a new regime. ...

A beautifully written coming-of-age novel from an acclaimed literary voice. A lost boy. A dead girl, & one who is left behind. A village full of whispers & secrets. When the white hare appears, magical & fleet in the silvery moonlight, she leads them all into a legend, a chase. But who is the hunter & who the hunted? ...

A thrilling collection of myths, legends & ghost stories from War Horse author & former Children`s Laureate Michael Morpurgo. Since the beginning of time, strange & mysterious things have happened here... At the furthest edge of Britain, where the sea gently washes over the land & myths brush against reality, lies Zennor. Set in a church town where men become beats & ghosts roam freely, these are haunting & unforgettable tales where magic lies around every corner. Morpurgo is the master storyteller of such modern classic children`s books as An Eagle in the Snow, Listen to the Moon, Private Peaceful, & An Elephant in the Garden. He has written more than one hundred books for children & won the Whitbread Award, the Smarties Award, the Circle of Gold Award, the Children`s Book Award & has been short-listed for the Carnegie Medal four times. ...