On the night of the 22 September 1943 Pearl Witherington a twenty-nine-year-old British secretary & agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) was parachuted from a Halifax bomber into Occupied France. Like Sebastian Faulks heroine Charlotte Gray Pearl had a dual mission: in her case to fight for her beloved broken France & to find her lost love. Pearls lover was a Parisian parfumier turned soldier Henri Cornioley who had been taken prisoner while serving in the French Logistics Corps & subsequently escaped from his German POW camp. Agent Pearl Witheringtons wartime record is unique & heroic. As the only woman agent in the history of SOEs in France to have run a network she became a fearless & legendary guerrilla leader organising arming & training 3 800 Resistance fighters. Probably the greatest female organiser of armed maquisards in France the woman whom her young troops called Ma M?re Pearl lit the fires of Resistance in Central France so that Churchills famous order to set Europe ablaze which had brought SOE into being finally came to pass. Pearls story takes us from her harsh impoverished childhood in Paris to the lonely forests & farmhouses of the Loir-et-Cher where she would become a true warrior queen. Shortly before Pearls death in 2008 the Queen presented her with a CBE in Paris. While male agents & Special Force Jedburghs received the DSO or Military Cross an ungrateful country had forgotten Pearl. She had been offered a civilian decoration in 1945 which she refused saying There was nothing civil about what I did. But what pleased her most was to receive her Parachute Wings for which she had waited over 60 years. Two RAF officers travelled to her old peoples home & she was finally able to pin the coveted wings on her lapel. Pearl died in February 2008 aged 93. ...

When Emma Brockes was ten years old her mother said ' One day I will tell you the story of my life & you will be amazed.' Growing up in a tranquil English village Emma knew very little of her mother's life before her. She knew Paula had grown up in South Africa & had seven siblings. She had been told stories about deadly snakes & hailstones the size of golf balls. There was mention once of a trial. But most of the past was a mystery. When her mother dies of cancer Emma
- by then a successful journalist at the Guardian
- is free to investigate the untold story. Her search begins in the Colindale library but then takes her to South Africa to the extended family she has never met & their accounts of a childhood so different to her own. She encounters versions of the life her mother chose to leave behind
- & realises what a gift her mother gave her. Part investigation part travelogue part elegy She Left Me the Gun" is a gripping funny & clear-eyed account of a writer's search for her mother's story."


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Theres been rising concern in Moscow over a wave of suicides among the citys young bohemians. An intrepid newspaper reporter Zhemailo begins to uncover the truth behind the phenomenon
- that the victims are linked by a secret society the Lovers of Death. But Zhemailo is not the only investigator hot on the heels of these disciples of the occult. Little do they realise that the latest convert to their secret society assuming the alias of a Japanese prince is none other than Erast Fandorin. But when a young & naive provincial woman Masha Mironova becomes embroiled in the society & Zhemalio dies a mysterious death Fandorin must do more than merely infiltrate & observe. Especially when the spin of the Russian roulette wheel decrees that our dashing hero be the next to die by his own h&. Can Fandorin fake his own demise all while outwitting the cults dastardly leader?
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The best-loved English comedy of the 18-century mocks the snobbery of London through the manipulations of the country embodied in Tony Lumpkin. She Stoops to Conquer" also celebrates the virtues of "laughing comedy " which Goldsmith advocated over the prevalent sentimental forms of his contemporaries. Regularly revived on stage." ...

Liverpool late 1950s. This is a story of three people: a suppressed mother; a father projectionist at the local cinema which has seen better days; & their daughter Martha. It is a time of many escapes: Nureyev defects in London; Gagarin escapes the earths atmosphere to be the first man in space; the Beatles escape the dreariness of Liverpool to seek their fortune in Hamburg. In Britain the drab 50s are giving way to the lively 60s & the young sense it. With shades of Billy Liar & Absolute Beginners this novel brilliantly captures that longing for freedom. SHES LEAVING HOME is about the madness the intensity & the passion that made the sixties an iconic decade. ...

Mike Zetterberg lives with his wife Ylva & their daughter in a house just outside Helsingborg. One evening Ylva isnt home as expected after work. Mike passes it off as a drink with a work friend but when shes still missing the next day he starts to worry. As Mike battles suspicion from the police & his own despair he is unaware that Ylva is still alive just a stones throw from his own home. Ylva has been drawn into a twisted plot of revenge & tragedy that leads back into her & her abductors shared past... ...

Queen Mabs niece Fiona has long been bored to tears by the intrigues of Court life. Shed prefer to cut loose at a punk club knock back a few Thai beers & hook up with a likely lad of similar interests. But when Fiona goes AWOL she only gets as far as Manhattans Inwood Park before a nasty demon nearly puts a permanent crimp in her plans
- & a dark stranger sparks her desire... All work & no play make Tobias Walker one cranky werewolf. After six months of doing his part to keep the peace during the delicate negotiations between the Others & humankind hed like nothing more than a good nights sleep
- preceded by an enthusiastic mating session. The alluring woman he rescues in the park might be the answer to his most lustful prayers but only if they can both stay alive long enough to find out who wants her dead & why. Now Fiona & Tobias must unravel a tangled web of treachery that spans branches of the Fae Other & mortal worlds all the while falling into a dangerous attraction that could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship
- or the end for them both...


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After serving a lengthy sentence for the murder of her husband Dolly Rawlins is set free from prison with only one thing on her mind
-
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This is now a BBC4 series showing in March 2012. When Edward VI
- Henry VIII's longed-for son
- died in 1553 extraordinarily

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The boy in the bed was just fifteen years old. He had been handsome perhaps even recently; but now his face was swollen & disfigured by disease & by the treatments his doctors had prescribed in the attempt to ward off its ravages. Their failure could no longer be mistaken. When Edward VI
- Henry VIIIs longed-for son
- died in 1553 extraordinarily there was no one left to claim the title King of Engl&. For the first time all the contenders for the crown were female. In 1553 England was about to experience the monstrous regiment
- the unnatural rule
- of a woman. But female rule in England also had a past. Four hundred years before Edwards death Matilda daughter of Henry I & granddaughter of William the Conquerer came tantalisingly close to securing her hold on the power of the crown. & between the 12th & the 15th centuries three more exceptional women
- Eleanor of Aquitaine Isabella of France & Margaret of Anjou
- discovered as queens consort & dowager how much was possible if the presumptions of male rule were not confronted so explicitly. The stories of these women
- told here in all their vivid humanity
- illustrate the paradox which the female heirs to the Tudor throne had no choice but to negotiate. Man was the head of woman; & the king was the head of all. How then could a woman be king how could royal power lie in female hands?







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