Helen Dunmore follows the lives of four ordinary people united by love trying to survive the siege of Leningrad in her powerful historical novel The Siege". Leningrad September 1941. Hitler orders the German forces to surround the city at the start of the most dangerous desperate winter in its history. For two pairs of lovers
- Anna & Andrei Anna's novelist father & banned actress Marina
- the siege becomes a battle for survival. They will soon discover what it is like to be so hungry you boil shoe leather to make soup so cold you burn furniture & books. But this is not just a struggle to exist it is also a fight to keep the spark of hope alive..." The Siege" is a brilliantly imagined novel of war & the wounds it inflicts on ordinary people's lives & a profoundly moving celebration of love life & survival. " Remarkable affecting.. .there are few more interesting stories than this; & few writers who could have told it better". (Rachel Cusk " Daily Telegraph"). " Literary writing of the highest order set against a background if suffering so intimately reconstructed it is hard to believe that Dunmore was not there". (Richard Overy " Sunday Telegraph"). " Utterly convincing. A deeply moving account of two love stories in terrible circumstances. The story of their struggle to survive appears simple as all great literature should.. .a world-class novel". (Antony Beevor " The Times"). Novelist & poet Helen Dunmore has achieved great critical acclaim since publishing her first adult novel the Mc Kitterick Prize winning " Zennor in Darkness". Her novels " Counting the Stars" " Your Blue-Eyed Boy" " With Your Crooked Heart" " Burning Bright" " House of Orphans" " Mourning Ruby" "A Spell of Winter" & " Talking to the Dead" & her collection of short stories " Love of Fat Men" are all published by Penguin. This edition

Includes:: the first chapter of " Betrayal" the sequel to " The Siege"."



...

Who will survive? This title is the new bestseller from the master of the race-against-time thriller. London. The Stanhope Hotel Park Lane. 16.00 A normal afternoon. The Manager
- Newly engaged Elena Serenko has just made the life-changing decision to quit her job & start a new life in Australia. The Guests
- Upstairs a young woman waits for her lover; a visiting family prepare for an evening out; & a sick man contemplates his own mortality. The Assassin
- High up amongst the penthouse suites a skilled & dangerous killer is hunting a quarry who's eluded him for far too long. The Siege
- What none of them know is that a group of ruthless gunmen are about to burst into the Stanhope shooting indiscriminately & seizing hostages. As darkness falls & the gunmen become increasingly violent only one thing matters. Who will survive?



...

The year is 1453. For more than a thousand years the mighty walls of Constantinople have protected the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire the furthest outpost of Christianity. But now endless ranks of Turkish warriors cover the plains before them their massive cannons trained on the ramparts. It is the most fearsome force the world has ever seen. No European army will help: the last crusaders were cut to pieces by the Turks on the plains of Kosovo. Constantinople is on its own. & treachery is in the air. Three people will struggle to determine the fate of an empire: the young Turkish Sultan returned from exile & desperate to prove his greatness; a stubborn Byzantine princess sworn to protect her city; & a mercenary captain with a personal score to settle. But of them it is the hardened soldier Giovanni Longo who will face the worst choice: just as he prepares to make his final stand he finds he has something to live for after all. From the intrigues within the Emperors household to the Sultans harem & the savage fights on the battlements Siege is a full-blooded historical adventure novel in the tradition of Warrior of Rome Pilgim or Crusade. ...

Simon Snowlock & Prince Josua's band of allies gather at the Stone of Farewell. King Elias is drawn ever deeper into the dark sorceries of Ineluki the Storm King. The badly depleted League of the Scroll searches for age-old knowledge with which to aid Josua's much-outnumbered army. Across the face of Osten Ard lines are drawn as the final battle approaches & the struggle between Light & Dark reaches a climax. SIEGE is the first half of TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER
- an international hardback bestseller
- the final volume of Tad Williams' highly acclaimed trilogy Memory Sorrow & Thorn.

...

The year is 1453. For more than a thousand years the mighty walls of Constantinople have protected the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire the furthest outpost of Christianity. But now endless ranks of Turkish warriors cover the plains before them their massive cannons trained on the ramparts. It is the most fearsome force the world has ever seen. No European army will help: the last crusaders were cut to pieces by the Turks on the plains of Kosovo. Constantinople is on its own. & treachery is in the air. Three people will struggle to determine the fate of an empire: the young Turkish Sultan returned from exile & desperate to prove his greatness; a stubborn Byzantine princess sworn to protect her city; & a mercenary captain with a personal score to settle. But of them it is the hardened soldier Giovanni Longo who will face the worst choice: just as he prepares to make his final stand he finds he has something to live for after all. From the intrigues within the Emperor's household to the Sultan's harem & the savage fights on the battlements Siege is a full-blooded historical adventure novel in the tradition of Warrior of Rome Pilgim or Crusade. ...

The unexpected arrival of Soviet troops at the end of January 1945 at the ancient fortress & garrison town of Kustrin came as a tremendous shock to the German High Command
- the Soviets were now only 50 miles from Berlin itself. The Red Army needed the vital road & rail bridges passing through Kustrin for their forthcoming assault on the capital but flooding & their own high command's strategic blunders resulted in a sixty-day siege by two Soviet armies which totally destroyed the town. The delay in the Soviet advance also gave the Germans time to consolidate the defences shielding Berlin west of the Oder River. Despite Hitler's orders to fight on to the last bullet the Kustrin garrison commander & 1 000 of the defenders managed a dramatic break-out to the German lines. The protracted siege had an appalling human cost
- about 5 000 Germans were killed 9 000 wounded & 6 000 captured & the Russians lost 5 000 killed & 15 000 wounded. Tony Le Tissier in this graphic & painstakingly researched account has recorded events in extraordinary detail using the vivid eyewitness testimony of survivors to bring the story of the siege to life.

...

A book dedicated to the four sieges of Newark during the English Civil War the last of which marked the collapse of Royalist power in the Midlands. In 1642 King Charles I summoned Newark to support him which it did with men money & munitions. The city & castle where thereafter a loyal bastion of Royalist support on the edge of Parliamentarian territory. A roundhead attackin 1643 was driven off as was a desultory siege in 1644. In 1645 the Roundheads arrived in large numbers with heavy cannon & great determination. The Royalist garrison fougth back with imagination & courage turning this into a text book example of 17th century seigework. After seven months garrison surrendered ending Royalist hopes in this area of Engl&. This book follows the standard pattern set by others in the Bretwalda Battles series. The reasons for & course of the war in question are outlined then detailed analyses of weapons tactics & strategies are given with particular reference to this battle. The course of the battleis then followed with comment on what there is to see at the site today. Short biographies of the commanders are also given. The aftermath of the battle its effects & importance to the progress of the war are then described. The Bretwalda Battles" series has been running with increasing success as ebooks for some time. Now the first books in the series are being published in print format." ...

Sieges determined the course of the English Civil Wars yet they receive scant attention. In contrast the major set-piece battles are repeatedly analysed & reassessed. As a result our understanding of the conflict & of its outcome is incomplete. John Barratt in this lucid & perceptive account makes the siege the focal point of his study. As well as looking at the theory & practice of siege warfare & fortification he considers the often-devastating human impact. Using a selection of graphic examples he shows how siege warfare could ruin the lives of the soldiers
- & the civilians
- caught up in it. He examines in detail a dozen sieges using a combination of eyewitness accounts other contemporary sources archaeological surveys & other modern research. His study provides a detailed & vivid reconstruction of these often neglected episodes of civil war history.

...

It is an icy night in the country that long ago was known as Transylvania. The wintry ground crackles as a hunter's paw breaks the hard earth. The wolf pauses her breath like smoke in the cold air then a howl pierces the night. But it is her eyes not her howl that speak of danger. Beware of the Sight. In the shadow of the Carpathian mountains a pack of wolves seeks shelter from the vicious winter. A legend clings to them
- a story of man & wolf of power & death. The Sight has come into their world. They will never be the same again...A strong uncompromising story with truths as its core that echo our own lives..."
- " Scotsman"."

...

In traditional fairy tales the handsome prince rescues the beautiful princess from her wicked stepmother & the couple live happily ever after. But in Ruth Rendells dark & damaged contemporary universe innocent dreams can turn into the most terrible living nightmares. Teddy Brex emerges from a loveless isolated childhood as a handsome but autistic young man. Francine Hill emotionally & mentally scarred by the murder of her mother grows into a beautiful young woman who must endure the overprotectiveness of an increasingly obsessive stepmother. Teddy Brex does ride to her rescue but he is a man who has already committed two murders. In Rendells dark criminal London can anyone be trusted? ...