'The sky was now a block of darkness, punctured only by driving snow. The stars had gone out, the king was dead. And the wound on his arm refused to heal.' So begins Snow, the first novel by Ellen Mattson to be published in Britain - a brilliant exploration of an individual's codes of ethics and honour in the face of political and social collapse.The man is Jakob Torn, a small-town apothecary, stumbling drunkenly through the streets, a refugee from his own home, carrying a...

Swordfights, lust, betrayal, murder: just another day for a henchman.Jasper Detchard is a disgraced British officer, now selling his blade to the highest bidder. Currently that's Michael Elphberg, half-brother to the King of Ruritania. Michael wants the throne for himself, and Jasper is one of the scoundrels he hires to help him take it. But when Michael makes his move, things don't go entirely to plan—and the penalty for treason is death.Rupert of Hentzau is Micha...

July, 1802. In the marshy eastern reaches of the Thames, a young boy spends his days roaming the mist-shrouded estuaries and listening to his father's tales of adventures: on the high seas, of curses, murder and revenge, black spots and buried treasure--and of a man with a wooden leg.It's almost forty years after the events of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island: Jim Hawkins now runs an inn called the Hispaniola on the English coast with his son, Jim, and Long...

**Celebrating 100 years of Douglas Reeman. Discover the master of the naval adventure thriller.**********************************************************************December 1917: Germany opens the final, bitter round of the war with a new and deadly weapon in the struggle for the seas - the Vulcan.When she sails from Kiel Harbour, she is, to all appearances, a harmless merchant vess...

One of Neil Gaiman’s favourite scary stories for children.Set within a world of sorcery and wizardry, much like an 18th Century Harry Potter, Krabat tells the story of a 14-year-old beggar boy lured to a mysterious mill by a series of frightening dreams and apparitions.He becomes an apprentice to the master of the watermill where he joins the eleven other young journeymen who work there. Much to his surprise Krabat soon discovers that the mill is actually a school of black ...

The highly anticipated sequel to International Booker and Dublin Impac Award-shortlisted The UnseenNo-one can be alone on an island . . . But Ingrid is alone on Barrøy, the island that bears her name, and the war of her childhood has been replaced by a new, more terrible present: the Nazi occupation of Norway. When the bodies from a bombed vessel carrying Russian prisoners of war begin to wash up on the shore, Ingrid can’t know that one will not o...

A fantasy loosely based on the historical setting of the Netherlands and western Germany.Johanna has a special gift. If she touches wood, she sees the wood's "memories". The problem is, her gift is strictly forbidden by the Church of the Triune.The wood shows her that a fierce army is headed for the city of Saardam. Unaware of the danger, the kingdom is instead happily anticipating their annual ball and gossiping about the arrival of the mysterious crown prince whom no one ...

Revenants, revolution…and an amnesiac lady’s maid on the loose.A trip to Europe is all in a day’s work for Liz Sharp—that is, until an anarchist throws a bomb at her employer.As a lady’s maid/bodyguard to royalty, Miss Sharp’s duty seems clear: protect Princess May, defuse the bomb, and hand over the would-be-killer to the police. At least, that’s what the distractingly good-looking Inspector Short advises. But Liz isn’t so sure.No one deserves to b...

Few authors have achieved such renown as World Fantasy Life Achievement honoree and Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Master Andre Norton. With the love of readers and the praise of critics, Norton's books have sold millions of copies worldwide.Michael Karl's dreams for the future do not include becoming the monarch of an obscure Morvanian kingdom, but he soon discovers he has no say in the matter. He, the result of a misalliance between a Morvanian Prince an...

The Other Side tells of a dream kingdom which becomes a nightmare, of a journey to Pearl, a mysterious city created deep in Asia, which is also a journey to the depths of the subconcious, or as Kubin himself called it, 'a sort of Baedeker for those lands which are half known to us'. Written in 1908, and more or less half way between Meyrink and Kafka, it was greeted with wild enthusiasm by the artists and writers of the Expressionist generation. Franz Marc called it a magnificent reckoning...

A powerful and moving novel about the ravages war and the need to tell the truth, even in the face of adversity.After the close of a great war, a mysterious stranger arrives in a small European village. He is an artist and he begins sketching the villagers, showing the painful reality of the crimes and betrayals the war left in its wake. Consumed by distrust, the villagers conspire and murder him. The authorities commission Brodeck, a timid, low-level bureaucrat, to write a report ...

Barnaby Grimes isa tick-tock lad, running errands in his city, day and night, and high-stacking around the rooftops in search of new mysteries to solve. This is a fantastic romp through a Dickensian-style city, with a wonderful new hero in the guise of Barnaby.After collecting a strange parcel from a deserted ship in the fog of the docks, and delivering it to the local schoolmaster, Barnaby thinks he’s earned a moment to sit on the rooftops and eat his favorite pastry. But soon he ...