Historical fiction beyond Rome and the World Wars

The impact of the Civil War on lovers. Inman is not the man he used to be, as wounded in battle he slowly makes his way home to North Carolina. His sweetheart, Ada, too has changed, no longer a flighty belle but a hard-working farm woman. Will love be the same?

'Truly, truly remarkable' Karen Joy Fowler 'Extraordinary...resonates to many of the same chords as Beowulf, the legends of King Arthur, The Lord of the Rings, and Game of Thrones' Neal Stephenson 'You are a prophet and seer with the brightest mind in an age. Your blood is that of the man who should have been king ...That's what the king and his lords see. And they will kill you, one day' In seventh century Britain, a new religion is coming ashore while small kingdoms are merging, frequently and violently. Hild is the king's youngest niece, with a glittering mind and natural authority, She is destined to become one of the pivotal figures of the early Middle Ages: Saint Hilda of Whitby. But for now she has only the powerful curiosity of a child and the precarious advantage of a plotting uncle, Edwin of Northumbria, who will stop at nothing to beome king of the Angles. Hild establishes herself at her uncle's side as the king's seer, and becomes indispensable - as long as all goes well for Edwin. The stakes are high - life and death - for Hild, her family and for all those who seek the protection of this strange girl who seems to see the future. In this vivid, utterly compelling novel, Nicola Griffith has brought the Early Middle Ages to life in an extraordinary act of alchemy, transporting the reader into a mesmerising, unforgettable world.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2008 'Sea of Poppies boasts a varied collection of characters to love and hate, and provides wonderfully detailed descriptions . . . utterly involving and piles on tension until the very last page' Sunday Times At the heart of this epic saga, set just before the Opium Wars, is an old slaving-ship, the Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, its crew a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts. In a time of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown together a truly diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt Raja to a widowed villager, from an evangelical English opium trader to a mulatto American freedman. As their old family ties are washed away they, like their historical counterparts, come to view themselves as jahaj-bhais or ship-brothers. An unlikely dynasty is born, which will span continents, races and generations. The vast sweep of this historical adventure spans the lush poppy fields of the Ganges, the rolling high seas, and the exotic backstreets of China. But it is the panorama of characters, whose diaspora encapsulates the vexed colonial history of the East itself, which makes Sea of Poppies so breathtakingly alive - a masterpiece from one of the world's finest novelists.

"In Fire from Heaven, Mary Renault followed the career of the young Alexander the Great, up to his accession when he was twenty. In The Persian Boy, we meet him six years later and follow him to his death in a superbly moving narrative told by his young lover and companion, Bagoas, a real historical person, who may well have influenced history. For the beautiful slave-boy Bagoas, bought plaything of Darius the Persian King, the invader's brilliant victories are at first mere palace rumor. Then, at the battle of Gaugamela, the empire crumbles about its ill-fated, ineffectual ruler. After his death, Bagoas, adrift and destitute, is rescued by a rebel satrap suing for pardon, brought as a peace-offering to Alexander, and taken into his household. Alexander is a man with little experience of sensuality, but a profound need of affection. Bagoas' famous beauty has been much exploited, but his affection has been needed by no one. Their meeting is irresistible to both. The adventures of Alexander's last seven years, some stirring, some tragic, are thus told by Bagoas, an expert courtier and courtesan, sophisticated far beyond his years, boyish only in his devotion. It is a tale rich in historical insight and detail, especially in Bagoas' view of Alexander's growing sympathy with his Persian subjects, a markedly different view from that of the victorious Macedonians, jealous of their status as master race. In a bold shift of narrator and style, Mary Renault finishes here her story of Alexander, leaving us with an incomparable picture of the conqueror and his world, and a picture of human involvement and affection that is rare in the art of fiction about the past."--Book jacket.