If any man can do the impossible it’s Richard Sharpe. And the impossible is exactly what the formidable Major Sharpe is asked to do when he’s dispatched on an undercover mission behind enemy lines, deep in the Spanish countryside. For a remote village is about to become the centre of a battle for the future […]
Lilith by Nikki Marmery
Lilith and Adam are equal and happy in the Garden of Eden. But when Adam decides Lilith should submit to his will and lie beneath him, she refuses – and is banished forever from Paradise. Demonised and sidelined, Lilith watches in fury as God creates Eve, the woman who accepts her submission. But Lilith has […]
A Savage Moon by Theodore Brun
Byzantium, 718AD, and the great siege is over. Crippled warrior Erlan Aurvandil is weary of war. But he must rally his strength to lead a band of misfit adventurers back to the North, to reclaim the stolen kingdom of his lover, Lilla Sviggarsdottir. For this, they need an army. To raise an army, they need […]
The history of werewolves
How do werewolves come to be in a historical novel about 8th-century Vikings? Easily, says Theodore Brun, author of A Savage Moon. He explains why in this history of wolf-men, which goes back in time as far as around 2100BC. The mind of a historical fiction author is full of random snags on the memory […]
Menewood by Nicola Griffith
Hild is no longer the bright child who made a place in Edwin Overking’s court with her seemingly supernatural insight. She is 18, honed and tested, the formidable Lady of Elmet, now building her personal stronghold in the valley of Menewood. But Edwin needs his most trusted advisor. Old alliances are fraying. Younger rivals are […]
The Orphans on the Train by Gill Thompson
1939. A girl with auburn hair looks anxiously out of the train window, watching the mountains of Europe pass by. War is on the horizon at home, and Kirsty finds herself heading to neutral Hungary to help in a school for Jewish children. Little does she know that in leaving everything behind, she is about […]
Al-Andalus: Islamic Spain in the 8th century
Matthew Harffy looks at 8th-century Al-Andalus, the setting for his latest book, A Day of Reckoning. Several decades after the conquest of most of Spain by Islamic armies, Al-Andalus already had a rich culture in which the arts and sciences flourished. But it was also a place of conflict and cruelty, as he discovered. The […]
A Day of Reckoning by Matthew Harffy
In AD796, sailing in search of an object of great power, Hunlaf and his comrades are far from home when they are caught up in a violent skirmish against pirates. After the bloody onslaught, an encounter with ships from Islamic Spain soon sees them escorted under guard to the city of Qadis, one of the […]