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Two of Rosie Thomas’s best-loved titles, IRIS AND RUBY and CONSTANCE, packaged together for the first time as an ebook set.IRIS AND RUBY tells the story of mothers, daughters and the distance between three generations of one family. Stiflingly quiet and claustrophobic, Iris Black’s house is Cairo is suddenly disturbed by the unexpected arrival of her troubled and wilful teenage granddaughter, Ruby. Ruby has run away from England to seek solace with the grandmother she hasn’t seen for many years. As she helps Iris document her deteriorating memories of the glittering, cosmopolitan Cairo of World War Two, an unlikely bond is formed.In CONSTANCE, Connie Thorne was a foundling, a child left by her mother for strangers to find. Forty years on, she has put all her energy into creating a flawless shell for herself. Her sister Jeanette is her opposite in every way, yet they both fell in love with the same man, causing a huge rift between them. Years later, Jeanette contacts Connie to tell her she is dying. Can they put the past behind them and make their peace?

Previously published as After the Flood.Former RAF Tornado Navigator and Gulf War veteran John Nichol sets out on a personal journey to discover what happened to 617 Squadron after the flood.The role RAF 617 Squadron in the destruction of the dams at the heart of the industrial Ruhr has been celebrated in book, magazine and film for more than seventy years.On the 17th May 1943, 133 airmen set out in 19 Lancasters to destroy the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe dams. 56 of them did not return. Despite these catastrophic losses, the raid became an enormous propaganda triumph. The survivors were feted as heroes and became celebrities of their time.They had been brought together for one specific task – so what happened next? Of the 77 men who made it home from that raid, 32 would lose their lives later in the war and only 45 survived to see the victory for which they fought.Few are aware of the extent of the Dambuster squadron’s operations after the Dams Raid. They became the ‘go to’ squadron for specialist precision attacks, dropping the largest bombs ever built on battleships, railway bridges, secret weapon establishments, rockets sites and U-boat construction pens. They were involved in attempts on the lives of enemy leaders, both Hitler and Mussolini, created a ‘false fleet’ on D-day which fooled the Germans, and knocked out a German super gun which would have rained 600 shells an hour on London.In ‘After The Flood’, John Nichol retraces the path of 617 Squadron’s most dangerous sorties as their reputation called them into action again and again.

Seventy years on, D-Day remains the greatest combined military operation of all time. Published in association with the Imperial War Museum, this is a remarkable collection of the stories of those who took part.June 6th 1944 saw the greatest combined military operation of all time and subsequently D-day has become known as the single most crucial watershed of the last century. To commemorate this event, Martin Bowman has compiled a unique collection of personal narratives of those who were part of this extraordinary moment in history.Unique in its treatment, this book includes a range of experiences from civilians as well as all ranks from air, land and naval services reflecting the fact that this was a combined operation and not simply a land invasion as it’s often portrayed. Significantly these fascinating accounts, many sourced from Martin Bowman’s extensive contacts with international veterans associations, have been found from all the major nations that took part on the day to authentically represent the combined accomplishment of services and nations.The book also includes sidebars and information boxes of fascinating factual detail that both anchor the stories to the chronological history of the day and bring the events into pin-point clarity.

Protestant Christianity began with one stubborn monk in 1517. Now it covers the globe and includes almost a billion people. On the 500th anniversary of Luther’s theses, a global history of the revolutionary faith that shaped the modern world.Five hundred years ago an obscure monk challenged the authority of the pope with a radical vision of what Christianity could be. The revolution he set in motion inspired one of the most creative and destructive movements in human history. It has toppled governments, upended social norms, and transformed millions of people’s understanding of their relationship with God. In this dazzling global history of innovation and change, Alec Ryrie makes the case that Protestants made the modern world.‘Protestants’ introduces us to the men and women who defined and redefined this quarrelsome faith. Some turned to their newly accessible Bibles to justify bold acts of political opposition; others to support a new understanding of who they were and what they could and should do. Above all, Protestants were willing to fight for their beliefs. If you look at the great confrontations of the last five centuries, you will find Protestants defining the debate on both sides: for and against colonialism, slavery, fascism, communism, women’s rights, and more. Protestants have also fought among themselves. What unites them all is their passion for God and a vital belief in the principle of self-determination. Protestants are people who love God and take on the world.Protestants have set out for all four corners of the globe, embarking on courageous journeys into the unknown to set up new communities and experiment with new systems of government. Protestants created America and defined its special brand of entrepreneurial diligence, but they also can be found behind the brutality of apartheid and Nazi Germany. They are resourceful innovators, making new converts every day in China, Africa, and Latin America. Whether you are yourself a Protestant, or even a Christian, you live in a world, and are guided by principles and ideas, shaped by Protestants.

A rich account of the impact of the Second World War on the lives of people living in the farms and villages of Britain.On the outbreak of war, the countryside was invaded by service personnel and evacuee children by the thousand; land was taken arbitrarily for airfields, training grounds and firing ranges, and whole communities were evicted. Prisoner-of-war camps brought captured enemy soldiers to close quarters, and as horses gave way to tractors and combines farmers were burdened with aggressive new restrictions on what they could and could not grow. Land Girls and Lumber Jills worked in fields and forests. Food – or the lack of it – was a major preoccupation and rationing strictly enforced. And although rabbits were poached, apples scrumped and mushrooms gathered, there was still not enough to eat.Drawing from diaries, letters, books, official records and interviews, Duff Hart Davis revisits rural Britain to describe how ordinary people survived the war years. He tells of houses turned over to military use such as Bletchley and RAF Medmenham as well as those that became schools, notably Chatsworth in Derbyshire.Combining both hardship and farce, the book examines the profound changes war brought to Britain’s countryside: from the Home Guard, struggling with the provision of ludicrous equipment, to the role of the XII Corps Observation Unit. whose task was to enlarge rabbit warrens and badger setts into bunkers for harassing the enemy in the event of a German invasion; to the unexpected tenderness shown by many to German and Italian prisoners-of-war at work on the land. Fascinating, sad and at times hilarious, this warm-hearted book tells great stories – and casts new light on Britain during the war.

A masterly narrative history of the climactic battles of the Second World War, and companion volume to his bestselling ‘Armageddon’, by the pre-eminent military historian Max Hastings.The battle for Japan that ended many months after the battle for Europe involved enormous naval, military and air operations from the borders of India to the most distant regions of China. There is no finer chronicler of these events than the great military historian Max Hastings, whose gripping account explores not just the global strategic objectives of the USA, Japan and Britain but also the first-hand experiences of the airmen, sailors and soldiers of all the countries who participated in the Far East and the war in the Pacific.The big moments in the story are chosen to reflect a wide variety of human experience: the great naval battle of Leyte Gulf; the under-reported war in China; the re-conquest of Burma by the British Army under General Slim; MacArthur's follies in the Philippines; the Marines on Iwojima and Okinawa; LeMay's fire-raising Super-fortress assaults on Japan; the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the kamikaze pilots of Japan; the almost unknown Soviet blitzkrieg in Manchuria in the last days of the war, as Stalin hastened to gather the spoils; and the terrible final acts across Japanese-occupied Asia.This is classic, epic history – both in the content and the manner of telling.

From the bestselling and prize-winning author Paddy Ashdown, a revelatory new history of German opposition to Hitler from 1935 – 1944In his last days, Adolf Hitler raged in his bunker that he had been betrayed by his own people, defeated from the inside. In part, he was right. By 1945, his armies were being crushed on all fronts, his regime collapsing with many fleeing retribution for their crimes. Yet, even before the war started, there were Germans very high in Hitler’s command committed to bringing about his death and defeat.Paddy Ashdown tells, for the first time, the story of those at the very top of Hitler’s Germany who tried first to prevent the Second World War and then to deny Hitler victory. Based on newly released files, the repeated attempts of the plotters to warn the Allies about Hitler’s plans are revealed. Key strands to the book’s narrative lie with the actions of Abwehr head Admiral Wilhelm Canaris to frustrate Hitler’s policies once the war had started; the plots to kill Hitler and, finally the systematic passage of key German military secrets to London, Washington and Moscow through MI6, the OSS (fore-runner to the CIA) and the “Lucy Ring” Russian spy network based in Switzerland. From 1943 onwards, concerted efforts were made to strike a separate peace with the West to shorten the war and prevent eastern Europe falling under the Soviet yoke.What is revealed is that the anti-Hitler bomb plots, which have received so much attention are, in fact only a small part of a much wider story; one in which those at the highest levels of the German state used every means possible – conspiracy, assassination, espionage – to ensure that, for the sake of the long-term reputation of their country and the survival of liberal and democratic values, Hitler could not be allowed to win the war. It is a matter of record that the European Union we have today and the nature and central position of Germany within it, is, in very large measure, the future envisaged by the plotters and for which they gave their lives.

A masterly biography of Napoleon, concentrating on his private life, by the historian described by Stella Tillyard as ‘a master portraitist of great men’s private lives’ and by Amanda Foreman as ‘one of England’s greatest living historical writers’.Modern history has produced one single myth on a heroic scale to rival those of Alexander and Caesar – that of Napoleon. The continuing fascination of this astonishingly gifted man is reflected in the number of books published each year on various aspects of the Napoleonic legend: some 250,000 volumes in all since Napoleon’s mysterious death in 1821.What is still needed is now provided by Christopher Hibbert: an authoritative up-to-date account of Napoleon’s private life at all stages of his developing and extraordinary career, based on the fruits of modern research, his character, interests and tastes, his friendships, enmities and love affairs, his relations with the members of his remarkable family, the impressions he made on his contemporaries away from the council chamber and the battlefield, his personal life at war, in exile and as emperor in peacetime, the mystery surrounding his death: in short, the man revealed behind the soldier, statesman and legend.

The Sunday Times bestselling historical thrillers. Meet Matthew Hawkwood: soldier, spy, lover. A man as dangerous as the murderers, spies and traitors he hunts on the crime-ridden streets of London at the height of the Napoleonic wars.Book 1, RATCATCHER: The backstreets of London are harbouring turncoats, French spies and a rogue inventor with a dangerous idea that could tip the balance of war. You don’t send a gentleman to catch vermin. You send Hawkwood.Book 2, RESURRECTIONIST: In London, the death trade is booming. But there’s a fine line between body snatching and murder. Hawkwood investigates, and his trail leads him to an obsessive surgeon – who has escaped from Bedlam – with a terrible point to prove…Book 3, RAPSCALLION: Britain’s infamous prison ships are the only fate worse than the gallows for French prisoners of war. But rumour tells of a sinister smuggling operation aboard, and when two Royal Navy officers mysteriously disappear, it’s time to send in Hawkwood…

An utterly gripping non-fiction adventure narrative, 'Lost in Shangri-La' is an untold true story of war, anthropology, survival, discovery, heroism, and a near-impossible rescue mission.Three months before the end of World War II, a U.S. Army plane flying over New Guinea’s Baliem Valley crashed in uncharted mountains inhabited by a Stone Age tribe. Nineteen passengers and crew were killed and two were mortally wounded. But somehow three survived: a lieutenant whose twin brother died in the crash, a sergeant who suffered terrible head wounds, and a beautiful member of the Women's Army Corps.Hurt, unarmed and afraid, they prayed for deliverance – from their wounds, from the elements, and from the spear-carrying, Dani tribesmen who roamed the mountains, men who were untouched by modernity. For seven weeks, the survivors experienced one remarkable adventure after another, until they were rescued in a truly incredible mission.Rounding out the true-life cast is a rogue filmmaker who’d left Hollywood after being exposed as a jewel-thief; a smart-alek pilot who flew best when his plane had no engine, and a cowboy colonel whose rescue plan seemed designed to increase the death toll. Using a huge range of sources, including first hand accounts from the survivors themselves, Mitchell Zukoff exposes the enlightening and terrifying adventure of three individuals lost on uncharted soil and the relationships they built not only with each other, but also with a lost civilization.

Three stunning novels from the bestselling author of Elegance and Innocence.THE FLIRT‘Unique situation available for attractive, well mannered, reasonably educated young man. Hours irregular. Pay generous. Discretion a must.’In a small office in Half Moon Street, Hughie Venables-Smythe discovers the world of the professional flirt. A timeless art, it can save a marriage or lift a heart faster than any therapy.But is flirtation as innocent as it seems – or can it lead to far more dangerous territories of the heart?THE DEBUTANTECate is a gifted young artist who survives in New York by producing remarkable copies of Old Masters. She arrives in London to stay with her aunt Rachel who owns an auction house, determined to leave the pain of her past behind.Cate is sent to Devon with Rachel's colleague Jack to value the contents of Endsleigh, a grand Georgian home. But inside, its once elegant interiors are now worn with age and dust, and Cate quickly becomes engaged in solving the mystery of the former occupant, Baby Blythe. Bright, beautiful and reckless, she was the most famous debutante of her generation.The clues in the box reveal a tale of a dark, addictive love, a tale that will lead Cate to uncover some secrets of her own.THE PERFUME COLLECTOROne letter will turn newly-married Grace Munroe’s life upside down:‘Our firm is handling the estate of the deceased Mrs Eva D’Orsey and it is our duty to inform you that you are named as the chief beneficiary in her will…’There is only one problem. Grace has never heard of Eva D’Orsey.So begins a journey which leads Grace through the streets of Paris and into the seductive world of perfumers and their muses. An abandoned perfume shop on the Left Bank will lead her to unravel the heartbreaking story of her mysterious benefactor, an extraordinary woman who bewitched high society in 1920s New York and Paris.