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‘GARDEN OF STARS by Rose Alexander is a stunning debut novel, rich in detail and brimming with emotion.’ – Books of all KindsThe Alentejo, Portugal 1934I am Inês Bretão and I am 18 years old. Now that I am finally an adult and soon to be married, I feel like my real life is about to begin. I have decided to document everything that happens to me, for my children and my grandchildren…As Sarah Lacey reads the scrawled handwriting in her great-aunt's journal on a trip to Portugal, she discovers a life filled with great passion, missed chances and lost loves – memories that echo Sarah's own life. Because Sarah's marriage is crumbling, her love for her husband ebbing away, and she fears the one man she truly loves was lost to her many years ago…But hidden within the faded pages of the journal is a secret Inês has kept locked away her entire life, and one final message for her beloved niece – a chance for Sarah to change her life, if she is brave enough to take it.What reviewers are saying about Rose Alexander‘a beautifully written book’ – Maddy (Netgalley)‘Garden of Stars is a book that stayed with me after I turned the last page. I felt enriched after finishing the book.’ – Bookaholic Swede‘a beautifully written story of love and loss. It takes you on a journey to remember, seamlessly intertwining both the past and the present to make a moving tale that will stay with you long after the final page has been turned.’ – Cal’s Blog‘a beautifully poignant, richly-told story of love and loss’ – Becca’s Books‘I loved this book’ – Kate, Netgalley reviewer

From the international best-selling author of Longitude, Galileo’s Daughter is the fascinating story of the relationship between the great Italian scientist Galileo and his daughter, Virginia.Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was the foremost scientist of his day, ‘the father of modern physics – indeed of modern science altogether’ in the words of Albert Einstein. Though he never left the Italy of his birth, his inventions and discoveries were heralded around the world. His telescopes allowed him to reveal a new reality in the heavens and to defend the astounding proposition that the Earth actually moves around the Sun. For this belief he faced the Holy Office of the Inquisition and was subsequently tried for heresy and threatened with torture. Galileo is brought to life here as never before – a man boldly compelled to explain the truths he discovered, human in his frailties and faith, devoted to family and, especially, to his daughter. Since there could be no hope of marriage for his illegitimate daughter Galileo placed her, aged thirteen, in a convent near him in Florence. She proved to be his greatest source of strength through his most difficult years. Through letters, contemporary writings, their voices are brought to vivid life and woven into Dava Sobel’s compelling narrative. Galileo’s Daughter tells the story of the most dramatic collision in history between science and religion. Dava Sobel illuminates an entire era, when the flamboyant Medici Grand Dukes became Galileo’s patrons, when the Bubonic plague destroyed a generation and prayer was the most effective medicine, when one man fought to reconcile the Heaven he revered as a good Catholic with the heavens he revealed through his telescope. Galileo’s Daughter is a rich and unforgettable story.Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.

Renowned industrial expert Geoffrey Owen analyses the complex reasons behind the delayed modernisation of British industry.In 1945, following the economic hardship of the war years, British industry looked forward with confidence to re-establishing links with its traditional trading partners in the Empire, and in the years of reconstruction which followed enjoyed unprecendented growth and prosperity. But the emergence of an economically vigorous and fiercely competitive Europe forced Britain to come to terms with some fundamental industrial weaknesses and to question where her economic destiny lay as the ‘miracle economies’ of France and Germany began to overtake her own.Through case studies of key industries from textiles to pharmaceuticals, steel to electronics, Owen offers a vivid account of Britain’s industrial progress, and argues that since the late 1970s British industry has undergone a painful but necessary transformation which has rapidly modernised the UK economy.At the start of a new millennium, as Britain once again debates its relationship with an ever more unified Europe, Geoffrey Owen provides a timely appraisal of the often troubled path that Britain has taken from Empire to Europe.

Books 7-9 in George MacDonald Fraser’s uproarious bestselling Flashman series, now available in one ebook for the first time.FLASHMAN AT THE CHARGE: 1854-1855As the Light Brigade prepare to charge the Russian guns at Balaclava, Flashman assumes his characteristic battle position: sabre rattling, teeth chattering, bowels rumbling in terror. His flight from the dangers of Crimes will take him across the great Russian empire to Central Asia, where savage tribal hordes form a last line of resistance under the leadership of the Silk One, a lusty little baggage with one thing on her mind…FLASHMAN IN THE GREAT GAME: 1856-1858Flashman finds himself plumbing new depths of anxious knavery in his role as a secret agent extraordinaire. Cowering and sidestepping his way around Thug assassins, tsarist agents and rampaging hordes of Sepoy mutineers, Flashman somehow manages to keep his skin intact. until he meets his match in the voluptuous Princess Lakshmiba…FLASHMAN AND THE ANGEL OF THE LORD: 1858-1859Beating a hasty retreat from the boudoir would normally suffice when caught in flagrante with a wanton young wife, but when the husband turns out to be a high court judge, a change of continents is called for. And so Flashman embarks upon a voyage that will see him shanghaied and shipped off to America. His destination: the little Virginian town of Harper’s Ferry, where John Brown and his gang of fanatics plan to fire the first shot in the war against slavery – with Flashy as military adviser.

Books 4-6 in George MacDonald Fraser’s uproarious bestselling Flashman series, now available in one ebook for the first time.FLASHMAN AND THE MOUNTAIN OF LIGHT: 1845-1846Given the choice between defending Britannia’s frontier against the mighty Sikh army and pleasuring a ravishing maharani in the Court of the Punjab, Flashman knew where he’d rather be. Of course, that was before he found out about the torture chambers or the malevolent influence of the Mountain of Light…FLASH FOR FREEDOM!: 1848-1849Flashman seems destined for the House of Commons, until his political ambitions are scuppered by a crooked game of pontoon with Disraeli (with someone else, doing the cheating for a change!) Forced to flee London, he boards a vessel bound for the United States – via the African slave coast. Before the odyssey ends, Flashy will encounter an assortment of interesting Yanks including a New Orleans madam and a young Mr Lincoln…FLASH AND THE REDSKINS: 1849-50 / 1875-76With charges of slave-stealing, slave-trading, false pretences and murder hanging over him, Flashman is desperate to leave New Orleans. So desperate that when a besotted brothel keeper invites him to lead a wagon train of whores bound for the California goldfields, he jumps at the chance.

Hitler’s top-secret Directive No. 16 set a precondition for a landing operation: ‘The English air force must have been beaten down to such an extent … that it can no longer muster any power of attack worth mentioning against the German crossing.’ Reissued by William Collins, ‘Fighter’ is Len Deighton’s thrilling telling of the ensuing Battle of Britain – the aerial combat between the RAF and the Luftwaffe that was fought between July and October 1940.Deighton has written a compelling account of this all-important action: a balanced study of strategies and tactics that also expertly recounts the development of the aeroplanes that fought each other in the skies – the Spitfires and Messerschmitts – and of radar. And behind the strategies and tactics, and in the cockpits of the aeroplanes, are the men brought vividly to life by Deighton’s skill as a novelist.

Described as ‘a masterpiece’ by critics, this remarkable book tells the story of war through the lives and deaths of a single family. Absolutely unforgettable new writing.If you loved The English Patient or Rohinton Mistry’s Fine Balance or Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers, you will love this book.Three young men gazed at him from silver-framed photographs in his grandmother’s house, ‘beheld but not noticed, as angels are in a frieze full of mortal strugglers’. They had all been in the Second World War, a fact that surprised him. Indians had never figured in his idea of the war, nor the war in his idea of India – and he thought that he had a good idea of both.One of them, Bobby, even looked a bit like him, but Raghu Karnad had not noticed until he was the same age as they were in their photo-frames. Then he learned about the Parsi boy from the sleepy south Indian coast, so eager to follow his brothers-in-law into the colonial forces and onto the front line. Manek, dashing and confident, was a pilot with India’s fledgling air force; gentle Ganny became an army doctor in the arid North-West Frontier. Bobby’s pursuit would carry him as far as the deserts of Iraq and the green hell of the Burma battlefront.The years 1939-45 might be the most revered, deplored and replayed in modern history. Yet India’s extraordinary role has been concealed, from itself and from the world. In riveting prose, Karnad retrieves the story of a single family – a story of love, rebellion, loyalty and uncertainty – and with it, the greatest revelation that is India’s Second World War.Farthest Field narrates the lost epic of India’s war, in which the largest volunteer army in history fought for the British Empire, even as its countrymen fought to be free of it. It carries us from Madras to Peshawar, Egypt to Burma – unfolding the saga of a young family amazed by their swiftly changing world and swept up in its violence.

Extreme Survivors tells the illustrated story of 60 of the most daring escapes, famous shipwrecks, and ultimate survival stories. These are astonishing stories of human endurance and endeavour.The statistics, descriptions, archive photographs and illustrative maps will give the reader a full understanding of how Joe Simpson crawled to safety in the South American Andean mountains, how Anthony Farrar-Hockley evaded capture after the Battle of Imjin River in the Korean War and how Shackleton’s men survived the incredible journey by boat to South Georgia.Sixty of the world's greatest survival stories. Here is a selection of them:Survival Stories• The Miracle of Stairway B, and how 16 people managed to escape death in the Twin Towers on 9/11.• The infamous story of the Montevideo rugby union team’s plane crash in the Andes, and their subsequent admission of cannibalism – 2012 is the 40th anniversary of the crash.Prison Escapes• Mary Queen of Scots and her escape from a remote Scottish castle.• Three men pull off what is possibly the only successful escape from Alcatraz.• Henri Charrière’s (Papillon) five escape attempts from the Devil’s Island penal colony.Wartime Escapes• The story of Dith Pran, the Cambodian journalist who escaped the genocide of Pol Pot.• How the German soldier Cornelius Rost escaped from a labour camp in Siberia and trekked for 3 years to Iran.Shipwrecks• Ernest Shackleton’s incredible journey to South Georgia to save every man on an expedition.• The story of 18 year old William Shotton and how he navigated his ship after most of the crew perished from a mystery disease in 1893.Hostage Situations• Naheeda Bi’s ten years in captivity after her notorious tribal kidnapping in Pakistan.• The dramatic rescue of Íngrid Betancourt by Colombian security forces after six years as a hostage.

In one corner, a godless young warrior, Voltaire’s heralded ‘philosopher-king’, the It Boy of the Enlightenment. In the other, a devout if bad-tempered old composer of ‘outdated’ music, a scorned genius in his last years. The sparks from their brief conflict illuminate a turbulent age.Behind the pomp and flash, Prussia's Frederick the Great was a tormented man, son of an abusive king who forced him to watch as his best friend (probably his lover) was beheaded. In what may have been one of history's crueler practical jokes, Frederick challenged ‘old Bach’ to a musical duel, asking him to improvise a six-part fugue based on an impossibly intricate theme (possibly devised for him by Bach's own son).Bach left the court fuming, but in a fever of composition, he used the coded, alchemical language of counterpoint to write ‘A Musical Offering’ in response. A stirring declaration of faith, it represented ‘as stark a rebuke of his beliefs and world view as an absolute monarch has ever received,’ Gaines writes. It is also one of the great works of art in the history of music.Set at the tipping point between the ancient and the modern world, the triumphant story of Bach's victory expands to take in the tumult of the eighteenth century: the legacy of the Reformation, wars and conquest, the birth of the Enlightenment. Brimming with originality and wit, ‘Evening in the Palace of Reason’ is history of the best kind – intimate in scale and broad in its vision.

The winner of the 2013 Longman-History Today Book Prize is the gripping and largely untold story of the role of the intelligence services in Britain’s retreat from empire.Against the background of the Cold War, and the looming spectre of Soviet-sponsored subversion in Britain’s dwindling colonial possessions, the imperial intelligence service MI5 played a crucial but top secret role in passing power to newly independent national states across the globe.Mining recently declassified intelligence records, Calder Walton reveals this ‘missing link’ in Britain’s post-war history. He sheds new light on everything from violent counter-insurgencies fought by British forces in the jungles of Malaya and Kenya, to urban warfare campaigns conducted in Palestine and the Arabian Peninsula. Drawing on a wealth of previously classified documents, as well as hitherto overlooked personal papers, this is also the first book to draw on records from the Foreign Office’s secret archive at Hanslope Park, which contains some of the darkest and most shameful secrets from the last days of Britain’s empire.Packed with incidents straight out of a John le Carré novel, Empire of Secrets is an exhilarating read by an exciting new voice in intelligence history.

Talented historian Maya Jasonoff offers an alternative history of the British Empire. It is not about conquest – but rather a collection of startling and fascinating personal accounts of cross-cultural exchange from those who found themselves on the edges of Empire.A Palladian mansion filled with Western art in the centre of old Calcutta, the Mughal Emperor’s letters in an archive in the French Alps, the names of Italian adventurers scratched into the walls of Egyptian temples: in this imaginative book, Maya Jasanoff delves into the stories behind artefacts like these to uncover the lives of collectors in India and Egypt who lived on the frontiers of European empire. ‘Edge of Empire’ traces their exploits to tell an intimate history of imperialism.Written and researched on four continents, ‘Edge of Empire’ tells a story about the making of European empires, ones that break away from the grand narratives of power, exploitation, and resistance, to delve into the personal dimensions of imperialism. She asks what people brought to imperial frontiers and what they took away, and what motives drove them, whether ambition, opportunism, curiosity or greed. This rich and compelling book enters a world where people lived, loved and died, and identified with each other across cultures much more than our prejudices about ‘Empire’ might suggest.