Get Lost in History: Fact & Fiction

A powerful novel of fate, resistance, and family by an international bestselling author.

War has torn them apart . . . Can fate bring them back together?

When newlywed Ruby Henderson Benoit arrives in Paris in 1939 with her French husband Marcel, she imagines strolling arm in arm along the grand boulevards, awash in the golden afternoon light. But war is looming on the horizon, and as France falls to the Nazis, Ruby’s marriage begins to splinter, too.

Charlotte Dacher is eleven when the Germans take over the French capital and her parents are suddenly deported, tearing her life apart. Her kind neighbour, Ruby, offers to step in and look after her. But can they work together to mend their broken hearts – and summon the courage to defy the Nazis – as they fight to survive?

March 1941. Joseph Gunner is back on the streets of Glasgow after being wounded on the front lines in France.

Keeping the pain in his leg at bay with the help of morphine, Gunner, a former detective, is hoping to lie low as the Luftwaffe begins bombing Glasgow.

But when he runs into his old boss Drummond, he is persuaded to help examine a body found in the wreckage. When it turns out to be that of a German, mutilated to disguise his identity, Gunner reluctantly agrees to investigate.

As he begins to hunt for the truth Gunner runs into old flames and bitter enemies, before finding himself embroiled in a high-level conspiracy that reaches far beyond his hometown of Glasgow.

Partly inspired by the true story of Rudolf Hess’s secret mission to broker appeasement with Britain during the Second World War, Gunner is an atmospheric and addictive new thriller from one of Britain’s best-loved writers.

A captivating literary journey that delves into the intertwined lives of a town, its people, and a region shaped by revolution and war.

The war broke out and she decided to call her dad.
Weeks and weeks we do not speak, and the weeks become months and then they are so many years.
She imagines herself starting this story.
She imagines how she will tell this story later to someone else.

We haven’t spoken for years but then the war broke out…

As conflict plays out across an unnamed region, its inhabitants deal with the fallout. Families are torn apart and brought together. A divide grows between those on either side of the war, compromises are struck as the toll of violence impacts near and far. We learn about those who are left behind and those who choose to leave in a great scattering. As the stories of those affected play out they weave together to show the whole of a society in the most extreme of circumstances. Even when the last shot is fired, their world will never recover.

From the acclaimed author of The House of Youssef, Australiana and The Lovers comes a powerful new novel that asks again if the world will ever learn that war is never the answer.

A stylistically bold and innovative, cinematic horror novel about greed and paranoia, set amongst the grit and mud of the trenches in WW1. Perfect for fans of Stephen Graham Jones and Alma Katsu.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Whalefall, and the co-author of The Shape of Water alongside Guillermo del Toro.

Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly mission: venture into the perilous No Man’s Land to euthanize a wounded comrade.

What they find amid the ruined battlefield, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire. This celestial being may hold the key to ending the brutal conflict, but only if the soldiers can suppress their individual desires and work together. As jealousy, greed, and paranoia take hold, the group is torn apart by their inner demons, threatening to turn their angelic encounter into a descent into hell.

Angel Down plunges you into the heart of World War I and weaves a polyphonic tale of survival, supernatural wonder, and moral conflict.

Argentina, 1939: “My darling Valentina, I beg you to not go through with this marriage. I know your duty to your family means the world to you, but I pray our love means more. Let us run away together, and never be parted again…”

London, Present day. Rose once thought she was alone in the world, having just lost her beloved mother a few months ago. So, when she is presented with a mysterious box containing a small figure of a horse, a scrap of glittering silk and the hope of a lost family being found, Rose will stop at nothing to find them.

When her search takes her to a sprawling and luxurious estate in Argentina, where the best polo horses in the world were once raised, Rose wonders if she’s mistaken. But when she meets a charming local, Benjamin, he takes her by the hand and encourages her to rediscover her roots.

As they spend long sunlit days riding horses, and cosy evenings eating dinner with his family, Rose wonders how she will ever return to the grey skies back home. But then she discovers a heart-wrenching story of two forbidden lovers: a wilful Spanish heiress and a hardworking stable hand, ripped apart by an arranged marriage and one of the largest inheritances in the country, which intertwines Rose and Benjamin’s families in ways she could never have imagined.

As Benjamin’s family grow wary of the stranger in their home dredging up the pain of the past, Rose finds herself at a crossroads. Will her great-grandmother’s story give her the courage to fly in the face of convention and follow her heart? Or will she too have to give up the one she loves most to heal family ties…

A heartbreaking and page-turning novel about following your heart and never giving up on love. Perfect for fans of Santa Montefiore, Lucinda Riley and Victoria Hislop.

In this bold new follow-up to Confronting Leviathan, David Runciman unmasks modern politics and reveals the great men and women of ideas behind it.

What can Samuel Butler’s ideas teach us about the oddity of how we choose to organise our societies? How did Frederick Douglass not only expose the horrors of slavery, but champion a new approach to abolishing it? Why should we tolerate snobbery, betrayal and hypocrisy, as Judith Shklar suggested? And what does Friedrich Nietzsche predict for our future?

From Rousseau to Rawls, fascism to feminism and pleasure to anarchy, this is a mind-bending tour through the history of ideas which will forever change your view of politics today.

From the New York Times bestselling author of When the Sea Came Alive and The Only Plane in the Sky, a sweeping and comprehensive oral history of the atomic bomb”s creation and deployment, marking the 80th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

April 12, 1945. Less than three months into his vice presidency, Harry Truman is catapulted into the Oval Office following the sudden death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. As he recites the oath, he learns a chilling secret known only to a select few: the United States is on the verge of deploying a weapon of unimaginable power. This weapon could end the war but also herald a new age of global fear and uncertainty.

Drawing from over twenty-five oral history archives across the US, Japan, and Europe, Graff has masterfully blended the memories and perspectives from key figures like Harry Truman and J. Robert Oppenheimer, the crews of the B-29 bombers, Enola Gay and Bock”s Car, the rescuers who bravely faced the destruction, and the haunting stories of those at ground zero in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including the experiences of the hibakusha – the ”bomb-affected people”.

Enriched by memoirs, diaries, letters, official documents, and news reports, this is an immersive and deeply human account of the Manhattan Project through the end of World War II and the dawning of the Cold War, offering a vivid, multi-dimensional view of events that reshaped the world forever.