Archive | Large Print Books

John Wilcox

1903. The British Empire has reached its probable apogee: so much of the world map is coloured red and the sun never set on its boundaries. But Lord Curzon, the ambitious Viceroy of India, has different views. Tibet, the mountainous region on the Raj’s borders, irritates him: the Dalai Lama never replies to his letters and border disputes multiply.He decides to invade and recruits Simon Fonthill, veteran of so many of ‘Queen Victoria’s Little Wars,’ to lead 2000 men over the ice-bound Himalayan passes to Lhasa. Fonthill sets out on another expedition with his wife Alice, reporting for the Morning Post, and his old comrade, ‘352’ Jenkins.It is machine guns against muskets as the cruel and brave monks, fighting on their own terrain among the clouds, oppose the invasion. When Alice is captured, treachery is revealed, and Fonthill and Jenkins must gallop to her aid in their most arduous and thrilling adventure yet.

Ashley Weaver

Amory Ames is a wealthy young woman who regrets her marriage to her notoriously charming playboy husband, Milo. Looking for a change, she accepts a request for help from her former fiancé, Gil Trent, not knowing that she’ll soon become embroiled in a murder investigation that will test not only her friendship with Gil, but will upset the status quo with her husband.

Amory accompanies Gil to the Brightwell Hotel in an attempt to circumvent the marriage of his sister, Emmeline, to Rupert Howe, a disreputable ladies’ man. Amory sees in the situation a grim reflection of her own floundering marriage. There is more than her happiness at stake, however, when Rupert is murdered and Gil is arrested for the crime. Amory is determined to prove his innocence and find the real killer, despite attempted dissuasion from the disapproving police inspector on the case. Matters are further complicated by Milo’s unexpected arrival, and the two form an uneasy alliance as Amory enlists his reluctant aid in clearing Gil’s name. As the stakes grow higher and the line between friend and foe becomes less clear, Amory must decide where her heart lies and catch the killer before she, too, becomes a victim.

Murder at the Brightwell is a delicious mystery in which murder invades polite society and romance springs in unexpected places. Weaver has penned a debut in the tradition of Jacqueline Winspear.

Julian Stockwin

Forced to flee Rome from the barbaric rampages of the Ostrogoths, merchant Nicander meets an unlikely ally in the form of Marius, a fierce Roman legionary. Escaping to a new life in Constantinople, the two land upon its shores lonely and penniless. Needing to make money fast, they plot and plan a number of outrageous money-making schemes, until they chance upon their greatest idea yet.Armed with a wicked plan to steal precious silk seeds from the faraway land of Seres, Nicander and Marius must embark upon a terrifyingly treacherous journey across unknown lands, never before completed. But first they must deceive the powerful emperor Justinian and the rest of his formidable Byzantine Empire in order to begin their journey into the unknown…An adventurous tale of mischief, humour and deception, Nicander and Marius face danger of the highest order, where nothing in the land of the Roman Empire is quite what it seems.

Charlie Newton

The drums of war beat amid global economic ruin. The skies, not the trenches, will decide the survivors. Rich men marshal their resources as all sides race to acquire 100-octane aviation gasoline, an unproven, unstable witches’ brew that could fuel the fastest attack aircraft. In a brutal maze of corporate treason, personal blackmail, and imperfect heroism, a young, brilliant petroleum engineer battling the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma may hold the key.

Eight years ago in Jerusalem, schoolgirl Saba Hassouneh survived the murder of her family. Sentenced to the barbaric refugee camps, Saba is freed by a legendary Bedouin freedom-fighter. She embraces his life of a bandit/rebel, evolving into a fearsome Arab nationalist femme de guerrehunted by the colonial powers and religious mullahs. Saba has one mission: free her people.

An epic historical thriller from acclaimed author Charlie Newton, Traitor’s Gate races toward the first shot of WWII. As the world’s true rulers vie for dominion, two unlikely lovers collide. Their attraction is immediate, their goals opposite.

Deborah Lawrenson

Romance, suspense, and World War II mystery are woven together in three artfully linked novellas-rich in drama and steeped in atmosphere-from the critically acclaimed author of The Lantern.

THE SEA GARDEN
On the lush Mediterranean island of Porquerolles off the French coast, Ellie Brooke, an award-winning British landscape designer, has been hired to restore a memorial garden. Unsettled by its haunted air and the bitterness of the garden’s owner, an elderly woman who seems intent on undermining her, Ellie finds that her only ally on the island is an elusive war historian …

THE LAVENDER FIELD
Near the end of World War II, Marthe Lincel, a young blind woman newly apprenticed at a perfume factory in Nazi-occupied Provence, finds herself at the center of a Resistance cell. When tragedy strikes, she faces the most difficult choice of her life . . . and discovers a breathtaking courage she never expected.

A SHADOW LIFE
Iris Nightingale, a junior British intelligence officer in wartime London, falls for a French agent. But after a secret landing in Provence results in terrible Nazi reprisals, he vanishes. When France is liberated, Iris is determined to uncover the truth. Was he the man he claimed to be?

Ingeniously interconnected, this spellbinding triptych weaves three parallel narratives into one unique tale of love, mystery, and murder. The Sea Garden is a vivid and absorbing chronicle of love and loss in the fog of war-and a penetrating and perceptive examination of the impulses and circumstances that shape our lives.

Hazel Holt

Eva Jackson is Rosemary’s cousin (‘umpteen times removed’) and she has moved back to her childhood home in Taviscombe after the untimely death of her beloved husband Alan. As is the way of the village, Eva has been pounced upon by the local charities, and it is during a coffee morning that she mentions to Sheila Malory that she fears Alan might have died an unnatural death …Sheila is intrigued and sets out to find out more. But when Eva’s body is discovered after a supposed insulin overdose, Sheila wonders if the killer might still be at large in the charming Devon countryside ..

Millie Gray

Four years on from discovering their true heritage, Sally and Luke have overcome their animosity to forge a trusting brother- sister relationship. So when Luke returns home from his post as a detective in the Hong Kong police force, he asks Sally for help to prove the innocence of his friend Irish, locked up in prison for the murder of his wife. Luke believes Irish was set up and wants Sally’s help to prove it.
But Sally already has her hands full. As well as tending her flourishing business empire, she must also pick up the pieces when her family – from her feckless sister Josie to her self-centred daughter Margo – runs into trouble. Moreover, she must put her own dreams on hold because the man she loves is not free to be with her.
Facing betrayal and humiliation at the hands of her so-called loved ones, can Sally bring herself to forgive those who have wronged her? How can she help Luke? And what can she do when sorry is not enough?

Margaret Graham

The first book in a compelling series set in County Durham just before the First World War. Perfect for fans of Longbourn andDownton Abbey. When Evie Forbes starts as an assistant cook at Easterleigh Hall, she goes against her family’s wishes. For ruthless Lord Brampton also owns the mine where Evie’s father and brothers work and there is animosity between the two families. But Evie is determined to better herself. And her training at the hall offers her a way out of a life below stairs.
Evie works hard and gains a valued place in the household. And her dream of running a small hotel grows ever closer. Then War is declared and all their lives are thrown into turmoil.

Alan Furst

Paris, 1938. As the shadow of war darkens Europe, democratic forces on the Continent struggle against fascism and communism, while in Spain the war has already begun. Alan Furst, whom Vince Flynn has called “the most talented espionage novelist of our generation,” now gives us a taut, suspenseful, romantic, and richly rendered novel of spies and secret operatives in Paris and New York, in Warsaw and Odessa, on the eve of World War II.

Cristián Ferrar, a brilliant and handsome Spanish émigré, is a lawyer in the Paris office of a prestigious international law firm. Ferrar is approached by the embassy of the Spanish Republic and asked to help a clandestine agency trying desperately to supply weapons to the Republic’s beleaguered army—an effort that puts his life at risk in the battle against fascism.

Joining Ferrar in this mission is a group of unlikely men and women: idealists and gangsters, arms traders and aristocrats and spies. From shady Paris nightclubs to white-shoe New York law firms, from brothels in Istanbul to the dockyards of Poland, Ferrar and his allies battle the secret agents of Hitler and Franco. And what allies they are: there’s Max de Lyon, a former arms merchant now hunted by the Gestapo; the Marquesa Maria Cristina, a beautiful aristocrat with a taste for danger; and the Macedonian Stavros, who grew up “fighting Bulgarian bandits. After that, being a gangster was easy.” Then there is Eileen Moore, the American woman Ferrar could never forget.

In Midnight in Europe, Alan Furst paints a spellbinding portrait of a continent marching into a nightmare—and the heroes and heroines who fought back against the darkness.

Justina Burgess

Captivated by her adopted home–India in the 1800s–Scottish-born Desiree MacKenzie finds her happiness there threatened by her ruthless guardian and restored again by the love of two men.