Showing results by publisher "Orion" in Literature & Fiction

1812. On the eve of the invasion of Russia, half-French, half-English Matthieu Carrey finds himself in the ranks of Napoleon's five hundred thousand strong army. With Tsar Alexander seemingly ill-prepared, a French victory seems certain. The Grande Armée will obliterate everything in its path. Carrey's purpose is less clear. Blackmailed into becoming a spy in the emperor's army, he hopes to follow his lover, a French actress who has gone to work in the Moscow theatre. Food and fodder grow scarce.

Naasir is the most feral of the powerful group of vampires and angels known as the Seven, his loyalty pledged to the Archangel Raphael. When rumours surface of a plot to murder the former Archangel of Persia, now lost in the Sleep of the Ancients, Naasir is dispatched to find him. For only he possesses the tracking skills required - those more common to predatory animals than to man. Enlisted to accompany Naasir, Andromeda, a young angelic scholar with dangerous secrets, is fascinated by his nature....

Freya Abalone has a big, messy, wonderful family. She has an exciting career as a celebrity chef. She has a new home that makes her feel safe. But behind the happy front, Freya feels pulled in a hundred directions. Life has thrown Freya some lemons - and she's learned how to juggle! But she's keeping a secret from her family, and soon something is going to crashing down. All families have their struggles and strengths. So can Freya pull everyone - and herself - together when they need it most?

The year is 1880. Two hundred years after the trials in Salem, witches Adelaide Thom and Eleanor St Clair finally feel safe and have opened a tea shop in Manhattan, specialising in cures, palmistry and potions. When an enchanting young woman called Beatrice joins the witches as an apprentice, she soon proves indispensable, but her new life is marred by strange occurrences. She sees things no one else can see. She hears voices no one else can hear. Objects appear out of thin air, as if gifts from the dead.

Meet Zara Smith: 29, single and muddling her way through life as a trainee nurse in Glasgow. With 30 fast approaching, she's determined to do whatever it takes to find love - or at least someone to sext! Cheered on by best friends Ashley and Raj, Zara embarks on a string of dating escapades that are as hilarious as they are disastrous. From online dating to blind dates, hometown hook-ups to flirty bartenders, nothing is off-limits. But when Dr Tom Adams, a.k.a. Sugar Daddy, shows interest, it's a game-changing moment.

Anthea is the new owner of Spindle Hall. A renowned perfumer who lost her sense of smell, she's not interested in making new friends. Yet somehow that seems impossible in this idyllic village. Years ago, Peony left Honeystone with a broken heart, and now she has returned with it freshly bruised. Her single father, Robert, is struggling with slow business at the Hare and Thistle pub. Perhaps this time they can help each other?

The moment Pixie Tate steps inside the opulent Aldershoff Hotel in Manhattan, one of the last relics of New York's Gilded Age, she senses instantly that its elegant walls hide a dark secret. Pixie knows that she must use her unique gift to travel back in time in order to discover the mysteries of the past, and as she slips back over a hundred years, she's shocked to find herself in the midst of one of the most famous events in history.

Tom Swan - soldier, scholar, bastard, spy. Tom Swan and his friends are trying to save Europe from the Turks, but most of his adversaries seem to be other Europeans. This time, an unnamed cabal is trying to kill him and, incidentally, ruin the banks and trade of England, France and Italy. Join Tom Swan on his latest adventure as the likes of Cosimo di Medici, Warwick the Kingmaker, Bessarion the cardinal and Aneas Picclomini the Pope show Tom the Renaissance in all its deadly glory!

Half-sister to Emperor Honorius, unmarried and powerless, twenty-year-old Galla Placidia watches from the shadows as imperial policies are made and unmade. Her plans to gain power and influence are halted when the city is besieged and captured by a vast army led by Alaric the Visigoth. Taken hostage, travelling out of Italy, Galla Placidia falls in love and marries a barbarian king. At a time when Rome's power is fast dwindling, its authority diminishing year upon year, she embarks on a dangerous and remarkable journey towards the imperial throne.

1952. With smog blanketing London, little Grace is in trouble. Her grandmother is dangerously ill but she doesn't want Grace to tell anyone as she's worried they will take her away. But with no money and their food supplies dwindling, what's a little girl to do? Winnie Berry knows something is wrong when she catches Grace trying to steal some food. And she soon realises it won't be long before Grace is alone in the world. The big-hearted owner of Battersea Tavern, Winnie has taken in more than her share of waifs and strays. But will this orphan child be more trouble than she's worth?

Everyone has heard of Girls. But what happened to the women they became? At the time of her death, the press wrote many things about Ingrid Olssen: She was a brilliant artist. She was a terrible mother to her girls, Mattie and Nora. And that her legacy would live on forever. Even so, it's unlikely the world will ever see another Ingrid Olssen exhibition - her last request to her daughters was to throw her ashes in the canyon and her paintings in the sea.

Gina Moss is single and proud. She's focused on her thriving childminding business, which she runs from her cottage at the edge of The Evergreens: a charming Victorian home to three elderly residents who adore playing with the kids Gina minds. To Gina, they all feel like family. Then a run-in (literally) with a tall, handsome American stranger gives her the tummy-flutters....

On the evening of July 4th, Sylviane Rochas scatters her mother's ashes in New York and lets the changing wind blow her to the French seaside town of Marseille. For the first time in her life, Vianne holds the future in her own hands. Charming her way into a job as a waitress in a local bistrot, she knows that she is not here to stay - by the time her child is born in a few months' time, she must be gone.

Merry has always wanted a family to spend Christmas with, and this year her dream comes true as she says 'I do' to father-of-two Cole. But as she juggles her rapidly growing business, wedding planning and the two new children in her life, her dream begins to unravel. Emily is desperately waiting for the New Year to begin, so she can finally have a fresh start. She has always put her family first, leaving little time for happiness and love. When her beloved father moves into a residential home, she discovers a photograph in his belongings that has the potential to change everything.

A deadly virus - and a desperate race against time. One spring morning in New York City a 17-year-old student wakes up feeling vaguely ill. Hours later she is having violent seizures, blood is pouring out of her nose and she begins to attack her own body in the most hideous way imaginable. Soon, other gruesome deaths of a similar nature have been discovered, and the autopsies reveal that a previously unknown virus is at large. It replicates horribly fast, it is always fatal - and is just too efficient to be entirely natural.

One empire will rise Flamininus of Rome and Macedonian King Philip's battle-hardened armies are on the march towards their final, climactic encounter. The other must burn. The outcome will decide the fate of Greece. But, on opposite sides, legionary Felix and Phalanx soldier Demetrios have more pressing concerns: staying alive long enough to taste glory....

'They have lightning in their souls, thunder in their hearts, chaos in their bones.' Nikita Gill's poetry has captured hearts and minds all over the world; her inspirational words have been shared hundreds of thousands of times online, plastered across placards on international women's marches and even transformed into tattoos. This collection will showcase mostly unseen poetry and prose, delving into ideas about passion, identity, empowerment and femininity. Written and read by Nikita Gill.

Vianne Rocher has settled down. Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, the place that once rejected her, has finally become her home. With Rosette, her 'special' child, she runs her chocolate shop in the square, talks to her friends on the river, is part of the community. Even Reynaud, the priest, has become a friend. But when old Narcisse, the florist, dies, leaving a parcel of land to Rosette and a written confession to Reynaud, the life of the sleepy village is once more thrown into disarray....

Fifteenth Century Europe. Tom Swan is not a professional soldier. He's really a merchant and a scholar looking for remnants of Ancient Greece and Rome - temples, graves, pottery, fabulous animals, unicorn horns. But he also has a real talent for ending up in the midst of violence when he didn't mean to. Having used his wits to escape execution, he begins a series of adventures that take him to street duels in Italy, meetings with remarkable men - from Leonardo Da Vinci to Vlad Dracula - and from the intrigues of the War of the Roses to the fall of Constantinople.

Elizabeth's eyes have failed. She can no longer read the books she loves or see the paintings that move her, but her mind remains sharp, and music fills the vacancy left by her blindness. When her father's journals are discovered on a shipwrecked boat, she enlists the help of a delinquent teen, Morgan, to read to her. As an unlikely friendship grows between them, Elizabeth is carried back to her childhood home - the lighthouse on Porphyry Island, Lake Superior - and to the memory of her enigmatic twin sister, Emily.