Showing results by publisher "Isis Publishing Ltd" in Historical Fiction

The Dowager Duchess has decided to sell off the less important family possessions. Blotto and Twinks are dispatched to help the valuer. He spies some Egyptian artifacts and in some excitement rushes back to London, leaving Blotto and Twinks alone in the attic, where they are drawn to a sarchophagus decorated with hieroglyphs. Twinks starts to translate: "Anyone who desecrates this shrine will be visited by the Pharoah's curse..." - just as Blotto prises the lid off.

1865. A passenger train stands in York station. Jack Follis, the guard, patrols the platform to make sure that everyone is safely aboard. Returning to the brake van to load a box into it, he is alarmed by a smell of burning. Before he can find the cause, there is an explosion and the van is engulfed in flames. Responding to summons from the North-Eastern Railway, Robert Colbeck and Victor Leeming are sent to investigate. The two are split on whether a murder has taken place. Although the information they received was scant, Colbeck is convinced this is a murder case.

Meet Lord James Harrington and his wife, Beth. They adore hosting seasonal events in the village of Cavendish, running their country hotel, keeping the local folklore alive and listening to the latest murder mystery on the wireless. But mysteries don’t always remain on the airwaves. James and Beth are looking forward to hosting a New Year's Eve ball, but first, they are accommodating the actors of a travelling Old West show and displaying American Indian artefacts as part of that tour.

We hadn't planned a return to Leeds. But our friend Gerry is missing, and we've got to find him. Never mind the fact that anyone who can take out a troll is operating way above our pay grade. It doesn't take long to discover a missing troll is the least of our worries. Leeds has blown straight past dicey and into end times. The necromancers are back, and this time it's not just a few cats they want dead. It's everyone. So if we want any chance of life as we know it to continue, we need to stop them as well as save Gerry. Easy, right?

November 1940. Darkness descends, and another anxious night begins for those tasked with guarding the industrial heartland of London from enemy attack. As a policeman patrols the Royal Albert Dock, something catches his eye - a man is sprawled awkwardly across a nearby barge, a dagger lodged in his back. Detective Inspector John Jago of West Ham CID discovers the victim was a dock worker by day and a Home Guard volunteer by night - and there are things even his wife doesn't know about his past.

Spring, AD 777. Sigurd Hring, new King of the Svear, is summoning all the greatest warriors of the North to his banner. He invites Bjarki Bloodhand, the famous berserkr, to swear an oath of fealty to him. But Bjarki has already sailed away to rescue a beautiful Saxon princess. Tor Hildarsdottir, sister of Bjarki, now oath-bound to a powerful Svearland jarl, finds herself unwillingly enrolled in Sigurd’s mighty army. When Sigurd Hring arrogantly rejects the overlordship of Siegfried, King of the Dane-Mark, red war is inevitable.

When her disastrous Australian love affair ends, Lou heads to Edinburgh for a fresh start, moving in with her cousin. But after a week of partying, she starts the only job she can get...working at a halfway house for very high-risk offenders On her first solo night shift, Lou wakes to discover that she has been locked in her room, and is being held hostage. With no one to turn to but the other residents–all of them dangerous criminals–Lou is forced to rely on her own resources.

Franz von Heiden, son of a Nazi official and an English mother, comes to England early in 1938 to visit his English cousins - and study them. He is both accepted and entertained by Wynne Braithwaite's family and friends. But the peace and abundance which he finds about him are not what he had expected. These people are not the decadent enemy; their casual talk and happy lives betray no weakness. Franz is disturbed - his reports to his father at home are not what had been expected there. Finding himself in love with Wynne, he is troubled at the thought of his mother's broken life in Germany.

Summer, 1943. Daniel Berkåk works as a courier for the Press and Military Office in Stockholm. On his last cross-border mission to Norway, he carries a rucksack full of coded documents and newspapers, but before he has a chance to deliver anything he is shot and killed and the contents of his rucksack are missing. The Norwegian government, currently exiled in London, wants to know what happened, and the job goes to writer Jomar Kraby, whose first suspect is a Norwegian refugee living in Sweden, whose past that is as horrifying as the events still to come.

London, 1929. Lady Alice Mayton-Walsh has always been a free independent spirit. With wealth and position, Alice defies convention and created, Sheer, a women's magazine. However, after years of hard work, she finds that her life isn't as complete as she expected it to be. Then her brother's best friend Vince reveals plans to marry an heiress to save his family's fortunes. The news shocks Alice as she realises she wants more than just friendship with him. Yet, before she has a chance to follow her heart, Vince turns his back on the extravagant life.

When Annie and her brother Cory are orphaned Hettie's mother takes them in. Hettie and Annie sell watercress on the streets of Victorian London to make a living. Annie's dissatisfaction grows and her reckless ambition takes her on a separate path. After she disappears in mysterious circumstances, Hettie sets out to find her. While searching for Annie, in the darkest and most dangerous part of London, she uncovers the corruption and depravity of Victorian society. Secrets are revealed that put both their lives put in danger. Can Hettie find her friend before it's too late?

June, 1941. When Bobby Bancroft arrived in Silverdale to take a job as a reporter on The Tyke magazine, the sleepy Yorkshire Dales village felt like a little pocket of a past long gone. But war finally seems to have come to Silverdale. The villagers face new hardships when shortages and rationing begin to bite, young men become scarce as more are called up, and Bobby finds herself juggling her job on the magazine with a new role as an ARP warden. Even her surly editor Reg and his wife are doing their bit, agreeing to take two evacuees from London into their home.

In the ghetto, the last 50,000 Jews await their fate, but, unlike those who preceded them to the death camps, these Jews are prepared to fight. Jan Kalisz, Kripo investigator and Resistance double-agent, has promised to supply them with weapons. But how will he fulfil his vow? The murder of a German officer appears to provide an opportunity.

It’s 1970, and young Annette Cooley is part of a small team working on an archaeological dig on the New South Wales south coast - a site that appears to prove that Aboriginal societies in the late Holocene were becoming less nomadic, even sedentary. The discovery is thrilling in its significance, and the atmosphere in the group is one of charged excitement. The team is led by a husband-and-wife pair, stars in their field, Aled Wray and Marilyn Herr, and working on their sites promises to be the making of Annette as an archaeologist.

It's 1957 and, after the death of her husband, pianist Ilona Talivaldis and her nine-year-old daughter Zidra travel to the remote coastal town of Jingera in New South Wales. Ilona, a concentration camp survivor from Latvia, is searching for peace and the opportunity to start anew. In her beautiful vine-covered cottage on the edge of the lagoon, she has plans to set herself up as a piano teacher. The weeks pass, and slowly mother and daughter get to know the townsfolk. But Jingera is not quite the utopia Ilona imagines it to be.

It is the spring of 1961, and the sleepy little town of Jingera is at its most perfect with its clear blue skies, pounding surf and breathtaking lagoon. Yet all is not so perfect behind closed doors. George Cadwallader - butcher by day and stargazer by night - is loved by everyone, except his wife. He only wants the best for his family, yet it's all falling apart. Philip Chapman is a sensitive young boy, a musical prodigy - and a target for bullies. But with his wealthy parents indifferent to his cries for help, his entire future is at risk.

Clemmie throws herself into volunteering with the very organisation who helped her and her sisters when they were homeless: the WVS. Demonstrating a natural flair, painfully shy Clemmie is soon drafted to set up one of the British Welcome Clubs aimed at easing American troops' integration into English life. There, she meets Squadron Leader Dunning who, shot down in the Blitz, has been left partially paralysed. As friendship turns to something more, Clemmie faces an impossible decision - sacrifice her dreams of motherhood, or lose the man she's learning to love.

It is 1939. War threatens Europe. Troops are stationed near Tilling and rationing leads to queues in the High Street and a distinct shortage of goods at Twemlow’s. But it must be admitted that the hostilities that occupy the attention of Lucia and Georgie are with Elizabeth Mapp-Flint, rather than with the enemy across the Channel. Faced with Elizabeth’s elevation to the head of Tilling Red Cross (complete with uniform) and Major Benjy’s leadership of the Home Guard, it seems that Lucia’s domination of the little Sussex town is under serious threat.

Babylon, 323 BC: Alexander the Great is dead, leaving behind him the largest empire the world has ever seen. As his final breaths fade in a room of seven bodyguards, Alexander refuses to name a successor. But without a natural heir, who will take the reins? As the news of the king's death ripples across the land, leaving all in disbelief, the ruthless battle for the throne begins. What follows is a tangled web of scheming and plotting, with alliances quickly made and easily broken, each rival with their own agenda.

After her husband Jack is transported to Australia as a convict, Hannah and her children are sent to the workhouse. Hearing nothing from Jack and believing he's dead, Hannah reluctantly agrees to marry widower Ellis Duxbury. But her children must remain in the workhouse, and when they are sent away as apprentices, it's up to Hannah to track them down. On Christmas Eve, Hannah is blessed with a miracle when Jack returns to the village. Yet more trouble lies ahead as Hannah is arrested, accused of bigamy and threatened with deportation herself.