Showing results by publisher "Oakhill Publishing Ltd" in All Categories

It is August 1616. The whaling ship Heartsease has ventured high into the Arctic, and the crew must return home before the ice closes in. All, that is, save Thomas Cave. He makes a wager that he will remain there alone until next season, though no man has yet been known to have survived a winter this far north. So he is left with provisions, shelter, and a journal - should he not live to tell the tale.

Alice is growing up in post-war London: a grey world of old bomb sites. Her escape is her imagination, which always brightens up her day. But when a new boy starts school, her mind begins playing tricks on her. She's oddly drawn to him, and whenever they are out together the world becomes a more exciting place. A place where the things she imagines appear to become real.

America in the 1920s was a place of drama, tension and hedonism. It glittered and seduced: jazz, flappers, the birth of Hollywood, and a glamorous gangster- led crime scene flourishing under prohibition. But it was also punctuated by momentous events such as the political show trials and the huge Ku Klux Klan march. But it also produced a splendid array of writers, musicians and film stars, from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Bessie Smith and Charlie Chaplin.

Mr and Mrs Bigsby of the Pig and Whistle, Stoke Newington, already look after 10 children. When Constable O'Drowd brings them an 11th orphan found on the streets, Ma Bigsby is reluctant to take her. But there's something about Elfie, it's the first day of a new century and Ma loves a mystery. Just why does Elifie possess a little watercolour of the Pig and Whistle? As the mystery unfolds, Elfie's world will change completely.

Zoe loves living at Tanglewood Animal Park! Every day Zoe takes care of the animals. She splashes with penguins, feeds the lemurs - she even sees baby zebra, Flash, being born. It's a dream come true. Then Flash goes missing. Now Zoe has to find him, and soon! Where can that baby zebra be?

In the dark days of King James I, a man must know his enemies to survive. To Henry Gresham, gentleman, scholar, courtier, and spy, William Shadwell is invaluable. A thief, informer, double-dealer, and pimp, he may not be the most moral of men, but he is one of Gresham's best sources. When Shadwell is murdered, Gresham's enquiries uncover a plot so audacious it is scarcely believable.

A little kitten twinkling with magic is in need of the perfect friend. And that's how Jemma's biggest dreams become possible when she discovers a silky cream and brown kitten called Flame. And it's also how Kim manages to put up with her mean cousin when a silver tabby kitten, also called Flame comes to stay....Here are two more delightful stories featuring Flame, the magic kitten who changes colour!

Robert Cecil, chief secretary to the king, summons the gentleman spy, Henry Gresham, to his death bed to give his arch enemy one final, deadly case. An unknown Cambridge bookseller has obtained devastating correspondence between King James I and Robert Carr, and Gresham is the one man who can return the letters, saving the monarch from a potentially scandalous downfall.

When magistrate Matteo Arconti’s namesake, an insurance man from Milan, is found dead outside the court buildings in Piazza Clodio, it’s a coded warning to the authorities – a clear message of defiance and intimidation. Commissioner Alec Blume, all too familiar with Rome’s criminal underclass, knows little of the Calabrian mafia currently under investigation by the magistrate.

Were things really better in the good old days? Gilda O'Neill's powerful exploration of the teeming underbelly that was to be found in the fog-bound streets, rat-infested slums, common lodging houses, boozers, penny gaffs, and brothels in the heart of the greatest empire that the world has ever seen brings to life the real working-class London of Victoria's reign.

Who would sever a tongue from a living mouth? Or kill a pathetic, homeless old man? Or frighten a young doctor into silence? The questions are piling up, and Doug McHarg can't stop asking them - especially when he's warned off by both his boss in the local police and by Scotland Yard. The pattern that emerges is of a powerful organisation with links to the throne and the White House. And all that stands against them is McHarg: a discontented copper with nothing to lose.

In picturesque Tarnfield in the North of England, feuds and rivalries between villagers typically lie dormant. But the arrival of a new local vicar shakes the community up, bringing together an unlikely alliance between Suzy Spencer, a working mother, part-time television producer and full-time mess, and Robert Clark, a conservative, 'Mr Perfect' widower from the parish. But they are too late to save an unfortunate flower arranger!

In 1913 an orphan girl is delivered to The Hall of Eternal Splendour, seemingly destined to live out her life as a prostitute in its smoky backrooms. Yet one day hope appears in the unlikely form of a customs inspector, a modest man who will take Pan Yuliang as his concubine and introduce her to a glamorous life in 1920's Shanghai: a life of love and of art. But as Pan begins to realize her talent as a painter she also sees that she may lose something even more precious: a life in safety.

Plagued all her life by her roisterous husband, straitlaced, outspoken, domineering Maudie is now on her own. Invited by her two daughters and her son to spend four months with each of them, she leaves Glasgow for the first time, uncertain of what awaits her. But what she finds in the very different homes of her children is not what she expects, causing her to reassess her life.

Lizzy has always known she has been adopted. But since her family moved to Cornwall her world has turned upside down. By chance, she discovered Kes, a brother she never knew existed, and the incredible truth about her birth mother.

On a school trip to the plague village of Eyam, Seth is moved by the story of how the villagers sacrificed their lives to the dreaded Black Death. Kim and Wes are more interested in what they see at the bottom of the wishing well-money! But when they snatch the coins they also pick up something they hadn't bargained for, and as the hideous consequences of their theft catch up with them all,Seth is forced to face a terrifying truth. Has Eyam's plague-ridden past resurfaced to seek revenge?

In A Circus Wish, Sadie's circus adventure begins where an adorable coal-black kitten called Flame tumbles into her life. And in Moonlight Mischief, Eve's half-term heartache disappears when lonely sandy-coloured Flame arrives at the cattery. Two magical stories about the twinkly kitten, Flame.

The Adventures of Jake series stars a very unusual dog. If he's not digging up the roses or eating too much chocolate, he might be getting ready for a game of football or daydreaming about going to Crufts! A delightful collection of five warm, witty adventures each told with zest and humour.

When evil Baron Dennis visits Sedric's muddy peasant village to ask about everyone's feelings, Sedric is suspicious. And when a hairy giant troll called Vlad the Bad comes marauding through the village at night, Sedric knows there's something fishy going on. The grown-ups all want to flee straight away. But Sedric doesn't want to stay behind with smelly Uncle Bile, so he and his friends have to solve the mystery of the invasion of the hairy troll before it's too late!

When a body is discovered in a burnt-out barn in the Warwickshire countryside, DI Will Jackman is called to investigate. Nancy Faraday wakes up on the kitchen floor. The house has been broken into and her boyfriend is missing. As the case unravels, DI Jackman realises that nothing is as it appears and everyone has a secret. Can he discover the truth behind the body in the fire and track down the killer before Nancy becomes the next victim?