God’s Vindictive Wrath by Charles Cordell

God’s Vindictive Wrath updated book pic

The Vale of the Red Horse, Edgehill, Warwickshire, October, 1642.

Bitter divisions that have grown unchecked in the kingdoms of the Stuart dynasty are about to engulf England in a bloody civil war. 30,000 men have gathered to determine the fate of nations and to pursue their own ideals and enmities through brutal and bloody combat. Many have never handled a weapon or strayed far from their native shire.

Among them are Anthony Sedley the Birmingham iron worker and Leveller, Robbie Needham, an embittered lead miner from Derbyshire who picks up a pike for his king, George Merrick, the young Oxford graduate whose prospects have been blighted by court corruption, Hywel Lloyd, a proud Welsh hill farmer, and William Bennet the struggling merchant who has staked everything to raise a company for the parliamentary cause. Then there are the half-brothers, Ralph and Francis Reeve, sons of a Suffolk farmer. Pious Francis has abandoned his studies at Cambridge to make England a New Jerusalem, cleansed of sin and filth. He despises his carefree brother and the father who seems to favour him. Caught cuckolding a London merchant, Ralph has forfeited his apprenticeship and indenture money. He dreams of restoring his honour and his fortune when he returns to London with the king’s victorious army. But first the brothers must face each other in the Vale of the Red Horse, the horse whose rider is War…

God’s vindictive wrath!

“Stirring. A great read! You can almost hear the roar of cannon, and the thunder of hooves. Do not miss this evocative account of the start of the English Civil War, and the ordinary men caught up in it.”

Ben Kane, author of The Forgotten Legion and Lionheart series.

“As only a soldier could, Charles Cordell does not flinch from drawing attention to the sheer terror of battle … a gripping first book. I am certain there will be many more.”

Jeremy Ravenshaw Fowler, Adjutant General of the Sealed Knot Society.

“A fast-paced read that brilliantly captures the fear, confusion and luck of battle.”

Lt Gen Richard Nugee CB, CVO, CBE

“Fast-paced and authentic … with characters that are colourful and believable. There are not enough tales like this.”

Michael Arnold, author of The Civil War Chronicles and the Highwayman series.

The Lost Sessions

Lost Sessions Sebastian Beaumont

 

Will could never have predicted how much his life would change when he is knocked from his bicycle by a hit-and-run driver whilst returning home from the London clinic where he works as a psychotherapist. His wife, Lara, takes him to an A&E, where he is diagnosed with concussion. Having cancelled upcoming client appointments, he spends much of the following week in fitful sleep whilst Lara goes out to work.

When he returns to his practice, something is very weird and very wrong. It seems that Will – or a form of Will – held the sessions with his regular clients whilst he was at home asleep. This Will gave out some radical and shocking therapy that was completely out of character for him. What’s more, Will finds himself referring to events in his clients’ histories of which they themselves have no memory. The sessions go badly. Will’s one new client is Guy, who claims to be regularly disturbed in his flat by a sister who has been dead for five years. She simply stands at the foot of his bed in a red sweater and white jeans. Walking home that night, Will passes the London Eye. From one of the gondolas, a young woman smiles at him and takes his picture. She wears a red sweater and white jeans.

When Will takes Lara to a restaurant, the same woman appears at the next table and, to Lara’s consternation smiles at Will. Later, she appears at his studio, having made an appointment. She says her name is Emma, that she is indeed Guy’s sister and is dead. She wants Will to be her therapist. He refuses, telling her to see a doctor. But, dead or not, Emma proves to be not the sort of girl to say no to. Encounters with her simply become more frequent and more bizarre. What’s more, as they start to take a toll on Will’s livelihood, his marriage and even his sense of self, it seems that Emma knows a
lot more about his shadowed past than she should.

The Pincers of Death by Toby Frost

For those of you eagerly anticipating the latest instalment of Toby Frost’s Space Captain Smith series – out in October – here’s the fantastic cover illustration, another masterpiece from Angelo Rinaldi.

THE PINCERS OF DEATH

So what’s in store for Smith and the crew of the John Pym? Some hints follow:

The empire of the ant-people is beginning to crumble. As the British Space Navy prepares to invade the Ghast home world, the Secret Service comes up with a daring plan – the assassination of Number One, the small and furious dictator of the Ghasts. Only one man has the qualities needed to take on a job this dangerous –    Captain Isambard Smith.

But Smith has problems of his own. Captured by the ruthless – and gormless – Criminarch of Radishia, Smith and his crew must survive the deadly sport of Hyperbowl, where it’s not whether you win or lose that counts, but how you slay the game.

Now Isambard Smith faces his toughest challenge yet. In order to civilise the galaxy, he will have to win a ball game, topple a dictator and organise a party for a four-year-old. All in a day’s work for a hero of the British Space Empire – although it’s going to be a very busy day indeed.

And the Dawn Came Up Like Thunder

And the Dawn... copyLeo Rawlings

And the Dawn Came Up Like Thunder is the experience of an ordinary soldier captured by the Japanese at Singapore in February 1942. Leo Rawlings’ story is told in his own pictures and his own words; a world that is uncompromising, vivid and raw. He pulls no punches. For the first time cruelty inflicted on the prisoners of war by their own officers is depicted as well as shocking images of POW life. This is truly a view of the River Kwai experience for a 21st Century audience.

The new edition includes pictures never before published as well as an extensive new commentary by Dr Nigel Stanley, an expert on Rawlings and the medical problems faced on the Burma Railway. More than just a commentary on the history and terrible facts behind Rawlings’ work, it stands on its own as a guide to the hidden lives of the prisoners.

Most of the pictures are printed for the first time in colour as the artist intended, bringing new detail and insight to conditions faced by the POWs as they built the infamous death railway, and faced starvation, disease and cruelty. Pictures such as those showing the construction of Tamarkan Bridge, now famed as the prototype for the fictional Bridge on the River Kwai, and those showing the horrendous suffering of the POWs such as King of the Damned have an iconic status. Rawlings’ art brings a different perspective to the depiction of the world of the Far East prisoners. For the first time the pictures and original texts are printed in a large format edition, so that their full power can be experienced.

Click here to read an extract from this book


 

Hardback 240 pages
ISBN 978-1-905802-94-4
Release Date 3rd September 2015
Price £25.00
Ebook 978-1-910183-05-2

 

The Anatomist’s Dream

AnatomistClio Gray

The Anatomist’s Dream is a sumptuous feast for the senses that chronicles the early life of a very special boy as he makes a fantastic and epic journey with a travelling carnival across the dark and troubled landscape of 1840s Germany.

Something to be savoured by fans of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy, Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus or Patrick Süskind’s Perfume: the Story of a Murderer.

In a small salt-mining town, Philbert is born with a ‘taupe’, a disfiguring inflammation of the skull. Abandoned by both parents and with only a pet pig for company, he eventually finds refuge and companionship in a travelling carnival, Maulwerf’s Fair of Wonders, as it makes its annual migration across Germany bringing entertainment to a people beset by famine, repression and revolutionary ferment.

Philbert soon finds a caring family in Hermann the Fish Man, Lita, the Dancing Dwarf, Frau Fettleheim, the Fattest Woman in the World and an assortment of ‘freak show’ artists, magicians and entertainers.

But then Philbert meets Kwert, ‘Tospirologist and Teller of Signs’, and when he persuades the boy to undergo examination by the renowned physician and craniometrist, Dr Ullendorf, both Kwert and Philbert embark on an altogether darker and more perilous journey that will have far-reaching consequences for a whole nation.

 

Click here to read an extract from this book

 


 

Hardback 416 pages
ISBN 978-1-910183-20-5
Release Date 31st July 2015
Price £18.99
Trade Paperback 416 pages
ISBN 978-1-910183-21-2
Release Date 31st July 2015
Price £12.99
Ebook 978-1-910183-22-9