Leo 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 21^st 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.

Clio 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.

Nikki Stafford

He’s been depicted as a serious thinker, a master of deduction, a hopeless addict, a bare-knuckle fighter. His companion is a bumbler, a sympathetic equal, someone helpless in the face of his friend’s social inadequacies. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson remain the most-adapted fictional characters of all time. In 2010, when Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman stepped into the roles, they managed to meld many previous incarnations into two glorious performances. Over Sherlock’s first three seasons, the BAFTA-winning series created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat has brought new life to stories almost 130 years old and created a worldwide fandom unlike any other.

Investigating Sherlock, written by bestselling author Nikki Stafford, examines each episode through in-depth and fun analysis, exploring the character development and cataloguing every subtle reference to the original stories. Containing revelling exclusive interviews from experts of the Sherlock Holmes phenomenom, and with biographies of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, as well as Arthur Conan Doyle, Investigating Sherlock is the ultimate guide to the great detective in the 21st century.

Laura Purcell

The second in Laura Purcell’s captivating and acclaimed series of novels chronicling the lives and loves of the consorts and mistresses of Britain’s rash and reckless Hanoverian kings.

Her first novel in the series, Queen of Bedlam, was shortlisted for Best Historical Romance 2014 and was Editor’s Pick, in Historical Novels Review.

Orphaned and trapped in an abusive marriage, Henrietta Howard has little left to lose. She stakes everything on a new life in Hanover with its royal family, the heirs to the British throne. Henrietta’s beauty and intelligence soon win her the friendship of clever Princess Caroline and her mercurial husband, Prince George. But, as time passes, it becomes clear that friendship is the lastthing on the hot-blooded young prince’s mind. Dare Henrietta give into his advances and anger her violent husband? Dare she refuse?

Whatever George’s shortcomings, Princess Caroline is determined to make the family a success. Yet the feud between her husband and his obstinate father threatens all she has worked for. As England erupts in Jacobite riots, her family falls apart. She vows to save the country for her children to inherit – even if it costs her pride and her marriage. Set in the turbulent years of the Hanoverian accession, Mistress of the Court tells the story of two remarkable women at the centre of George II’s reign.