Other books that might interest you

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  The Secret Garden

  Frances Hodgson Burnett

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  A hidden garden. A lonely child. A journey of discovery, friendship, and transformation.
  
  The Secret Garden is a beloved children's classic by Frances Hodgson Burnett, celebrated for its themes of renewal, imagination, and the healing power of nature.
  
  The story follows Mary Lennox, a spoiled and lonely young girl who is sent to live at her uncle's mysterious estate in Yorkshire. While exploring the grounds, Mary discovers a forgotten, locked garden and begins uncovering the secrets hidden within the old house.
  
  With the help of new friends, she brings the neglected garden back to life—and discovers that the process transforms not only the garden but also the people around her.
  
  Through its charming characters and uplifting message, the novel explores friendship, personal growth, resilience, and the connection between humans and the natural world.
  
  A timeless work of children's literature, The Secret Garden continues to enchant readers of all ages with its message of hope and renewal.

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  The Opportunists

  Vivian Stuart

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  The fourteenth book in the dramatic and intriguing story about the colonisation of Australia: a country made of blood, passion, and dreams.
   
  Against overwhelming odds they fought to tame a savage land, now they must fight to keep it.
   
  Dora Lucas, Francis De Lancey, the Yates brothers and Luke Murphy meet in the goldfields near Bathurst. All with different motives, but all drawn to the opportunities of the gold rush. Meanwhile, in Ballarat, trouble is brewing amongst the miners. Will they find riches and reach their goals or will the chaotic tide of the gold rush lead to unexpected places?

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  The World in a Man of War

  Herman Melville

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  Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his bestknown works are MobyDick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. Although his reputation was not high at the time of his death, the 1919 centennial of his birth was the starting point of a Melville revival, and MobyDick grew to be considered one of the great American novels. 
   
  Melville's growing literary ambition showed in MobyDick (1851), which took nearly a year and a half to write, but it did not find an audience, and critics scorned his psychological novel Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852). From 1853 to 1856, Melville published short fiction in magazines, including "Benito Cereno" and "Bartleby, the Scrivener". In 1857, he traveled to England, toured the Near East, and published his last work of prose, The ConfidenceMan (1857). He moved to New York in 1863, eventually taking a position as United States customs inspector. 
   
  From that point, Melville focused his creative powers on poetry. BattlePieces and Aspects of the War (1866) was his poetic reflection on the moral questions of the American Civil War. In 1867, his eldest child Malcolm died at home from a selfinflicted gunshot. Melville's metaphysical epic Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land was published in 1876. In 1886, his other son Stanwix died of apparent tuberculosis, and Melville retired. During his last years, he privately published two volumes of poetry, and left one volume unpublished. The novella Billy Budd was left unfinished at his death, but was published posthumously in 1924. Melville died from cardiovascular disease in 1891.

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  The Devil Light - Former soldier...

  Edgar Wallace

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  Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was born on the 1st April 1875 in Greenwich, London.  Leaving school at 12 because of truancy, by the age of fifteen he had experience; selling newspapers, as a worker in a rubber factory, as a shoe shop assistant, as a milk delivery boy and as a ship’s cook.  
   
  By 1894 he was engaged but broke it off to join the Infantry being posted to South Africa. He also changed his name to Edgar Wallace which he took from Lew Wallace, the author of Ben-Hur.  
   
  In Cape Town in 1898 he met Rudyard Kipling and was inspired to begin writing. His first collection of ballads, The Mission that Failed! was enough of a success that in 1899 he paid his way out of the armed forces in order to turn to writing full time.  
   
  By 1904 he had completed his first thriller, The Four Just Men. Since nobody would publish it he resorted to setting up his own publishing company which he called Tallis Press. 
    
  In 1911 his Congolese stories were published in a collection called Sanders of the River, which became a bestseller. He also started his own racing papers, Bibury’s and R. E. Walton’s Weekly, eventually buying his own racehorses and losing thousands gambling.  A life of exceptionally high income was also mirrored with exceptionally large spending and debts.  
   
  Wallace now began to take his career as a fiction writer more seriously, signing with Hodder and Stoughton in 1921. He was marketed as the ‘King of Thrillers’ and they gave him the trademark image of a trilby, a cigarette holder and a yellow Rolls Royce. He was truly prolific, capable not only of producing a 70,000 word novel in three days but of doing three novels in a row in such a manner. It was estimated that by 1928 one in four books being read was written by Wallace, for alongside his famous thrillers he wrote variously in other genres, including science fiction, non-fiction accounts of WWI which amounted to ten volumes and screen plays. Eventually he would reach the remarkable total of 170 novels, 18 stage plays and 957 short stories. 
   
  Wallace became chairman of the Press Club which to this day holds an annual Edgar Wallace Award, rewarding ‘excellence in writing’.  
   
  Diagnosed with diabetes his health deteriorated and he soon entered a coma and died of his condition and double pneumonia on the 7th of February 1932 in North Maple Drive, Beverly Hills. He was buried near his home in England at Chalklands, Bourne End, in Buckinghamshire.

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  The Map Colorist - A Novel

  Rebecca D'Harlingue

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  In 1660, Amsterdam is the trading and map-printing capital of the world. Anneke van Brug is one of the colorists paid to enhance black-and-white maps for a growing number of collectors. Her artistic talent brings her to the attention of the Blaeu printing house, and she begins to color for a rich merchant, Willem de Groot. But Anneke is not content to simply embellish the work of others; she longs to create maps of her own. Cartography, however, is the domain of men—so it is in secret that she borrows the notes her father made on a trip to Africa in 1642 and sets about designing a new map. 
  Anneke hopes to convince the charismatic de Groot to use his influence to persuade Blaeu to include her map in the Atlas Maior, which will be the largest and most expensive publication of the century. But family secrets, infidelity, and murder endanger her dream. Will her map withstand these threats, or will it be forever lost?

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  The Hunt for Colonel Strasser

  Henry Rondel

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  As the Second World War nears its chaotic end, Martin Cohen, a British operative working out of neutral Switzerland, is pulled into a dangerous hunt for one of the Reich's most elusive figures – Colonel General Hans Strasser. Shot and left for dead by Strasser at a Swiss hotel, Cohen barely survives, but his thirst for justice remains undiminished. With Europe in flames and the Nazi regime crumbling, he joins a British detachment tasked with capturing war criminals. Strasser, once a powerful industrialist within the Nazi machine, is now a man on the run, using every means at his disposal to evade the net tightening around him. But the pursuit is more than just a mission. For Cohen, it is personal. Strasser's syndicate of looted gold, his brutal execution of prisoners, and his direct attack on Cohen himself have made him a singular obsession. From clandestine meetings in the shadow of the Alps to the final desperate days in Hitler's bunker, the chase spans a continent in turmoil. As the Allies push into Germany, Cohen's determination to see Strasser brought to justice leads him deeper into a world of deception, shifting alliances, and unfinished revenge.

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