Showing results by narrator "Peter Kenny" in All Categories

This groundbreaking new collection addresses the burning issue of how we interpret history today. What stories are told, and by whom, who should be celebrated, and what rewritten, are questions that have been asked recently not just within the history world, but by all of us. Featuring a diverse mix of writers, both bestselling names and emerging voices, this is the history book we need NOW.

The war is ending, perhaps ended. For the castle and its occupants the troubles are just beginning. Armed gangs roam a lawless land where each farm and house supports a column of dark smoke. Taking to the roads with the other refugees, anonymous in their raggedness, seems safer than remaining in the ancient keep. However, the lieutenant of an outlaw band has other ideas and the castle becomes the focus for a dangerous game of desire, deceit and death.

A world that hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, between the dismantling of the Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, frozen in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse, such a world requires a firm hand and a guiding light. But does it need the Concern: an all-powerful organisation with a malevolent presiding genius, pervasive influence and numberless invisible operatives in possession of extraordinary powers?

Rome, AD 51: Vespasian brings Rome's greatest enemy before the emperor. After eight years of resistance, the British warrior Caratacus has been caught. But Agrippina, Emperor Claudius' wife, pardons Caratacus. Claudius is a drunken fool, and Narcissus and Pallas, his freedmen, are battling for control of his throne. Separately,they decide to send Vespasian east to Armenia to defend Rome's interests. Meanwhile the East is in turmoil.

In 1910, eleven-year-old Iris Villarca lives with her father at Rawblood, a lonely house on Dartmoor. Iris and her father are the last of their name. The Villarcas always die young, bloodily. Iris believes it's because of a congenital disease which means she must isolate herself from the world. But one sunlit autumn day, beside her mother's grave, she forces the truth from her father: the disease is biologically impossible. A lie to cover a darker secret.

On the morning after he has celebrated his 60th birthday at a celebrity-filled party, Ned Marriott is in bed with his partner, Emma, when there's a knock on the door. Detectives from the London police force's Operation Millpond have come to arrest him over an allegation of sexual assault.

Delightfully cheeky, unquestionably charming, and sometimes maddeningly naive, cloth mage Paul Gallagher is desperately trying to make a name for himself in a reimagined postwar London. But in a world where magic is commonplace, sewing enchanted clothes is seen as little more than a frivolous distraction. Paul is hiding a secret, however: he possesses a powerful - and illegal - innate magic. Unfortunately, Paul confides in the wrong person - his latest crush, Captain Hector Hollister - and is drawn into a sinister plot that risks reigniting the machinery of war. 

Silky, Siv, and Mitsuki are now willing to do whatever it takes to find and rescue Ambassador Galen Vim. But government agents, criminal organizations, and bounty hunters swarm the Titus II system. Getting to the planet alive may be the easiest part of this mission since no one has seen the ambassador since he was captured by Tekk Reapers.

Spellswords, Wardens, Traders, Scholars, Diplomats - the five departments of the Royal Institute of Magic an apprentice must master to become a full member. Ben Greenwood has no idea what to expect when he begins his apprenticeship, but he quickly realizes his family history is going to make life difficult. On his very first day, a Shadowseeker - a mysterious and dangerous dark elf - surfaces, and Ben suspects the dark elves might be trying to capture him again in an effort to flush out his parents.

Britannia, 45 AD: Vespasian's brother, Sabinus, is captured by druids. The druids want to offer a potent sacrifice to their gods – not just one Roman Legate, but two. They know that Vespasian will come after his brother and they plan to sacrifice the siblings on midsummer's day. Vespasian must strive to save his brother whilst completing the conquest of the south-west of the haunted isle, before he is drawn inexorably back to Rome and the heart of Imperial politics.

AD 58. Rome is in turmoil once more. Emperor Nero has surrounded himself with sycophants, and together they rampage by night through the city. Meanwhile, Nero's extravagance has reached new heights. The Emperor's spending is becoming profligate at the same time as the demands of keeping the provinces subdued have become increasingly unaffordable. Could Nero withdraw from Britannia, and at what price for the Empire?

Die for the company, live for the pay. And the ultimate payoff is DH-17, an earthlike planet hundreds of light years from human habitation. Ruthless corporations vie over the prize remotely, and war is in full swing. But soldiers recruited to fight in the extremities of deep space come with their own problems, from AI minds in full rebellion to Carlos 'the Terrorist' and his team of dead mercenaries, reincarnated from a bloodier period in earth's history for one purpose only: to kill.

Rome, AD 67. Vespasian is tasked with the impossible: should he quell the revolt in Judaea, as the emperor Nero has instructed? If his conquest succeeds, he risks becoming the sole object of the emperor's jealousy. If he fails, then his punishment will be severe. But Nero has committed suicide. Sabinus, Vespasian's brother, is caught between the warring factions of Aulus Vitellius, a cruel opportunist, and the noble Marcus Salvius Otho, who finds himself severely outnumbered.

Time is running out for Ben Greenwood - not as an apprentice for the Royal Institute of Magic, but as the Head Guardian, secretly responsible for uniting Queen Elizabeth's Armour. The dark elves are coming and the only chance of stopping them is to find the last Guardian and the final two pieces of the armour. They will be difficult to find and heavily protected, as they are the most important of all. To make matters worse, Ben's only clue to their whereabouts comes from a particularly unreliable and dangerous source.

Marcus Salvius Magnus, leader of the South Quirinal Crossroads Brotherhood, has long dominated his part of Rome's criminal underworld. From rival gangs and unpaid debts to rigged chariot races and blood feuds - if you have a problem, Magnus is the man to solve it. But while Magnus inhabits the underbelly of the city, his patron, Gaius Vespasius Pollo, moves in a different circle. As a senator, he needs men like Magnus to do his dirty work.... 

There was a mistake, an error. No king ordered his summoning to battle a demon lord. No god sent him to save the world from destruction. In fact, the closest thing this world has to a god would have been very upset at his presence. Fortunately for him, by the time she noticed, it was too late to interfere. A soul had fallen into the world that did not belong there. A soul not bound by the Law of the world. A soul that was free.

When a new dungeon is born, it wants nothing more than to have the most vicious monsters, the most cunning traps and the most shiny of loot. There is only one problem...but it's a rather big one. It finished its first floor years ago, but it still hasn't been visited by any adventurers! In order to find someone—or something—to explore its floors, or perhaps just to find someone to talk to, this dungeon will have to go way off script. But it soon discovers that going off script brings problems of its own, and that adventurers are not the only thing this world is missing.

Paris in the aftermath of the Great Magicians War. Its streets are lined with haunted ruins, Notre-Dame is a burnt-out shell, and the Seine runs black, thick with ashes and rubble. Yet life continues among the wreckage. The citizens retain their irrepressible appetite for novelty and distraction, and The Great Houses still vie for dominion over France's once grand capital. House Silverspires, previously the leader of those power games, now lies in disarray.

Stuart's not sure about having a lodger. And he's not used to Florence, an ageing tribute band singer who's full of life. Nor the pairs of voluminous knickers left to dry on every spare surface in the bathroom. Florence is everything Stuart has never allowed himself to be: bold, fearless, unabashedly herself. He's spent his life putting everyone's needs ahead of his own, avoiding risks and hiding from chances. Soon Florence is persuading Stuart to dance with her in the kitchen. And when his childhood sweetheart shows up again, it's Florence who encourages him to make his move.

A man marked by magic. A woman marked by her past. On the other side of the Shadowpass, rebellion is brewing and refugees have begun to trickle into the city at the edge of the world. Looming high on the cliff is The Nest, a fortress full of mages who offer protection, but also embody everything the rebellion is fighting against: a strict hierarchy based on magic abilities. When Isha arrives as a refugee, she attempts to fit in amongst the other mages, but her tattoo brands her as an outcast. She can't remember her past or why she has the tattoo. All she knows is that she survived.