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Churchill's history of the Second World War is, and will remain, the definitive work. Lucid, dramatic, remarkable for its breadth and sweep and for its sense of personal involvement, it is universally acknowledged as a magnificent reconstruction.

On the day of his marriage to Maria, Hornblower is ordered to take the Hotspur and head for Brest – war is coming and Napoleon will not catch His Majesty’s navy with its britches round its ankles. With thoughts of his new life as a husband intruding on his duties, Hornblower must prove himself to be not only the most capable commander in the fleet, but also its most daring if he is to stop the French gaining the upper hand. This is the third of eleven books chronicling the adventures of C. S. Forester’s inimitable nautical hero, Horatio Hornblower.

Described by Len Deighton as ‘a classic writer of espionage fiction’, Ted Allbeury based his many acclaimed spy novels on his own real-life experiences. In World War II, he served as an intelligence officer with Special Operations Executive, and subsequently ran agents across the border between East and West Germany during the Cold War. He began writing in his fifties, and went on to pen over 40 bestselling books, five of which are dramatised here alongside three plays specially written for BBC Radio and two bonus documentaries.

The gateway between past and present has opened, and evil forces of enormous power are unleashed. To close the gateway, the Sword of God must be found, and all that is known is that it shines in the clouds above the City of Beasts - a city ruled by the Dark Queen. Only one man can stand at the gateway of time - Jon Shannow, the Last Guardian. The hunters from his past who seek his death are but the first obstacle.

In Masters and Commanders Andrew Roberts describes how four titanic figures shaped the grand strategy of the West during the Second World War. The book attempts to give answers to key questions regarding allied strategy based on the personalities and relationships between two political masters - Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt - and the military commanders of their armed forces - the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Sir Alan Brooke, and the US Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall.

Sam McCready is The Deceiver, one of the Secret Intelligence Service's most unorthodox and most valued operatives, a legend in his own time. The end of the cold war has, however, strengthened the hand of the Whitehall mandarins, to whom he seems about as controllable as Genghis Khan, so Sam is to have his fate decided at a special hearing.

In this new adventure, Hornblower is overjoyed to discover his next task is to serve aboard the mighty HMS Renown. After witnessing some unsettling scenes however, he soon finds himself struggling to serve under the captain, James Sawyer, whose unsound mind leads him to treat his crew with extreme suspicion and contempt.

This is the story of a rifleman's resourcefulness in a single-handed war against the forces of Napoleon. Separated from his regiment, he uses a band of undisciplined Portuguese guerrillas to battle his way back to his own lines.

In the year 1805, the young and enthusiastic Horatio Hornblower is given his first command as Captain of HMS Atropos. A 22-gun sloop, it is hardly the biggest ship in the navy, but undeterred, Hornblower boards the Atropos in eager anticipation of the voyages to come. Acting as flagship during the funeral procession for Lord Nelson, Horatio's first endeavour is to pay tribute to the country's fallen hero.

1793 and Europe is ablaze with war. Thomas Paine Kydd, a young wig-maker from Guildford, is seized by the press gang to be a part of the crew of the 98-gun line-of-battle ship Duke William. The ship sails immediately and Kydd has to learn the harsh realities of shipboard life fast. Despite all that he goes through in danger of tempest and battle he comes to admire the skills and courage of the seamen - taking up the challenge himself to become a true sailor.

Her Majesty's ship Sutherland is a humdrum ship of the line. But in command is none other than the heroic Captain Hornblower and, with his crew from the Lydia, he looks set to take on commando raids, hurricanes at sea, and Napoleons's gun batteries.

The country is in turmoil. With the capital city occupied, half a million refugees are on the march, looking for safety on the frontier, accompanied by Lady Flint's soldiers. But escaping war is never easy, and soon the battle may find them, whether they are prepared or not. Back in the capital, Michel Bravis smuggles even more refugees out of the city. But internal forces are working against him. With enemies on all sides, Michael may be forced to find help with the very occupiers he's trying to undermine.

An Admiralty summons to England cuts short Thomas Kydd's service in the turquoise waters of the Caribbean. While the crew of L'Aurore can look forward to liberty and prize money, a shadow hangs over their captain: the impending court martial of his one-time commander, Commodore Popham, who led a doomed attack on South America. Following Nelson's death two years earlier, England is in desperate need of heroes and Kydd's Caribbean exploits are the talk of London.

"After the first forty days we were alone," writes Churchill. This edition is part two of Churchill's own abridgement of his original six-volume history of the Second World War.

Thomas Kydd has dragged himself up in the navy from press-ganged seaman to captain of his own ship. Now he faces disgrace. After offending a general and suffering a personal tragedy, Kydd is sent to guard the Channel Islands. His career in tatters, he then makes a terrible enemy on his own side. When he is brutally betrayed off the Normandy coast, only his old friend, Renzi, is willing to stick by him.

One of the best selling History titles of 2009. Examining the Second World War on every front, Andrew Roberts asks whether, with a different decision-making process and a different strategy, Hitler’s Axis might even have won. Were those German generals who blamed everything on Hitler after the war correct, or were they merely scapegoating their former Führer once he was safely beyond defending himself?

One fine day, A.D. 70, Sosia Camillina quite literally runs into Marcus Didius Falco on the steps of the Forum. It seems Sosia is on the run from a couple of street toughs, and after a quick and dirty rescue, P.I. Falco wants to know why.

The 19th novel in Julian Stockwin's acclaimed Captain Kydd series. It's 1808. Parted from his new bride, Captain Sir Thomas Kydd is called away to join the Northern Expedition to Sweden, now Britain's only ally in the Baltic. Following the sudden declaration of war by Russia, and with the consequent threat of the czar's great fleet in St Petersburg, the expedition must defend Britain's dearly won freedom in those waters. However, Kydd finds his popular fame as a frigate captain is a poisoned chalice....

Hornblower becomes a national hero when he escapes a French firing squad. But the 'Terror of the Mediterranean' becomes Europe's most wanted man, forced to fight alone for England - and liberty.

In the high summer of AD 77, Marcus Didius Falco is beset by personal problems. Newly bereaved and facing unexpected upheavals, it is a relief for him to consider someone else’s misfortunes. A middle-aged couple who supplied statues to his father, Geminus, have disappeared. They had a feud with a bunch of notorious freedmen, the Claudii, who live rough in the pestilential Pontine Marshes, terrorising the neighbourhood.