A quick and easy Mills & Boon type emotional saga set in wartime Liverpool. A chance meeting will change her life in ways she could never have imagined. As the Second World War continues to bring heartache to those left behind, Megan Lloyd is determined to do her bit for the war effort. She is appalled by the plight of young women left pregnant and destitute following ill-fated love affairs with passing sailors or American GIs, and establishes a place of refuge for unmarried mothers. But her plans incur her father's intense disapproval and Megan finds herself cast out from the family and unprepared for the challenges ahead. Her new life is full of trauma and heartbreak, but can she find joy and love as well? 291pp, paperback.

Prostitute Lizzie Hardwicke accepts an opportunity to step out of her life at Ma Farley's Bawdy House in Soho and begin an undercover assignment for the Bow Street magistrate. Her temporary position as a costume seamstress on Drury Lane places her behind the scenes. She realises that what goes on in the wings is far more intriguing than the theatrics on stage. When a man is brutally hanged at the theatre and Lizzie discovers the body, she is once again thrown together with handsome Inspector Will Davenport. She will have to use every trick she has hidden up her sleeves to bring the culprit into the spotlight. Witty, even a little bit romantic, and with all the historical landscape of the mid 18th century. 330pp, paperback.

Rebellion brews at the edge of the Roman Empire and the fate of Rome rests on the shoulders of one man. After murdering his brother and taking the position of Emperor for himself, Caracalla orders a brutal purge. But then the son of his ally Marcellus is suddenly kidnapped. Why? Silus, an assassin in the Arcani, is ordered to track down and rescue the boy, rumoured to be Caracalla's own child. As Rome buckles beneath the weight of slaughter, Silus travels to the city of Alexandria. There he will need to risk everything to save the boy, the Empire and his own life. The continuing tale of Silus particularly of his friendship, loyalty and compassion have been highly praised in this excellent historical fiction series with well developed characters and accurate historical background. 328pp in paperback.

Gough deserves more recognition. The author of Roman historical novels including The Watchmen of Rome has a lifelong obsession with Ancient Rome and his novels are the culmination of much research into the underclasses of the time. The series is based around two close friends, Silus and Atius, much like Simon Scarrow's Cato and Macro novels. This is an intense novel of war at the Roman frontier. On the Empire's Northern border, trouble is stirring. For decades the barbarians have been at the gates and now, facing threats from within as well as outside, the Emperor is provoking war. When his friend Atius goes missing in Germania, Imperial Assassin Silus is sent into the heart of the battle-torn region. Plunged into a deadly intrigue and a brutal conflict, can he find out who is betraying Rome, or will the legions start falling, one by bloody one? 328pp, paperback.

A novel by the author of the Empire of the Moghul series, one of power, ambition and corruption as the British East India Company rises. An old empire is at war with itself. It is 1744 in Scotland and young Nicholas Ballantyne's life is turned upside down when his uncle, caught up in events far beyond his control, announces that for his own safety Nicholas is to set sail for India immediately to join the East India Company. After decades of struggle the Company is ready to expand. Nicholas and his new friend and colleague the mercurial Robert Clive rise quickly within the Company's ranks, masterminding plans to counter French designs in India, but the fight for India will only be resolved in battle on the fields of Plassey. The two armies draw up for the climactic encounter. For Robert and Nicholas commanding the Company's forces this will be their making or their end. Brilliantly crafted, the novel brings to life the momentous events that shook India in the mid-18th century. 385 page paperback.

The king is dead. Long live the king. When power falls on the shoulders of a young man, only his slave can teach him how to be great, but power corrupts. Here is a novel of the ancient world in all its splendour and barbarity from a hotly-rated new author. Ten years after the fall of Babylon, Cyrus's Persian army is on the march again. His old slave Croesus accompanies him as always, as does the king's son and heir, Cambyses, who has inherited none of his father's diplomacy or charisma, and all of his vanity and violence. When the warriors of Persia are unexpectedly crushed in battle, Cyrus is put to death and Cambyses assumes the throne. Croesus, once a king himself, is called upon to advise the new emperor, but the young man cannot be guided and, after taking offence at an insult by an Egyptian ruler, Cambyses takes the full force of his father's army to Africa for bloody and brutal vengeance. A gripping tale of the perils of kingship and the relationships of the mighty with those who fear them. 278pp, paperback.

From an addictive series for fans of Patrick O'Brian and C. S Forester with a likeable hero and a huge cast of sharply drawn supporting characters. Alan Lewrie commands his own ship HMS Jester and takes part in the famous battle against the French known as The Glorious First of June. From there Lewrie is sent to join Admiral Hood in the Mediterranean. Under his inspired leadership he assists in the conquest of Corsica, but Hood is soon replaced by the maddeningly cautious Admiral Hotham. Only alongside one Horatio Nelson does Lewrie again find his chance to be of service in a series of fierce battles along the French coast. It is there that he hears once again of an old enemy, the French commander Guillaume Choundas. Lewrie knows that destiny will soon bring their ships together. 390pp, paperback.

Grace Thompson is a much-loved Welsh author of saga and romance novels, the mainstay of libraries in the UK who published her 42nd novel shortly after celebrating her 80th birthday. The story is set in the village of Cwm Derw and from the popular Badgers Brook series, which do not need to be read in chronological order. As the Second World War comes to an end, Sophie Daniels quits the WAAF with nowhere to go. She wanders the country searching for a place to settle down, living in bedsits, barns and guesthouses and eventually she finds Badgers Brook, where she befriends nine year old Bertie, neglected and running wild. The neighbours warm to her, the place is welcoming, and Sophie knows she has found her home. Friendly local Ryan Treweather is a welcome distraction, and potentially more, if she can just trust him with one big guilty secret. But if Sophie grows closer to Ryan, what will it mean for poor young Bertie? Charming characters, interesting stories and a gentle read. 328pp, paperback.

In 1726 in the town of Godalming, a young woman confounds the medical community by giving birth to 17 rabbits. This astonishing true story is the basis for this powerfully evocative novel. Surgeon's apprentice Zachary Walsh knows that his master John Howard prides himself on his rationality, but John cannot explain why or how Mary Toft, the wife of a local journeyman, has managed to give birth to a dead rabbit. When this singular event becomes a regular occurrence, John and Zachary realise that nothing in their experience as rural physicians has prepared him to deal with a situation like this - strange, troubling, and possibly miraculous. John contacts several of London's finest surgeons, three of whom soon arrive in Godalming to observe, argue and perhaps use the case to cultivate their own fame. When King George I learns of Mary's plight, Mary and her doctors are summoned to London where Zachary experiences a world far removed from his small-town existence, and is exposed to some of the darkest corners of the human soul, the human appetite for witnessing the grotesque - diseases, injuries, deformities and idle perversions of the bored and wealthy contrasted with religious, scientific, spiritual and philosophical beliefs of the educated and mostly moral main characters. While Mary lies in bed, doubts begin to blossom among her caretakers and a growing group of onlookers waits with impatience for another birth, another miracle. Canadian first edition, 2019 with roughcut pages which are highly desirable in North America. 320pp.

Described as 'The missing link between Catch-22 and Black Adder', this book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and is produced in a 50th anniversary edition with an introduction by James Holland. In March 1918, the Goshawk Squadron were on patrol, three days until the last great German offensive on the Western Front. One of the pilots unexpectedly suffered engine failure, in the days when the internal combustion engine was in its infancy. The pilot finds himself drifting, when suddenly a German Albatross creeps up behind him by making a near-suicidal manoeuvre through some trees. The pilot manages to escape. As he tries to climb, relieved, a Fokker Triplane stalks him on his blind side, opens fire and ruptures the pilot's fuel tank. White vapour appears, but although petrol begins soaking into his boots it is still inevitable that his plane and he will catch fire. The pilot then fishes out his revolver and fires three shots towards the Fokker, but to no avail and the German doesn't even flinch. The leaking fuel reaches the red-hot exhaust stubs, and the stricken aircraft erupts into flames. The pilot raises his pistol to his head and shoots himself - better a clean death than be burned alive in the skies over the Western Front. Exciting, taut and superbly described aerial combat is a feature of Goshawk Squadron and the many other novels of Derek Robinson with exquisitely drawn characters and shocking violence which befalls the men we come to care about because of their thoughts, personalities, attitudes and responses to the situations in which they find themselves. His books have prompted a certain amount of controversy in their depiction of the British class system, the recklessness and ill-preparedness of many of the men he has written about, and the casual violence they encounter. There has been a dramatic change in how we view the First World War since the novel was first published back in 1971, when veterans were not venerated in quite the same way they became. Stanley Woolley, the C.O. of Goshawk Squadron, is a character at first glance seen as an utter bastard, a martinet and a brutal driver of his men yet he is a complex character, fiercely intelligent, imaginative and above all humane, who understands that most of his men arriving into his squadron have done so with a misguided notion that flying over the Western Front will be exciting, chivalrous and sporting. Woolley through bitter experience has learned there is nothing noble about aerial combat. Incredibly young themselves, the flight lieutenants and squadron leaders, company commanders and naval first lieutenants pioneered new tactics and strove to become better combatants both for themselves and the men in their charge. Robinson captures Woolley's anger, frustration and cynicism perfectly, but also his fundamental decency. Woolley is just 23 years old. 284pp, paperback.