1929, Tripoli, and Liliana is sure she is on the brink of a great adventure. What awaits her is not the Mediterranean idyll of cocktail parties, dashing officers and romantic intrigues she had imagined. Instead she finds a world of persecution, repression, corruption and deceptions both great and small. Blown about by the winds of fascism and Catholicism, Liliana becomes enmeshed in a dark liaison which has terrible consequences both for her and those she loves most. The Fourth Shore is the sliver of fertile land along the Tripoli coast, the 'lost' territory Mussolini promised to reclaim for Italy, which is how 17 year old Liliana arrives there from Rome to join her brother and his new wife on a ship filled with eager colonists. We journey from the sand storms of Tripoli to a North London suburb where, as plain Lily Jones, she begins to uncover a secret she has buried so deeply that even she is far from certain what it is. A real treat, this is a beautifully written account of the long consequences of war set in a richly evoked Rome of the 1970s. 372pp, paperback.

Ragnvald Eysteinsson is now king of Sogn, fighting battles for King Harald. He navigates a political landscape that grows more dangerous the higher he rises. His sister Svanhild has found the freedom and adventure she craves at the side of a rebel explorer Solvi Hunthiofsson, though not without a cost. She longs for a home where her quiet son can grow strong, and a place where she can put down roots, even as Solvi's ambition draws him back to Norway's battles and keeps her divided from her brother. The novel is set six years after 'The Half-Drowned King' in the fjords and halls of Viking-Age Scandinavia, a world of violence and prophecy, where honour is challenged by shifting alliances and vengeance is always a threat to peace. An unusual Viking saga with its complex web of rituals, lore and debts of honour, this seafaring epic of Norsemen is an ambitious tale rich in historical detail and can be read without having read the first novel. 444pp, paperback.

When Eve and her sisters are orphaned and become homeless, a lecherous neighbour befriends the girls. To escape his clutches, they journey to Gateshead to the hiring at the Michaelmas fair but no one wants them. The spectre of the workhouse looms, but then Caleb Travis, a young innkeeper from Washington, takes pity on them. Eve vows to repay Caleb's kindness and works tirelessly at the inn while keeping her sisters out of trouble. She finds herself falling in love with Caleb but he has only eyes for the wayward Mary. Tragedy forces Eve to leave Washington and make a new life for herself. Too late, Caleb realises what he's lost, and that the woman he loves may be gone for ever. 'A flesh and blood drama to touch any soul' ? Northern Echo. 450pp, paperback, author extras.

Brutal, surreal and darkly funny, this bold new novel follows and ever-expanding cast of characters, each in pursuit of their own brand of justice and belonging. Colin Winnette breaks down the classic Western and builds a bloody leanto from the scraps. Brooke and Sugar are contract killers without a contract. Bird is the 13 year old who appears in their camp one night, with no memory and palms as smooth as stones, who mysteriously woke beside them while between towns. For miles there is only desert and wilderness, and along the fringes, people. Driven from town after a bathhouse brawl, it's only a matter of time before the sheriffs will find them. Before the cannibals and stampedes and marauders will find them. Before the past will clamber up from where they buried it, covered in animal skins and teeth. The story follows Bird and the middling bounty hunters after they've been chased from town, and features gunfights, cannibalism, bar-room piano, a transgender birth, a wagon train, and the tenuous rise of the West's first one-armed gunslinger. A novel which possesses an unsettling humour. 224pp, paperback.

There are three storytellers in this readable and heartbreaking novel: Magda, a retired chemist who struggles to maintain independence; her carer Susheela, a university student for whom Magda is one of several demanding clients, but who still manages to see them all as human beings; and in an earlier era, the experiences of Magda's mother Evelyn Roberts, who went out to India to become Mrs Benedict Worsal Compton and came back after partition. In flashbacks to India, the memories of Evelyn and Magda conjure up shattered relationships. When Magda is born, Benedict engages Mrs Greenson to look after the baby against Evelyn's wishes, and she hardly sees her daughter. Meanwhile she is longing for the woman friend she left back at home, Helen. When the Bengali woman Aashi becomes pregnant, Evelyn is sympathetic, but when the inquisitive Magda reports that Aashi's husband has called her a whore, Evelyn begins to question who the child's father is. In Kharagpur there is unrest and Evelyn finds her husband's small cruelties beginning to hurt. In the present, Susheela discovers she is pregnant but her boyfriend Ewan is initially reluctant to be involved, and she gradually realises he has mental health issues which they face together. Meanwhile she tries to help Magda with the threat of residential care. A gripping read. 366pp.

A fiery debutante, an ill-tempered bachelor, a romance for the ages. Arabella is the daughter of an impoverished country parson who dreams of a new life in London, but her beauty and charm will only get her so far. When she embarks on her first London season armed with nothing but a benevolent godmother and her own notoriously short temper, she quickly runs afoul of Robert Beaumaris. He is the most eligible bachelor of the day, with a personality as strong and combative as hers, and Arabella cannot abide him thinking of her as just another pretty girl after his wealth, so she allows herself to be provoked into a game of deception - one that could have unexpected consequences. Another from the legendary creator of the beloved Regency romance genre. 280pp, paperback.

First published in 1926, in this new set of beautifully reprinted paperbacks. Set in 18th century Versailles and England, the novel tells the story of a street urchin who was brought up by a Duke to act as a page. Leonie Bonnard is hot tempered and one of Heyer's best female leads. She is being drawn into a 21 year old feud. Justin Alastair, the Duke of Avon, is a reprehensible rake with an axe to grind. Decades ago the Comte de Saint-Vire did something unforgivable and ever since, Justin has been lying in wait to settle the score. When Justin meets Leon, a street urchin with a striking resemblance to his nemesis, he aims to use him as a pawn in his plans for revenge on the Comte, except Leon is in fact Leonie, a beautiful young ingénue who may just steal Justin's heart. Can Leonie win the Duke's affection, or will his need for revenge overcome them both? Immersive escapism brimming with elegance, wit and historical accuracy. 347pp, paperback.

In the tradition of Alan Furst, the international bestselling author delivers his first stand-alone novel, a psychological thriller set in World War II Nazi Germany and 1970s England. British pilots James Teasdale and Bryan Young have been chosen to conduct a special photo-reconnaissance mission near Dresden, Germany. Intelligence believes the Nazis are building new factories that could turn the tide of the war. When their plane is shot down, the pilots know they will be executed if captured. Wounded and bleeding, they manage to jump on a passing train, narrowly escaping capture, but they are not out of trouble yet as they discover they have boarded a carriage full of injured SS men being evacuated from the Eastern Front. In a moment of desperation they throw two patients off the train and take their places, but their act is too convincing and they end up in the Alphabet House, a mental hospital located far behind enemy lines, where German doctors subject their patients to daily rounds of shock treatments and experimental drugs. Their only hope is to fake insanity and their friendship and courage are put to the ultimate test. A novel packed with historical interest and an air of urgency. 531pp, paperback.

From the bestselling author of 'Cathedral of the Sea'. Moors and Christians have been enemies for centuries, but can one man bring their conflict to an end? Snared between two cultures and two loves, one man is forced to choose. 1564 in the Kingdom of Granada and after years of Christian oppression, the Moors take arms and daub the white houses of Sierra Nevada with the blood of their victims. Amidst the conflict is young Hernando, the son of an Arab woman and the Christian priest who raped her. He is despised and regularly beaten by his own stepfather for his 'tainted' heritage. Fuelled with the love of the beautiful Fatima, Hernando hatches a plan to unite the two warring faiths, and the two halves of his identity. The award-winning author is a practicing lawyer in Barcelona and this is his most recent European blockbuster, selling millions. A big chunky paperback at a great price, rich in historical detail. A thumping 972pp.

Meet Richard Sharpe, a great British hero. Newly promoted, Major Richard Sharpe is given the task of rescuing a group of well-born women, held hostage high in the mountains by a rabble of deserters. One of the renegades is Sergeant Hakeswill, Sharpe's bitter enemy. Sharpe has only the support of his own company and the new Rocket Troop, the last word in military incompetence, but he cannot afford to contemplate defeat because to surrender or to fail would mean the end of the war for the Allied armies. The book is almost entirely fictional and based on Charles Oman's 'A History of the Peninsular War' where he mentions bands of 'floating scum of unlicensed marauders'. With map, facsimile reprint of the 1985 paperback edition with added historical notes. 350pp, paperback.