Jason Goodwin When the body of a Russian agent is found down a monastery well, Yashim knows exactly who to blame. Fevzi Ahmet Pasha, commander of the Ottoman fleet.Years ago,...

Peter Ackroyd From the foremost contemporary chronicler of London’s history, a suspenseful novel that ingeniously draws on Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales to recreate the city’s 14th century religious and political...

AD Swanston England in 1572 is a powder keg of rumour, fanaticism, treachery and dissent. All it would take is a single spark . . .In the England of Elizabeth...

Judith Claire Mitchell A Reunion of Ghosts is the shared confessional of three sisters who have decided to kill themselves at the end of the 20th century, honoring the dark...

Hiolary Mantel “If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?”England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a...

Alan Hollinghurst From the winner of the Man Booker Prize, a masterly novel that spans seven transformative decades as it plumbs the complex relationships of a remarkable family.In 1940, David...

Bernard Cornwell This is the exciting—yet little known—the story of the making of England in the 9th and 10th centuries, the years in which King Alfred the Great, his son...

Anthony Burgess A Roman saga, taking in the excesses of Tiberius, Caligula and Nero and an irreverent account of the early days of Christianity. Sadoc, a dying shipping clerk, sets...

Allan Gurganus This epic bestseller of 99-year-old Lucy Marsden's life (from the Civil War to her equally intense domestic battles) is the kind of novel people will want to read...

Reay Tannahill The greatest prize and the most deadly - the crown of EnglandReay Tannahill's enthralling novel is a family saga in the grand tradition, a tale of brother against...

Luther Blissett In 1517, Martin Luther nails his ninety-five theses to the door of Wittenburg Cathedral, and a dance of death begins between a radical Anabaptist with many names and...

Halldor Laxness Sometimes grim, sometimes uproarious, and always captivating, Iceland’s Bell by Nobel Laureate Halldór Laxness is at once an updating of the traditional Icelandic saga and a caustic social satire. At...