The Marquis de Montespan & his new wife, Athenais, are a true love-match
- a rarity amongst the nobility of seventeenth-century
...

Towards the end of the nineteenth century & for the first few years of the twentieth, a strange invasion took place in Britain. The citadel of power, privilege & breeding in which the titled, l&-owning governing class had barricaded itself for so long was breached. The incomers were a group of young women who, fifty years earlier, would have been looked on as the alien denizens of another world
- the New World, to be precise. From 1874
- the year that Jennie Jerome, the first known ` Dollar Princess`, married Randolph Churchill
- to 1905, dozens of young American heiresses married into the British peerage, bringing with them all the fabulous wealth, glamour & sophistication of the Gilded Age. Anne de Courcy sets the stories of these young women & their families in the context of their times. Based on extensive first-hand research, drawing on diaries, memoirs & letters, this richly entertaining group biography reveals what they thought of their new lives in England
- & what England thought of them.



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Read the number one Scandinavian crime bestseller taking the world by storm Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm. Detective Inspector Joona Linna is faced with a boy who witnessed the gruesome murder of his family. He`s suffered more than one hundred knife wounds & is comatose with shock. Linna`s running out of time. The killer`s on the run &, seemingly, there are no clues. Desperate for information, Linna enlists disgraced specialist Dr Erik Maria Bark, a hypnotist who vowed never to practice again. As the hypnosis begins, a long & terrifying chain of events unfurls with reverberations far beyond Linna`s case. ...

An electrifying story of friendship, power & betrayal by the bestselling, Baileys-prize shortlisted author of The Bees. It`s the day after tomorrow & the Arctic sea ice has melted. While global business carves up the new frontier, cruise ships race each other to ever-rarer wildlife sightings. The passengers of the Vanir have come seeking a polar bear. What they find is even more astonishing: a dead body. It is Tom Harding, lost in an accident three years ago & now revealed by the melting ice of Midgard glacier. Tom had come to Midgard to help launch the new venture of his best friend of thirty years, Sean Cawson, a man whose business relies on discretion & powerful connections
- & who was the last person to see him alive. Their friendship had been forged by a shared obsession with Arctic exploration. & although Tom`s need to save the world often clashed with Sean`s desire to conquer it, Sean has always believed that underneath it all, they shared the same goals. But as the inquest into Tom`s death begins, the choices made by both men
- in love & in life
- are put on the st&. And when cracks appear in the foundations of Sean`s glamorous world, he is forced to question what price he has really paid for a seat at the establishment`s table. Just how deep do the lies go?


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An electrifying story of friendship, power & betrayal by the bestselling, Baileys-prize shortlisted author of The Bees. `A memorable eco-thriller. This is a world of arms dealers, heroic arctic adventurers & power crazed captains of industry. & that`s just the ladies` The Times A frozen corpse emerges from a melting glacier & after three years of uncertainty, Sean Cawson can finally put the past behind him. Tom Harding, Sean`s friend of thirty years was lost in an accident & Sean was the last person to see him alive. Tom`s body is not the only secret hidden in the ice. As global businesses & global powers jostle for territory in this new, lawless frontier there are big opportunities for those with the courage
- or mendacity
- to seize them. & equally big risks. For years Sean has navigated these dangerous waters, loving the glamour & influence they bring. But as the inquest into Tom`s death begins, the choices made by both men
- in love & in life
- are put on the st&. Soon everything Sean has believed about his friends, his position & himself is thrown into question. Just how deep do the lies go?



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An enchanting tale of courage & sacrifice for young readers & adults by the wildly popular George R.R. Martin, author of A Song of Ice & Fire, the series that inspired HBO`s Emmy Award-winning GAME OF THRONES. Lavish illustrations by acclaimed artist Luis Royo enrich this captivating & heartwarming story of a young girl & her dragon. From ancient times the ice dragon was a creature of legend & fear, for no man had ever tamed one. When it flew overhead, it left in its wake desolate cold & frozen l&. But Adara was not afraid. For Adara was a winter child, born during the worst freeze that anyone, even the Old Ones, could remember. Adara could not remember the first time she had seen the ice dragon. It seemed that it had always been in her life, glimpsed from afar as she played in the frigid snow long after the other children had fled the cold. In her fourth year she touched it, & in her fifth year she rode upon its broad, chilled back for the first time. Then, in her seventh year, on a calm summer day, fiery dragons from the North swooped down upon the peaceful farm that was Adara`s home. And only a winter child-and the ice dragon who loved her-could save her world from utter destruction. ...

The Ice Lands by Steinar Bragi is set against Iceland`s volcanic hinterlands, where four thirty-somethings from Reykjavik
- the
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In 1913, what was to have been the grandest & most elaborate Arctic expedition in history ended just six weeks later with the HMCS Karluk trapped by polar ice. Five months later, hopelessly off course & still encased in ice, the captain gives the order to abandon ship. With nothing but half the ship's store of supplies, twenty-one men, an Eskimo woman & her two small daughters, nineteen dogs & one pet cat were hopelessly shipwrecked in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Nine months later, twelve survivors were rescued by a small whaling schooner & brought back to civilisation. In this incredible book, Jennifer Niven tells the spellbinding story of the doomed 1913 voyage of the Karluk drawing on previously unpublished letters & journals. ...

The Ice Museum provides an intriguing exploration of the northern-most tips of Europe in search of the legendary lost kingdom of Thule. This ice-laden kingdom was first explored by Pytheas in the fourth century BC & Joanna Kavenna provides part history-part travelogue as she sets about trying to locate its exact position. Along the way the author provides both beautiful descriptions of the harsh unforgiving landscapes of the Shetlands & Icel&, synopses of Greenland & Estonian society, a history of Aryan supremacy & a damning report on man`s devastating impact on the environment. ...

This book balances the considerations for the different ice types that ships` officers may encounter, whether first year or multi-year ice, & the different ice types in the arctic, Great Lakes or the Baltic. A good example of the outcome of a misinterpretation of the ice type a vessel is presented with was given to the whole world in 2007, when the ` MS Explorer ` sank in the Antarctic Ocean. While, as in many incidents, there were numerous factors that uniquely came together, in this case the Ship`s Master was very experienced in first year Baltic Ice conditions but had no experience of multi-year ice. This meant that he failed to correctly identify the ice type as compacted multi year ice & entered it as if it were the first year ice conditions he was familiar with, with disasterous outcome. Covering Ice Types, Ice Conditions, The Main Ice Regions, Ice Class Ships, Preparations for a Ship & the Crew for Ice the book then moves to the practical aspects of Navigating in Ice, Shiphandling, Working with Icebreakers & Oil Pollution in Ice Covered Waters, this creates a manual that will remain as valid & up to date in 2020 as it is in 2010, although by then there may well need to be a few more case studies about the actions & outcomes of the unwary. ...