Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Historical Fiction

Her best friend's family have fled, and the bombing makes her afraid to leave the mosque where she lives. But when her father is arrested by the Nazis for his secret Resistance work, it falls to Safiyyah to run the dangerous errands around the city.\ It's not long before hundreds of persecuted Jews seek sanctuary at the mosque. Can Safiyyah find the courage to enter the treacherous catacombs under Paris and lead the Jews to safety?

1666. When 11-year-old bookish Gil finds a strange ‘heaven stone' by the Thames, he never thought it would hatch. Or that so soon after the Great Plague, a small fire in London would become a deadly inferno. Soon Gil, his phoenix, and his spiky friend Jennet must cross the burning city, avoid a terrifying mob, and find a place where they can all be safe.

The festive season has come to Sinclair’s, and Sophie and Lil are spending the holidays at snowy Winter Hall. But it turns out that this is no ordinary house party.... As sinister secrets come to light, our intrepid heroines find themselves faced with a more baffling mystery than ever before! With the help of their friends, can they uncover the truth in time to foil a truly diabolical plot? Or will Mr Sinclair’s New Year’s Eve Midnight Peacock Ball spell disaster for the dauntless young detectives?

Aribella lives in Venice, the daughter of an impoverished lace-maker. But she has a deadly secret: when angered, sparks shoot from her fingertips. Unable to keep her power hidden, she flees - but when dark spectres rise from the lagoon, the fire in her hands saves her life. A stranger witnesses the attack - and through him, Aribella leaves her old life behind and discovers the world of the Cannovacci, magical warriors sworn to defeat the strange spectres menacing the city.

A brilliant debut brimming with secrets, mystery and friendship, set against a backdrop of the First World War in the walled gardens of Ickworth estate. ​October 1916. Clara is sent to stay with her formidable aunt and uncle in the grounds of a country estate. Clara soon discovers that her new surroundings hold secrets: a locked room and a hidden key, and a mysterious boy who appears in the gardens only at night.... But can Clara face up to her own secrets and a war she's desperate to forget?

The five children have grown up, and World War I has begun in earnest. The sand fairy has become a creature of stories...until, for the first time in 10 years, he suddenly reappears. Before this last adventure ends, all will be changed; the two younger children will have seen the Great War from every possible viewpoint, and the war's impact will be felt right at the heart of their family.

Amil has always dreamed of working at the modern, space-age pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, where he lives. Instead, on his tenth birthday, he is torn from his family and taken to work for Mr Kumar and his cruel son, Jalesh, in their dilapidated printing factory. There, hidden in a trunk, he finds a secret First World War journal. As its pages come to life, they reveal not only why Amil is there, but that he and the journal's author–his great-grandfather, Sanjiv–share a magical gift: they can read the wind.

Alfie Wright? Alfie Wrong, more like. Alfie has never really fit in anywhere–he doesn't have any friends, and even his mum seems embarrassed of him. So when he's evacuated to a farm in rural Devon run by kind old Aunt Bell and her gentle giant of a son, Alfie can't believe his luck. The War seems a long way off, and among the cows and pigs and geese Alfie's happier than he's ever been–especially when he makes friends with one of the local boys, Snidge. But Snidge, for all his friendliness, is not all he appears.

Matilda Lockett is used to playing the role of Poor Dead Edna on stage with her spirit-medium aunt, Signora Valentina, and theatrical uncle Barnabus–but when they all decamp to Beauchamp Manor to deal with a most dreadful haunting, she discovers she really can see ghosts! There she meets ghost boy, Edgar Wilde, who shares her love of supernatural snooping, and together they set about unravelling the case of The Ghosts of the Manor.

In the centre of the freezing Lake Beluarum stands an inescapable asylum, enclosed by the sheer cliffs of Drop Rock island. When Ambrose Grammaticus, famous inventor and master engineer, viciously attacks his own son, Rex, he is hauled to the island and imprisoned.

1870. It is opening night at the Royal Opera House in a freezing city by the sea, where a huge crystal chandelier in the shape of a galleon sparkles magically with the light of 750 candles. Celeste, a theatre rat, wakes up in a costume basket from what she hopes is a bad dream, to find out that everyone at the theatre where she works thinks she is someone else. When the chandelier falls, she is haunted by a strange girl who claims to know Celeste's past and why she must play a game called the Reckoning to try to save the people she loves.

When pickpocket Danny accidentally bids for Maharajah the elephant at an Edinburgh auction, he's swept up on an unforgettable journey. His new employer, a zookeeper, transforms Danny into a bejewelled Indian prince. As he rides Maharajah from Scotland to his new home in England, even Queen Victoria follows their journey with delight. But as a rival zookeeper wagers on their failure, Danny's shady connections threaten to overturn the mission....

Summer, 1941. When a German plane is shot down over the woods, Peter rushes to the crash site to find something exciting to keep. But what he finds instead is someone: a young and injured German airman. The enemy. Here. And in trouble. Suddenly, helping him seems like the right thing to do.

Through the glass, the magic is waiting.... Nona and her uncle travel everywhere together, replacing stained-glass windows in war-torn buildings throughout England. One day a mysterious commission takes them to the lonely moors of Dartmoor, where a wild and powerful magic threatens everything that Nona holds dear. Can she find the courage to protect those she loves - even if it means fighting darkness itself?

Berlin, 1961. Anja and Monika are best friends–they even share a cat called Otto. When a huge barbed wire fence is built between their apartment blocks, everything changes; their city and family are divided by the Berlin Wall. In the West, Anja is sure it will be taken down, but Monika is afraid. Her world is changing: neighbours keep disappearing, others become spies and shadowy threats lurk around every corner.

Twelve-year-old Dido dreams of becoming the first female charioteer at the great Circus Maximus. She's lost her heart to Porcellus, a wild, tempestuous horse she longs to train and race. But such ambitions are forbidden to girls and she must be content with helping her father Antonius - the trainer of Rome's most popular racing team, The Greens - and teaching the rules of racing to Justus, the handsome young nephew of the Greens' wealthy owner. When her father is brutally murdered, she is forced to seek refuge with an unlikely ally.

Dido is reconciled to leaving the racing track and staying at home to train horses with Scorpus and Parmenion. But a storm is brewing. It brings with it a fiery black stallion, uncannily like Dido's beloved Porcellus. Word arrives from Rome that her cousin, Abibaal, a talented young charioteer, has been recruited to compete for the evil emperor Caligula. To save Abibaal, Dido must return to the great Circus Maximus track where she once drove to glory herself, confront her enemy Caligula, and face the toughest, most dangerous race of her life.

My name is Hanna. I am 15. I am Latvian. I live with my mother and grandmother. My father is missing, taken by the Russians. I have a boyfriend, and I'm training to be a dancer. But none of that is important any more. Because the Nazis have arrived, and I am a Jew. And as far as they are concerned, that is all that matters. This is my story.

It's the early 1800s, and Clover travels the impoverished borderlands of the Unified States with her father, a physician. See to the body before you, he teaches her, but Clover can't help becoming distracted by bigger things, including the coming war between the US and France, ignited by a failed Louisiana Purchase, and the terrifying vermin, cobbled together from dead animals and spare parts, who patrol the woods. Most of all, she is consumed with interest for Oddities, ordinary objects with extraordinary abilities.

King Lear has decided to retire from his royal duties. He calls his three daughters and asks each to tell him how much they love him. The eldest two, Goneril and Regan, flatter him with their words. Cordelia the youngest, only says that she loves him as a daughter must love her father. Furious, he disinherits her and divides his kingdom between her two sisters. But Goneril and Regan soon turn against Lear.