Dark family secrets and a long-lost love affair lie at the heart of Iain Banks’s fabulous new novel. The Wopuld family built its fortune on a board game called Empire! – now a hugely successful computer game. So successful, the American Spraint Corp wants to buy the firm out.

Young renegade Alban, who has been evading the family clutches for years, is run to ground and persuded to attend the forthcoming family gathering – part birthday party, part Extraordinary General Meeting – convened by Win, Wopuld matriarch and most powerful member of the board, at Garbadale, the family’s highland castle. Being drawn back into the bosom of the clan brings a disconcerting confrontation with Alban’s past. What drove his mother to take her own life? And is he ready to see Sophie, his beautiful cousin and teenage love? Grandmother Win’s revelations wll radically alter Alban’s perspective for ever.

Drawing on thirty years of writing about Greek and Roman history, Mary Beard takes us on an exhilarating journey through the extraordinary riches of the classical heritage, and why it still matters. Mary Beard is one of the world’s best-known classicists – a brilliant academic, with a rare gift for communicating with a wide audience both though her TV presenting and her books. In a series of sparkling essays, she explores our rich classical heritage – from Greek drama to Roman jokes, introducing some larger-than-life characters of classical history, such as Alexander the Great, Nero and Boudicca.

She also invites you into the places where Greeks and Romans lived and died, from the palace at Knossos to Cleopatra’s Alexandria – and reveals the often hidden world of slaves. She brings back to life some of the greatest writers of antiquity – including Thucydides, Cicero and Tacitus – and takes a fresh look at both scholarly controversies and popular interpretations of the ancient world, from “The Golden Bough” to “Asterix”. The fruit of over thirty years in the world of classical scholarship, “Classical Traditions” captures the world of antiquity and its modern significance with wit, verve and scholarly expertise.

Richard III reigned for only two years, and for centuries he was villified as the hunch-backed wicked uncle, murderer of the princes in the Tower. Josephine Tey’s novel The Daughter of Time is an investigation into the real facts behind the last Plantagenet king’s reign, and an attempt to right what many believe to be the terrible injustice done to him by the Tudor dynasty. Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, recuperating from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III that bears no resemblance to the Wicked Uncle of history.

Could such a sensitive, noble face actually belong to one of the world’s most heinous villains – a venomous hunchback who may have killed his brother’s children to make his crown secure? Or could Richard have been the victim, turned into a monster by the the Tudors? Grant determines to find out once and for all, with the help of the British Museum and an American scholar, what kind of man Richard III really was and who killed the Princes in the Tower.

The critically acclaimed debut novel “The Fever Tree”, by Jennifer McVeigh, a Richard and Judy bookclub pick. 1880, South Africa – a land torn apart by greed…Frances Irvine, left penniless after her father’s sudden death, is forced to emigrate to the Cape. In this barren country, she meets two very different men – one driven by ambition, the other by ideals.

When a smallpox outbreak sends her to the diamond mines, she is drawn into a ruthless world of greed and exploitation, of human lives crushed in the scramble for power. But here – at last – she sees her path to happiness. Torn between passion and integrity, she makes a choice that has devastating consequences…”Place and people come alive in this book …a gripping story”.

(Kim Edwards, author of “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter”). “I loved it. It’s a beautifully written novel of great feeling”.

(Rachel Hore, best-selling author of “The Place of Secrets”). “Engrossing, emotionally poised and elegantly written – I absolutely loved it”. (Vanora Bennett, author of “The People’s Queen”).

“There is nothing more exciting than a new writer with a genuine voice. I loved it”. (Julian Fellowes, creator of “Downton Abbey”).

“A compelling read with a Gone with the Wind feel to it – I was hooked”. (Katharine McMahon, author of “The Alchemist’s Daughter”). “A skilled unfolding of a woman’s struggle with desire, class divide and disease in 19th Century South Africa”.

(”Financial Times”). “McVeigh’s attention to the material culture of South Africa that really fascinates: no object is too small to attract her notice, and through accumulation such objects become evocative and strangely moving – well worth reading”. (”TLS”).

“An epic story of love, deception and courage”. (Patricia Wastvedt, author of “The German Boy”). “A bewitching tale of loss, betrayal and love”.

(”Vogue”). “Epic, enchanting, emotional and engrossing”. (”Easy Living” ‘Must-read of the Month’).

“An unforgettable journey into a heart of darkness: romantic and tragic, a tale of honour and redemption, it leaves wide vistas of a harsh yet beguiling landscape shimmering in the imagination long after the last page is turned”. (Deborah Lawrenson, author of “The Lantern”). “All the delicious elements of a romantic classic, seasoned by evocative prose and keen moral commentary.

Gobble it up and then shelve it next to the Bronte sisters”. (Hillary Jordan, best-selling author of “Mudbound”). Jennifer McVeigh graduated from Oxford University in 2002 with a First in English Literature.

She went on to work in film, television, radio and publishing, before giving up her day job to write fiction. She has travelled across East Africa and South Africa, often in off-road vehicles, driving and camping along the way. “The Fever Tree” is her first novel.

This is the tale of two men. The first is Henry Tandey an ordinary man later deemed to be ‘a hero of the old berserk type’, born and brought up in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, who displayed extraordinary courage to emerge from the First World War as the most decorated British private to survive the war. The second is Adolf Hitler who was highly decorated in his service to Germany in the Great War and went on to become one of the most infamous dictators in history, later bringing the world to the brink of destruction during the Second World War.

It seems unlikely that their fates should collide. Yet in 1938 Hitler named Tandey as the soldier who spared his life on 18 September 1918 in the aftermath of the Battle of Marcoing – an assertion that came to the surprise of Henry Tandey himself. One Soldier and Hitler tells the story of Tandey’s and Hitler’s Great War, the moment when their lives became intertwined – if in fact they did -and how Tandey lived with the stigma of being known not for his chestful of medals for gallantry in service of King and Country, but as the man who let Hitler live.

DAVID JOHNSON is a passionate First World War historian and became fascinated by the story of Henry Tandey during a visit to Flanders Fields. He has spent many years tracing Henry’s life and family to uncover the man behind the myth. He lives in Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire.