Ajay Chowdhury, the inaugural winner of the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland prize, is a tech entrepreneur and theatre director. His children’s book – Ayesha and the Firefish, was published in 2016 and adapted into a musical which premiered in San Francisco. 
 
 
The Waiter (Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month), was published in 2021, and is the first in his critically-acclaimed crime series about Detective Kamil Rahman, an ex-policeman from Kolkata who has moved to Brick Lane in London. It is being adapted for television by Moonage Pictures.The Cook (Guardian Top Crime Books of the Year) was published in May 2022 to excellent reviews and deals with the issue of homelessness. The third book in the series – The Detective (Sunday Times Top Crime Books of the Year) – is about government surveillance and AI. The Spy (Longlisted Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing), the fourth book, sees Kamil infiltrate a terrorist cell. The Shadow (A Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month) is the latest book in the series.

Ajay Chowdhury

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Rosemary Sutcliff

Drem longs for the day he will win his Warrior Scarlet. But with a withered spear arm, how will he take part in the ritual Wolf Slaying which will prove his worth as a man of the tribe? 
 
With over forty books to her credit, Rosemary Sutcliff is now universally considered one of the finest writers of historical novels for children. Winer of the Carnegie Medal and many other honours, Rosemary was awarded a CBE in 1992 for services to children's literature.

Warrior Scarlet

'We are the scum and the scrapings of the Empire. They tipped out the garbage-bin of the Eagles to make us what we are.' 
 
In disgrace after a mistake that cost the lives of half his men, Alexios arrives in Castellum. It's his first command, but it isn't really a promotion. The Frontier Wolves who man this outpost in the far north of Roman Britain are a fierce and savage bunch, a far cry from the regular legions he'd served in before. Alexios will only survive if he learns to understand them and win their respect - and he's determined to try.

Frontier Wolf

Leon Garfield

Set in the streets of London, the story follows the hopes and aspirations of young Tim and his pet monkey, Pistol, as they use their wits to get money out of rich folk. Their apparent success is brought to a halt one disasterous foggy evening , and Tim and Pistol are led off to Newgate Gaol . . .

The Boy and the Monkey

Two boys, Lewis and Richard, travel to paris in 1789 for very different reasons, and find their ideals challenged in the events of the French Revolution and the September massacre.

The Prisoners of September

The Confidence Man follows 14-year-old Hans Ruppert and a band of Protestants as they leave their home town and seek peace and freedom from Persecution in the New World. They are led by a mysterious hussar, who has offered to lead then to safety. To Hans he is a fascinating figure, but to the others he is a swindler, likely to abandon them at any moment.

The Confidence Man

Harris and Bostock are best friends, but they are as different from one another as night and day. Harris thinks up harebrained schemes and Bostock gets in trouble for them. 
 
When Harris puts his baby sister Adelaide in the words to see if she will be adopted by a fox, little do they realize that they are starting a chain of events that will be remembered in their little seaside town as the Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris.

The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris

K M Peyton

Set in the racing world of Newmarket in the 1880s, this is the story of Laura and her intense feelings for Fred Archer - the tall, slender young jockey who became one of the most famous men in Britain. Based around the true story of Fred Archer's short and tragic life, this is a moving and passionate story of first love.

Dear Fred

Sword Song is the swashbuckling story of Bjarni, a Viking swordsman. Banished from his home, as a boy, for a murder he didn't intend to commit, Bjarni takes up a new life as a mercenary. He journeys to the islands off the west coast of Scotland and there his life is shaped for years to come. A life that will see him fighting among the clan chiefs in feuds as bitter and bloody as can be imagined.This enthralling novel was the last thing Rosemary Sutcliff wrote and was discovered in a drawer after her death. It is published here in paperback for the first time.

The Sword Song Of Bjarni Sigurdson

Life in eighteenth-century London was hard and especially so for the city's apprentices. For seven long years they struggled for their livelihoods among the fetid houses and sinister quays of old London. But despite their hardships there was hope and even fun. 
 
This compelling story-cycle follows them round the year, through the dark, cold winter nights to midsummer in the city, The lamplighter, the pawnbroker, the midwife or the clockmaker, their stories interweave delightfully to paint a colourful picture of life in London 200 years ago.

The Apprentices

When Tim finds a strange old drawing hidden up the chimney in his crumbling new home, he notices it's signed by someone with the initials T. R. I. - the same initials as his own. In the local churchyard, Tim stumbles across Tom Inskip's gravestone, and begins to investigate his early death. But the deeper Tim delves into the past, the more Tom seems to come to life. Is he sending a message? Or is it a warning?

A Pattern Of Roses

In a cave on the wild side of St James's Park live two ragged children; young Nick and his nine-year-old sister Jubilee. Once they had a father, but now they are alone – and Nick knows it is his responsibility to find Jubilee a husband. But who would want to marry a girl who can neither cook nor sew, read nor write?

Blewcoat Boy

It had never seemed important during their boyhood that Simon Carey was for Parliament and his friend Amias Hannaford a royalist. But when Civil War breaks out, they find themselves fighting on different sides. 
 
Finally the day comes when the friends must put their friendship to the test.

Simon

J. P. Martin

Quentin Blake

Uncle is a millionaire elephant who has a B.A. and wears a purple dressing gown. He lives in a labyrinth of skyscrapers connected by water chutes, lifts and railways, and littered with oil lakes, walls of sweets and towers of treacle. He and his followers amuse themselves by exploring his home and falling into adventures with its inhabitants, a collection of lunatics, dwarfs and ghosts. Uncle also frequently fights with the inhabitants of neighbouring Badfort, among them the repulsive Jellytussles (a quivering blob) and the cowardly Hitmouse.

Uncle

On the night that Piggot’s Comet will appear over Brighton, the town plan to honour it with music and dancing. Harris, however, has other ideas. Being scientifically minded, he thinks only of observing the comet in detail. He persuades his good friend Bostock to part with his father’s telescope in exchange for the affections of Harris’s sister, Mary. Unfortunately, as Mary does not care for Bostock, Harris is forced to apply his powerful mind to the problems of courtship and love.

Bostock and Harris

'Him what's born on the chime . . . he's the one what'll have communications with the devil.' 
 
At the age of fourteen, 'chime-child' Peter Gannet is apprenticed to a locksmith in Covent Garden. But his desperate longing to escape from the insufferable adults around him and go to sea leads him into some dubious undertakings. Before long, the old ship's carpenter's dire prophecy comes true, for in the locksmith's workroom he meets a phantom with an empty sleeve. 
 
Tense and atmospheric, this is a gripping thriller about ghosts, a wall of hands, envy, dishonesty and finally murder!

The Empty Sleeve

Rosemary's Sutcliff's absorbing collection of stories cover the fall of Londinium to the building of Hadrian's Wall, and the final departure of the Romans from Britain. Set at the time of the Roman occupation of Britain, they follow the fortunes of one family over three hundred years. All soldiers, they are linked by the Capricorn bracelet, first worn by the centurion Lucius for distinguished conduct, then handed down through the generations.

The Capricorn Bracelet

A classic tale of adventure and bravery charting the transformation of Robert of Locksley into Robin Hood, the outlaw of myth and legend. 
 
Join Robin and his band of Merry Men as they battle injustice and seek to defeat the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham and Guy of Gisborne.

The Chronicles of Robin Hood

People come from all over the world to visit Marion’s village, and to see the beautiful fifteenth century church, adorned with exquisitely carved angels. Marion, always an outsider, almost feels she knows the angels; and when the church is threatened with demolition, she is desperate to save them.

Marion's Angels

Secrets whispered up a chimney, a golden locket with a broken chain, murder in the streets of London – and suddenly young Barnacle is plunged into a terrifying mystery. The December Rose is a thrilling tale of deceit, espionage and murder set in the teeming, colourful Victorian London.

The December Rose

Eleanor Farjeon

Tom Tiddler is going on a journey across London, with only a wise old owl and a really selfish and greedy goat for company. He is collecting and returning people's property so that they will, in turn, help him to rescue all the little girls in England from the gruesome giant Gogmagog, before he eats them! 
 
An enchanting, magical tale that will charm young and old alike.

The Tale of Tom Tiddler

Mr Corbett is a cruel employer and his young apprentice Benjamin can't help but wish he were dead. So when a strange old man offers to make this wish come true, Benjamin finds it impossible to refuse. Sure enough, Mr Corbett meets an untimely death, but the tables turn on the terrified apprentice who finds himself cursed with the ghost of the man he hated most in the world . . . 
 
A brilliant collection of three short stories from a master story-teller, who will keep you turning the pages until the very end.

Mr Corbett's Ghost

One stormy December night some time in the eighteenth century, a coach came thundering down the long hill outside of Dorking on its usual journey into London. But something unusual was to happen that night as one of the passengers unepectedly gave birth to a child. 
 
Not until he was eight did Sam Chichester discover that the coachman and guard he called 'Ma and 'Pa' were not his real parents. Sam will need to grow up, leave home, and find love before he will finally uncover the truth about his parentage.

The Sound of Coaches

Sylvia Waugh

From the outside, 5 Brocklehurst Grove looks like an ordinary house - the windows are always clean, and the garden well tended. And from the inside, to hear the voices of the inhabitants, the Mennym family, you would think they were a perfectly ordinary family, too. But you'd be wrong, for the Mennyms are far from ordinary. The whole family shares an astonishing secret behind which it's hidden for forty years; a secret to which nobody has ever come close - until perhaps, now. When a letter arrives from Australia, the whole family is plunged into fear that now, for the first time, their secret is about to be exposed . . . 
 
Sylvia Waugh's extraordinary debut novel about the Mennyms, a family of life-sized rag dolls, won the 1994 Guardian Children's Fiction Award.

The Mennyms

Jonathan doesn't like Robin, the English master at his boarding school. It's not his inability to control his classes that he dislikes, nor even his incompetence as a teacher - it's his complete indifference to the feelings of anyone but himself. 
 
Nevertheless, Jonathan is stunned when it's announced that Robin has been found dead - drowned in the river close to the school. The coroner rules that it was suicide, but Jonathan soon comes to have reasons for doubting this . . .

A Midsummer Night's Death

Ruth has outgrown her beloved pony, Fly. She needs to find a good home for Fly, and a new pony for herself. She knows the sad, shabby chestnut she sees at the local auction isn't right for her - but she's determined to make him hers.

The Team

Wandering minstrel, Martin Pippin, encounters a lovelorn ploughman who begs him to release his beloved by entertaining the six young women sworn to guard her. This Martin Pippin does - telling beautiful tales of heartbreak, betrayal and everlasting love. But will the imprisoned Gillian ever be freed? 
 
This delightful collection will be loved by adults and children alike - a perfect introduction to sophisticated fairy tales. 
 
'She is one of the few who can conceive and tell a fairytale . . . Before I had read five pages of Martin Pippin, I had forgotten who I was and where I lived. I was transported into a world of sunlight, of gay inconsequence, of emotional surprise, a world of poetry, delight and humour. And I lived and took my joy in that rare world, until all too soon my reading was done.' 
 
From J. D. Beresford's Foreword to the first American edition of 1922.

Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard

'When you take out the heart of gold, you must put something back in its place. Otherwise our princess would die.' 
 
Giorgio, a poor student, sets out on a journey to win the heart of Princess Charlotte of Oberweselberg. On the way an old woman promises he shall have the princess - but for a price. Giorgio must bring her the princess's golden heart. Can he do the wicked deed which will possess for him the fortune he desires?

Guilt and Gingerbread

A bargain of a lifetime - seven years off the end of his life in exchange for a fortune now! 
 
By day, Mr Fast was a solicitor’s clerk, drawing up strangle-tight agreements and contracts. By night he repaired to his rooms to spy upon his neighbours (for he had no friends) and to dream of being richer than other men. But when old Mr FIshbane offers him what he most desires in return for seven years off the end of his life, he could never imagine the little lost spectre that will come to haunt him . . . 
 
Another remarkable novel from Leon Garfield.

The Ghost Downstairs

This is the story of the twenty-six children of Zeal Monachorum who did not know their ABC, until one day Perkin the Pedlar came by. He told them a story and a verse for each letter of the alphabet, starting with Appledore and ending with their own Zeal Monarchorum. 
 
Eleanor Farjeon's unique gifts appear at their best in this enchanting alphabet book, where the little stories are in the enduring tradition of English folktale, and the verses pure, delightful poetry.

Perkin the Pedlar

Damaris Crocker had not lived her twelve years in smuggling country without knowing when a Run was planned. This night smugglers would bring more than just the usual contraband of brandy and lace. They would bring adventure, romance and danger in the form of a mysterious, wounded, young man . . . 
 
With over forty books to her credit, Rosemary Sutcliff is now universally acknowledged one of the finest writers of historical novels for children. Winner of the Carnegie Medal and many other honours, Rosemary was awarded the CBE in 1992 for services to children's literature.

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