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‘Never for me the lowered banner, never the last endeavour’ SIR ERNEST SHACKLETONAPRIL 1916:After his ship Endurance was crushed by Antarctic ice and now trapped on a small inhospitable island, cut off from all hope of help, with winter approaching, Sir Ernest Shackleton made the fateful decision to attempt a risky, almost foolhardy voyage across the wild Southern Ocean to South Georgia with five of his men. From there, he would attempt to trek over unmapped and treacherous glaciers to reach safety. Neither journey had ever been attempted before. Showing the courage and leadership which would become synonymous with his name, Shackleton prevailed, and returned to rescue the entire crew of his ill-fated ship. His feat was dubbed the greatest survival journey of all time.JANUARY 2013:Using the same equipment as Shackleton, eating the same food, sailing a replica of the small, keel-less boat, author, explorer and environmental scientist Tim Jarvis led a six-man crew in an attempt to recreate Shackleton’s epic journey for the first time. A veteran of Antarctica’s frozen wastes, Tim found himself facing his greatest challenge yet – a never ending struggle against conditions which fought him all the way.Shackleton’s Epic tells the stories of these two expeditions, separated by nearly one hundred years, but unified by the struggle to survive the timeless savagery of the Southern Hemisphere.

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In the tradition of Dava Sobel's ‘Longitude’ comes sailing expert David Barrie's compelling and dramatic tale of invention and discovery – an eloquent elegy to one of the most important navigational instruments ever created, and the daring mariners who used it to explore, conquer, and map the world.This book is an eloquent elegy to the sextant – the odd-looking instrument that changed the world. It tells the story of how and why the sextant was invented; how it saved the lives of many navigators in wild and dangerous seas—as well as its vital role in man’s attempts to map the world. Among the protagonists in this story are Captain James Cook, Matthew Flinders – the first man to circumnavigate Australia, the great French navigator, Laperouse, who built on Cook's work in the exploring the Pacific during the 1780s, but never made it home, Robert Fitz-Roy of the Beagle, George Vancouver, Frank Worsley of the Endurance, and Joshua Slocum, the redoubtable old ‘lunarian’ and first single-handed round-the-world yachtsman. Much of the book is set amidst the waves of the Pacific ocean as explorers searched for the great southern ocean, charted the coasts of Australia, New Zealand, California, Canada, Alaska as well as the Pacific islands. Their stories are interwoven with the author’s account of his own maiden voyage on Saecwen in 1973, and they are infused with his sense of wonder and dramatic discovery.A heady mix of adventure, science, mathematics and derring-do, Sextant is a timeless tale of sea-faring and exploration, a love letter to the sea which will appeal to the many thousands of readers who loved Dava Sobel’s Longitude as well as the work of Simon Winchester, Patrick O’Brian and Richard Holmes. This is narrative history and storytelling at its best.

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‘A must read’ Gillian FlynnOne night in December 1972, Jean McConville, a mother of ten, was abducted from her home in Belfast and never seen alive again. Her disappearance would haunt her orphaned children, the perpetrators of this terrible crime and a whole society in Northern Ireland for decades.In this powerful, scrupulously reported book, Patrick Radden Keefe offers not just a forensic account of a brutal crime but a vivid portrait of the world in which it happened. The tragedy of an entire country is captured in the spellbinding narrative of a handful of characters, presented in lyrical and unforgettable detail.A poem by Seamus Heaney inspires the title: ‘Whatever You Say, Say Nothing’. By defying the culture of silence, Keefe illuminates how a close-knit society fractured; how people chose sides in a conflict and turned to violence; and how, when the shooting stopped, some ex-combatants came to look back in horror at the atrocities they had committed, while others continue to advocate violence even today.Say Nothing deftly weaves the stories of Jean McConville and her family with those of Dolours Price, the first woman to join the IRA as a front-line soldier, who bombed the Old Bailey when barely out of her teens; Gerry Adams, who helped bring an end to the fighting, but denied his own IRA past; Brendan Hughes, a fearsome IRA commander who turned on Adams after the peace process and broke the IRA’s code of silence; and other indelible figures. By capturing the intrigue, the drama and the profound human cost of the Troubles, the book presents a searing chronicle of the lengths that people are willing to go to in pursuit of a political ideal, and the ways in which societies mend – or don’t – in the aftermath of a long and bloody conflict.

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‘The pampered, petulant, self-pitying Prince. A devastating book by Britain’s top investigative author’ Daily Mail‘Explosive new book delves inside the bizarre, ultra luxury world of Prince Charles’ The SunBest-selling author Tom Bower reveals the power, passion and defiance of Prince Charles.Few heirs to the throne have suffered as much humiliation as Prince Charles. Despite his hard work and genuine concern for the disadvantaged, he has struggled to overcome his unpopularity. After Diana’s death, his approval rating crashed to 4% and has been only rescued by his marriage to Camilla. Nevertheless, just one third of Britons now support him to be the next king.Many still fear that his accession to the throne will cause a constitutional crisis. That mistrust climaxed in the aftermath of the trial of Paul Burrell, Diana’s butler, acquitted after the Queen’s sensational ‘recollection’. In unearthing many secrets surrounding that and many other dramas, Bower’s book, relying on the testimony from over 120 people employed or welcomed into the inner sanctum of Clarence House, reveals a royal household rife with intrigue and misconduct. The result is a book which uniquely will probe into the character and court of the Charles that no one, until now, has seen.

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A tense and layered true-crime story about an all-American soldier boy turned bank robberAlex Blum was a clean-cut all-American kid with one unshakeable goal in life: to serve his country in the military. He was accepted into the elite Rangers regiment, but on the first day of his leave before deployment to Iraq, Alex got into his car with two fellow soldiers and two strangers, drove to a local bank in Tacoma, and committed armed robbery.The Blum family was devastated and mystified. How could he have done such a thing?Alex’s attorney presented a defence based on the theory that trainee Rangers are indoctrinated on a level akin to the brainwashing in an extreme religious cult, and Alex insisted that he had believed the robbery was just another exercise in the famously daunting Ranger program. But Luke Elliot Sommer, the charismatic soldier behind the robbery, maintained that Alex knew exactly what he was doing, and had, in fact, planned it all with him.Who was lying? What had happened to Alex during those gruelling months of training? How accountable was he?

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‘When I am disturbed, even angry, gardening has been a therapy. When I don't want to talk I turn to Plot 29, or to a wilder piece of land by a northern sea. There, among seeds and trees, my breathing slows; my heart rate too. My anxieties slip away.’As a young boy in 1960s Plymouth, Allan Jenkins and his brother, Christopher, were rescued from their care home and fostered by an elderly couple. There, the brothers started to grow flowers in their riverside cottage. They found a new life with their new mum and dad.As Allan grew older, his foster parents were never quite able to provide the family he and his brother needed, but the solace he found in tending a small London allotment echoed the childhood moments when he grew nasturtiums from seed.Over the course of a year, Allan digs deeper into his past, seeking to learn more about his absent parents. Examining the truths and untruths that he’d been told, he discovers the secrets to why the two boys were in care. What emerges is a vivid portrait of the violence and neglect that lay at the heart of his family.A beautifully written, haunting memoir, Plot 29 is a mystery story and meditation on nature and nurture. It’s also a celebration of the joy to be found in sharing food and flowers with people you love.

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It’s Belfast, 1975. The city lies under the dark cloud of the Troubles, and hatred fills the air like smoke. But Tony Macaulay has just turned twelve and he’s got a new job. He’s going to be a paperboy. And come rain or shine – or bombs and mortar – he will deliver…Paperboy lives in Upper Shankill, Belfast, in the heart of the conflict between Loyalists and Republicans. Bombings are on the evening news, rubble lies where buildings once stood, and rumours spread like wildfire about the IRA and the UDA.But Paperboy lives in a world of Doctor Who, Top of the Pops and fish suppers. His battles are fought with all the passion of Ireland’s opposing sides – but against acne, the dentist and the ‘wee hoods’ who rob his paper money. On his rounds he hums songs by the Bay City Rollers, dreams about outer space and dreams even more about the beautiful Sharon Burgess.In this touching, funny and nostalgic memoir, Tony Macaulay recounts his days growing up in Belfast during the Troubles, the harrowing years which saw neighbour fighting neighbour and brother fighting brother. But in the midst of all this turmoil, Paperboy, a scrappy upstart with a wicked sense of humour and sky-high dreams, dutifully goes about his paper round. He is a good paperboy, so he is.Paperboy proves that happiness can be found even in the darkest of times; it is a story that will charm your socks off, make you laugh out loud and brings to life the culture, stories and colourful characters of a very different – but very familiar – time.

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Lena Dunham, acclaimed writer-director-star of HBO and Sky Atlantic’s ‘Girls’ and the award-winning movie ‘Tiny Furniture’, displays her unique powers of observation, wisdom and humour in this exceptional collection of essays.“If I could take what I’ve learned and make one menial job easier for you, or prevent you from having the kind of sex where you feel you must keep your sneakers on in case you want to run away during the act, then every misstep of mine was worthwhile. I’m already predicting my future shame at thinking I had anything to offer you, but also my future glory in having stopped you from trying an expensive juice cleanse or thinking that it was your fault when the person you are dating suddenly backs away, intimidated by the clarity of your personal mission here on earth. No, I am not a sexpert, a psychologist, or a dietician. I am not a mother of three or the owner of a successful hosiery franchise. But I am a girl with a keen interest in having it all, and what follows are hopeful dispatches from the frontlines of that struggle.”

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Casey’s Unit is, as ever, full of troubled, disaffected pupils, and new arrival Leo is something of a conundrum.Thirteen year old Leo isn’t a bad lad – in fact, he’s generally polite and helpful, but he’s in danger of permanent exclusion for repeatedly absconding and unauthorised absences. Despite letters being sent home regularly, his mother never turns up for any appointments, and when the school calls home she always seems to have an excuse.Though Casey has her hands full, she offers to intervene for a while, to try get Leo engaged in learning again and remaining in school. The head’s sceptical though and warns her that this is Leo’s very last chance. But Casey’s determined, because there’s something about Leo that makes her want to fight his corner, and get to the bottom of whatever it is that compels this enigmatic boy to keep running away. With Leo so resolutely tight-lipped and secretive, Casey knows that if she’s going to keep this child in education, she’s going to have to get to the bottom of it herself…

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The fifth book from bestselling author and specialist foster carer Casey Watson.A recent census shows that there are at least 175,000 child carers in the UK, 13,000 of whom care for more than 50 hours a week. Many remain invisible to a system that would otherwise help them. Abigail is one of those children. This is her story.Ten-year-old Abigail has never known her father. Her mother, Sarah, has multiple sclerosis, and Abigail has been her carer since she was a toddler – shopping, cooking, cleaning and attending to her personal needs. When Sarah is rushed to hospital, suddenly this comes to the attention of the social services, and Abigail has nowhere to go.Though she doesn’t fit the usual profile of a child that specialist foster carers Casey and Mike Watson would take on, they are happy to step in and look after Abigail. It’s an emergency, after all – and all that’s needed is a loving temporary home, while social services look into how to support the family so that they can be reunited.But it soon becomes clear that this isn’t going to happen. Sarah’s MS is now at a very advanced stage, and the doctors are certain that there will no longer be periods of remission. Abigail’s emotional state starts to spiral out of control as she struggles to let go of the burden of responsibilities she has carried for so long.Sarah and Abigail insist that they do not need help, but with no other family to contact, social services are left with no choice but to find long-term care for Abigail, against their wishes. But Casey never gives up on a child in need, and she knows there must be another solution…Includes a sample chapter of Sunday Times bestseller Trafficked.

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