The first comprehensively researched biography of Queen Victoria ever, by one of Britain's best biographers. This magnificent biography sheds new light on Victoria not just as a queen, but as a woman.

For more than six decades, Queen Victoria ruled a great Empire at the height of its power. Beside her for more than twenty of those years was the love of her life, her trusted husband and father of their nine children, Prince Albert. But while Victoria is seen as the embodiment of her time, it was Prince Albert, A. N. Wilson expertly argues, who was at the vanguard of Victorian Britain’s transformation as a vibrant and extraordinary centre of political, technological, scientific and intellectual advancement. A composer, engineer, soldier, politician, linguist and bibliophile, Prince Albert, more than any other royal, was truly a ‘genius’.

When a moment changes everything, how do you live the rest of your life? 1940s Colorado: Teenage Victoria Nash is the sole surviving woman in a family of troubled men. She spends her days running the household on her family's peach farm. Wilson Moon is a young drifter with a mysterious past. Displaced from his tribal land, he wants to believe one place is just like another. When Victoria and Wil meet on a street corner, their unexpected connection ignites both passion and danger, revelations and secrets. But when tragedy strikes, Victoria is propelled away from the only home she has ever known and towards a reckoning with loss, hope, and her own untapped strength. Gathering all the pieces of her small and extraordinary existence, she will arrive at a single rocky decision that will change her life for ever. Go as a River is a heart-wrenching coming-of-age story and a drama of enthralling power.

In this original and vibrant examination of the life and times of Queen Elizabeth II, biographer and novelist A.N. Wilson paints a vivid portrait of ‘Lilibet’ the woman, and of her reign. He also considers the history of the monarchy, drawing a line that stretches from Queen Victoria to the bloody history of Europe in the twentieth century, examining how and why the Royal Family has survived. In part historical overview, but with a keen eye to the future, Wilson writes with his signature warmth, intelligence and humour, celebrating the life of the Queen and her role as figurehead of Britain and the Commonwealth.

On The Island, just as on many other islands, marriages are unhappy, people fall in love and the seasons pass. The town of Aberdeen is no different, until the earthquakes. These seismic ripples tear down houses, forge bonds, and shake the foundations of humanity and religion. And in the midst of it all, Nellie and Ingrid fall in love. In Aftershocks A. N. Wilson offers a portrait of nature, death and morality. Moved by the real losses of the Christchurch earthquake, this is an extraordinary novel about a community profoundly linked to the land it lives on.

A. N. Wilson's powerful new novel explores the life and times of one of the greatest British explorers, Captain Cook, and the golden age of Britain's period of expansion and exploration. Wilson's protagonist, witness to Cook's brilliance and wisdom, is George Forster, who travelled with Cook as botanist on board the HMS Resolution, on Cook's second expedition to the southern hemisphere, and penned a famous account of the journey. Resolution moves back and forth across time, to depict Forster's time with Cook, and his extraordinary later life, which ended with his death in Paris, during the French Revolution. Wilson once again demonstrates his great powers as a master craftsman of the historical and the human in this richly evoked novel, which brings to life the real and the extraordinary, brilliantly drawing together a remarkable cast of characters in order to look at human endeavour, ingenuity and valour.

Henry VIII changed the course of English life more completely than any monarch since the Conquest. In the portraits of Holbein, Henry Tudor stands proud as one of the most powerful figures in renaissance Europe. But is the portrait just a bluff? In his new book Derek Wilson explores the myths behind the image of the Tudor Lion. He was the monarch that delivered the Reformation to England yet Luther called him 'A fool, a liar and a damnable rotten worm'. As a young man he gained a reputation as an intellectual and fair prince yet he ruled the nation like a tyrant. He treated his subjects as cruelly as he treated his wives. Based on a wealth of new material and a life time's knowledge of the subject Derek Wilson exposes a new portrait of a much misunderstood King. PRAISE FOR DEREK WILSON'S PREVIOUS WORKS: The Uncrowned Kings of England: 'Stimulating and authorative.' John Guy 'Masterly. [Wilson] has a deep understanding of...characters, reaching out accross the centuries.' Sunday Times Hans Holbein: Portrait of an Unknown Man: 'Fascinating.' Sarah Bradford, Daily Telegraph' Highly readable...The most accurate and vivid portrayal to date.' Alison Weir

Philosopher, dramatist, rhetorician, Stoic and pragmatist, Seneca was one of the most contradictory figures in ancient Rome, embracing a stern ascetic morality while amassing a fortune under Nero and eventually committing suicide. This definitive biography reveals a life lived perilously in the gap between ideals and reality.

When a Life is Destroyed by Tragedy, Can Love Win Through? On the very day Helen Wilson plans to choose her wedding dress, a devastating car accident takes the three people she loves most cruelly away from her and changes her life forever. Grieving and heartbroken, she moves to Flatners, a cottage overlooking the Bristol Channel, to start a new life and leave the pain of the past behind. Gradually settling into a new existence, she makes new friends and immerses herself in local life - and slowly becomes aware of the complex feelings she is developing for Harry Vallender, the previous owner of Flatners...

People, not abstract ideas, make history, and nowhere is this more revealed than in A. N. Wilson's superb portrait of the Victorians, in which hundreds of different lives have been pieced together to tell a story - one which is still unfinished in our own day. The 'global village' is a Victorian village and many of the ideas we take for granted, for good or ill, originated with these extraordinary, self-confident people. What really animated their spirit, and how did they remake the world in their view? In an entertaining and often dramatic narrative, A. N. Wilson shows us remarkable people in the very act of creating the Victorian age.

Who was Queen Victoria? A little old lady, potato-like in appearance, dressed in everlasting black? She was also a passionate young princess who loved dancing. And there is also a third Victoria, the brilliant queen, one who invented a new role for the monarchy. Victoria found a way of ruling when people were deeply uncomfortable with having a woman on the throne. Her image as a conventional daughter, wife and widow concealed the reality of a talented, instinctive politician. Her actions, if not her words, reveal that she was tearing up the rules on how to be female. But the price of this was deep personal pain. By looking in detail at twenty-four days of her life, through diaries, letters and more, we meet Queen Victoria up-close and personal. Living with her from hour to hour, we can see and celebrate the contradictions that make up British history's most recognisable woman.

A new Christmas classic from a magical pairing: Dame Emma Thompson and Axel Scheffler. The story of Jim: a very lucky, very special, very grubby dog, who lives, improbably, in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Emma Thompson magically weaves the real-life tale of Jim - beloved dog of Sir Henry Cole who created the first Christmas card - with a fantastically warm and heartfelt Christmas romp, brilliantly illustrated by bestselling illustrator, Axel Scheffler. A Christmas book to treasure, and an adventure filled with high emotion, guilt, redemption, unexpected presents and a life-changing brush with royalty.

'Watch out, world. Here I come!' For Victoria Dawson, growing up isn't a happy experience. Born to picture-perfect parents, she never feels pretty enough to meet their expectations. But when her parents have a second child, Victoria is thrilled - she can't help but adore her new baby sister Gracie. And since Gracie is the image of them, her parents finally have the perfect daughter they always wanted. Meanwhile Victoria still never seems to get it quite right - she battles with her weight, she's told she'll never find a man if she's too clever, and the one career she feels passionate about her parents don't approve of. And so Victoria decides to move to New York to fulfil her dreams and escape her family. Though her new life is exciting, the old temptations remain, and she continues to wage war with the scales. Victoria struggles to find a life far from the hurt and neglect of her childhood, the damage created by her parents, the courage to find freedom, and become who she really is at last.

'Watch out, world. Here I come!' For Victoria Dawson, growing up isn't a happy experience. Born to picture-perfect parents, she never feels pretty enough. But when her parents have a second child, Victoria is thrilled - she can't help but adore her new baby sister Gracie. And her parents finally have the perfect daughter they always wanted. Meanwhile Victoria still never seems to get it quite right - she battles with her weight, she's told she'll never find a man if she's too clever, and the one career she feels passionate about her parents don't approve of. And so Victoria decides to move to New York to fulfil her dreams and escape her family. Though her new life is exciting, the old temptations remain, and she continues to wage war with the scales. Can Victoria find a life far from the hurt and neglect of her childhood, embrace the courage to find freedom, and become who she really is at last? An inspiring and uplifting novel from the incomparable storyteller Danielle Steel

Claire Wilcox has been a curator of fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum for most of her working life. In Patch Work, she turns her curator's eye to the fabric of life itself, tugging at the threads of memory: a cardigan worn by a child, a tin button box, the draping of a curtain, a pair of cycling shorts, a roll of lace, a pin hidden in a seam. Through these intimate and compelling close-ups, we see how the stories and the secrets of clothes measure out the passage of time, our gains and losses, and the way we use them to unravel and write our histories.

An office of dead government agents. A gifted new killer. Two ex-Captain Americas...When a dramatic attempt on the life of Bucky Barnes reunites him with Sam Wilson, the two old friends are plunged headlong into a race to uncover the new leader of Hydra before a mass casualty event announces the terror group's resurgence to the world. The clock is ticking...COLLECTING: FALCON & WINTER SOLDIER (2020) 1-5