Troubador Publishing strana 2 z 16

Unlock a New Way to See the World. Sense there''s more to travel than meets the eye? Connection: A Travel Guide is your passport to the hidden layers and human stories in every destination – including your own home. Social anthropologist Dr Jonathan Newman shares 12 key pathways to connect with the lives of others and gain a deeper understanding of different points of view.Why do tourists visit ancient cities? Are military arms fairs better holiday destinations? What’s the relationship between a traveller and their luggage? Are people strange because of their hats? Can dogs teach humans to smell the world? Who drinks in bad pubs?This unique guidebook suggests hundreds of places to visit, which are rarely revealed by other travel books, and offers over 200 insightful questions to improve your conversations around the globe. Each short chapter shares new insights and practical steps to make your next trip an adventure. Embrace a form of travel that transforms your understanding of the world and your place within it. Connection: A Travel Guide invites you on a journey of profound discovery, one unexpected encounter at a time. For life’s explorers, it’s the perfect ticket.

An ancient treasure, the Mercurial Mask, has been stolen from the British Museum. Richard Templar is charged with recovering the stolen mask. His mission is to reunite Margaritta Bonaparte with her elusive husband, the infamous thief, Jean Petize, who in return will reveal the whereabouts of the Mercurial Mask. From a Greek island prison to the deserts of Egypt, Richard faces rogues, mercenaries and madmen. On his quest, he is accompanied by Tannie Annie, an ex-soldier, Lans, the Australian barman, and Geoff, an ex-intelligence officer, as well as Jean and his wife Margaritta. With these unlikely allies at his side, he battles towards a final explosive confrontation with General Pretorious on the South Downs of Southern England.

In early medieval Poland, Iwa has never known life beyond the forest. She is part of the Bison Grass Clan, a group of hunter gatherers who follow the herds through the forest. Yet there is something in her blood that sets her apart. Her mother was not of the clan – a woman who was born in the far-off lands of the Polish lords that lie beyond the forest. She died giving birth to Iwa and there have always been rumours surrounding her birth, of strange magic and pacts with the dark forces of the world. When warriors from the Polish lands invade, seeking to carve a kingdom in the forest, Iwa’s world collapses. But their ambition awakens something ancient – an old power that should have remained buried. Shadows lengthen, the dead stir, and a banished sorcerer calls from beyond the veil. To save the forest – and herself – Iwa must confront the truth of her lineage and the dark legacy it carries. Between the fall of the old world and the birth of the new, she must decide what she will become: protector, destroyer... or the spark that consumes everything.

When two mirror-souls recognise their other half, the forces of attraction are so uncompromising, they are powerless to be apart. The soul reunion is ignited; there is no going back. It’s the hot summer of 2004 and the Dorset countryside is in full show-off mode. For strangers Katherine and Seacombe, it’s the beginning of their new lives when they inadvertently touch hands for the first time – delivering an electric shock so powerful it has them re-coiling in bewilderment. Now re-connected, the intense desire to be together and discover more is overwhelming. Through innocently pursuing the ultimate love, the couple’s clandestine relationship sails on choppy waters. Incredible azure blue highs of entwinement, delirious passionate love, unfiltered joy emanating from the depths of soul, empowerment and absolute peace. But, there are dramatic leaden grey lows; battles to be fought, people to convince, stigmas to transcend, a marriage to unwind and... a disease to fight. What would be the outcome for their bond?

At that moment, I wished I could be someone else. Someone who wasn’t scared to be touched by desire and feel the flames of passion burning through her. Bound by her past, Harper, a romance author, hides in the novel she now struggles to write. However, when a non-negotiable ultimatum brings Reid into her life, it changes everything. Not only is he a successful author, he’s also the ultimate alpha male. With an impenetrably dark demeanour, he appears emotionally detached... an enigma. Whilst embarking on a research venture of a more intimate nature, the pair become close and soon the line between fantasy and reality becomes blurred. They break the rules, and when unexpected feelings develop, Harper becomes the greatest weakness he never saw coming. Reid knows the secret he hides will break her all over again. As Harper struggles to let go of her past, Reid is forced to confront his. When past becomes present, they discover their meeting, their journey, their future, is part of a more entwined masterpiece. But when the time comes to make the ultimate sacrifice for love, can he really let her go?

In 2019 Melvyn Bragg, in a Sunday Times interview with Bryan Appleyard, described being at a family christening when the priest asked everyone to join in the Lord’s Prayer. Bragg realised he was the only one who knew the words. “We have lost it Bryan, in two generations“ said Bragg, “not just the faith but the narratives that go with it” As the son of a clergyman who grew up in rural north Suffolk in the 1950s Andrew Hayward realised that Bragg spoke the truth. Indeed, the church attendance figures prove it. This book is not just about the loss of faith but what then happened to society in its absence. How it affected education, culture and indeed life itself. The age of deference was dead. The author took four years to write this book and happily, as a Christian, post covid has seen numerous signs of revival. Long may that continue.

Dinky is a small brown mouse with big ears and a long tail. This series of books tell you of his life from the beginning and all the adventures he encounters along the way. In Dinky’s Tales : A Wedding Celebration the toy animals are first separated but are soon reunited and then are involved with the excitement of a wedding party. Most of the animals are in these stories are friendly, but you are always going to get a baddie. In these books the baddie is a rat called Gary along with his naughty rat friends. Dinky’s Tales are a series of books that carry on from one book to another, making sure to leave the last page on a cliffhanger. Children will want to read the next one to find out what happens next. The books are written in the classic style in which storybooks used to be written.

Three Women, a Rabbi and a Musician From Bohemia explores the lives of members of a Jewish family who lived in rural Bohemia for over two hundred years, from early in the 18th century. It follows:Three incredibly strong women forced to bring up their families on their own following the early deaths of their husbands. The rabbi who, after living in Vienna, moved back to Bohemia, helping other family members on the way. The musician who survived being bayoneted in Serbia in World War One, and then moved to Berlin where he fell in love with a ballerina. The threat of the Nazi invasion also led to some fascinating stories of escape, survival and renewal in new countries, especially for the author’s parents and his older siblings. One cousin journeyed East through Russia to Shanghai and another arrived in Palestine as a teenager, eventually becoming an expert in cultivating bananas.

This novel is inspired by a true story. London, 1881, and another party of child migrants sets sail for Canada, leaving behind all they know in search of a new life. Taken from the slums and workhouses of Britain, they are set to work as labourers and servants, building a nation in a foreign land. Among them is Mary Oliver, desperate to fulfil a promise she made to her dying father; Arthur Dilkes, to whom emigration is just another adventure; Sam Barney, who longs for a new family to replace the one he has lost; Margaret Walsh, who cannot forget the father she has left behind; and Lily, who does not even have a surname to call her own. All are unprepared for the prejudice and hostility they will face, and the obstacles they must overcome. All struggle to escape their pasts. Presiding over them and countless others is Alice Hamilton, obsessed with making her mark in a man’s world, whose mission to ‘save’ these children is called into question by a series of tragic events. A story of heartbreak and courage, Songs of Expectation shines a light on a shameful chapter in British history.

The Oura people once lived in harmony with the Forest, guided by the Oracle – the keeper of ancient wisdom. But now the Forest is dying, its magic fading under unseen, corrosive forces. Poppy and her family are the only Oura people left in the Forest, and Poppy has grown up never knowing that the Oura ancient knowledge existed. Then a near-fatal fall awakens a spark of that ancient power within her. As she heals, she discovers a gift for intuition and a courage she never knew she had. When she finds a lost Oura boy and takes him under her wing, hope blooms – the Oura people may still survive, and the Forest’s magic may yet be restored. Set in an endangered forest and filled with danger, mystery, and the timeless pull of nature’s wonders, The Lost Art of the Oracle is about finding your voice, trusting your instincts, and protecting the things worth saving. It is, above all, a call to cherish our natural world.

Life can feel like wading through porridge. We are all struggling with something. Now more than ever, we all need encouragement and are desperate to get help, inspiration, and more goosebump moments from wherever we can find them. With red, amber and green signals for when to stop, get ready and go on your goosebump journey, ‘Go for Goosebumps!’ is a book to dip into when we need encouragement to help us through our struggles. Self-soothing practical suggestions, words of encouragement, a different perspective, all drawn from the frontlines of my company’s work in health, justice, policing, security, and international development. Work tackling some of the most complex modern-day issues such as terrorism, corruption, addiction, and medical forensics, often in the world’s trouble spots. With encouragement to help us through our everyday ‘meh’ moments through to the darkest seasons of our life, this is the practical and uplifting companion we all need as we journey in our quest for more joy, meaning and goosebump moments. This is the encouragement we need to navigate a good way forward, even in hard times, one encouragement at a time.

Gamogamy: Where Love Meets Identity is a groundbreaking new book that changes the way we understand love, intimacy, and connection. In a world that divides us into “monogamous” or “polyamorous,” Gamogamy offers something radically different: a model based on orientation, not behaviour. It introduces a powerful new vocabulary… monogamous, ambigamous, and multigamous, to help individuals make sense of their inner relational wiring, regardless of how they currently live or love. Whether you’ve struggled to feel at home in monogamy, found yourself thriving in open dynamics, or felt torn between loyalty and longing, Gamogamy helps explain why. It unpacks the difference between instinct and identity, behaviour and structure, and offers a compassionate lens for people whose needs don’t fit traditional moulds. With vivid examples, clear definitions, and thought-provoking insights, this book is both a personal revelation and a cultural challenge. It’s not about how to do relationships, it’s about how to understand yourself within them. Perfect for those in therapy, questioning long-term partnerships, or simply curious about how human connection really works, Gamogamy is a timely and transformative guide for anyone ready to step beyond inherited scripts and claim a relationship model that truly fits.

Roman Britain. Midsummer AD 371. Two years have passed since the traumatic invasions of the Barbarica Conspiratio were finally suppressed. But in a Britannia still suffering sporadic raids by barbarians from beyond the frontiers there is said to exist a scroll listing the names of influential men – and women – plotting to secede from the Empire and use the taxes saved to boost the island’s defences. And where: Claudius Caninus (Canio) has unwisely disclosed that he dreamt he is the grandson of the long-dead usurper emperor Allectus, although he is still unsure whether he actually believes the dream. Aelia Aureliana is the owner of one of the finest villas in the province, a worshipper of the sun god Helios/Sol, and mysteriously certain that Canio really is Allectus’s grandson – but will not tell him why. Tribunus Maximus, an army officer, suspects that Aelia knows the location of the scroll and is blackmailing Canio to find it for him. But to do so Canio must get close to Aelia, and the closer he gets the more he falls under the spell of both the woman and her ambitions.

It’s another exciting day for the friends Pal, the border collie, and the piglets Pickle and Patsy. The newcomers have now happily settled into their new home in Harmony Haven, a secret place on the Isle of Wight. For today the friends will attend the serious ‘Ceremony of Vows’ where they, in front of everyone, will promise to be kind and caring to all of the members of this happy community. In charge of this ceremony is their loving guardian Oliver Gruffle with his amazing alien special powers. But with him is Obie Owl, the ‘Keeper of the Vows’, who is a very rude owl indeed. But will the ceremony be serious when Obie turns up with a fan of peacock feathers attached to his rear end. Further mayhem occurs when the magical cat Ben McRadich arrives, declaring himself to be a hero. He has captured the wanted mole and wants to claim the reward for this. But the real hero of this adventure is Hercules, the little robot boy, who is the one who captured the mole. Arriving on a cannon, if Ben does not tell the truth he intends to fire him into the air. But will Oliver Gruffle allow thi? ater, the friends meet Peter Pixie, who also has a reputation for being mischievous. Oliver decides to take the four friends on an adventure to the sorting office, where letters go before being sent to Father Christmas. Will Oliver regret this decision? He just might!

Christian Ward is CEO of the most successful software company on the planet. Enjoying a life full of wealth, indulgence and unashamed entitlement. But he has a problem. The establishment wants a favour and now he is being blackmailed. And Lucas Fox, a gifted hacker, is on the run with a life-or-death mission to stop Oedipus, before it is too late. Cue panic in London and in Langley, Virginia, and then a desperate chase to protect a conspiracy that goes to the very heart of the government and the security services. Plus a subterfuge so breathtaking that it threatens to change the world for ever. And for Lucas Fox, a chance to uncover a secret kept hidden for over 20 years. Who is trying to kill Lucas Fox, what do they want, and crucially, who or what is Oedipu? he Oedipus Cage combines the classic English murder mystery with the murky world of politics and international espionage.

“Really beautiful and vivid detailing in the storytelling.” – Chris Gribble, Former Head of The National Centre for WritingLondon, 2002. When Almir, a twenty-one-year-old Kosovan ex-boy soldier, is relocated to London with a new identity, flashbacks undermine his ability to keep his job as a street sweeper. Then he meets Roland, a forty-year-old British Jamaican, a Council surveyor trying to escape his Pentecostal upbringing, and failed relationship with Shirl with whom he has a fifteen-year-old son. Roland and Almir become closer as Roland offers first friendship, then sex, yet Almir remains secretive about his past, and struggles to identify as gay, forcing Roland to question their relationship. And who is Muzzafer, the name Almir repeatedly shouts out during frequent nightmares? As tension builds, Almir confronts his involvement in a war atrocity, which threatens to destabilise his sanity and his new UK life. But, against all these powerful obstacles, Almir and Roland’s love for each other continues to grow. Is it strong enough to last?