As the child of an absent mother and a disapproving father, Charles Cleasby found comfort in solitary games of chess. Many years later, in the house where he grew up and now lives alone, he re-enacts the naval battles of his hero Horatio Nelson, moving model ships as carefully as he once did chess pieces.  Meer

As Simon Raikes immerses himself in the painstaking task of cleaning and repairing, he is inexorably drawn to the stories of violence and lust which have surrounded this stone virgin.  Meer

A story about the entangled and conflicted fortunes of two cousins: Erasmus Kemp, the son of a Lancashire merchant, and Matthew Paris, a scholar and surgeon just released from prison for denying Holy Writ.  Meer

1914, and an English archaeologist called Somerville is fulfilling a lifelong dream: to direct an excavation in the desert of Mesopotamia. And Somerville, whose intention is purely to discover and preserve the land's ancient treasures finds his idealism sorely tested.  Meer

When he receives a tip about some mines for sale in East Durham, Kemp sees the business opportunity he has been waiting for, and he too makes his way...  Meer