Akbar, the emperor of Agra, cannot find the proper servants to serve him and turns to his dear friend, Birbal, the wise minister, for advice and help in times of trouble and despair.
The Foolish Men Of Agra
17th century
The Brothers Story
Teenage twins Kit and Christy have grown up amid grinding poverty in their Essex village. As Christy has been “simple” from birth, Kit is literally his brother’s keeper. But the latest hardships visited upon their country home by the Great Frost of 1683–84 bring Kit to frustration and despair, and he abandons Christy to make his way to London, seeking to better himself. There he finds work as an apprentice to a struggling artist and tries to take his mind off what he has left behind. But the time comes when he can no longer ignore the problem of his brother. A fascinating portrait of a young person struggling to balance family and freedom, The Brothers Story is also a frank depiction of Restoration London in its bawdy, raucous glory.
A True And Faithful Narrative
In Restoration London, sixteen-year-old Meg Moore spends long hours conversing with the famous authors and poets who visit her father’s bookstore, and even writes her own stories. Without warning, however, Meg comes to learn exactly how powerful words can be. The day her best friend’s brother Edward sets sail for Italy, Meg scoffs at his attempts at romance by answering him with a thoughtless jest. Soon news travels to London that
Edward’s ship has been captured and he has been sold as a slave in North Africa – and Meg cannot shake the thought that her cruel words are the cause. Now Meg must use her fiery language to bring Edward home, imploring her fellow Londoners to give all that they can to buy Edward’s freedom. But once Meg learns to direct the power behind her words, will she be able to undo the damage she has caused, and write freely the stories that she longs to put to paper? This sequel to At the Sign of the Star continues Meg’s story.
Half Child
In seventeenth-century Yorkshire, Lucy’s younger sister Sarah is suspected by many to be a changeling, a fairy child substituted by the fairies for a human child.
My Swordhand is Singing
WHEN TOMAS AND HIS SON, Peter, settle in Chust as woodcutters, Tomas digs a channel of fast-flowing waters around their hut, so they have their own little island kingdom. Peter doesn’t understand why his father has done this, nor why his father carries a long, battered box, whose mysterious contents he is forbidden to know. But Tomas is a man with a past: a past that is tracking him with deadly intent, and when the dead of Chust begin to rise from their graves, both father and son must face a soulless enemy and a terrifying destiny.
A Tale of Tulips, A Tale of Onions
Amid the tulipomania craze in seventeenth-century Holland, gardener Ed Vard Grooter’s love of tulips and sea captain Drooter Van Zooter’s love of onions almost bring them to blows.