Initially, in a small kingdom ruled by King Alexander, there was a fierce lion named Asher who lived in the jungle. King Alexander was known for his hunting skills and decided to track down Asher to add him to his collection of trophies. After a long hunt, King Alexander finally found Asher and took aim with his bow and arrow. However, he missed his shot, and Asher retaliated by jumping on King Alexander,

79 AD. As he approaches the end of his life, Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus, the native-born but loyally pro-Roman client king of Britain, looks back on the thirty-six years of his reign. He recalls how, as a young man, he was seduced by the grandeur of Rome and the beauty of the written word; how he was befriended by the Emperor Claudius, and by the Roman General, Vespasian, later to rule as Emperor himself. He remembers the difficulties he encountered whilst trying to mediate between the British aristocracy and Roman officials who were often cruel and frequently corrupt. Most significantly he reflects on the Boudiccan revolt of 60/61 AD, which he tried to prevent, and in the course of which Britain was almost lost to Rome. Roman Britain. One man. His fate.

In a faraway land, Jeremiah Abadon assesses his charisma, charm, and wealth as he travels with his forty-two wives, countless children, an Indian princess, African slaves, horses, and several furry mutts in order to find a new place to live. After they finally discover the hidden valley of Achoo and settle in the mountains above, fifteen generations of Abadons grow wealthier while the villagers below toil away. When the people of Achoo suddenly lose their king, they decide to hold a contest to choose a new ruler. After numerous villagers compete and are eliminated one-by-one, the contest finally comes down to a rich yet unqualified candidate obsessed with winning and making Achoo great again, and a wiry and active woman who cares deeply about everyone in the village. As homing pigeons deliver bird-mail across the valley, the villagers must now discern who is best for the job as one of the candidates does whatever it takesincluding stealingto become the king. In this tale that shares a humorous take on recent events, a wealthy man obsessed with winning the role of king of a hidden valley is driven by his ego as he attempts to take down his female competitor.

Filled with the bestselling, award-winning author's trademark wordplay and inventive storytelling, here is the dizzyingly entertaining, wickedly humorous story of a mysterious stranger whose sudden appearance during a family’s summer holiday transforms four variously unhappy people. Each of the Smarts—parents Eve and Michael, son Magnus, and the youngest, daughter Astrid—encounter Amber in his or her own solipsistic way, but somehow her presence allows them to see their lives (and their life together) in a new light. Smith’s narrative freedom and exhilarating facility with language propel the novel to its startling, wonderfully enigmatic conclusion.

Although Canadian history has no shortage of stories about disasters and accidents, the phenomena of risk, upset, and misfortune have been largely overlooked by historians. Disasters get their due, but not so the smaller-scale accident where fate is more intimate. Yet such events often have a vivid afterlife in the communities where they happen, and the way in which they are explained and remembered has significant social, cultural, and political meaning. An Accidental History of Canada brings together original studies of an intriguing range of accidents stretching from the 1630s to the 1970s. These include workplace, domestic, childhood, and leisure accidents in colonial, Indigenous, rural, and urban settings. Whether arising from colonial power relations, urban dangers, perils in resource extraction, or hazardous recreations, most accidents occur within circumstances of vulnerability, and reveal precarity and inequities not otherwise apparent. Contributors to this volume are alert to the intersections of the settler agenda and the elevation of risk that it brings. Indigenous and settler ways of understanding accidents are juxtaposed, with chapters exploring the links between accidents and the rise of the modern state. An Accidental History of Canada makes plain that whether they are interpreted as an intervention by providence, a miscalculation, an inevitability, or the result of observable risk, accidents – and our responses to them – reveal shared values.

A monumentally devastating plague leaves only a few survivors who, while experiencing dreams of a battle between good and evil, move toward an actual confrontation as they migrate to Boulder, Colorado.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award “Impeccably researched and seductively readable...tells the story of Sam Sharpe’s revolution manqué, and the subsequent abolition of slavery in Jamaica, in a way that’s acutely relevant to the racial unrest of our own time.” —Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls’ Rising The final uprising of enslaved people in Jamaica started as a peaceful labor strike a few days shy of Christmas in 1831. A harsh crackdown by white militias quickly sparked a full-blown revolt, leaving hundreds of plantation houses in smoking ruins. The rebels lost their daring bid for freedom, but their headline-grabbing defiance triggered a decisive turn against slavery. Island on Fire is a dramatic day-by-day account of these transformative events. A skillful storyteller, Tom Zoellner uses diaries, letters, and colonial records to tell the intimate story of the men and women who rose up and briefly tasted liberty. He brings to life the rebellion’s enigmatic leader, the preacher Samuel Sharpe, and shows how his fiery resistance turned the tide of opinion in London and hastened the end of slavery in the British Empire. “Zoellner’s vigorous, fast-paced account brings to life a varied gallery of participants...The revolt failed to improve conditions for the enslaved in Jamaica, but it crucially wounded the institution of slavery itself.” —Fergus M. Bordewich, Wall Street Journal “It’s high time that we had a book like the splendid one Tom Zoellner has written: a highly readable but carefully documented account of the greatest of all British slave rebellions, the miseries that led to it, and the momentous changes it wrought.” —Adam Hochschild, author of Bury the Chains