New Releases by Tanya Allan

The Russians have taken Berlin. Hitler is dead! The War in Europe is over. Germany and the Axis powers have surrendered. The war in the Pacific still goes on, but it seems a forgotten war as Europe tastes peace for the first time since 1939.The world is a very different place and much of it is in turmoil. Old orders are crumbling and new orders are rising from the ashes. The Allies now face the monumental task of managing that peace. Ruined cities, no infrastructure of any kind, displaced persons with no home and even less hope wander abroad. Small pockets of fanatical Nazis still offered futile resistance.Of the Allied agent who had successfully delivered Henry Fotheringham to Switzerland, there was no trace. A senior British officer travels to that sector and liaises with the US army. Brigadier William Knox is searching for a girl he knows as Rachel Harper - codenamed 'Bluebird' who was last known to have been in the hands of the Gestapo in Berlin. Her photograph is circulated, as well as an artist's impression of the agent who helped Henry. The expectation is that she was executed by Hitler's thugs.At a US Army checkpoint, a man called Grigor is stopped and detained. It is suspected he is the missing Allied agent as described by Henry, so the Brigadier is informed and transportation is laid on. Marcus Flavius lands in England to meet with the Brigadier. Finally, is this someone who might be able to assist in getting Marcus to the valley? Is he a man to whom he can share his remarkable story?From the Romans to the Vikings; through the Tudors and sailing the seas under a Spanish flag, Marcus has seen so much. Was King Arthur real? Was he truly a King, and did he really have a round table?Who knows?Marcus Flavius does, but will he tell?

In the final episode of this first series of books in which we follow Krista and Talia on their adventures across time and space..........it's not easy persuading two great powers to back down and make peace, especially when the actual reasons for making war in the first place have long been forgotten. Those in power, on both sides, have got into the habit of ruling, and ruling in a certain way. Even if they wanted to change, none of them really possess the first idea of how best to do it. They certainly weren't going to be the first, so peace has got to be the first item on any agendaSo, as Ghart and Larillion were stuck in a stale-mate situation, with both sides facing increasing social pressure to change of deal with the very real prospect of revolution by a down-trodden soldiery and civilian populations.Change was already happening, quietly and behind the social scenes in Ghart. The women were initiating change through quietly pressurising their men and persuading them of the type of change they thought was both appropriate and fair.Larillion, however, needs some catalyst to initiate the right sort of change, but at present there was no way in and no agents upon whom they could rely.Talia realises that one of them must go, and her experience and gifts make her the logical choice - the only choice.They hit on a plan that follows a crafty double bluff after a large scale military operation. However, it requires the Ghartian army to hold and to press home an attack against an increasingly desperate Larillion army.Will everyone hold their nerve, and if so, will she manage to stir the right sort of response?

Miles Martin watched helplessly as his world came crashing down. He felt it was unfair and unreasonable, as, finally, his inner self was able to express herself through the medium of writing.Miles was turning sixty and his wife of almost forty years - Ann - had given him an impossible ultimatum - "Either she goes or I do!""She" was not "another woman", but Miles' alter ego and Muse - Miranda Martin. Miranda had several excellent novels published under her name (as Miles would claim there wasn't a creative bone in HIS body).The problem had arisen through success. Miranda wasn't exactly hitting the big time, but was selling books in such numbers that she received a hefty income and was far better known than Ann would have liked. Ann had been happy, no, not exactly happy, but 'suffered' Miranda in small doses and under severely restricted conditions. For a person convinced he'd spent the last sixty years in the wrong body, these conditions proved neither possible nor reasonable.Ann didn't see it that way and walked out.Miles was devastated. Oh, the children weren't children any more, as both were now married and were living their lives, both abroad as it happened, so practically and financially it wasn't a disaster. The devastation was emotional.Then came the letter from the solicitor.As a teenager, Miles, it seems, had bared his soul to his mother's Uncle Freddie. Freddie was the black sheep of the family by being gay. It just wasn't done in the 1930s and 40s. Young Miles had spoken to him about being 'different'. Freddie and Miles were not the same, but both felt that their differences were a burden in an unsympathetic society. Freddie subsequently died, leaving Miles with no one he could talk to.When Freddie died, the family discovered he left a trust fund for any in his family who might need help becoming the person they ought to have been. Clearly, Freddie had Miles in mind, but worded it suitably vaguely so as to spare him embarrassment had he 'got better'!Miles had two choices - slide down a slippery slope of self pity and deny her life, or realise Miranda in truth and light.Miranda won!But it wasn't going to be easy.

1944 - German occupied Norway - a female agent is detained by the Germans after a tip off by a traitor in the resistance. Taken to Berlin after the local Gestapo fail to get her to divulge anything, she comes under the control of SS Sturmbannfuehrer (SS Major) Ernst Fausbender, feared interrogator and scourge of resistance fighters across the occupied zone. However, appearing to be on her last legs, Fausbender leaves her for the last time before personally executing her. When he and a warrant officer return to her cell, they are doubly surprised, for not only has she gone, but a very large and fit young man wearing many muscles and no clothes at all is in her cell. He takes out both men, killing Fausbender and escaping in the other German's uniform.Of the mysterious female prisoner, there is no sign. Strangely, there is a link to an event that happened 1800 years previously..............................................Centurion Marcus Flavius is despatched by the Emperor Hadrian to seek out the secret of eternal life. Based on vague rumours and tales, and one map of a valley location many weeks' march into the mountains of the east, the ailing emperor is determined to ascertain whether there is any truth to the tales.Marcus is selected for being one of the best. Taking with him a Greek friend, a foreign guide and a trusted century, they battle vast distances, ill-disposed adversaries with no love of Rome or their soldiers and extremes of climates. Against the odds they find the valley, but it seems the rumours were untrue.Or were they?The people of the valley were not only expecting them, but knew their quest. In the valley Marcus meets a beautiful Priestess - Shalama. She is the closest thing to female perfection he could ever hope to meet, and there is chemistry between them.The valley is invaded and the Romans intervene, defeating the raiders. Marcus decided to leave empty handed before he falls for the lure of the valley and he fears losing his freedom to choose.Shalama gives him a gift - an elixir, with strict instructions and dire warnings if the instructions are not followed.Intending to take his prize to his emperor, they start the long journey back. Only an attack in a desert and a mortal wound means that Marcus may not make it. His second in command, not knowing the instructions or warnings, administers the elixir and saves his life. The Centurion now looks forward to a long life.................... a very, very, very long life..... Or, should that be a great many lives?