{"title":"Standalone novels","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn occupied Britain. A resistance movement inside a united Europe. A different account of American independence. A corporate takeover of the Catholic Church.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFour novels that imagine history taking another path, while returning to the questions at the heart of all Chris Oswald's work: who holds power, who challenges it and what happens to those caught between them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Stuff of Heroes\u003c\/em\u003e opens the Semblance of Order trilogy; the other three stand entirely alone.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-stuff-of-heroes","title":"The Stuff of Heroes","description":"\u003cp\u003eGeorgia Nullgeben knows privilege inside out. As the daughter of the sector commander she is destined for the very top, most likely by way of marriage into one of the elite families that make up the new aristocracy of the new Europe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThen she meets Mark Smith: a brilliant but entirely ordinary Englishman serving an indefinite sentence for standing on the fringe of the resistance. Mark is no obvious hero. He wants his freedom, nothing more, and Georgia represents a possible way out.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eResistance takes many forms under occupation. One of the brightest is the sheer defiance of the Beat Kids — teenagers playing the hateful music from America, that great centre of decadence. Mark is pulled into it, and a sharp mind for strategy carries him into a world he could very happily do without.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBook one of The Semblance of Order trilogy asks the question the title is already answering: what exactly is a hero made of, when heroism is the least survivable trait you can have?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch4\u003eWhat you're getting into\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOccupied Britain, rendered with unsettling ordinariness\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMusic as rebellion, and rebellion as something you fall into\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA love story across an unbridgeable divide\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFor readers of Robert Harris and C. J. 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His habitat is not the battlefield, not skirmishes among rocks and bushes with a rifle in one hand and a radio in the other.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYet somehow he has to find a way through the impossible barrier that is the United States of Europe — and to learn that heroes are not the ones who charge, but the ones who persevere, who confide in their colleagues, who pool their strengths and weaknesses and become a team. The authorities, meanwhile, will do anything to stop the rebels. Including breaking the law. Their own law.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA novel about how liberty is lost — not in a single coup, but in a thousand reasonable-sounding steps.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch4\u003eWhat you're getting into\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA chillingly plausible federal Europe, argued rather than caricatured\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eResistance as tedium, fear and small competence — not heroics\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePolitical fiction with a genuine moral argument at its centre\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eStandalone; no series commitment required\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBook details\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSeries:\u003c\/strong\u003e Standalone\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Paperback\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 978-1-999786-88-5\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Newmore Publishing\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePosted directly from Dorset. 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Against her stands Cardinal Forrundiker: cunning, ambitious, and moving relentlessly upwards.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSophie LaNeve is the cardinal's lowly and permanently frustrated assistant, with a fine mind and a hatred of authority she has never decided what to do with. 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