Falcon Flies

BOOK 1 IN THE BALLANTYNE SERIES BY INTERNATIONAL SENSATION WILBUR SMITH 'Best historical novelist' - Stephen King 'A master storyteller' - Sunday Times 'Wilbur Smith is one of those benchmarks against whom others are compared' - The Times 'No one does adventure quite like Smith' - Daily Mirror A DISHONOURABLE MAN. AN HONOURABLE MISSION. Dr Robyn Ballantyne has always worked hard for what she wants. Following in the footsteps of their father she and her brother, the celebrated soldier Zouga Ballantyne, depart England on an expedition to Africa, the land of their birth. Robyn is determined to bring an end to slave trading, while Zouga is certain that Africa will be the land that makes him, and determines to make his fortune there, whatever the cost. Manning the expedition is the notorious American merchant, Mungo St John. Robyn is deeply attracted to St John but is horrified to discover that he is a slave-trader, and that she is unwittingly travelling on a slave ship. Also vying for her love is the fanatical anti-slavery naval captain, Clinton Codrington. Kind and respectable, Codrington is deeply in love with Robyn, but despite herself she cannot return his feelings. As Robyn finds herself torn between the two men, she is forced to make a decision that will change her life forever, and which will shape the future for them all. The first book in the first sequence of the epic Ballantyne series Book 2 in the Ballantyne series, Men of Men, is available now.

During their Alaskan vacation, Frank and Joe Hardy help falconer Kate when her beloved peregrine goes missing.

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 SPEAKER'S BOOK AWARD From Canada’s most accomplished adventurer and storyteller comes a gripping journey into the vastness of Canada’s landscape and history. Looking out his porch window one spring morning, Adam Shoalts spotted a majestic peregrine falcon flying across the neighbouring fields near Lake Erie. Each spring, falcons migrate from southernmost Canada to remote arctic mountains. Grabbing his backpack and canoe, Shoalts resolved to follow the falcon’s route north on an astonishing 3,400-kilometre journey to the Arctic. Along the way, he faces a huge variety of challenges and obstacles, including storms on the Great Lakes, finding campsites in the urban wilderness of Toronto and Montreal, avoiding busy commercial freighter traffic, gale force winds, massive hydroelectric dams, bushwhacking without trails, dealing with hunger, multiple bear encounters, and navigating white-water rapids on icy northern rivers far from any help. In his signature style, Shoalts roams as much across space as he does time, winding his way through a stunning diversity of landscapes ranging from lush Carolinian forests to lonely windswept mountains, salty seas to trackless swamps, pristine lakes to glittering mega-cities, as well as the sites of long ago battles, shipwrecks, forgotten forts, and abandoned trading posts. Through his travels, he reveals how interconnected wild places are, from the loneliest depths of the northern wilderness to busy urban parks, and the vital importance of these connections. Where the Falcon Flies invites readers on an extraordinary armchair adventure that spans five ecoregions and centuries of fascinating history, and is a masterwork by one of Canada’s most successful and audacious authors.

During their Alaskan vacation, Frank and Joe Hardy help falconer Kate when her beloved peregrine goes missing.

The first book in the epic Ballantyne series "She heard another movement pass behind her turn shoulder, a whisper of sound, yet so chilling that she felt all power of movement drained from her legs. He was here, very close in the blackness, toying with her, cruel as a cat. He had smelt her out. Now he crouched over her ready to strike and she could only wait." A mission of duty. A quest for love. Dr Robyn Ballantyne has always worked hard for what she wants. Coming home to Africa after twenty years, she fears there are only three men who may still stand in her way: THE BROTHER Zouga is the only family she's known for much of her life. Yet she and the celebrated soldier will never quite see eye to eye... THE CAPTAIN Codrington, ambitious British naval officer, wants to give her a perfect life. Could she ever be tamed enough to fit his idea of perfection? THE TRADER Mungo St James, the notorious American merchant, repels her with his slave trading. But Robyn cannot forget what once passed between them. As her adventures begin, Robyn must make decisions that will shape the future for all of them...

A “well-written, engaging detective story” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) about a rogue who trades in rare birds and their eggs—and the wildlife detective determined to stop him. On May 3, 2010, an Irish national named Jeffrey Lendrum was apprehended at Britain’s Birmingham International Airport with a suspicious parcel strapped to his stomach. Inside were fourteen rare peregrine falcon eggs snatched from a remote cliffside in Wales. So begins a “vivid tale of obsession and international derring-do” (Publishers Weekly), following the parallel lives of a globe-trotting smuggler who spent two decades capturing endangered raptors worth millions of dollars as race champions—and Detective Andy McWilliam of the United Kingdom’s National Wildlife Crime Unit, who’s hell bent on protecting the world’s birds of prey. “Masterfully constructed” (The New York Times) and “entertaining and illuminating” (The Washington Post), The Falcon Thief will whisk you away from the volcanoes of Patagonia to Zimbabwe’s Matobo National Park, and from the frigid tundra near the Arctic Circle to luxurious aviaries in the deserts of Dubai, all in pursuit of a man who is reckless, arrogant, and gripped by a destructive compulsion to make the most beautiful creatures in nature his own. It’s a story that’s part true-crime narrative, part epic adventure—and wholly unputdownable until the very last page.

Named after a Sardinian princess of the fourteenth century who established laws protecting falcons, Eleonora's falcon is the only European bird to breed in autumn and feed its brood on the mass of birds that migrate from Europe to Africa between July and October. It breeds on small Mediterranean islands in colonies of up to 200 pairs and hunts often in groups, preying on more than 90 species of migrant birds. During the winter this falcon visits the rain-soaked woodlands of Madagascar. In this study—illustrated beautifully and extensively with 59 line drawings and 38 photographs—Hartmut Walter shows how the unique geographical and biological situation of Falco eleonorae makes the species' health an important indicator of environmental decay. For though it lives in relatively isolated areas, Eleonora's falcon nevertheless may ingest the many pollutants contained in its diet of birds migrating from industrial Europe. Walter, who has studied raptors on several continents and has been an ornithologist since his early youth, examines several discrete colonies of Eleonora's falcon. He concentrates on the species' intraspecific behavior and ecology—such as the falcons' aggressive actions, hunting strategies, and response to fluctuating environmental conditions—and investigates their evolutionary past.

Englishwoman Felicia Gordon should be floating on air. After all, she's engaged to a man who is kind, charming, considerate.... But he doesn't inspire the least amount of passion in her blood. It isn't until Felicia flies to Kuwait to meet her fiancé's family that she finds the electricity she's been missing—in her fiancé's uncle, Sheikh Raschid al Hamid al Sabah! Raschid is hardly the "uncle" she imagined—tall, powerful, unnervingly masculine and shockingly arrogant. But beneath Raschid's contempt lies a passion that burns hotter than the desert sun, a fire Felicia never knew she craved...until now.

A sacred god, a military tool, an erotic symbol: the falcon is a natural wonder of speed, power, beauty, and ferocity that has become embedded in human cultures in myriad ways. Helen Macdonald's Falcon examines the diverse symbolism and roles attached to the falcon throughout the centuries. Macdonald presents a cultural and natural history of the falcon that spans the globe and several millennia. Her wide-ranging survey considers the many facets of the falcon, including conservation efforts; the sport of falconry; and the use of falcons in secret military projects by the Third Reich and the U.S. space program. Falcon also explores the rich imagery of the falcon over history, including the veneration of falcons as gods in ancient Egypt, their role in erotic stories, and even the use of falcons in advertising to promote photocopiers and jet planes. Filled with illustrations and a wealth of fascinating facts, Falcon will be an enjoyable guide for ornithologists, amateur birdwatchers, and nature lovers alike.