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With Blood And Iron
With Blood And Iron
Nov 6, 2025 4:32 PM

Author:Douglas Reeman

With Blood And Iron

With Blood And Iron is an enthralling tale from the master storyteller of the sea, including the hugely popular Bolitho novels which are written under the pseudonym Alexander Kent.

January 1944. On the vast grey waters of the Atlantic the balance of power has shifted. For Rudolf Steiger, ace U-boat commander, there is a new sense of urgency. Dedicated, ruthless, fanatical, he has become a legend in his own time, a symbol of Germany's greatness. But now, as he takes the U-boat flotilla, Meteor, out into the bitter winter seas, he faces a new and deadly enemy - his own nagging doubts about the outcome of the war. Steiger knows that his destiny may be to court heroic death rather than suffer ignominious defeat.

Reviews

I was really grabbed by the narrative voice and I was fascinated by the story - what a story!

—— Charlaine Harris, bestselling author of the True Blood series

This story resonates with spirit, blending myth with reality, tragedy with triumph, the pages oozing with passion into a compelling saga. Sharp as a broken piece of glass, crisply plotted, way ahead of anything and everything in the pack.

—— Steve Berry, bestselling author of The King's Deception

Engrossing ... this thrilling conclusion is a can’t-miss entry for fans who have followed Lanny’s journey from 1800s New England to contemporary times. And it’s utterly impossible to put down.

—— Booklist

Jones's writing has the intensity of a dream, and the pattern she makes of the characters' lives is beautiful, managing to combine tension with lyricism

—— The Times

An intense, poetic tale

—— Financial Times

A novel that reaches beyond the glittering surface of Sydney to capture the rippling patterns of a wider human history with singular beauty and power

—— Canberra Times

Funny, endearing, and pure, wonderful escapism

—— Independent

A sweet, funny rom-com . . . You'll be willing Don and Rosie on every step of the way

—— Marie Claire

Original, charming and very funny

—— Woman & Home

Touching and laugh-out-loud funny -- think The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time meets Silver Linings Playbook

—— Stylist

A hilarious, unlikely romance with heartbreaking twists

—— Easy Living

Don Tillman is one of the most endearing, charming and fascinating literary characters I have met in a long time

—— The Times

Genuinely funny; you'll laugh out loud

—— Essentials

I absolutely loved The Rosie Project -- original and clever, and perfectly written.The world is going to fall in love with Don and Rosie

—— Jill Mansell

A poignant, funny novel about how you don't find love; it finds you

—— Glamour

Don Tillman will exasperate, delight and immerse you in a world so original, in a story so compelling, I defy you not to read through the night. Glorious

—— Adriana Trigiani, author of The Shoemaker's Wife

Beneath the fun and the fluff there is a quietly profound exploration of the assumptions around autism and what it means to have an atypical - or typical - brain

—— The Independent Daily Edition

A very funny and touching love story

—— Sunday Express

Adorable . . . Really funny and heart-warming, a gem of a book

—— Marian Keyes

If you like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time you'll love The Rosie Project

—— Look

Written in a superbly pitch-perfect voice, The Rosie Project had me cheering for Don on every page. I'm madly in love with this book! Trust me, you will be, too

—— Lisa Genova, author of Still Alice and left Neglected

The best, most honestly told love story I've read in a long time

—— Kristin Hannah

Marvellous. Don Tillman is as awkward and confusing a narrator as he is lovable and charming

—— John Boyne, author of The Boy In the Striped Pyjamas

Prime deck-chair material

—— The Times, Our Favourite Comic Novels

As well as being delightfully romantic, this is a very funny book and you'll be laughing out loud at Don's misadventures

—— Daily Mail

Funny, charming and heart-warming

—— Good Housekeeping UK

In this extremely bold, swashbuckling novel, romantic and disillusioned at once, intellectually daring and even subversive, Rachel Kushner has created the most beguiling American ingénue abroad, well, maybe ever: Daisy Miller as a sharply observant yet vulnerable Reno-raised motorcycle racer and aspiring artist, set loose in gritty 70s New York and the Italy of the Red Brigades

—— Francisco Goldman, author of Say Her Name

Riveting

—— Time

Rachel Kushner's The Flamethrowers is remarkable for its expansiveness and for its exhilarating succession of ideas

—— Mark West , The List

National Book Award finalist Rachel Kushner brings NYC's art scene to life so well in The Flamethrowers you could get high off the paint

—— Entertainment Weekly

Fast-paced, sexy and smart

—— Cosmopolitan

Electric...addictive...smart and satisfying

—— Oprah Magazine

Captivating and compelling

—— The Bookbag

This is a work of ferocious energy and imaginative verve, straining at the seams with ideas, riffs, jokes, set-pieces, belly-laughs, horror and heartbreak

—— Booktrust

Kushner writes with authority, passion and humour, her characters richly drawn and her story packed with delicious anecdotes and side lines from a wide array of memorable characters

—— Tracy Eynon , We Love This Book

Sexy and brilliant

—— Sunday Times Style

Incandescent

—— Image

Kushner's second novel comes loaded with recommendations and it's easy to see why…highly unusual and written with great seriousness and potency

—— Guardian

It manages to relate the art scene in 1970s New York to the Red Brigades in Italy, with lots of motorbikes thrown in

—— Nick Barley , Herald

Kushner’s writing is a kind of marvel

—— Richard Fitzpatrick , Irish Examiner

This novel has undeniable force and power… it’s beautifully written

—— Tim Martin , Telegraph

You can feel the wind whipping through your hair, your pulse racing, as Kushner’s daring heroine, Reno, motorcycles across salt flats and down city streets, on the prowl for art, for love, for a cause

—— The Oprah Magazine

Kushner’s take on 1970s radicalism, art and politics is a big, absorbing read

—— Financial Times

A self-consciously cool mash-up of motorbikes, art and unpleasant Italian politics

—— Nick Curtis , Evening Standard

In fiction I enjoyed Rachel Kushner's The Flamethrowers for its style and its daring

—— Colm Toibin , Observer

The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner manages to connect the art scene in New York in the 1970s with the Red Brigades in Italy, through the medium of motorcycles and drag car racing. Ambitious and beautifully written, it is one of the more surprising books I have read this year

—— Gordon Brewer , Scotsman

Introducing a fresh new voice

—— Justine Jordan , Guardian Online

A left-field and potentially ludicrous literary concept – a multigenerational transcontinental historical epic built around a speed-freak biker heroine – is executed with élan by American novelist Rachel Kushner … Genius

—— Kevin Maher , The Times

The novel, Kushner’s second, deploys mordant observations and chiseled sentences to explore how individuals are swept along by implacable social forces

—— New York Times

A Bildungsroman set against the violence of the 20th century, The Flamethrowers is less a litmus test for misogyny than a standard for the recent historical novel

—— Hannah Rosefield , Literary Review

It should've won the National Book Award... It is second to none

—— New York Magazine

Some of the prose is as thrilling as riding a motorbike on a mountain road with no lights

—— Nicky Dunne , Evening Standard

Has the kind of poise, wariness and moral graininess that puts you in mind of weary-souled visionaries like Robert Stone or Joan Didion

—— Dwight Garner , New York Times

For a while last spring it seemed like every single person I knew in New York was reading The Flamethrowers, which is normally enough to put me off a book, but in this case I did read it and found that its ubiquity was more than justified. Then in September I happened to visit the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, where one of its most memorable set-pieces takes place, and I wanted to read it all over again. If I say it captures a young woman's experience of the downtown art world in the 1970s, I'm going to make it sound boring, but in fact it's superbly enjoyable

—— Ned Beauman , Esquire

Much of what makes this book so magnificent is Kushner's astonishing observational powers; she seems to work with a muse and a nail gun, so surprisingly yet forcefully do her sentences pin reality to the page. I was pinned there too –– BEST BOOK OF 2013

—— Kathryn Schulz , New York Magazine

A terrific, gripping, poetic book... Kushner's meandering plot and pacy pose has completely won me over

—— Thomas Quinn , Big Issue

Kushner’s prose dazzles with invention

—— Emily Rhodes , Spectator
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