Alternate History is a genre that asks the question – what if our history had taken a different track?  What if the Nazis had won WW II?

I love Bernard Cornwell’s work, mostly the Richard Sharpe series, the Grail Quest series and the Warlord series but here comes a wonderful standalone book, The Gallows Thief.  It is set in Georgian England, about 1815, when hanging judges kept the gallows filled.  The penalty for almost all crimes, including petty theft, was hanging or transportation to one of the Crown’s colonies.  The book opens with a gruesome hanging at Newgate prison

If you have been lamenting the lack of modern-day classics that stand up to Treasure Island and Shipwrecked, give a listen to the full cast audiobook version of Airborn by Kenneth Appel.  It's a rousing adventure with a steampunk twist, in a Brit-centric universe where San Francisco is called Lions Gate City and giant airships fill the skies over the continents and the immense oceans, Atlanticus and Pacificus.  Matt Cruse is the narrator and cabin boy of the Airship Aurora.  He was literally born in the air, and following his father's tragic fall fr