Happy Christmas and welcome to this our first newsletter! We're feeling very festive here and we have a brilliant schedule of Christmas content lined up for the History Lives blog.

In this newsletter we're giving you a helping hand with your Christmas gifts, rounding up some of the highlights of 2013 and looking forward to the year ahead. We're also giving away some books! 

Wondering what to buy your nearest and dearest this Christmas? Or are you just looking for a good book to get you through the winter? We've got you sorted! 

And, we're giving all of these books away over on Twitter – just re-tweet this tweet!

We were thrilled to attend the inaugural Harrogate History Festival in the company of many of our authors, including Robyn Young, Anthony Riches, Lindsey Davis and John Henry Clay. Our authors spoke brilliantly on topics ranging from war to Richard III and what it's like to walk Hadrian's Wall in full Roman armour!

It's been an exciting year for History Lives and here are just a few of our highlights:

- Stunning reissues of eight Herman Wouk novels (available for the first time in eBook), including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Caine Mutiny 

- A Sunday Times bestseller with The Ides of April by Lindsey Davis

- Our first Edward Rutherfurd publication, Paris

- Attending History in the Court: a wonderful opportunity to mingle with authors, publishers, agents, readers and the wonderful staff of Goldsboro Books in the historic setting of Cecil Court in the heart of London.

Though our heads are often in the past, we also have a lot to look forward to! 

In 2014 there'll be lots of historical debuts, including: 

- The Visitors by Rebecca Mascull (January 2014)

- The Devil In The Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson (March 2014)

- An Appetite For Violets by Martine Bailey (May 2014)

- Plague Land by S.D. Sykes (October 2014)

We also have the much-anticipated Kingdom, the epic conclusion to Robyn Young’s bestselling Insurrection trilogy. The publication of Kingdom will coincide with the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn and the vote on Scottish independence.