James Runcie

A wonderfully inventive and entertaining journey through time and the history of chocolate! The Discovery of Chocolate is a fabulous tale, as rich and exotic as the gorgeous creation that Diego de Godoy first discovers when he arrives in Mexico with Cortes and his conquistadors. Diego is seeking his fortune in the New World. What he finds is love, and chocolate, and an elixir of life. Separated from his lover, he must wander the world, and the centuries,...

The first in a series of six detective novels set against the backdrop of 30 years of British history, featuring an unforgettable and unlikely new hero, Sidney Chambers.

"It is May 1971 and the Cambridgeshire countryside is bursting into summer. Attending to his paternal duties, Archdeacon Sidney Chambers is walking in the woods with his daughter Anna and their aging Labrador Byron when they stumble upon a body. Beside the dead man lies a basket of wild flowers, all poisonous. And so it is that Sidney is thrust into another murder investigation, entering a world of hippies, folk singers, and psychedelic plants, where...

A prequel to the Grantchester series follows the life, loves, and losses of young Sidney Chambers in postwar London, where, as a traumatized veteran, he navigates devastating survivor guilt and a haphazard religious calling. 1938. Young Sidney Chambers is dancing the quickstep with Amanda Kendall at her brother Robert's birthday party at the Caledonian Club. No one can believe, on this golden evening, that there could ever be another war. Seven years...

"In 1727, Stefan Silbermann is a grief-stricken thirteen-year-old, struggling with the death of his mother and his removal to a school in distant Leipzig. Despite his father's insistence that he try not to think of his mother too much, Stefan is haunted by her absence, and, to make matters worse, he's bullied by his new classmates. But when the school's cantor, Johann Sebastian Bach, takes notice of his new pupil's beautiful singing voice and draws...

Sidney Chambers (James Norton, Happy Valley) is a handsome, jazz-loving village vicar haunted by his past. Geordie Keating (Robson Green, Wires in the Blood, Touching Evil) is a hard-boiled police detective, overworked and weary. Together they solve crimes and right wrongs in picturesque 1950s Cambridge. Based on a novel by James Runcie, the hit British series returns with Chambers having doubts about his pious lifestyle, now that his old flame Amanda...

Focusing on eight iconic works of art, this series reveals the history of visual imagination through the ages. A combination of reconstruction, photography and storytelling transport the viewer back to the intense moments when great works were conceived and born: the murderous, messianic world of Baroque Rome; opulent, parvenu Amsterdam; paranoid, revolutionary Paris; Victorian England suffocating beneath riches and righteousness; the madhouses and...

"It's 1958 and trouble is brewing in the Cambridgeshire village of Grantchester. Reverend Will Davenport ... relishes his role as a firebrand vicar, willing to rock the boat and challenge conventions to help people. But the very role he loves puts him at odds with his own ideals when his kind-hearted curate, Leonard Finch ... is caught up in a scandal. Will's best friend, Detective Inspector Geordie Keating ... finds his principles shaken, housekeeper...

It's 1957, and it's as if the world of Grantchester has returned to an idyllic state, a metaphorical Garden of Eden. Will believes that everyone can get close to their own Eden through good works and a proactive attitude. But as Geordie knows, every Eden has its snakes. Will's faith will be tested as he and Geordie are reminded that there's darkness lurking in their corner of Cambridgeshire.

Will's life has changed for the better. He is happily married to the brilliant Bonnie and due to become a father, but his world is about to be rocked by a terrible accident. He's always preached the word of a compassionate God, but how can he do that now?