FIRST. IN BETWEEN. IN THE END.The late middle ages. England’s king seeks to recover the French lands of his ancestor William the Conqueror and claim the continental throne. France’s king aspires to seize the remainder of his royal vassal’s lands and retain his throne. So begins the Hundred Years’ War, the backdrop against which the formidable Wulfriths of the AGE OF CONQUEST and AGE OF FAITH series continue their tale.THE HONOR OF HECTOR WULFRITHPale rider. For all the wives lost to him, it is what some call England’s renowned trainer of knights, a name that reaches beyond those losses to the plague come out of the east. Believing it God’s will he not wed again, Hector Wulfrith resists being drawn to the courageous lady who enters a country at war with her own and, disguised as a man, trespasses on his home. However, when her resolve to obtain training for a boy she claims is Wulfrith kin drags him into her mess of murder and thievery, mutual attraction becomes something more. If he can save her, dare he risk gaining her for himself knowing her fate could prove the same as his doomed wives’? Would it not be better to encourage her to return the affections of his heir—a brother wronged for what Hector stole from him?THE MESS OF SÉVERINE DE BARRASince the surrender of her town to English forces, the greatest kindness shown Séverine is that of an enemy of silvered dark hair who saved her from his own when she sought to protect her cousin. Years later, she crosses the channel to keep her word to the boy’s departed sire to place him with distant kin for knighthood training. But the trouble awaiting them in England follows them to Baron Wulfrith whom she must deceive to gain an audience—one that comes to naught though he proves her former savior. Desperate to secure her cousin’s future before the fugitive made of her endangers him, Séverine furthers her deception to obtain the baron’s aid and finds her heart turning to him. But to what lengths will one of fortified emotions go to save a French lady destined for imprisonment in the Tower of London—and possibly death?

    When her father dies, and with her ne’er-do-well twin brother on the other side of the world, it’s left to Gwen to fulfill her father’s wishes and scatter his ashes on the top of Glastonbury Tor in Somerset, England. Stepping into the ruined church tower, a gold ring catches her eye – a ring embossed with a dragon emblem. When Gwen picks it up, she’s snatched into the dangerous world of the Dark Ages, where she discovers she’s expected to fulfill a prophecy, by marrying Prince Arthur and helping him become the king of legend.Will she stay with Arthur?Arthur, Prince of Dumnonia, and son of the ailing King Uthyr Pendragon, has ruled the hilltop fortress of Din Cadan for his father since he was a boy of sixteen. But he has an older brother who looks set to inherit both the kingdom and the High Kingship. Tall, handsome, ruthless, he’s less than convinced that any prophecy can decide his future, and he doesn’t think he needs a wife. But news comes that his father is at last dying in far-off Viroconium. Taking Gwen with him, further and further from the Tor where she had hoped to return to her own world, he sets off to outwit his brother.Will he grow to love Gwen?

    Her true love is getting married. Though, she’s determined not to lament. She will stop the upcoming wedding at any cost.Till a warrior from the past alternates her plans…Bryce MacDowell has the reputation of a savage warrior. When he returns from the battlefield, he comes across his unrequited love. Buried desire arises, yet he knows it is already doomed.For this lass is infatuated with his brother…Everything seems to change when he approaches her. He was the boy who bullied her in childhood. Now he’s a grown man who feels for her. Would she ever see it and stop loathing him?It’s inevitable. Loathing mingles with lust, the warrior becomes the protector. The romance that blossoms, gets interrupted by a brutally murdered woman.When all hell breaks loose, how will they solve the riddle and find their own happiness?Especially when this murder is only the beginning…Only he can unravel the mystery that she is…"To Hell with a Highlander" is a STANDALONE Historical Scottish romance novel. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.*If you like brawny Highland warriors with a soft heart, and steamy romantic stories depicting the majestic and mysterious Scottish Highlands, then To Hell with a Highlander is the perfect novel for you.

    

    Her sister-in-law Fredegund started out as a lowly palace slave. And yet—in the 6th-century Merovingian Empire, where women were excluded from noble succession and royal politics was a blood sport—these two iron-willed strategists reigned over vast realms for decades, changing the face of Europe.The two queens commanded armies and negotiated with kings and popes. They formed coalitions and broke them, mothered children and lost them. They fought a years-long civil war—against each other. With ingenuity and skill, they battled to stay alive in the game of statecraft, and in the process laid the foundations of what would one day be Charlemagne’s empire. Yet after Brunhild and Fredegund’s deaths—one gentle, the other horrific—their stories were rewritten, their names consigned to slander and legend.In The Dark Queens, award-winning writer Shelley Puhak sets the record straight. She resurrects two very real women in all their complexity, painting a richly detailed portrait of an unfamiliar time and striking at the roots of some of our culture’s stubbornest myths about female power. The Dark Queens offers proof that the relationships between women can transform the world.

    

    

    She works hard and succeeds in becoming one of the best seamstresses around Scotland. That’s why she gets a personalized invitation to be the seamstress of one of the most powerful Lairds.After losing his leg in the Jacobite war, Laird Braonan Collins has to live with being imperfect. Needing everything around him to be perfect to make up for his feelings of inadequacy, his castle -and his heart- become jungled after the arrival of a very messy, but very intriguing, woman.They say opposites attract, and they couldn’t be more correct. Genevieve finds him insufferable, but soon realizes that this brooding Laird is nothing more than a scared and scarred man. Braonan finally feels that someone desires him despite his flaws.Yet their happily ever after, finally within reach, is destroyed by those who hate to see them together…

    

    

    

    

    

    But why is she there? Are her aims to help him or her father? Drawing out Ilysa’s secrets will kindle an alliance more powerful—and passionate!—than Ross ever imagined…

    

    

    

    S. Lewis had one of the great minds of the twentieth century. Many readers know Lewis as an author of fiction and fantasy literature, including the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Others know him for his books in apologetics, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. But few know him for his scholarly work as a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature. What shaped the mind of this great thinker? Jason Baxter argues that Lewis was deeply formed not only by the words of Scripture and his love of ancient mythology, but also by medieval literature. For this undeniably modern Christian, authors like Dante and Boethius provided a worldview that was relevant to the challenges of the contemporary world. Here, readers will encounter an unknown figure to guide them in their own journey: C. S. Lewis the medievalist.

    Every day a lover departs. Every day a woman turns forty.All three happening together brings a moment of reckoning.Medieval historian Elizabeth Boyle made sense of these events the best way she knew how - by immersing herself in the literature that has been her first love and life's work for over two decades.Fierce Appetites is the exhilarating and deeply humane result. Not only does Elizabeth Boyle write dazzling accounts of ancient stories, familiar and obscure, from Ireland and further afield, but she uses her historical learning to grapple with the raw and urgent questions she faces, questions that have bedevilled people in every age. She writes on grief, addiction, family breakdown, the complexities of motherhood, love and sex, memory, class, education, travel (and staying put) with unflinching honesty, deep compassion and occasional dark humour. Fierce Appetites is captivating and original - as an insight into the mind and heart of a groundbreaking scholar, and as a wise and reassuring account of what it is to be human._____________________'I loved this luminous, radical book about bodies in time. It is a deeply personal history, that simultaneously brings medieval myth and poetry to breathing, bleeding life. An education for the mind and the heart' Clare Pollard'Highly original . . . engagingly candid [and] thought-proviking' Irish Independent 'An eloquent plea for the value of curiosity and the life of the mind, standing up the robustness of scholarship against the frailty of individuals, the resilience of myth against brittle daily preoccupations. It's an agile story, irreverent, capacious and constantly surprising: like nothing else you will read' Hilary Mantel'Bracingly honest, fiery, funny, scholarly, Fierce Appetites really is a wildly good book' Hilary Fannin'Extremely intriguing . . . I found myself completely absorbed' Ryan Tubridy'I absolutely loved this utterly original book. Immersing myself in Elizabeth Boyle's considerable brain was a true privilege, and the way she uses medieval narratives to unpick her own present was endlessly surprising and beautiful. I read it in two sittings, devouring her perspective on life, love, loss' Clover Stroud'Fiercely smart, strange, surprising, unsettling, unflinching' Jennifer O'Connell, Irish Times'An outstanding achievement. Fierce Appetites defies easy categorization, is brilliantly written and simply deserves to be read' Darach Ó Séaghdha'Everything is illuminated, magnified, revisioned: sexual desire, motherhood, family. Her writing is unorthodox, unnerving, and very exciting' Tanya Shadrick

    

    

    

    Indeed, the Battle of Hastings and its aftermath nearly wiped out the leading families of Anglo-Saxon England – so what happened to the children this conflict left behind?Conquered offers a fresh take on the Norman Conquest by exploring the lives of those children, who found themselves uprooted by the dramatic events of 1066. Among them were the children of Harold Godwineson and his brothers, survivors of a family shattered by violence who were led by their courageous grandmother Gytha to start again elsewhere. Then there were the last remaining heirs of the Anglo-Saxon royal line – Edgar Ætheling, Margaret, and Christina – who sought refuge in Scotland, where Margaret became a beloved queen and saint. Other survivors, such as Waltheof of Northumbria and Fenland hero Hereward, became legendary for rebelling against the Norman conquerors. And then there were some, like Eadmer of Canterbury, who chose to influence history by recording their own memories of the pre-conquest world.From sagas and saints' lives to chronicles and romances, Parker draws on a wide range of medieval sources to tell the stories of these young men and women and highlight the role they played in developing a new Anglo-Norman society. These tales – some reinterpreted and retold over the centuries, others carelessly forgotten over time – are ones of endurance, adaptation and vulnerability, and they all reveal a generation of young people who bravely navigated a changing world and shaped the country England was to become.