Book picks similar to
To Shine with Honor, Book One: Coming of Age by Joseph Scott Amis


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Outcasts


Martin Lake - 2012
    Within days the Christian army is annihilated by Saladin. Triumphant, the great warrior leads his warriors towards Jerusalem, determined to win it back for his people.To defend the city there is only one nobleman, Balian of Ibelin, and four knights.In desperation Balian knights thirty ordinary men to lead the defence. One of them is the innkeeper Bernard Mountjoy. So too are the pilgrims John and Simon. The new-made knights fight valiantly but can only delay the inevitable. Balian is forced to surrender the city to Saladin.Some of the inhabitants buy their freedom. Others, including Bernard’s wife Agnes and children, are sold into slavery.The world is in flames, the normal bonds of life shattered. Bonds of lordship, bonds of kinship, bonds of marriage and of friendship, all lay tainted and discarded.Yet in this turbulent time, three men find new fellowship and a mission. Bernard is determined to search the Muslim world for his enslaved wife and children. John pledges to aid him and then to pursue his own mission of revenge. A third man, a stranger, journeys to find himself again.History says nothing more of the people raised so far above their normal station and then cast aside.Outcasts tells the story of how they fare in a world grown more bitter and fanatical.

Invasion and Conquest


Rob Buckman - 2018
    His mission was to retrieve an important package and get it to a secret military base in northern California. He was hundreds of miles inside alien held territory with no heavy weapons, no support, no Intel on the aliens, and no way to report the mission was a bust. Between him and the secret base stood the Sierra Nevada Mountain, four hundred miles of treacherous road and an unknown number of world destroying aliens. Any transport was immidiately attacked and destroyed, so the only way to get there was to walk. To even think about taking these women on a four hundred mile yomp was crazy at best, and completely insane knowing winter would catch them before they reached their goal. But ever the perennial sheepdog he didn't have a choice. It was either leave them to their fate, or take them with him. The only way to do that was to teach them. Not only survive, but to turn these inexperienced civilians into a snarling, battle hardened 'Wolf Pack', willing and able to take down the assorted bad guys and aliens that stood in their path. In the SAS, he'd done some crazy thing, and if there was a kindly God who looked after little children, fools and village idiots, John ‘Wolfman’ Decker hoped he was paying special attention right about now, because he was the biggest village idiot of them all.Cover Artist: Jesus Condi

Keeping the Secret 2


R.M. Johnson - 2011
    What is there left for him to do to prove his worth, but try to enter the drug-selling game full-time? He’ll need help and convinces himself it should come from no one other than Kimmi, the girl who told the secret that got him busted in the first place.Practically at gunpoint, he forces Kimmi to ride along while he makes drug stops and hand sales.But Kimmi doesn’t go easily, considering she has problems to solve of her own. She tries everything in her power to keep her mother’s new, live-in boyfriend, Jerome, from creeping into her bedroom at night and having his way with her. He feels entitled since he gives money to help pay the household bills. To earn the cash Jerome donates, in hopes that her mother will kick him out once she realizes they can make it on their own, sexy, curvaceous, 17 year-old Kimmi, places an escort ad online and risks rape and losing her life more than once. In between trying to fight off the sexual advances of her mother’s boyfriend, and riding the hot blocks of Chicago’s South Side with an aspiring, big-time drug dealer, Kimmi discovers the most dangerous thing she’s ever done, is try to stay alive.

The Story Begins At The End


Sujay - 2020
    All stories are packed with varied set of emotions across intrigue, drama, humor, heartache, charm and delight; and all stories written to guarantee an escape into a world of love, loss, hope and longing. A nice read in these gloomy times of a lockdown.

Shadow of Oblivion


Richard Tongue - 2019
    When war erupts, the heart of their battle fleet is Goliath, the largest battleship ever built, the result of years of work in hidden shipyards lost in the depths of space. Earth has no answer to her, no ship in her fleet a match for the overwhelming power of the warship. Defeat seems inevitable. Until a renegade Admiral concocts a final, desperate plan. Only one ship, an experimental warship, the Avenger, might possibly stand a chance against the might of Goliath. One ship, with a picked crew, a crew with nothing to lose and everything to gain, gathered from the dregs of Earth’s space forces, all facing charges ranging from murder to mutiny, but all of them the best in their respective fields. The last hope for the Terran Republic. The last, desperate hope for victory.

FINDING FRANKIE (A Tuper Mystery #2)


Teresa Burrell - 2019
    But why? And how did Squirrely, a homeless man, acquire a duffle bag stuffed with thousands in cash, a pistol, and a 25-year-old newspaper?As Squirrely lies in a coma, Tuper’s techie sidekick, Lana, uncovers fifty-year-old secrets about his connection to the death of a high school classmate. The cold case pops to the front burner when a second classmate dies in the same manner.A Senator, his barren wife, and a long-ago illegal adoption heat up the complications. As Tuper and Lana dig deeper, lies, fraud, and blackmail bubble to the surface. When they get too close, the killer panics and tries to take them out too.The case reaches a boiling point—just as Tuper unties a fifty-year-old twist and the cold truth finally puts the fire out.

Return to Willow Falls (Matt Bannister Western Book 7)


Ken Pratt - 2020
    MARSHAL MATT BANNISTER COMES FACE TO FACE WITH HIS PAINFUL PAST.U.S. Marshal Matt Bannister’s bitter side comes out when his father, Floyd Bannister, comes to town unexpectedly. He wants nothing to do with his father and makes his thoughts known. Floyd, though heartbroken, agrees to leave Matt alone.Matt is dealing with the murder of two Chinese immigrants and the brutal scourging of a third. When he finds the men responsible, and makes an arrest, he is faced with a turning tide as those who dislike him twist the truth and turn the mining community against him with destructive consequences.Tiffany Foster, who Matt brought back from Prairieville, tells her friend Gabriel Smith, that Matt is his real father. Gabriel confronts his parents and then runs away to Branson to confront Matt. Matt is caught off guard but learns a great lesson, that he and his father have more in common than he realized… Sometimes, you must have the chimney swept clean of its past fires before you can start a new flame confidently…

Foxy Lady


Rags Daniels - 2012
    Late one evening she is brutally beaten, robbed and left to die.A few days later two bodies are found in the same house the assault took place. Others follow and a sewer of corruption contained beneath the razzamatazz of a General Election leads to shattering revelations and murderous passions; causing her well-organised world to turn into an arena of pursuit and terror, and where the only certainty is that nothing is certain.Bursting with penetrating insight into the seedy, sleazy world of political funding, Foxy Lady breathlessly leads the reader into the dark and sordid twilight world which lurks beneath the glamorous surface of the upper echelons of society. Revealing the true depths of the corruption which taints the lives of those who stride the corridors of power.

Tempered: A Space Opera Military Adventure


T.S. Paul - 2019
     Casey Lewis led the best Special Operations unit in all of the Confederation until it betrayed her. Taking revenge, she expected to die in a blaze of glory and gunfire but that was not to be. Now she's Chef of the Navy and it's her job to teach, tutor, and investigate each and every kitchen in the fleet. On her own terms. When she accidentally uncovers a plot against not only the battleship she's on but the Confederation as a whole, all hell breaks loose. Bad Casey is back and she's not fooling around this time! ***This book contains bad language, sexual situations, violence, more violence, and a whole lot of innuendo. No actual Chefs were harmed in the making of this book.

Tea, Scones, and Malaria


Katlynn Brooke - 2021
    Running wild and free on the veldt. Elephants and giraffe for playmates. What more could a child want? As a builder for the then-Rhodesian government, Dad's job was low-paying and demanding. We were sent to areas where there were few trappings of civilization, such as electricity or potable water. My siblings and I ran barefoot in the bush and swam in crocodile and parasite-infected rivers. We were never clean. We loved it.Our camps were spartan and makeshift, and scorpions, spiders, and snakes regularly invaded our space. There were no schools. I was home-schooled by Mom. Then, at age eight, my parents sent me to a religious boarding school; an institution ripped straight out of the pages of Dickens. It was there I discovered not all adults were kind or empathetic people. In the bush, we were forced to create our own amusements--making our smash hit movie on a riverbank, or writing plays that we produced on a squeaky, portable 8-track tape recorder. We spent sultry nights playing poker in our caravan, reading books, and writing stories. My parents were artists and writers; creative, but not the most practical people. They made mistakes, and in 1963 a whopping blunder bankrupted us and forced our family back into the bush. This memoir will take the reader through my life from birth in 1950 to the abrupt end of my childhood in 1969. Tea, Scones, and Malaria is a story about my family's gypsy-like trek through the African bushveld. It is about loneliness, poverty, dysfunction, and tropical diseases. It is also the laugh-out-loud memoir of a child who finds ways to entertain herself and survive in a world that is the literal definition of wild. How I survived it all, I will never know.

Aftermath of a Murder


V.K. McGivney - 2015
    The marriage had not been happy and as the investigation into his murder gets underway, she is horrified to discover that Howard had been leading a secret life of which she was totally unaware. Each new revelation hits her like a seismic shock, but she is determined to keep her children from learning the terrible truth about their father. She takes them on a trip to Wales where she experiences a peace and sense of freedom that formerly eluded her. On their return she sinks into depression and is persuaded to join a therapy group. Here she finds a vital clue leading to the discovery of the identity of Howard’s murderer.

Her Revolution


Gemma Jackson - 2019
    Her handsome husband, a radio personality, is beloved of the women of Ireland. Her two gorgeous sons are making a name for themselves in films. She has a lavish house in Dublin. What does she have to complain about? Finn eagerly anticipates her 40th birthday but spends the day alone and crying, forced to realise that she is literally a housewife. She has married a house! For over twenty years she has supported her husband in his career. She has raised two sons to manhood. She practically rebuilt the family home with her own sweat and labour. Her one escape is the garden workshop where she beats metal into fantasy figures. The day after her birthday she resigns her position as wife and mother. Her husband and sons fight the change in their lives but she holds firm. She locks herself in her workshop. Her fantasy figures don’t care if she looks a mess and can’t stop crying. Dare Lawrence, a wealthy Irishman living in America, discovers her secret world and wants some of it. He insists she puts a price on her figures, something Finn finds impossible to do. He shows her work to his friends in Hollywood. After years of her husband demanding that she hide her ‘little hobby’ suddenly the world comes calling. They want what she has created.

Outremer


Richard Allibone - 2012
    In this five year period, the Muslim world inflicted a major defeat on the Christian army of Jerusalem that resonated around the known world, and which directly resulted in the confrontation between two of the most celebrated figures in medieval history – Richard the Lionheart, renowned as the great warrior king and personification of the knightly chivalry, and Saladin, Sultan of Egypt, Syria, Arabia and Mesopotamia and consummate diplomat and strategist.The story unfolds through the reminiscences of Geoffrey de Moissac, who relates his incredible first-hand experiences fifty years after the main protagonists have perished. Geoffrey has been witness to all the dramatic events of that time, from the Christian disaster at Hattin, through a perilous journey to the west to solicit aid, and finally as part of the mighty Crusader army intent on the re-conquest of the Holy Land.

The Altitude Journals: A Seven-Year Journey from the Lowest Point in My Life to the Highest Point on Earth


David J. Mauro - 2018
    With nothing to lose, he left everything he knew behind and set out on an epic international adventure. For the next seven years, Dave trudged across glaciers and frozen wastelands and through dense, dangerous forests. He communed with penguins and elephants, kept company with cannibals and gunrunners, and spoke with the dead. And though he'd never been a climber, he ended up joining history's courageous few when he ascended into the clouds to stand at the summit of Mt. Everest.Drawn from Dave's personal diaries, The Altitude Journals is the poignant, inspiring, and endlessly exciting true story of a remarkable midlife crisis. It is an unforgettable tale of one man who went to amazing extremes to repair a shattered life--and how he regained the powers to love and forgive, and to believe in himself once again.

Alvar the Kingmaker


Annie Whitehead - 2016
    Central to the story is Alvar, earl of Mercia. Having helped King Edgar to secure the throne, amid great unrest he must fight to clear the queen’s name, bring the country back from the brink of civil war, and stabilise the monarchy for Edgar’s son, Æthelred the Unready. He does this at great personal cost, and his enemies will stop at little: Abbot Dunstan, banished, recalled, and in no mood to forgive. Bishop Oswald, the ambitious foreigner who will let nothing stand in his way. They must not discover Alvar’s secret love for the wife of his deputy, whilst Alvar must keep her safe, and serve and protect the queen, who is in love with him and who harbours a dark secret of her own… Honoured with an IndieBRAG medallion and a Discovering Diamonds Special Award, this book has also been chosen as a Chill Books honouree and Book of the Month. “Ms Whitehead knows her stuff - A must-read for anyone interested in the early Anglo-Saxon period” – Helen Hollick