Seven years of the worst war in history – so far – have turned the region into a wasteland where only the sword rules, and only the rats and the bankers grow fat. Roger Hawken, seventeen-year-old Englishman, black sheep of a family of minor landed gentry, leaves his Wiltshire home to take service with a free company of mercenary soldiers based in the Netherlands. Roger’s indiscretions have resulted in his being apprenticed as blacksmith in place of a more gentlemanly occupation, and as a smith he joins the company. Pitchforked into the bloody conflict of the siege of Breda, he finds there is more to his job than shoeing horses and forging short-swords, and starts to make his name as a fighting soldier…

    But there is treachery afoot, and Cyrus's life is in danger. When Darius, dispossessed prince of the Royal House of Parsa, tries to save the King of Kings, he is arrested and falsely condemned for treason.In a fast paced tale of love, betrayal, war and revenge, Blood of Kings sweeps the reader up on an epic journey from the mud brick cities of Ancient Persia to the burning heart of Pharaoh's Egypt.Packed full of dramatic and authentic battle scenes, it recreates the sweat, blood and fear of ancient warfare, as Persia smashes Egypt's army and brings the reign of the Pharaohs to a violent end.But it is also a book that will delight Herodotus fans, bringing the ancient Greek historian's characters to life like never before, as it follows the doomed 'lost army of Cambyses' into the Libyan Desert, marching towards a fate that would baffle archaeologists for millennia to come.

     Two Lives… separated by millennia but nevertheless linked irrevocably. What possible link could Mark Hayek, an introverted twenty-first century research scientist, have to Raven, a young healer who lived during the late Pleistocene? It has everything to do with an injured Neanderthal man taken captive by Raven’s band while he and his brothers were hunting bison. After Raven heals the captive, he leaves for his tribe, and she tries to forget him as she struggles to remain within the band. But it’s not possible to stay when several band members make her life with the group untenable. Seeking the Neanderthal man she’d helped and facing her fear of being alone on the dangerous steppes, she begins crossing that grassy land—but a woman like Raven isn’t destined to be by herself for long. In the future, Mark Hayek is forced into making his own journey when his uncle dies in the Levant. His travels place him firmly in the footsteps of his Neanderthal and Early Modern Human ancestors, crossing the same ancient lands as he struggles against the fate a wayward kinsman has imposed. He’s been made a pawn in a cruel game, but when he encounters a woman being held prisoner in a cave, he seeks a way to save her. Help arrives for the pair, flowing from an unexpected, ancient source, igniting a struggle deep within Mark to accept that the illogical as well as the logical make up existence. Peoples come and go, one group replacing another over time, and echoes from ancient events have always affected the future, but Mark and Raven discover that in certain environments echoes are able to bounce back and forth, blurring their origins.

    Both thought-provoking and action-packed, Frend is a story of transformation, the unceasing drive to belong, and the struggle to liberate oneself from oppression, both internal and external.

    Till now, twenty-three-year-old Simon Boudlin has evaded military duty but following a barroom brawl in Victoria, Texas, Simon finds himself conscripted into the Confederate Army. Luckily his talent with a fiddle gets him a comparatively easy position in a regimental band.Weeks later, on the eve of the Confederate surrender, Simon and his bandmates are called to play for officers and their families from both sides of the conflict. There the fiddler can’t help but notice Doris Mary Dillon, an indentured girl from Ireland, who is governess to a Union colonel’s daughter.After the surrender, Simon and Doris go their separate ways. But Simon cannot forget the fair Irish maiden, and vows that someday he will find her again.

     A new Tudor monarch has just been crowned: a handsome, energetic king. His court, so different from his father’s, is a glamorous, seductive magnet to ambitious young noblemen from across the country. One such man is Julian Allard who has fled a monastic life in Northumberland to seek love, fame and fortune at the court of Henry VIII. But when his beloved marries another and the King proves to be a temperamental master, Julian’s idyllic life at court begins to fall apart. Dismissing the advice of friends and the wise heads around him, he finds himself on a path to self-destruction, believing only in the dark prophesy of a fortune teller. Cloisterman is powerful Tudor chronicle from a master storyteller. Juliet Dymoke’s portrayal of life at the court of Henry VIII at an exciting time of intellectual and artistic promise, is compelling, moving and utterly convincing.

    As the trial unfolds, May tells her version of events. In 1887, at the tender age of eighteen, May ventures to Chicago in hopes of earning enough money to support her family. Circumstances force her to take up residence at the city’s most infamous bordello, but May soon learns to employ her considerable feminine wiles to extract not only sidelong looks but also large sums of money from the men she encounters.  Insinuating herself into Chicago’s high society, May lands a well-to-do fiancé—until, that is, a Pinkerton Agency detective named Reed Doherty intervenes and summarily foils the engagement.  Unflappable May quickly rebounds, elevating seduction and social climbing to an art form as she travels the world, eventually marrying a wealthy Dutch Baron. Unfortunately, Reed Doherty is never far behind and continues to track May in a delicious cat-and-mouse game as the newly-minted Baroness’s misadventures take her from San Francisco to Shanghai to London and points in between. The Pinkerton Agency really did dub May the “Most Dangerous Woman,” branding her a crafty blackmailer and ruthless seductress.  To many, though, she was the most glamorous woman to grace high society. Was the real May Dugas a cold-hearted swindler or simply a resourceful provider for her poor family? As the narrative bounces back and forth between the trial taking place in 1917 and May’s devious but undeniably entertaining path to the courtroom—hoodwinking and waltzing her way through the gilded age and into the twentieth century—we're left to ponder her guilt as we move closer to finding out what fate ultimately has in store for our irresistible adventuress.

    A terrible sacrifice. A second chance... 1952. In the fragile atmosphere of post-war Paris, Sophie Bernot is training as a heart surgeon. A young woman in a man's world, Sophie is determined to bury her past and forge her medical career, whatever the costs.Across the channel, Sebastian Ogilvie is burning with ambition for his first architectural project. As his schemes lead him to France, and to a chance encounter with Sophie, his future seems full of promise.But when Sophie and Sebastian find themselves entangled in a brief, passionate affair, they each face a choice that will change their lives irrevocably, and a secret that will take years to be uncovered... Sweeping from Paris to London, to the snow-capped peaks of the Alps, this is an unforgettable story of passion, heartache and forgiveness. Perfect for fans of Santa Montefiore and Lucinda Riley

    We are born and raised to serve our lord and shogun. Our code dictates selflessness and death to be more honorable than failure, whether on the battlefield or even over the most insignificant dispute.In eighteenth-century Japan, the lord of a samurai clan is sentenced to death for an assault on castle grounds. As dictated by law, the clan must exact revenge on the one responsible for their lord’s death. However due to circumstances, the shogun forbids any such act, placing a band of masterless samurai at odds with themselves and the martial code by which they live and die. After much trial and hardship, the clan does the unthinkable and defies the shogun’s mandate in order to fulfill their duty to their late lord. In doing so, these legendary warriors will be forever remembered for inspiring the Way of the Warrior back into the hearts of their countrymen.If you like historical novels set in old Japan, martial arts action adventure stories or samurai films, discover 47 Ronin.

    They and their five children work relentlessly to tame their patch of land, buying saplings from a local tree man known as John Appleseed so they can cultivate the fifty apple trees required to stake their claim on the property. But the orchard they plant sows the seeds of a long battle. James loves the apples, reminders of an easier life back in Connecticut; while Sadie prefers the applejack they make, an alcoholic refuge from brutal frontier life.1853: Their youngest child Robert is wandering through Gold Rush California. Restless and haunted by the broken family he left behind, he has made his way alone across the country. In the redwood and giant sequoia groves he finds some solace, collecting seeds for a naturalist who sells plants from the new world to the gardeners of England. But you can run only so far, even in America, and when Robert's past makes an unexpected appearance he must decide whether to strike out again or stake his own claim to a home at last.Chevalier tells a fierce, beautifully crafted story in At the Edge of the Orchard, her most graceful and richly imagined work yet.

    Stranded in a valley teeming with enemy troops, Sol scrambles to survive and evade capture. Pararescueman Bo Bolick has been given just twenty-four hours to find Sol before a US carpet bombing destroys every living thing in the valley, friend or foe.As Bo’s search intensifies, Minh, a young Hanoi woman who entertains the fighters and travelers along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, becomes inextricably caught up in the raging battle between her North Vietnamese troops and the American forces sent to rescue Sol. In the midst of heavy combat, Minh tries to find and understand love for the first time in her life.But the clock is ticking. A curtain of fire is going to descend. The desperate realities of jungle warfare are about to collide with a warrior’s code that says no man will be left behind.

    Knowing the Germans could invade their quiet home the resident children of Guernsey are evacuated. Among them are Amelia Ashton, and her older sister Evelyn.The promise to stay safe.Forced onto the boat by her older sister, seventeen-year-old Amelia Ashton arrives in Weymouth with hundreds of other children. Although she is placed with a kind and loving foster family in Derbyshire, her world is torn apart. With all her communication cut off from her family, and the boys at school joining to fight in the war, Amelia struggles with her own desire to help. On a whim, she lies about her age and boards a train headed to volunteer with the Woman’s Land Army. Finding solace in the work of farm life, she reconnects with William, a young man from Derbyshire, and who doesn’t waste any time asking for her hand in marriage. Can Amelia start a new life without looking over her shoulder at what she left behind in Guernsey or will the war change everything?The promise to survive.Fearing for her parents’ lives, nineteen-year-old, Evelyn Ashton stays behind, living through the German occupation plaguing her once beautiful home—the island of Guernsey. Living under German rule, the residents find a new meaning of desperation and despair, trying to survive on rations and evade the threats of being sent off to a death camp. After her parents die in a bombing, Evelyn is left alone to fend for herself against her enemy, and when German soldiers take over her house, she seeks refuge in the only family she believes she has left—Henry—the man once interested in her sister. Can they find comfort in each other or will the occupation claim not only their love but also their lives?Two sisters. Two promises. One bloody war that changes their lives forever.

    Everything changes when she’s recruited into the Office of Strategic Services by family friend and legendary WWI hero Major General William Donovan.Donovan has faith in her—and in all his “glorious amateurs” who are becoming Anna’s fast friends: Maggie, Anna’s down-to-earth mentor; Irene, who’s struggling to find support from her husband for her clandestine life; and Julia, a cheerful OSS liaison. But the more Anna learns about the organization’s secret missions, the more she longs to be stationed abroad. Then comes the opportunity: go undercover as a spy in the French Resistance to help steal critical intelligence that could ultimately turn the tide of the war.Dispatched behind enemy lines and in constant danger, Anna is filled with adrenaline, passion, and fear. She’s driven to make a difference—for her country and for herself. Whatever the risk, she’s willing to take it to help liberate France from the shadows of occupation and to free herself from the shadows of her former life.

    Purely an advisory role, they are told.Harry Delhaze is on a lonely path to self-destruction; George Marriott has promises to keep. It seems to them like the easiest money they’ll ever make.They couldn’t be more wrong.They are forced to battle frostbite in the Atlas Mountains and endure the baking deserts of the sub-Sahara; they are traded, kidnapped, and used as pawns in high-stakes political rivalries; they encounter women who worship cannons for fertility and magician-warlords who talk to the dead and play bloody games of chess with living slaves; and the three muzzle-loading cannon the Sultan has hired them to command are antiques that could explode in their faces at any moment.Then there is the Lord of the Atlas himself, Amastan el-Karim, who harbors a shocking secret that could cost them both their lives – or give one of them a reason to live again.An epic historical adventure that evokes the beautiful and the barbaric of nineteenth century Morocco that transports the reader to a now-lost world of ancient medinas, crumbling palaces, and wild mountain passes.

    Historically accurate, it is a story of murder and betrayal, of a failed rebellion, and the love of a national scandal.  Charles Trevelyan was Secretary of the Treasury, and Director of the Famine Relief Programme at a time when famine raged and antipathy in English politics towards the plight of those affected raged equally. Kathryn, Charles' daughter, likewise felt no sympathy until the very scale of the tragedy became apparent. Joining the underground, she preached insurrection, stole food for the starving, and became the lover of the leader of the rebellion. She became known as Dark Rosaleen, the heroine of banned nationalist poem, was branded as both traitor and cause celebré. This is her story.