Out of desperation, she posts an ad and begins a correspondence with a widowed farmer, Thomas. Desperate to escape her grim situation, she accepts his marriage of convenience proposal, looking forward to a fresh start in Nebraska. As her heart fills with hope, she journeys to Nebraska, looking forward to a fresh start and new life. But when she arrives, it is not Thomas who meets her but his brother, Jay. And when Emma learns a terrible secret, she realizes that her life in Nebraska will be just as grim as it was in Chicago. Too late, she realizes that she has made the biggest mistake of her life; a mistake that will cost her dearly.

    

    Award-winning author Rick DeStefanis introduces readers to the world of the 1970s through the eyes of Billy Coker, a nineteen-year old boy who realizes his blind obsession with the other sex has led to his tour of duty in Vietnam. With his carefree and innocent time at Raeford High still fresh in his memory, Coker attempts to make sense of the horrors of war, the guilt of surviving the violent conflict, and a future where no one seems to understand his terrible experience. Billy has escaped death in battle, but faces the futureless void of post-traumatic stress syndrome and a psychological impotence that plagues him at the worst possible times. His only hope for finding himself is to find someone special he lost along the way. From the jungles of Vietnam, Billy returns home as he embarks on another adventurous journey to find healing and reconnect with himself, his country, and a little fat girl from his past named Bonnie Jo.

    Ultimate mission. But can the SAS break in to a Colombian island prison and snatch an Argentine killer?1996: a terminally ill father desperately seeks answers to what happened to his son, missing for twenty years. He has the names of two Argentine men – one in Mexico City, the other imprisoned on the Colombian island of Providencia – but no one to ask the questions.A missing girl’s family have given her up for dead when they stumble upon a Miami newspaper story mentioning two of her friends. One has just died; the other, half-deranged, tells a garbled story of sexual slavery on a Caribbean island which sounds suspiciously like Providencia.MI6 and the British government are certain that a huge drug-trafficking empire is being run from the prison, and know that some of the profits are being funnelled by its Argentine ‘guest’ into financing a mercenary invasion of the Falklands. Ignored by the Colombian authorities and mysteriously obstructed by their American allies, the British have no choice but to send in their own elite force – the SAS.

    Over the years it was visited by a diverse hodge-podge of notables, including Davey Crockett and Charles Dickens, all who left aghast at the horrible living conditions, the poverty and the decadence of the people they found there. At their zenith, these vulgar, diseased and murderous streets housed 30,000 homeless children of all ages--the street urchins--who played, scavenged for food, fought the elements and each other, and tried to avoid the perpetual violence that routinely threatened their survival. Death was their constant competitor, and death often won. They were the discarded refuse of the great 19th century immigrant migrations to America, and they were an undesirable nuisance to the good citizens of New York. This is the story of two such children, Anna Murphy and Ben McDonald, abandoned to the streets and thrown together in a desperate attempt to achieve the impossible: to escape from Hell’s Kitchen in search of new beginnings in far and distant lands.

    

    Many Southerners were losing everything they had, many more people than just those few who had held slaves. While most tried to stay and hang on to the decorum of Southern gentility, a few decided that rather then lose their family farms and businesses it would be better to build a new life elsewhere. This is the story of one such group, who determined that their future and the futures of their friends and families was to be found in Texas. Jed Simpson and his partner Roscoe Sartain are joined by families from both North and South, black and white, and on the advice of a fellow Confederate, they stop in Rusk. Finding an old, now vacant, plantation, they manage to buy it and start rebuilding it as a small ranch, The Chalice. All is going better than any of them expected, until Jed’s past comes calling. Aided by friends both new and old, blood flows freely as Jed tries to put that past behind him once and for all. But the toll it takes may be too much for him as he faces down the last of his tormentors.

    Army sergeant, recovered from battle with Rommel’s Afrika Korps, is appointed the leader of a dozen very bright, know-it-all draftees being poured into the Army’s replacement pool. He toughens them into an effective but naïve team. After they come ashore at Utah Beach, the Wehrmacht hands out its own bloody lessons. In minutes, one is dead and a second wounded, the start of a pitiless 10-month ordeal. In horrific combat from Normandy through the Bulge to the Elbe River, they learn to fight a more skilled and hardened enemy. All pay a steep price.

    Amongst his few possessions is a dagger which bears an unknown heraldic symbol. He joins a band of mercenaries heading for Venice where the Christians are assembling for the Crusade. On his journey from boy to manhood, discovering a surprisingly natural aptitude for combat, he encounters a secret Brotherhood and their avowed enemy The Order of the Blooded Cross. “The Crusader’s Blade” is the first of three novels that draw heavily on historical detail, intermingling real and fictitious characters and events to give an enthralling portrait of the religious battles of the age.

    But they may have found one in the shape of the Holy Lance.Bohemond of Taranto realises that the pilgrims must fight or die.But to fight they must know their enemy. Bohemond instructs Edward Kemp, an English knight, to gather intelligence on Kerbogha and the Muslim army. But in attempting to save the crusaders, Edward may damn himself.Triumph and tragedy await on the plains of Antioch, where the course of the crusade - and history - will be altered forever.Recommended for fans of Bernard Cornwell, Ben Kane & Conn Iggulden.Richard Foreman's new bestselling series on the First Crusade provides an entertaining insight into history - and the significant players in the armed pilgrimage, including Bohemond of Taranto and Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy. Foreman shines a light on the epochal moment, with humour and humanity, which still shapes the story of Europe and the Middle East today.

    Along the way he learns the horrors of war, the evils of slavery, the plight of the slave, and the cost of freedom. By a twist of fate he becomes the pastor of a church of black slaves.

    England rules the waves and Wellington is taking on the French in the Spanish Peninsula, but the French Navy yet remains a potent threat, especially their fast, well-armed frigates. Also, another threat is creeping Northward; slaver/pirates in fast galleys from the North African coast, are raiding North, taking advantage of the warring Navies preoccupation with each other, to capture for slavery the highly valuable women and children of Northern Europe. Into this, Captain Reuben Argent sails his first command, HMS Ariadne, a fast, 32 gun, Spanish built frigate. He has moulded both his ship and crew into a tight fighting unit, which he immediately uses to capture La Mouette, a French 42 gun frigate. A brilliant start, but all is not well at home. The Enclosures movement could force his family from their farm, and his Admiral is their immediate neighbour, who hates the Argent family and will use any means available to force them from their home and gain their land. On top is Argent’s rivalry with “Flogger Cheveley” the Captain of the Herodotus, who has a very different concept of how to run a ship of the Royal Navy. Also, as Captain, Argent has to contend with the machinations within the community that is his own crew. The day comes when Argent has to make a career threatening choice, either, as ordered, to take a vital despatch to Wellington at the fastest possible speed or to search for the slaver that has just captured Cornish women and children, including members of his own family. In the background is the smuggling of linen from Ireland to France and his relations with the feisty Sinead Malley and the society beauty Charlotte Willoughby

    Along with the floating grog shop and brothels come ‘war tourists’ – aristocratic gentlemen travelling to see the war first-hand.When Viscount Bullivant is taken prisoner by the Russians, it falls to Commander Kit Killigrew to negotiate his release. But the Russians suspect his lordship has vital information and before long Killigrew is a prisoner of the Third Section – the feared Tsarist secret police.In the ensuing forty-eight hours, Killigrew must escape, rescue Bullivant, steal back his yacht, sail through the treacherous Ekenäs Archipelago and take on a Russian ship with an unarmed schooner. And in Captain-Lieutenant Count Mikhail Yurievich Pechorin, he may finally have met his match… Praise for the Killigrew Novels ‘Leaves the reader breathless for his next voyage’ Northern Echo‘Action-packed and well-researched… in the vein of Forester and O’Brian but with its own distinctive flavour’ Good Book Guide‘A rollicking tale with plenty of punches’ Lancashire Evening Post‘A hero to rival any Horatio Hornblower. Swashbuckling? You bet’ Belfast Telegraph The Kit Killigrew Naval Series Killigrew of the Royal Navy Killigrew and the Golden Dragon Killigrew and the Incorrigibles Killigrew and the North-West Passage Killigrew’s Run Killigrew and the Sea Devil

    Tough times require tough choices, no matter if it’s in a Colorado winter or a race across New Mexico.In Blood Saga, Virgil Child returns his mother’s coffin to White Oaks, New Mexico Territory, to bury her beside his dead father. Child can’t find his father’s grave and as he investigates, he discovers how his birthright was stolen by Ed Keller and his allies. He sets out to right a wrong and get what’s his against all odds.The Preston Lewis Western Collection, Volume 2 includes: Escape from Silverton, Blood Saga, Vigilante Justice, New Mexico Showdown and Hard Texas Winter.

    Reacting instinctively to protect a stranger, Thomas becomes their target. When the bonemen come to inflict punishment he is forced kill one of their number.As he leaves London in the company of Arthur, Prince of Wales, heir to the English throne, Thomas expects no grave consequences for his actions. It’s a mistake that might get both him and his companions killed.Sent to England by the Spanish Queen to watch over Catherine of Aragon on her marriage to Arthur, Thomas intends the duty to be short-lived. But he hasn’t reckoned on the bonemen, who are spreading their influence ever wider. As danger mounts, Thomas is no longer sure he is the man for the task but has no option but to fight, as he always has. For the innocent, for justice, and for his life.Politics and crime collide in Tudor England in a new series of adventures for Thomas Berrington. Join Thomas on his latest journey. Order The Bone Men now.