James Boschert: Greek Fire, Book Four of Talon:
Imprisoned for brawling in Acre, Talon and his longtime friend Max are
freed by an old mentor from the Order of the Templars and offered a new
mission in the fabled city of Constantinople. There Talon finds that
winning the Emperor's favor obligates him to follow the Emperor to war
in a willful expedition to free Byzantine lands from the Seljuk Turks.
And beneath the pageantry of the great city, plans are being fomented by
aristocrats who have made a reckless deal with Arab pirates to sell the
one weapon the Byzantine Empire has to defend itself, Greek Fire, to an
enemy bent upon the Empire's destruction. Talon and Max will find
themselves in a fight for their lives – on the sea, and in the
labyrinthine back streets of Constantinople where Talon must outwit his
own kind, the assassins in the pay of a treacherous alliance.
George Cadwalader, The Unmarked Road: Marine Gunnery Sergeant John "K-Bar" Caleb has survived everything the
Viet Nam War could throw at him, as his many Bronze Stars attest
until a grenade explosion sends him to Philadelphia's Naval Hospital.
There he violently relives his battles in recurring nightmares,
undermining the doctors' efforts to save his mangled arm and hand. In
a final gamble Caleb is sent for treatment in the hospital's psych
ward, where the windows are barred and the walls show marks where men
before him have tried to claw their way out. To regain his life again,
Caleb must come to terms with everything he has seen, everything he has
done, and all that he has lost in a prolonged conflict between
conviction and conscience.
Kenneth Leland, 1812 The Land Between Flowing Waters:
Four families struggling to survive in the time of the 1812 war. The
Benjamins found freedom from slavery in Upper Canada and now, must
defend their new homeland from impending American invasion. The Babcocks
are pacifist Quakers
who have found a place of peace, security and tolerance in the British
province, yet they too are threatened as the war begins to flow around
them. For Kshiwe, Kmonokwe and their children, 1812 is just
another season of fear among First Nations people facing extinction. In
the shadows of Tecumseh and Brock, all join in the fight to survive.
Marina Neary, Wynfield's Kingdom: Re-released with stunning new covers. Welcome to 1830s Bermondsey, London's
most notorious slum, a land of gang wars, freak shows, and home to every
depravity known to man. Dr. Thomas Grant, a disgraced physician,
adopts Wynfield, a ten-year old thief savagely battered by a gang leader
for insubordination. The boy grows up to be a slender, idealistic opium
addict who worships Victor Hugo. By day he steals and resells guns from
a weapons factory. By night he amuses filthy crowds with his adolescent
girlfriend-a fragile witch with wolfish eyes. Wynfield senses that
he has a purpose outside of his rat-infested kingdom; but he never
guesses that he had been selected at birth to topple the British
aristocracy.
Marina Neary, Wynfield's War : Re-released with stunning new covers. From the slums of Bermondsey, Wynfield finds
himself in teh spring of 1854 in the Crimea where he experiences a chaotic military campaign. Under the influence of an
unlikely patron-the ruthless Lord Lucan,known to his Irish tenants as
"the exterminator," Lucan plans to mold Wynfield into a brainwashed ally
for his upcoming Crimean campaign. In Crimea Wynfield catches a
glimpse of the personal war between Lorn and Cardigan, which
results in the blunder known as the Charge of the Light Brigade, and
discovers the darker side of the saintly Florence Nightingale. Having seen so many
heroes trampled and so many cowards exalted, Wynfield must choose sides
and, in so doing, shape the course of the rest of his life.
Frank Payton, Hawkwood's Sword: Vividly portrays the life of a mercenary on the battle
fields in 14th century Italy and France. A tough and resilient hero
Captain John Hawkwood commands like-minded fighting men gathered from
England and all over Europe Alongside the German and European
mercenaries lead by Albrecht Sterz, they make war for whomever pays them
the most. Hawkwood is one of the best at his trade: courageous, a
practiced fighter, but also chivalrous. The various lords of Lombardy
and the Papal states pay him to sack cities and ambush their enemies,
but who of these counts and nobles can themselves be trusted? Hawkwood
must rely on his sword and finely tuned instincts to protect his life
and that of his men from treachery and betrayal on all sides.
John Sawney, The Ruin: A gritty tale of Dark Age Britain, where heroes are few
and the lives of thousands hinge upon the whims of greedy and unscrupulous
men. In fifth century Britannia, the Roman colony has all but disappeared; the
west and north remain wild and lawless. Plague ravages the countryside. Eiteol,
a cloddish nobleman, manages to save the dictator Vertigern from an
assassination attempt and the pair must flee for their lives. Deep
down Eiteol knows that Vertigern is a monster, and that he should abandon him to his fate. But
for reasons he does not understand, Eiteol finds himself bound to the man whose life
he has saved. Their desperate search for shelter drives them into the
barbarous west—where money has no value, the law has no power, and murder is a
daily reality.
Jess Wells, A Slender Tether: Amidst the turbulent weather of Europe’s Little
Ice Age, A Slender Tether offers three compelling tales of
self-discovery, woven into a rich tapestry of 14th century France.
Christine de Pizan, daughter of a disgraced court physician and
astrologer, grapples with her ambition to be the first woman writer of
France. A doctor finds an unusual way to cope with the death of his
wife. And opportunity alternates with disasters in the lives of four
commoners, yoked by necessity: a paper-maker struggling to keep his
business, a falconer with a mysterious past, a merchant's daughter
frantic to avoid an arranged marriage, and a down-on-his-luck musician
with a broken guitar and the voice of an angel.
