Historical Adventure Fiction

They ride after sundown. Black robed figures with skulls for faces, terrorizing the town of Recoil like the horsemen of the Apocalypse. If the sheriff hopes to defeat this hellish band of outlaws, he'll need back-up. Enter Colonel Shamus O'Brien. The seasoned ranch hand and patriarch has fought off more than his share of horse thieves and marauders. But he's never seen anything like these ornery devils.

The war between the States has ended. Now, driven from Texas by carpetbaggers, former CSA Colonel Shamus O'Brien sets off for a new frontier - New Mexico. Here, where land is cheap, bandits shoot to kill, and rustlers rule the night, it takes more than one man to run a ranch. So he offers a partnership to his eldest son, Jacob, with equal shares going to his sons Sam, Patrick, and Shawn. Together, the brother's O'Brien will defend their homestead, the Dromore, in this violent, lawless land...and when necessary, administer their own brand of frontier justice.

James A. Michener's masterly chronicle of South Africa is an epic tale of adventurers, scoundrels, and ministers, the best and worst of two continents, who carve an empire out of a vast wilderness. From the Java-born Van Doorn family tree springs two great branches: one nurtures lush vineyards, the other settles the interior to become the first Trekboers and Afrikaners.

Texas: a land of sprawling diversity and unparalleled richness; a dazzling chapter in the history of our nation; a place like no other on Earth. Through the remarkable lives of four families, this epic saga spans four centuries and two continents and charts the dramatic formation of several great dynasties from the age of the conquistadors to the present day. A richly compelling novel of a proud people eager to meet the challenge of the land, Texas is James Michener's most magnificent achievement.

As the ninth century wanes, England appears about to be plunged into chaos once more. For the Viking-raised but Saxon-born warrior, Uhtred, whose life seems to shadow the making of England, this presents him with difficult choices. King Alfred is dying and his passing threatens the island of Britain to renewed warfare. Alfred wants his son, Edward, to succeed him but there are other Saxon claimants to the throne as well as ambitious pagan Vikings to the north.

Halt makes a horrifying discovery: Skandia's borders have been breached by the entire Temujai army. And Araluen is next in their sights. If two kingdoms are to be saved, an unlikely union must be made. Will it hold long enough to vanquish a ruthless new enemy? Or will past tensions spell doom for all?

In The Mauritius Command, Captain Jack Aubrey is ashore on half-pay without a command until his friend, occasional intelligence agent Stephen Maturin, arrives with secret orders for Aubrey to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope under a Commodore's pennant. But the difficulties of carrying out his orders are compounded by two of his own captains: one a pleasure-seeking dilettante, the other liable to provoke the crew to mutiny.

In the cutthroat world of bounty hunters, Joe Noose is as honest as they come. Which isn't saying much. Just look at his less-than-honest colleagues. They framed Joe for a murder they committed. They made sure Joe's face wound up on a wanted poster. Now they're gonna hunt Joe down and collect the reward money. There's just one problem: Joe Noose thinks it's his bounty. It's his reward. And it's their funeral .

Summer comes to Ireland, and an uneasy peace holds at Loch Garman. The Northmen, eager to get to sea, work relentlessly on their ships, with the aid of their unlikely allies, the Irish, who are just as eager to see them go. But not everyone is willing to just let them sail away. Certain that God demands the heathens be punished, the one-eyed warrior turned monk Brother Becc is determined that Thorgrim and his men will not simply go free. And when another band of raiders arrives, Becc finds the excuse he needs to take action.

Driven ashore on the coast of Ireland, their longships nearly wrecked by the gods who seem unwilling to let them leave, Thorgrim Night Wolf and his band of Northmen once again face a fight for their survival. Helpless without their ships, they must find some refuge in that hostile country and begin the laborious work of making the vessels seaworthy again. But for all the shipbuilding skills that Thorgrim and the others possess, there is one thing they cannot do - weave cloth to replace the sails shredded in the gale that drove them ashore.

After the treachery and slaughter they met during the raid on Glendalough, Thorgrim Night Wolf and his small band of surviving Northmen have returned to Vik-lo, where Thorgrim again sits as lord of the Viking longphort. But the Northmen are a restless lot, and soon they find themselves eager to put to sea. Loading weapons and supplies aboard the four longships under Thorgrim's command, they set out in search of the rich merchant ships that now ply Irish waters. But not all cargoes are the same, nor all merchant captains easy targets for the Norse raiders.

Bobby MacPherson, seaman second class, only 17 years old and freshly graduated from radio operator school, was naively excited by his assignment to the submarine S-37 stationed with the Asiatic Fleet. The exotic places providing bases for the American Navy - Manila, Shanghai, Tsingtao - and their strange cultures, histories, and people engaged his driving curiosity and sharp mind.

No child should have to witness what twelve-year-old Cord Malone saw the day his parents were murdered and his home burned to the ground. Rescued from the blaze by his uncle Jesse, the terrible image still haunts him, as does the name of the man responsible: Levi Creed. Jesse tried to track the man down, only to lose Creed's trail. But Cord never gives up; he just waits out his young years before setting out on a trail long gone cold to satisfy the need for revenge that still burns inside him.

Lured by the promise of the gold rush, Cam Sutton leaves his cow-herding job for the gulches of the Black Hills. But his carefree journey is interrupted when he rescues Mary Bishop and her daughters from a stagecoach holdup. Cam accompanies them on their search for Mr. Bishop, only to discover that he's been murdered in Custer City, leaving behind a share of a lucrative gold mine to his family. Now Cam must find a way to escort the Bishops and their fortune home to Colorado. But greedy, cold-blooded killer Cotton Roach is fast on their heels.

What do you get when you take one stagecoach out of Denver, add a thousand-or-so bullets whizzing past your head, while sitting next to two headless corpses caught in the crossfire? If your name is Lou Prophet, you get revenge. Raucous, rowdy, ruthless revenge. Next question?

Augustus Caesar rules Imperial Rome at the height of its power, as the Roman Empire stretches across the known world. Cassius, son of one of her most powerful families, is the personification of Rome's imperial strength: wealthy, popular, a war hero with a decorated military career, he hides a secret. After his nerve is broken in Germany, the thought of genuine armed combat is enough to send him into a cold sweat of fear and shame.

Sharpe is back. Spain, 1812. Richard Sharpe, the most brilliant - but the most wayward - soldier in the British army finds himself faced with an impossible task. Two French armies march towards each other. If they meet, the British are lost. And only Sharpe - with just his cunning, his courage and a small band of rogues to rely on - stands in their way....

What started as a routine hunt and grab - putting outlaw Thorp McCluskey on a train to Cheyenne and prison - has just gone straight to hell for bounty hunter Luke Jensen. First came the beautiful prostitute who pointed her alluring attentions in Luke’s direction. Then came a man who fought by Luke’s side in the war - but the war is over and friendships can turn deadly. Luke gets bushwacked, his prisoner is gone, and so is a fortune in gold. Now Luke is riding back into the Wyoming wilderness to hunt down McCluskey and his woman to finish what he started.

Chet Byrnes is building a new life in Arizona Territory as he expands his cattle ranching operation - but trouble just keeps coming. A brutal Apache attack on his cattle drive. A friend's young daughter is abducted, and the search leads Chet and his men to the wild town of Tombstone and ultimately south of the border, where everything comes with a price...and life is cheap.

Jem Coulter and his friends celebrate the end of the Civil War in their town with firecrackers, parades, and anticipation for a bear-and-bull fight. But chaos ensues when a bull breaks loose, causing wood splinters and fence posts to rain down and break his cousin Nathan's legs. With the Coulter family unable to afford a San Francisco surgeon, the family and their friend Strike-It-Rich Sam devise a plan to raise money. Jem, his sister Ellie, and Strike embark on a quest to recover lost gold.