Historical Thriller

It’s Mallory Atkinson’s first Christmas in Scotland. Victorian Scotland, that is. Also, as the twenty-first-century detective learns, Christmas really isn’t a thing in Victorian Scotland. It’s all about Hogmanay. But her boss, Dr. Duncan Gray, treats her to an early gift of tickets to the event of the season: a Charles Dickens reading. There, they bump into Lady Inglis—the lovely widow who has sent Gray sexy letters trying to entice him back to her bed.

Rose Winton wants nothing more than to work with her father, eminent naturalist Charles Winton, on his groundbreaking study of the platypus. Not only does she love him with all her heart, but the discoveries they have made could turn the scientific world on its head. When Charles is unable to make the long sea journey to present his findings to the prestigious Royal Society in England, Rose must venture forth in his stead. What she discovers there will change the lives of future generations.

Hollywood, 1940: It's been four years since security guard Toby Peters got fired from the Warner Brothers lot for breaking a screen cowboy's arm. Since then he's scratched out a living as a private detective - but now his old friends, the Warners, have a job for him. Someone has mailed the studio a picture of Errol Flynn caught in a compromising position with an underage woman. Although Flynn insists it's a fake, the studio is taking no chances. Peters is to deliver the blackmailer 5,000 dollars and return with the photo negative.

London, 1923. Newly minted research assistant Saffron Everleigh is the first woman to hold the position at University College of London. When she attends a dinner party for the school, she expects to engage in conversations about the university's large expedition to the Amazon. What she doesn’t expect is for Mrs. Henry, one of the professors’ wives, to drop to the floor, poisoned by an unknown toxin. Dr. Maxwell, Saffron’s mentor, is the main suspect, and evidence quickly mounts.

The latest occurrence to disturb the peace in the quaint English village of Walmsley Parva hits rather too close to home - in fact, the prime suspect has taken up residence in Edwina's potting shed. Her elderly gardener Simpkins has been secretly sleeping there after a row with his disreputable brother-in-law and housemate, Hector Lomax. When Hector is found murdered, Constable Gibbs comes looking for Simpkins, last seen arguing with Hector the night before. Based on the sad state of her garden, Edwina has grave doubts that shiftless Simpkins could muster the effort to murder anyone.

The fourth in the best-selling Alfred series from number-one historical novelist, Bernard Cornwell. The year is 885, and England is at peace, divided between the Danish kingdom to the north and Alfred's kingdom of Wessex in the south. But trouble stirs, a dead man has risen and new Vikings have arrived to occupy London. It is a dangerous time, and it falls to Uhtred, half Saxon, half Dane, a man feared and respected the length and breadth of Britain, to expel the Viking raiders and take control of London for Alfred.

The Battle of Britain defined the future for Britain, Europe, and America. Bluebirds tells the story of four ordinary young men who are thrown together as Hitler plunges the European continent into its darkest hours. Andrew Francis and Gerry Donaldson were born on different sides of the Atlantic just before The Great War. Together with the mildly psychotic Bryan Hale, they fly Spitfires through the summer of 1940.

James of Ecclestone is one such youth and when he runs away to become a billman fighting the Yorkist pretender, Lambert Simnel, he begins a journey that will shape him from a youth to a man, a wild child to a Tudor warrior. Set against the backdrop of the early years of King Henry VII’s reign, this fast-moving novel takes us from the Battle of Bramham Moor to the siege of Boulogne. Beginning with the battle of Bosworth field and ending with the Skirmish of Glastonbury Tor, we see an England changing from Yorkist to Lancastrian and James of Ecclestone becoming a warrior of renown.

On the trail to Hangtree, a gang of bandits give chase to a teenage gunslinger. Young Bill is bracing for the end when the crack of a Winchester scatters the bandits. Sam Heller, Hangtree lawman, has saved another life. And Bill will beg Heller to save one more.... Bill rode in from East Texas, where Cullen Baker, the original quick-draw artist, fights a life-and-death battle with a corrupt robber baron for control of the Torrent River. Bill came seeking help from Cullen’s old pal, Johnny Cross, who agrees to ride east to lend a bullet or two.

Born and bred in the Texas Pandhandle town of Comanche Crossing, William "Wild Bill" Longley gunned down a dozen of its men in cold blood before he got around to the sheriff and deputy - so he could take over the job himself. Then he found the perfect sidekick in a vicious career criminal named Booker Tate.

Sally has traveled to the silver-mining town of Goth, Colorado to open a restaurant with a friend. That's where she crosses paths with five bank robbers in a hurry to strike it rich. With the local sheriff lying dead in a pool of blood, Sally fights for her life while a frontier surgeon tries to work a miracle. Burning with fury, armed with a gun and a badge, Smoke Jenson goes on the hunt - a posse of one against a gang of outlaws more dangerous than he can know.

Somewhere in his past, Smoke crossed paths with a lowlife who has now built a little kingdom as a frontier sheriff. For the corrupt lawman, holding Smoke's friend hostage is the perfect way to lure Smoke into a deathtrap. Now there's no choice for the mountain man. He knows how many guns are waiting up ahead. But he won't ever leave a brother behind. And this time, there won't be an enemy left standing — or a bullet left in Smoke's gun....

There's nothing like family. At least that's what people say. But when Bo and Scratch come home to Bear Creek for a long-overdue visit, Bo's family kindly invites him to turn around and leave. His old friends and neighbors turn tail and run when they see him. Next thing he knows, he's in jail for the brutal murder of two saloon girls in neighboring Cottonwood. Unfortunately, the real killer looks astonishingly like Bo. Now, with his buddy in jail, Scratch needs to ride to the rescue, if he can escape the clutches of the beautiful assistant to a traveling snake oil salesman.

If there's anything better than coming home to Texas, it's getting paid to do it. For Scratch Morton and Bo Creel, always on the hunt for funds, the job is taking three vicious criminals from Arkansas to Tyler, Texas for trial. Little do they know that one of the criminals, the one that's a beautiful woman, is the most dangerous of all. Soon the journey home turns into a race for buried treasure, a shoot-out, and another double cross - until Scratch and Bo are making one last mad, bullet-sprayed dash through the land of their birth...or the land of their death....

Sometimes when a man’s luck turns, it turns hard. Bo Creel and Scratch Morton are experienced drifters, but now the two trail pards are down to their last dime. So they accept the best job they can get, serving as deputies in a boomtown called Mankiller. Their boss is a drunken sheriff named Biscuits O'Brien, who would rather drink than work. Their tin stars are mighty pretty, but the job starts to get serious quickly, and soon the newly-minted lawmen are standing between a cunning clan of killers and the town's desperate citizens.

When a lovely lady steps off a dusty stagecoach in Hangtree, the hardest heart skips a beat - and Sam Heller falls hard for her. What Hangtree doesn't know, however, is that Julia Pepperday isn't who she pretends to be. She is the daughter of the late Black Ear Skinner, a notorious outlaw who wanted his only child to have all the advantages in life and sent her back east. Black Ear Skinner's apple hasn't fallen far from the tree though. Julia has turned her back on the fancy boarding school and set her sights on Hangtree, because that's where Sam Heller has built a hard-earned fortune.

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.

The Carolinas, 1699: The citizens of Fount Royal believe a witch has cursed their town with inexplicable tragedies -- and they demand that beautiful widow Rachel Howarth be tried and executed for witchcraft. Presiding over the trial is traveling magistrate Issac Woodward, aided by his astute young clerk, Matthew Corbett. Believing in Rachel's innocence, Matthew will soon confront the true evil at work in Fount Royal....

1236. Beautiful Ailenor of Provence, cultured and intelligent, is only 13 when she marries Henry III. Aware of the desperate importance of providing heirs to secure the throne from those who would snatch it away, she is ruthless in her dealings with Henry's barons. As conflict escalates between them, Ailenor's shrewd and clever Savoyard uncles come to support her, but her growing political power is threatened when Henry's half-siblings also arrive at court. Henry and Ailenor become embroiled in an unpopular war to protect Gascony, the last English territory on the continent.

In the spring of 1914, renowned photographer August Sander took a photograph of three young men on their way to a country dance. This haunting image, capturing the last moments of innocence on the brink of World War I, provides the central focus of Powers' brilliant and compelling novel. As the fate of the three farmers is chronicled, two contemporary stories unfold.