Medieval English

'One of the finest historical fiction writers in the world' Ben Kane Pisa, May 1364. Sir William Gold is looking forward to a lucrative career as a hired sword in the endless warring between Italy's city states. But when a message comes from the Grand Master of the Hospitaliers, William is...

An undeniable masterpiece of Western Civilization, The Metamorphoses is a continuous narrative that covers all the Olympian legends, seamlessly moving from one story to another in a splendid panorama of savage beauty, charm, and wit. All of the gods and heroes familiar to us are represented. Such familiar legends as Hercules, Perseus and Medusa, Daedelus and Icarus, Diana and Actaeon, and many others, are breathtakingly recreated.

In the pre-dawn hours of August 24th, 1305, in London's Smithfield Prison, the outlaw William Wallace - hero of all the Scots and deadly enemy of King Edward of England - sits awaiting the dawn, when he is to be hanged and then drawn and quartered. This brutal sundering of his body is the revenge of the English. Wallace is visited by a Scottish priest who has come to hear his last confession, a priest who knows Wallace like a brother. Wallace's confession - the tale that follows - is all the more remarkable because it comes from real life.

Both a history and an examination of human thought and behavior spanning three thousand years, On Politics thrillingly traces the origins of political philosophy from the ancient Greeks to Machiavelli in Book I and from Hobbes to the present age in Book II. Whether examining Lord Acton's dictum that "absolute power corrupts absolutely" or explicating John Stuart Mill's contention that it is "better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied," Alan Ryan evokes the lives and minds of our greatest thinkers in a way that makes hearing about them a transcendent experience.

A city makes its last stand . . . War Master’s Gate is the ninth book in the critically acclaimed epic fantasy series Shadows of the Apt by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The Empire’s mighty imperial armies are marching on Collegium once more. They’ve learnt from past failures and this time their...

The reign of Richard III, the last Yorkist king and the final monarch of the Plantagenet dynasty, marked a turning point in British history. But despite his lasting legacy, Richard only ruled as king for the final two years of his life. While much attention has been given to his short reign, Michael Hicks explores the whole of Richard's fascinating life and traces the unfolding of his character and career from his early years as the son of a duke to his violent death at the battle of Bosworth.

The life of Emperor Charles V (1500-1558), ruler of Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and much of Italy and Central and South America, has long intrigued biographers. But the elusive nature of the man (despite an abundance of documentation), his relentless travel and the control of his own image, together with the complexity of governing the world's first transatlantic empire, complicate the task.

A #1 New York Times bestseller from the fantasy author who is legend herself: TAMORA PIERCE. In this second book in the Beka Cooper Trilogy, Beka uses her unique magic and street smarts to solve dangerous mystery! Is Beka ready for her first real mission? Beka Cooper is having trouble settling...

A palace the size of a city, ruled by giant Ladies of unknowable, eldritch origin. A land left to slow decay, drowning in the debris of generations. All this and more awaits you within The West Passage, a delightfully mysterious and intriguingly weird medieval fantasy unlike anything you've read...

New York Times bestselling author Sarah MacLean returns with the much-anticipated final book in her Bareknuckle Bastards series, featuring a scoundrel duke and the powerful woman who brings him to his knees. Grace Condry has spent a lifetime running from her past. Betrayed as a child by her only...

In the second half of the tenth century, Byzantium embarked on a series of spectacular conquests. By the early eleventh century, the empire was the most powerful state in the Mediterranean. Yet this imperial project came to a crashing collapse fifty years later, when political disunity, fiscal mismanagement, and defeat at the hands of the Seljuks and the Normans brought an end to Byzantine hegemony. By 1081, Byzantium's very existence was threatened.

The Mosquito was probably World War II's most versatile combat aircraft. This book contains hundreds of firsthand accounts from many of the two-man crews who flew in them; pilots and navigators. It portrays the dramatic experiences of flying in its many roles as pathfinder, night fighter, reconnaissance aircraft, precision bombing, and low-level ground attack aircraft. It describes many of the RAF's most audacious raids on prime, but difficult, targets where carpet bombing by heavy bombers was likely to be ineffective and cause unnecessary casualties to civilians.

Skye O'Malley's magnificent daughter Velvet embarks on her own adventures in this sensuous best seller. Now, in this journey into pure sensual delight by Bertrice Small, Velvet proves she's every inch her mother's daughter. When Alexander Gordon arrives from the Scottish Highlands to claim Velvet as his bride, he must woo her body and soul before he can win her heart. When the Grande Mughal of India receives the beautiful Velvet as a gift, he must win her heart with his patience before he can teach her every trick at his command.

Richard and Jack finally return from Europe to a troubled England. Will they manage to complete the task they have been set, and release Lizbet and the rest of the men from their Island jail? Will they beat Andrew Kineer back to England, or will he arrive before them and succeed in striking his own deal with the Knights of St John? Mary is still on the throne, although her state of health is of increasing concern to those around her. Philip, armed with much of England's wealth has left her to continue with the war against France.

Livingston argues that the English lens through which the war has been viewed has led historians to define it in terms of English interests (most famously, the claim of the English Plantagenet king Edward III to be the rightful king of France), and that the events collectively labelled the ‘Hundred Years War’ are best seen as a sequence of steps in France’s struggle to define itself as a nation. For much of the period, France’s primary rival was indeed England. But it was by no means the only combatant. Burgundy stood in its way, too, as did Brittany, Flanders, Navarre and other rival powers.

Weak in battle, powerless at court, and absent in the bedroom: the English crown has rarely sat less easily than on the head of Edward II. Inheriting the Plantagenet throne in a powerful position, Edward needs a wife to continue the dynasty - but the beautiful, charming Isabella fails to stir his heart like his close friend Piers Gaveston. Slighted and ignored, Isabella takes a new lover: the ambitious nobleman Roger Mortimer. Seduced by Mortimer's treachery, Isabella plots with him to murder her husband and take the throne.

September, 1356. Poitiers. The greatest knights of the age were ready to give battle. On the English side, Edward, the Black Prince, who'd earned his spurs at Crecy. On the French side, the king and his son, the dauphin. With 12,000 knights. And then there is William Gold. A cook's boy - the lowest of the low - who had once been branded as a thief. William dreams of being a knight, but in this savage new world of intrigue, betrayal and greed, first he must learn to survive.

At the end of the fifteenth century, Burgundy was extinguished as an independent state. It had been a fabulously wealthy, turbulent region situated between France and Germany, with close links to the English kingdom. Torn apart by the dynastic struggles of early modern Europe, this extraordinary realm vanished from the map. But it became the cradle of what we now know as the Low Countries, modern Belgium and the Netherlands. This is the story of a thousand years, a must-listen narrative history of ambitious aristocrats, family dysfunction, treachery, savage battles, luxury, and madness.

Get the next two compelling books in the series. Richard and Jack are set on a mission to sell a stolen arms shipment to the Knight's of St John - how badly wrong could it go? Follow their adventures through Europe and the Malta to the Island fortress of the Knights. The backdrop to their own struggle is the political tension in England. Mary I, convinced God has given her the task of returning England to the true faith sends the Protestant reformers a stark and violent message.

The kingdom of Cansere is on the brink of war. Young men are conscripted from their homes, and a royal decree from the queen has made healing the only legal form of craftlock. Nym, a healer and beekeeper, is the sole provider for her family of seven now that her younger brother has been sent to the war front. But when a letter comes from the queen, summoning Nym to the palace to heal Prince Renn, the kingdom’s ailing shut-in, Nym finds herself making the tumultuous journey from her family’s apiary to the capital city.