Medieval English

Annie MacPherson’s world was torn apart when her family’s castle was ravaged during the war. Determined to aid her countrymen, she braves the battlefield and finds Lieutenant Craig MacLean left for dead. Soon her heart belongs to the fierce warrior. As the English dragoons draw closer to Annie’s makeshift hospital, Craig knows they have to escape together if they’ll have any chance to survive. But when they come face-to-face with the enemy and Craig is imprisoned, Annie will have to risk everything she has to save the man she can’t live without.

The Monastery at Whitby is ruled over by the powerful and independent Abbess Hild. But when she needs someone to confide in, she turns to the honest warmth of her friend Fridgyth, the half-pagan herb-wife. A divisive and life-altering decision taken at the Great Synod is swiftly overshadowed as the monastery is ravaged by a deadly plague. As she tends the sick, Fridgyth starts to suspect that not all the deaths are natural. Despite Hild's stern warnings "not to meddle" she sets out to investigate.

Anger and disappointment burn within Fionna Allán following the Grail Quest. Her family still remain captives of a rival clann, and King Arthur Pendragon's kingdom continues to wither and die. Now Fionna's sworn enemy brings war to Arthur's shores with Morgan la Fay at his side - a battle Arthur and Caerleon can ill afford. Especially as one of Arthur's knights has gone rogue, leaving their group weak and devastated. With his kingship in question and his people suffering to the point of rebellion, Arthur and his knights are forced to seek help from the gods.

In prose as crystalline as his view to the Pyrenees on a clear day, Allman animates Lauzerte and its surrounding communities—Cahors, Moissac, Montauban—all ever in thrall to the magnetic impulse of Paris. Witness to so many dramas over the centuries, his house comes alive as a historical protagonist in its own right, from its wine-cellar cave to the roof where he wages futile battle with pigeons, to the life lessons it conveys. “The onward march of history, my House keeps demonstrating, never takes a rest,” he observes, pulling us vividly into his world.

In The Greatest Knight, renowned historian Thomas Asbridge draws upon the thirteenth-century biography and an array of other contemporary evidence to present a compelling account of William Marshal's life and times. Asbridge charts the unparalleled rise to prominence of a man bound to a code of honor yet driven by unquenchable ambition.

The cunning Queen Rhin has conquered the west and High King Nathair has the cauldron, most powerful of the seven treasures. At his back stands the scheming Calidus and a warband of the Kadoshim, dread demons of the Otherworld. They plan to bring Asroth and his host of the Fallen into the world of flesh, but to do so they need the seven treasures. Nathair has been deceived but now he knows the truth. He has choices to make, choices that will determine the fate of the Banished Lands.

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.

This boxed set includes Enchant, Dance, and Fly, three imaginative retellings of classic fairy-tale favorites.

Graeme Gunn is a warrior through and through. A second son, he left home years ago to battle his way through Scotland as a mercenary. But with his brother William’s death, Graeme is forced to return to his clan—which now includes William’s grieving widow, Annella Mackay. And Graeme is stunned to find that the beautiful, determined woman at the keep is nothing like the meek lass he remembers from William’s wedding years ago…

Someone is prepared to kill again and again until Tormand is found guilty and hanged. And his only hope of discovering the culprit lies with Morainn Ross, a reclusive, sensual beauty gifted with second sight. Branded a witch, Morainn has never met a man who accepted her strange talent, much less one who could so easily inflame her passion. There's no resisting Tormand's rugged masculinity - and no escaping the enemy, who grows more twisted every day.

Someone would see Ilsabeth Murray Armstrong hang for murder. When her dagger is found buried in the body of one of the king's men, there is little room for doubt-the perpetrator must pay with her life. But Ilsabeth is no killer, and only one person can help clear her name: Sir Simon Innes, a man so steely and cool that no danger can rattle him - and no woman in distress can sway his heart. Until now.

Once, Arianna Murray Lucette believed that she'd met the man she could always rely on. She was wrong. Now she is fleeing for her life, and when her enemies attack a ship bound for her only refuge, she believes that all hope is lost - until she awakens on Scotland's shore to a pair of the most entrancing blue eyes she has ever seen.When Sir Brian MacFingal first spots the sun-streaked beauty on the beach, he mistakes her for dead. Soon, however, he discovers a woman who is more full of life and vitality than he ever dreamed possible.

Amanda Scott concludes her thrilling Border trilogy with the incandescent story of a woman and a man who are mortal foes…until they're undone by love. The rebellious daughter of a Scottish march warden, Lady Laurie Halliot is as fearless as she is beautiful. Now, to protect her runaway sister who stands accused of murder, Laurie offers herself as hostage - and reluctant bride - to the man who is her country's enemy. She prays that her sister will return before the next wardens' meeting, or Laurie herself will have to bear the punishment.

Betrayal taught Sir Brett Murray to make protecting others his only life. Still, the growing desire he can't help but feel for this entrancing widow makes him long to earn more than her trust. But in trying to save all she cherishes, he can't see how an honor-scarred knight can stay in her world and her heart - unless he risks everything to prove his love is now and forever always.

Bernard Cornwell, the New York Times best-selling "reigning king of historical fiction" (USA Today), tackles his most thrilling, rich, and enthralling subject yet - the heroic tale of Agincourt. The epic battle immortalized by William Shakespeare in his classic Henry V is the background for this breathtaking tale of heroism, love, devotion, and duty from the legendary author of the Richard Sharpe novels and the Saxon Tales.

Cainnech (Cain) MacPherson's hatred for the English was born when he was a lad of seven, the day they raided his village and killed his family. They took everything from him without mercy and tossed him onto the battlefield, where the memory of love faded to dust and left nothing in its wake but violence. Now, as Robert the Bruce's most formidable, most lethal warrior, he wreaks havoc on his enemy, taking land by force, without mercy. But when he raids a small castle in Northumberland, he faces his greatest opponent yet - a bold, beautiful Norman lass who will see him dead at any cost.

King Charles of France has announced that he is confiscating Aquitaine, and Prince Edward has sent for knights and men at arms from England to assist him in opposing the French king. Lord Gilbert Talbot is required to provide five knights, 12 squires, and 20 archers and men at arms, and wishes his surgeon - Hugh de Singleton - to travel with the party, while Hugh’s wife Kate oversees the castle. Among the party will be Sir Simon Trillowe, Hugh’s old nemesis and Kate’s former suitor, who had once set fire to Hugh’s house.

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.

Ironcross Castle was called cursed by the Highlanders. Its most recent lairds had perished in accidents, falls, or fires. The newest owner, Gavin Kerr, did not fear death. It was feeling that he dreaded - the pain of betrayal and loss. Now, he arrived at the castle to hear of hauntings and cults and to be drawn to the portrait of beautiful Joanna MacInnes, who died here amid a furnace of flame. And looking at her, Gavin desired her, feeling an impossible longing to take her in his arms.

J.R.R. Tolkien famously described the Second Age of Middle-earth as a ‘dark age, and not very much of its history is (or need be) told’. And for many years readers would need to be content with the tantalizing glimpses of it found within the pages of The Lord of the Rings and its appendices, including the forging of the Rings of Power, the building of the Barad-dûr and the rise of Sauron.