Medieval English

When Lady Olivia's castle is besieged, she and her sister are taken captive and held for ransom by her father's enemy, Lord Pitt. Loyalty to family means everything to Olivia. She'll save her sister at any cost and do whatever her father asks - even if that means obeying his order to steal a sacred relic from her captor. As Lord Pitt's commander, Sir Aldric is in charge of the beautiful but feisty new prisoner. He has his hands full attempting to keep Lady Olivia out of trouble.

Set in treacherous sixteenth-century Scotland, Border Bride is the unforgettable story of a woman sworn to defy the knight she is forced to wed - only to discover a love she’ll do anything to claim. As Mary, Queen of Scots, languishes in the Tower of London as a prisoner of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth, war tears Scotland apart. To save her beloved homeland, a proud Highland beauty named Mary Kate MacPherson must wage her own battle when she’s forced into wedlock with a knight, Sir Adam Douglas.

In 1785, a sensational trial began in Paris that would divide the country and captivate Europe. A leading Catholic cardinal and scion of one of the most distinguished families in France stood accused of forging the queen’s signature to obtain the most expensive piece of jewelry in Europe: a 2,800-carat diamond necklace. Known as the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, it contributed to the French populace’s disillusionment with the monarchy and precipitated the French Revolution. The Queen’s Necklace, loosely based on the Affair, is Dumas’ take on the royal scandal.

The wicked King Thorn forced the enchantress Zuleika to cast a terrible curse. She fled his court to travel the world, helping those who need her magic most. Until a search for her father's lost ships leads her to an enchanted island, where Prince Vardan, the island's ruler, is afflicted by the most powerful curse Zuleika has ever encountered. She's not sure she can reverse the spell, but she's determined to try. After all, a prince who fights pirates can't be all bad...no matter how beastly his appearance. Together, can the enchanting beauty and the beastly prince break the spell?

For centuries, the Vikings have swept out of the Norse countries and fallen on whatever lands they could reach aboard their longships, and few could resist the power of their violent onslaught. They came at first to plunder and then to settle, an encroachment fiercely resisted wherever they went. Such was the case in the southern lands of Ireland. En route to the Viking longphort there, known as Dubh-linn, Thorgrim Night Wolf and Ornolf the Restless stumble across an Irish ship.

When Raelynd Schellden and her sister are caught in the stables with the notorious McTiernay twins, her father sees not scandal, but opportunity. The future of his clan is uncertain, and a double engagement - even under false pretenses - will lend security to his people and protect his beloved daughters from power-mad fools. But Raelynd's designated intended interests her far less than his quietly powerful brother, Crevan, a man born to lead.

From William Shakespeare’s series of history dramas, to Sir Walter Scott, and George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire—not to mention the smash-hit TV show Game of Thrones—the British civil war of 1455 to 1485 has inspired writers for centuries. Ed West’s My Kingdom for a Horse illuminates the bloody war fought for thirty long years between the descendants of King Edward III in a battle for the throne.

When Fiona Hay offers Angus Gordon her virtue in exchange for a dowry for her sisters, she so intrigues the rogue that he demands a higher payment: She will be his mistress. Thus begins a battle of wills and sensual delights. Destiny soon draws the ardent lovers into the turbulent court of King James. But soon the king's political schemes force Fiona away from the man she loves...and into the arms of a wild and passionate highlander, The MacDonald of Nairn. Will this coldhearted and callous betrayal forever destroy Fiona's chance at happiness?

Richard de Claiborne, the dark earl of Dunsmore, serves King Edward Plantagenet well. Sworn to obey his king's every order, he nevertheless chafes at the command he wed the daughter of his enemy - a man who slew his father in cold blood. But King Edward wants peace in his lands, and he will stop at nothing to get it. If he has to order his most powerful Marcher lord to marry a Welsh princess, he considers it a small price to pay. Princess Gwenllian is a political pawn. When she's forced to marry the evil Black Hawk de Claiborne, she quakes at his fierceness and brutality.

Adrianne Percy was hidden in the Western Isles, safe from her family's enemies - until her sisters sent a notorious pirate to return her to the Highlands. But when she hatches a plan to free her kidnapped mother, it requires her to marry the handsome rogue. But what begins as a simple matter of business quickly flares into an uncontrollable desire. As Adrianne's heart smolders, their calculated arrangement threatens to ignite into a burning passion....

The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, a devout and resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known...of Tom, the mason who becomes his architect - a man divided in his soul...of the beautiful, elusive Lady Aliena, haunted by a secret shame...and of a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state, and brother against brother.

After four broken betrothals, Elizabeth Fraser believes her father's political ambitions will keep her from ever finding a husband. Content to be considered on the shelf, Elizabeth would rather be left in peace as one of the queen's ladies in waiting than engage in flirtations that lead nowhere. She never expected one chance encounter months ago would alter the future she had accepted. Will Elizabeth give Edward a second chance to prove he wants more than a dalliance?

After proving himself on the field of battle, Ramon de Segrave is appointed to the Council of Barons by Richard the Lionheart. But instead of taking his most formidable warrior on his latest crusade, the king assigns Ramon an even more dangerous task - woo and win the lady of Thistle Keep. Isabel of Camoys is a capable widow with no intention of surrendering her valuable estate. She's fought long and hard for her independence, and if the price is loneliness, then so be it.

Here, National Book Award winner Richard Winston explores life in the Middle Ages - from the fifth to the 15th centuries - beginning with the fall of the Roman Empire and ending with the dawn of the Renaissance. In both countryside and cities, from the peasants to the bourgeoisie to the nobility, no aspect of life in this era is left unexplored.

A young woman is swept into a life of intrigue, revenge, passion, and betrayal when she falls for the world's most notorious prince, Vlad Dracula. The year is 1464. King Matthias controls Hungary, his family, and the fate of the world's most notorious political prisoner, Prince Vlad Dracula. Ilona Szilágy, the king's cousin, is young and ambitious. Dracula is determined to marry into the family. It is love at first sight, but the king has other plans. The Impaler Prince, however, never takes no for an answer.

For William Marshall, the greatest knight of the realm, serving royalty is an unpredictable business. Having survived the threat of beheading from Stephen as a child, Marshall rises from nothing to a place in court serving King Henry II. Accused of acting on his love for the beautiful Queen Margaret, William is saved by his trust and loyalty to the king. But the battle for the throne is relentless, and when Henry's own son John rises against him, William must decide if he can remain loyal to the crown.

A leper's daughter is found in the well of a dying hamlet, and the only suspect has fled into Feckenham Forest. But the sun is setting, and Warwickshire's sheriff is hunting his new crowner. That sends Sir Faucon de Ramis and Brother Edmund, his prickly clerk, racing for a nearby abbey only to meet the man he least wishes to see at the abbey gates. Before long, Faucon finds himself riding into the dark at Sir Alain's side as they hunt for yet another lost innocent.

In the fair autumn of Our Lord's grace 1431, the nuns of England's St. Frideswide's prepare for the simply ceremonies in which the saintly novice Thomasine will take her holy vows. But their quiet lives of beauty and prayer are thrown into chaos by the merciless arrival of Lady Ermentrude Fenner and her retinue of lusty men, sinful women, and baying hounds. The hard-drinking dowager even keeps a pet monkey for her amusement. She demands wine, a feast.... And her niece, the angelic Thomasine.

Richard III is accused of murdering his nephews, the "Princes in the Tower", in order to usurp the throne of England, but this book tells a different story. Rather than looking at all the killings Richard III did not commit, this account focuses on the one judicial murder for which we know that he was responsible. On June 13, 1483, William, Lord Hastings, was hustled from a meeting of the Royal Council and summarily executed on Tower Green within the confines of the Tower of London.

When Mairead MacMhathain learns that the eldest MacBrieve is returning home, she imagines he'll bring salvation in the form of a powerful army. Instead, the hulking, powerful man she idolized as a girl arrives alone. But now instead of a little sister, Hamish sees her as the woman she has become. And under his heated gaze, despite the danger swirling around them, Mairead finds herself tempted, taunted, and tantalizingly seduced....