Medieval English

Nigel Murray saw through her masquerade from the start: a young woman trying to pass herself off as a page. It almost worked - until she was unmasked in battle with the English, at the point of a sword. Nigel recklessly saved the raven-haired beauty, whose secrets now endangered them both. He spirited her off to Scotland, determined to erase the terror he tasted in her kiss.

Deceptively fragile-looking, Eleanore of Ashlin had promised her life to God...until fate intervened. With her brother's untimely death, Eleanore - known as Elf to those who love her - becomes the heiress of an estate vital to England's defenses. She is ordered by royal command to wed one of the king's knights rather than take her final vows. With resistant heart, but ever obedient to King Stephen's will, she complies.

The ultimate cure that could heal any disease? Crazy. That's exactly what research scientist Marian Creighton has always believed about her father's quest, even if it does stem from a desire to save her sister Ellen from the genetic disease that stole their mother from them. But when her father falls into a coma after drinking a vial of holy water believed to contain traces of residue from the Tree of Life, Marian must question all of her assumptions. He's left behind tantalizing clues that suggest he's crossed back in time.

Beautiful, headstrong, and defiant, Cailin Drusus possesses the pride of her Celtic-born mother, though she has been reared amid her Roman father's wealth and privilege. When Cailin's family is destroyed and their farmland seized, she marries Wulf Ironfist, a Saxon of enormous strength and power - a gentle giant who opens the door to a world of heady sensuality. But her happiness is short-lived.

Lady Blair Sutherland has always followed the rules. As the youngest of five, she's spent years observing her older siblings misbehaving - but even more importantly, she's learned a lot about smoothing over disputes. On a playful dare with her cousins, Blair writes a fictitious note and puts it in a bottle, but at the last minute, refuses to follow through and toss it out to sea. As the months pass, she forgets about what she's written until a warrior lays siege to her clan's castle - in her name - claiming her brother is a murderer.

In this major and wholly original contribution to military history, John Keegan reverses the usual convention of writing about war in terms of generals and nations in conflict, which tends to leave the common soldier as cipher. Instead, he focuses on what a set battle is like for the man in the thick of it.

This paradigm-shifting book paints a spirited portrait of a restless people that challenges our established ways of looking at Europe's past. The story is more complex than at first believed, with new evidence suggesting that the European gene pool was stirred vigorously multiple times. Genetic clues are also enhancing our understanding of European mobility in epochs with written records, including the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, the spread of the Slavs, and the adventures of the Vikings.

Greek poet Homer established the standard for tales of epic quests and heroic journeys with The Odyssey. Crowded with characters, both human and nonhuman, and bursting with action, The Odyssey details the adventures of Ulysses, king of Ithaca and hero of the Trojan War, as he struggles to return to his home and his waiting, ever-faithful wife, Penelope.

The Civilization of the Middle Ages incorporates current research, recent trends in interpretation, and novel perspectives, especially on the foundations of the Middle Ages and the Later Middle Ages of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A sharper focus on social history, Jewish history, women’s roles in society, and popular religion and heresy distinguish the book.

In The Normans, Lars Brownworth follows their story, from the first shock of a Viking raid on an Irish monastery to the exile of the last Norman Prince of Antioch. In the process, he brings to vivid life the Norman tapestry's rich cast of characters: figures like Rollo the Walker, William Iron-Arm, Tancred the Monkey King, and Robert Guiscard. The Normans presents a fascinating glimpse of a time when a group of restless adventurers had the world at their fingertips.

When a jealous Zeus discovers that the compassionate Titan, Prometheus, has introduced the gift of fire to liberate mere mortals from oppression and servitude, he has Prometheus bound to a rocky prison in the Scythian desert, where the god discloses the reason for his punishment.

Lady India Lindley is accustomed to having her own way in everything, and marriage is no exception. Determined to elope, she boards a ship bound for Italy with her intended. But when Ottoman pirates capture the vessel, Lady India finds herself a slave to the mysterious and very commanding Caynan Reis, ruler of the Barbary state of El Sinut. He makes it quite clear that she is no longer in charge - and that's his first mistake.

In 871, three of England’s four kingdoms were overrun by Vikings, the ruthless, all-conquering Scandinavian raiders who terrorized early medieval Europe. With the Norsemen murdering one king with arrows and torturing another to death by ripping out his lungs, the prospects that faced the kingdom of Wessex were bleak. Worse still, the Saxons were now led by a young man barely out of his teens who was more interested in God than fighting.

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.

Since the day Lord Dillon earned his spurs, rumors of his savagery on the battlefield have preceded him into every room, stilling tongues and sparking fear. Weary of battle, he wishes only to find a woman he can wed who will approach him not with fear but with the tenderness that has been absent from his life for so long. Yet only the wisewoman seems invariably at ease in his presence.

For Lara, a half faerie, half human, her beauty's a blessing and a curse. Sold into a Pleasure House by her father, she commits herself to a lifetime of servitude. But even in a place where pleasure is not censured but encouraged, her otherworldly beauty proves too much for her suitors. When Lara escapes, she's introduced to a new way of life, and an incredible man who opens her eyes to the growing unrest among their people, and the extraordinary destiny that awaits her. She will journey the depths of desire and despair to find a love that will last an eternity.

Captain Robbie Grant has always had a way with the lasses, but his warrior's heart is too married to the battlefield to seek out a wife. Then Robbie saves a mysterious beauty from a Norse attacker. He knows little about Caralyn Crauford beyond that she has a damaged past and two wee daughters, but he volunteers to bring her and the lasses to a priory where they will be safe from the oncoming battle. The last thing he expects is for Caralyn to give him a night of unrestrained passion and then disappear.

Spirited, iron-willed Rhonwyn is the bastard child of the Prince of Wales, raised more boy than girl, able to ride and fight with the best. Against her wishes, she is married off to an English lord, Edward de Beaumont, who is stunned to discover that his lovely gilt-haired bride is a fiery wildcat with a mind of her own. Slowly, he wins her trust and her heart, and she accompanies him on the Crusades to North Africa. But when Edward falls ill, Rhonwyn boldly leads his troops, only to become a captive of the sensual Emir of Cinnebar, a man who will teach her the ways of erotic love.

Worried that old age will inevitably mean losing your libido, your health, and possibly your marbles too? Well, Cicero has some good news for you. In How to Grow Old, the great Roman orator and statesman eloquently describes how you can make the second half of life the best part of all - and why you might discover that reading and gardening are actually far more pleasurable than sex ever was.

The Arabic legacy of science and philosophy has long been hidden from the West. British-Iraqi physicist Jim Al-Khalili unveils that legacy to fascinating effect by returning to its roots in the hubs of Arab innovation that would advance science and jump-start the European Renaissance.