Medieval English

The kingdom of Goredd: a world where humans and dragons share life with an uneasy balance, and those few who are both human and dragon must hide the truth. Seraphina is one of these, part girl, part dragon, who is reluctantly drawn into the politics of her world. When war breaks out between the dragons and humans, she must travel the lands to find those like herself - for she has an inexplicable connection to all of them, and together they will be able to fight the dragons in powerful, magical ways.

The Brothers York is the story of three remarkable brothers, two of whom were crowned kings of England and the other an heir presumptive, whose antagonism was fueled by the mistrust and vendettas of the age that brought their family to power. The house of York should have been the dynasty that the Tudors became. Its tragedy was that it devoured itself.

For as long as she can remember, Tova has lived among the Svell, the people who found her washed ashore as a child and use her for her gift as a Truthtongue. Her own home and clan are long-faded memories, but the sacred symbols and staves inked over every inch of her skin mark her as one who can cast the rune stones and see into the future. She has found a fragile place among those who fear her, but when two clans to the east bury their age-old blood feud and join together as one, her world is dangerously close to collapse.

De Brevitate Vitae (frequently referred to as On the Shortness of Life in English) is a moral essay written by Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher, to his father-in-law Paulinus. The philosopher brings up many Stoic principles on the nature of time, namely that men waste much of it in meaningless pursuits. According to the essay, nature gives man enough time to do what is really important and the individual must allot it properly.

Award-winning storyteller Barbara McBride-Smith breathes life (albeit a wizened Texan version) into the old Greek myths. With her incurable Texas drawl, she spins the Greek myths as you've never heard them before, rendering them 99% more fun while retaining 100% of their original insights into the crooked ways of the human heart and the no less crooked ways of the ancient Greek gods.

The spirited daughter of England's greatest knight, Mahelt Marshal, lives a privileged medieval life. But when her beloved father falls out with the volatile and dangerous King John, her world is shattered. The king takes her brothers hostage and Mahelt's planned marriage to Hugh Bigod, heir to nobility, takes place sooner than she expected.

Not only is Sir Thomas Randolph, earl of Moray, one of the most important and wealthiest men in the kingdom, he's charming, devastatingly handsome, and the favored nephew of King Robert the Bruce. Even so, when Isabel "Izzie" Stewart meets the vaunted knight, she's glad he's her cousin's soon-to-be betrothed and not hers. He takes himself far too seriously. But when Izzie starts to wonder whether her first impressions might have been wrong, she discovers a complex, compelling man who is far from perfect and more seductive than she ever imagined.

Sixteen-year-old Leinad thought he was a common farmer's son, nothing more. He wondered why his father had trained him for years to master the sword, not exactly a tool of the trade for farmers. But one tragic event initiates a world of revelation. Only then does he begin to understand his calling, a calling no other man in the entire kingdom of Arrethtrae can fulfill - a calling given him by the King himself.

Anice Barrington has always been known as the prettiest of the Earl of Werrick's five daughters. Years of trying to prove she's more than beauty has failed, not only with others, but also with herself. When their mortal enemy is laying siege to Werrick Castle, Anice does the only thing in her power to keep her family safe: she offers herself as a bride to her enemy. She swears she will not lose her heart to him, but soon discovers that may be impossible when he stokes her curiosities toward intimacy and lights a burning desire within her.

Socrates, at 70+ years of age, defends himself against charges of corrupting the youth of Athens, atheism, and other false claims before accepting his fate and starting his final days on Earth.

Scotland, 1026 - Gruoch, descendant of the line of MacAlpin, should have been born into a life of ease. But fate is fickle. Her father's untimely death, rumored to have been plotted by King Malcolm, leaves her future uncertain and stained by the prophecy that she will avenge her family line. Escaping to one of the last strongholds of the old Celtic gods, Gruoch becomes an adept in arcane craft. Her encounters with the otherworld, however, suggest that magic runs stronger in Scotland than she ever imagined.

Laird Robert Sinclair will stop at nothing to exact revenge on Lord Raef Warren, the English scoundrel who brought war to his doorstep and razed his lands and people. Leaving his clan in the Highlands to conduct covert attacks in the Borderlands, Robert lives to be a thorn in Warren's side. So when he finds a beautiful English lass on her way to marry Warren, he whisks her away to the Highlands with a plan to ransom her back to her dastardly fiancé.

This tenth anniversary revised edition of the authoritative text on Christianity's first thousand years of history features a new preface and an updated bibliography. The essential general survey of medieval European Christendom, Brown's vivid prose charts the compelling and tumultuous rise of an institution that came to wield enormous religious and secular power.

In London, journalist Jo Clifford plans to debunk the belief in past lives in a hard-hitting magazine piece. But her scepticism is shaken when a hypnotist forces her to relive the experiences of Matilda, Lady of Hay, a noblewoman during the reign of King John. She learns of Matilda's unhappy marriage, her love for the handsome Richard de Clare and the brutal death threats handed out by King John, before it becomes clear that Jo’s past and present are inevitably entwined.

A traveling merchant’s death heralds a series of grim mishaps at Salisbury Castle. Ela suspects a plot to discredit her as sheriff. Can she solve the murder and save her reputation, or will she be the next victim?

William Marshal’s prowess and loyalty as a knight in the English royal household has been rewarded by marriage to Isabelle de Clare, heiress to great estates in England, Normandy and Ireland. But their contentment and security is shattered when King Richard dies and is succeeded by his brother John, who takes the Marshals’ sons hostage and seizes their lands.

The potential of a dazzling future dangles just within reach for Brodee and Patience, but dangers they never conceived consume them, threatening their fragile, newfound trust. Their only hope of survival is to shed their meticulously crafted masks and relinquish the pain of the past to embrace the promise of healing, enduring love.

This famous work by Lucretius is a masterpiece of didactic poetry, and it still stands today as the finest exposition of Epicurean philosophy ever written. The poem was produced in the middle of first century B.C., a period that was to witness a flowering of Latin literature unequaled for beauty and intellectual power in subsequent ages. The Latin title, De Rerum Natura, translates literally to On the Nature of Things and is meant to impress the reader with the breadth and depth of Epicurean philosophy.

Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval is the single most important Arthurian romance. It contains the very first mention of the mysterious grail, later to become the Holy Grail and the focal point of the spiritual quest of the knights of Arthur's court. Chrétien left the poem unfinished, but the extraordinary and intriguing theme of the Grail was too good to leave, and other poets continued and eventually completed it.

In The Fall of Rome, eminent historian Bryan Ward-Perkins argues that the "peaceful" theory of Rome's "transformation" is badly in error. Indeed, he sees the fall of Rome as a time of horror and dislocation that destroyed a great civilization, throwing the inhabitants of the West back to a standard of living typical of prehistoric times. Attacking contemporary theories with relish and making use of modern archaeological evidence, he looks at both the wider explanations for the disintegration of the Roman world and also the consequences for the lives of everyday Romans.