Medieval English

When Liam Sutherland was 15, he saved a Sassenach lassie's life and secretly vowed to always keep her safe. As the prized warrior for his clan and youngest son of the laird, his responsibilities at the castle continue to mount, and just when he's about to forge a name for himself, he receives a mysterious missive with the power to make him leave everything behind. Cora Segrave, daughter of an English baron, owes her life to the Scot who saved her years ago during a border raid. When her family home is destroyed and they are taken prisoner, there is only one man she knows can save her.

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.

Ovid's sensuous and witty poem brings together a dazzling array of mythological tales, ingeniously linked by the idea of transformation, often as a result of love or lust, in which men and women find themselves magically changed into new and sometimes extraordinary beings. Beginning with the creation of the world and ending with the deification of Augustus, Ovid interweaves many of the best known myths and legends of ancient Greece and Rome.

Society rogue Sebastian Reyne's search for a practical wife comes to a crashing halt when he dances with the effervescent Hope Merridew - and is seduced into a delicious intrigue of sensuality and desire.

As fierce and indomitable as any man, Isabelle of Langston rules the family lands with an iron hand after her father's death. But the brazen beauty meets her match in Hugh Fauconier, bold knight and rightful Saxon heir to Langston Keep. By the King's hand, he is made her husband. Hugh's virile prowess reveals to Belle the delicious pleasures of the flesh, as their turbulent days of verbal sparring melt into nights of erotic abandon. But a treacherous plot enslaves Hugh to the evil Vivienne d'Bretagne, a sorceress whose sexual magic is as powerful as it is dark.

Lady Linnet Cadwallader has been raised a helpless invalid in her own castle. Brought up to believe she will "never make old bones" she lives a quiet and lonely existence, hiding away her excessive freckles and red hair from a world that believes her to be hideously misshapen and ugly. Until one day her uncle arranges a marriage of convenience for her, a marriage in name only with a young puppet groom...but Sir Roland does not show up. In his place turns up his base-born brother Mason Vawdrey. And dark, forceful Mason is no one's puppet.

Thrice wedded, but never bedded, Mathilde Martindale has long lived in the shadow of her indomitable mother, and meekly done as she was told. Until one day she decides to become mistress of her own destiny and leave the royal court to find her own path.

Buchanan Mackenzie is a new laird, and he's about to be tested. When his half-brother is killed, he must seek vengeance or face the rage of his clansmen. Beyond spilling blood, fate offers him another solution. Taking the daughter of his enemy will appease his angry men, but it leaves him struggling to find peace over making a hostage of a woman. What sort of man settles his disputes with a helpless woman?

Forced into a betrothal to a man she hates, her only way out is to escape to a convent. Laird Alexander Grant is honor bound to rescue Maddie after seeing the bruises on her face. What he doesn't realize is that once he holds the beaten lass in his arms, his heart will never be the same. He vows revenge for the abuse she was forced to endure and yearns to make the sweet woman with an iron will his, but can he help her fight the demons in her mind left behind by her abusers' horrid treatment?

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.

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.

Alfraed of Norton is given the task of protecting the Empress Matilda back to the emperor, her husband. He and his men have to fight enemies, bandits and treachery from within as they battle thorough an empire that is a nest of treachery and political ambition. While princes play for thrones, Alfraed must keep the empress safe.

Though she has yet to be courted by any man, spirited Gillyanne Murray decides the time has come to visit the dower lands gifted to her by her father's kinsmen. She arrives to find the small keep surrounded by three lairds, each one vying for her hand... and property. Though resolved to refuse them all, the threat of battle on her threshold forces her to boldly choose a suitor: Sir Connor MacEnroy, a handsome, daring knight of few words.

Adair Radcliffe is only a child when her family perishes in the War of the Roses, so her real father, the womanizing King Edward IV, takes her in, honoring his promise to her mother. Once Adair turns 16, the king marries her off without her knowledge - and to her later outrage - in a wedding by proxy. But when tragedy leaves her a widow twice over, Adair realizes that her already tenuous social position has sunk even lower. Now, all she can do is hope that the Scottish laird to whom she is sold will have mercy on her. But little does master or servant suspect that love knows no rank.

A gripping intellectual adventure story, Sailing from Byzantium sweeps you from the deserts of Arabia to the dark forests of northern Russia, from the colorful towns of Renaissance Italy to the final moments of a millennial city under siege.

Plato's dialogue in the Symposium, which has as its topic the subject of love, explores the idea of love as a means of ascent to contemplation of the Divine. For Plato, generally, to love other human beings is to direct one's mind to love of Divinity. One proceeds from recognition of another's beauty to appreciation of Beauty as it exists apart from any individual, to consideration of Divinity, the source of Beauty, to love of Divinity.

The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes investigates the trade routes between Rome and the powerful empires of inner Asia, including the Parthian regime which ruled ancient Persia (Iran). It explores Roman dealings with the Kushan Empire which seized power in Bactria (Afghanistan) and laid claim to the Indus Kingdoms. Further chapters examine the development of Palmyra as a leading caravan city on the edge of Roman Syria and consider trade ventures through the Tarim territories that led Roman merchants to Han China.

Ryokan (1758–1831) is, along with Dogen and Hakuin, one of the three giants of Zen in Japan. But unlike his two renowned colleagues, Ryokan was a societal dropout, living mostly as a hermit and a beggar. He was never head of a monastery or temple. He liked playing with children. He had no dharma heir. Even so, people recognized the depth of his realization, and he was sought out by people of all walks of life for the teaching to be experienced in just being around him.

Edmund Harkins has gone missing. Few in Bampton liked him, knowing him to be a wife-beater and distinctly unsavory character, so when some hungry pigs unearth his corpse from a shallow grave, there is hardly an outpouring of grief. As bailiff, it is Hugh de Singleton’s duty to bring Edmund’s killer to justice. But where is he to start investigating when almost everyone in the village has a motive? And when everyone is pleased to see the scoundrel dead, who knows how far they might go to help someone get away with murder?

These classic fables use simple allegories to convey universal truths. Though it is unkown if Aesop ever actually existed, dating back to the sixth century, BC, these fables are known in cultures throughout the world and have been translated into many languages.