War Action Historical Fiction

Critically acclaimed, perennial New York Times bestselling author Bernard Cornwell (Agincourt, The Fort, the Saxon Tales) makes real history come alive in his breathtaking historical fiction. Praised as "the direct heir to Patrick O'Brian" (Agincourt, The Fort), Cornwell has brilliantly captured the fury, chaos, and excitement of battle as few writers have ever done—perhaps most vividly in his phenomenally popular novels following the illustrious military career of British Army officer Richard Sharpe during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Richard Sharpe returns to England to save the regiment. Major Sharpe's men are in mortal danger - not from the French, but from the bureaucrats of Whitehall. Unless reinforcements can be brought from England, the regiment will be disbanded. Determined not to see his regiment die, Sharpe returns to England and uncovers a nest of high-ranking traitors, any of whom could utterly destroy his career with a word.

One man. Two armies. The fate of the ancient world in the balance. In Tides of War, Steven Pressfield presents an epic saga of Greek strife and conflict with the same historical precision and heartbreaking human scale that made his last novel, Gates of Fire, an international best seller.

Cairo, 1887. A beautiful September day. Penrod Ballantyne and his fiancée, Amber Benbrook, stroll hand in hand. The future is theirs for the taking. But when Penrod's jealous former lover, Lady Agatha, plants doubt about his character, Amber leaves him and travels to the wilds of Abyssinia with her twin sister, Saffron, and her adventurer husband, Ryder Courtney. On a mission to establish a silver mine, they make the dangerous journey to the new capital of Addis Ababa, where they are welcomed by Menelik, the King of Kings.

Captain Sharpe's task is to recover from a feared guerilla leader the gold Wellington so desperately needs.The enemy he faces strikes terror into the hearts of all around - a renegade guerilla band whose leader has a particular loathing for Sharpe, who has stolen his woman. Soldier, hero, rogue - Sharpe is the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage.

It's the height of World War II. Michael O'Shaunessey, son of the Irish ambassador to Nazi Germany, lives with his family in Berlin. But Michael, like his parents, is a spy. He joins the Hitler Youth, taking part in their horrific games and book burning, despising everything they stand for but using his insider knowledge to bring important information back to his parents and the British Secret Service. When Michael is tasked to find out more about Projekt 1065, a secret Nazi mission, things get even more complicated.

Summer, 1944. As Allied soldiers prepare to land in France, Marc and his friends must destroy a battalion of German tanks that could halt the invasion in its tracks. The tide of war has turned against the Nazis, but desperation has made them more brutal than ever. Henderson's Boys' final mission will be their most dangerous. With food and weapons in short supply, survival is the biggest challenge of all.

It is 1780, and 17-year-old Alan Lewrie is a brash, rebellious young libertine. So much so that his callous father believes a bit of naval discipline will turn the boy around. Fresh aboard the tall-masted Ariadne, Midshipman Lewrie heads for the war-torn Americas, finding - rather unexpectedly - that he is a born sailor, equally at home with the randy pleasures of the port and the raging battles on the high seas. But in a hail of cannonballs comes a bawdy surprise.

Jonathan’s older brother is away fighting with General Washington in Pennsylvania. But at 13, Jonathan is too young to fight. Still too young. Then one morning, April 3, 1778, the tavern bell sounds, calling men to arms. Eager to prove his mettle, with blood pounding in his ears, Jonathan joins the gathering men at the tavern to hear the news. With a 12-pound, six-foot-long flintlock musket loaned to him by the tavern keeper, Jonathan finds a place in with the other men, marching to battle.

Quartered in a crumbling Portuguese fort, Richard Sharpe and his men are attacked by an elite French unit, led by an old enemy of Sharpe’s, and suffer heavy losses. The army’s high command blame Sharpe for the disaster and his military career seems to be ruined. His only hope is to redeem himself on the battlefield. So with his honour at stake, against an overwhelming number of French troops, Sharpe leads his men to battle in the narrow streets of Fuentes de Oñoro.

Hornblower becomes a national hero when he escapes a French firing squad. But the 'Terror of the Mediterranean' becomes Europe's most wanted man, forced to fight alone for England - and liberty.

1793 and Europe is ablaze with war. Thomas Paine Kydd, a young wig-maker from Guildford, is seized by the press gang to be a part of the crew of the 98-gun line-of-battle ship Duke William. The ship sails immediately and Kydd has to learn the harsh realities of shipboard life fast. Despite all that he goes through in danger of tempest and battle he comes to admire the skills and courage of the seamen - taking up the challenge himself to become a true sailor.

The gathering might of revolutionary France prepares to engulf Europe in another bloody war. As in the past, Britain will stand or fall by the fighting power of her fleet. For Richard Bolitho, the renewal of hostilities means a fresh command.

Coward, scoundrel, lover and cheat, but there is no better man to go into the jungle with. Join Flashman in his adventures as he survives fearful ordeals and outlandish perils across the four corners of the world. Given the choice between defending Britannia’s frontier against the mighty Sikh army and pleasuring a ravishing maharani in the Court of the Punjab, Flashman knew where he’d rather be. Of course, that was before he found out about the torture chambers or the malevolent influence of the Mountain of Light…

Nearly 2,000 years ago, an Eastern emperor charged a small group with safeguarding secrets powerful enough to change the history of mankind. They went down in legend as the Nine Unknown Men - and now two rival factions of their descendants are fighting a mighty battle. Both sides think they are saving the world, but their tactics could very well bring about the end of humankind. Soon, Juan Cabrillo and his team of expert operatives aboard the Oregon find themselves trapped between two adversaries, both of whom are willing to use shocking means to accomplish their goals.

Forced into the brutal Battle of the Bulge of 1944, two soldiers on opposing sides find the courage to desert a war gone sour. For both American GI Wendell Lett and German seaman Holger Frings, the relentless bloodbath of World War II has become a treacherous prison and a curse. Just as Wendell Lett meets Heloise, a wise Belgian woman who offers him a chance of deliverance from the physical and emotional carnage of war, he is pushed into a reckless false flag mission.

The eagerly anticipated follow-up to the number one best seller Vagabond, this is the third instalment in Bernard Cornwell's Grail Quest series, in a bright and bold repackage. It is 1347. The Hundred Years War has been suspended. The truce releases English archer Thomas of Hookton to pursue his arch enemy and resume his quest for the most prized relic in Christendom: the Holy Grail. Heading south, Thomas and his men-at-arms begin lightning raids to draw out his enemy.

In German East Africa on the eve of the First World War, two freebooting adventurers - one a flamboyant Irish American, the other an impeccable young Englishman - pit their wits against the gross German Commissioner from whose territory they are making their living as game hunters and ivory poachers. But the outbreak of war gives the signal for their private skirmishing to flare into a relentless vendetta pursued with devastating violence by land and sea, so that what begins as a comic escapade gives way to chilling horror....

A farmer, a bloody farmer! Knee-deep in dung and fathoms from the nearest port, Alan Lewrie, swashbuckling naval warrior turned family man, longs for battle. And when it comes, a battle royal it is! Called to the H.M.S. Cockerel, a sleek frigate captained by a malaria-stricken tyrant, First Officer Lewrie soon vaults to command, taking Cockerel from the lush pleasures of the Kingdom of Naples to a smoking cauldron called Toulon.

At the outbreak of World War I, Joey, young Albert's beloved horse, is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France. He's soon caught up in enemy fire, and fate takes him on an extraordinary odyssey, serving on both sides before finding himself alone in no man's land. But Albert cannot forget Joey and, still not old enough to enlist, he embarks on a treacherous mission to the trenches to find him and bring him home.