Western Wars

Novelist and prizewinning historian Winston Groom's gripping history of the four-year battle for Ypres in Belgian Flanders, the pivotal engagement of World War I that would forever change the way the world fought - and thought about - war. This is Groom's account of what would become the most dreaded place on Earth.

A remarkable story of high hopes and crushing disappointment, the campaign contains moments of sheer horror and nerve-shattering excitement; pathos and comic relief; occasional cowardice and much selfless courage - all culminating in the climax of the First Battle of Ypres. And yet, as Peter Hart shows in this gripping and revisionary look at the war's first year, for too long the British part in the 1914 campaigns has been veiled in layers of self-congratulatory myth.

Based on select writings from a collection of more than two thousand Dutch diaries written during World War II in order to record this unparalleled time, and maintained by devoted archivists, The Diary Keepers illuminates a part of history we haven’t seen in quite this way before, from the stories of a Nazi sympathizing police officer to a Jewish journalist who documented daily activities at a transport camp.

The Texan Confederate armies, under General Henry H. Sibley, had their supply train destroyed by the 1st Colorado Union Volunteers at Glorieta Pass, and have only one prize remaining: A battery of Union artillery captured at the Battle of Valverde. The Texans, with their force decimated and dispirited by the absence of fallen comrades, are determined to have some glory to show for their terrible losses. But standing in their way are Union Captain Alastar O'Brien and the Colorado Volunteers.

Hank Gannon grew up on a Florida plantation. He fought alongside his brothers-in-arms in the Civil War. Then he joined the Texas Special Police to help build a more peaceful union - and a future for his beloved Constance. That was the plan. But when a prisoner dies in his custody, Gannon is forced to leave Austin and head into Comanche territory. Alone but undaunted, he meets up with Roving Wolf - who has just slain a former soldier from his unit. Gannon can't let the killing go unpunished. Even here, in this Godforsaken valley, the law must be upheld....

The Battle of Dunkirk, in May/June 1940, is remembered as a stunning defeat yet a major victory as well. The Nazis had beaten back the Allies and pushed them across France to the northern port of Dunkirk. In the ultimate race against time, more than 300,000 Allied soldiers were daringly evacuated across the Channel. This moment of German aggression was used by Winston Churchill as a call to Franklin Roosevelt to enter the war.

During the First World War, the British army's most consistent German opponent was Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. Commanding more than a million men as a General, and then Field Marshal, in the Imperial German Army, he held off the attacks of the British Expeditionary Force under Sir John French and then Sir Douglas Haig for four long years. But Rupprecht was to lose not only the war, but his son and his throne. In Haig's Enemy, Jonathan Boff explores the tragic tale of Rupprecht's war - the story of a man caught under the wheels of modern industrial warfare.

Military historian Richard Holmes turns his attention to the infamous First World War trench line, the Western Front. Of the nine million British and Dominion soldiers who were killed in action in the Great War, most died here. In this thorough examination of the role the Front played in the war, the eminent historian Richard Holmes considers its initial creation, the rapid expansion of the British army (which led to problems with the supply of men and munitions), the challenge of coping with life and death at the Front, and the regular attempts by soldiers to "break the trench". He also examines two major battles in detail.

Texas Ranger Josiah Wolfe and his friend Scrap Elliot are ready to extinguish the loathsome Juan Cortina. Unfortunately, their direct orders are to only spy on Cortina's cattle rustlers, which makes them two easy gringo targets. So much so that their first scuffle leaves Josiah seriously injured and Scrap on his own in his pursuit of Cortina. Recovering from his injury, Josiah is hit with a Dear John letter from his sweetheart. Luckily, a Mexican girl, Francesca, is there to help heal his wounds.

Michael Allen had watched his father charm his way in and out of so many different kinds of trouble, he’d all but stopped counting. Unctuous, yet honorable, Buford Allen embodied the spirit and passions of the West. But this time something was wrong. Why was his father so set on buying a ranch in Warhorse, Montana, of all places? And what was in the tattered suitcase hidden under the hotel bed?

A brutal siege. A forgotten heroine. A war-torn romance. And a historian determined to uncover the truth. Untold millions who saw Band of Brothers can finally know the whole story of what happened to American soldiers and civilians in Bastogne during that arduous Winter of 1944/45. In the television version of Band of Brothers, a passing reference is made to an African nurse assisting in an aid station in Bastogne. When military historian Martin King watched the episode, he had to know who that woman was; thus began a multi-year odyssey.

Discover the key battles, tactics, technologies and turning points of the First World War—the epic conflict that was supposed to be "the war to end all wars". With authoritative, exciting text, The World War I Book explores the historical background to the war, its causes, all of key events across the major theatres of conflict, and its aftermath.

"One for the Mohave Kid": Few men were as deadly - or troublesome - with a gun as the Mohave Kid. Ab Kale, marshal of Hinkley, had warned the Kid to stay away from his town. "Lonigan": Ruth Gurney arrived home to find her late father’s cattle ranch in debt, and their trail-boss, Lonigan, missing. As luck would have it, there is a conveniently available replacement - Hoey Ives. "War Party": Bud Miles was a boy when he crossed the Mississippi. But Bud buried his father after an Indian attack, and as the wagon train pushed on through Sioux country, the boy stood as tall as any man....

In post-Civil War New York City, sixteen-year-old Aislynn Denehy cannot find a job, she has no place to live and no family to help her. Some might think this is a problem; Aislynn believes it is an opportunity. No formulaic romance, this well-researched love story depicts life as it truly was for the thousands of women who went west reaching for a new life. Aislynn's journey begins in a New York City tenement and leads her across the frontier to a Utah mining camp where she must cope with the three very different men in her life: smart, solicitous Tim; good-natured, good-guy Johnny; and the intense but intriguing Liam Moran. Life in the roughshod camp brings small joys and devastating losses. Susan Denning's engaging debut novel races through authentic experiences involving historical events until it erupts in an unexpected ending.

Harney County, Oregon, 1968: Nick Drake has a chest full of medals and enough demons to fill a duffel bag. He's been trained to kill but was never retrained to rejoin society. Drake flees to the lonesome high desert in search of redemption and takes a job patrolling wildlife refuges where the only conflicts are keeping out stray cows and ticketing poachers. But then he stumbles across a girl's body ritually placed in a gully. Her murder is only the beginning, and Drake must face humanity's heart of darkness once again if he's to stop a killer from turning even more gullies into graves.

Louisa Caldecott, a progressive woman and independent business owner in 1880 Kansas, is principled, strong-willed, passionate, and generous to a fault. Satisfied with her comfortable life, she's happy to live in her sister Lily's shadow. Until Lou meets John Rock Davis, Civil War veteran and man with a past. Until everything she loves is put at risk. Until she is forced to take a stand that threatens her safety, her happiness, and her future. Then all hell - but heaven, too - breaks loose, and self-sufficient Lou finally understands the cost of courage and the power of love.

Stuart Hills embarked his Sherman DD tank on to an LCT at 6:45 a.m., Sunday, June 4th, 1944. He was 20 years old, un-blooded, fresh from a public-school background, and officer cadet training. He was going to war. Two days later, his tank sunk; he and his crew landed from a rubber dinghy with just the clothes they stood in. After that, the struggles through the Normandy bocage in a replacement tank, engaging the enemy in a constant round of close encounters, led to a swift mastering of the art of tank warfare and remarkable survival in the midst of carnage and destruction.

Between 1942 and 1945, a group of ordinary citizens formed a network to smuggle Dutch Jews and others targeted by the Nazis south into France, via Paris, and then to Switzerland. This network became known as the Dutch-Paris Escape Line, eventually growing to include 300 people and expanding its reach into Spain. Led by Jean Weidner, a Dutchman living in France, many lacked any experience in clandestine operations or military tactics, and yet they became one of the most effective resistance groups of the Second World War.

February 20, 1933: on an unremarkable day during a harsh Berlin winter, a meeting of twenty-four German captains of industry and senior Nazi dignitaries is being held in secret in the plush lounges of the Reichstag. They are there to "stump up" funding for the accession to power of the National Socialist Party and its fearsome Chancellor. This inaugural scene sets the tone of consent which will lead to the worst possible repercussions.

"A Trail to the West": Riding under an alias, Bowdrie joins up with Queen’s ruthless gang to rescue the pretty niece of a powerful Texas judge. "Love and the Cactus Kid": Folks far and wide know that the Cactus Kid can handle a pistol with the best of them. But for all his skill and coolness under fire, there’s just one small weakness he can’t seem to overcome.... "Medicine Ground": The Cactus Kid is on his way to the spring dance to meet his best girl, Bess O’Neal. As the Kid ambles through the lonely mountain trail toward town, two men emerge from the darkness - Miguel and Lobo Fernandez, of the menacing Fernandez brothers.