Gate of the Dead

England, 1346. For Thomas Blackstone the choice is easy - dance on the end of a rope for a murder he did not commit, or join the king's invasion. As he fights his way across Northern France, Blackstone learns the brutal lessons of war. Vastly outnumbered, Edward III's army will finally confront the armoured might of the French nobility on the field of Crécy. It is a battle that will change the history of warfare.

England, 1346. For Thomas Blackstone the choice is easy - dance on the end of a rope for a murder he did not commit, or join the king's invasion. As he fights his way across northern France, Blackstone learns the brutal lessons of war. Vastly outnumbered, Edward III's army will finally confront the armoured might of the French nobility on the field of Crécy. It is a battle that will change the history of warfare.

Winter, 1361: Edward III has finally agreed a treaty with the captive French King, John II. In return for his freedom, John has ceded vast tracts of territory to the English. But the mercenary bands and belligerent lords will not give up their hard-won spoils to honour a defeated king's promises. As he battles to enforce Edward's claim, Thomas Blackstone, once again, will face the might of the French army on the field. But this time there will be no English army at his back.

Dublin 1899: Lawyer Joseph Radcliffe and his black American comrade Benjamin Pierce were 'Buffalo Soldiers' together; now Radcliffe defends the toughest cases in a troubled city. In South Africa the Boer War rages and after an argument with his father, Joseph's son, Edward, runs away to join the forces. When Edward is captured and held as a spy, Radcliffe and Pierce set off to find him and bring him home. In doing so, the old soldiers find their survival skills tested to the maximum....

Beobrand is compelled by his brother's almost-certain murder to embark on a quest for revenge in the war-ravaged kingdoms of Northumbria. The land is rife with danger, as warlords vie for supremacy and dominion. In the battles for control of the region, new oaths are made and broken, and loyalties are tested to the limits. With no patronage and no experience, Beobrand must form his own allegiances and learn to fight with sword and shield. Relentless in pursuit of his enemies, he faces challenges which transform him from a boy to a man.

Roland Inness desperately needs meat for his starving family, but he takes the wrong deer on the wrong nobleman's land. Worse yet, he uses his longbow, a weapon outlawed and suppressed by the Norman overlords of England. Now they are coming for him. With one shot the 14 year old peasant boy is launched on a desperate flight that takes him from the mountains of Derbyshire to the wild frontier of Wales and on to the court of Richard the Lionheart.

Norway, AD 785. It began with the betrayal of a lord by a king.... King Gorm puts Jarl Harald's family to the sword but makes one fatal mistake - he fails to kill Harald's youngest son, Sigurd. His kin slain, his village seized and its people taken as slaves, Sigurd wonders if the gods have forsaken him. Hunted by powerful men, he is unsure who to trust, and yet he has a small band of loyal followers at his side.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Lancelot by Giles Kristian. The legions of Rome are a fading memory. Enemies stalk the fringes of Britain. And Uther Pendragon is dying. Into this fractured and uncertain world the boy is cast, a refugee from fire, murder and betrayal. An outsider whose only companions are a hateful hawk and memories of the lost. Yet he is gifted, and under the watchful eyes of Merlin and the Lady Nimue he will hone his talents and begin his journey to manhood.

When Cyrus, brother to the Great King of Persia, attempts to overthrow his reckless sibling, he employs a Greek mercenary army of 10,000 soldiers. When this army becomes stranded as a result of the unexpected death of Cyrus and then witnesses the treacherous murder of its entire officer corps, despair overtakes them. One man, Xenophon, rallies the Greeks. As he attempts to lead them to freedom across 1,500 miles of hostile territory seething with adversaries, 10,000 men set off on the long way home.

William the Conqueror as you've never seen him before--the Leopards of Normandy trilogy will tell his story in all its wild, intoxicating, unfailingly dramatic glory. David Churchill does for William what blockbuster TV series The Tudors did for Henry VIII. The devil and his bastard son.... Robert of Normandy is handsome, brave and impetuous--and has just seized Normandy's mightiest castle. But his older brother, Richard, the duke of Normandy, wants it back...and will take it by force if need be.

Aurelius Castus is one of the leading military commanders of an empire riven by civil war, but age is telling upon him. Castus discovers that the emperor's son Crispus aims to depose his ruthless father and restore the old ways of Rome. With a sadistic torturer on his trail, Castus must choose between honour and survival, and face a final confrontation with the most powerful man in the Roman world: the emperor Constantine himself.

The first book in a brand-new series, The Last Kingdom is set in England during the reign of King Alfred. Uhtred is an English boy, born into the aristocracy of ninth-century Northumbria. Orphaned at 10, he is captured and adopted by a Dane and taught the Viking ways. Yet Uhtred's fate is indissolubly bound up with Alfred, King of Wessex, who rules over the only English kingdom to survive the Danish assault. The struggle between the English and the Danes and the strife between christianity and paganism is the background to Uhtred's growing up.

England 1642: a nation divided. England is at war with itself. King Charles and Parliament each gather soldiers to their banners. Across the land men prepare to fight for their religious and political ideals. Civil war has begun; a family ripped asunder. The Rivers are landed gentry, and tradition dictates that their allegiance is to the King. Sir Francis' loyalty to the crown and his desire to protect his family will test them all. As the men march to war, so the women are left to defend their home against a ruthless enemy.

When a new empire rises, and old one must fall. After 16 years of bloody war against Rome, Hannibal Barca is on the verge of defeat. On the plains of Zama, Felix and his brother Antonius stand in the formidable Roman legions, ready to deliver the decisive blow. Victory will establish Rome as the pre-eminent power in the ancient world. But in northern Greece, Philip V of Macedon is determined to restore Alexander the Great's kingdom to its former glory.

Rome, AD 68. Nero has committed suicide. One hundred years of imperial rule by the descendants of Julius Caesar has ended, and chaos rules. His successor, Galba, dismisses the incorruptible Germans of the Imperial Bodyguard for the crime of loyalty to the dead emperor. Ordering them back to their homeland, he releases a Batavi officer from a Roman prison to be their prefect. But Julius Civilis is not the loyal servant of empire that he seems.