Showing results for "1" in Historical

The first in Ken Follett's breathtaking Century Trilogy, Fall of Giants is a captivating tale that follows five families through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for votes for women. A World in Chaos 1911, a thirteen-year-old boy, Billy...

As twilight descends on the third century AD, the Roman Empire is but a shadow of its former self. Decades of usurping emperors, splinter kingdoms and savage wars have left the people beleaguered, the armies weary and the future uncertain. And into this chaos Emperor Diocletian steps, reforming the succession to allow for not one emperor to rule the world, but four. Meanwhile, two boys share a chance meeting in the great city of Treverorum as Diocletian's dream is announced to the imperial court. 

February 1981. The Cold War is in full swing. Richard Brodick decides to follow in his father’s footsteps, joining Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. As a contract ‘head agent’ based in Pakistan, Brodick’s job is to train Afghans to capture video of the war against the Soviets. However, he finds himself in a murky world of blurred lines and conflicting stories, where he cannot trust anything he has been told, by anyone. What he had thought would be an adventure spying on the Soviets and their Afghan communist allies turns sour when he's ordered to kill his best friend. 

England 1616. Robert Belstrang, ex-magistrate bored with country life, comes to London to investigate the strange disappearance of Thomas Jessop, son of a poor Catholic neighbor. He locates the youth in Bedlam asylum, silent and starving himself. When he tries to free Jessop, he is warned off the case by a politic lawyer, Anstis. Soon after, Belstrang finds himself drugged, robbed and falsely imprisoned. Once released Belstrang persists in his investigation, but he is thwarted at every turn: unseen forces are at work who seemingly want Thomas Jessop to die. 

Confident and strong willed, Kelly Maguire knew from a young age that he could accomplish great things. A constant and abiding love of the ocean would prove to be the making of him. When the call of war is heard in the early 1910s, Kelly knows that he must answer it. Enlisting in the Royal Navy, he hopes to win both the war and personal glory. But from the barbarous battles of Gallipoli to the nightmarish action at Antwerp, Kelly, along with his young shipmates, begins to learn the trials a sailor must face, trials that will forge him from a boy into a man.

The fight for Henderson Field is on the verge of collapse. Cut off from supplies, ravaged by disease, and surrounded by a relentless enemy, the United States Marines cling to a narrow foothold in the jungle. Major Al Decker has already seen the worst of the Pacific war. One of only two Marines to escape the devastating fall of Wake Island, he has fought the Japanese from the first brutal hours of the conflict. Now he leads an elite Marine Raider unit trained for the most dangerous missions behind enemy lines.

Anno Domini 1040. Christianity has swept unstoppably across Scandinavia, leaving few enclaves of the old ways clinging on to their fading world as King Olof of Sweden works to convert his people. A young warrior, Halfdan, has witnessed the ‘mercy' of the Christian lords, watched his people attacked, his village burned and the Odin stone toppled as heretical. Watched his father cut down by an ambitious Christian jarl and his zealous priest. Among the ashes of his world, he vowed an oath of vengeance before all the gods.

Jesuit Priest Michael Dominic’s assignment to the Vatican’s legendary Secret Archives results in his discovery of a hidden papyrus: the unpublished writings of Mary Magdalene - a lost record buried in Rome’s deepest recesses. The forgotten relic’s heretical revelation threatens the Vatican’s very legitimacy, and pits Michael against ruthless and powerful enemies. Desperate, he reaches out to Hana Sinclair, an investigative reporter with a record of tackling contentious subjects.

AD 1045. Godwin of Wessex, one of the most powerful earls in the country, prepares for the marriage of his daughter to King Edward of England. The mood is jubilant, his family's relationship with the Crown secured through matrimony. But one man seeks to undermine him at every opportunity.

When a Catholic priest hangs himself during the pope's inauguration, his friend and ex-priest Alex Harker is dragged into a secret war that has been playing out on the fringes of society since the birth of Christ. The suicide sets into motion a planned timetable of terrifying events that will irrevocably change the world as we know it.

Catherine Cook, unclaimed granddaughter of the great explorer James, Cook is on her way to America to re-connect with her mother’s family when fate intervenes and thrusts her into ultimate peril. All of her life, Kate has yearned to go to sea and to command a sailing ship in the Royal navy…an impossible dream for a young woman in 1797.

Leningrad, 1951. The shadow of war lingers. Revol Rossel - once a virtuoso violinist with a glittering future - is now a humble state militia cop, forced to investigate desperate crimes in this desperate era. But when five frozen corpses are found neatly arranged between railway lines, Rossel is faced with the most puzzling - and most dangerous - case of his career. His hunt for the truth leads him to the dark heart of Leningrad’s musical establishment, and, ultimately, to the highest levels of the Kremlin itself.  

On December 7, 1941, the United States was thrust into the largest global conflict of all time. From adversity rose a generation of heroes both at home and abroad whose courage, valor and sacrifice would restore a world gone mad! Yet not all of WWII’s heroes were flesh and blood… they were also made of steel and forged in the fire of combat.

The first book in the epic and bestselling series that has gripped millions. A hero will be forged from this broken land. As seen on Netflix and BBC around the world. In a land torn apart by conflict, an orphan boy has come of age. Raised by the Vikings, deadly enemies of his own Saxon people...

In the fair autumn of Our Lord's grace 1431, the nuns of England's St. Frideswide's prepare for the simply ceremonies in which the saintly novice Thomasine will take her holy vows. But their quiet lives of beauty and prayer are thrown into chaos by the merciless arrival of Lady Ermentrude Fenner and her retinue of lusty men, sinful women, and baying hounds. The hard-drinking dowager even keeps a pet monkey for her amusement. She demands wine, a feast.... And her niece, the angelic Thomasine.

This lush and haunting novel tells of a city steeped in decadent pleasures and of a man, proud and defiant, caught in a web of murder and betrayal. It is 1833. In the midst of Mardi Gras, Benjamin January, a Creole physician and music teacher, is playing piano at the Salle d'Orleans when the evening's festivities are interrupted - by murder. The ravishing Angelique Crozat, a notorious octoroon who travels in the city's finest company, has been strangled to death.

UNDER THE EAGLE is the gripping first novel in Simon Scarrow's bestselling EAGLES OF THE EMPIRE series. A must read for fans of Bernard Cornwell. It is AD 42, and Quintus Licinius Cato has just arrived in Germany as a new recruit to the Second Legion, the toughest in the Roman army. If adjusting...

Vietnam, 1968—United States Air Force reconnaissance photos appear to show a newly built POW camp close to the DMZ. Special Forces Captain Mack Gerber and Master Sergeant Anthony B. Fetterman are sent into the jungles of North Vietnam to take a closer look. Instead of a POW compound, they discover a Soviet-run training camp for the NVA. American military officials believe a Russian presence could severely undermine the US war effort in Vietnam. The only option is to launch a raid into North Vietnam. Gerber's men now have a new mission: go in with guns blazing . . . and get out alive.

Florence, 1429. Giovanni de Medici, the family patriarch, has been poisoned. In their quest for political power, the Medici have made bitter enemies in every corner of the republic. And now Giovanni's sons, Cosimo and Lorenzo, have become the hereditary dukes of a city where loyalty can always be bought. While Lorenzo hunts for their father's killer, Cosimo petitions their remaining allies as Italy heads towards civil war. But the Medici will need more than alliances to survive, otherwise their beloved Florence – and their dynasty – will drown in blood....

Attorney Cameron Thorne is thrust into a bloody tug-of-war involving secret societies, treasure hunters, and keepers of the secrets of the Jesus bloodline. Joined by Amanda, an enchanting British researcher with secrets of her own, Cam races around New England with only two choices - unravel the 600-year-old mysteries encoded in the ancient artifacts, or die trying.