Showing results for "mike rogers" in Historical Fiction

AD 1209: When a robbery in Sherwood goes wrong, Robin Hood, Sir Alan Dale and a handful of their outlaw friends are forced to flee their homes to escape the wrath of a vengeful King John and his iron-hearted Sheriff of Nottinghamshire. After travelling to the Languedoc, a land of good food, fine wine, elegant love poetry and religious tolerance, the Sherwood men find themselves caught up in a blood-soaked crusade launched by Pope Innocent III.

'I charge you, Sir Alan Dale, with administering my death. At the end of the game, I would rather die by your hand than any other.' England rebels. War rages across the land. In the wake of Magna Carta, King John's treachery is revealed, and the barons rise against him once more. Fighting with them is the Earl of Locksley - the former outlaw Robin Hood - and his right-hand man, Sir Alan Dale.

Spring, 1192. Robin Hood and his band of men, travelling home from the Third Crusade, find themselves in the lush, wine-rich Duchy of Burgundy. When they are captured by a renegade knight and taken across the River Saone to the rival County of Burgundy, they are plunged into a nightmarish world of treachery, deceit and cold-blooded murder.

It is 1464. Ned Elder and his two sisters, Emma and Eleanor, have won a hard-fought peace and their feud with the Radcliffes seems long over, but one man never accepted the outcome. After three bitter years of waiting to destroy the Elders, a new ally provides him with a fresh opportunity for revenge.

AD 1203: England and France are locked in a brutal struggle for power. The fate of the embattled duchy of Normandy is in the hands of the weak and untrustworthy King John. Facing disaster, he calls for help from a former outlaw - Robin Hood. As King Philip II's army rips through the Norman defences, Robin - the Earl of Locksley - leads a savage mercenary force into battle under the English banner, supported by his loyal lieutenant Sir Alan Dale. But defeat is only one castle away.

AD 1215: The year of Magna Carta - and Robin Hood's greatest battle. King John is scheming to reclaim his ancestral lands in Europe, raising the money for new armies by bleeding dry peasants and nobles alike, not least the earl of Locksley - the former outlaw Robin Hood - and his loyal man, Sir Alan Dale.

The third crusade is over. Richard the Lion heart is bound for England. But with the princes of Europe united against him, can the greatest warrior in Christendom make it safely home? The Lion is Chained. Captured. Bound. Imprisoned. King Richard's slim hope of salvation rests on one man - a former outlaw who scoffs at Holy Mother Church: Robin Hood. For King and country, Robin will risk all - from blood-soaked battlefields to deadly assassins - to see the Lion heart restored to his rightful throne.

454 AD. Northern Italy. Dux Ambrosius Aurelianus has served the Roman Empire with distinction. His bucellarii, a small band of irregular soldiers, have helped to bring a fragile peace to the beleaguered empire in the west. But, with the empire now at peace, his master, Flavius Aetius, decides to chain up his dogs of war. Ambrosius and his men are left to idle away their days in a rural backwater, but Ambrosius’ boredom is brutally swept aside when old rivals seize the opportunity to destroy him.

A vicar nailed to a tree in Yorkshire. The theft of a priceless artefact during a fire. A detective forced to tell the truth for 24 hours. A body hidden in a basement. From the restless streets of London to the wilds of the Lake District, displaying all his trademark humour, playfulness and clever plotting, this landmark collection brings together the very best of Reginald Hill’s short stories for the first time, complete with a foreword from Val McDermid.

No. 1 bestselling author Josephine Cox returns with a powerful, dark love story shrouded in shocking secrets and malignant forces. All Jack's life, the nightmares had haunted him, dragging him back to a place where it was always midnight… Molly and Jack are deeply in love but their...

They joined for their country. They fought for each other. When war breaks out in 1914, Mark Fenner and his Sheffield friends immediately flock to Kitchener's call. Amid waving flags and boozy celebration, the three men - Fen, his best friend Locky and self-assured Frank, rival for the woman Fen loves - enlist as volunteers to take on the Germans and win glory.

May 1194: Richard the Lionheart is in Normandy, locked in a long and bloody war with the French. By his side are Robert Odo, Earl of Locksley - the former outlaw Robin Hood - and Sir Alan Dale, Robin's protégé, a musician and warrior of great renown. As battles rage and bodies pile up, Alan embarks on a mission to track down the man who ordered his father's death 10 years earlier. But the trail leads him to Paris, deep in the heart of enemy territory - where even Robin might not be able to rescue him.

A home burned. When past crimes resurface, Sir Alan Dale, loyal lieutenant of the Earl of Locksley - better known as the murderous thief Robin Hood - faces terrible vengeance at the hands of those that he and his master have wronged. A family threatened. With his beloved wife on her deathbed, Sir Alan must seek salvation by following Robin into the lair of their enemy, the mysterious leader of a band of renegade Templars, on the trail of the most precious object in the world: the Holy Grail. Only a miracle can save them.

For a long time, the Elders and the Radcliffes have been, at best, uncomfortable neighbours, but when Ned Elder's father and brother are murdered and his sisters abducted by the Radcliffes, the young knight is forced to flee from his home. With only a few loyal companions, he is hounded across the land by the Radcliffes.

England in 1468 is a nervous kingdom. King Edward IV has fallen out with his chief ally during the Wars of the Roses, the powerful Earl of Warwick.

Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval is the single most important Arthurian romance. It contains the very first mention of the mysterious grail, later to become the Holy Grail and the focal point of the spiritual quest of the knights of Arthur's court. Chrétien left the poem unfinished, but the extraordinary and intriguing theme of the Grail was too good to leave, and other poets continued and eventually completed it.

After the success of The Northern Clemency, shortlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize, Philip Hensher brings us another slice of contemporary life, this time the peaceful civility and spiralling paranoia of a small English town. After the success of The Mulberry Empire and The Northern Clemency...

Late spring, AD 455. After a brutal winter struggle against the High King Vortigern, outcast imperial officer Ambrosius Aurelianus has led his weary followers to southwest Britannia in search of his mother's kinfolk. But Vortigern, thirsting for revenge, is already forging a dangerous alliance against him. Taking refuge in a ruined Roman fort near the decaying town of Vindocladia, Ambrosius finds an ally in Lurotriga, the widowed queen of the Durotriges. Though still sworn to his Saxon lady, Inga, he is soon beguiled by the British noblewoman.

Billy Shaw lives in a palace. Potter's Pleasure Palace, the best entertainment venue in Yorkshire, complete with dancing and swing-boats and picnickers and a roller-skating rink. Jasper Harper lives in the big house above the valley, with his eccentric mother, Edie, and Uncle Charles, brother and sister authors who have come from London to write in the seclusion of the moors. When it is arranged for Billy to become Jasper's companion, Billy arrives to find a wild, peculiar boy in a curiously haphazard household.

After wintering at Villa Magna to recover from his bitter struggle against the British High King Vortigern, ex-Imperial Officer Dux Ambrosius Aurelianus leads his motley company westwards. He hopes to find a safe refuge in the south-west near Durnovaria, where he believes his dead mother’s kinfolk might be found. Arriving in the area, Ambrosius finds a small abandoned settlement where his company can take shelter for the night before moving on to the town of Vindocladia—just north of Durnovaria. But Vortigern has put the word out.