Thomas of Hookton is one of these archers. But he is also on a personal mission: To avenge his father's death and retrieve a stolen relic. Thomas begins a quest that will lead him through fields smeared with the smoke of fires set by the rampaging English, until at last the two armies face each other on a hillside near the village of Crécy.

The three sons of Ratharryn’s chief each perceive the great gift in a different way. The eldest, Lengar, the warrior, harnesses his murderous ambition to be a ruler and take great power for his tribe. Camaban becomes a great visionary and feared wise man, and it is his vision that will force the youngest brother, Saban, to create the great temple on the green hill where the gods will appear on earth. Saban’ s love for Aurenna, the sun bride whose destiny is to die for the gods, finally brings the rivalries of the brothers to a head.

The year is 1820 and England has fought its last victorious battle against the French. Rider Sandman, a hero of Waterloo, has finally returned to London to wed his young bride. But instead of being able to settle down to his fame and glory, he finds himself penniless in a country where unemployment and social unrest are raging high, and where men - innocent or guilty - are hung for the merest of crimes. Thus, when the Home Secretary offers him a job as private investigator.

Bernard Cornwell, the New York Times best-selling "reigning king of historical fiction" (USA Today), tackles his most thrilling, rich, and enthralling subject yet - the heroic tale of Agincourt. The epic battle immortalized by William Shakespeare in his classic Henry V is the background for this breathtaking tale of heroism, love, devotion, and duty from the legendary author of the Richard Sharpe novels and the Saxon Tales.

From New York Times bestselling author Bernard Cornwell, the first exciting adventure in the world-renowned Sharpe series, chronicling the rise of Richard Sharpe, a Private in His Majesty’s Army at the siege of Seringapatam.

His code name was “The Needle.” He was a German aristocrat of extraordinary intelligence - a master spy with a legacy of violence in his blood, and the object of the most desperate manhunt in history.... But his fate lay in the hands of a young and vulnerable English woman, whose loyalty, if swayed, would assure his freedom - and win the war for the Nazis....

England, 1346: For Thomas Blackstone, the choice is easy - dance on the end of a rope for a murder he did not commit, or take up his war bow and join the king's invasion. As he fights his way across northern France, Blackstone learns the brutal lessons of war - from the terror and confusion of his first taste of combat, to the savage realities of siege warfare.

In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served fifteen months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett's intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden's car.

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.

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway - a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors.

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of 20 years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?

Helene Wecker's dazzling debut novel tells the story of two supernatural creatures who appear mysteriously in 1899 New York. Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a strange man who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic. When her master dies at sea on the voyage from Poland, she is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York Harbor. Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire, born in the ancient Syrian Desert. Trapped in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard centuries ago, he is released accidentally by a tinsmith in a Lower Manhattan shop.

"When I say, therefore, that [my brother] has better powers of observation than I...I am speaking the exact and literal truth." (Sherlock Holmes). This story occurs when Mycroft, an athletic Cambridge graduate, assists the secretary of State. He becomes embroiled in a mystery in Trinidad based on actual history. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a huge Holmesian, seven-foot-two tall, basketball's all-time leading scorer, and a US cultural ambassador. Anna Waterhouse is a professional screenwriter and script consultant.

It's a story you think you know: the age-old tale of "star-cross'd lovers"; two families at war; a romance, so pure and absolute, fated for a tragic end. It's a story so thoroughly embedded in our culture, and so frequently retold. Yet, nothing captures the spark, the possibility, and the surprise of Shakespeare's work quite like this....

While on routine patrol in the tinder-dry Topanga Canyon, environmental scientist Rafael Salazar expects to find animal poachers, not a dilapidated antique steamer trunk. Inside the peculiar case, he discovers a journal, written by the renowned Robert Louis Stevenson, which divulges ominous particulars about his creation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It also promises to reveal a terrible secret - the identity of Jack the Ripper.

The year is 1820 and England has fought its last victorious battle against the French. Rider Sandman, a hero of Waterloo, has finally returned to London to wed his young bride. But instead of being able to settle down to his fame and glory, he finds himself penniless in a country where unemployment and social unrest are raging high, and where men - innocent or guilty - are hung for the merest of crimes. Thus, when the Home Secretary offers him a job as private investigator.

At dawn on Easter morning 1343, a marauding band of French raiders arrives by boat to ambush the coastal village of Hookton. To brave young Thomas, the only survivor, the horror of the attack is epitomized by the casual savagery of a particular black-clad knight. Thomas vows to avenge the murder of his townsmen and recapture a holy treasure that the black knight stole from the church.

The three sons of Ratharryn’s chief each perceive the great gift in a different way. The eldest, Lengar, the warrior, harnesses his murderous ambition to be a ruler and take great power for his tribe. Camaban becomes a great visionary and feared wise man, and it is his vision that will force the youngest brother, Saban, to create the great temple on the green hill where the gods will appear on earth. Saban’ s love for Aurenna, the sun bride whose destiny is to die for the gods, finally brings the rivalries of the brothers to a head.

While the major fighting of the war moves to the south in the summer of 1779, a British force of fewer than a thousand Scottish infantry, backed by three sloops-of-war, sails to the desolate and fog-bound coast of New England. Establishing a garrison and naval base at Penobscot Bay, in the eastern province of Massachusetts that would become Maine, the Scots - the only British troops between Canada and New York - harry rebel privateers and give shelter to American loyalists....

Bernard Cornwell, the New York Times best-selling "reigning king of historical fiction" (USA Today), tackles his most thrilling, rich, and enthralling subject yet - the heroic tale of Agincourt. The epic battle immortalized by William Shakespeare in his classic Henry V is the background for this breathtaking tale of heroism, love, devotion, and duty from the legendary author of the Richard Sharpe novels and the Saxon Tales.

Thomas of Hookton is a seasoned veteran of King Edward's army and a natural leader in what will be remembered as the Hundred Years' War. Accompanied by a small but able band of soldiers, Thomas is sent to Gascony to capture the castle of Astarac. But he has ulterior motives for accepting the charge: Gascony is the home of the black knight, Guy de Vexille, who brutally slaughtered his father. It is also reputed to be the place where the Grail was last seen.

Four thousand years ago, three brothers grow up in a land that is now Britain. One becomes a warrior, ruthless in his pursuit of gold and power. One is a mystic who sees visions of the future and hears the gods speak to him. Between them stands Sagan, the gentle brother who will dedicate his life to building a temple he hopes will bring health and peace to the land.

The story of a young illegitimate son of a Norman noble and the daughter of an English housecarl. Forced to be little more than a servant Robert fitz Malet shows the world and his half brothers that he has qualities which mark him as different. When he meets the famous troubadour, Taillefer, he becomes one of the most skilled swordsmen in Duke William's army as they prepare to invade England and claim the crown promised to him by King Edward.

Uhtred is a Saxon, cheated of his inheritance and adrift in a world of fire, sword, and treachery. He has to make a choice: whether to fight for the Vikings, who raised him, or for King Alfred the Great of Wessex, who dislikes him.

Thomas Cromwell may have been known as the powerful and ambitious henchman for King Henry VIII, but the woman he installed in the king's court may have had the biggest impact on England's history.... Katherine Ashley was just the daughter of a poor country beekeeper, no matter how clever and beguiling she was. But when she catches the eye of Thomas Cromwell, King Henry VIII's chief minister, she finds her fortune suddenly, drastically changing. Cromwell secures Katherine a place in the king's court as the governess to and protector of Anne Boleyn's only child, Elizabeth.

the end of The Winter King Arthur fought the battle that forces unity on the warring British kingdoms and now he sets out to face the real enemy—the English (it is one of the great ironies of the Arthur stories that he should have become an English hero when, if he existed at all, he was a great war-leader who opposed the invading Sais). First, though, Merlin leads a perilous expedition into the mysterious west to retrieve a cauldron, one of the treasures of Britain.

From New York Times bestselling author Bernard Cornwell, the first exciting adventure in the world-renowned Sharpe series, chronicling the rise of Richard Sharpe, a Private in His Majesty’s Army at the siege of Seringapatam.

Thomas of Hookton is one of these archers. But he is also on a personal mission: To avenge his father's death and retrieve a stolen relic. Thomas begins a quest that will lead him through fields smeared with the smoke of fires set by the rampaging English, until at last the two armies face each other on a hillside near the village of Crécy.

At the end of his career, Albert Einstein was pursuing a dream far more ambitious than the theory of relativity. He was trying to find an equation that explained all physical reality - a theory of everything. Experimental physicist and award-winning educator Dr. Don Lincoln takes you on this exciting journey in The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality. Suitable for the intellectually curious at all levels and assuming no background beyond basic high-school math, these 24 half-hour lectures cover recent developments at the forefront of particle physics and cosmology.

The vibrant, sprawling saga of Empress Maria Theresa - one of the most renowned women rulers in history - and three of her extraordinary daughters, including Marie Antoinette, the doomed queen of France.