Military Action

1793 and Europe is ablaze with war. Thomas Paine Kydd, a young wig-maker from Guildford, is seized by the press gang to be a part of the crew of the 98-gun line-of-battle ship Duke William. The ship sails immediately and Kydd has to learn the harsh realities of shipboard life fast. Despite all that he goes through in danger of tempest and battle he comes to admire the skills and courage of the seamen - taking up the challenge himself to become a true sailor.

In the winter of 1996, on the orders of the British government, the SAS stole the contents of a safe belonging to the Provisional IRA. Rick Fuller headed that team. Days later Fuller's wife was brutally murdered. Convinced he was betrayed from within, Fuller begins a relentless search for her murderers. Ten years on, Fuller is a Manchester gangland enforcer, a lone and bitter figure.

Mourning the death of his father and gravely injured at the hands of the English, Jamie Fraser finds himself running with a band of mercenaries in the French countryside, where he reconnects with his old friend, Ian Murray. Both are nursing wounds, both have good reason to stay out of Scotland, and both are still virgins despite several opportunities to remedy that deplorable situation with ladies of easy virtue.

A hero’s journey begins in an exhilarating new series by Griff Hosker. In 1335 the Black Death was just 13 years away from England, but there were other threats and dangers. Young John Hawkwood is forced to leave his home and seek a life in London. There he learns how to survive and, more importantly, how to fight. Leaving his life as an apprentice tailor he follows the army and King Edward to fight the Scots. He has a skill: he can not only use a bow, but he can use a sword and his mind.

James of Ecclestone is one such youth and when he runs away to become a billman fighting the Yorkist pretender, Lambert Simnel, he begins a journey that will shape him from a youth to a man, a wild child to a Tudor warrior. Set against the backdrop of the early years of King Henry VII’s reign, this fast-moving novel takes us from the Battle of Bramham Moor to the siege of Boulogne. Beginning with the battle of Bosworth field and ending with the Skirmish of Glastonbury Tor, we see an England changing from Yorkist to Lancastrian and James of Ecclestone becoming a warrior of renown.

A passenger plane explodes. Eighty-three people die. One man is responsible. When a routine operation ends in tragedy, decorated ex-Royal Marine Ryan Kaine becomes the target of a nationwide manhunt. The police want him on terrorism charges. A sinister organization wants him dead. Kaine is forced to rely on two women he hardly knows: one, a country vet who treats his wounds, the other an IT expert with a secret of her own. Battling overwhelming guilt and his own moral code, Kaine hunts the people who turned him into a mass murderer.

The Philippines, 1899. Ten-year-old Samkad thinks he knows everything about the world. He knows that home is in the mountains. He knows who his friends and his enemies are. And he knows that he will grow up to become a warrior like his dad, with his own shield, spear and axe. His best friend is Little Luki and she too wants to become a warrior—though there's little chance of that because she is just a girl. Then strangers arrive: a boy with many languages in his throat... and weird-looking men called Americans who bring war and death.

Jeremy Summers, a British banker with a secret that could reveal MI6 intelligence sources involved in the war against drug-funded terrorism, has been seized at gunpoint, in broad daylight, on the streets of west London. An old contact, Raglan - an Englishman who served in the French Foreign Legion - is on his trail. Raglan's pursuit will lead him to the winter-ravaged wasteland of a remote Russian penal colony. A place that holds Russia's most brutal murderers. A place of death and retribution. How will he get in? More importantly, how will he get out...alive?

Navy SEAL Keith “Chunk” Redman has been one of the military’s top doorkickers since the day he pinned on his trident: loyal, single-minded, lethal. Tasked to lead a new, covert team of Tier One SEALs—the most elite special operators in the world—Chunk can no longer simply rely on the status quo. To safeguard America, he needs help to stay a step ahead of its adversaries.

For those looking for the real story behind the fictionalized movie account of the 47 Ronin story, this is the definitive, fascinating account of this unforgettable tale of a band of samurai who defied the Emperor to avenge the disgrace and death of their master, and faced certain death as a result. It led to one of the bloodiest episodes in Japanese history, and in the process, created a new set of heroes in Japan.

When a young boy and his father, a master gunner, leave their home in Devon they cannot know that piracy will become their life, for a while, at least. Set in the early days of the Spanish conquest of the Americas and with a young King Henry on the throne of England, this is a novel of discovery and riches, slavery and death. It is a time of innovation when guns changed from being firing tubes to cannons that could bring death and destruction. Above all, it is the story of a youth who, against the odds, becomes a man and, more, becomes a master gunner in his own right.

Army veteran Mason Sharpe's world is turned upside down when his beloved fiancée is killed in a random shooting. Struggling to cope with his grief, Sharpe instinctively heads for the North Carolina town where he and his bride had planned to honeymoon. Alone on a beach, contemplating a future which now seems bleak and empty, he stares into the abyss. But then… A body washes ashore. An investigation begins and the police quickly pronounce an accidental death. But Mason isn't buying it. He believes the man was murdered and someone is trying to cover it up.

This story is set at the end of the 10th century and charts the journey of a young warrior, whose father, Bersi, is killed during a raid on Wessex. Sven Bersisson has to grow up quickly and to follow in his father’s footsteps. Sweyn Skull Taker, his uncle, becomes his foster father and they raid Wessex and Frankia, where the young warrior becomes a man. King Sweyn Forkbeard, the king of Denmark, uses their clan to help in his dream of defeating the Norwegians and then taking the throne of England.

A century before A Game of Thrones, two unlikely heroes wandered Westeros.... A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms compiles the first three official prequel novellas to George R. R. Martin's ongoing masterwork, A Song of Ice and Fire. Before Tyrion Lannister and Podrick Payne, there were Dunk and Egg. A young, naïve but courageous hedge knight, Ser Duncan the Tall towers above his rivals - in stature if not experience.

Young Lerris is dissatisfied with his life and trade, and yearns to find a place in the world better suited to his skills and temperament. But in Recluce a change in circumstances means taking one of two options: permanent exile from Recluce or braving the dangergeld, a complex, rule-laden wanderjahr in the lands beyond Recluce, with the aim of learning how the world works and what his place in it might be. Many do not survive. Lerris chooses the dangergeld.

Immediate Action is a no-holds-barred account of an extraordinary life, from the day Andy McNab was found in a carrier bag on the steps of Guy's Hospital to the day he went to fight in the Gulf War. As a delinquent youth he kicked against society. As a young soldier he waged war against the IRA in the streets and fields of South Armagh. As a member of 22 SAS Regiment he was at the centre of covert operations for nine years - on five continents.

Beyond the outer boundary of the Core Worlds lies the Frontier. Colonists looking for a life outside the corporate-choked governments cross the border seeking new opportunities, trading security for freedom. In the Frontier, law is absent except for the Marshals. The warrior mystics saved Orin Lashra from a grinding death in the gladiatorial slave pits, recruiting him as a deputy to serve beside them. During a routine tribal negotiation, violence verging on civil war kills the mentor he called mother.

When his father is killed at Arsuf protecting King Richard, Thomas is knighted. His hopes of inheriting his family's manor are dashed when Prince John takes power in his brother's absence. With a handful of men, Sir Thomas is forced to travel to Sweden where he joins the Jarl Birger Brosa fighting the Estonians, Karelians and Slavs. Fighting in the harsh environment of a Baltic winter makes Sir Thomas and his men stronger. There he learns of further treachery and dishonour among Bishops, Kings and Princes who value thrones more than men.

1878: When his family loses their home, to Jack Roberts, who has grown up hearing stories of the Crimean war and the magnificent charge of the Heavy Brigade, the choice between working in a dangerous factory or enlisting in the army and putting on the famed red uniform is an easy one. But when fighting for Queen and Country takes him far from home to defending a small mission station from overwhelming numbers, it is anything but easy and bravery and stoicism take on new meaning.

Master and Commander is the first of Patrick O’Brian’s now famous Aubrey-Maturin novels, regarded by many as the greatest series of historical novels ever written. It establishes the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey RN and Stephen Maturin, who becomes his secretive ship’s surgeon and an intelligence agent. It displays the qualities which have put O’Brian far ahead of any of his competitors.