Winner of the W.Y Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction for 2008. It's 1879 and Lt. Cmdr. Peter Wake, U.S.N., is on special assignment as the official American neutral naval observer to the War of the Pacific raging along the west coast of South America. Chile, having invaded Bolivia, has gone on to overrun Peru and controls the entire southeastern Pacific region. Washington, concerned over European involvement in the war and the French effort to build a canal through Panama, has sent Wake to observe local events. During Wake's dangerous mission--as naval observer, diplomat, and spy--he will witness history's first battle between ocean-going ironclads, ride the world's first deep-diving submarine, face his first machine guns in combat, advise the French trying to build the Panama Canal, and run for his life in the Catacombs of the Dead in Lima, Peru.

OCTOBER, 1962: The discovery of soviet missiles in Cuba has sparked a confrontation with global implications. Soviet Union Premier Nikita Khruschev and United States President John F. Kennedy face off in a perilous chess game of heightened military readiness, hard-line policy, and round-the-clock negotiation. When the USS Gearing is suddenly lost at sea and believed to be destroyed by a soviet submarine attack, diplomacy becomes abruptly and absolutely irrelevant. Around the world, bombs fall, and the stage is set for what will become the darkest and most desperate expanse of human conflict. Unknown to anyone else, the USS Gearing encountered a strange storm in 1962 which sent it twenty years into the future. OCTOBER, 1982: The USS Gearing reappears in the Atlantic, and its proximity to Cuba violates the terms of the Soviet-American Armistice of 1977. President Ronald Reagan leads Free America as fighting is renewed between mighty navies on the high seas, and between soviet occupation forces and homeland defenders in California, Florida, and the Carolinas. A weakened United States on the brink of soviet domination, with NATO and allied governments in exile, prepare for the final battle to decide the fate of the free world and prevent the extinction of freedom and democracy. Professor Edwin Theodore Burnside and three of his students, due to being in the presence of a mysterious artifact, are alone in their awareness that something is wrong with this alternate reality in 1982. Once investigation yields a plausible theory on how to repair the timeline, Professor Burnside embarks on a mission to save the world from an apocalyptic war. The alteration in reality caused by the USS Gearing travelling through time affords Professor Burnside a second chance to keep his childhood friend from once again becoming the one that got away. Eventually, he will be forced to decide if he should go ahead with his mission even if it means erasing from history the woman he loves.

Spring 1952. The Korean War: the second year. Peace talks have started and stalled. The battlefront is unstable and active. Fierce fighting continues between UN and communist forces for tiny pieces of ground in strategic locations along possible attack routes for the massive armies if, and when, they decide to start up again. A U.S. Army rifle company is in reserve licking its wounds after a near-devastating defeat at Iron Mountain. It must get well and prepare for further effort against unremitting pressure from the Chinese Volunteers. Even in this recovery mode there is some down time available, during which the occasionally profound, often lunatic, aspects of infantry life spark up and are played out. A five-day rest period in Japan for the only two officers of the company scores some pleasant relaxation on the shores of Lake Hakone. But it also ends up in a murder in a Tokyo alley. The following army investigation leads back to Korea where the company is fighting for its life in a three part battle on Monastery Ridge which ultimately affects, in different ways, the company's principal players.

Brad Soames (or is it Brod Sloan?) completes twenty years in the infantry, serving in every US overseas 'adventure.' He returns home to retire; angry, bitter, suffering from PTSD. The wars have changed Brad. He begins assassinating those he regards as criminals: Wall Street CEOs, former government officials and lobbyists, and other prominent people he sees as evil and unpatriotic. He believes that their pursuit of money and power is destroying the nation. Against the odds, he keeps succeeding in his murder spree. Can there be a happy ending?

Dave and his buddies are on their way home from the war. They look forward to civilian life, but have reservations. How will they be treated? Will they be accepted? Upon landing, they are greeted by protesters who are very antagonistic to them because they are soldiers. Each goes his own way with experiences both good and bad. Their reintegration back into civilian life proves to be anything but easy, each one facing similar obstacles. It proves to be a long process, one that not everyone can overcome. Dave drives cross-country to get home and ends up with a companion he didn't expect. Pete wonders if his parents will accept him now that he is crippled and has to walk with crutches. Joe goes with Pete and tries to encourage him, all the while wondering what his homecoming will be like. All three have memories and nightmares to deal with. How well will they succeed? This book is about the heroes, and victims, of the horrific situations forced upon them and the results of how they deal with them. Their characters are fiction but their flashbacks are real, and each one has a tremendous price to pay for their service.

Tom Greenlee, the CEO of Ameribank and the leader of a forty-member secret group called the National Association for Preserving White America, believes the country is self-destructing. He preaches that the white middle and upper classes of the country are finding their wealth stripped away, their beliefs trampled, their culture spat upon, and their lives threatened by people of color. He and his group of "protectors" desire to carve out an independent nation of their own. As a fragmented and polarized society, Americans begin to feed on each other until they become a target for attacks by both internal and external enemies. A strike on Houston's Reliant Stadium kills and maims thousands of citizens. It's being touted as a scheme concocted by the CIA to keep the U.S. fighting in the Middle East. Minutemen vigilantes massacre a group of migrant workers and their families in order to intimidate others from entering the country. Dan Louder, New York City's first black mayor, survives an assassination attempt. The New York Stock Exchange closes its doors. While the country teeters on the edge of destruction, the citizens of the U.S. must prepare themselves to live a very different existence in the future.

The first work of fiction by a President of the United States -- a sweeping novel of the American South and the War of Independence

In his ambitious and deeply rewarding novel, Jimmy Carter brings to life the Revolutionary War as it was fought in the Deep South; it is a saga that will change the way we think about the conflict. He reminds us that much of the fight for independence took place in that region and that it was a struggle of both great and small battles and of terrible brutality, with neighbor turned against neighbor, the Indians' support sought by both sides, and no quarter asked or given. "The Hornet's Nest" follows a cast of characters and their loved ones on both sides of this violent conflict -- including some who are based on the author's ancestors.

At the heart of the story is Ethan Pratt, who in 1766 moves with his wife, Epsey, from Philadelphia to North Carolina and then to Georgia in 1771, in the company of Quakers. On their homesteads in Georgia, Ethan and his wife form a friendship with neighbors Kindred Morris and his wife, Mavis. Through Kindred and his young Indian friend Newota, Ethan learns about the frontier and the Native American tribes who are being continually pressed farther inland by settlers. As the eight-year war develops, Ethan and Kindred find themselves in life-and-death combat with oppos- ing forces.

With its moving love story, vivid action, and the suspense of a war fought with increasing ferocity and stealth, "The Hornet's Nest" is historical fiction at its best, in the tradition of such major classics as "The Last of the Mohicans."

THE INSTANTLY ICONIC NO. 1 BESTSELLER 'Devotees of Midsomer Murders and Agatha Christie's Miss Marple stories will feel most at home here' Guardian 'I've been waiting for a novel with vicars, rude old ladies, murder and sausage dogs... et voila!' Dawn French 'Cosy crime with a cutting edge' Telegraph 'Whodunnit fans can give praise and rejoice' Ian Rankin 'Charming and funny' Observer Even better than I knew it would be' India Knight 'Quintessentially English' Sunday Express 'An absolute joy' Adam Kay ''Wry, tongue-in cheek and whimsical' Daily Mail 'Glorious' Robert Webb 'Beautifully written, charming, funny, intelligent and mordant too' Sunday Times 'Pitch perfect' Philip Pullman 'A cunning whodunnit' Daily Express Canon Daniel Clement is Rector of Champton, where he lives alongside his widowed mother - opinionated, fearless, ever-so-slightly annoying Audrey - and his two dachshunds, Cosmo and Hilda. When Daniel announces a plan to install a lavatory in the church, the parish is suddenly (and unexpectedly) divided: as lines are drawn, long-buried secrets come dangerously close to destroying the apparent calm of the village. And then Anthony Bowness - cousin to Bernard de Floures, patron of Champton - is found dead at the back of the church. As the police moves in and the bodies start piling up, Daniel is the only one who can try and keep his community together... and catch a killer.

High in the pine forests of the Spanish Sierra, a guerrilla band prepares to blow up a vital bridge. Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer, has been sent to handle the dynamiting. There, in the mountains, he finds the dangers and the intense comradeship of war. And there he discovers Maria, a young woman who has escaped from Franco’s rebels... For Whom the Bell Tolls is Ernest Hemingway’s finest novel, a passionate evocation of the pride and the tragedy of the Civil War that tore Spain apart.

If you like military humor, you will enjoy reading about the antics of bored but resourceful sailors all but stranded on an obscure South Pacific island with no means of recreation except for what they invented on their own-an illegal still, a hidden saloon and bordello. A deal made with the boss of the island, Chief Omoka, a rascal in his own right, assures the secrecy of the endeavor. We see a final resolution to the long, lingering feud between the ship's captain, Commander Hewett, and his superior, Admiral Crabbett, who for years played one-upmanship games with his junior officer. And you will be kept guessing what the main character, the Kushmaker, is up to. He's a specialist who dupes the entire navy staff with his secret invention that is intended to astound the officials and dignitaries by its uniqueness. Anyone with a humorous outlook and who enjoys leisurely reading will surely enjoy this book.