Finished in 2003, this fictional memoir is written from the point of view of an Al-Qaeda fighter and details his personal involvement in a jihad, holy war, against the western powers. The story is told in 2007, as the narrator remembers his 20 years of conflict. Osama bin Laden is involved throughout the story and, while the period from mid-2003 to 2007 is entirely speculative, chapters detailing the formation and development of Al-Qaeda are accurate and based on extensive research. Quotations from The Qur'an are sourced from 'The Meaning of the Glorious Qur'an', an explanatory translation by Mohammad Marmaduke Pickthall, published by the Islamic Cultural Centre, London NW8 7RG. Proclamations and declarations by Al-Qaeda leaders in quotation marks are real. For clarity, dates are given in the western calendar.

Japan lies under a radioactive cloud, its denizens wiped out. America has been subjugated, its inhabitants scattered. The Old World is dead, buried beneath the foundations of the new - Chung Kuo, a mile-high, globe-spanning megacity. Billions have perished and history has been rewritten with their blood. Over all of this one man reigns supreme: Tsao Ch'un - the Son of Heaven. But it takes one type of man to conquer a world, another to rule it. The Son of Heaven's brutality has alienated even his closest allies and in the depths of the great city, rebellion has been unleashed. The Great Wheel of Change turns and the fight for the future has begun.

When Frank Barrett meets Ramsay Davis at Ft. Walton Beach, Florida, he begins the next chapter of his life and marries her, quickly finding himself deeply in love and committed to his wife. But Frank must leave Ramsay behind when he reports for duty as a pilot in the US Air Force in December of 1970.

When Frank-nicknamed "Bee Sting" Barrett in the service-returns home to Florida as an ace captain, tragedy strikes. He is a witness as his beloved, pregnant wife is killed by a drug runner named Little Eddy. Revenge ravages Frank and compels him to pursue the man to Panama. Driven by grief and rage, he commits an unspeakable act, leaving Little Eddy for dead. Frank then returns to Florida to train for a second tour in Vietnam-only to see Eddy show up as well. Eddy is a loose cannon and the Mafia wants him dead, but he may get to Frank before they find him.

A story of love, loss, and revenge that travels from Florida to Panama and Southeast Asia, "Hollow Vengeance" follows Frank as he tries to find peace and get retribution for his wife's death-a quest that involves the trenches of the Mafia's drug ring in Tampa.

The tragedy of war is measured by destruction, death, and heartache. In the end, politicians negotiate, and soldiers come home. But the seldom-discussed tragedy of captivity leaves deep and lasting scars in those who return as well as in their families. Prisoners of war suffer immeasurable humiliation and pain at their captors' hands.

Historically, the mortality rate for American POWs averages 12 percent. The one exception was the POWs held in North Korea from 1950 to 1953; they died at a rate of 42 percent, nearly four times more than any other war. "Letters from a Captive Heart" is not a war story, as little of the tale takes places on the battlefield. It's a story of honor, strength, and heartbreak in the POW camps of North Korea and back home in America's heartland. This historical novel starkly portrays the contrast between the innocence of the early 1950s in rural Kentucky and the horrific reality of the POW camps.

In this moving and poignant saga about the effects of war, we find there is nothing more fragile than a captive's heart and nothing more powerful than its story of survival.

Fans of The Kennedy Debutante and Next Year in Havana will love Georgie Blalock's new novel of a world on the cusp of change...set on the eve of World War II in the glittering world of English society and one of the last debutante seasons. They danced the night away, knowing their world was about to change forever. They were the debutantes of 1939, laughing on the outside, but knowing tragedy- and a war-was just around the corner. When Valerie de Vere Cole, the niece of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, makes her deep curtsey to the King and Queen of England, she knows she's part of a world about to end. The daughter of a debt-ridden father and a neglectful mother, Valerie sees firsthand that war is imminent. Nevertheless, Valerie reinvents herself as a carefree and glittering young society woman, befriending other debutantes from England's aristocracy as well as the vivacious Eunice Kennedy, daughter of the U.S. Ambassador. Despite her social success, the world's troubles and Valerie's fear of loss and loneliness prove impossible to ignore. How will she navigate her new life when everything in her past has taught her that happiness and stability are as fragile as peace in our time? For the moment she will forget her cares in too much champagne and waltzes. Because very soon, Valerie knows that she must find the inner strength to stand strong and carry on through the challenges of life and love and war.

Currents of unrest and tides of innovation threaten to overwhelm Chung Kuo's stability. When a lethal epidemic strikes the Seven's chief supporters, Li Yuan acts ruthlessly to wipe out the disease. But his actions incur far more fatal consequences for the rule of the Seven. While the great Council of emperors splinters into factions, Kwibesi, the detention camp for terrorists, continues to establish order. However, rebellion is brutally contained inside the camp and a growing sense of injustice stirs in one of its guards, Kao Chen, who - sent there undercover by his Master, Li Yuan - begins to question his sense of duty. The Seven are now openly divided amongst themselves, while all about them allegiances are constantly shifting as each day brings new atrocities.

As the Doomsday Clock inches closer to midnight, ten men sit at a meetings table underground and prepare to launch a nuclear attack against the world. With a goal of using missiles to scourge the earth of unbelievers, the men all agree that whatever happens from this point on us the will of God. As their evil plan falls into place, no one in the United States has any idea in just two weeks, their nation will be destroyed.

From a bunker deep beneath Jerusalem, the order comes to attack and everything changes in an instant. As mushroom clouds hang over Israel, Mike; his wife, Brie; and their daughter Claire watch the news in their San Diego home-unaware that in a matter of hours, they too will be on a perilous quest for survival. As the gates of hell openup and obliterate everything around them, Mike his family, and a few other survivorshave no choice but to steal across the border into Mexico, beginning an odyssey of violence and death that leads them straight to a small island in the Gulf of Cortez.

In this gipping tale with unanitcipated twist and turn, Mike and his family embark on a dangerous journey to find a batter life and soon discover that they will do anything to stay alive.

1899, Charles Hadleigh leaves his quiet life in rural England to work for his uncle in the colony of British Somaliland. As he arrives a rebellion breaks out led by the Mad Mullah. The Mullah and his fanatical Dervish warriors have declared a jihad against the infidels. They have vowed to drive the British into the sea. The entire colony is at peril of fire and sword. For the British there can be no retreat. For the Mullah there can be no surrender. For once the sword of rebellion has been drawn the scabbard must be thrown away...

Set in Changi, the most notorious prisoner of war camp in Asia, King Rat is an heroic story of survival told by a master story-teller who lived through those years as a young soldier. Only one man in fifteen had the strength, the luck, and the cleverness simply to survive Changi. And then there was King.

For readers of Schindler's List, The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas comes a heart-breaking story of the very best of humanity in the very worst of circumstances.

In 1942, Lale Sokolov arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau. He was given the job of tattooing the prisoners marked for survival - scratching numbers into his fellow victims' arms in indelible ink to create what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust. Waiting in line to be tattooed, terrified and shaking, was a young girl. For Lale - a dandy, a jack-the-lad, a bit of a chancer - it was love at first sight. And he was determined not only to survive himself, but to ensure this woman, Gita, did, too.

So begins one of the most life-affirming, courageous, unforgettable and human stories of the Holocaust: the true love story of the tattooist of Auschwitz.