The triumphant new novel from the author of the Orange Prize-winning Fugitive Pieces: a soaring and luminous story of chance and change.

1917. On a battlefield near the River Aisne, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory – a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night, his childhood on a faraway coast – as the snow falls.

1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near another river – alive, but not still whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and endeavours to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures: ghosts whose messages he cannot understand.

So begins a narrative that spans four generations, moments of connection and consequence igniting and re-igniting as the century unfolds. In luminous moments of desire, comprehension, longing, transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later.

Held is a novel like no other, by a writer at the height of her powers: affecting and intensely beautiful, full of mystery, wisdom and compassion.

Led by Commander Marcus Artorius Agricola, the five thousand soldiers of Rome's Ninth Legion are legendary for their aggressive fighting skills and superb leadership. The Legion is stationed in Britannia in the year AD 122, and Rome sends them north of York to subdue the unruly Pict tribes.

But when they arrive, the unthinkable happens. They are routed and forced to flee toward the coast, ending up at a Pict holy place. Here, the entire Legion is mysteriously teleported to England at the beginning of World War II. The terrified men suddenly find themselves pursued from the air by "flying crosses" and on the ground by a relentless crew of British soldiers.

The Legion flees to Crail, Scotland, trying to come to grips with their new reality. They discover that one of the Picts, a vicious holy man named Mormaer, has time-traveled with them. Worse, he is quickly learning the ways of this new world and won't hesitate to use his deadly knowledge against his enemies.

When the Legion discovers that they are right in the path of another invading force-the Germans-they know they will continue to do their duty and defend Great Britain. But their shields and swords are no match for this era's technology. What's more, with Mormaer waiting to strike, the Legion may not survive what could be their last battle.

Lisa Collier has always known the military was right for her, but she never counted on the trials and tribulations that accompany her new life. But under her uniform representing pride and heroism, she is conflicted. Unfortunately, Lisa soon realizes that her extensive military training has not prepared her for the battles of abandonment, neglect, infidelity, and abuse she suffers in her personal life.

Lisa's best friend, Monique Grant, is not known for playing games, especially when it comes to her freedom - and her heart. She enters the military as a strong-willed woman who lets nothing stand in her way, but almost immediately discovers she must learn to slow down or lose everything she holds close to her heart.

"Memoirs of a Military Diva" shares the poignant tale of two women as they journey to discover the true meaning of inner strength, to stand firm in their identities, and, most importantly, to embrace the bonds of sisterhood; relying on that, they have the ability to overcome anything.

Inspired by true events and set against the backdrop of the Second World War, Melanie Levensohn’s A Jewish Girl in Paris is a powerful novel about forbidden love.

Paris, 1940, a city under German occupation. A young Jewish girl, Judith, meets a young man, the son of a wealthy banker and Nazi sympathizer – his family will never approve of the girl he has fallen in love with. As the Germans impose more and more restrictions on Jewish Parisians, the couple secretly plan to flee the country. But before they can make their escape, Judith disappears . . .

Montréal, 1982. Shortly before his death, Lica Grunberg confesses to his daughter, that she has an older half-sister, Judith. Lica escaped the Nazis but lost all contact with his first-born daughter. His daughter promises to find the sister she never knew. The search languishes for years, until Jacobina is spurred on by her young friend Béatrice.

Soon the two women discover a dark family secret, stretching over two continents and six decades, that will change their lives forever . . .

Oh well, she's not my girl back home any-way. Her name is Halamie Tikara. She's Iraqi, and not so far away. So complicated, our beautiful love.

Human Intelligence Specialist Joshua Martin lies stranded and severely wounded after a night raid on an al-Qaeda hideout in Samarra. He spends a long night alone remembering-not only intense combat but also growing up conflicted in Oklahoma.

As he prays for a rescue at dawn, Joshua, the son of an evangelical minister, recalls his foray into first love at a church summer camp. A scandal while attending a Bible college drives Joshua to join the War on Terror. But he is really seeking true love abroad, not martial glory or divine forgiveness. It is a difficult search. Then he finds the spirited Halamie. The young couple must hide their budding romance from hard men.

"The Book on Joshua" is a captivating exploration of a foreign war and forbidden love. A Christian boy and Muslim girl test their faith in each other against the backdrop of sectarian violence in 2005/2006 Iraq.

As throngs of humanity pack Rome's St. Peter's Square, all await the news from the Sistine Chapel as to who will be the next Pope. But no one is more anxious than Iraqi American Sami Yusuf, for he and one of the papal candidates share a well-kept secret. When it is finally announced that Cardinal Paul Rogan has been elected Pope, Sami knows the one thing about Father Rogan that no one in the crowd does-he is a humble shepherd who molests his unsuspecting sheep.

Many years earlier, while Sami was a Jesuit school student in Baghdad, he was molested by Father Rogan. Deathly afraid of revealing the abuse for fear of losing his family's honor, Sami eventually emigrated to the United States and joined the Air Force. Meanwhile, Father Rogan slowly moved up in the Catholic Hierarchy-while quietly ruining one young boy's life after another. Now amid sectarian mayhem and the occupation of Iraq, Sami must visit his ailing dad in Baghdad. But first he must fulfill his most important life's mission-to cleanse the honor that Father Rogan stripped from his family.

In this compelling tale that spans three continents, a vendetta drives an Iraqi American pilot into international dram that culminates with unexpected ramifications that change everything forever.

In this story I have disclosed some of the dark machinations in the Fuhrer's mind when he unleashed the dogs of war in bloody cruelties without conscience. I have tried to reveal uniquely German predispositions or mindsets, if you will, that caused Germans to accept Hitler's leadership. For it was they, the German people, the Volkish Bevolkerung who believed, and it was true, that the Versailles Treaty imposed merciless reparations upon the German people that affected them in complex ways-to annihilate their nationhood, their sovereign compacity forever to make wat. Yet while it virtually destroyed the Kaiserreich of Post WWI and, tructh to tell, said many times, set the stage for Hitler's popularity. The rise of national Socialism, the Nazi Party and WWII the Treaty shoes how mistaken and despotic revenge can be. Christian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Col. Von Stauffenberg did not want to destroy the German people. They schemed to kill the diabolical fiend Adolph Hitler.

When the British and Canadian governments want the people of the world, particularly France, to be reminded of the French Vichy government's involvement and active participation in the Final Solution during World War 2, a simple plan of communication turns into dangers never anticipated.

Special consultant to MI6 Ed Crowe, along with his special friend and CSIS operative Pat W., spend their August 1985 'honeymoon' in Paris in order to communicate the details of the Vichy's proactive involvement. The success of the plan leads to international headlines and the identification of neo-Nazi groups in both France and Britain, including their importation of illegal drugs into Britain.

The ensuing activity results in the reluctant involvement of Scotland Yard and the enthusiastic involvement of the CIA.

While the work is dangerous and deadly, it only serves to deepen the love between Ed Crowe and Carolyn Andrews, daughter of Lord Stonebridge, the head of the British Secret Service, MI6.

""I love the way Wilfred recycles the bodies. That's fabulous stuff with a direct line to Heller's Catch-22 and perfectly captures the insanity of the Vietnam War."

-Richard Peabody, co-editor of Gargoyle Magazine

Counting bodies in Vietnam. In this earthy war/peace novel, comedy frames grim pictures of war. Morris weaves combat, a love affair, and military satire into a story that is by turns terrifying, gruesome, and mad, and one acted by a memorable cast of characters-grunts and hookers, Vietcong soldiers and spies, heroes and inane officers. It begins on a huge base in the Central Highlands in 1967 where Lieutenant Wilfred Carmenghetti falls in love with Can and smuggles her to a forward firebase. In the field he and his platoon win stunning victories, but spies plot his death, Vietcong soldiers attack the platoon, and Can leaves him. What follows is a surprising and fanciful comedic ending. "Cologne No. 10 For Men" is a book to make us fear, weep, laugh, and remember. A soldier in Vietnam invents a uniquely absurd solution to the horrors of war. A relatively na ve Wilfred Carmenghetti comes to the Far East to outmaneuver the draft and save the Western world. A funny and serviceable satire about the gross rationalizations that propel war and peace. -Kirkus Discoveries