Showing titles in Medieval

April 1284. As a newly widowed lady-in-waiting to the very pregnant Queen Eleanor of England, Catrin never expected to return to Wales again. She was definitely unprepared to be confronted with murder when she got there-or to find herself face-to-face with Rhys, the childhood friend she lost twenty years before. Rhys had never intended to return home either, but a lifetime of war has deposited him right back where he started-impoverished and owing service to Catrin's older brother.

There are plots to invade England and Normandy. There are assassination attempts and the only man who can stop all of these is the Earl of Cleveland. Moving from Scotland to Normandy and back again this is a fast moving novel set in the months before the civil war in England and Normandy begins.

1399: Constance of York, Lady Despenser, proves herself more than a mere observer in the devious intrigues of her magnificently dysfunctional family, the House of York. Surrounded by power-hungry men, including her aggressively self-centred husband, Thomas, and ruthless siblings, Edward and Richard, Constance places herself at the heart of two treasonous plots against King Henry IV. Will it be possible for this Plantagenet family to safeguard its own political power by restoring either King Richard II to the throne, or the precarious Mortimer claimant?

The Earl of Cleveland has managed to put himself in King John's good graces just at the time when other barons decide to rebel. They seek more land and power. The newly appointed Earl is caught in the middle. When the Scots begin to raid once more, Sir Thomas is forced to rally the loyal knights of the north and repel them. Following the actual history which led to the Magna Carta and beyond this fast-moving novel moves from Scotland to Wales and Northampton and Lincoln. It culminates in the battle of Lincoln 1217, when the French army attempted to conquer England.

The Empress has given England a male heir but that single action creates rebels in Scotland and in Normandy who try to wrest Normandy and England from King Henry. When the Earl of Cleveland becomes his champion, it unleashes a storm of murder and treachery at the very heart of the Earl's world. In a fast-moving novel with battles and combats from the borders of Scotland to France itself, we see a world heading towards anarchy and civil war.

The Lady knows the stories: that her eyes induce madness in men. The Lady knows she will be wed to the Scottish brute, who does not leave his warrior ways behind when he comes to the marriage bed. The Lady knows his hostile, suspicious court will be a game of survival, requiring all of her wiles and hidden witchcraft to survive. But the Lady does not know her husband has occult secrets of his own.

England, 1276: Forced to leave her home village, Eleanor moves to Lincoln to work as a housemaid. She's prickly, independent and stubborn, her prospects blighted by a port-wine birthmark across her face. Unusually for a woman, she has fine skills with ink and quill, and harbours a secret ambition to work as a scribe, a profession closed to women.

King Henry is dead and Stephen of Blois claims the throne of England and the Dukedom of Normandy. The Earl of Cleveland returns to England to fight for the heirs of Henry. When King David and his Scottish army capture most of northern England it is only Alfraed who holds out against him. Set in the early years of the Anarchy this is a fast moving book filled with battles and intrigue.

Es gibt literarische Werke, die sind so präzise, klug und spannend geschrieben, da möchte man auf kein Wort verzichten...

Betrayal by friend and foe alike beset Sir John Hawkwood as he enters the murky world of Italian politics. He will emerge from the experience as a true leader of men but first he has to outwit his enemies of which there are many. With Montferrat secured from the Savoyards and with the White Company now firmly in his hands, Sir John Hawkwood leads his men to Pisa where they have been hired to fight the Florentines. The hero of Poitiers is about to enter a world of treachery, intrigue and double dealing for which he is quite unprepared.

The King’s Witches by Kate Foster is a compelling and beautiful historical novel that gives voices to the women at the heart of the real-life witch trials in sixteenth-century Scotland. Women whisper secrets to each other; it is how we survive. 1589. Princess Anna of Denmark is betrothed to...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Race of Scorpions by Dorothy Dunnett, read by John Banks. This is the third book in the House of Niccolo series. Set in 15th-century Cyprus, this novel continues the saga of Nicholas van der Poel, international mercenary who started out as a dyer's apprentice, as he plays for the highest stakes with the greatest superpowers in Europe.

When Prince Arthur is murdered and the French begin to take Normandy, Sir Thomas finds himself isolated and alone. The Norman barons conspire against King John and the English knight has a dilemma. Does he join the rebels or stay true to his beliefs? Undefeated he and one of his knights leave Anjou and sail to a new life in England but it is not a life without trouble and death. He finds himself, in the midst of conspiracies and plots, forced to defend his land against bandits, brigands and the Scots.

AD 796. Sailing in search of an object of great power, Hunlaf and his comrades are far from home when they are caught up in a violent skirmish against pirates. After the bloody onslaught, an encounter with ships from Islamic Spain soon sees them escorted under guard to the city of Qadis, one of the jewels of the Emirate of Al-Andalus and the true destination of their voyage. Hunlaf believes the Emir's lands hold the key to his search, but there are dangerous games at play.

Mordred is the son of King Arthur, bastard child of his union with his half sister Morgause. Prophesied by Merlin to kill Arthur, Mordred is stolen away from his mother and raised in secrecy by a kind couple on an isolated Orkney island in the hopes that he will defy his fate. Mordred, known to history as a traitor and a murderer, is no villain but a quick-witted young man, with hopes and dreams of his own. But try as he might, Mordred cannot escape Merlin's prophecy.

A thousand years ago in an ancient Scottish landscape, a woman is on the run with her three bosom companions–a healer, a weaver and a seer. If the men hunting her find them, they will kill her because she is the only one who stands between them and their violent ambition. She is no lady: she is the first queen of Scotland, married to a king called Macbeth. Shakespeare fed us the myth of the Macbeths as power-hungry murderous conspirators. But now Val McDermid drags the truth out of the shadows, exposing the patriarchal prejudices of history.

One evening, Gillis—a young Scottish minister who technically doesn't believe in god—falls into a hole left by a recently dug up elm tree and discovers an ancient disembodied hand in the soil. He's about to rebury it when the hand... beckons to him. He spirits it back to his manse and gives it pen and paper, whereupon it begins to doodle scratchy and anarchic visions. Somewhere, in the hand's deep history, there lies a story of the Scottish reformation, of art and violence, and of its owner long since dead.

Beobrand is besieged in the action-packed instalment in the Bernicia Chronicles set in AD 647 Anglo-Saxon Britain. War hangs heavy in the hot summer air as Penda of Mercia and his allies march into the north. Caught unawares, the Bernician forces are besieged within the great fortress of Bebbanburg. It falls to Beobrand to mount the defence of the stronghold, but even while the battle rages, old and powerful enemies have mobilised against him, seeking vengeance for past events.

Dead things have been found in the fields of Enfaire, a God-fearing town north of Reams. Not just dead things, but twisted forms…unholy shapes. And there are rumors of a blasphemous union and of fell creatures that haunt the night. Yet even as plague and witch pyres blacken the sky, the town remains untouched by the malady that has already claimed thousands and will claim thousands more. It is here, in Enfaire, that an old Franciscan friar and his ward take shelter from a storm. It is here, in a little town on the edge of civilization, that they will have their faith truly tested.

Autumn 1192. With Jerusalem still in the Saracens' hands, and a peace treaty agreed with their leader Saladin, Richard the Lionheart is free at last to travel back to his strife-ridden kingdom. By his side at every turn is the loyal knight Ferdia, also known as Rufus. Together they will face not just Richard's archenemy Philippe Capet of France, but also the king's treacherous younger brother, John.