Medieval English

He was a legend on the battlefield, but Aric Neville, known throughout England as the White Lion, had had his fill of intrigue and bloodshed. So he threw down his sword and walked away, to live a solitary life, cultivating a reputation as a sorcerer. But his prized tranquility was shattered when the villagers brought him a bride. Gwenyth de Auburd was a raven-haired beauty too impudent to ignore and too tempting to resist.

Ryokan (1758–1831) is, along with Dogen and Hakuin, one of the three giants of Zen in Japan. But unlike his two renowned colleagues, Ryokan was a societal dropout, living mostly as a hermit and a beggar. He was never head of a monastery or temple. He liked playing with children. He had no dharma heir. Even so, people recognized the depth of his realization, and he was sought out by people of all walks of life for the teaching to be experienced in just being around him.

On the run from a dangerous man, Ava Sutton flees to the Isle of Mull off the coast of Scotland. Masquerading as a titled, English lady, Ava must convince the cynical and darkly handsome chief of the Macleans of Aros to wed her before the devil tracks her down. Tor Maclean, the new chief of Aros Castle, has sworn off marriage after his first wife tricked him into it. Despite his efforts to scare away the Englishwoman, his father arranged for him to wed, Tor is drawn to her fire, courage, and beauty.

The first time Thomas MacGowan saw Elizabeth Douglas, he thought that she was a princess. To the son of the castle blacksmith, the daughter of the powerful lord of Douglas might as well have been. Despite their differences in rank, they become inseparable - until Thom confesses his love, and the humiliation of realizing that Elizabeth has never considered him a potential suitor drives him to battle. Elizabeth is devastated.

Wrongly accused of murdering his father, Drake Thornton MacDougall wanted nothing more than to strike back at his guilty, duplicitous half brother. So he made the fiend pay by abducting his bride-to-be. But as Drake carried his captive off to a windswept Scottish isle, he soon found that vengeance wasn't the only thing on his mind. Lady Averyl Campbell proved herself no biddable maiden but an alluring, strong-willed beauty who could tame his dark moods with her touch.

Society rogue Sebastian Reyne's search for a practical wife comes to a crashing halt when he dances with the effervescent Hope Merridew - and is seduced into a delicious intrigue of sensuality and desire.

When Mairead MacMhathain learns that the eldest MacBrieve is returning home, she imagines he'll bring salvation in the form of a powerful army. Instead, the hulking, powerful man she idolized as a girl arrives alone. But now instead of a little sister, Hamish sees her as the woman she has become. And under his heated gaze, despite the danger swirling around them, Mairead finds herself tempted, taunted, and tantalizingly seduced....

A romance thread through a world of war, fantasy fused with fiction, Normandy, 1216: Lady Gabrielle is captured at a French convent and taken to an English castle—a prize for warlord Michael Marston. Her lover, Montague of Rouen, plots a daring rescue, joining forces with English barons about to overthrow King John. Marston steals Gabrielle’s heart with a powerful spell cast by a witch named Minerva. But when England drifts into civil war and Montague attacks, Gabrielle is forced to choose. With whom will she spend eternity: Michael Marston or Montague? A romance thread through a world ...

Highland laird Conor McTiernay had always dreamed of an enduring love. But the reality of women who desired him only for his title and lands made him swear off marriage forever. That is until he first set eyes on the Englishwoman his men found hiding in the forest. But would she prove to be yet another beguiling seductress?

Fearing her "gifts" will be used to defeat her sister Matilda, Elspeth Pendragon escapes the Black Mountain priory that has sheltered her and her four sisters since King Henry's death, only to find herself indebted to, of all men, a Scotsman, whose loyalties are in question.... Left to face the wrath of a new sovereign, Malcom Scott is forced to swear fealty to Stephen of Blois to keep the castle he won by slaying his own grandfather. But having done that, he's pitted himself against Scotland, and even his own father.

A summons from court could be a dangerous thing, especially for Graham MacCoinnich. He says what he thinks, and his clan's treasonous rumblings coupled with their risky alliances cast both kith and kin in a dubious light. But King William's order turns out to be anything but dire. Surprising? Yes. Enticing? Without a doubt. The exquisite Lady Mercy Claxton, most cherished goddaughter of the king, requires a protective escort through Scotland and Graham is happy to offer his services.

Ten years ago, monsters broke through from another world. Now they rule Earth, and humans just try to survive. Clara has a dangerous secret. She's an omega – the type of woman these new rulers, called Primes, want most. She's stayed hidden for years by using special drugs and pretending to be normal. Then Commander Kairyx spots her. He's not just any monster – he's a massive dragon shifter who rules the entire mountain region. And he can smell what she really is. Captured and dragged to his mountain fortress, Clara finds herself trapped with the most powerful alpha dragon around. Her ...

For more than a decade, while the First War of Scottish Independence rages, fierce warrior Conall MacGregor has dreamed of the revenge he will have against the man who robbed him of his family and home. To this end, he abducts the daughter of his enemy, hoping to force a marriage and reclaim what is rightfully his. He has no idea that the stubborn lass will turn his world upside-down, and that he will be the one held captive.

Drawing on the latest discoveries that have only recently come to light, Scottish archaeologist Neil Oliver goes on the trail of the real Vikings. Where did they emerge from? How did they really live? And just what drove them to embark on such extraordinary voyages of discovery over 1,000 years ago? The Vikings: A New History explores many of those questions for the first time in an epic story of one of the world's great empires of conquest.

As a child, he was given his own suit of armor; at the age of 16, he helped defeat the French at Crecy. At Poitiers, in 1356, his victory over King John II of France forced the French into a humiliating surrender that marked the zenith of England's dominance in the Hundred Years War. As lord of Aquitaine, he ruled a vast swathe of territory across the west and southwest of France, holding a magnificent court at Bordeaux that mesmerized the brave but unruly Gascon nobility. He was Edward of Woodstock, eldest son of Edward III, and better known to posterity as "the Black Prince".

The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome tells the stories of the people who built their political and literary careers around promises of Roman renewal as well as those of the victims they blamed for causing Rome's decline. The story begins during the Roman Republic just after 200 BC. It proceeds through the empire of Augustus and his successors, traces the Roman loss of much of western Europe in the fifth century AD, and follows Roman history until its fall in 1453.

Micheil Ramsay is determined never to settle down. But when he rescues Diana of Drummond and brings her to Edinburgh to snare a husband, he finds himself swayed by her beauty, her bossiness, and her bravery. Now he finds himself in the position of trying to help the object of his affection woo another man.

In The Fall of Rome, eminent historian Bryan Ward-Perkins argues that the "peaceful" theory of Rome's "transformation" is badly in error. Indeed, he sees the fall of Rome as a time of horror and dislocation that destroyed a great civilization, throwing the inhabitants of the West back to a standard of living typical of prehistoric times. Attacking contemporary theories with relish and making use of modern archaeological evidence, he looks at both the wider explanations for the disintegration of the Roman world and also the consequences for the lives of everyday Romans.

The windswept Scottish Highlands hold great beauty, but also great danger. So when Aimil Mengue's abducted by a feuding clan, she's right to fear for her life - and her virtue. For Aimil's keeper is the infamous warrior Parlan MacGuin. Aimil sets out to hate him, but Parlan is more honorable - and infinitely more alluring - than expected. Though betrothed to another, Aimil cannot deny her startling desire for the man who holds her captive. Parlan MacGuin knows well his reputation as a fierce warrior; he uses it to claim land and lovers.

King John is familiar to everyone as the villain from the tales of Robin Hood - greedy, cowardly, despicable, and cruel. But who was the man behind the legend? Was he a monster or a capable ruler cursed by bad luck? In this new book, best-selling historian Marc Morris draws on contemporary chronicles and the king's own letters to bring the real King John vividly to life. John was dynamic, inventive, and relentless but also a figure with terrible flaws.