Historical Adventure

1264. Storm clouds are gathering as Simon de Montfort and the barons of the realm challenge the power of Henry III.

Adam de Norton, a young squire devoted to the virtues of chivalry, longs only to be knighted, and to win back his father's lands. Then a bloody hunting accident leaves him with a new master: the devilish Sir Robert de Dunstanville, who does not hesitate to use the blackest stratagems in pursuit of victory.

Following Robert overseas, Adam is introduced to the ruthless world of the tournament, where knights compete for glory and riches, and his new master's methods prove brutally effective.

But as England plunges into violence, Robert and Adam must choose a side in a battle that will decide the fate of the kingdom. Will they fight for the king, for de Montfort - or for themselves?

Book 1 in the De Norton series.

For all the darkness in the land, there is hope. And it rests with one man. Lucanus - the one they call the Wolf - is a warrior. He wears the ancient crown of the great war leader, Pendragon, and he wields a sword bestowed upon him by the druids. And he is the guardian of a secret entrusted to him and to protect that secret will demand untold bravery and sacrifice beyond measure - but to lose it would mean the end of everything worth fighting for. Before Camelot. Before Excalibur. Before all you know of King Arthur. Here is the beginning of that legend...

Book 3 in the Dark Age series.

January 1474, in the deep cold of an ice-bound Danzig: a man is spending a frivolous winter not facing up to his responsibilities ... It is the merchant Niccolo, diviner, soldier, banker to Kings; shunned by all who know him after revelations of hismurderous mischief-making. But his talents are too great to be squandered, and a subtle political dance ensues as rivals in Poland, Venice, and Persia bid for his services in trade and war and diplomacy. Niccolo has lost his family; but he will discover a new purpose in life...

It is 1557, and legendary Scottish warrior Francis Crawford of Lymond is once more in France. There he is leading an army to rout the hated English from Calais. The final moves are made in a great game that has been playing out over an extraordinary decade of war, love and struggle - bringing the Lymond Chronicles to a spellbinding close.  Book 6 of series.

Sir Thomas Blackstone, the British archer knighted on the field of Crecy, has used the intervening years to forge his own war band and has hacked out a fiefdom in central France. But the field of battle is not only arena in which Blackstone will have to fight for his life...  Book 2 of series.

The year is 1551, and Scottish nobleman Francis Crawford of Lymond has been called to fight with the Knights of Hospitallers to defend the island of Malta against the Turks.  Book 3 of series.

Three men and one woman are bound in servitude to the Republic - an odyssey which begins in Rome, but ends at the very limits of the unknown world, where the forgotten legion fights against overwhelming odds.

It's August 1547, and unrest in Europe is rife. The notorious rebel, Crawford of Lymond, is rumoured to be back in Edinburgh. As usual, he leaves a characteristic trail of hue and cry. Stories about him abound, agreeing only that he's not a man to sit idle. With Europe recently unbalanced by royal deaths, he'll soon take a hand in The Game Of Kings. Book 1 of series.

GEMINI represents the final appearance of Nicholas de Fleury, who opened this series as a carefree, clumsy 18 year old apprentice in Flanders. Now he is in his thirties. The culmination of this amazing series sees Niccolo face his toughest battle yet, against an enemy who will tax every skill he has acquired over the course of the last few years...

September, 1356. Poitiers. On the English side, Edward, the Black Prince, who'd earned his spurs at Crecy.
On the French side, the King and his son, the Dauphin. With 12,000 knights.

And then there is William Gold. A cook's boy - the lowest of the low - who had once been branded as a thief. William dreams of being a knight, but in this savage new world of intrigue, betrayal and greed, first he must learn to survive.

As rapacious English mercenaries plunder a country already ravaged by plague, and the peasantry take violent revenge against the French knights who have failed to protect them, is chivalry any more than a boyish fantasy?

Book 1 in the Chivalry series.

The thrilling third instalment in the epic LIONHEART series from Sunday Times Bestselling author, Ben Kane.

Warleader
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.

Captive
Shipwrecked on the Italian coast, the king and his small group of companions are forced into a perilous journey through lands controlled by their enemies. Shortly before Christmas 1192, Richard is taken prisoner near Vienna by Duke Leopold of Austria. Kept prisoner for several months, the king is then handed over to Henry VI, the Holy Roman Emperor. His captivity lasts for another year, fanning the flames of unrest in his territories in England and beyond.

Negotiator
Talks between Richard's mother Queen Alienor and Henry VI last for months, but finally reach a bitter agreement. The extortionate sum demanded to free the king will empty the treasury and bleed England dry. Philippe Capet and Richard's brother John collude, offering vast sums to see the king kept captive for longer. Their efforts are in vain, leading Philippe to pen a letter to John including the famous line: 'Look to yourself, the devil is loose.'

King
Crowned for a second time to wash away the shame of his captivity, Richard restores order in England, forgiving John his shameful behaviour. His next task is to recover territories lost to Philippe Capet, and to re-establish his dominance over the French king. Forging clever alliances, building strategic castles and when obliged, waging war, the Lionheart carves a unique path into history.

England, 1346: For Thomas Blackstone the choice is easy - hang for a murder he did not commit, or join the king's invasion of France. As he fights his way across northern France, Blackstone will learn the brutal lessons of war - from the terror and confusion of his first taste of combat, to the savage realities of siege warfare.  Book 1 of series.

The time is the 15th century, when intrepid merchants became the new knighthood of Europe. Among them, none is bolder or more cunning than Nicholas vander Poele of Bruges, the good-natured dyers apprentice who schemes and swashbucukes his way to the helm of a merchantile empire. NICCOLO RISING, Book One of the series, finds us in Bruges, 1460. Street smart, brilliant at figures, adept at the subtleties of diplomacy and the well-timed untruth, Dunnett's hero rises from wastrel to prodigy in a breathless adventure that wins him the love of the strongest woman in Bruges and the hatred of two powerful enemies.

AD 916. In the Orkney Isles, a young woman flees her home to save the life of her unborn child. Eighteen years later, a witch foretells that evil from her past is reaching out again to threaten her son.

Outlawed from his home in Iceland, Einar Unnsson is thrown on the mercy of his Uncle, the infamous Jarl Thorfinn 'Skull Cleaver' of Orkney. He joins forces with a Norse-Irish princess and a company of wolfskin-clad warriors to become a player in a deadly game for control of the Irish sea, where warriors are the pawns of kings and Jarls and the powerful are themselves mere game pieces on the tafl board of the Gods.

Together they embark on a quest where Einar must fight unimaginable foes, forge new friendships, and discover what it truly means to be a warrior.

Lymond is travelling a desperate path across the Ottoman Empire of Sulemain the Magnificent in search of a kidnapped child. In the subtle and savage game of treachery, enslavement and torture, Lymond is compelled to make an unthinkable choice - and face the darkest ambiguities of his own nature.  Book 4 of series.

Riven by internal discord, Scotland in 1548 clung to a single hope of survival as a nation - an alliance with France to be sealed by the betrothal of the five-year-old Mary, Queen of Scots, to the Dauphin. Francis Crawford of Lymond is dispatched to France and embarks upon a nightmare game of hide-and-seek at the very heart of the decadent court of Henri II.  Book 2 of series.

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 super-powers in Europe.

AD 935. Late Winter, City of Jorvik. Einar Unnsson is destined to be a great Icelandic warrior. He has a gift that makes him lethal in battle. Yet he has cast it all off to be a bard.

When three men attack him, Einar's poetry provides little protection. Luckily, the skilled archer and Norse-Irish princess Affreca saves him. She'd assumed Einar had left to raise an army, challenge Thorfinn and seize the Jarldom of Orkney. Now she's determined to set him back onto his rightful path.

Einar soon finds himself entangled on Affreca's own mission. She's seeking the Raven Banner for King Eirik. The quest sets events in motion that are beyond Einar's control. Einar has no choice but to face his fate and swing his sword once more...

Lymond leaves Tudor England to journey to Muscovy, where he becomes advisor to the half-mad czar and finds himself caught up in the intrgues of barbaric Russia, while his enemies at home continue to conspire against him.  Book 5 of series.

The year 1464 finds our hero Nicholas in Venice. Plagued by enemies bent on dissolving his assets and smearing his character, he sets sail for Africa, legendary location of the Fountain of Youth and the source of gold in such abundance that men prefer to barter in shells. He will discover the charms of the beautiful Gelis - a woman whose passion for Nicholas is rivalled only by her desire to punish him for his role in her sister's death.

AD 936. The great warrior, Einar Unnsson, wants revenge. His mother's assassin has stolen her severed head and Einar is hungry for his blood. Only one thing holds him back. He is a newly sworn in Wolf Coat, and must accompany them on their latest quest.

The Wolf Coats are a band of fearsome bloodthirsty warriors, who roam the seas, killing any enemies who get in their way. Now they're determined to destroy their mortal enemy, King Eirik, who has captured the throne of Norway. Yet, for Einar, the urge to return to Iceland is growing every day.

Only there, in his homeland, can he avenge his mother and salve his grief. But what Einar doesn't know is that this is where an old enemy lurks, and his thirst for vengeance equals Einar's...

In 1461, the mysterious enigmatic Nicholas is in Florence. Backed by none other than Cosimo de' Medici, he will sail the Black Sea to Trebizond, last outpost of Byzantium, and the last jewel missing from the crown of the Ottoman Empire. But trouble lies ahead. Nicholas's step-daughter - at the tender age of thirteen - has eloped with his rival in trade: a Machiavellian Genoese who races ahead of Nicholas, sowing disaster at every port. And time is of the essence: Trebizond may fall tot he Turks at any moment.

436 AD. The Burgundars are confident of destroying Rome's legions. Their forces are strong and they have beaten the Romans in battle before. But they are annihilated, their king killed, his people scattered. Their fabled treasure is lost. For Rome has new allies: the Huns, whose taste for bloodshed knows no bounds.

Many years later, the Huns, led by the fearsome Attila, have become the deadliest enemies of Rome. Attila seeks the Burgundars' treasure, for it includes the legendary Sword of the War God, said to make the bearer unbeatable. No alliance can defeat Attila by conventional means.

With Rome desperate for help, a one-eyed old warlord from distant lands and his strange band of warriors may have the answers... but oaths will be broken and the plains of Europe run with blood before the end.

In 1831 Charles Darwin set off in HMS Beagle under the command of Captain Robert Fitzroy on a voyage that would change the world. This is the story of a deep friendship between two men and the twin obsessions that tear them apart, leading one to triumph and the other to disaster.

Merchant-banker Nicholas de Fleury, having wrested his infant son from the boy's formidable mother, pauses en route to the land of golden light to set in train a deception that will ensnare nations in the triumphant ruin of his enemies. This is volume six in the "House of Niccolo".

The fifth title in the "House of Niccolo" sequence, recreating the perilous world of trade, war and banking in Renaissance Europe. Niccolo has returned to Venice from Africa - richer, wiser yet ever unpredictable. He journeys to Scotland, closer at hand to the secrets of his birth.

Iceland, AD 935. Einar Unnsson is destined to be great. When he fights, a frenzy comes upon him. It makes him lethal in battle - so lethal he just defeated the man his own father sent to kill him.

Now, with Einar exiled from his kingdom, his father turns his vengeance on Einar's mother - his escaped former bedslave. Yet Einar is in no position to protect her. He's made an enemy of the powerful King Eirik and must fight for his own life before he can save her. Einar depends on the Wolf Coats, a band of fearsome, bloodthirsty warriors, but they're convinced the fates have cursed them.

Will Einar's skill in battle be enough to save his mother? Or will the Wolf Coats' superstition destroy them all?