High Medieval

Power is never granted… it can only be seized. BLOOD AND EMPIRE begins best-selling author James Maxwell’s long-awaited new epic fantasy series, THE GATEWAY SAGA—a gripping tale of ambition, sacrifice, and defiance in the face of destiny. Young seamstress Bethany dreams of becoming a diviner, one of the select few able to navigate the mysterious gateways that unite the empire. But without wealth or education, and only her mother to raise her, she is on a path to disappointment. Then Bethany meets Charlton, a cleric, who offers her books and guidance, and she glimpses a life she had ...

She is a woman of science. He is a beast of legend. Across six centuries, he will claim her. Dr. Nia Adebayo deals in facts, physics, and concrete. As a structural engineer, she knows that everything has a breaking point. But when a freak lightning strike at the ancient Standing Stones of Skye tears her from the modern world and throws her into the violent chaos of 14th-century Scotland, logic is the first casualty. Lachlan MacAlpin is the Wolf of Skye. Scarred, brutal, and burdened by a curse that threatens to extinguish his bloodline, he rules his starving clan with an iron fist. When he ...

Paris, 1393. Recent widow Christine de Pizan became a scribe to support her family, but when she is called to the palace to work, she dreads going. There, everyone fears the king's attacks of unreason and they believe the charlatans who claim they can cure him with vile potions. But when a mysterious book of magic leaves a trail of real murdered bodies in its wake, Christine has more than black magic to worry about. Then one of the king's favorites, Hugues de Precy, is found murdered and his wife Alix de Clairy is blamed.

Edwin Salamand thought running a bookshop for beginners was complicated enough. But now that he's settled into his role as Starwick's most unlikely shop owner, winter brings a new challenge: his skill tomes are failing. When customers start returning books with fading magic and blurred text, Edwin discovers it's not just his shos. It's happening across the entire city. Even worse, the earthquakes shaking Starwick's foundations might be connected to the magical blight affecting everyone's abilities. Armed with his Shopkeeper skills and a frost-breathing salamander named Cricket, Edwin must ...

A big Irish knight, much beloved by his English men, faces his biggest challenge when an injury nearly claims his life...and his confidence as a warrior.

War is a forge that melts the strongest steel. The saga continues in WRATH AND RUIN, where destinies collide and empires tremble, leading to a breathtaking climax that will change the world forever. As Bethany steps into her role as house diviner to the powerful Conways, long-buried secrets resurface, threatening not only her new life but the fragile balance of power. She will have to choose—between her growing bond with Xander and her desire to keep her two lives separate, while the backdrop of war thrusts her into the spotlight and a realm of battles and mortal danger. With Queen Zhuana...

A Kirkus Best of Science Fiction and Fantasy pick for 2019! A Library Journal Best Book of 2019! An NPR Favorite Book of 2019! "Everything epic fantasy should be: rich, cruel, gorgeous, brilliant, enthralling and deeply, deeply satisfying. I loved it."—Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER An up-close portrait of the mind of an addict and a life unraveled by narcotics—a memoir of captivating urgency and surprising humor that puts a human face on the opioid crisis. Tiffany’s story continues in the New York Times bestseller A Clean Mess, available now!...

He’s a beast who kills without mercy. My kidnapper. My enemy. My mate. All I want is a simple life, but any chance of peace is stolen from me by a winged warrior prince. He sweeps through my village, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake—and taking me with him. Born of battle, Marcellus is unstoppable. A storm of obsidian wings and steel who’s turned killing into an art form. He says my visions hold the key to the hidden Elven kingdoms that his father’s vowed to conquer. Kingdoms I’ve vowed to protect with my life. We’re on opposite sides of this war, and yet the dark and ...

It was an age of hope and possibility, of accomplishment and expansion. Europe's High Middle Ages spanned the Crusades, the building of Chartres Cathedral, Dante's Inferno, and Thomas Aquinas. Buoyant, confident, creative, the era seemed to be flowering into a true renaissance - until the disastrous 14th century rained catastrophe in the form of plagues, famine, and war. In Europe in the High Middle Ages, William Chester Jordan paints a vivid, teeming landscape that captures this lost age in all its glory and complexity.

London. July, 1399. As rumors spread that his ambitious cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, has returned from exile in France, King Richard's grip on the English throne grows ever more precarious. Meanwhile, the body of a young woman is discovered at Dowgate sluice. When it's established that the dead woman was a novice from nearby Barking Abbey, the coroner calls in his friend, Brother Chandler, to investigate. Who would cut the throat of a young nun and throw her remains in the river? And what was she doing outside the confines of the priory in the first place?

Just like us, medieval men and women worried about growing old, got blisters and indigestion, fell in love, and had children. And yet their lives were full of miraculous and richly metaphorical experiences radically different from our own, unfolding in a world where deadly wounds might be healed overnight by divine intervention, or where the heart of a king, plucked from his corpse, could be held aloft as a powerful symbol of political rule.

Chaucer wrote about everyday people outside the walls of the English court-men and women who spent days at the pedal of a loom, or maintaining the ledgers of an estate, or on the high seas. In Chaucer's People, Liza Picard transforms The Canterbury Tales into a masterful guide for a gloriously detailed tour of medieval England, from the mills and farms of a manor house to the lending houses and Inns of Court in London. In Chaucer's People, we meet, again, the motley crew of pilgrims on the road to Canterbury.

In The Once and Future Sex, Janega unravels the restricting expectations on medieval women and the ones on women today. She boldly questions why, if our ideas of women have changed drastically over time, we cannot reimagine them now to create a more equitable future.

The days of peace are over. Empire in Black and Gold is the first instalment in the critically-acclaimed epic fantasy series Shadows of the Apt by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It is a world populated by kinden – species of human that have taken on the characteristics of animals, from spiders and ants...

It is three centuries after the Shaper Wars, a conflict involving magic so powerful that it altered all of humanity. That magical legacy remains in the form of a handful of young women every generation – so feared that they are cursed and locked away from childhood. But fate promises that their ability will again change the world, for good or ill. As prophecies of a great doom converge, and an ancient race that desires the destruction of all human life arises, those in power attempt to control the legacy of the Daughters of Vae.

Profoundly poetic yet gloriously accessible, this is the best way to experience a work that has remained a centerpiece of Western civilization for 2,000 years. Fitzgerald's rendering speaks directly to the modern listener, inviting us to share the excitement, adventure, and human tears as Aeneas, the warrior hero, escapes from the burning city of Troy, embarks on a long and perilous journey, and eventually, triumphantly establishes a new nation: Rome.

The road to redemption is littered with the dead. For years, the master sorceress Niri has hidden from the world, a broken survivor of a fallen kingdom and a devastating war. But now the wind itself has brought a warning: the Mistress Witch, an ancient evil long thought vanquished, is stirring once more. Bound by a blood oath she cannot break, Niri must abandon her self-imposed exile and embark on a desperate journey into the heart of the growing darkness. But with dark mages and demonic creatures at her heels, she must forge new friendships as she fights her way across treacherous realms ...

Ancient powers are waking . . . The Scarab Path is the fifth book in the critically acclaimed epic fantasy series Shadows of the Apt by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The war with the Wasp Empire has ended in a bitter stalemate, and Collegium has nothing to show for it but wounded veterans. Cheerwell Maker...

The Abbey Mice are preparing for Christmas. Collecting food to last them through the winter. Arranging their home high up in the tower of Ramsley Abbey. The spirit of Christmas is alive when they meet the poor Country Mice and bring them happiness and comfort. The Abbey Mice have lived for generations high up in the safety of Ramsley Abbey tower. From there they set out on their tales of friendships made, courage shown, adventures and excitement experienced. The Adventures of the Abbey Mice series were written over forty years ago now. Loosely based on the beautiful historic Romsey Abbey in...