It’s June 1944, and Japanese and American forces have been engaged in monstrously costly battles across thousands of square miles of ocean and multiple islands, small and large, in the Pacific. US Marine Sergeant Pete “Hardball” Talbot is a rock-solid and protective squad leader doing his best to assure the fighting spirit and, whenever possible, the survival of the young men on his team. Now it’s their turn to land on and fight across the island of Saipan, full of innocent civilians and hardened Japanese veteran warriors, including Major Tadashi Tanimura, whose mother was an American, Peggy D ..read more

An exciting tale set during the Hundred Years’ War in the run-up to the Battle of Poitiers. September 1356: Martin Kemp and his archers ride with the Black Prince and the Anglo-Gaston army, pillaging their way across France. Their aim is to rendezvous with the Duke of Lancaster’s forces at Châtellerault, but they find all the bridges across the Loire destroyed. Will Kemp be able to rescue his lady love, Ysabeau, and win her hand? The story begins right in the heat of battle, almost too exciting, because unless we’ve read Books 1-7 (this is Book 8 in the Arrows of Albion series) we’re not yet f ..read more

Treason of Sparta is the continuing story of Arimnestos of Plataea. This is listed as Book 7 and the final volume of The Long War series; however, the author states at the end of his epilogue that this is, in fact, Book 1 of the Broken Empire Series. As this is the continuing story of Arimnestos, it is difficult to understand why it is split into two separate series. Taking place between 479 and 478 BCE, Treason of Sparta covers events in Athens, Ionia, Cyprus and Byzantium. It is, in essence, Arimnestos’ account of Spartan army leader and regent, Pausanias, after his great victory in the Batt ..read more

Two of this novel’s protagonists, Billy and Ilse, are inspired by and partially based on the author’s parents: his father, an actor/storyteller and fighter pilot in WWII, and his mother, who was Miss Oslo 1936, a spy, and a true Norse beauty. This fictional adventure and love story set in London and Oslo from 1940-1945 gives a rare glimpse into Nazi-occupied Norway. With a story told from the point of view of three main characters, you know at some point they will converge. With ice blue eyes and white-blonde hair, flautist Ilse Magnusson, whose half-German journalist father is pro-Nazi, becom ..read more

What price revenge? This first book in a new series examines the question in the context of the Templar knights on Crusade in the Middle East. The story is built around the dying King Baldwin and the defense of Jerusalem in the late 12th century. The journey of Finn, the flawed hero, towards a better understanding of himself parallels our understanding of his world, the way the Templars worked together and how they fought Saladin. The battle scenes and the supporting cast of the brotherhood are characterized well. The sole female character in the book is developed more in her absence than in t ..read more

The 23rd Sharpe novel takes us back to the Peninsular War and the eventful year of 1812. Although he is now ranking as a major, Richard Sharpe’s command in this case is a small squad of 15 riflemen. He has a dangerous mission behind enemy lines, to reconnoitre a strategic bridge over the River Tagus, which the French are defending with well-garrisoned forts. There are also Spanish partisans, some unreliable, others led by Sharpe’s wife Teresa, nicknamed La Aguja (the needle) – a character whose temperament is not so much feisty as lethal. The topography of mountains, river valley, bridge and f ..read more