The best English Civil War books

It is 1916. The world has gone to war, and young Leo Sercombe, hauling coal aboard the HMS Queen Mary, is a long way from home. The wild, unchanging West Country roads of his boyhood seem very far away from life aboard a battlecruiser -- a universe of well-oiled steel, of smoke and spray and sweat, where death seems never more than a heartbeat away.

Adam de Guirande is Baron Roger Mortimer’s man through and through. So when Mortimer rebels, what can Adam do but ride with him? Unfortunately, a failed rebellion comes with a heavy cost and Edward II is feeling especially vindictive. Adam can only watch as his beloved lord is hauled off to captivity, and as to himself, well, he can already hear the hammering on the gallows. 

Ultimately, only one person can save Adam, but is his wife willing to risk it all for him?

The Black Madonna is the first in my five book series set against the English Civil Wars. It takes place between 1639 and 1645 and is told largely through the eyes of the Maxwell family; Richard, Member of Parliament, his son, Eden, a soldier in the Parliamentary army, and his daughter, Kate, from their home in Oxfordshire. But it is also told from the perspective of Luciano del Santi, an Italian goldsmith in love with Richard’s daughter whilst pursuing a revenge quest through a war-torn land.

The Black Madonna is a B.R.A.G Medallion Honoree.

The Black Madonna is the first in my five book series set against the English Civil Wars. It takes place between 1639 and 1645 and is told largely through the eyes of the Maxwell family; Richard, Member of Parliament, his son, Eden, a soldier in the Parliamentary army, and his daughter, Kate, from their home in Oxfordshire. But it is also told from the perspective of Luciano del Santi, an Italian goldsmith in love with Richard’s daughter whilst pursuing a revenge quest through a war-torn land.

The Black Madonna is a B.R.A.G Medallion Honoree.

Can you outsmart an economist? Steven Landsburg, an acclaimed author and professor of economics, dares you to try. In this whip-smart, entertaining, and entirely unconventional economics primer, he brings together over one hundred puzzles and brain teasers that illustrate the subject’s key concepts and pitfalls. From warm-up exercises to get your brain working, to logic and probability problems, to puzzles covering more complex topics like inferences, strategy, and irrationality, Can You Outsmart an Economist? will show you how to do just that by expanding the way you think about decision-making and problem-solving. Let the games begin!

I am William Lee: brute; liar, and graveside thief. But you will know me by another name. 

Heathcliff has left Wuthering Heights, and is travelling across the moors to Liverpool in search of his past. Along the way, he saves Emily, the foul-mouthed daughter of a Highwayman, from a whipping, and the pair journey on together. Roaming from graveyard to graveyard, making a living from Emily’s apparent ability to commune with the dead, the pair lie, cheat and scheme their way across the North of England. And towards the terrible misdeeds – and untold riches – that will one day send Heathcliff home to Wuthering Heights.

Europe’s most fearsome prisoner, Vlad Dracula, gifted military commander and one time Prince of Wallachia, the notorious Lord Impaler himself, is about to be released after twelve long years, in order to hold back the tide of Ottoman aggression. The price of his new alliance with his Hungarian captors is the king’s cousin Ilona. Ilona does not wish to be married. In particular, she doesn’t wish to marry Vlad. Gentle, faded and impossibly vague, Ilona is hardly fit for court life, let alone for dealing with so difficult a husband. But Ilona’s wishes have nothing to do with Vlad’s reputation and everything to do with a lifelong love affair that finally broke her. 

After a long-buried incident, a woman whose promising film career was derailed has an opportunity for revenge in this visceral and timely thriller about power, privilege, and justice.

A mystery set in the world of filmmaking, Complicit owes much to the stories that emerged in the #MeToo movement. But I also wanted to channel my own experiences working in the film industry as a young woman—and as a sexual violence survivor, who has done a lot of thinking and consulting on how we tell these kinds of stories in the media. Complicit captures the magic of moviemaking, the supposed fun and glamour of Hollywood, while questioning how our moral compass becomes warped by ambition, when our workplaces are already such an unequal playing field.

This book provides the first major analysis of the covenanted interest from an integrated three kingdoms perspective. It examines the reaction of the covenanted interest to the actions and policies of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, drawing particular attention to links, similarities, and differences in and between the covenanted interest in all three kingdoms. It also follows the fortunes of the covenanted interest and Presbyterian Church government as it built and changed in response to the Royalists and the Independents during the 1650s.

1587. Three years after his enforced departure to London, Hew is reconciled with King James VI and recalled to Scotland. He elopes to St Andrews with a young Englishwoman. The death of Mary, Queen of Scots has unleashed a wave of anti-English sentiment among the Scottish people, and fear and confusion in the king himself. James will grant his blessing to their controversial marriage on the condition that Hew discovers what lies behind a painting cunningly contrived to prick the young king's conscience. Meanwhile in St Andrews, the death of a painter is troubling to Giles Locke, and the English Frances, struggling to adapt to a foreign town and culture, helps Hew find the link among the artists and intriguers of opposing courts, a quest for love—and life.