This thriller has a unique protagonist and a great plot that followed a logical progression through the book. Best of all, it's beautifully written with lots of believable action. One interesting point is that there is no “bad language” in the book – it could be classified as a “clean read” – and this is done successfully with no impact on the story’s realism.
'Unique and engaging characters woven into the fabric of a fantastic plot. Jason Dean is one to watch' Marc Cameron, New York Times bestselling author of Tom Clancy Code of Honor What is a death sentence to a dead man?
He was a man with many names. Moving from country to country, changing his face constantly so as to remain in the shadows, he was nothing more than a ghost. For now, he is known simply as Korso.
A covert salvage operative, he recovers lost artefacts and items, often stolen, for rich benefactors unable to operate through normal channels. But…
As a youngster, my single mom’s bedtime stories did not come out of children’s books. They came out of real history—Hannibal and his elephants, the marauding Huns, or Captain Cook. It seemed preordained that I’d have a life-long love of history, that I’ve written three published historical novels, and am on the review team of the Historical Novel Society. My immersion in history and historical novels provides constant learning and pleasure.
This fictionalized, but mostly true, account covers enigmatic author J. D. Salinger’s little-known WWII years (1942-47). Salinger is conscripted by the US Counter Intelligence Corps. These hard-edged soldiers interrogate captives, seek out hidden danger (poisoned pretzels, booby-trapped toilet seats), and uncover traitors. Salinger absorbs deeply the carnage close to him. At war’s end, he has become “a guy made of glass” with a facial tic and trembling hand. In the novel’s last scenes, his older sister helps him set up in the suburban loft where he can live alone, write, and heal. J. D. Salinger’s time immersed in the horrors of War helps explain his reclusive life and out-of-the-mainstream but best-selling creations.
"Charyn skillfully breathes life into historical icons." -New Yorker
J.D. Salinger, mysterious author of The Catcher in the Rye, is remembered today as a reclusive misanthrope. Jerome Charyn's Salinger is a young American WWII draftee assigned to the Counter Intelligence Corps, a band of secret soldiers who trained with the British. A rifleman and an interrogator, he witnessed all the horrors of the war-from the landing on D-Day to the relentless hand-to-hand combat in the hedgerows of Normandy, to the Battle of the Bulge, and finally to the first Allied entry into a Bavarian death camp, where corpses were piled…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan. The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced, it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run the…
I’m a mystery writer and I’ve had 16 award-winning novels published. I also love to read mystery and thriller novels, and I read them voraciously. I’m best known for my highly-acclaimed J.T. Ryan mysteries and I was a Finalist for the Author Academy Award. Also, many of my books were Featured Novels of the International Thriller Writers Association. I’m also a multi-year nominee for the Georgia Author of the Year Award.
I found Black List to be a murder mystery that captivated me from beginning to end. The plot twists kept me guessing as to the final outcome, and just when I thought I had it figured out, the book took another turn and drew me deeper into the plot. This page-turning thriller pits Scot Harvath, a counterterrorism agent, against a secret government deep-state conspiracy that wants him dead. They’ve placed him on the ‘black list,’ a list of most wanted terrorists. I found this book to be a high-octane thriller, and one of the best mystery novels I’ve ever read.
Somewheredeep inside the United States government is a closely guarded list. Members of Congress never get to see it-only the President and a secret team of advisers. Once your name is on the list, it doesn't come off...until you're dead. Someonehas just added counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath's name.
SomehowHarvath must evade the teams dispatched to kill him long enough to untangle who has targeted him and why they want him out of the way. Somewhere, someone, somehowcan put all the pieces together. The only question is; will Harvath get to that person before the United States suffers the most withering…
I’ve always been fascinated with military history, added to which my interest in aviation after serving in Military Intelligence with the Air Force. After a career in advertising, I took to writing during lockdown. My novels uncover forgotten facts and histories, using real characters and their exploits and providing an interpretation of world war events from different perspectives, not just the victors. My recommendations bring the past to life, unpalatable as it might be, with vibrant characters, rich set-building, and beautiful period language, sentiments, and held beliefs. History and conflict, love, loss, tragedy, and forgotten memory are brought to life, full of visceral colour, but importantly always truthfully.
A moving WW2 novel set in occupied Poland and beleaguered Britain.
A dual timeline tale of love, intrigue, and the terrible choices made in war, resistance, and collaboration, during occupation. It delves into the often-forgotten contribution of Polish airmen and female ATA pilots to the Allied war effort, the precarious relationship with the invader in conquered Poland, and one of the war’s darkest secrets, the fate of the Polish officer class and the atrocity of the Katyn massacre.
This dark story is of divided loyalties, lost loves, and outcomes that depend on a twist of fate, and fragile truth subject to interpretation, divided loyalties, and clashing ideologies. Beautifully evocative of the times and wartime places, it is a story to make you think of the choices you might have made.
England, 1943 Lost in fog, pilot Vee Katchatourian is forced to make an emergency landing where she meets enigmatic RAF airman Stefan Bergel, and then can't get him out of her mind.
In occupied Poland, Ewa Hartman hosts German officers in her father's guest house, while secretly gathering intelligence for the Polish resistance. Mourning her lover, Stefan, who was captured by the Soviets at the start of the war, Ewa is shocked to see him on the street one day.
Haunted by a terrible choice he made in captivity, Stefan asks Vee and Ewa to help him expose one of…
My novels range from coming-of-age to suspense. I was an award-winning crime and investigative reporter for the Columbus Dispatchfor 11 years. That background helps me with the investigative aspects of my books. I enjoy exploring the moral dilemmas often presented in real life. My characters all have morals, but I like putting them in compromising situations. It’s easy to sit back and judge others, but how far would you go to keep your own son out of jail? Would the love of your son get in the way of your morals? It’s never black or white. Most of life is spent dancing in and out of the vast gray area in the middle.
Yeah, I know, naming Jack Reacher as one of the badasses of crime fiction is the equivalent of a six-inch putt. A gimme. Child has taken a totally implausible premise—a six-foot-five former Army MP wandering around the United States and finding trouble with nothing but an ATM card in his pocket—and created one of the best characters in suspense literature. When Reacher is on the hunt, the results are never in doubt, which is why we love him. He’s the fullback coming through the line, time and time again, and no one can stop him. One reviewer of Child’s books said that Reacher is never the underdog. That’s a perfect description.
He is as close to untraceable as a person can get. A loner comfortable in his anonymity and solitude. So when a member of his old Army unit finds a way to contact him, he knows this has to be serious.
You do not mess with the Special Investigators.
In the past the elite team always watched each other's backs. Now one of them has shown up dead in the California desert and six more are missing.
Reacher's old buddies are in big trouble, and he can't let that go.
Even though I’m an engineer and accountant by education, I love to write and growing up, I read many historical fiction and murder mysteries. History spanning from the Victorian Era until the mid-twentieth century has always fascinated me, and I’ve studied various events from that period. Therefore, I wrote A Bloody Hot Summer, a crime novel using some historical events as a background. The interwar years were the heyday of crime fiction, and that is why I set my novel during that period. While researching, I get to expand my knowledge regarding history, culture, art, language, and values of those times, which I add to the novel.
Even though this book is mainly about a group of Germans trying to kidnap Prime Minister Winston Churchill as he is on his way to the Tehran Conference in 1943, the backstory gave me a few ideas for my book. It has an unusual story of an English woman revered by the villagers, but only when the Germans take over the village, her real identity is revealed. She is actually a Boer and was a survivor of a Boer Concentration camp run by the British during the Second Anglo Boer in South Africa. Filled with vengeance against the British for what they did to the Boers and to her family, she changes her identity, moves to England, and works as a spy for the Germans to kidnap PM Churchill.
As the Allied forces slowly begin turning the tide of war, Hitler vehemently orders the impossible-kidnap Winston Churchill, or kill him. A crack team of commandos led by a disgraced war hero must venture into the heart of England to carry out their mission, or die trying.
Meanwhile, in a quiet seaside village, a beautiful widow and an IRA assassin have already laid the groundwork for what will be the most treacherous plot of the war. It begins on November 6, 1943, when Berlin receivs the fateful message...
"First rate...a fascinating adventure story." -San Francisco Chronicle
Captain Heron finds himself embroiled in a conflict that threatens to bring down the world order he is sworn to defend when a secretive Consortium seeks to undermine the World Treaty Organisation and the democracies it represents as he oversees the building and commissioning of a new starship.
As a historical fiction writer, every time I learn about an amazing woman, I instinctively want to write about her, to understand her life and bring her – often forgotten – story to a wider audience. It’s a wonderful way to live vicariously, and it’s a privilege to spend time in these women’s worlds for a brief period. There’s a Sylvia Plath quote that strongly resonates with me, beginning: ‘I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want…’. Reading and writing historical fiction allows me a glimpse into the worlds of different people living different lives in different eras, and for that I’m extremely grateful.
I struggled to pick just one Gill Paul novel as I’ve hugely enjoyed every one I’ve read.
Ultimately, I love to learn something new from a book and, whilst I’d heard of the Romanovs, I knew very little about Russian history and the Revolution. Obviously, with historical fiction, parts are invented – and the main plot twist with this is a theory that has been disproven – so you have to be discerning with what you take as fact.
But historical fiction is such a wonderful way to learn about different eras, and Gill Paul brings worlds and people to life so evocatively.
'A cleverly crafted novel and an enthralling story... A triumph.' DINAH JEFFERIES
A Russian grand duchess and an English journalist. Linked by one of the world's greatest mysteries...
Love. Guilt. Heartbreak.
1914
Russia is on the brink of collapse, and the Romanov family faces a terrifyingly uncertain future. Grand Duchess Tatiana has fallen in love with cavalry officer Dmitri, but events take a catastrophic turn, placing their romance - and their lives - in danger . . .
2016
Kitty Fisher escapes to her great-grandfather's remote cabin in America, after a devastating revelation makes her flee…
Monsters and magic have always had a hook on me, ever since I was just a kid going through a stack of Stephen King paperbacks that I was definitely too young for my brother to have given me – not that many would call his work “fantasy” exactly, despite the amount of vampires ghosts and magic that say otherwise. Urban fantasy, blending those elements with the familiar world we know, is a particular favourite of mine. So much so, that I wrote my own! Granted, the urban area in question is 19th-century Paris, but I say that still counts.
This is high-caliber space fantasy in the realm of Star Wars or Dune. It brings together a grizzled holy warrior having doubts about his faith with a naïve and sheltered princess in a brutal world ruled by absolutely vile overlords. The perspective switches between the two of them. The warrior – Drin – grapples with whether the church’s mission to fight evil brings it to use methods too similar to the evil it fights. Meanwhile the princess – Anais – has to come to terms very quickly with the reality of life outside the palace when slavers invade her home and abduct her off-world.
After years of fighting for justice with his deadly nanotech, Templar Drin abandons his post, crash landing on a desert world controlled by a tyrannical alien empire. Its inhabitants are forced into slavery, broken where a once-proud race cultivated its lands.
For the first time in Drin's life, he has no backup, no support, none of his brothers.
He stands alone against evil.
Drin must face overwhelming odds to liberate millions of slaves from their captors and bring faith to a downtrodden world. But in his way stands the most dangerous…
I have been a huge fan of fantasy since I was a child, starting off with high fantasy before trying out urban. The genre helps me escape from the real world for a while and fires my imagination. I write fantasy books because there is no limit on what you can do with characters and storyline. I write for pleasure and I hope others get enjoyment out of my work. I read a lot, not to get ideas, but just for the pure pleasure of reading. There is just something about the feeling of turning the pages of a printed book you can’t get anywhere else.
This is the first book in a series that goes on and on, following the life of a couple of characters as the world changes around them. Spanning two different worlds, this first book builds up a number of characters you want to keep reading about. As the series continues through time, new threats to the two worlds introduce new characters. What I like most about this series is it keeps moving the worlds forward instead of stagnating.
In the westernmost province of the Kingdom of the Isles, upon the world of Midkemia, an orphan kitchen boy named Pug was made apprentice to the magician Kulgan.
Here starts an adventure that will span lifetimes and worlds. Discover where the story begins.
The world had changed even before I discovered the foreign ship wrecked on the shore below Crydee Castle, but it was the harbinger of the chaos and death that was coming to our door.
War had come to the Kingdom of the Isles, and in the years that followed it would scatter my friends across the world.…
Looking for clean romantic suspense with spiritual undertones?
Look no further than the Acts of Valor series by Rebecca Hartt. With thousands of reviews and 4.7-5.0 stars per book, this 6-book series is a must-read for readers searching for memorable, well-told stories by an award-winning author.
I have a fascination for Roman history, having been born in the UK, and visiting Hadrian’s Wall. I have read many, many works of both history and historical fiction about Rome. To me, these five are the most memorable. Obviously the story has to be fantastic but it's important to be accurate. The opening battle in Gladiator annoyed me because the Romans never broke lines to fight man to man with barbarians. The concept of the Celts living among the rubble of the Empire, of being surrounded by things they cannot understand helped inspire my Empire Of Bones series. I even have a gladius sword and use it to inspire my own battle scenes.
This is the first of the fantastic Macro and Cato series, this sees the bookish Cato drafted into the army under the gruff and tough Macro. Against all odds, this unlikely pair become both friends and an unstoppable team. There’s plenty of humour mixed in with the battles and you identify easily with Cato’s attempts to fit in and become a soldier.
IF YOU DON'T KNOW SIMON SCARROW, YOU DON'T KNOW ROME!
UNDER THE EAGLE is the gripping first novel in Simon Scarrow's bestselling EAGLES OF THE EMPIRE series. A must read for fans of Bernard Cornwell and Conn Iggulden. Praise for Simon Scarrow's compelling novels: 'Gripping and moving' The Times
AD 42, Germany. Tough, brutal and unforgiving. That's how new recruit Cato is finding life in the Roman Second Legion. He may have contacts in high places, but he could really use a friend amongst his fellow soldiers right now.
Cato has been promoted above his comrades at the order of…
