In the tradition of Saving Private Ryan and Bridge Over the River Kwai, bestselling author James D. Shipman delivers a powerful, action-packed novel that illustrates the long-buried secrets and unending costs of war—based on the true story of General Patton’s clandestine unauthorized raid on a World War II POW camp.March, 1945. Allied forces are battle-worn but wearily optimistic. Russia’s Red Army is advancing hard on Germany from the east, bolstering Allied troops moving in from the west and north. Soon, surely, Axis forces must accept defeat. Yet for Captain Jim Curtis, each day is a reminder of how unpredictable and uncertain warfare can be.Captured during the Battle of the Bulge after the Germans launched a devastating surprise attack, Curtis is imprisoned at a POW camp in Hammelburg, Bavaria. Conditions are grim. Inmates and guards alike are freezing and starving, with rations dwindling day by day. But whispers say General Patton’s troops are on the way, and the camp may soon be liberated.Indeed, fifty miles away, a task force of three hundred men is preparing to cross into Germany. With camps up and down the line, what makes Hammelburg so special they don’t know, but orders are orders. Yet their hopes of evading the enemy quickly evaporate. Wracked by poor judgment, insufficient arms, and bad luck, the raid unravels with shattering losses. The liberation inmates hoped for becomes a struggle for survival marked by a stark choice: stay, or risk escaping into danger-while leaving some behind.For Curtis, the decision is an even more personal test of loyalty, friendship, and the values for which one will die or kill. It will be another twenty years before the unsanctioned mission’s secret motivation becomes public knowledge, creating a controversy that will forever color Patton’s legacy and linger on in the lives of those who made it home at last-and the loved ones of those who did not.

A masterfully told tale of passion, jealousy, heroism and betrayal set in the gruesome trenches of World War I.It is September 1919: twenty-one-year-old Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver a package of letters to the sister of Will Bancroft, the man he fought alongside during the Great War.But the letters are not the real reason for Tristan’s visit. He can no longer keep a secret and has finally found the courage to unburden himself of it. As Tristan recounts the horrific details of what to him became a senseless war, he also speaks of his friendship with Will--from their first meeting on the training grounds at Aldershot to their farewell in the trenches of northern France. The intensity of their bond brought Tristan happiness and self-discovery as well as confusion and unbearable pain.The Absolutist is a masterful tale of passion, jealousy, heroism, and betrayal set in one of the most gruesome trenches of France during World War I. This novel will keep readers on the edge of their seats until its most extraordinary and unexpected conclusion, and will stay with them long after they’ve turned the last page.

Peter Naseby is enjoying a leisurely naval career when his ship runs down the Admiral in Command at Portsmouth. On his watch.

It is early 1915 and he had been looking forward to joining the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow. Now he must accept a posting to obscurity or volunteer for hazardous duty. To save his career, he joins the Blimps of the Royal Naval Air Service – he becomes a Balloonatic.

Sat in a flimsy cockpit under 70,000 cubic feet of inflammable hydrogen with a crew of one, a Lewis Gun, and a single bomb, he potters out every day to chase submarines in the English Channel. Occasionally, he catches one.

Onshore, he juggles the demands of Josephine, a young English rose, and Charlie, much more of a hothouse flower, while he decides just what his future shall be.

Near the end of 1942, more than 100,000 Allied soldiers board transports for what they believe will be a major invasion of Europe. Instead, they land in French North Africa to fight the German Army for the first time. In the midst of the invasion, an M4 Sherman tank rolls into combat. It is manned by five men: John Austin, the commander; Anthony Russo, the driver; Charles Wade, the gunner; Amos Swanson, the loader; and Eugene Clay, the bow gunner.

Cocky and confident in Allied victory, they expect the battle for North Africa to be a cakewalk. Soon, the Germans will teach them the harsh realities of armored warfare. To survive, they’ll have to show grit—and learn to work together.

Berlin 1942When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running alongside stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people he can see in the distance.But Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different to his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ypMp0s5Hiw

Colonel Nicholson was an exemplary British officer. When his Japanese captors ordered him to build a strategic assault bridge in southeast Asia, the colonel’s code of military honor left him no choice but to obey. Though they were sick and wounded, he set his men to work, toiling in the jungle heat. He intended to complete a perfect bridge in record time—even though his Imperial Majesty’s Army would use it for the invasion of India.Meanwhile, half across the continent, “Force 316” of British Intelligence was already plotting how to blow up the bridge…

The Guns of Navarone and its three sequels, in which the same characters are sent on other wartime missions, together in one volume for the first time to mark the 50th anniversary of the original book.THE GUNS OF NAVARONEMallory, Miller and Andrea are united into a lethally effective team. Their mission: to silence the impregnable guns set in the tall cliffs of Navarone. On their success or failure rests one of the most critical offensives of the Second World War.FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONEAlmost before the last echoes of the famous guns have died away, the three Navarone heroes are parachuted into war-torn Yugoslavia to rescue a division of partisans and fulfil a secret mission, so deadly that it must be hidden even from their own allies.STORM FORCE FROM NAVARONEThe surviving commandos are sent on a perilous journey through the Pyrenees to disable the greatest threat to the impending D-Day landings: the 'Werwolf' U-boats. But their Basque guides declare it mission impossible — D-Day is less than six days away.THUNDERBOLT FROM NAVARONESummoned back to Naval HQ, Mallory, Miller and Andrea are given a final assignment: to reconnoitre the Greek island of Kynthos and destroy the German facilities developing the lethal V3 weapon. A rocket expert is to accompany them — but can he be trusted not to turn the operation into a suicide mission?

The Kelly Group International (KGI): A super elite, top secret, family-run business.Qualifications: High intelligence, rock hard body, military background.Mission: Hostage/kidnap victim recovery. Intelligence gathering. Handling jobs the US government can’t…It’s been one year since ex-Navy SEAL Ethan Kelly last saw his wife Rachel alive. Overwhelmed by grief and guilt over his failures as a husband, Ethan shuts himself off from everything and everyone.His brothers have tried to bring Ethan into the KGI fold, tried to break through the barriers he’s built around himself, but Ethan refuses to respond… until he receives anonymous information claiming Rachel is alive.To save her, Ethan will have to dodge bullets, cross a jungle, and risk falling captive to a deadly drug cartel that threatens his own demise. And even if he succeeds, he’ll have to force Rachel to recover memories she can’t and doesn’t want to relive—the minute by minute terror of her darkest hour—for their love, and their lives, may depend on it.

A powerful memoir by one of the youngest ever survivors of Auschwitz, Tova Friedman, following her childhood growing up during the Holocaust and surviving a string of near-death experiences in a Jewish ghetto, a Nazi labor camp, and Auschwitz.Tova Friedman was only four years old when she was sent to a Nazi labor camp at the start of World War II. While friends and family were murdered in front of her eyes, the only weapon that Tova and her parents possessed was the primal instinct to survive at all costs. Fate intervened when, at the age of six, Tova was sent to a gas chamber, but walked out alive, saved by German bureaucracy. Not long afterwards, she cuddled a warm corpse to hide from Nazis rounding up prisoners for the Death March to Germany.In this heartrending, lyrical account of a young girl's survival during the Holocaust, Tova Friedman, together with Malcolm Brabant, chronicles the atrocities she witnessed while at Auschwitz, a family secret that sheds light on the unpalatable choices Jews were forced to make to survive, and ultimately, the sources of hope and courage she and her family found to persist against all odds.

From the acclaimed author of Schindler’s List, the epic, unforgettable story of two sisters from Australia, both trained nurses, whose lives are transformed by the cataclysm of the first World War.In 1915, two spirited Australian sisters join the war effort as nurses, escaping the confines of their father’s farm and carrying a guilty secret with them. Used to tending the sick as they are, nothing could have prepared them for what they confront, first near Gallipoli, then on the Western Front.Yet amid the carnage, Naomi and Sally Durance become the friends they never were at home and find themselves courageous in the face of extreme danger, as well as the hostility they encounter from some on their own side. There is great bravery, humor, and compassion, too, and the inspiring example of the remarkable women they serve alongside. In France, where Naomi nurses in a hospital set up by the eccentric Lady Tarlton while Sally works in a casualty clearing station, each meets an exceptional man: the kind of men for whom they might give up some of their precious independence—if only they all survive.At once vast in scope and extraordinarily intimate, The Daughters of Mars brings World War I to vivid, concrete life from an unusual perspective. A searing and profoundly moving tale, it pays tribute to men and women of extraordinary moral resilience, even in the face of the incomprehensible horrors of modern war.

AND SO IT BEGINS…

In the United States, the Department of Defense and the NSA computer networks have been hacked. A nuclear-armed CIA drone has lost all flight control. North Korea… Iran… Russia… and soon the gates of Hell will open.

DEFCON 1—FULL SCALE NUCLEAR WAR

Humanity’s most terrifying nightmare has become reality. Bombs are detonated, missiles are launched, counterstrikes are ordered, and within minutes, untold thousands of megatons have left countless millions dead or dying. Devastation of biblical proportions has fallen over the land… and the USA has been hit the hardest.

NOW THE SURVIVORS ARE ON THEIR OWN…

The death toll is incalculable. Following the devastation, there is no law, no power, no communication. But there are survivors. And now the real battle begins, on the ground, hand to hand, person to person. Can those who remain survive long enough to rebuild a world… or will it just take a little longer for them to die?

“Leaves you breathless.”—Marc Cameron, bestselling author of National Security and Day Zero

“Like a nuclear reactor, this story heats up fast!”—Anderson Harp, author of Retribution and Born of War (on Powerless)About the Author

Tim Washburn graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a BA in Journalism and currently lives in Edmond, Oklahoma.

It’s late 1915 and the industrial nations still have not geared up for war. Shortages of munitions leave soldiers hanging on barbed wire in the fields. The war in France is at a stalemate, both sides finding it impossible to advance, and spending tens of thousands of lives on the discovery. Richard Baker is in the front line with his battalion, learning how to fight this new war. While the generals, well behind him, are only focussed on finding a way to let the cavalry loose in another Charge of the Light Brigade, reaching for glory. At sea, Simon Sturton continues to make a name for himself as one of the new breed of destroyermen, while Christopher Adams has overcome his fall from grace sufficiently to be posted to Black Prince cruiser, part of the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow in the months leading up to the long-awaited ‘Great Smash’ in the North Sea.

When the Russians come, where do you go?

It is the end of April, 1945 in a small village in eastern Germany. The front is coming closer and ten-year-old Fritz knows that the Soviet Army’s invasion of his family’s home can be only a few days away. Grandpa Karl, a Nazi sympathizer, takes Fritz into the forest that surrounds the family farm to show him a secret. Under a tall pine tree, Grandpa Karl has dug a pit and covered it with branches. The hole is to hide Fritz’s sister, mother, and grandmother when the Russians invade their village. Grandpa Karl is convinced that he and Fritz will defend to the death the Friedrich family.

But when the Russian soldiers arrive, Fritz, his sister, and his mother find themselves alone. They look to Lech, a Polish farmhand, for help, but new communist policies force them off their farm and into the role of refugees. Separated from his home and eventually his family, Fritz has to find his own way in a crumbling world. The Dog in the Wood tells a dramatic story of loss and survival in a changing Germany at the end of World War II.