Integrity Taylor should have been a Clan princess. Instead she's lived a life on the very periphery of society. Now that she's learnt more about her heritage, however, and the magic that she's capable of wielding, she's not going to hide in the shadows any longer. The once-in-a-generation Sidhe Games are going to provide the perfect opportunity for her to win back her birthright - and the fact that she'll be going head to head, toe to toe and mouth to mouth with golden haired Byron Moncrieffe might just be the icing on the cake.
Uncompromising and fierce, Commissar Severina Raine has always served the Imperium with the utmost distinction but only by embracing her duty and staying true to her belief in the Imperium and the commissar’s creed can she hope to survive this crucible, but even then will that be enough? Uncompromising and fierce, Commissar Severina Raine has always served the Imperium with the utmost distinction. Attached to the Eleventh Antari Rifles, she instills order and courage in the face of utter horror. But horror take smany forms, and Rains's unshakeable faith is about to be put to the ultimate test. As the Chaos cult known as the Sighted sweeps through the Bale Stars and a shadow falls across its benighted worlds. In answer, a great campaign, led by the vaunted hero Lord-General Militant Alar Serek is under way to free the system from tyranny and enslavement, and the price of victory must be paid in blood. As Raine and the Antari become embroiled in the conflict, dark secrets are unearthed... Secrets that might cast a light onto Raine's own troubled past. Only by embracing her duty and staying true to her belief in the Imperium and the commissar’s creed can she hope to survive this crucible, but even then, will that be enough?
Barney Crispin, a Captain in the SAS, is a tough as they come. He is sent on an urgent mission to the Afghanistan border: to destroy one of the Soviet Mi-24 helicopters, a highly sophisticated and virtually invulnerable piece of military equipment, and retrieve the hardware. In order to do so, he needs the help of the Mujahidin resistance and must first train them in the ways of stealth and sabotage. But the guerillas he trains are ill-equipped and disorganised. Their attempt fails and several of them are killed in the process. Against orders and with only eight missiles and a local boy as his guide, Barney decides to undertake the mission alone, his own solitary battle for vengeance...
In April of 1972, SEAL Lieutenant Tom Norris risked his life in an unprecedented ground rescue of two American airmen who were shot down behind enemy lines in North Vietnam, a feat for which he would be awarded the Medal of Honor--an award that represents the pinnacle of heroism and courage. Just six months later, Norris was sent on a dangerous special reconnaissance mission that would take his team deep into enemy territory. On that mission, they engaged a vastly superior force. In the running gun battle that ensued, Lieutenant Norris was severely wounded; a bullet entered his left eye and exited the left side of his head. SEAL Petty Officer Mike Thornton, under heavy fire, fought his way back onto a North Vietnamese beach to rescue his officer. This was the first time Tom and Mike had been on a combat mission together. Mike's act of courage and loyalty marks the only time in modern history that the Medal of Honor has been awarded in a combat action where one recipient received the Medal for saving the life of another. By Honor Bound is the story of Tom Norris and Mike Thornton, two living American heroes who grew up very differently, entered military service and the Navy SEAL teams for vastly different reasons, and were thrown together for a single combat mission--a mission that would define their lives from that day forward.
The inspiring story of the first female Marine to fly a combat mission in an F/A-18—and the transformative events that led to her bold decision to take on the most powerful man in the U.S. Senate. Amy McGrath grew up in Edgewood, Kentucky, a childhood shaped by love of country, baseball (the Cincinnati Reds), and, from the age of twelve, a fascination with fighter jets. Her devastation at learning that a federal law prohibited women from flying in combat fueled her determination to do just that--and then, to help change the laws to improve the lives of all Americans. McGrath writes of gaining an appointment in high school to the U.S. Naval Academy, making it through Marine Corps training, graduating from Annapolis, Maryland, becoming a Second Lieutenant, and raising her right hand to swear to defend the U.S. Constitution, honor bound. She vividly recounts her experiences flying in the Marines, and her combat deployments to Iraq (Kuwait) and Afghanistan, her work as an Air Combat Tactics instructor—and what it was like to finally fly that fighter jet: high-speed, intense, and physically demanding. Here is McGrath, training to do the most intense tactical flying there is (think the Navy's TOPGUN ); meeting the man who would become her husband; being promoted to major and then lieutenant colonel; marrying, having three children, a career and life in Washington and then moving her family back to Kentucky to begin a whole new chapter in politics; her roller-coaster congressional campaign (she lost by three percentage points); and making the tough decision to run again, in an even bigger, higher-stakes national campaign, against the five-term leader of the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell. A moving, inspiring American story of courage, determination, and large dreams.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Russians from all ranks of society were bound together by a culture of honor. Here one of the foremost scholars of early modern Russia explores the intricate and highly stylized codes that made up this culture. Nancy Shields Kollmann describes how these codes were manipulated to construct identity and enforce social norms—and also to defend against insults, to pursue vendettas, and to unsettle communities. She offers evidence for a new view of the relationship of state and society in the Russian empire, and her richly comparative approach enhances knowledge of statebuilding in premodern Europe. By presenting Muscovite state and society in the context of medieval and early modern Europe, she exposes similarities that blur long-standing distinctions between Russian and European history.Through the prism of honor, Kollmann examines the interaction of the Russian state and its people in regulating social relations and defining an individual's rank. She finds vital information in a collection of transcripts of legal suits brought by elites and peasants alike to avenge insult to honor. The cases make clear the conservative role honor played in society as well as the ability of men and women to employ this body of ideas to address their relations with one another and with the state. Kollmann demonstrates that the grand princes—and later the tsars—tolerated a surprising degree of local autonomy throughout their rapidly expanding realm. Her work marks a stark contrast with traditional Russian historiography, which exaggerates the power of the state and downplays the volition of society.
From bestselling author Sandra Brown comes an incredible story of an impossible love. Lucas Greywolf was her forbidden fantasy--wild, rebellious, a Navajo--and an escaped convict. Aislinn had been terrified when he'd grabbed her, but now she was intrigued. Why had he taken her--and where were they heading?
Chances are, you've never heard of Anthony Malone. Yet the chances are also good that you're a little safer because of him.He also soon found himself at the heart of a story so incredible that it seems borrowed from the likes of the TV series Homeland or the novels of John Le Carr�: incarcerated in Afghanistan's most notorious prison on false charges, Anthony Malone became the only known Western intelligence agent to ever infiltrate the inner circles of a major terrorist network with close links to both al-Qa'ida and the Pakistani Taliban. Before he was extracted from Afghanistan in 2010, Malone personally intervened - at huge risk to his own life - to prevent a staggering number of terrorist acts in the US and UK. The intelligence he collected from within the fearsome Islamist Haqqani Network was, in fact, a contributing factor to the assassination of Usama bin Laden in 2011.Malone was able to acquire much of this information directly, having gradually won the trust of the inner circle of the Haqqani Network and of al-Qa'ida in Iraq and the Pakistan Taliban. He gathered a great deal after hours, covertly and at mind-boggling risk. (In one daring act of sabotage, Malone short-circuited the electric mains supply in his prison block as terrorist operatives were charging their mobile phones, satcoms and laptops in preparation for coordinating an attack on Kandahar International Airport. There, fresh from a secret visit to Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, British Prime Minister David Cameron was aboard a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft 400 metres from the intended blast site.)All told, Malone's record of high-quality, high-risk intelligence operations during his incarceration in Afghanistan's worst prison - lasting three years - is without precedent. It is a story known within the higher echelons of the international intelligence community, but which has not been possible to reveal in detail - until now.**Anthony Malone's story is unique in the annals of intelligence operations. Since his return to the UK, he has been lauded privately by very senior figures in US and British military, law enforcement and political circles, many of whom are prepared to go on record in praise of Malone's outstanding service - it is revelatory, in the tradition of Spycatcher, but substantiated, unlike the majority of such works.**
Savvy criminal turned skilled Leviathan pilot Zara Cole finds new friends and clashes with bitter enemies in the second book of this action-packed series from New York Times bestselling authors Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre that’s perfect for fans of The 100 and The Fifth Wave. Zara Cole was a thief back on Earth, but she’s been recently upgraded to intergalactic fugitive. On the run after a bloody battle in a covert war that she never expected to be fighting, Zara, her co-pilot Beatriz, and their Leviathan ship Nadim barely escaped the carnage with their lives. Now Zara and her crew of Honors need a safe haven, far from the creatures who want to annihilate them. But they’ll have to settle for the Sliver: a wild, dangerous warren of alien criminals. The secrets of the Sliver may have the power to turn the tide of the war they left behind—but in the wrong direction. Soon Zara will have to make a choice: run from the ultimate evil—or stand and fight.
