The New York Times bestselling author of Fly Girls shares the riveting story of an unsung World War II hero who saved countless American lives in the Philippines. When Florence Finch died at the age of 101, few of her Ithaca, NY neighbors knew that this unassuming Filipina native was a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, whose courage and sacrifice were unsurpassed in the Pacific War against Japan. Long accustomed to keeping her secrets close in service of the Allies, she waited fifty years to reveal the story of those dramatic and harrowing days to her own children. Florence was an unlikely warrior. She relied on her own intelligence and fortitude to survive on her own from the age of seven, facing bigotry as a mixed-race mestiza with the dual heritage of her American serviceman father and Filipina mother. As the war drew ever closer to the Philippines, Florence fell in love with a dashing American naval intelligence agent, Charles "Bing" Smith. In the wake of Bing's sudden death in battle, Florence transformed from a mild-mannered young wife into a fervent resistance fighter. She conceived a bold plan to divert tons of precious fuel from the Japanese army, which was then sold on the black market to provide desperately needed medicine and food for hundreds of American POWs. In constant peril of arrest and execution, Florence fought to save others, even as the Japanese police closed in. With a wealth of original sources including taped interviews, personal journals, and unpublished memoirs, The Indomitable Florence Finch unfolds against the Bataan Death March, the fall of Corregidor, and the daily struggle to survive a brutal occupying force. Award-winning military historian and former Congressman Robert J. Mrazek brings to light this long-hidden American patriot. The Indomitable Florence Finch is the story of the transcendent bravery of a woman who belongs in America's pantheon of war heroes.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 In 1899, Charlie Ebersole arrived in the Philippines aboard the hospital ship USS Missouri. He was a young American medic, and he volunteered in a spirit of high adventure. But the war changed him, and he soon lost his illusions of glory and high adventure. #2 Charlie Ebersole, after serving in the Philippines, bought a plantation in Isabela Province. He was able to save money, and in 1907, he bought a plantation along the Calao River in Santiago. #3 Charlie began growing tobacco on his plantation, and soon began exporting it to the United States. He built a house at the edge of the river, and his family grew as four children were born to him and his wife, Maria. #4 When they returned to the plantation, Maria was furious. She accused her daughter of seducing her husband. With the same cold-blooded attitude that had empowered him to steal Maria from her husband, Charlie gave her an ultimatum: accept his decision or be cast out.

This riveting memoir follows a Lebanese-Muslim-American and thirty-year US Marine veteran who suffered a six-month ordeal at the hands of a brutal regime in Yemen—and remained loyal to his country through it all. As air strikes carpeted Yemen's capital, Sam Farran was one of only a few Americans in the war-ravaged country. He was there to conduct security assessments for a variety of international firms. Days after his arrival, he was brutally seized and taken hostage by Houthi rebels. Sam would spend the next six months suffering a horrific ordeal that would test his endurance, his loyalty and his very soul. Every day his captors asked him—as a fellow Muslim—to betray America and his Marine heritage in exchange for his freedom. Would he give in to the Houthis and return to his Middle Eastern roots? In the end--and despite daily threats to his life—Sam found the strength to resist, and came out of his ordeal with an increased sense of being, foremost, a US Marine. The Tightening Dark is an intimate, riveting and inspiring memoir of heroic strength, courage, survival and commitment to country. And a reminder that the best parts of the American dream are the dreamers—those who pledge to being American, regardless of where they are born.

Alice Zwicker was the only service woman from Maine to be a prisoner of the enemy in either of the two World Wars. But there is more to the story than that. Across the nation, wherever one of the seventy-seven Angels of Bataan returned home, there was a hero’s welcome. Those Army and Navy nurses had shown what American women could do and be, even in times of defeat. This is Alice’s story: her growing up in a small Maine town, her commitment to the profession of nursing, and her immersion in World War II. There was Manila, Bataan, Corregidor, and then three long, hungry years when she was held prisoner by the Japanese. For Alice, the terrible legacy of war did not end with her liberation from internment camp, or even with her coming home. When victory finally arrived for Alice, it was achieved in her own soul.

"A chilling reminder of Hitler’s twisted power." —BBC For readers of The Monuments Men and The Hare with Amber Eyes, the story of the Nazis' systematic pillaging of Europe's libraries, and the small team of heroic librarians now working to return the stolen books to their rightful owners. While the Nazi party was being condemned by much of the world for burning books, they were already hard at work perpetrating an even greater literary crime. Through extensive new research that included records saved by the Monuments Men themselves—Anders Rydell tells the untold story of Nazi book theft, as he himself joins the effort to return the stolen books. When the Nazi soldiers ransacked Europe’s libraries and bookshops, large and small, the books they stole were not burned. Instead, the Nazis began to compile a library of their own that they could use to wage an intellectual war on literature and history. In this secret war, the libraries of Jews, Communists, Liberal politicians, LGBT activists, Catholics, Freemasons, and many other opposition groups were appropriated for Nazi research, and used as an intellectual weapon against their owners. But when the war was over, most of the books were never returned. Instead many found their way into the public library system, where they remain to this day. Now, Rydell finds himself entrusted with one of these stolen volumes, setting out to return it to its rightful owner. It was passed to him by the small team of heroic librarians who have begun the monumental task of combing through Berlin’s public libraries to identify the looted books and reunite them with the families of their original owners. For those who lost relatives in the Holocaust, these books are often the only remaining possession of their relatives they have ever held. And as Rydell travels to return the volume he was given, he shows just how much a single book can mean to those who own it.

A heartwarming dog story like no other: Tuesday, a lovable golden retriever, changes a former soldier’s life forever. A highly decorated captain in the U.S. Army, Luis Montalván never backed down from a challenge during his two tours of duty in Iraq. After returning home from combat, however, his physical wounds and crippling post-traumatic stress disorder began to take their toll. He wondered if he would ever recover. Then Luis met Tuesday, a sensitive golden retriever trained to assist people with disabilities. Tuesday had lived among prisoners and at a home for troubled boys, and he found it difficult to trust in or connect with a human being–until Luis. Until Tuesday is the story of how two wounded warriors, who had given so much and suffered the consequences, found salvation in each other. It is a story about war and peace, injury and recovery, psychological wounds and spiritual restoration. But more than that, it is a story about the love between a man and dog, and how, together, they healed each other’s souls.

In January 1940, navy nurse Dorothy Still eagerly anticipated her new assignment at a military hospital in the Philippines. Her first year abroad was an adventure. She dated sailors, attended dances and watched the sparkling evening lights from her balcony. But as 1941 progressed, signs of war became imminent. Military wives and children were shipped home to the states, and the sailors increased their daily drills. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Dorothy and the other nurses braced for a direct assault. When the all-clear sounded, they raced across the yard to the hospital and prepared for the wounded to arrive. In that frantic dash, Dorothy transformed from a navy nurse to a war nurse. Along with the other women on the nursing staff, she provided compassionate, tireless, critical care. When the Philippines fell to Japan in early January 1942, Dorothy was held captive in a hospital and then transferred to a university along with thousands of civilian prisoners. Cramped conditions, disease and poor nutrition meant the navy nurses and their army counterparts were overwhelmed caring for the camp. They endured disease, starvation, severe overcrowding, and abuse from guards, but also experienced friendship, hope, and some, including Dorothy, even found love.

An epic narrative of World War II naval action that brings to life the sailors and exploits of the war's most decorated destroyer squadron. When Admiral William Halsey selected Destroyer Squadron 21 (Desron 21) to lead his victorious ships into Tokyo Bay to accept the Japanese surrender, it was the most battle-hardened US naval squadron of the war. But it was not the squadron of ships that had accumulated such an inspiring resume; it was the people serving aboard them. Sailors, not metallic superstructures and hulls, had won the battles and become the stuff of legend. Men like Commander Donald MacDonald, skipper of the USS O'Bannon, who became the most decorated naval officer of the Pacific war; Lieutenant Hugh Barr Miller, who survived his ship's sinking and waged a one-man battle against the enemy while stranded on a Japanese-occupied island; and Doctor Dow "Doc" Ransom, the beloved physician of the USS La Vallette, who combined a mixture of humor and medical expertise to treat his patients at sea, epitomize the sacrifices made by all the men and women of World War II. Through diaries, personal interviews with survivors, and letters written to and by the crews during the war, preeminent historian of the Pacific theater John Wukovits brings to life the human story of the squadron that bested the Japanese in the Pacific and helped take the war to Tokyo.

The Inside Story of America's Ultimate Warriors When Osama bin Laden was assassinated, the entire world was fascinated by the men who had completed the seemingly impossible mission that had dogged the U.S. government for over a decade. SEAL Team 6 became synonymous with heroism, duty, and justice. Only a handful of the elite men who make up the SEALs, the US Navy's best and bravest, survive the legendary and grueling selection process that leads to becoming a member of Team 6, a group so classified it technically does not even exist. There are no better warriors on Earth. Don Mann knows what it takes to be a brother in this ultra-selective fraternity. As a member of Seal Team Six for over eight years and a SEAL for over seventeen years, he worked in countless covert operations, operating from land, sea, and air, and facing shootings, decapitations, and stabbings. He was captured by the enemy and lived to tell the tale, and he participated in highly classified missions all over the globe, including Somalia, Panama, El Salvador, Colombia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. As a coordinator for several civilian SEAL training programs, and as a former Training Officer of SEAL Team Six, he was directly responsible for shaping the bodies and minds of SEALs who carried out the assassination of Osama bin Laden. But to become a SEAL, Mann had to overcome his own troubled childhood and push his body to its breaking point -- and beyond. Inside Seal Team 6 is a high octane narrative of physical and mental toughness, giving unprecedented insight to the inner workings of the training and secret missions of the world's most respected and feared combat unit.