Romance.

In seventh-century Ireland, then the light of reason in a darkening world, Fidelma - a religious, advocate of the Brehon courts, and sister to the King of Muman - is an increasingly notable figure often called upon for her wisdom, legal knowledge, and devotion to the truth. While journeying with companion Eadulf to visit the new Archbishop of Canterbury, their ship is blown badly off course and the pair find themselves on the coast of modern Wales in the kingdom of Dyfed. There, hosted by the king himself, Fidelma is presented with her knottiest problem yet - an entire monastic community from the nearby countryside has disappeared without a trace. While investigating this seeming impossibility, Fidelma and Eadulf are confronted with the apparently unrelated and shocking murder of a local girl - a death marked by more tragedy and consequence than anyone could have imagined. Peter Tremayne's novels featuring Fidelma of Cashel have won critical praise from around the world and have enjoyed an ever-increasing readership. Smoke in the Wind is a richly imagined, wonderfully written entry in what is understandably one of the most popular historical series today.

From the oilfields of the Alaskan high Arctic to the sultry hostile jungles of Indonesia, from the war-torn desert of Kuwait to tumultuous Thailand, West Texas oilfield engineer Bubba Cottonmill is thrown into a kind of turmoil he's never experienced before. It's the early 90s, and he's been immersed into an international oil field construction industry that creates power and starts wars - a place of murder, corruption, and assassination. Bubba battles to survive on the job as he is confronted with spear throwing jungle warriors, the 1991 Gulf War devastation and its hundreds of uncontrolled oil well fires, boobytraps, and land mines.

'A brilliant epic fantasy debut from a master storyteller' Sebastien de Castell, author of the Greatcoat series including The Traitor's Blade 'Wonderful characters and great world-building, in Humphreys' special brand of addictive storytelling' Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series 'An intriguing premise... an intricate, fast-paced story... Humphreys packs gods, deicide, warring tribes and some impressive world-building into just over 300 pages' Guardian Three lands, peopled by humans and immortals. In Corinthium a decadent endlessly-lived elite run the world for profit and power. But when a poor, honest solider dies, and is reborn, everything changes. In wintry Midgarth, where immortals are revered as deities, one of them has realized that something - or someone - is killing the gods. And in Ometepe there is only one immortal, for he has murdered every other. Until one woman gives birth to a very special baby. Yet there is a fourth, hidden land, where savage tribes have united under the prophecy of 'the One': a child who is neither boy nor girl. Now they plan to conquer the world. Unless a broken soldier, a desperate mother and a crippled god can stop them . . .

“Nature, rightly questioned, never lies.” —A Manual of Scientific Enquiry, Third Edition, 1859 Scott Huler was working as a copy editor for a small publisher when he stumbled across the Beaufort Wind Scale in his Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary. It was one of those moments of discovery that writers live for. Written centuries ago, its 110 words launched Huler on a remarkable journey over land and sea into a fascinating world of explorers, mariners, scientists, and writers. After falling in love with what he decided was “the best, clearest, and most vigorous piece of descriptive writing I had ever seen,” Huler went in search of Admiral Francis Beaufort himself: hydrographer to the British Admiralty, man of science, and author—Huler assumed—of the Beaufort Wind Scale. But what Huler discovered is that the scale that carries Beaufort’s name has a long and complex evolution, and to properly understand it he had to keep reaching farther back in history, into the lives and works of figures from Daniel Defoe and Charles Darwin to Captains Bligh, of the Bounty, and Cook, of the Endeavor. As hydrographer to the British Admiralty it was Beaufort’s job to track the information that ships relied on: where to lay anchor, descriptions of ports, information about fortification, religion, and trade. But what came to fascinate Huler most about Beaufort was his obsession for observing things and communicating to others what the world looked like. Huler’s research landed him in one of the most fascinating and rich periods of history, because all around the world in the mid-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in a grand, expansive period, modern science was being invented every day. These scientific advancements encompassed not only vast leaps in understanding but also how scientific innovation was expressed and even organized, including such enduring developments as the scale Anders Celsius created to simplify how Gabriel Fahrenheit measured temperature; the French-designed metric system; and the Gregorian calendar adopted by France and Great Britain. To Huler, Beaufort came to embody that passion for scientific observation and categorization; indeed Beaufort became the great scientific networker of his time. It was he, for example, who was tapped to lead the search for a naturalist in the 1830s to accompany the crew of the Beagle; he recommended a young naturalist named Charles Darwin. Defining the Wind is a wonderfully readable, often humorous, and always rich story that is ultimately about how we observe the forces of nature and the world around us.

Once upon a time there was a war . . . and a young American who thought of himself as the Quiet American and the Ugly American, and who wished to be neither, who wanted instead to be the Wise American, or the Good American, but who eventually came to witness himself as the Real American and finally as simply the Fucking American. That’s me. This is the story of Skip Sands—spy-in-training, engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong—and the disasters that befall him thanks to his famous uncle, a war hero known in intelligence circles simply as the Colonel. This is also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war in which the line between disinformation and delusion has blurred away. In its vision of human folly, and its gritty, sympathetic portraits of men and women desperate for an end to their loneliness, whether in sex or death or by the grace of God, this is a story like nothing in our literature. Tree of Smoke is Denis Johnson’s first full-length novel in nine years, and his most gripping, beautiful, and powerful work to date. Tree of Smoke is the 2007 National Book Award Winner for Fiction.

Feeling lonesome and missing her sister and her horse who were captured by enemy raiders, Kaya befriends a dog that has wandered near camp. Although others warn her not to trust the animal, Kaya senses something different.

In Lt. Josie Facundo’s first appointment as an officer in the Salvation Army, they send her to the rural small town of Kayne. It’s a picturesque small town where everyone knows each other, but also a town where not everyone gets along. Under the surface, there is a divide of hatred and grudge that no one ever talks about, One day, an old man misname Josie as Deirdre Chisholm, a girl that died in a tragic accident four decades earlier. Josie is stunned by the reaction the name stirs up, and why no one has ever mentioned her or the accident before. What really happened to Deirdre? And how is this connected to the conflicts in the town today? Josie is certain that the answer to these questions will be the way to heal this broken community. This leads her on a search where the evidence is buried deep, and someone is working against her. Someone who will stop at nothing, not even murder.

Smokescreen cuts through years of misunderstanding and misdirection to make an impassioned, evidence-based argument for a new era of forest management for the sake of the planet and the human race. Natural fires are as essential as sun and rain in fire-adapted forests, but as humans encroach on wild spaces, fear, arrogance, and greed have shaped the way that people view these regenerative events and given rise to misinformation that threatens whole ecosystems as well as humanity's chances of overcoming the climate crisis. Scientist and activist Chad T. Hanson explains how natural alarm over wildfire has been marshaled to advance corporate and political agendas, notably those of the logging industry. He also shows that, in stark contrast to the fear-driven narrative around these events, contemporary research has demonstrated that forests in the United States, North America, and around the world have a significant deficit of fire. Forest fires, including the largest ones, can create extraordinarily important and rich wildlife habitats as long as they are not subjected to postfire logging. Smokescreen confronts the devastating cost of current policies and practices head-on and ultimately offers a hopeful vision and practical suggestions for the future—one in which both communities and the climate are protected and fires are understood as a natural and necessary force.

Don’t miss the TV series, Dark Winds, based on the Leaphorn, Chee, & Manuelito novels, now on AMC and AMC+! The fifth novel in Tony Hillerman's iconic Leaphorn and Chee mystery series The corpse had been “scalped,” its palms and soles removed after death. Sergeant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police knows immediately he will have his hands full with this case, a certainty that is supported by the disturbing occurrences to follow. A mysterious nighttime plane crash, a vanishing shipment of cocaine, and a bizarre attack on a windmill only intensify Chee’s fears. A dark and very ill wind is blowing through the Southwestern desert, a gale driven by Navajo sorcery and white man’s greed. And it will sweep away everything unless Chee can somehow change the weather.