BOOK EXCERPT Chapter One “ Bloody Tuesday” Nineteen years old, with the long, skinny limbs of a colt, Jimmy Walsh crouched behind a lamppost and shivered in the early morning fog. He dropped the brick he’d been clutching and hesitated before picking it up again. "This ain't right," he said, just loud enough for his nearest comrade in arms to hear. "It's like waitin' for Beelzebub to unleash his hounds of hell." Several yards away, the wooden barn that housed the city's electr

BOOK EXCERPT 1812 The March wind was sharp and Will Fraser buttoned up his jacket over his wool waistcoat and thrust his hands into his pockets. He paused for a moment to look about him and allowed himself a rare smile. The sheds were weatherproof now, the barns full of hay, the yard newly swept and all the tools repaired and cleaned. He raised his eyes to the hills where he could just make out the sheep, white dots sheltering from the wind against the drystone walls that cri

WINNER OF THE 2025 BOOK OF THE YEAR from THE HISTORICAL FICTION COMPANY BOOK EXCERPT Chapter One The afternoon turned the worn hue of an old silver coin as Magdalena began the daily ritual of closing up the lonely château, which sat on a plot of cultivated land in the new-world colony of Penn’s Woods, not far from the western frontier. First, she checked the bolt on the front door as well as the one that led from the mudroom to her husband’s vineyard. Then she pulled the heav