Audax the hero is a convinced military defender of the Roman Empire. The disasters that he undergoes (serious wound, captivity, loss of wife and children, and conflict with Aetius, his commanding officer) force him to flee to Visigoth territory and the protection of his former captor, King Theodoric. With a new life companion in his new surroundings, Audax becomes a powerful personage among the barbarians, and discovers unanticipated aspects of responsibilities and allegiances. His complicated life brings him into contact with such historic figures as Germanus of Auxerre, Lupus of Troyes, Hilary of Arles, as well as the mysterious Vortigern in Britain. In a stirring finish, Audax accompanies Theodoric to the battle of Mauriac, where Romans and barbarians join in thrusting back the invader, Attila the Hun.

Stones and the secrets they hold protect the Goodlands from the corruption of rot; only stonewisers are able to divine the stones' stories. When Sariah, the most gifted stonewiser of her generation, discovers her world has been based on lies, she forms an unlikely alliance with Kael, a rebel leader, and begins a quest for the truth--no matter how devastating it may be.

In the second book in the Auralia Thread series, the power of Auralia’s colors brings together a bloodthirsty beastman and a grieving widow in a most unlikely relationship, one that not only will change their lives, but could also impact the four kingdoms of The Expanse forever. Jordam is one of four ferocious brothers from the clan of cursed beastmen. But he is unique: The glory of Auralia’s colors has enchanted him, awakening a noble conscience that clashes with his vicious appetites. Cyndere, heiress to a great ruling house, and her husband Deuneroi share a dream of helping the beastmen. But when Deuneroi is killed by the very people he sought to help, Cyndere risks her life and reputation to reach out to Jordam. Beside a mysterious well--an apparent source of Auralia’s colors--a beauty and a beast form a cautious bond. Will Jordam be overcome by the dark impulse of his curse, or stand against his brothers to defend House Abascar’s survivors from a deadly assault?

"Hoyt has a fresh, invigorating style that grabs the reader immediately."—The New York Times At the 1852 Christmas party hosted by Tsar Nicholas I, the plucky half-Chinese, half-Russian poet Sonja Sankova decks Peter "Colonel Cut" Koslov, who is infamous for his necklace of ears taken from serfs and Jews. In London that same night, American Jack Sandt, the Matthew Brady of Asia, conspires with Karl Marx to con the tsar into letting Sandt take daguerreotype images inside Russia. So begins this immaculately researched, wildest of romantic wild rides, an odyssey of two lovers fleeing for their lives through the vast reaches of the Russian empire. The period detail is splendid: a supper with Ivan Turgenev; a visit with the craftsmen who designed and cut gems for the Romanov tsars; a ball in a frontier town in the Urals; a glimpse of life inside the yurts of nomadic herdsmen. With Koslov and his special unit, the Wolfpack, in hot pursuit, Sonja and Jack flee Saint Petersburg, cross European Russia, and go over the Urals, there risking their lives on a turbulent mountain river. Sonja and Jack take turns telling their story, as they fall in love and marry in a Siberian chapel. In a narrow escape, Jack shoots Koslov in the ankle. A sadistic Kyrghyz nomad grabs Sonja and spirits her away. Jack and a Cossack pursue the nomad and his men across the Asian steppe, but Koslov gets to him first. Koslov takes Sonja to a fabled mountain near Lake Baikal, where he is to retrieve rubies destined for a new Romanov throne. He waits, vowing revenge for his stiff ankle. Jack rescues his wife, and with their lives and a fortune of rubies at stake—and real wolves howl­ing in a blizzard—Sonja and Jack face down Colonel Cut and the Wolfpack.

'The master. Puts all other modern tree-writers in the shade' John Lewis-Stempel, author of Meadowland Thomas Pakenham is an indefatigable champion of trees. In The Company of Trees he recounts his personal quest to establish a large arboretum on the family estate, Tullynally in Ireland; his forays to other tree-filled parks and plantations; his often hazardous seed-hunting expeditions; and his efforts to preserve magnificent old trees and historic woodlands. Whether writing about the terrible storms breaking the backs of hundred-year-old trees or a fire in the peat bog on Tullynally which threatens to spread to the main commercial spruce-woods, his fear of climate change and disease, or the sturdy young saplings giving him hope for the future, his book is never less than enthralling.