One bright spring morning in the woods of France, a soldier, blinded by the war, is found by a little girl named Coco, and her older sister Marcelle. In return for their kindness, the soldier tells the sisters marvellous tales, each story connected to the keepsake he carries in his pocket: a perfect, tiny silver donkey. As the days pass and they struggle in secret to help the soldier reach home, Coco and Marcelle learn the truth behind the silver donkey, and what the precious object means: honesty, loyalty, and courage. This is a joyful and enchanting novel for all ages.

By the middle of the second century BCE, after nearly one hundred years of warfare, Rome had exerted its control over the entire Mediterranean world, forcing the other great powers of the region—Carthage, Macedonia, Egypt, and the Seleucid empire—to submit militarily and financially. But how, despite its relative poverty and its frequent numerical disadvantage in decisive battles, did Rome prevail? Michael J. Taylor explains this surprising outcome by examining the role that manpower and finances played, providing a comparative study that quantifies the military mobilizations and tax revenues for all five powers. Though Rome was the poorest state, it enjoyed the largest military mobilization, drawing from a pool of citizens, colonists, and allies, while its wealthiest adversaries failed to translate revenues into large or successful armies. Taylor concludes that state-level extraction strategies were decisive in the warfare of the period, as states with high conscription and low taxation raised larger, more successful armies than those that primarily sought to maximize taxation. Comprehensive and detailed, Soldiers and Silver offers a new and sophisticated perspective on the political dynamics and economies of these ancient Mediterranean empires.

Ireland, World War One. Dashing Harry Heegan leads his football team to victory, arriving home in swaggering celebration before he grabs his kit and heads for the trenches. A nightmare world awaits, the men, reduced to cannon fodder, speaking in mangled incantations as the casualties stack up. Months later, Harry returns, a cripple at the football club party. Everyone but the shattered war veterans dance and forget.

As the wars of Napoleon ravage Europe, chaos and fear reign and the darkness that once clung to the shadows has been emboldened. Supernatural creatures – vampires, werewolves, ghouls, and worse take advantage of the havoc, striking out at isolated farms, villages, and even military units. Whether they are pursuing some master plan or simply revelling in their newfound freedom is unknown. Most people dismiss reports of these slaughters as the rantings of madmen or the lies of deserters, but a few know better... The Silver Bayonet is a skirmish wargame of gothic horror set during the Napoleonic Wars. Each player forms an elite band of monster hunters drawn from the ranks of one of the great powers. Riflemen, swordsmen, and engineers fight side-by-side with mystics, occultists, and even those few supernatural creatures that can be controlled or reasoned with enough to make common cause. The game can be played solo, co-operatively, or competitively, with players progressing through a series of interlinked adventures with their soldiers gaining experience and suffering grievous wounds, and their units triumphing... or falling in the face of the shadows. It is a game of action and adventure, where musket and sabre meet tooth and claw.

Caleb McNamara took one look at the golden hair beauty and fell like a ton of bricks. As a captain in the army he knew how to live hard and play harder. He's never found a woman who could keep him locked down for long, but something tells him he might've met his match.Melissa Jackson knew she wasn't society's ideal of beauty. After year's of her own mother's put-downs, she saw her healthy size as a detriment. It had been drilled into her head so often she knew that in this life she'd have to settle for the first nobody to show an interest in her, and be grateful to boot; at least that's what she'd always told herself. So how was she to believe that the movie star gorgeous captain with the amazing tattooed body was really interested in her? It had to be some joke between him and his army buddies. Right? She soon learns differently when Caleb pulls out all the stops to win her heart.

"Griffin's plot stays hot and moves at quicksilver speed." --Kirkus Reviews Two Americans in the just-born Office of Strategic Services take on their most important assignment during World War II: to extract--or eliminate--those Germans with the expertise to develop the atomic bomb.