Scotland 1546, and a preacher is burned at the stake. In revenge, a group of lairds infiltrate St Andrews Castle and murder the instigator, Cardinal Beaton. For a sister and brother - dutiful Bethia, living in the town outside the castle, and rebellious Will inside - the siege becomes a fight for survival. But it's also a struggle over loyalties and the choices they each must make; to save their family, or themselves. This debut novel closely follows the tumultuous historical events of the siege of St Andrews Castle, and its dramatic re-taking.

This Land is My Land is a historical fictional story about the life and adventures of the soldiers, artisans, and clergy under the leadership of Hidalgo Don Hernando De Soto beginning in the year of 1538 and coming to a tiring end in 1542. The theme illustrates the difficulty of men and women in the first exploration of La Florida and its damaging effects to new lands and the indigenous people who had founded the land many years earlier. It elaborates how exploration is irresistible to human beings and will always have its good and bad outcomes. They begin with about seven hundred and fifty men and women of various cultural and ethnic backgrounds, mostly Portuguese and Spaniard. The route of exploration went through Cuba, 10 states and Mexico ending with about two hundred and twenty-six survivors. The protagonist is the gold and land-seeking explorer and Adelantado Don Hernando De Soto searching for new lands and riches to aid in his own as well as his countries profits. After his death, Luis de Moscoso follows him as the leader to get the remaining explorers safely to the city of Mexico. It does not demonstrate a one sided wrongdoing but the unethical and unfair actions that come about when differently cultivated humans meet. It is not a heartwarming story of great adventures, which leads to a Thanksgiving. It describes the four-year march across the interior of todays southeastern United States based on information the author gathered from translations of four of the original notes and writing of the original company.

Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, (1478–1557), warden of the fortress and port of Santo Domingo of the Island of Hispaniola, also served his emperor, Charles V, as the official chronicler of the first half-century of the Spanish presence in the New World. His monumental General y Natural Historia de las Indias, consisting of three parts, with fifty books, hundreds of chapters and thousands of pages, is still a major primary source for researchers of the period 1492–1548. Part One, consisting of 19 books, was first published in 1535, then reprinted and augmented in 1547, with a third edition, including Book XX, the first book of Part II, appearing in Valladolid in 1557. Book XX, which was printed separately in Valladolid in 1557 (the year of Oviedo’s death), concerns the first three Spanish voyages to the East Indies. While it might be expected that the narrative of Magellan’s voyage would predominate in Book XX, Oviedo devoted only the first four chapters to this monumental voyage. The remaining thirty–one concern the two subsequent and little-known Spanish follow-up expeditions to the Moluccas 1525-35. The first, initially led by García Jofre de Loaysa, set out from Coruña to follow Magellan’s route through the Strait and across the Pacific. A second relief expedition under Alvaro Saavedra was sent out in search of Loaysa’s company from the Pacific coast of New Spain in 1527. In each venture only one vessel reached the Spice Islands. Oviedo’s narrative offers many details of the 10 years of hardships and conflict with the Portuguese, endured by the stoic Spanish, and of the growing unrest it provoked among their indigenous hosts. The news that Charles V had pawned his claim to the King João III of Portugal allowed a very few of the Spaniards to negotiate a passage back to Spain via Lisbon, while others remained in Portuguese settlements in the East Indies. The reports made by the returnees to the Consejo de Indias were integrated by Oviedo into his narrative, expanded and enriched by personal interviews. His chronicle includes much information about the indigenous culture, commerce, geography and of the exotic fauna and flora of the Spice Islands.

A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion 1400-1668 provides an accessible survey of how the Portuguese became so influential during this period and how Portuguese settlements were founded in areas as far flung as Asia, Africa and South America. Malyn Newitt examines how the ideas and institutions of a late medieval society were deployed to aid expansion into Africa and the Atlantic islands, as well as how, through rivalry with Castile, this grew into a worldwide commercial enterprise. Finally, he considers how resilient the Portuguese overseas communities were, surviving wars and natural disasters, and fending off attacks by the more heavily armed English and Dutch invaders until well into the 1600s. Including a detailed bibliography and glossary, A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion 1400-1668 is an invaluable textbook for all those studying this fascinating period of European expansion

Drawing on newly discovered sources and writing with brilliance, drama, and profound historical insight, Hugh Thomas presents an engrossing narrative of one of the most significant events of Western history. Ringing with the fury of two great empires locked in an epic battle, Conquest captures in extraordinary detail the Mexican and Spanish civilizations and offers unprecedented in-depth portraits of the legendary opponents, Montezuma and Cortés. Conquest is an essential work of history from one of our most gifted historians.