Alamosa Public Library

War and Peace is a vast epic centred on Napoleons war with Russia. While it expresses Tolstoys view that history is an inexorable process which man cannot influence, he peoples his great novel with a cast of over five hundred characters. Three of these, the artless and delightful Natasha Rostov, the world-weary Prince Andrew Bolkonsky and the idealistic Pierre Bezukhov illustrate Tolstoys philosophy in this novel of unquestioned mastery.

Ship's doctor Stephen Maturin, a British intelligence agent, stands as the sole bulwark against the sabotage of his friend Captain Jack Aubrey's mission in Malta

"A desperate sea battle; a fortune risked on the turn of a card; a duel at dawn with the loser ... Patrick O'Brian meets James Bond. The year is 1803, and the British Secret Service is contending with a belligerent France under Napoleon. The service suffers a blow in the loss of a prime agent, Thomas Grey, who-despondent at his wife's untimely death-resigns from British Intelligence and departs England for Boston, where he intends to become a lumber...

"The classic first novel of the epic Aubrey/Maturin series, widely considered "the best historical novels ever written" (Richard Snow, New York Times). Ardent, gregarious British naval officer Jack Aubrey is elated to be given his first appointment as commander: the fourteen-gun ship HMS Sophie. Meanwhile-after a heated first encounter that nearly comes to a duel-Aubrey and a brilliant but down-on-his-luck physician, Stephen Maturin, strike up an...

Only one man stands between Napoleon's army and a British defeat-Major Richard Sharpe. A band of renegades led by Sharpe's vicious mortal enemy, Obadiah Hakeswill, holds a group of British and French women hostage in a strategic mountain pass. Newly promoted, Major Sharpe is given the task of rescuing them. On the other side of the pass, Napoleon's Grande Armée seeks to smash through and crush the British army in Portugal. Sharpe has only the support...

Richard Sharpe is twice a hero in Wellington's campaign to protect Spain against Napoleon, and is looking forward to promotion and eager to be on the leading edge of battle, but other conflicts ensue, including the need to protect his infant daughter and her mother, and the necessity to protect himself from a fellow officer.

After surviving the Napoleonic Wars, Sir Benedict Harper is struggling to move on, his body and spirit in need of a healing touch. Never does Ben imagine that hope will come in the form of a beautiful woman who has seen her own share of suffering. After the lingering death of her husband, Samantha McKay is at the mercy of her oppressive in-laws--until she plots an escape to distant Wales to claim a house she has inherited. Being a gentleman, Ben insists...

Shipwrecked and cast ashore in Japan with no memory of Temeraire or his own experiences as an English aviator, Captain William Laurence finds himself tangled in deadly political intrigues that threaten not only his own life but England's already precarious position in the Far East.

For as long as she can remember, Lady Adriana Sutton has adored Colton Wyndham, to whom she has been promised by an agreement of courtship and betrothal since childhood. The years have been immensely kind to Lady Adriana. No longer the plain, thin tomboy Colton had spurned, she has blossomed into an uncommon beauty desired by nearly every eligible bachelor in the land. To demonstrate his belief that love cannot be forced, Colton agrees to court Lady...

A lecture series on the French Revolution. The 25 years between the onset of the French Revolution in 1789 and the Bourbon Restoration after Napoleon in 1814 is an astonishing period in world history. This era shook the foundations of the old world and marked a permanent shift for politics, religion, and society ; not just for France, but for all of Europe