Escape from Smyrna, a mystery novel set in Turkey and Greece, unveils the intertwining histories of three families, Anglo-American, Turkish, and Greek, bound together by an ancient necklace that incites violence yet has powers of healing and redemption. It is 1982. Four Swiss hippies steal a gold locket from a chapel on a barren Greek island. Soon after, it appears for sale in Istanbul's Covered Bazaar. Oran Crossmoor, an athletic 26-year-old American, buys the locket, recognizing it as part of a lost family heirloom, a necklace of four medieval reliquaries. When he shows it to Leyla Aslanoglu, a rich, witty octogenarian friend of his mother, she claims it as treasure of her family. But neither Oran nor Leyla has any idea that the answer to their conflict over the necklace lies in a dramatic escape from Smyrna decades earlier...

Escape from Smyrna

Literature & Fiction

Gates, Charles

Genre Fiction

Top Hat Books

An epic drama of world-changing events revealed through the visionary consciousness of Tatiana, one of the four daughters of the last Russian Tsar, Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra. This is Tatiana's story, told through her diary: from idyllic childhood in the last royal family of Russia, to brutal imprisonment at the hands of the revolutionaries; from her last-minute escape and secret exile in England - for which there exists actual historical and documentary evidence - to her fulfilment in love and eventual tragic fate as she disappears from history under an assumed name. Within the storyline of history, Tatiana's passionate and impressionistic diary entries are set against the gathering storm of the revolution and the ominous indicators of the Romanov family's impending doom - and against the machinations of the British establishment which decided her fate.

Lost Eagle

Steven, Ingman-Greer

Religion & Spirituality

Richard Longsword is a Mercenary. By day he works the desolate orange groves but by night he is in the paid servitude of the Grand Duke of Gandia, serving as captain of the Guardians of Guadalest, an elite group of warrior knights who defend the fortress of Guadalest. When the fort is attacked by men who claim to be enemies of Richard's father, it threatens to spiral into a whirlwind of events that will change his life forever. He is left with no choice but to embark on a perilous journey to not only uncover the truth but to save the lives of his family. A tale of love, loss and ultimate betrayal. Richard Longsword is a Mercenary, but this time it's not for money, this time it's for revenge.

Mercenary: Longsword Saga Book 1

Connor, R.

When Spiro, Maria and Anna Andrakis, a young immigrant family from Greece, are unwillingly thrust into the maelstrom of the Colorado Coalfield War (1913-1914), the most brutal labor conflict in American history, they must overcome a series of tragedies that change their lives forever. A Terrible Unrest is a novel of desperate bravery and horrendous violence, of unflinching loyalty, abject betrayal and human survival.

A Terrible Unrest

Duke, Philip

United States

Xerxes, the Great King of Persia invades Greece in 480 B.C. at the head of a massive army. Three hundred Spartans and King Leonidas die heroically blocking the Persian advance at the pass of Thermopylae. The Persians are poised to conquer all of Greece. The only one standing in their way is a woman – Gorgo, Queen of Sparta. Though history has relegated her role to that of a bystander, what if she played a central role in the Greek resistance to the Persian invasion. What if she kept her true role a secret in order to play it more effectively? What if she was hiding other secrets too – dark secrets of murder and vengeance? What if the only person who truly appreciated her genius was an enemy prisoner whom she has vowed to kill? What if after their victory, the Greeks started to turn on each other? What if, eventually, Gorgo had to choose between the security of Sparta and safety of her son? And what if the only one who could find a way out is the same prisoner who had once fought against the Spartans?

The Queen of Sparta: A Novel of Ancient Greece

Chaudhry, T.

Harold Godwineson, the Last Anglo-Saxon King, owed everything to his father. Who was this Godwine, first Earl of Wessex and known as the Kingmaker? Was he an unscrupulous schemer, using King and Witan to gain power? Or was he the greatest of all Saxon Earls, protector of the English against the hated Normans? The answer depends on who you ask. He was befriended by the Danes, raised up by Canute the Great, given an Earldom and a wife from the highest Danish ranks. He sired nine children, among them four Earls, a Queen and a future King. Along with his power came a struggle to keep his enemies at bay, and Godwine's best efforts were brought down by the misdeeds of his eldest son Swegn. Although he became father-in-law to a reluctant Edward the Confessor, his fortunes dwindled as the Normans gained prominence at court. Driven into exile, Godwine regathered his forces and came back even stronger, only to discover that his second son Harold was destined to surpass him in renown and glory.

Godwine Kingmaker: Part One of The Last Great Saxon Earls

Rochelle, Mercedes

As Munekazu awoke that fateful morning in October 1944, dawn offered no inkling that his life, or the lives of hundreds of thousands of other Okinawans, would be profoundly changed—forever. The American enemy’s bombs that rained down and exploded throughout the city that day razed seventy-five percent of Naha, the capital, and killed nearly 1,000 of its residents. No one, however, realized that this was but a prelude to the devastation that would follow only six months later with the U.S invasion of Okinawa, leading to the near obliteration of the island’s culture and society. Munekazu and other islanders would realize only too late that they were helplessly caught between two giant samurai fighting to the death—Japan and America—and Okinawa’s destiny lay somewhere in between.

A Destiny Between Two Worlds: A Novel about Okinawa

Fuqua Jr., Jacques

The Last Stork Summer is an account of Hitler's Germanization Program and how one Polish child, Eva, survives the designation of "racially worthless. It gives readers an opportunity to look beyond the obvious terror and intimidation of a Nazi labor camp. Eva uses everything Hitler is trying to destroy - her memories; appreciation of God's creation; Poland's culture; her love of storks; and a protective friendship - to survive being a Polish, Catholic child at that moment in time.

The Last Stork Summer

Children's Books

Surber, Mary Brigid

An amber bead. A gold and glass drinking horn. A ring engraved with Thor's hammer – all artifacts from a Germanic tribe that carved a space for itself through brutality and violence on a windswept land . Brimhild weaves peace and conveys culture to the kingdom, until the secret of her birth threatens to tear apart the fragile political stability. This is her story – the tale of Grendel's Mother. She is no monster as portrayed in the Old English epic, Beowulf. We learn her side of the story and that of her defamed child. We see the many passages of her life: the brine-baby who floated mysteriously to shore; the hall-queen presiding over the triumphant building of the golden hall Heorot and victim of sexual and political betrayal; the exiled mere-wife, who ekes out a marginal life by an uncanny bog as a healer and contends with the menacing Beowulf; and the seer, who prophesizes what will occur to her adopted people. We learn how the invasion by brutal men is not a fairy tale, but a disaster doomed to cycle relentlessly through human history. Only the surviving women can sing poignant laments, preserve a glittering culture, and provide hope for the future.

Grendel’s Mother: The Saga of the Wyrd-Wife

Morrison, Susan Signe

A tale of sabotage, subterfuge and political shenanigans set in that colorful, raucous place that was Jersey City in 1916 when America is on the cusp of war and the fate of a president and the nation might hinge on the decision a young policeman is forced to make.

Black Tom: Terror on the Hudson

Semple, Ron

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