Love and Honor

Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of Pearl Harbor and Oscar-nominated writer of Braveheart comes an epic historical page-turner: the gripping, unforgettable story of a patriot's secret mission in Russia to save America from certain defeat on the eve of the Revolutionary War. A brilliant soldier and passionate patriot, Virginia cavalryman Kieran Selkirk is summoned to a clandestine meeting in the winter of 1774. There he finds none other than Benjamin Franklin, who reveals that the British have asked Catherine the Great, the ruthless and mysterious ruler of Russia, to provide twenty thousand of her soldiers to help stamp out the revolution brewing in America. Such a force, fresh from brutal warfare with the Turks, would crush all hope of American independence. Selkirk's assignment is straightforward -- and astounding. He is to travel to Russia disguised as a British mercenary, offer his services to the Tsarina in putting down a Cossack rebellion that threatens her throne, and convince her not to join the British in their war with America. To succeed, he must cross savage terrain, battle starving wolves, avoid secret assassins, fight marauding Cossacks, and contend with a court of seductive young women. In a narrative full of passion and peril, of battles on horseback and wars within the human soul, Selkirk's mission meets with thrilling surprises, including a romantic face-off with the legendary Catherine herself. Told with the hand of a master storyteller, Love and Honor is perhaps Wallace's most ambitious project yet, taking readers back to the eighteenth century in a patriotic novel brimming with romance and heroism on the grandest scale. Exotically transporting yet deeply American, Love and Honor captures the fight for good over evil, integrity and compassion over cruelty, and true love over all.