Blazing Star Setting Sun

From popular Pacific Theatre expert Jeffrey R. Cox comes this insightful new history of the critical Guadalcanal and Solomons campaign at the height of World War II. Cox's previous book, Morning Star, Rising Sun, had found the US Navy at its absolute nadir and the fate of the Enterprise, the last operational US aircraft carrier at this point in the war, unknown. This second volume completes the history of this crucial campaign, combining detailed research with a novelist's flair for the dramatic to reveal exactly how, despite missteps and misfortunes, the tide of war finally turned. By the end of February 1944, thanks to hard-fought and costly American victories in the first and second naval battles of Guadalcanal, the battle of Empress Augusta Bay, and the battle of Cape St George, the Japanese would no longer hold the materiel or skilled manpower advantage. From this point on, although the war was still a long way from being won, the American star was unquestionably on the ascendant, slowly, but surely, edging Japanese imperialism towards its sunset. Jeffrey Cox's analysis and attention to detail of even the smallest events are second to none. But what truly sets this book apart is how he combines this microscopic attention to detail, often unearthing new facts along the way, with an engaging style that transports the reader to the heart of the story, bringing the events on the deep blue of the Pacific vividly to life.

Following the disastrous Java Sea campaign, the Allies went on the offensive in the Pacific in a desperate attempt to halt the Japanese forces that were rampaging across the region. With the conquest of Australia a very real possibility, the stakes were high. Their target: the Japanese-held Solomon Islands, in particular the southern island of Guadalcanal. Hamstrung by arcane pre-war thinking and a bureaucratic mind-set, the US Navy had to adapt on the fly in order to compete with the mighty Imperial Japanese Navy, whose ingenuity and creativity thus far had fostered the creation of its Pacific empire. Starting with the amphibious assault on Savo Island, the campaign turned into an attritional struggle where the evenly matched foes sought to grind out a victory. Following on from his hugely successful book Rising Sun, Falling Skies, Jeffrey R. Cox tells the gripping story of the first Allied offensive of the Pacific War, as they sought to prevent Japan from cutting off Australia and regaining dominance in the Pacific.

Author Jeffrey Cox conducts a thorough and compelling investigation of the Java Sea Campaign, the first major sea battle of the Pacific War, which inflicted huge costs on the Allies and set the stage for Japan's rout across the Pacific and Indian oceans. Few events have ever shaken a country in the way that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor affected the United States. The Japanese forces then continued to overwhelm the Allies, attacking Malaya with its fortress of Singapore, and taking resource-rich islands in the Pacific in their own blitzkrieg offensive. Allied losses in these early months after America's entry into the war were great, and among the most devastating were those suffered during the Java Sea Campaign, where a small group of Americans, British, Dutch, and Australians were isolated in the Far East – directly in the path of the Japanese onslaught. It would be the first major sea battle of World War II in the Pacific.

The Battle of Midway is traditionally held as the point when Allied forces gained advantage over the Japanese. In Islands of Destiny, acclaimed historian and military intelligence expert John Prados points out that the Japanese forces quickly regained strength after Midway and continued their assault undaunted. Taking this surprising fact as the start of his inquiry, he began to investigate how and when the Pacific tide turned in the Allies’ favor. Using archives of WWII intelligence reports from both sides, Prados offers up a compelling reassessment of the true turning in the Pacific: not Midway, but the fight for the Solomon Islands. Combat in the Solomons saw a series of surface naval battles, including one of the key battleship-versus-battleship actions of the war; two major carrier actions; daily air duels, including the aerial ambush in which perished the famous Japanese naval commander Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku; and many other hair-raising exploits. Commencing with the Allied invasion of Guadalcanal, Prados shows how and why the Allies beat Japan on the sea, in the air, and in the jungles.

After facing their first battle, the remaining mountain cats must seek the Blazing Star in order to survive a new threat: a deadly disease sweeping through their territory.

The first account of the naval battles that constituted the Solomons campaign from the beginning to the end.

Hector Goetz, Knight of the Blazing Sun, and his battle brothers fight to protect the Empire and Marienburg from an onslaught of Norscans and chaos. Original.

The village of San Isidro has been without its doctor for eighteen months. Moisés has remained a recluse, refusing to even look at a patient, since the day the army took his wife away during the country's civil war. But when a mysterious plague begins to ravage the countryside around San Isidro, the local parish priest convinces Moisés to take action. And when Moisés examines his first patient, he discovers he has the miraculous power to heal this plague with the touch of his hand. But among the thousands of pilgrims who flock to San Isidro, Moisés is forced to confront his past, and San Isidro the violence that tore it apart. A meditation on mourning, redemption, and revenge, Seven Spots On The Sun follows each character's attempt to come to terms with the extraordinary losses they have suffered and the miracles they have witnessed -- Back cover.

Discover the origins of the warrior Clans in the third book of this thrilling prequel arc from mega-bestselling author Erin Hunter. The Dawn of the Clans series takes readers back to the earliest days of the Clans, when the cats first settled in the forest and began to forge the Warrior code. The rivalry between Gray Wing and Clear Sky has driven a bitter wedge between the forest cats. As Thunder and Gray Wing struggle to find a peaceful path for the future, tensions are growing. What began as a misunderstanding between two brothers has spread far and wide—and now every mountain cat, rogue, and kittypet in the forest will be forced to pick a side. Dawn of the Clans #3: The First Battle also contains an exclusive bonus scene and a teaser to Dawn of the Clans #4: The Blazing Star.