"The Crusaders" is a novel about the the greatest military undertaking of the Middle Ages -- the Third Crusade. "The Great Adventure" tells how a monk named Roger leaves his abbey and joins the seemingly irresistible tide of knights and soldiers headed for the Holy Land. In 1187, the Muslim sultan Saladin destroyed the Christian army at the battle of Hattin and went on to capture Jerusalem. Three years later, a great crusade departs Europe, led by the kings of England and France and the emperor of the Germans, determined to reconquer the Holy Land. Roger is an English monk, abandoned at Huntley Abbey when he was an infant. Roger has never felt at home in the confines of the Church. He wants to see the world. He wants to be a knight and do great deeds, like his idol, Richard the Lionheart. He wants to help free Jerusalem from the Saracens. But he is bound by his religious vows and is forbidden to leave the abbey. Then he saves a peasant girl from being assaulted, and everything changes . . . Coming soon: "The Crusaders, Part II: The Siege"