DEFIANT BRIDE
From the first time Jasmine's eyes met those of Lord Jamie Cameron in a smoky British inn, theirs was the wrong kind of attraction -- not gentle, slow, and easy, but hot, hard, and all-consuming. The illegitimate daughter of an actress and a duke, Jassy had dreams no man could wench from her in a moment of desire. She's resist this bold nobleman with all the strength of her soul. But her golden hair, fiery temperament, and indomitable spirit obsessed Lord Cameron... and he wanted her with him when he sailed for the new wilderness called Virginia. So he had a bargain for the spit-fire Jassy, one that only a very special woman would dare to make... Views: 420
From the New York Times bestselling author of the Coulter and Harrigan Family novels comes a brand-new contemporary romance series about first love, second chances, and hope reborn…
After years of living in fear of her husband, Amanda Banning has left him and moved to Mystic Creek, Oregon, for a fresh start. But she’s having a tough time providing for herself and her six-year-old daughter. Writing her secret yearnings on slips of paper and sending them into the wind helps her cling to the hope that things will get better…and that she can find happiness again.
Jeb Sterling has no idea that the handwritten messages he finds scattered across his land are the first hints that his life is about to change. Nor does he understand why he feels so compelled to help Amanda Banning and her daughter when a cold snap leaves them temporarily homeless. Maybe he’s inspired by Amanda’s courage or perhaps by her beautiful brown eyes. Either way, the man who once renounced love suddenly finds himself willing to do anything for the pair. Amanda seems to have given up on her dreams, but Jeb refuses to quit until he makes her every wish come true… Views: 420
In the annals of American firefighting, the early 1800s were a dark time. Volunteer fire companies operated less as public servants and more as rival gangs: defying city regulations, extorting money from victims, sabotaging other companies to put out fires first, or letting them burn out of pure spite. Willard Sears, a Boston builder and abolitionist, set out to change all that, with a vision for a fire company that would bring professionalism to a field laced with corruption and violence—and gathered a ragtag group to follow him under the banner of Company Eight. Ultimately, Sears’ quest would pit him against the most powerful forces in the city, in a battle that would shape the future of firefighting in America. Writer Matthew Pearl delves into historical archives to bring to life, for the first time, a true story of courage and persistence. Views: 420
The Vampire Chronicles continue with a riveting, rich saga--part
adventure, part suspense--of Prince Lestat and the story of the Blood
Communion as he tells the tale of his coming to rule the vampire world
and the eternal struggle to find belonging, a place in the universe for
the undead, and how, against his will, he must battle the menacing,
seemingly unstoppable force determined to thwart his vision and destroy
the entire vampire netherworld.In this spellbinding novel,
Lestat, rebel outlaw, addresses the tribe of vampires, directly,
intimately, passionately, and tells the mesmerizing story of the
formation of the Blood Communion and how he became Prince of the vampire
world, the true ruler of this vast realm, and how his vision for all
the Children of the Universe to thrive as one, came to be. The
tale spills from Lestat's heart, as he speaks first of his new
existence as reigning monarch--and then of his fierce battle of wits and
words with the mysterious Rhoshamandes, proud Child of the Millennia,
reviled outcast for his senseless slaughter of the legendary ancient
vampire Maharet, avowed enemy of Queen Akasha; Rhoshamandes, a demon
spirit who refuses to live in harmony at the Court of Prince Lestat and
threatens all that Lestat has dreamt of. As the tale unfolds,
Lestat takes us from the towers and battlements of his ancestral castle
in the snow-covered mountains of France to the verdant wilds of lush
Louisiana with its lingering fragrances of magnolias and night jasmine;
from the far reaches of the Pacific's untouched islands to the
18th-century city of St. Petersburg and the court of the Empress
Catherine . . .
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Mireilles finds her world rocked when the Great War comes crashing into the idyllic home she has always known, taking much from her. When Platoon Sergeant Matthew Petticrew discovers her in the Forest of Argonne, three things are clear: She is alone in the world, she cannot stay, and he and his two companions might be the only ones who can get her to safety. Views: 420
RUMORS AND GOSSIP ... THE LIFEBLOOD OF LONDON
When Olivia Bevelstoke is told that her new neighbor may have killed his fiancee, she doesn't believe it for a second, but, still, how can she help spying on him, just to be sure? So she stakes out a spot near her bedroom window, cleverly concealed by curtains, watches, and waits ... and discovers a most intriguing man, who is definitely up to something.
Sir Harry Valentine works for the boring branch of the War Office, translating documents vital to national security. He's not a spy, but he's had all the training, and when a gorgeous blonde begins to watch him from her window, he is instantly suspicious. But just when he decides that she's nothing more than an annoyingly nosy debutante, he discovers that she might be engaged to a foreign prince, who might be plotting against England. And when Harry is roped into spying on Olivia, he discovers that he might be falling for her himself ... Views: 420
At the Logical Men's Society—an exclusive bachelor's club—brandy flows like water, bawdy stories abound, and a gentleman tempted to marry is always persuaded to reconsider . . .Brandon Balfour made the mistake of trusting his heart to the exquisite, strong-willed actress, Kate Addison, with whom he shared one intimate night before fate intervened. Now a decade later, Brandon is a leading member of the Logical Men's Society—for no woman since Kate has managed to captivate him.To Kate, the memory of that night still burns strongly, because it was followed by a stunning betrayal. A chance encounter may have brought Brandon back into her life, but that doesn't mean Kate will ever forgive him. She's vowed to make him pay—even as she realizes the promises of the young love they once shared are still etched upon her heart . . . Loving her exiled him. Trusting him ruined her. And now, a clash of passions threatens everything... Views: 420
The Deerslayer, or The First Warpath (1841) was the last of James Fenimore Cooper\'s Leatherstocking tales to be written. Its 1740-1745 time period makes it the first installment chronologically and in the lifetime of the hero of the Leatherstocking tales, Natty Bumppo. The novel\'s setting on Otsego Lake in central, upstate New York, is the same as that of The Pioneers, the first of the Leatherstocking tales to be published (1823). The Deerslayer is considered to be the prequel to the rest of the Leatherstocking tales. Fenimore Cooper begins his work by relating the astonishing advance of civilization in New York State, which is the setting of four of his five Leatherstocking tales. Views: 420
Boone's Lick is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry's return to the kind of story that made him famous -- an enthralling tale of the nineteenth-century west. Like his bestsellers Lonesome Dove, Streets of Laredo, Comanche Moon, and Dead Man's Walk, Boone's Lick transports the reader to the era about which McMurtry writes better and more shrewdly than anyone else.
Told with McMurtry's unique blend of historical fact and sheer storytelling genius, the novel follows the Cecil family's arduous journey by riverboat and wagon from Boone's Lick, Missouri, to Fort Phil Kearny in Wyoming. Fifteen-year-old Shay narrates, describing the journey that begins when his Ma, Mary Margaret, decides to hunt down her elusive husband, Dick, to tell him she's leaving him. Without knowing precisely where he is, they set out across the plains in search of him, encountering grizzly bears, stormy weather, and hostile Indians as they go. With them are Shay's siblings, G.T., Neva, and baby Marcy; Shay's uncle, Seth; his Granpa Crackenthorpe; and Mary Margaret's beautiful half-sister, Rose. During their journey they pick up a barefooted priest named Father Villy, and a Snake Indian named Charlie Seven Days, and persuade them to join in their travels.
At the heart of the novel, and the adventure, is Mary Margaret, whom we first meet shooting a sheriff's horse out from underneath him in order to feed her family. Forceful, interesting, and determined, she is written with McMurtry's trademark deftness and sympathy for women, and is in every way a match for the worst the west can muster.
Boone's Lick abounds with the incidents, the excitements, and the dangers of life on the plains. Its huge cast of characters includes such historical figures as Wild Bill Hickok and the unfortunate Colonel Fetterman (whose arrogance and ineptitude led to one of the U.S. Army's worst and bloodiest defeats at the hands of the Cheyenne and Sioux) as well as the Cecil family (itself based on a real family of nineteenth-century traders and haulers).
The story of their trek in pursuit of Dick, and the discovery of his second and third families, is told with brilliance, humor, and overwhelming joie de vivre in a novel that is at once high adventure, a perfect western tale, and a moving love story -- it is, in short, vintage McMurtry, combining his brilliant character portraits, his unerring sense of the west, and his unrivaled eye for the telling detail.
Boone's Lick is one of McMurtry's richest works of fiction to date. Views: 419
'Sometimes, Max, I imagine that I see you in her. Not in the sense of any physical inheritance, but a fleeting essence. Something wary and remote. Haunted, you might say. Though her ghosts are not yours.''Simply divine.'THE AUSTRALIAN'Faithless is a triumph, using a perfectly paced first-person narrative to unravel an obsessively complex love story with elegiac fluency.'THE CANBERRA TIMES'With a good chunk of the year still remaining, is it too early to say that I've found my favourite book of 2022? After reading the third novel by West Australian author Alice Nelson, it's difficult to avoid the temptation towards superlatives.'THE WEST AUSTRALIAN'A superb literary achievement.'ABR'It is maddening how deeply I have fallen for this story.'READINGSSet between India and England, Faithless is the story of Cressida, a writer and translator, and her consuming love for Max, an enigmatic older writer – and married... Views: 419
In this first novelette of the Magnetron Chronicles series, eccentric Nineteenth Century inventor Phineas J. Magnetron reveals his association with the secretive Hogalum Society. When his mentor and Society founder Dr. Hogalum dies, Phineas embarks on a daring and improbable caper to bring the good doctor's greatest dream to fruition posthumously, thus unearthing a haunting and compelling mystery.Phineas Magnetron is an eccentric Nineteenth Century inventor and former Union soldier whose war injury has unaccountably bestowed upon him a strange gift he doesn't completely understand. No stranger to peril and derring-do, Phineas is asked to join a secret organization of crime fighting adventurers by none other than Society founder, Dr. Yngve Hogalum.Traveling the globe in their Luftigel electric airship, Phineas Magnetron and his Hogalum brothers encounter mistrustful policemen, mentally ill criminals, wood-craving aliens, a witch doctor, a mad oracle, and a cross-dressing female matador, among many others. However, this "steam dream team" always manages to triumph over impossible odds and improbable obstacles as they preserve order in a disorderly world—with all the Steam Age weird science they can muster.The Magnetron Chronicles is a serialized steampunk tale re-envisioning the future of generations past with all the breathless melodrama and tumult of that Victorian-era pulp fiction staple, the "penny dreadful." The narrative harks back to the grandiose style of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, but gently satirized with a sprinkling of purposeful anachronisms, double entendres, tongue-in-cheek inventions, and droll Twainian humor. Adapted from "The Secret Journals of Phineas J. Magnetron," a web serial characterized by short chapters with cliffhanger endings, the story builds chapter by chapter, volume by volume, as quirky new characters join the fray and perplexing new mysteries and situations arise.The Magnetron Chronicles is a planned 12-volume series of novelette-length volumes. In this first novelette of the series The Magnetron Chronicles, we are introduced to Phineas J. Magnetron, an eccentric Nineteenth Century inventor blessed with a strange gift he doesn't completely understand. As a former soldier and current member of the Hogalum Society, an inscrutable secret organization of crime fighting adventurers, Phineas is no stranger to peril and derring-do. But when the Society founder dies, Phineas embarks on a daring and improbable caper to bring the good doctor's greatest dream to fruition posthumously. In the process, he not only horrifies his Society brothers, but unearths a haunting and compelling mystery. Views: 419
