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Carolina [02] The Story Keeper

*"Not since To Kill a Mockingbird *has a story impacted me like this." -- COLLEEN COBLE, USA Today bestselling author of Seagrass Pier Wingate is, quite simply, a master storyteller. Her story-within-a-story, penned with a fine, expressive style, will captivate writers and nonwriters alike. -- Booklist Successful New York editor, Jen Gibbs, is at the top of her game with her new position at Vida House Publishing -- until a mysterious manuscript from an old slush pile appears on her desk. Turning the pages, Jen finds herself drawn into the life of Sarra, a mixed-race Melungeon girl trapped by dangerous men in the turn of the century Appalachia. A risky hunch may lead to The Story Keeper's hidden origins and its unknown author, but when the trail turns toward the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a place Jen thought she'd left behind forever, the price of a blockbuster next book deal may be higher than she's willing to pay.Review"A gift for crafting a story. Lisa Wingate never disappoints." - USA TODAY"A novel of remarkable depth and power. Not since To Kill a Mockingbird has a story impacted me like this." -- COLLEEN COBLE**, USA Today bestselling author of Seagrass Pier Wingate is, quite simply, a master storyteller. Her story-within-a-story, penned with a fine, expressive style, will captivate writers and nonwriters alike. -- Booklist  Wingate's latest tale is beautifully crafted and has so many layers to appeal to readers. The plot moves at a quick pace to keep readers enthralled and turning the pages to discover what happens next. -- RT Bookreviews Magazine. TOP PICK "For anyone who enjoys master storytellers such as Adriana Trigiani and Karen White. The Story Keeper... transports readers across time." - JULIE CANTRELL, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Into the Free. "I am in awe of Lisa Wingate's talent.  [She] turns my gaze toward heaven's door." - DEBBIE MACOMBER NYT #1 Bestselling Author From the Back CoverSuccessful New York editor, Jen Gibbs, is at the top of her game with her new position at Vida House Publishing -- until a mysterious manuscript from an old slush pile appears on her desk. Turning the pages, Jen finds herself drawn into the life of Sarra, a mixed-race Melungeon girl trapped by dangerous men in the turn of the century Appalachia. A risky hunch may lead to The Story Keeper's hidden origins and its unknown author, but when the trail turns toward the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a place Jen thought she'd left behind forever, the price of a blockbuster next book deal may be higher than she's willing to pay. 
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The Bride Insists

Praise for Bride to Be:"The humor flows, the characters sparkle, and the enjoyment is abundant." —RendezvousShe Thinks She's Bought a Compliant Husband...Although Clare Greenough has inherited an unexpected fortune, her money is in the hands of a trustee until she marries—everyone knows a woman is incapable of managing funds. What she needs is an easygoing husband, right away...They're Both in for a ShockShe makes a deal with impetuous young James Boleigh, seventh baron Trehearth: they will marry, Clare will get control of her money, and Jamie will get the funds he desperately needs to restore his lands. To stave off ruin, Jamie agrees, believing Clare will soon become a proper, submissive wife. But to expect a serene, passionless marriage was only their first mistake...Praise for Once Again a Bride:"A romance that shouldn't be missed." —Library Journal"A superbly crafted story."...
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Undercover With the Earl

To capture the most eligible bachelor in London...London, 1838The handsome Earl of Somersby may just be the most eligible bachelor in London, but has no interest in a wife. As a member of the Brotherhood, Bennett Haile is far more vested in his undercover duties for the crown and protecting the Queen from would-be assassins. For now he has the perfect tool with which to lure out the villains-a young woman with an uncanny likeness to the queen.The spirited Evelyn Marrington is about to live out every country girl's dream-becoming royalty overnight. Under the tutelage of the arrogant Earl of Somersby, she'll have to fool the entire court that she is, in fact, the queen. But as danger threatens from every side, Bennett realizes that his lovely little protege isn't just placing her life in his hands... She's stealing his heart.  
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The Princes of Ireland

From the internationally bestselling author of London and Sarum -- a magnificent epic about love and war, family life and political intrigue in Ireland over the course of seventeen centuries. Like the novels of James Michener, The Princes of Ireland brilliantly interweaves engrossing fiction and well-researched fact to capture the essence of a place.Edward Rutherfurd has introduced millions of readers to the human dramas that are the lifeblood of history. From his first bestseller, Sarum, to the #1 bestseller London, he has captivated audiences with gripping narratives that follow the fortunes of several fictional families down through the ages. The Princes of Ireland, a sweeping panorama steeped in the tragedy and glory that is Ireland, epitomizes the power and richness of Rutherfurd's storytelling magic.The saga begins in pre-Christian Ireland with a clever refashioning of the legend of Cuchulainn, and culminates in...
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The Last Kind Words Saloon: A Novel

The triumphant return of Larry McMurtry with this ballad in prose: his heartfelt tribute to a bygone era of the American West.Larry McMurtry has done more than any other living writer to shape our literary imagination of the American West. With The Last Kind Words Saloon he returns again to the vivid and unsparing portrait of the nineteenth-century and cowboy lifestyle made so memorable in his classic Lonesome Dove. Evoking the greatest characters and legends of the Old Wild West, here McMurtry tells the story of the closing of the American frontier through the travails of two of its most immortal figures: Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. Opening in the settlement of Long Grass, Texas—not quite in Kansas, and nearly New Mexico—we encounter the taciturn Wyatt, whiling away his time in between bottles, and the dentist-turned-gunslinger Doc, more adept at poker than extracting teeth. Now hailed as heroes for their days of subduing drunks in Abilene and Dodge—more often with a mean look than a pistol—Wyatt and Doc are living out the last days of a way of life that is passing into history, two men never more aware of the growing distance between their lives and their legends.Along with Wyatt's wife, Jessie, who runs the titular saloon, we meet Lord Ernle, an English baron; the exotic courtesan San Saba, "the most beautiful whore on the plains"; Charlie Goodnight, the Texas Ranger turned cattle driver last seen in McMurtry's Comanche Moon, and Nellie Courtright, the witty and irrepressible heroine of Telegraph Days.McMurtry traces the rich and varied friendship of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday from the town of Long Grass to Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in Denver, then to Mobetie, Texas, and finally to Tombstone, Arizona, culminating with the famed gunfight at the O.K. Corral, rendered here in McMurtry's stark and peerless prose.With the buffalo herds gone, the Comanche defeated, and vast swaths of the Great Plains being enclosed by cattle ranches, Wyatt and Doc live on, even as the storied West that forged their myths disappears. As harsh and beautiful, and as brutal and captivating as the open range it depicts, The Last Kind Words Saloon celebrates the genius of one of our most original American writers.**Review“By turns droll, stark, wry, or raunchy, this peripatetic novel…will satisfy many readers who long for more from literary icon McMurtry.” (Keddy Ann Outlaw - Library Journal) “[The Last Kind Words Saloon] is never dull, and it’s also very funny. As always, McMurtry’s characters are plain-spoken but subtle and full of dry humor… Moseying along with McMurtry is always worthwhile.” (Adam Wong - Seattle Times) “The Last Kind Words Saloon is a beautiful, dreamy, deeply melancholy book, connecting legend and disparate threads of history in a seamless pastiche of tall tales drawn against the context of their real circumstances.” (Nathan Pensky - The Onion) About the AuthorBorn and raised in Texas, Larry McMurtry is an award-winning novelist, essayist, Oscar-winning screenwriter, and avid book collector. His novels include The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment, and Lonesome Dove. He lives in Archer City, Texas.
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Brain Wave

What if we were all designed to be smarter than we actually are? That is the premise of master science fiction novelist Poul Anderson's 1954 debut work, Brain Wave. Unbeknown to its inhabitants, the solar system has for millions of years been caught in a force field that has had the effect of supressing intelligence. When in the course of normal galactic movement the solar system breaks free of the force field that has held it in its sway for so long, gone are the inhibiting effects and a remarkable change begins to sweep across the earth.In fact, the entire world is turned upside-down and Anderson's novel is devoted to detailing the sometimes surprising, sometimes chilling aftereffects of this watershed event. In one of the novel's opening scenes, Archie Brock, a mentally disabled man, finds himself suddenly awash in new kinds of thought as he ponders the night sky. In another scene, a young boy on a summer break works out the basic fundamental foundations of calculus before...
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The Laughter of Carthage

Maxim Arturovitch Pyatnitski, or Pyat, that charming but despicable mythomaniac who first appeared in Byzantium Endures, is back in this second book of the Pyat quartet. Having fled Bolshevik Russia in late 1919, Pyat's progress is a series of leaps from crisis to crisis, as he begins affairs with a baroness and a Greek prostitute while undertaking schemes to build flying machines in Europe and the United States. His devotion to flamboyantly racist, particularly anti-Semitic doctrines—like his devotion to cocaine—remains unabated, and he both sings the praises of Mussolini and lectures across America for the Ku Klux Klan. Meanwhile, his best-kept secret is the fact that he is Jewish. As the novel ends, Pyat is in Hollywood—his new Byzantium—hobnobbing with movie stars and dreaming of making films like those of his hero, D.W. Griffith. This authoritative edition brings this book back into print after 30 years and boasts a new introduction by Alan Wall.
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