Coming-of-age gets complicated for winsome Lady Katherine Samantha Campion Talbert after she's shipped off to her uncle, the Mad Duke of Tremontaine (aka David Alexander "Alec" Tielman Campion), who reigns over a decadent world of erotic and political intrigue. At first Kate's frightened of becoming a swashbuckler, but after training with the duke's favorite lover, the dashing Richard St. Vier, and becoming friends with Marcus, Alec's devoted young assistant, she finds she's more than up for the task. Her skills are tested in her effort to avenge the rape of her best friend, Lady Artemesia Fitz-Levy, by one of her uncle's foes, Anthony Deverin (aka Lord Ferris, Crescent Chancellor of the Council of Lords). Kate's discovery that "Fear is enemy to the sword" and love is the key to triumph leads to surprising consequences.

Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future. Based on the movie Miracle in East Texas , this is the story of two aging, fast-talking hucksters: Doc Boyd and Dad Everett. These hard-luck con men make their living swindling widows during the Great Depression by selling them shares in sham oil wells. The truth is that they're selling hope and more romance than the widows they swindle have ever known. Once they've sold about a thousand percent of these fraudulent shares, they declare the well a dry hole and head for greener pastures. Then, miraculously, every lie they tell comes true. They hit not just an oil well but the richest strike in North America. They should cap the well, declare it a dry hole, and make their getaway. But then they would have to walk away from being honest oilmen for the first time in their larcenous lives. What follows is funny and poignant, romantic and inspiring. This tall tale inspired by an absolutely true story comes from a time when bums became billionaires and sinners became saints.

At their core, these stories are about race, nationality, gender, and religion, and how they affect our lives and our feelings about ourselves and our relationships with others. In some cases we wear disguises. In others we flaunt our backgrounds or make up new ones to enhance our circumstances. Who we are and who we aren't are the determinants of our fate.

This immensely powerful novel follows four generations of the Bindel family as they fight for survival in a hostile world. From imperial Russia in 1825 they head towards Western Europe, returning finally to modern Russia, where the persecution of the Jews continues. The Bindel family are knit by unbreakable bonds of love and loyalty, bonds which survive conscription into the Tsarist army in the 1830s, the Odessa pogrom of 1871, emigration to the Welsh valleys and Germany, the Nazis, the concentration camps, and the Gulags.

Benjamin Disraeli was a British politician who twice served as the Prime Minister and also became the Earl of Beaconsfield. Disraeli is noted for being influential as a politician and as a novelist.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Masahiro, a thirteen-year-old fisherman’s apprentice, is shipwrecked and rescued from certain death on Mujin-Shima by an American whaler, Captain Higgins. He learns whaling and becomes Americanized during the adventure-filled half-year-long ocean voyage from Japan to Massachusetts. Now, as John Mong, Masahiro is educated in the United States. He decides to return to Japan, in spite of the barbaric treatment that awaits returning expatriates. As a despised Banjin, he endures almost a year of torture. But due to the discovery of a small daguerreotype photograph in his possession, he is befriended by one of Japan’s high Lords. Over the ensuing years, now as Lord Tanaka Masahiro, advisor to the Imperial Court, he succeeds in bringing about the opening of Japan by Commodore Perry and the birth of modern Japan.

The world knows well the tale of Tevye, the beloved Jewish dairyman from the shtetl Anatevka of Tsarist Russia. In stories originally written by Sholem Aleichem and then made world-famous in the celebrated musical Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye, his wife Golde, and their five daughters dealt with the outside influences that were encroaching upon their humble lives. But what happened to those remarkable characters after the curtain fell? In After Anatevka, Alexandra Silber picks up where Fiddler left off. Second-eldest daughter Hodel takes center stage as she attempts to join her Socialist-leaning fiancé Perchik to the outer reaches of a Siberian work camp. But before Hodel and Perchik can finally be together, they both face extraordinary hurdles and adversaries-both personal and political-attempting to keep them apart at all costs. After Anatevka is a stunning conclusion to a tale that has gripped audiences around the globe for decades.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby ends after Jay Gatsby is shot and killed for a hit and run that he did not commit, as well as for his attempts to recapture the past. However, while the bullet's aim is still true, The Pursued and the Pursuing explores what might have been had it left Gatsby with another chance at happiness. Find it he does, although not in the arms of Daisy Buchanan. As Gatsby travels the world with Nick Carraway, his friend and narrator, he sheds wealth, performance, and glamor in favor of honesty, intimacy, and love. When Daisy writes to Nick a decade after Gatsby's brush with death, her frenzied reentrance into their lives threatens to stir up old grudges and longings, but the biggest surprise she brings is her daughter. At thirteen, Pam Buchanan is a queer, bookish girl who feels out of place as her parents try to steer her toward their standards of normalcy. Fortunately, Nick and Gatsby are more than familiar with the perils of being molded by others' expectations. A tale of chosen family, queer love, and a glitzy party or two, The Pursued and the Pursuing reimagines Fitzgerald's beloved characters and celebrates those with courage to live in the present.

The Blooded Coin-two Sherlock Holmes mysteries in one! Foreword by David Marcum, one of the leading voices in modern Sherlock Holmes literature and pastiche fiction. Christopher D. Abbott -- The Leopold Ledgers 1884: A prince's death sparks whispers of scandal as Holmes uncovers deceptions lurking at the heart of Britain's ruling class. But the deeper he digs, the more elusive justice becomes. Aaron Rosenberg -- The Unbalanced Scales 1904: A convicted man dies, leaving behind a cryptic clue-a single gold sovereign. The coin leads Holmes into a buried conspiracy, where fortune and betrayal are intertwined. Some mysteries refuse to be forgotten.

Twelve-year-old Aaron Broom is protecting his father's car from repossession when he witnesses a jewelry store robbery gone wrong. To Aaron's shock, his father, a struggling salesman in the wrong place at the wrong time, is fingered as the prime suspect in the murder. Aaron--precocious, plucky, not a little naïve--must seek out gangsters, diamond dealers, bootleggers, and street kids in order to prove his father's innocence. In his search for justice, Aaron draws upon the resources of a world-weary paperboy, an aspiring teen journalist, and a kindly lawyer. As they dig into the details of the case, these unconventional detectives reveal a cover-up that goes much deeper than a jewelry-store heist gone sour. Through it all, Aaron's optimism and resourcefulness shine through. Hotchner's latest is a rollicking ride through St. Louis at its lowest, as seen through the eyes of his most lovable narrator to date.

April 1945 - the last act of the war... The Allied stranglehold on Berlin is tightening by the day, as the escape corridor to the Bavarian Alps and the Swiss border is narrowing. In the maze of ruins that Berlin has become, a man of appalling ingenuity, with a ruthless sense of self-preservation, contrives his escape. He is the secret policeman Ernst Sch�ller. In his shabby, shiny suit with its sagging pockets, he is not immediately recognizable as someone of importance, but as the Reich Special Investigator he has long been checking up on the highest in the land, and there is nothing he doesn't know. Using his position of knowledge, he begins to bargain for his life with the Allies. The man with whom the bargain must be made is Allen Welsh Dulles, chief of the O.S.S. in Switzerland and President Roosevelt's personal representative. With chilling pragmatism, he sees that the longer the German surrender is delayed the deeper the Communist penetration of Europe will be. In order to stop Tito's seizure of Trieste, he is ready to talk to the devil himself. Sch�ller and Dulles, both professionals and practical men, arrive at an arrangement of expediency in Berne. 'A first-class political thriller, at once literate, provocative and exciting' - The Sunday Telegraph 'Blends fact and fiction in such a way that you really can't see the join. The final irony is profound indeed.' - Sunday Times 'Very convincing' - The Guardian Providing an accurate reconstruction of real life events, The Day Before Sunrise is a masterly piece of story-telling, recreating in minute detail the terrible last days of the Third Reich. Thomas Wiseman was born in Vienna in 1931 and came to England at the age of seven. He was a columnist on the Evening Standard from 1953 until 1961, when he became film critic for the Sunday Express. Later he wrote a weekly column for the Guardian. He wrote his first novel, Czar , in France after giving up full-time journalism. His novel The Romantic Englishwoman was recently filmed by Joseph Losey, and his study of Vienna under the Nazis received critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic.

"The Book; yes, their Book. They had no state, holding them together, no country, no soil, no king, no form of life in common. If, in spite of this, they were one, more one than all the other peoples of the world, it was the Book that sweated them into unity. Brown, white, black, yellow Jews, large and small, splendid and in rags, godless and pious, they might crouch and dream all their lives in a quiet room, or fare splendidly in a radiant, golden whirlwind over the earth, but sunk deep in all of them was the lesson of the Book. Manifold is the world, but it is vain and fleeting as wind; but one and only is the God of Israel, the everlasting, the infinite, the Jehovah."-Jud Süss, 1925. When Feuchtwanger's two best known novels "Jew Süss" ("Power") and "Ugly Duchess" were first translated into English in the 1920s, they caused a tremendous sensation in England and then in America. The critics all hailed Feuchtwanger as the master of the historical novel-the peer of Dumas and Scott but written with the psychology of our own day. "Jew Süss," set in the 18th century Germany (at the time consisting of numerous fragmented independent states), deals with an identity crisis: in order to gain social power, the novel's protagonist attempts to forsake his Jewish heritage and becomes assimilated into the mainstream of German culture. More than that, Süss finds himself being in the position of potential kingmaker. Brilliant, attractive and with an insatiable lust for power, he practically ruled the Duke and his court, pandering to the vices of dissolute nobility, mounting through his intrigues to dizzying heights of power. Süss's only vulnerable spot, however, is his precious, exquisite, gentle daughter, Naomi. When her beauty became exposed to the beastliness of the Duke, tragedy came swiftly after.

"I am Orpheus, the maker of songs. Great Apollo came to me often and instructed me in the art of melody so that what came from my lyre could touch the heart even of a stone, and when I went to my mother Calliope in her cave she taught me the secrets of making verses that would hold people entranced the way a magical spell might hold them. And so music has flowed from me all my life as though from an inextinguishable fountain, which is to say that there has been music in the world since the beginning of time and that music will endure to time's end, and beyond it to the moment of beginning again; and so it was that a shaggy-haired Thracian princeling entered into his role in the universe." Gifted with the golden lyre, Orpheus--rumored son of the god Apollo, and yet recognized as the heir of Oeagros, King of Thrace--tells us of the tale of his life as he writes songs throughout the known world. From his role as teacher and spiritual adviser to the Ciconian people, to the profound love and loss of his beloved Eurydice, to his quest with Jason and the Argonauts to claim the Golden Fleece, Orpheus' songs of his life experiences help him sculpt a world that, without his music, would be devoid of the passion and purpose only a muse of his power could provide. Aware of his own fate before he sets out, Orpheus nevertheless continues on the path pre-ordained for him, to discover if knowing your future prevents you from experiencing your present with a sense of wonder and immediacy that can allow Orpheus to connect with the lives around him in order to fulfill his destiny.

Marblehead is a huge work, encompassing all of 1927, a year in which H.P. Lovecraft, researching a book he'd been hired to write for the Nazis, travels the East Coast in the company of Charles Sylvester Viereck. It was written in the 70s but, except for a bowdlerized version published by Arkham House, was essentially lost until the early 21st century. This edition contains every word of the original 165,000 word opus.

CAN'T FIND A RATIONAL EXPLANATION TO A MYSTERY? CALL IN THE QUIET COUNCIL. The mysterious and glamorous Lady De Winter is one of their most valuable agents. A despicable murder inside a locked and bolted room on the Rue Morgue in Paris is just the start. This whirlwind adventure will take Milady to the highest and lowest parts of that great city - and cause her to question the very nature of reality itself. File Under : Steampunk [ Alternate History | Reptilian Royalty | Murder Most Foul | The World’s Fair ]

From the critically acclaimed author ofThe Memory Cathedralcomes perhaps the most powerful, haunting, and unforgettable novel of the Civil War--or any war--ever written. Provocative, poetic, and disturbing, it introduces us to a young narrator, Mundy McDowell, whose voice rivals any in literature, bringing poignantly to life the surreal horrors of battle and its spiritual cost to human survival. I was scarce twelve the day the damn Yankees invaded the valley. I seen a lot that day I ain't never gonna forget. Men blown apart, screamin' and dyin' all around me. I was wandering in the woods like I wasn't supposed to and wound up right in the middle of the battle. And that's what I suppose saved me. When I got back home the main house was burning to the ground. I saw two men wearin' bits and pieces of 'Federate and Yank uniforms. They killed Poppa right off, and Mother they dragged into the front yard before they killed her too. I reckon that was the day I first got the knack of being invisible. The spirit dog seen me right off, though. He was big and black and smelled like burning. His eyes were like red coals and everywhere he went, it seemed death followed. Him and me, we mostly traveled together after that. I passed through midnight fields of dead and dying soldiers, reeking makeshift field hospitals worse than hell itself; climbed into the mountains where the runaway slaves hid; and walked through towns shattered by the passage of the war. I met a lot of people, some of them living and some of them just memories. There was Jimmadasin, the slave who died on my account, and Mammy Jack, who taught me to see visions; the gallant Colonel Ashby, who let me ride by his side, and, of course, the mulatto whore Lucy, who saved my life twice. Last but not least, there was mad but brilliant General Jackson, who was probably responsible for putting more men in their graves than any other during the Shenandoah campaign. Whether he was a hero or a demon I never did determine, but I wish I had never met him at all. And through it all I remained silent. The power of speech left me the day my parents were killed and I first saw the spirit dog. You see, the whole time I was wandering through that valley of death I was deciding on whether to go back to being human or to become a spirit myself, and that's what this book is all about. From the Hardcover edition.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.