In a time of Rasputin's magic and Romanov mystery, a young girl finds herself at the heart of the royal family. She was an orphan, ushered into the royal palace on the prayers of her majestry. Yet, decades later, her time spent in the embrace of the Romanovs haunts her still. Is she responsible for those murderous events that changed everything? If only she can find the heir, maybe she can put together the broken pieces of her own past-maybe she can hold on to the love she found

Set against the backdrop of the Dutch invasion of Bali just over a century ago, and the resulting "mass suicides" of the Balinese royalty, the moving story unfolds of the peasant Pak and his family and friends, and the tragedy that is their shared fate. Written within living memory of the bloody events called the puputan (the "ending"), Love and Death in Bali is the story of a passionate yet peaceful and deeply spiritual people who defy the Dutch imperial forces through an act that would bring them certain death—and certain rebirth. The looting of a Chinese trading ship gives the Dutch colonial forces the perfect excuse to intervene in island affairs, but they encounter astonishing resistance. In the battle of Badung, wave upon wave of Balinese clothed in white ceremonial garb charged into the blazing Dutch guns, kris daggers in hand, prepared to die. Who among them will survive, and how will their lives be forever changed? Love and Death in Bali , first published in German in 1937, is considered by many to be the finest novel ever written about this island paradise where everyone, regardless of caste or position, is woven into the fabric of an ancient culture, connected by customs and, above all, by strong religious beliefs. now reissued in a completely re-edited edition under its original title, with an introduction by anthropologist and award-winning author Nigel Barkley.

Israel, 1970s. Lily, a young emigrant student exploring the wonders and terrors of her new land, finds the man of her dreams -- Ami, a former actor. Handsome, intelligent, and exciting, but like his beautiful, disintegrating country, Ami has a terrible flaw -- he is an army interrogator. As Ami and Lily's unexpected passion grows, so too does the shadow that hangs over them. They must face the unspeakable horrors of Ami's work and their uncertain future. While set in the '70s, Ten Thousand Lovers is a brilliant and terrifyingly contemporary tale of passion, suffering, and the transcending power of love.

When Edna marries Dr. John Steele, she embarks on a lifetime adventure of anguish, loss, courage, and love.

From number one bestselling author Santa Montefiore It is 1925 and the war is long over. But much has been lost and life will never truly be the same again. Castle Deverill, cherished home to the Deverill family in the west of Ireland for hundreds of years, has burned to the ground. But young and flighty Celia Deverill is determined to restore the sad ruin to its former glory. Celia married well and has the wealth, after all, to keep it in the family and she cannot bear to see it stand neglected. But dark shadows are gathering once more, as the financial markets start to shake. And everything that felt so certain is thrown once again into doubt. A compelling story of family and history, from the author of the top ten bestseller Songs of Love and War . ***PRAISE FOR SANTA MONTEFIORE*** 'Nobody does epic romance like Santa Montefiore' JOJO MOYES 'An enchanting read, overflowing with deliciously poignant moments' DINAH JEFFERIES 'Santa Montefiore hits the spot for me like few other writers' SARRA MANNING 'One of our personal favourites' The Times 'Accomplished and poetic' Daily Mail 'Santa Montefiore is a marvel' Sunday Express

Marie de Gournay was eighteen when she read, and was overwhelmed by, the essays of the French philosopher Montaigne. She had to be revived with hellebore. When she finally met Montaigne, she stabbed herself with a hairpin until the blood ran in order to show her devotion. He made her his adopted daughter for the two months they knew each other. He died four years later, after which, though scorned by intellectuals, she became his editor. Jenny Diski engages with this passionate and confused relationship between 'father and daughter', old writer/young acolyte, possible lovers, using both their voices. Much of their story is about absence of the people they love. In Jenny Diski's hands it becomes a fascinating tale.

"The year is 1895, Jaffa. Salah Rajani, a troubled Muslim boy living in a dilapidated mansion surrounded by orange groves, suffers from peculiar visions about a disaster which is set to befall his people. His life is changed by the arrival of a handsome young man, a dynamic Jewish settler, new to the city, by the name of Isaac Luminsky. Luminsky covets both the fertile lands of the Rajani estate and Salah's beautiful mother Afifa, and his friendship with the boy is destined to lead to violence and tragedy." "This rich and colourful novel is made up of the two opposing journals of Hilu's intriguing and extraordinary protagonists as they negotiate love, honour and betrayal in the changing world of nineteenth-century Palestine." --Book Jacket.

"Rich and intriguing."— Kirkus Reviews on The Last of All Possible Worlds "Convincing and haunting."— Publishers Weekly on The Temptation to Do Good Best-selling author Peter F. Drucker wrote just two novels. Here for the first time in paperback are both. In The Last of All Possible Worlds , royalty, bankers, lovers, and wives intertwine to create a vivid portrait of Europe in the early 1900s. We meet wise and worldly Prince Sobieski, Vienna’s ambassador in London, his enchanting wife, her English lover, and her enigmatic lifelong companion, Josefa. When Sobieski’s illegitimate daughter makes a demand of her influential father, the unspoken rules of the family are challenged. Sobieski’s world is further upset when two powerful merchant bankers, the tragic McGregor Hinton and the ambitious Julius von Mosenthal, arrive in London—both with their own requirements of the prince. The Temptation to Do Good tells the story of Father Heinz Zimmerman, the well-regarded president of an American Catholic university. When he attempts to help a chemistry teacher who has been denied tenure he accidentally opens the door to the underlying tensions in the university.

A historical fiction that presents the life and loves of Jacqueline of Hainault, thrice married, thrice imprisoned and ransomed; the extraordinary 15th-century life of a women who endured the power politics of the courts of England, Burgundy, and France.

The first novel written and published in English by an American Jewish woman Published serially in the spiritualist journal Banner of Light in 1860, Cosella Wayne: Or, Will and Destiny is the first coming-of-age novel, written and published in English by an American Jewish woman, to depict Jews in the United States and transforms what we know about the history of early American Jewish literature. The novel never appeared in book form, went unmentioned in Jewish newspapers of the day, and studies of nineteenth-century American Jewish literature ignore it completely. Yet the novel anticipates many central themes of American Jewish writing: intermarriage, generational tension, family dysfunction, Jewish-Christian relations, immigration, poverty, the place of women in Jewish life, the nature of romantic love, and the tension between destiny and free will. The narrative recounts a relationship between an abusive Jewish father and the rebellious daughter he molested as well as that daughter’s struggle to find a place in the complex social fabric of nineteenth-century America. It is also unique in portraying such themes as an unmarried Jewish woman’s descent into poverty, her forlorn years as a starving orphaned seamstress, her apostasy and return to Judaism, and her quest to be both Jewish and a spiritualist at one and the same time. Jonathan Sarna, who introduces the volume, discovered Cosella Wayne while pursuing research at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem. This edition is supplemented with selections from Cora Wilburn’s recently rediscovered diary, which are reprinted in the appendix. Together, these materials help to situate Cosella Wayne within the life and times of one of nineteenth-century American Jewry’s least known and yet most prolific female authors.

"A nobleman and his wife, an apothecary nun, an astronomer-mathematician, an inquisitor, a poet who is both lover and villain, a portraitist, a queen and loyal servants deftly act out a beautiful drama of tantalizing relationships. They take up their roles in castle and convent, some surrounded by ornate interiors, garbed in velvets and silks, garlanded with precious jewels; while others abide in simple space devoid of art or representation, and dressed in plain linens and dull calicos. THE APOTHECARY'S DAUGHTER is a wondrous tale, rendered in erotic prose and poetry, stitched through with rich imagery, humour and tenderness. It is also a story of trade and exotic travel, both across the surface of the earth and among the stars."

"The story of a child of war torn from the country and home he knows and loves, amid the swirling confusion of political upheaval, violence and personal loss. Based on a true story about a young boy who was exiled to Siberia as a child during the Second World War"--OCLC.

Coney Island, 1939: On the eve of World War II, fifteen-year-old Harry Carzker spends his after-school hours on his bike, picking up betting slips from Coney Island carnival freaks for the local bookie and racing his imaginary sworn enemy, German Captain Ziegenbaum, whose ship menaces the coastline. His parents are in their own world: his father writes a serial novel for the local Yiddish newspaper by day and hangs out with other intellectuals at the Cafe Royal by night; his beautiful mother grows increasingly bitter, yearning for a glamorous life that is certain to be denied to the wife of a writer. As the lights of the Cyclone and Luna Park glow in the Coney Island night. Harry finds a surrogate family in the freaks and low-lifes. A premature victim of Welischmerz, "lovingly applied by loved ones, ignorant of its toxicity on the young", Harry ponders life, art, and philosophy with Aba, a Yiddish poet who boards with his family, yet he is unable to shake the dark foreboding of a disaster that finally materializes, changing his life utterly. Coney, soaked through with atmosphere and guided by an uncommon comic touch, captures the essence of a young man's coming of age in an extraordinary place and time. Depicting Coney Island in all its garish and gritty human spectacle. Amram Ducovny's dark and brilliant first novel has the stark intensity of a Weegee photograph, the heart of E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime, and the soul of an Isaac Bashevis Singer novel.

Lester (The Last Tales of Uncle Remus, 1994, etc.) offers a potentially controversial and intimate account of the life and death of a black civil rights leader as told 25 years later by the leader himself and the people who loved him. John Calvin Marshall—a fictional Martin Luther King Jr.- -speculates about the movement he led and its unintended consequences. Were the costs too high? As John grapples with this question, three casualties of the movement assess its cost to their own lives in an effort to free themselves from John's burdensome legacy: Andrea, the wife who resented his work during his lifetime and became a national symbol of it as his widow; Lisa Adams, John's white personal secretary and lover who lost everything when he died and she was thrust from the movement; and Bobby Card, the black organizer who sacrificed his youth and sanity for love of John. The three of them are reunited as Andrea lies dying of a stroke in a hospital in Nashville. Lisa leaves her mountain in Vermont to sit with the comatose Andrea and ask for forgiveness and perhaps for permission to move on. Amazingly, Andrea is able to give her both and, at the same time, free herself. In her turn, Lisa helps Bobby forgive himself for not hating whites enough, a terrible weakness in his mind. Lisa and Bobby leave each other with real hope for the future. The future of the movement is more doubtful, however, just as its past is ambiguous. The answer to John's original question is never stated explicitly, but perhaps hope can be found in the Andrea-Lisa-Bobby microcosm. Ultimately, however, Lester leaves John Calvin Marshall's question unanswered because it is unanswerable. A forceful and startling look into the minds and hearts of those involved in the civil rights movement, this novel raises compelling questions about the successes and failures of that movement. -

Roth tells the tragic story of Mizzi Schinagl, the daughter of a pipemaker, who has fallen in love with a nobleman and cavalry officer - a man of a much higher class. Unfortunately for Mizzi, Baron Taittinger, the object of her affection, has liberally bestowed his charms on too many others. Crushed by the Baron's promiscuities, Mizzi nonetheless finds herself pregnant with his son. Her reputation ruined by the Baron, Mizzi is forced into a bordello after being abandoned by her erstwhile lover. At the same time, the Persian Shah pays a state visit to the Kaiser. Desirous of an affair with an "exotic" Western woman, the Shah conspires with Taittinger to find a consort. When the Shah decides upon a court nobleman's wife, Taittinger must act quickly to deceive his friend from Persia. Mizzi, surreptitiously chosen for this role, soon finds herself enmeshed in an ironic series of calamitous events in which nothing is what it seems.

A witty and erudite love letter to a bygone age, from one of Europe's last great humanists. "A sparkling slice of eighteenth-century life" Paul Bailey, Independent In August 1785 Paris buzzed with scandal. It involved an eminent churchman, a notorious charlatan, a female fraudster, a part-time prostitute and the hated Queen herself. At its heart was the most expensive diamond necklace ever assembled and the web of fraud, folly and self-delusion it had inspired. In Szerb's last major work, a witty and often surprising account of events, the story is used as a standpoint from which to survey the entire age. Written in war-torn Hungary in the early 1940s,it constitutes a remarkable gesture of defiance against the brutal world in which the writer lived and died. Antal Szerb (1901-1945) was born in Budapest. Though of Jewish descent, he was baptised at an early age and remained a lifelong Catholic. He rapidly established himself as a formidable scholar, through studies of Ibsen and Blake and histories of English, Hungarian and world literature. He was a prolific essayist and reviewer, ranging across all the major European languages. Debarred by successive Jewish laws from working in a university, he was subjected to increasing persecution, and finally murderedin a forced labour camp in 1945. Pushkin Press publishes his novels The Pendragon Legend , Oliver VII and his masterpiece Journey by Moonlight , as well as the historical study The Queen's Necklace and Love in a Bottle and Other Stories .

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