"A novel of unsurpassed candor, punctuated by bold ruminations on love, marriage, family, sex, gender, and relationships, 22 Minutes of Unconditional Love depicts one woman's psychological descent into sexual captivity. This is the story of the extremes to which she will go to achieve erotic bliss--and of her struggle to regain her soul."--Jacket flap

In her delightful reimagining of A Midsummer’s Night Dream , Amanda Craig slyly serves up a witty cross-cultural farce, a modern-day tale of love and lies set against the magical landscape of Tuscany. When Theo, a workaholic lawyer, his English wife Polly, and their two children rent an idyllic Italian villa, they expect a relaxing summer holiday together. Polly, with her loved ones’ romantic interests at heart, has invited an eccentric mix of friends and family along--including three eligible bachelors, a former model, an Indian-British divorcee with a young son, and her own appalling mother-in-law. They soon discover the Casa Luna is a strange, enchanted place where people find their heart's desire—but at a price. Everyone falls in love, though not with the people they expect, and the results are surprising and hilarious.

With her trademark humor and insight, bestselling author Lois Wyse has written a moving collection of stories, anecdotes, and poems that evoke the life lessons we learn as we repaint, refurnish, and redecorate in search of a place to call home. She reminds us in this delightful celebration of the adorable honeymoon cottages, rotten first apartments, houses to remember (and forget), and mortgaged mansions ... all the paths to our dream houses, and to the lives and loves we make there. Nesting helps each of us remember that, after all, there's no place like home.

Fred and Sharon Cox are each having an affair with their Japanese tutor, and their moody teenager is about to run off with one or the other of their twin Salvadoran housekeepers.

When four members of a wealthy household are killed in their suburban Chicago mansion, shock reverberates around the quiet community. The only witness is a small child, and with the obvious culprit soon behind bars, it seems like an open-and-shut case. Enter Cameron Winter. Winter -- a spy turned English professor -- has a unique knack for solving complicated crimes. Despite the lead detective blocking his involvement, Winter discovers this seemingly safe suburban paradise is concealing something dark, something that people want to keep hidden -- and he will do anything to bring the truth to light.

Set in Jewish London in the 1930s, Susan Glickman's The Violin Lover is written against the backdrop of Hitler's escalating campaign against the Jews. This beautifully written novel tells the story of Clara Weiss and Ned Abraham, "the violin lover," brought together by Clara's 11-year-old son, Jacob. A successful doctor and amateur violinist, Ned is pressured to practice a duet with Jacob by the boy's piano teacher. Though reluctant at first, Ned is charmed by the young prodigy and surprised by Jacob's dedication and passion for music. In him Ned sees his younger self, so young and full of promise. A friendship is soon built on a mutual love for music. A dinner invitation to spend Passover with the Weiss family seals Ned's fate and a clandestine love affair begins. Although they both agree that no one must ever know — especially not Clara's family — their affair inevitably comes to a crashing end, with disastrous, life-altering consequences. Unfolding like a melody, The Violin Lover is infused with music and told in three voices. It is a powerful novel about the love one feels for family, friends, culture, faith and music, and the passion that comes with it — regardless of the outcome.

Not so long ago Emilio Brentani was a promising young author. Now he is an insurance agent on the fast track to forty. He gains a new lease on life, though, when he falls for the young and gorgeous Angiolina-except that his angel just happens to be an unapologetic cheat. But what begins as a comedy of infatuated misunderstanding ends in tragedy, as Emilio's jealous persistence in his folly-against his friends' and devoted sister's advice, and even his own best knowledge-leads to the loss of the one person who, too late, he realizes he truly loves. Marked by deep humanity and earthy humor, by psychological insight and an elegant simplicity of style, As a Man Grows Older ( Senilità , in Italian; the English title was the suggestion of Svevo's great friend and admirer, James Joyce) is a brilliant study of hopeless love and hapless indecision. It is a masterwork of Italian literature, here beautifully rendered into English in Beryl de Zoete's classic translation.

A collection of favorite poems. One of them is by Stephen Crane, who wrote: "I saw a man pursuing the horizon; / Round and round they sped. / I was disturbed at this; / I accosted the man. It's futile, I said, / You can never ̓/ You lie, he cried, / And ran on."

In 1920s Austria, no one in the Viennese opera company knows that their wardrobe mistress Tessa is really a princess. But when the dashing self-made millionaire Guy Farne arrives at the opera, Tessa realizes that there may be more to life--and love--than just music.

Planning a wedding can be a trying experience... A little prewedding anxiety is normal for every bride, and Manhattan attorney Brooke Miller isn't worried. She's got the loving support of the world's greatest guy, so planning her nuptials should be a piece of cake. But that was yesterday. Today, Brooke's landed her fi rst big case and has just discovered that the opposing attorney is none other than her fi anc?Jack. But that's okay. These two professionals aren't going to let a little courtroom sparring get their legal briefs in a bunch.... Right? Wrong! Now Jack's pulling every dirty trick in the law books, and Brooke's starting to suspect that maybe he isn't the man she thought he was. Warring with her fi anc?t work and at home, Brooke realizes that she'll have to choose between the case of her life, or actually having a life.

In 1955, New York Times bestselling novelist Harold Robbins shocked the world by pulling back the bedroom curtain to expose America's complicated and controversial relationship with the power of female sexuality. The concept was stunning, salacious... and breathtaking--a story not only built entirely upon the premise of illicit sex, but from a woman's point of view, as she uses it to rise to a position of power and wealth in a man's world. It was a seminal moment, and the literary world would never be the same. Fate, love, power, and sex collide in the halls of justice in New York City as ADA Mike Keyes comes face-to-face with his lifelong love, MaryAnn Flood, the city's most notorious--to say nothing of dangerous--madame. Before she was a tabloid celebrity with a little black book full of the names, though, Marja Fluudjincki was a shy young girl who captured his heart and never let it go. In the years since, she's parlayed her beauty into power and position as the head of 79 Park Avenue, an escort service catering to the rich and powerful under the guise of an upscale modeling agency. Now, with Marja on trial and Mike the prosecutor assigned to her case, they both face the biggest challenge of their lives. Is she still capable of love after sacrificing everything to claw her way up from the mean streets to the penthouse? Can he--should he--set aside his personal feelings for the sake of justice? 79 Park Avenue is a story of unanswered, perhaps unanswerable, questions, for society as much as its brilliantly nuanced characters. Why is the promiscuous man celebrated while his female counterpart is shamed? How can we revel in the sexualization of women, yet respect them so little? How much progress have we really made in the battle of the sexes? More than 60 years after its original release, the story of MaryAnn Flood remains just as relevant today, and this, more than anything demonstrates the genius and talent of Harold Robbins.

Ready to follow Nick Hornsby and Helen Fielding as the next big thing from Cool Britannia to hit America is Ben Elton. Already known to a wide public television audience as the funnyman behind Blackadder, The Young Ones, and The Thin Blue Line, Elton, author of Popcorn , lights up the literary sky with Blast from the Past . Part noir thriller, part hilarious send-up of the politics of extremism, Blast from the Past is the new novel from English comedy phenomenon (stand-up, playwright, television writer, and author) Ben Elton--a name soon to be known in all circles once Joel Schumacher's film of his book Popcorn reaches the silver screen. In the early 80s, when Polly was a seventeen-year-old ideological peace protestor and Jack was a U.S. Army captain stationed at England's Greenham Common, the two had a secret and very unlikely affair. No two people could have had more to argue about, save that they couldn't live without each other, yet one day Jack came to the conclusion that he loved soldiering more than Polly and sacrificed their love to be a career army man. Now, sixteen years later, Polly is a lonely thirty-something social services employee and Jack is a four-star general who has returned to Britain to find her, his only true love. With only one night to resolve their differences, and a knife-wielding stalker lurking in the shadows, for everyone concerned this will be a night like no other. From the Hardcover edition.

The glitter and cynicism of Rome under Mussolini provide the background of what is probably Alberto Moravia’s best and best-known novel — The Woman of Rome . It’s the story of Adriana, a simple girl with no fortune but her beauty who models naked for a painter, accepts gifts from men, and could never quite identify the moment when she traded her private dream of home and children for the life of a prostitute.One of the very few novels of the twentieth century which can be ranked with the work of Dostoevsky, The Woman of Rome also tells the stories of the tortured university student Giacomo, a failed revolutionary who refuses to admit his love for Adriana; of the sinister figure of Astarita, the Secret Police officer obsessed with Adriana; and of the coarse and brutal criminal Sonzogno, who treats Adriana as his private property. Within this story of passion and betrayal, Moravia calmly strips away the pride and arrogance hiding the corrupt heart of Italian Fascism.

Acclaimed for such Academy Award—winning screenplays as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and such thrillers as Marathon Man, not to mention the bestselling classic The Princess Bride, William Goldman stands as one of the most beloved writers in America. But long before these triumphs, he caused a sensation with his brilliant first novel, a powerful story of reckless youth that was hailed as a worthy rival to The Catcher in the Rye. THE TEMPLE OF GOLD Ray Trevitt is coming of age in the American midwest of the late 1950s. Handsome, restless, eager to live life and to find his place in the world, Ray hurtles headlong through a young man’s rite of passage–searching for answers and somewhere to belong. What he discovers is that within friendships and love affairs, army tours and married life, victory and tragedy, lie the experiences that will shape his destiny, scar his soul, and ultimately teach him profound lessons he never expected.

"You must read Bedelia"--the seductive black-widow thriller by the author of the classic film noir Laura (The New York Times). Charlie Horst has returned with his new bride Bedelia to his family home in Connecticut. Indulgently infatuated, Charlie is the luckiest man alive. What's not to love about Bedelia? She's gorgeous and complacent. She's also a gracious and ideal party host--luscious and decorative in blue velvet. And in public, she plays the part of worshipful wife to perfection. In private, even more so. Who can blame Charlie for overlooking her little deceptions? Or for not paying any mind to her contradictory claims about her past? When Charlie falls ill due to a freak poisoning, Charlie knows that Bedelia will be right his side, watching him closely. But who's watching Bedelia? "Vera Caspary wrote thrillers--but not like any other author of her time, male or female. Her specialty was a specific type that she pioneered--the psycho thriller" (Huffington Post) and this "sinister entertainment" (The New Yorker), is Caspary at her most chilling. Adapted in 1946 into a film starring Margaret Lockwood, Bedelia is "a tour de force of psychological suspense . . . Desperate Housewives meets Double Indemnity" (Liahna Armstrong, President Emeritus, Popular Culture Association).

"When your beloved daughter is lost in the fog of addiction and you make off with her baby in order to save the day, can willpower and a daring creative zeal carry you through? Examining the limits, disappointments and excesses of love in all its forms, this marvellously absorbing novel, full of insight and compassion, delights as much as it disturbs"--

Dinah Sachs and Asa Thayer have had a love affair, conducted in afternoons stolen from the office of the magazine where they work. But now that the affair is over, Dinah, in an act of lingering passion, invents a narrative of Asa's youth, imagining the events that shaped the "happy, handsome man" who, in her words, "was born to stomp on my heart." Witty and sexy, funny and immediate, Asa, As I Knew Him is a a seductive dialogue between love and memory, obsession and illusion.

One thousand years ago, chaos loosed itself upon Japan, upending an era in which the arts flourished. At the dawn of 250 years of civil war, in the opulent court of Lord Norimasa, the beautiful but cruel poet Lady Utsu wages war with men's hearts and holds the fearsome lord and his devoted samurai Matsuhito in her thrall. As the two men raze Japan's landscape in futile battles for unity, Utsu falls for Matsuhito even as Lord Norimasa continues to love her. The epic romance of Utsu and Matsuhito resumes itself decades later, when they meet as vagrants so transformed by time that they no longer recognize each other; they are reunited through their mystical connection to a pair of snow foxes that are their only company in the Japanese wilderness. The heartbreaking story of their renewed love is fraught by the Japanese concept of mono no aware--life's ephemeral nature--that weighs on the lovers. Reading group guide included.