Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Barbara W. Tuchman, author of the World War I masterpiece The Guns of August, grapples with her boldest subject: the pervasive presence, through the ages, of failure, mismanagement, and delusion in government.   Drawing on a comprehensive array of examples, from Montezuma’s senseless surrender of his empire in 1520 to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Barbara W. Tuchman defines folly as the pursuit by government of policies contrary to their own interests, despite the availability of feasible alternatives. In brilliant detail, Tuchman illuminates four decisive turning points in history that illustrate the very heights of folly: the Trojan War, the breakup of the Holy See provoked by the Renaissance popes, the loss of the American colonies by Britain’s George III, and the United States’ own persistent mistakes in Vietnam. Throughout The March of Folly, Tuchman’s incomparable talent for animating the people, places, and events of history is on spectacular display. Praise for The March of Folly “A glittering narrative . . . a moral [book] on the crimes and follies of governments and the misfortunes the governed suffer in consequence.” —The New York Times Book Review*  * “An admirable survey . . . I haven’t read a more relevant book in years.”—John Kenneth Galbraith, The Boston Sunday Globe  * “A superb chronicle . . . a masterly examination.” —Chicago Sun-Times * From the Trade Paperback edition.

Intelligent, sensitive, and fiercely passionate, Martha Quest is a young woman living on a farm in Africa, feeling her way through the torments of adolescence and early womanhood. She is a romantic idealistic in revolt against the puritan snobbery of her parents, trying to live to the full with every nerve, emotion, and instinct laid bare to experience. For her, this is a time of solitary reading daydreams, dancing -- and the first disturbing encounters with sex. The first of Doris Lessing's timeless Children of Violence novels, Martha Quest is an endearing masterpiece.

His mate has collided with his life -- but her past is a blank and her future is in danger. Can he save her? Connor Milton has given up looking for his mate after years of searching. But when a woman crashes her car into a tree on his ranch not long before Christmas, he’s certain he’s finally found her. There’s one big problem--she doesn’t know who she is. Mia Royce can’t remember anything about her past or where she was going the night before. Connor seems like the perfect man, but how can she move forward with her life when she doesn’t know where she came from? When Mia finally accepts Connor as her mate, she remembers everything. But it’s too late--the bad men she was running away from that night have found her. Can her mate defend her, or is her past too dangerous to overcome?

Chicago Stars quarterback Dean Robillard is the luckiest man in the world: a bona-fide sports superstar and the pride of the NFL with a profitable side career as a buff billboard model for End Zone underwear. But life in the glory lane has started to pale, and Dean has set off on a cross-country trip to figure out what's gone wrong. When he hits a lonely stretch of Colorado highway, he spies something that will shake up his gilded life in ways he can't imagine. A young woman . . . dressed in a beaver suit. Blue Bailey is on a mission to murder her ex. Or at least inflict serious damage. As for the beaver suit she's wearing . . . Is it her fault that life keeps throwing her curveballs? Witness the expensive black sports car pulling up next to her on the highway and the Greek god stepping out of it. Blue's career as a portrait painter is the perfect job for someone who refuses to stay in one place for very long. She needs a ride, and America's most famous football player has an imposing set of wheels. Now, all she has to do is keep him entertained, off guard, and fully clothed before he figures out exactly how desperate she is. But Dean isn't the brainless jock she imagines, and Blue—despite her petite stature—is just about the toughest woman Dean has ever met. They're soon heading for his summer home where their already complicated lives and inconvenient attraction to each other will become entangled with a charismatic but aging rock star; a beautiful fifty-two-year-old woman trying to make peace with her rock and roll past; an eleven-year-old who desperately needs a family; and a bitter old woman who hates them all. As the summer progresses, the wandering portrait artist and the charming football star play a high-stakes game, fighting themselves and each other for a chance to have it all. Natural Born Charmer is for everyone who's ever thought about leaving their old life in the dust and never looking back. New York Times bestselling author Susan Elizabeth Phillips takes us home again . . . and shows us where love truly lives

*First kisses sometimes wake slumbering princesses, undo spells, and spark happily ever afters. Mine broke Bale.* Seventeen-year-old Snow has spent her life locked in Whittaker Psychiatric—but she isn’t crazy. And that’s not the worst of it. Her very first kiss proves anything but innocent…when Bale, her only love, turns violent. Despite Snow knowing that Bale would never truly hurt her, he is taken away—dashing her last hope for any sort of future in the mental ward she calls home. With nowhere else to turn, Snow finds herself drawn to a strange new orderly who whispers secrets in the night about a mysterious past and a kingdom that’s hers for the taking—if only she can find her way past the iron gates to the Tree that has been haunting her dreams. Beyond the Tree lies Algid, a land far away from the real world, frozen by a ruthless king. And there too await the River Witch, a village boy named Kai, the charming thief Jagger, and a prophecy that Snow will save them all.

The classic ghost story by Susan Hill: a chilling tale about a menacing spectre haunting a small English town. Arthur Kipps is an up-and-coming London solicitor who is sent to Crythin Gifford—a faraway town in the windswept salt marshes beyond Nine Lives Causeway—to attend the funeral and settle the affairs of a client, Mrs. Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House. Mrs. Drablow’s house stands at the end of the causeway, wreathed in fog and mystery, but Kipps is unaware of the tragic secrets that lie hidden behind its sheltered windows. The routine business trip he anticipated quickly takes a horrifying turn when he finds himself haunted by a series of mysterious sounds and images—a rocking chair in a deserted nursery, the eerie sound of a pony and trap, a child’s scream in the fog, and, most terrifying of all, a ghostly woman dressed all in black. Psychologically terrifying and deliciously eerie, The Woman in Black is a remarkable thriller of the first rate.

In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past forever. Ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, on a different battleground, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat. A bill of reckoning is due, and she finally begins to realize that there is no action without consequence. Transcription is a work of rare depth and texture, a bravura modern novel of extraordinary power, wit and empathy. It is a triumphant work of fiction from one of the best writers of our time.

A celebration of an indomitable spirit, here is New York Times bestselling author Barbara Taylor Bradford's dazzling saga of a woman who dared to dream--and to triumph against all odds... In the brooding moors above a humble Yorkshire village stood Fairley Hall. There, Emma Harte, its oppressed but resourceful servant girl, acquired a shrewd determination. There, she honed her skills, discovered the meaning of treachery, learned to survive, to become a woman, and vowed to make her mark on the world. In the wake of tragedy she rose from poverty to magnificent wealth as the iron-willed force behind a thriving international enterprise. As one of the richest women in the world Emma Harte has almost everything she fought so hard to achieve--save for the dream of love, and for the passion of the one man she could never have. Through two marriages, two devastating wars, and generations of secrets, Emma's unparalleled success has come with a price. As greed, envy, and revenge consume those closest to her, the brilliant matriarch now finds herself poised to outwit her enemies, and to face the betrayals of the past with the same ingenious resolve that forged her empire.

In this sequel to Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller returns to Africa and the story of her unforgettable family. In Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, Alexandra Fuller braids a multilayered narrative around the perfectly lit, Happy Valley-era Africa of her mother's childhood; the boiled cabbage grimness of her father's English childhood; and the darker, civil war-torn Africa of her own childhood. At its heart, this is the story of Fuller's mother, Nicola. Born on the Scottish Isle of Skye and raised in Kenya, Nicola holds dear the kinds of values most likely to get you hurt or killed in Africa: loyalty to blood, passion for land, and a holy belief in the restorative power of all animals. Fuller interviewed her mother at length and has captured her inimitable voice with remarkable precision. Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is as funny, terrifying, exotic, and unselfconscious as Nicola herself. We see Nicola and Tim Fuller in their lavender-colored honeymoon period, when East Africa lies before them with all the promise of its liquid equatorial light, even as the British Empire in which they both believe wanes. But in short order, an accumulation of mishaps and tragedies bump up against history until the couple finds themselves in a world they hardly recognize. We follow the Fullers as they hopscotch the continent, running from war and unspeakable heartbreak, from Kenya to Rhodesia to Zambia, even returning to England briefly. But just when it seems that Nicola has been broken entirely by Africa, it is the African earth itself that revives her. A story of survival and madness, love and war, loyalty and forgiveness, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is an intimate exploration of the author's family. In the end, we find Nicola and Tim at a coffee table under their Tree of Forgetfulness on the banana and fish farm where they plan to spend their final days. In local custom, the Tree of Forgetfulness is where villagers meet to resolve disputes and it is here that the Fullers at last find an African kind of peace. Following the ghosts and dreams of memory, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is Alexandra Fuller at her very best.

Suffering is worst when you're doing it alone. But Emma's taking Hell like an angel-even though her languishing began with having her seraph wings torn from her back. Now her worst enemy lords his body and his evil desires over her while she tries desperately to remember the words to her favorite prayer. As Devil, Jack used to have Hell and its women humming like well-oiled machines. Too bad he's nowhere near the place now. Stuck on Earth as a human, he must work with a ragtag team of exiled minions and half-breeds to save the angel who's become all that matters. Rescuing a seraph is the plan, but breaking into Hell means letting evil things out. Once they collide, minions and angels converge in the battle of the ages: good versus evil. But which side is which? Will Jack destroy the world as he fights to save Emma, his true and timeless love, from a damnation he designed? An action-packed sequel to Crushed Seraphim, this tale reveals-time and again-what happens when the heart's deepest desires break free. With a story both sizzling and sensual, emotional and enigmatic, Debra Anastasia invites readers to join a battle with nothing less than love on the line.

To summon an Angel of Hell… Ruxandra Dracula, a 250-year-old vampire, wants nothing to do with the fallen angel that created her. But when fellow vampire Kade tells her a group of magicians in Moscow is going to summon that angel, Ruxandra knows she must try to stop them. In Moscow, Ruxandra finds herself caught in a web of political and supernatural intrigue. Empress Anna of Russia wants the vampires to be her spies. Her secret police have magic that is nearly impossible to defeat. A cadre of Russian nobles wants them to kill the empress. And the Alchemist, the beautiful, whip-smart leader of the magicians, wants Ruxandra as more than just an experimental subject. As the magicians prepare to summon the fallen angel, Ruxandra must choose: will she kill them to keep the angel from coming, or face the angel and find out her purpose on the earth?

Fourth in "an intense fascinating epic"* of high action and fantasy adventure. Inda, fresh from his triumph on the battlefield against the Venn, takes his place beside King Evred as Harskialdna, the King's Shield. But the Venn are far from defeated and only Inda's fame is strong enough to inspire all the squabbling kingdoms to unite and raise a force mighty enough to protect the strait and repel the enemy. Evred has also ordered Inda to take over the strait once the battle is won, but Inda, a former pirate, knows that this is a very bad idea. Now Inda must choose between obeying his liege-or committing treason.

Twelve-year-old Henry York wakes up one night to find bits of plaster in his hair. Two knobs have broken through the wall above his bed and one of them is slowly turning . . .Henry scrapes the plaster off the wall and discovers cupboards of all different sizes and shapes. Through one he can hear the sound of falling rain. Through another he sees a glowing room–with a man pacing back and forth! Henry soon understands that these are not just cupboards, but portals to other worlds. 100 Cupboards is the first book of a new fantasy adventure, written in the best world-hopping tradition and reinvented in N. D. Wilson’s inimitable style. From the Hardcover edition.

Fiercely proud of her independence, Brenna Sloan felt her assurance crumble under Michael Donovan's forceful approach. They were both fighters--but Brenna wasn't strong enough to reach out for the love she needed, and Michael knew only how to take--until he met Brenna. With tantalizing persuasion, he overcame her objections, urged her into a sudden marriage, and carried her away. Only after a heartbreaking misunderstanding nearly destroyed their happiness did they surrender to the fiery ecstasy of their passion. But could Michael convince Brenna that his promise to love her was forever?

Usually Araminta gets blamed when something's amiss in Spookie House. But this time she had nothing to do with the disappearance of Barry Wizzard's frogs, and she is determined to find them. It's not going to be that easy, especially when dealing with a crazy character named Old Morris, a dangerous shark, and a demanding aquarium show audience. Can Araminta find the frogs and steal the show?

In this Lily Bard mystery from #1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris, Shakespeare, Arkansas’ favorite sleuth has to clean up after a clever killer.Cleaning lady Lily Bard is a pro when it comes to keeping the exteriors of her small town absolutely spotless. But it’s the dirt below the surface that really keeps her busy. Even Lily herself has her share of secrets...   That’s why she’s joined a weekly group therapy session—to open up and finally face the past. That sounds positively enlightening, until the gruesome murder of a fellow member sends a terrifying warning. But which person in the group is the message meant for? Why? And who next will suffer the consequences of a killer’s head games?

When high school student Derrick Booker, the only black student at a posh Orange County high school, is accused of killing his white girlfriend, ex-college football hero and detective Jim Knighthorse is hired to dig a little deeper into the murder. It doesn't take long for Knighthorse to realize that not all is as it seems at tranquil Huntington High, from a band director who preys on the innocent to a vice-principal with a secret agenda of her own. Not to mention someone's hired a professional killer to keep Knighthorse permanently off the case. As the investigation continues, Knighthorse's personal life is shattered by the discovery of new evidence relating to his mother's unsolved murder, a murder dating back twenty years. Reeling from the discovery, a determined Jim Knighthorse sets out to bring two killers to justice.

JUST BECAUSE YOU WORK FOR THE DEAD DOESN’T MEAN YOU WANT TO JOIN THEM. Drew has just started her second year on the Isle of Night, and the weather isn’t the only thing changing drastically. She has ascended to the rank of Initiate. She’s also found an intimate love in the handsome vampire, Carden. But most of all, she no longer dreams of escape. She dreams of vengeance. Her friend, Emma, was brutally wounded by the savage vampire Alcántara, and may have been taken to the dreaded castle, from which none of the living return. But there are so many different stories from so many people with so many of their own deceits and machinations, Drew can’t be sure of anything—except that she must find a way into the castle to discover the truth and take down Alcántara once and for all. But Drew isn’t the only one out for revenge. Someone very dangerous on the island is also out for blood… Hers…

The story of this utopian novel takes up immediately after the events of the novel “Looking Backward” with the main characters from the first novel, Julian West, Doctor Leete, and his daughter Edith. West tells his nightmare of return to the 19th century to Edith, who is sympathetic. West’s citizenship in the new America is recognized, and he goes to the bank to obtain his own account, or “credit card,” from which he can draw his equal share of the national product. He learns that Edith and her mother do not normally wear the long skirts he has seen them in (they had been wearing them so as not to offend his 19th century sensibilities): when Julian tells Edith that he would not be shocked to see them dressed in the modern fashion, Edith immediately runs into the house and comes out dressed in a pants suit. Clothing has revolutionised and is now made of strengthened paper, recycled when dirty, and replaced at very little cost (shoes and dishes are made of variations on the same substance). Julian learns that women are free to compete in many of the same trades as men; the manager of the paper factory he visits with Edith is a woman. Edith herself is in the second year of the three year general labor period required of everyone before choosing a trade, but has taken leave to spend time with Julian. The two tour a tenement house, in which no one now lives, kept as a reminder of the evils of private capitalism. Julian opens his safe (a device unknown in 2000 outside museums). Dr. Leete sees his mortgages and securities not as long-obsolete claims to ownership interest in things, but rather in people and their labor. The papers are worthless except as antiques, as most papers of the sort were burned at the conclusion of the economic transition, in a great blaze on the former site of the New York Stock Exchange. The gold coins in the safe are admired for their prettiness, but are also worthless. Julian learns more about the world of the year 2000. Handwriting has been virtually replaced by phonograph records, and jewelry is no longer used, since jewels are now worthless. Julian is amazed by a television-like device, called the electroscope. World communication is simplified, since everyone now speaks a universal language in addition to their native tongue. Not only are there motor cars, but also private air cars. Everyone is now vegetarian, and the thought of eating meat is looked upon with revulsion. The book concludes with an almost uninterrupted series of lectures from Dr. Leete and other characters, mostly concerning how the idyllic state in which West has arrived was achieved.

A short story about a small village that is being haunted by a pack of supernatural hounds.A very short tale (under 2,500 words) told from the perspective of a villager in a town that is being haunted by a pack of supernatural hounds. The town has it's secrets and they are brought to light as the tale unfolds.

Kim and Shelton are desparate to find their missing loved ones. Then gradually each comes to a secret but mutual understanding of the global mystery of the vanished millions. It's a secret that not only binds but separates them, until loneliness, danger and love force them to start over. They name their son Adam.Special thanks to Deb Smith, of Belle Bridge Books, for cover design.In acclaimed southern author Janice Daugharty’s apocalyptic Biblical thriller, the Rapture comes not with spectral flourishes or rumors of war but with unemployed former real estate agent Shelton Teasdale waking from a nap in his rural Georgia home to find the power off and his wife gone. At first, he thinks she is out with her pet goats, but going outside their small frame house, he sees that her old Jeep isn’t parked in its usual place. Depressed about his job situation and lethargic about life in general, Shelton shrugs off the peculiar circumstance at first, but as evening arrives he grows worried. Next, he notices his cell phone is dead. He sets out in his pickup truck with his dog beside him. Driving up the long dirt road running by his house, he begins to smell and see smoke out over the woods near the highway that Elaine takes to her job in the nearby town of Valdosta. When he reaches the highway he sees automobiles in every direction, some burning, some wrecked and others only parked, but empty. A massive traffic accident? Terrified, Shelton searches for Elaine amidst the wreckage. He finds her Jeep with her cell phone on the front seat and, next to it, her purse with all her belongings inside. Bizarrely, she left the ignition turned on, and the Jeep has run out gas. Shelton races to a nearby convenience store to call for help. But the frightening mystery deepens as the manager shoots at Shelton and refuses to talk to him. By now Shelton is filled with horror. Has the United States been bombed? Has there been a massive terrorist attack? When he makes his way back to his wife’s Jeep with a can of gasoline in hand, a state patrol officer orders him out of the vehicle . . . and then scans the microchip on the top of Shelton’s right hand. Shelton bolts, unwilling to risk being jailed for reasons he can’t comprehend. He becomes a wanted man. In Daugharty’s A RIGHTEOUS WIND, the United States is a place of big brotherism gone out of control, where the citizenry is under the thumb of an international cabal known as the World Government System, headed by an iconic former President who was once hailed as a savior but is now revealed as the embodiment of evil—the Anti-Christ. Filled with poignant religious themes, the dark secrets of the political superpowers, and the struggles of the ordinary people left behind to face the Tribulation, A RIGHTEOUS WIND is a thought-provoking suspense novel that readers of apocalyptic fiction will add to their keeper shelves. “Janice Daugharty is a born storyteller.” – Joyce Carol Oates “Janice Daugharty is a natural-born writer, one of those Georgia women like O'Connor, McCullers, or Siddons who are best grown in small towns, a long way from city lights. There is a lot of red clay and long nights in every line she puts on paper." --- Pat ConroyJanice Daugharty’s 1997 novel, EARL IN THE YELLOW SHIRT, (HarperCollins) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. She is the author of seven acclaimed novels and one short story collection. She has served as writer-in-residence at Valdosta State University, in Valdosta, Georgia, near her home, and is now writer-in-residence at Abraham Baldwin College. Visit the author at www.janicedaugharty.com Special thanks to my editor at Belle Bride Books, Deb Smith, for this long description of "A Righteous Wind"