East Wind: West Wind: The Saga of a Chinese Family

      Pearl S. Buck
$value['title']

Nobel winner Pearl S. Buck’s classic debut novel, about one Chinese woman’s coming of age as she’s torn between Eastern and Western cultures Kwei-lan is a traditional Chinese girl—taught by her mother to submit in all things, “as a flower submits to sun and rain alike.” Her marriage was arranged before she was born. As she approaches her wedding day, she’s surprised by one aspect of her anticipated life: Her husband-to-be has been educated abroad and follows many Western ideas that Kwei-lan was raised to reject. When circumstances push the couple out of the family home, Kwei-lan finds her assumptions about tradition and modernity tested even further.  East Wind: West Wind is a sensitive, early exploration of the cross-cultural themes that went on to become a hallmark of Buck’s acclaimed novels. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

Read online

  • 598

    Broken Wings

      V. C. Andrews
$value['title']

Three girls from different worlds with one thing in common: They were born to be wild. Robin...With a mom who's more absorbed in her singing career than in her own daughter, Robin's left to her own devices when the two move to Nashville. That's where her mom hopes to strike gold -- and where Robin finds nothing but trouble. Teal...This rich girl will do anything to get her parents' attention...even break the law. But after she takes things too far for the guy she adores, Teal loses their trust completely -- and is treated like a prisoner in her own home. Now there may be only one way out. Phoebe...*She's the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, trying to make it in a fast new crowd. She moved in with her aunt to make a fresh start. But now her biggest mistake may be to trust a charming rich boy who could ruin her life and destroy her reputation forever. Meet Robin, Teal, and Phoebe again in the exciting sequel to Broken Wings -- look for Midnight Flight,* coming soon from V.C. Andrews® and Pocket Star Books!

Read online

  • 598

    Stella by Starlight

      Sharon M. Draper
$value['title']

When the Ku Klux Klan's unwelcome reappearance rattles Stella's segregated southern town, bravery battles prejudice in this Depression-era tour de force from Sharon Draper, the New York Times bestselling author of Out of My Mind. Stella lives in the segregated South; in Bumblebee, North Carolina, to be exact about it. Some stores she can go into. Some stores she can't. Some folks are right pleasant. Others are a lot less so. To Stella, it sort of evens out, and heck, the Klan hasn't bothered them for years. But one late night, later than she should ever be up, much less wandering around outside, Stella and her little brother see something they're never supposed to see, something that is the first flicker of change to come, unwelcome change by any stretch of the imagination. As Stella's community - her world - is upended, she decides to fight fire with fire. And she learns that ashes don't necessarily signify an end.

Read online

  • 598

    A Calculated Risk

      Katherine Neville
$value['title']

A female computer expert at the world’s largest bank plans the perfect heist in this New York Times Notable Book from the #1 international bestselling author of *The Eight* Verity Banks is the one of the most powerful women in finance, but she still reports to a man. Her boss not only refuses to implement her security plan to safeguard customers’ deposits, he also sabotages her shot at becoming director of security at the Federal Reserve. Outraged, Verity decides to take revenge by hitting her boss where it will hurt the most: right in his company’s balance sheet. She is about to begin her assault when she hears from the last person she ever expected to see again, Zoltan Tor. A brilliant computer scientist who taught Verity everything she knows, Zoltan will help her if she agrees to an outlandish wager: Which of them can steal $1 billion, invest it to make $30 million in three months, and return it before anyone notices? Verity can use a computer; Zoltan will do it the old-fashioned way. To beat Zoltan at his own game, Verity will risk her fortune, her professional reputation—and her life. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Katherine Neville including rare images from her life and travels.

Read online

  • 598

    A Very Outlaw Christmas

      T. S. Joyce
$value['title']

*Can be read as a standalone. A holiday short story based off the international bestseller, For the Love of an Outlaw* Outlaw grizzly shifter, Trigger Massey, has been on the naughty list most of his life, but things are different now. He’s got a new mate, is in a race to save his ranch, and is the brand-new alpha of the Two Claws Clan. Add to that, his mate, Ava, has a serious problem with Christmas, and Trigger has his work cut out for him. This is his first Christmas as leader of his Clan, and he’s taken it as a personal challenge to make it perfect. The only problem? Ava never wanted perfect. Ava Dorset just needs to get through December, set up her business, save the ranch, and be the best mate she can be to Trigger. He’s a big brawler, who raises his fists first and asks questions later. They’re fresh out of a war with the local cougar clan and looking to stay on the straight-and-narrow until she can get their business off the ground, but the boys find trouble wherever they go and they’re demolishing her plans. All she needs to do is get their focus off the holiday, and back on saving the ranch, but the more Trigger works to get her holiday spirit back, the more she thinks perhaps December isn’t so bad. Content Warning: Explicit love scenes, naughty language, and piles of sexy shifter secrets. Intended for mature audiences.

Read online

  • 598

    A Garden of Earthly Delights

      Joyce Carol Oates
$value['title']

Joyce Carol Oates’s Wonderland Quartet comprises four remarkable novels that explore social class in America and the inner lives of young Americans. In A Garden of Earthly Delights, Oates presents one of her most memorable heroines, Clara Walpole, the beautiful daughter of Kentucky-born migrant farmworkers. Desperate to rise above her haphazard existence of violence and poverty, determined not to repeat her mother’s life, Clara struggles for independence by way of her relationships with four very different men: her father, a family man turned itinerant laborer, smoldering with resentment; the mysterious Lowry, who rescues Clara as a teenager and offers her the possibility of love; Revere, a wealthy landowner who provides Clara with stability; and Swan, Clara’s son, who bears the psychological and spiritual burden of his mother’s ambition. A masterly work from a writer with “the uncanny ability to give us a cinemascopic vision of her America” (National Review), A Garden of Earthly Delights is the opening stanza in what would become one of the most powerful and engrossing story arcs in literature. A Garden of Earthly Delights is the first novel in the Wonderland Quartet. The books that complete this acclaimed series, Expensive People, them, and Wonderland, are also available from the Modern Library. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Read online

  • 598

    The Automobile Club of Egypt

      Alaa Al Aswany
$value['title']

Once a respected landowner, Abd el-Aziz Gaafar fell into penury and moved his family to Cairo, where he was forced into menial work at the Automobile Club—a refuge of colonial luxury for its European members. There, Alku, the lifelong Nubian retainer of Egypt's corrupt and dissolute king, lords it over the staff, a squabbling but tight-knit group, who live in perpetual fear, as they are thrashed for their mistakes, their wages dependent on Alku's whims. When, one day, Abd el-Aziz stands up for himself, he is beaten. Soon afterward, he dies, as much from shame as from his injuries, leaving his widow and four children further impoverished. The family's loss propels them down different paths: the responsible son, Kamel, takes over his late father’s post in the Club's storeroom, even as his law school friends seduce him into revolutionary politics; Mahmud joins his brother working at the Club but spends his free time sleeping with older women — for a fee, which he splits with his partner in crime, his devil-may-care workout buddy and neighbor, Fawzy; their greedy brother Said breaks away to follow ambitions of his own; and their only sister, Saleha, is torn between her dream of studying mathematics and the security of settling down as a wife and saving her family. It is at the Club, too, that Kamel's dangerous politics will find the favor and patronage of the king's seditious cousin, an unlikely revolutionary plotter–cum–bon vivant. Soon, both servants and masters will be subsumed by the brewing social upheaval. And the Egyptians of the Automobile Club will face a stark choice: to live safely, but without dignity, or to fight for their rights and risk everything. Full of absorbing incident, and marvelously drawn characters, Alaa Al Aswany's novel gives us Egypt on the brink of changes that resonate to this day. It is an irresistible confirmation of Al Aswany's reputation as one of the Middle East's most beguiling storytellers and insightful interpreters of the human spirit.

Read online

  • 598

    Into the Fire

      Elizabeth Moon
$value['title']

In this new military sci-fi thriller from the author of Cold Welcome, space fleet commander Kylara Vatta uncovers deadly secrets on her latest mission--shedding light on her own family's past. As Admiral Kylara Vatta learned after she and a shipfull of strangers were marooned on an inhospitable arctic island, the secrets she and her makeshift crew uncovered were ones someone was ready to kill to keep hidden. Now, the existence of the mysterious arctic base has been uncovered, but much of the organization behind it still lurks in the shadows. And it is up to the intrepid Ky to force the perpetrators into the light, and finally uncover decades worth of secrets--some of which lie at the very heart of her biggest family tragedy.

Read online

  • 598

    Eleanor of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England

      Alison Weir
$value['title']

Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine was one of the leading personalities of the Middle Ages, and also one of the most controversial. Having inherited a vast feudal domain stretching from the Loire to the Pyrenees, she was one of the greatest heiresses in history; yet in her own day, she was famous not only for who she was, but also for what she did. In an age when women were treated as mere chattels, she made her own choices, wielded power and won widespread respect. Circumstances, however, dictated that her memory would be sullied by calumny and misunderstanding. Eleanor was no saint. She was beautiful, intelligent and wilful, and in her lifetime there were rumours about her that were not without substance. Her contemporaries were sometimes scandalised by her behaviour. She had been reared in a relaxed and licentious court where the arts of the troubadours flourished, and was even said to have presided over the fabled Courts of Love. Eleanor married in turn Louis VII of France and Henry II of England, and was the mother of Richard the Lionheart and King John. She lived to be 82, but it was only in old age that she triumphed over the adversities and tragedies of her earlier years and became virtual ruler of England. Eleanor has exerted a fascination over writers and biographers for 800 years, but the prevailing myths and legends that attach to her name still tend to obscure the truth. By careful research, Alison Weir has produced a vivid biography with a fresh and provocative perspective on this extraordinary woman.

Read online

  • 598

    In a Glass Darkly

      J. Sheridan le Fanu
$value['title']

This remarkable collection of stories, first published in 1872, includes Green Tea, The Familiar, Mr. Justice Harbottle, The Room in the Dragon Volant, and Carmilla. The five stories are purported to be cases by Dr. Hesselius, a 'metaphysical' doctor, who is willing to consider the ghosts both as real and as hallucinatory obsessions. The reader's doubtful anxiety mimics that of the protagonist, and each story thus creates that atmosphere of mystery which is the supernatural experience. This new annotated edition includes an introduction, notes on the text, and explanatory notes. NB: The Familiar is a revision of The Watcher; Mr. Justice Harbottle is a revision of An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street.

Read online

  • 598

    Dinner With a Vampire

      Abigail Gibbs
$value['title']

The sexiest romance you’ll read this year… One moment can change your life forever... For Violet Lee, a chance encounter on a darkened street draws her into a world beyond her wildest imaginings, a timeless place of vast elegance and immeasurable wealth – of beautiful mansions and lavish parties – where a decadent group of friends live for pleasure alone. A place from which there is no escape...no matter how hard Violet tries. Yet all the riches in the world can’t mask the darkness that lies beneath the gilded surface, embodied in the charismatic but dangerous Kaspar Varn. Violet and Kaspar surrender to a passion that transcends their separate worlds – but it’s a passion that comes at a price...

Read online

  • 598

    Anna on the Farm

      Mary Downing Hahn
$value['title']

Life on the farm is nothing like Baltimore!Anna is so excited when she finds out that she's spending a week on the farm with her aunt and uncle. She promises her mother she'll behave like a lady . . . but it's hard to do when she discovers there's a boy visiting, too. His name is Theodore, and he can't stand "stuck-up city slickers." Anna is determined to get back at him for all his teasing -- and show him a thing or two about what city slickers are really like! The heroine of anna all year round is back for more adventures!

Read online

  • 598

    Bulldog Won't Budge

      Tui T. Sutherland
$value['title']

An exciting new series about those adorable pets that just won't behave -- Pet Trouble is Marley & Me for middle-grade readers! Eric can't wait to get a dog he can run around and play with, like his friend Parker's golden retriever. But Meatball the bulldog doesn't seem to be the run-around-and-play type ... Even when they go for a walk, Meatball sits down on the sidewalk! Can Eric get this stubborn bulldog to get up and go?

Read online

  • 598

    Katherine

      Anchee Min
$value['title']

This novel, described by the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review as "nothing short of miraculous," is the story of Zebra Wong, a Chinese girl whose pragmatic mind conflicts with her passionate heart; Lion Head, her classmate, whose penchant for romantic intrigue belies his political ambitions, and Katherine, the seductive American with the red lipstick and the wild laugh who teaches them English and other foreign concepts: individualism, sensuality, the Beatles. In Katherine's classroom, repression and rebellion meet head-on-and the consequences are both tragic and liberating.

Read online

  • 598

    Forged

      Jennifer Rush
$value['title']

Before Anna and Sam, there was Dani and Sam. There's one rule that all Branch operatives must live by: No attachments. When Dani O'Brien entered the Branch, she planned to trade her freedom so that her family could have a better life. But joining up with the mysterious organization is more than she bargained for. Branch head Connor watches over her closely--too closely. The training is brutal, the experiments are secret, and the missions promise to be anything but ordinary. The only thing getting Dani through each day is the hope that she'll run into Sam--a young man, about her age, who wears the world on his shoulders. Find out how it all began in this short-story prequel to Jennifer Rush's thrilling and suspenseful Altered series.

Read online

  • 598

    A Time of Exile

      Katharine Kerr
$value['title']

The world of Deverry: an intricate tapestry of fate, past lives, and unfathomable magic. With A Time Of Exile, Katharine Kerr opens new territory in The Deverry Saga, exploring the history of the Elcyion Lacar, the elves who inhabit the country west of Deverry. It is years since the half-elven Lord Rhodry took the throne of Aberwyn. When Rhodry's lost lover, Jill-now a powerful wizard-comes to Aberyn and tells him it's time he accepted his elven heritage, Rhodry faces the most difficult choice of his life. But with Jill's help and that of a human wizard named Aderyn who has lived for years in the westlands, Rhodry begins to understand how his life is connected not just to his own people, but to the Elcyion Lacar as well. At last, destiny begins to unravel its secrets, revealing Aderyn's true purpose among the elves-and the god' deeper design behind Rhodry's dual heritage. From the Paperback edition.

Read online

  • 598

    Arkadian Skies

      Lindsay Buroker
$value['title']

With the man who kidnapped her daughter imprisoned aboard her ship, Captain Alisa Marchenko is closer than ever to reuniting her family. But her new guest has been in a coma for weeks, with the secret to her daughter's location locked away in his mind. She must find a way to sneak him into a state-of-the-art hospital on Arkadius, a planet in the heart of Alliance territory. Not an easy task when she and the cyborg Leonidas, her most trusted ally, are wanted by the Alliance army. As if that mission weren’t daunting enough, the Staff of Lore has appeared on the planet. As has the man who stole it: Alisa’s father.

Read online

  • 598

    Out of Sight

      Elmore Leonard
$value['title']

Before there was Raylan, there was Sisco... U.S. Marshal Karen Sisco is on the hunt for world-class gentleman felon Jack Foley in Out of Sight, New York Times bestselling author Elmore Leonard’s sexy thriller that moves from Miami to the Motor City. Based on Miami, Florida's Gold Coast, U.S. Marshal Karen Sisco isn’t about to let a expert criminal like Jack Foley successfully bust out of Florida's Glades Prison. But there’s a major score waiting for him in Detroit, and a shotgun-wielding marshal isn’t going to stop Foley from getting it. Neither counted on sharing a cramped car trunk—or on a sizzling chemistry that’s working overtime. As soon as Sisco escapes, Foley is already missing her. Sisco can’t forget Foley either—and she isn’t about to let him go. Too bad the next time their paths cross, it’s going to be about business, not pleasure.

Read online

  • 598

    Song of the Ovulum

      Bryan Davis
$value['title']

It has been fifteen years since Billy and Bonnie Bannister helped repel the demonic assault on Heaven. Now they and Ashley Foley sit in a maximum security prison where the authorities conduct experiments on them to learn the secrets of long life. Earlier, the world’s acceptance of dragonkind crumbled, and the Enforcers took the infant twins born to Billy and Bonnie and stole Excalibur, hoping to develop a weapon to battle the dragons that are sure to try to rescue their allies. All the while, a great secret from the past is being revealed to Bonnie through a dream. Joran and Selah, teenaged children of Methuselah, have been trapped in a strange world for centuries, yet still able to manipulate certain events in our world during that time. Walter Foley finds the Bannisters’ son and hopes to use his dragon traits to help him rescue the prisoners. In the meantime, an ancient demon locates the Bannisters’ daughter and plans to use her to help him discover the hiding place of the most powerful ovulum in the world and squelch its protective song. With that ovulum in his possession, he will be able to conquer and control both Earth and Second Eden. The fate of two worlds now rests on the Bannisters’ two teenagers who must use their dragon traits and their innate courage to battle demons, a sorceress, and soldiers in a military compound in order to rescue parents they don’t even know.

Read online

  • 598

    When God Was a Rabbit

      Sarah Winman
$value['title']

When God was a Rabbit is an incredibly exciting debut from an extraordinary new voice in fiction. Spanning four decades, from 1968 onwards, this is the story of a fabulous but flawed family and the slew of ordinary and extraordinary incidents that shape their everyday lives. It is a story about childhood and growing up, loss of innocence, eccentricity, familial ties and friendships, love and life. Stripped down to its bare bones, it’s about the unbreakable bond between a brother and sister.

Read online

  • 598

    Easy With You

      Kristen Proby
$value['title']

Nothing has ever come easy for Lila Bailey. She’s fought for every good thing in her life during every day of her thirty-one years. Aside from that one night with an impossible to deny stranger a year ago, Lila is the epitome of responsible. Steadfast. Strong. She’s pulled herself out of the train wreck of her childhood, proud to be a professor at Tulane University and laying down roots in a city she’s grown to love. But when some of her female students are viciously murdered, Lila’s shaken to the core and unsure of whom she can trust in New Orleans. When the police detective assigned to the murder case comes to investigate, she’s even more surprised to find herself staring into the eyes of the man that made her toes curl last year. In an attempt to move on from the tragic loss of his wife, Asher Smith moved his daughter and himself to a new city, ready for a fresh start. A damn fine police lieutenant, but new to the New Orleans force, Asher has a lot to prove to his colleagues and himself. With a murderer terrorizing the Tulane University campus, Asher finds himself toe-to-toe with the one woman that haunts his dreams. His hands, his lips, his body know her as intimately as he’s ever known anyone. As he learns her mind and heart as well, Asher wants nothing more than to keep her safe, in his bed, and in his and his daughter’s lives for the long haul. But when Lila becomes the target, can Asher save her in time, or will he lose another woman he loves?

Read online

  • 598