In this novel about dissidence and exile, a man is confronted with the decision to either desert his family or let his homeland be ravaged When Wu I-wan starts taking an interest in revolution, trouble follows: Winding up in prison, he becomes friends with fellow dissident En-lan. Later, his name is put on a death list and he’s shipped off to Japan. Thankfully, his father, a wealthy Shanghai banker, has made arrangements for his exile, putting him in touch with a business associate named Mr. Muraki. Absorbed in his new life, I-wan falls in love with Mr. Muraki’s daughter, and must prove he is worthy of her hand. As news spreads of what the Japanese army is doing back in China, I-wan realizes he must go back and fight for the country that banished him. The Patriot is an engrossing story of revolution, love, and reluctantly divided loyalties. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

In 1950, at the age of twenty-four, William Clark Styron, Jr., wrote to his mentor, Professor William Blackburn of Duke University. The young writer was struggling with his first novel, Lie Down in Darkness, and he was nervous about whether his “strain and toil” would amount to anything. “When I mature and broaden,” Styron told Blackburn, “I expect to use the language on as exalted and elevated a level as I can sustain. I believe that a writer should accommodate language to his own peculiar personality, and mine wants to use great words, evocative words, when the situation demands them.” In February 1952, Styron was awarded the Prix de Rome of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which crowned him a literary star. In Europe, Styron met and married Rose Burgunder, and found himself immersed in a new generation of expatriate writers. His relationships with George Plimpton and Peter Matthiessen culminated in Styron introducing the debut issue of The Paris Review. Literary critic Alfred Kazin described him as one of the postwar “super-egotists” who helped transform American letters. His controversial The Confessions of Nat Turner won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize, while Sophie’s Choice was awarded the 1980 National Book Award, and Darkness Visible, Styron’s groundbreaking recounting of his ordeal with depression, was not only a literary triumph, but became a landmark in the field. Part and parcel of Styron’s literary ascendance were his friendships with Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, John and Jackie Kennedy, Arthur Miller, James Jones, Carlos Fuentes, Wallace Stegner, Robert Penn Warren, Philip Roth, C. Vann Woodward, and many of the other leading writers and intellectuals of the second half of the twentieth century. This incredible volume takes readers on an American journey from FDR to George W. Bush through the trenchant observations of one of the country’s greatest writers. Not only will readers take pleasure in William Styron’s correspondence with and commentary about the people and events that made the past century such a momentous and transformative time, they will also share the writer’s private meditations on the very art of writing. Advance praise for Selected Letters of William Styron *  “I first encountered Bill Styron when, at twenty, I read The Confessions of Nat Turner*. Hillary and I became friends with Bill and Rose early in my presidency, but I continued to read him, fascinated by the man and his work, his triumphs and troubles, the brilliant lights and dark corners of his amazing mind. These letters, carefully and lovingly selected by Rose, offer real insight into both the great writer and the good man.”—President Bill Clinton “The Bill Styron revealed in these letters is altogether the Bill Styron who was a dear friend and esteemed colleague to me for close to fifty years. The humor, the generosity, the loyalty, the self-awareness, the commitment to literature, the openness, the candor about matters closest to him—all are on display in this superb selection of his correspondence. The directness in the artful sentences is such that I felt his beguiling presence all the while that I was enjoying one letter after another.”—Philip Roth “Bill Styron’s letters were never envisioned, far less composed, as part of the Styron oeuvre, yet that is what they turn out to be. Brilliant, passionate, eloquent, insightful, moving, dirty-minded, indignant, and hilarious, they accumulate power in the reading, becoming in themselves a work of literature.”—Peter Matthiessen

Two worlds are poised on the brink of a vicious war. By way of a staggering deception, Karou has taken control of the chimaera's rebellion and is intent on steering its course away from dead-end vengeance. The future rests on her. When the brutal angel emperor brings his army to the human world, Karou and Akiva are finally reunited - not in love, but in a tentative alliance against their common enemy. It is a twisted version of their long-ago dream, and they begin to hope that it might forge a way forward for their people. And, perhaps, for themselves. But with even bigger threats on the horizon, are Karou and Akiva strong enough to stand among the gods and monsters? The New York Times bestselling Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy comes to a stunning conclusion as - from the streets of Rome to the caves of the Kirin and beyond - humans, chimaera, and seraphim strive, love, and die in an epic theater that transcends good and evil, right and wrong, friend and enemy.

From the author of Chocolat, an intoxicating fairy tale of alchemy and love where wine is the magic elixir. Jay Mackintosh is a 37-year-old has-been writer from London. Fourteen years have passed since his first novel, Jackapple Joe, won the Prix Goncourt. His only happiness comes from dreaming about the golden summers of his boyhood that he spent in the company of an eccentric vintner who was the inspiration of Jay's debut novel, but who one day mysteriously vanished. Under the strange effects of a bottle of Joe's '75 Special, Jay decides to purchase a derelict yet promising château in Lansquenet-sous-Tannes. There, a ghost from his past waits to confront him, and his new neighbour, the reclusive Marise - haunted, lovely and dangerous - hides a terrible secret behind her closed shutters. Between them, there seems to be a mysterious chemistry. Or could it be magic? Joanne Harris's previous novel, Chocolat, was both a dazzling literary success and a commercial triumph. Chocolat, the major motion picture directed by Lasse Hallström (The Cider House Rules), was released in December 2000, starring Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp, Dame Judy Dench, Alfred Molina, and Lena Olin. From the Trade Paperback edition.

“It was probably because I was so often taken away from Cambridge when I was young that I loved it as much as I did . . .” So begins this novel-from-life by the best-selling author of Girl, Interrupted, an exploration of memory and nostalgia set in the 1950s among the academics and artists of Cambridge, Massachusetts. London, Florence, Athens: Susanna, the precocious narrator of Cambridge, would rather be home than in any of these places. Uprooted from the streets around Harvard Square, she feels lost and excluded in all the locations to which her father’s career takes the family. She comes home with relief—but soon enough wonders if outsiderness may be her permanent condition. Written with a sharp eye for the pretensions—and charms—of the intellectual classes, Cambridge captures the mores of an era now past, the ordinary lives of extraordinary people in a singular part of America, and the delights, fears, and longings of childhood. This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.

See the secrets of Eden’s twisted legacy from a new perspective with this short story set in the world of bestselling author Joelle Charbonneau’s Dividing Eden. Graylem was born to expect a life of thievery, but superior swordsmanship and a desire for something better had long fueled his dreams to become a member of a noble family’s guard. But when his sister Deevana’s latest scheme forces them to leave their home—and all memories of their life in Blackthorn Keep—behind, they chart a southern course towards a new life in Irae, by way of the magnificent Garden City. Disguised as northern nobles, they quickly find themselves caught up in the mysterious politics of Eden’s royal family—and infatuated by its newest member, the beautiful seeress Imogen. A member of Eden’s guard offers Graylem the chance to prove his worth, but his brutal trial for entry into the guard is waylaid by the appearance of Prince Andreus and Princess Carys. Graylem may be a simple man, but when he sees the royal siblings conferring in secret, he knows that all is not well in the Palace of the Winds—and before long, he learns that whatever darkness is lurking in the city’s walls could mean devastation for his family… and for Eden.

Shelby Foote's monumental historical trilogy, "The Civil War: A Narrative," is our window into the day-by-day unfolding of our nation's defining event.  Now Foote reveals the deeper human truth behind the battles and speeches through the fiction he has chosen for this vivid, moving collection. These ten stories of the Civil War give us the experience of joining a coachload of whores left on a siding during a battle in Virginia  . . .marching into an old man's house to tell him it's about to be burned down . . .or seeing a childhood friend shot down at Chickamauga. The result is history that lives again in our imagination, as the creative vision of these great writers touches our emotions and makes us witness to the human tragedy of this war, fought so bravely by those in blue and gray. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Chaos breaks loose when the governor of Virginia orders that speed traps be painted on all streets and highways, and warns that speeders will be caught by monitoring aircraft flying overhead. But the eccentric island of Tangier, fourteen miles off the coast of Virginia in Chesapeake Bay, responds by declaring war on its own state. Judy Hammer, newly installed as the superintendent of the Virginia State Police, and Andy Brazil, a state trooper and Hammer’s right hand and confidant, find themselves at their wits’ end as they try to protect the public from the politicians—and vice versa—in this pitch-perfect, darkly comic romp.

Sophie Foster is ready to fight back. Her talents are getting stronger, and with the elusive Black Swan group ignoring her calls for help, she’s determined to find her kidnappers—before they come after her again. But a daring mistake leaves her world teetering on the edge of war, and causes many to fear that she has finally gone too far. And the deeper Sophie searches, the farther the conspiracy stretches, proving that her most dangerous enemy might be closer than she realizes. In this nail-biting third book in the Keeper of the Lost Cities series, Sophie must fight the flames of rebellion, before they destroy everyone and everything she loves.

It's been six years since Ripley murdered Dickie Greenleaf and inherited his money. Now, in Ripley Under Ground (1970), he lives in a beautiful French villa, surrounded by a world-class art collection and married to a pharmaceutical heiress. All seems serene in Ripley's world until a phone call from London shatters his peace. An art forgery scheme he set up a few years ago is threatening to unravel: a nosy American is asking questions and Ripley must go to London to put a stop to it. In this second Ripley novel, Patricia Highsmith offers a mesmerizing and disturbing tale in which Ripley will stop at nothing to preserve his tangle of lies.

To survive you need people watching you, following your every move. That's the only currency now: being interesting, being liked ... And, of course, you have to update every fifteen minutes. It means everyone knows where you are, what you're doing; it means that there are no secrets... Everybody watches everyone else; nothing is hidden. And for those who fail to 'update' every fifteen minutes, the consequences are deadly. Evie and Raffy may have escaped the City but they still fear for their lives. Now the only person who can help them is Frankie, a total stranger, the most popular girl in the world, watched every second by millions of people. But Frankie has other ideas... And all the time, Lucas is waiting desperately for word from Evie, word that she is coming back to him. The conclusion to Gemma Malley's terrifyingly dark vision of our near future will leave you gasping for air.

Arthur "Bash Man" is the school thug, paid with candy to bully and threaten other students. When genius orphan Darius Drake employs Arthur to help him discover the origin of a suspicious threat, written in blood, they uncover a mystery that involves Darius's estranged grandfather, who was imprisoned for forging evidence in a search for a long-lost diamond necklace worth millions. The boys make the dangerous decision to search for the jewels themselves -- and in the process, they discover that the car crash that killed Darius's parents was not an accident at all. Who will be next? Where are the diamonds? And who is stalking the boys?

My father owes a debt. I am his currency. I’m supposed to marry the recently crowned mafia king of the Foley family as repayment for my father’s transgressions. I don’t understand why the Foleys would want me, but I’ve grown up in a crime family, and I know the ugly consequences of not doing what you’re told. But as the wedding date approaches, the deal changes, and I’m about to be wed to a man I know nothing about. In fact, I don’t even know his last name. Instead of becoming a mafia princess, I’m marrying the henchman. Deklan. After one look at him, I’m not sure I’ll survive the wedding night.

From the author who brought you A Thousand Boy Kisses comes the new emotional novel, A Wish For Us. A story of music. A story of healing. A story of love conquering all. Nineteen-year-old Cromwell Dean is the rising star of electronic dance music. Thousands of people adore him. But no one knows him. No one sees the color of his heart. Until the girl in the purple dress. She sees through the walls he has built to the empty darkness within. When Cromwell leaves behind the gray skies of England to study music in the South Carolina heat, the last thing he expects is to see her again. And he certainly doesn’t expect that she’ll stay in his head like a song on repeat. Bonnie Farraday lives for music. She lets every note into her heart, and she doesn’t understand how someone as talented as Cromwell can avoid doing the same. He’s hiding from his past, and she knows it. She tries to stay away from him, but something keeps calling her back. Bonnie is the burst of color in Cromwell’s darkness. He’s the beat that makes her heart skip. But when a shadow falls over Bonnie, it’s up to Cromwell to be her light, in the only way he knows how. He must help her find the lost song in her fragile heart. He must keep her strong with a symphony only he can compose. A symphony of hope. A symphony of love. A symphony of them.

Raised as a prototype for the Georgian Bratva's obedience drug, 221 fails to think, act, or live for himself; he's his master's perfectly-crafted killing puppet. Standing at six-foot-six, weighing two-hundred-and-fifty pounds, and unrivaled in to-the-death combat, 221 successfully secures business for the Georgian Mafiya Boss of NYC, who rules the dark world of the criminal underground. Until his enemies capture him. Talia Tolstaia dreams to break from the heavy clutches of Bratva life. She dreams of another life--away from the stifling leash of her Russian Bratva Boss father and from the brutality of her work at The Dungeon, her criminal family's underground death-match enterprise. But when she stumbles upon her family's captive who is more monster than man, she starts to see the man underneath. A powerful, beautiful, damaged man whose heart calls to hers. But sacrifices must be made--blood for blood... life for life... souls for scarred souls...

Protecting someone always comes at a cost. At the age of thirteen, Charlie Quinn’s childhood came to an abrupt and devastating end. Two men, with a grudge against her lawyer father, broke into her home—and after that shocking night, Charlie’s world was never the same. Now a lawyer herself, Charlie has made it her mission to defend those with no one else to turn to. So when Flora Faulkner, a motherless teen, begs for help, Charlie is reminded of her own past, and is powerless to say no. But honor-student Flora is in far deeper trouble than Charlie could ever have anticipated. Soon she must ask herself: How far should she go to protect her client? And can she truly believe everything she is being told? Razor-sharp and lightning-fast, this electrifying story from the #1 international bestselling author will leave you breathless. And be sure to read Karin Slaughter’s extraordinary new novel The Good Daughter—available August 22, 2017.

**The Ghost and The Graveyard is a funny, exciting, and sexy read intended for adults. Due to sexual content, language, and violence this book is recommended for ages 18+** Grateful Knight isn't looking for love when she moves into a rent-free house on the edge of a graveyard. At twenty-two, all she wants is to recover financially so she can move back to the city where she belongs. But sparks fly when the gorgeous cemetery caretaker, Rick, introduces himself and mentions his suspicion that her new house might be haunted. Her attraction to him seems supernatural, and despite her resolve to not get involved, she literally can't keep her hands off him. When things in Grateful's house start moving on their own, another man enters her life, Logan, a sexy ghost with a dark secret. He says Rick isn't what he seems, and indulging her passion for him could cost her soul. One thing's for sure, magical forces are at work in the tiny town of Red Grove, and they're converging on Grateful. Life will never be the same once she's forced to choose between the ghost and the graveyard.

I am a native of _____, in the United States of America. My ancestors migrated from England in the reign of Charles II.; and my grandfather was not undistinguished in the War of Independence. My family, therefore, enjoyed a somewhat high social position in right of birth; and being also opulent, they were considered disqualified for the public service. My father once ran for Congress, but was signally defeated by his tailor. After that event he interfered little in politics, and lived much in his library. I was the eldest of three sons, and sent at the age of sixteen to the old country, partly to complete my literary education, partly to commence my commercial training in a mercantile firm at Liverpool. My father died shortly after I was twenty-one; and being left well off, and having a taste for travel and adventure, I resigned, for a time, all pursuit of the almighty dollar, and became a desultory wanderer over the face of the earth.

Anthony Hope Hawkins, better known as Anthony Hope was an English novelist and playwright. He was a prolific writer, especially of adventure novels. He is remembered best for two books, considered classics of English literature, included in this volume: The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau (1898). These works are set in the contemporaneous fictional country of Ruritania and spawned the genre known as Ruritanian romance. Zenda has inspired many adaptations, including a 1937 Hollywood movie.

As night terrors continue to haunt Ana’s every move, a connection to a past she doesn’t know exists, fights with a future she doesn’t believe possible, and the key to both lays buried deep within her nightmares as she fights to save her love from being caught between two worlds. Little does she know that legions are building and the battles have already begun.Alone in snowy, remote Whistler village, Ana tries to build a new life since losing her parents. With a cozy condo, a sweet-faced bulldog and an evening job to leave the days free for the slopes, life slips into a great routine. If only she could shake the guilt for not remembering anything about her parents and banish the night terrors that haunt her every dream.On a whim, Ana goes out with Athen, a guy she’s just met in the Grizzly Pub... The only problem is that she feels like she already knows him. Within 48 hours of meeting Athen and his family, Ana’s world implodes. She falls for Athen quickly and before she knows it, a past life begins to resurface. As thrilling as the revelations appear at first, she fights against the chilling information that Athen is from the underworld. Soon she begins to struggle as her own supernatural gifts are slowly unveiled, and she realizes that the nightmares she’s been having might be premonitions and not dreams at all.It is up to Ana to decipher between fact and fiction before it is too late, and her new love, Athen, follows in her same fate - one that is lost between two worlds.