Her power-hungry husband takes pleasure in her pain, but she’s done playing the victim. Three years ago, ex-operative Sophie Jordan made the mistake of falling in love—and marrying—her target. Now she’s paying for it tenfold. Her husband might be one of the sexiest men alive, but he’s also a psychopath. She’s been a virtual prisoner, and the time has come for retribution—and escape. Undercover agent Malcolm Gunnison has his orders: get intel from Sophie’s arms-dealer husband, then kill him. He plans to get rid of her, too, if she gets in his way, but he’s unprepared when she gets under his skin instead. Whose side is she on? And what is she hiding behind those mesmerizing eyes? Sophie vowed to never fall for another man again, but this sexy undercover agent is different. With danger mounting, can Malcolm and Sophie trust each other—and their growing passion—enough to get out of this operation alive?

In this riveting, ambitious novel from James A. Michener, the renowned chronicler of epic history turns his extraordinary imagination to a world he knew better than anyone: the world of books. Lukas Yoder, a novelist who has enjoyed a long, successful career, has finished what he believes to be his final work. Then a tragedy strikes in his community, and he becomes obsessed with writing about it. Meanwhile, Yoder’s editor fights to preserve her integrity—and her author—as her firm becomes the target of a corporate takeover; a local critic who teaches literature struggles with his ambitions and with his feelings about Yoder’s success; and a devoted reader holds the key to solving the mystery that haunts Yoder’s hometown. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from James A. Michener's Hawaii. Praise for The Novel “Michener explores some of the deepest issues raised by narrative literature.”—The New York Times “A good, old-fashioned, sink-your-teeth-into-it story . . . The Novel lets us see an unfamiliar side of the author, at the same time portraying the delicate, complex relationship among editors, agents and writers.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer “Michener loves literature, and his information about some of his favorite reading is almost as alluring as his explanation of how to handle a manuscript.”*—Associated Press “So absorbing you simply will not want [it] to end.”—Charleston *News & Courier

For the first time Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles are available in the United States in quality paperback editions. Second in the legendary Lymond Chronicles, Queen's Play follows Frances Crawford of Lymond who has been abruptly called into the service of Mary Queen of Scots. Though she is only a little girl, the Queen is already the object of malicious intrigues that extend from her native country to the court of France. It is to France that Lymond must travel, exercising his sword hand and his agile wit while also undertaking the most unlikely of masquerades, all to make sure that his charge's royal person stays intact. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Caught in an ancient battle between good and evil, the Knights of White have for centuries walked the line between darkness and light. As this army of immortals battles to protect humanity from the Darkland Beasts, soulless demons intent upon destruction, each Knight is torn between the beast he carries within his soul and the goodness he longs to embrace. And his only salvation lies in finding his chosen mate, the woman who can calm his beast for all eternity. Enter Lisa Renee Jones's spellbinding world of fantasy and adventure in this enthralling bundle, which includes The Beast Within, Beast of Desire, Return of the Beast and Beast of Darkness.

Tempest: His name is Christian Knolls. He’s thirty-eight. He’s the headmaster of my school. And literally everything about him makes me want to drop to my knees in front of him and worship his body. Every single thought I’ve had since that day in his office has revolved around wanting him to tear my clothes from my body, bend me over his desk, and do every single filthy, depraved thing that he wants to me. Christian: Her name is Tempest Kensington. She’s eighteen years old. She’s my student. And I want to know what sounds she makes when she comes. I want to know how tight she’d feel as I emptied every drop of my cum deep inside her sweet little pussy. She's mine, she just doesn’t know it yet.

In his introduction to this one hundredth volume of the beloved Best American Short Stories, guest editor T. C. Boyle writes, "The Model T gave way to the Model A and to the Ferrari and the Prius . . . modernism to postmodernism and post-postmodernism. We advance. We progress. We move on. But we are part of a tradition." Boyle's choices of stories reflect a vibrant range of characters, from a numb wife who feels alive only in the presence of violence to a new widower coming to terms with his sudden freedom, from a missing child to a champion speedboat racer. These stories will grab hold and surprise, which according to Boyle is "what the best fiction offers, and there was no shortage of such in this year's selections." Mulling over the question of character likability, series editor Heidi Pitlor asks, "Did I like these characters? I very much liked reading their stories, as did T. C. Boyle." Here are characters who "are living, breathing people who screw up...

The New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Save Us creates a vivid portrait of marriage, family, and the haunting grief of World War II in this emotionally charged, beautifully rendered story that spans a generation, from the 1960s to the 1980s In 1965 Manhattan, patrons flock to Masha’s to savor its brisket bourguignon and impeccable service and to admire its dashing owner and head chef Peter Rashkin. With his movie-star good looks and tragic past, Peter, a survivor of Auschwitz, is the most eligible bachelor in town. But Peter does not care for the parade of eligible women who come to the restaurant hoping to catch his eye. He has resigned himself to a solitary life. Running Masha’s consumes him, as does his terrible guilt over surviving the horrors of the Nazi death camp while his wife, Masha—the restaurant’s namesake—and two young daughters perished. Then exquisitely beautiful June Bouquet, an up-and-coming young model, appears at the restaurant, piercing Peter’s guard. Though she is twenty years his junior, the two begin a passionate, whirlwind courtship. When June unexpectedly becomes pregnant, Peter proposes, believing that beginning a new family with the woman he loves will allow him to let go of the horror of the past. But over the next twenty years, the indelible sadness of those memories will overshadow Peter, June, and their daughter Elsbeth, transforming them in shocking, heartbreaking, and unexpected ways. Jenna Blum artfully brings to the page a husband devastated by a grief he cannot name, a frustrated wife struggling to compete with a ghost she cannot banish, and a daughter sensitive to the pain of both her own family and another lost before she was born. Spanning three cinematic decades, The Lost Family is a charming, funny, and elegantly bittersweet study of the repercussions of loss and love.

Germania and the Holy Roman EmpireBy the time of Christ and the Christian era, the Roman Empire, with its insatiable quest for land, riches, slaves, and power, had swallowed up much of the European continent. One could leave the Roman capital and travel in a northwesterly direction on well-maintained Roman roads for 1,200 miles.But if one traveled due north, up the long boot of Italia and across the Alps, one quickly reached the northern border of the empire. In the vast lands to the north of the Danube River and to the east of the Rhine lived a collection of tribes so fierce, so warlike, and so incapable of being civilized that eventually the Roman legions fortified the southern border of those lands and left the people alone. Caesar called that unconquerable north land with all of its dozens of tribes Germania.The Germani were not farmers other than having small garden plots cultivated by individual families. They were hunters and warriors. No one owned land as...

Nobody could capture the Phantom. She was the wildest mare on Assateague Island. They said she was like the wind, that the white “map” on her shoulders was her mark of freedom. Paul and Maureen Beebe had their hearts set on owning her. They were itching to buy and tame her, and worked hard to earn the money that she would cost. But the roundup men had tried to capture her and for two years she had escaped them.... Pony Penning Day holds a surprise for everyone, for Paul not only brings in the Phantom, but her newborn colt as well. Can Paul and Maureen possibly earn enough to buy them both?

Thirteen-year-old Casey's mother always said that Casey's sixteen-year-old sister marched to the beat of a different drummer. But it isn't until Briana runs away with an older boy that Casey begins to understand what her mother meant. When Briana returns home alone and pregnant, Casey and her mother try to help Briana come to terms with her options. It was already complicated to think about Briana's choices and then things change suddenly again. When Briana is in a serious accident, Casey's mother sees things one way. Although Casey understands her mother's reaction, she feels she must try to convince her mother to make a different decision. Casey needs to grow up fast and do what she can to maintain Briana's legacy. Will she be able to make her mother understand that there is only one way to accept Briana's gift? From the Hardcover edition.

Signs is a noun (as in DO NOT DISTURB); Wonders (as in "with furrowed brows"), a verb. The couplet that leads into Charles Martin's fifth collection of richly inventive poems suggests that the world is to be read into and wondered over. The signs in this new work from the prize-winning American poet of formal brilliance and darkly comic sensibility are as stark as the one on a cage at the zoo that says ENDANGERED SPECIES, as surprising as those that announce the return of irony, and as enigmatic as a single word carved on a tombstone. Renowned for his translations of Ovid's Metamorphoses and the poems of Catullus, Martin brings the perspective of history to bear on the stuff of contemporary life.

A masterful literary talent explores the treacherous, often violent borders between war and sex, love and art With the flash of a camera, one girl’s life is shattered, and a host of others altered forever. . . In a war-torn village in Eastern Europe, an American photographer captures a heart-stopping image: a young girl flying toward the lens, fleeing a fiery explosion that has engulfed her home and family. The image wins acclaim and prizes, becoming an icon for millions—and a subject of obsession for one writer, the photographer’s best friend, who has suffered a devastating tragedy of her own. As the writer plunges into a suicidal depression, her filmmaker husband enlists several friends, including a fearless bisexual poet and an ingenuous performance artist, to save her by rescuing the unknown girl and bringing her to the United States. And yet, as their plot unfolds, everything we know about the story comes into question: What does the writer really want? Who is controlling the action? And what will happen when these two worlds—east and west, real and virtual—collide? A fierce, provocative, and deeply affecting novel of both ideas and action that blends the tight construction of Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending with the emotional power of Anthony Marra’s A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Small Backs of Children is a major step forward from one of our most avidly watched writers.

A unique entry in the Böll library, Irish Journal records an eccentric tour of Ireland in the 1950's. An epilogue written fourteen years later reflects on the enormous changes to the country and the people that Böll loved. Irish Journal is a time capsule of a land and a way of life that has disappeared. From the Trade Paperback edition.

When a flood sweeps through the valley, the Moomins must find a new house. And with typical Moomin good luck, one just happens to be floating by. It looks normal enough, but there are curtains where one wall should be, strange rows of lights, and other odd amenities. Then Moomintroll and the Snork Maiden disappear, and the family realize that the house may hold the answers to more than they ever dreamed.

When Jesus Wept, the first novel in The Jerusalem Chronicles by bestselling authors Bodie and Brock Thoene, unfolds the turbulent times in Judea during Jesus' ministry, centering on the friendship between Jesus and Lazarus. With rich insights from vineyard owners and vine dressers, the Thoenes explore the metaphor of Jesus as the True Vine, harvesting the ancient secrets found in the Old Testament.