In the most turbulent decade of our nation's history, four Southern women --- destinies forged by birth, hearts steeled by war --- face near impossible choices on their journeys in life...and in love. Savannah Darby is deperately trying to revisit her family home. Russell Stark is faced with an old love when he is trying to start a new life. Abigail is forced to choose between love and duty. Emily is forced to keep a secret in order to keep those she loves safe. 

On the eve of what was supposed to be a triumphant “Cancerversary” with her husband, Jack, to celebrate three years of being cancer-free, Daisy suffers a devastating blow: her doctor tells her that the cancer is back, but this time it’s an aggressive stage four diagnosis. Terrified of what will happen to Jack when she’s no longer there to take care of him, Daisy resolves to find him another wife. But as the thought of her husband with another woman becomes all too real, Daisy is forced to decide what’s more important in the short amount of time she has left: her husband’s happiness, or her own.

In January 1967, Robert Timberg was a short-timer, counting down the days until his combat tour ended. He had 13 days to go when his vehicle struck a Viet Cong land mine, resulting in third-degree burns of his face and much of his body. He survived, barely, then began the arduous battle back, determined to build a new life and make it matter.

When Ava Carson's picture-perfect marriage begins unraveling at the seams, Ava convinces herself she can fix it. Her husband, Mitchell, is acting erratic and angry and the unanswered questions about his past now hint at something far more sinister than Ava can stomach. Ava takes matters into her own hands, digging deep into the past. But will finding the truth be enough to beat Mitchell at his own game?

Every August, four women gather to spend a week together at the beach. When one of them dies tragically, the group drifts apart and the vacations come to a halt. Years later, a new marriage reunites them and they come together once again on a remote island off the coast of South Carolina. There, far from civilization, the women make startling discoveries that will change them in ways they never expected.

A talented college professor in Madrid, Blanca Perea seems to have it all. Sadly her world is suddenly shattered when her husband of 20 years leaves her for another woman. She accepts what looks like a boring research grant in California involving an exiled Spanish writer who died decades ago. But in delving into the past, Blanca finds herself simultaneously awakened to the present by Daniel Carter, a charismatic professor with crucial knowledge about the dead writer that he has never before revealed.

After getting a mysterious phone call from a good friend, policeman Pete Stanton, Andy Carpenter appears at the scene of a crime, where the body of ex-convict Danny Balfour has been discovered. It isn’t long before Pete himself comes under suspicion for Danny’s murder, and he needs defense attorney Andy to represent him…and to find out what really happened in Danny's house that day.

The ancient Greeks invented democracy, theater, rational science and philosophy. But understanding these uniquely influential people has been hampered by their diffusion across the entire Mediterranean. Most ancient Greeks did not live in what is now Greece but in settlements scattered across Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Libya, France, Italy, Bulgaria, Russia and Ukraine. Acclaimed classics scholar Edith Hall’s INTRODUCING THE ANCIENT GREEKS is the first book to offer a synthesis of the entire ancient Greek experience.

When Austin Voronko is wrongly accused of attending anarchist gatherings, his limited grasp of English condemns him to his fate as a deportee, retreating with his new bride to his home in Russia, where he and his young family become embroiled in the Civil War and must flee once again, to Mexico. While Julia and the children are eventually able to return to the U.S., Austin becomes indefinitely stranded in Mexico City because of the black mark on his record.

Jack McColl has always hoped to make a job for himself as a spy. As his sales calls take him from city to great city, he moonlights collecting intelligence for His Majesty's Navy. With a geopolitical catastrophe brewing, he soon realizes what his aspirations may cost him. Meanwhile, an American suffragette journalist has wiled her way deep into his affections, and it’s not long before he realizes that her family might be embroiled in the Irish Republican movement his bosses are fighting against.

One of the most dramatic periods of British history, the Wars of the Roses didn't end at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. Despite the death of Richard III and Henry VII's victory, it continued underground into the following century with plots, pretenders and subterfuge by the ousted white rose faction. In a brand new interpretation of this turning point in history, historian Desmond Seward reviews the story of the Tudors' seizure of the throne and shows that for many years they were far from secure.

The Statue of Liberty has become one of the most recognizable monuments in the world: a symbol of freedom and the American Dream. But the story of the creation of the statue has been obscured by myth. In reality, she was the inspiration of one quixotic French sculptor hungry for fame and adoration. LIBERTY'S TORCH tells the story of an artist, entrepreneur and inventor who fought against all odds to create this wonder of the modern world.

Certain lives are at once so exceptional, and yet so in step with their historical moments, that they illuminate cultural forces far beyond the scope of a single person. Such is the case with Coco Chanel, whose life offers one of the most fascinating tales of the 20th century --- throwing into dramatic relief an era of war, fashion, ardent nationalism and earth-shaking change --- here treated, for the first time, with wide-ranging and incisive historical scrutiny.

Eighteen-year-old Ada Concannon has just been hired by the respected but eccentric Dickinson family of Amherst, Massachusetts. Despite their difference in age and the upstairs-downstairs divide, Ada strikes up a deep friendship with Miss Emily, the gifted elder daughter living a spinster’s life at home. But Emily’s passion for words begins to dominate her life. When Ada’s safety and reputation are threatened, however, Emily must face down her own demons in order to help her friend --- with shocking consequences.

The child of Italian immigrants and an award-winning scholar of Italian literature, in MY TWO ITALIES Joseph Luzzi straddles these two perspectives to link his family’s dramatic story to Italy’s north-south divide, its quest for a unifying language, and its passion for art, food and family. With topics ranging from the pervasive force of Dante’s poetry to the meteoric rise of Silvio Berlusconi, Luzzi presents the Italians in all their glory and squalor, relating the problems that plague Italy today to the country’s ancient roots.

We all know the legend of Lady Godiva, who famously rode naked through the streets of Coventry, covered only by her long, flowing hair. As the story goes, she begged her husband Lord Leofric of Mercia to lift a high tax on her people, who would starve if forced to pay. Lord Leofric demanded a forfeit: that Godiva ride naked on horseback through the town. There are various endings to Godiva's ride, but NAKED contains a twist that may be closer to the truth: By the end of his life, Leofric had fallen deeply in love with Lady Godiva.

When Andrew Meredith’s father was fired from a university for unspecified sexual misconduct, it throws his family into long-lasting despair. Broke, Andrew moves home and takes a job with his father as a “remover,” the unseen workers who take away bodies of those who die at home. He describes intimate, poignant and morbidly comic aspects of the job, and begins to see his father as an imperfect man who loves his family despite his flaws.

Some historians claim that Richard III's "black legend" is nothing more than political propaganda. Yet such an interpretation, according to Desmond Seward, suggests a refusal to face the facts of history. Even in the king's lifetime, there were rumors about his involvement in the murders of Henry VI and of his nephews, while his reign was considered by many to be a nightmare, not least for the king himself. The real Richard III was both a chilling and compelling monarch, a peculiarly grim young English precursor of Machiavelli's Prince.

The clandestine organization known as The University has used its vast intelligence resources to help defeat the Nazis, end the Cold War and strike back at terrorists all over the globe. Entrusted with running The University, James Hicks is one of the most powerful and secretive men alive. But when Hicks’ brilliant protege is turned by a terrorist group that has alarmingly already begun operating on U.S. soil, Hicks finds himself in a race against time to find out just how the agent has been turned and why.

When 14-year-old Jace Wilson witnesses a brutal murder, he is plunged into a new life, issued a false identity and hidden in a wilderness skills program for troubled teens. The plan is to get Jace off the grid while police find the two killers. The result is the start of a nightmare. The killers, known as the Blackwell Brothers, are slaughtering anyone who gets in their way in a methodical quest to reach him.

In Afghanistan, a culture ruled almost entirely by men, the birth of a son is cause for celebration and the arrival of a daughter is often mourned as misfortune. A bacha posh (literally translated to "dressed up like a boy" in Dari) is a third kind of child --- a girl temporarily raised as a boy and presented as such to the outside world. At the heart of this emotional narrative is a new perspective on the extreme sacrifices of Afghan women and girls against the violent backdrop of America's longest war.

After Kate Mayfield was born, she was taken directly to a funeral home. Her father was an undertaker, and for 13 years the family resided in a place nearly synonymous with death. A place where the living and the dead entered their house like a vapor. The place where Kate would spend the entirety of her childhood. In a memoir that reads like a Harper Lee novel, the author draws the reader into a world of Southern mystique and ghosts.

From the moment Charles Dickens, the century's best-loved novelist and London's greatest observer, arrived in the city in 1822, he obsessively walked its streets, recording its pleasures, curiosities and cruelties. Now, with him, Judith Flanders leads us through the markets, transport systems, rivers, slums, alleys, cemeteries, gin palaces, chop-houses and entertainment emporia of Dickens' London, to reveal the Victorian capital in all its variety, vibrancy and squalor.