Adult

Victorian adventuress and butterfly hunter Veronica Speedwell receives an invitation to visit the Curiosity Club, a ladies-only establishment for daring and intrepid women. There she meets the mysterious Lady Sundridge, who begs her to take on an impossible task --- saving society art patron Miles Ramsforth from execution. Accused of the brutal murder of his artist mistress Artemisia, Ramsforth will face the hangman’s noose in a week’s time if Veronica cannot find the real killer. But Lady Sundridge is not all that she seems, and unmasking her true identity is only the first of the many secrets Veronica must uncover.

As a young partner at Dunn & Sullivan, one of New York’s most prestigious law firms, Carney Blake has represented dozens of high-profile clients. But being a pawn of Big Law often means defending the corporate dirt bags of the world --- the spillers, the drillers and the killers. When Carney is suddenly asked by his firm’s chairman to represent the plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit --- and not, as usual, the corporate bad guys --- he warily accepts. As Carney digs deeper into the case, he uncovers corruption and maliciously orchestrated schemes that go straight to the top of Dunn & Sullivan --- along with the true motives behind his placement on the case.

When Ceci Renard hires Ludlow and Associates to sue the hip new church that she believes has brainwashed her daughter, Fina Ludlow is assigned to the case. Covenant Rising Church has all the trappings of a less-than-holy organization, including a slick young pastor and devoted congregants who seem eager to part with their money. Fina wonders if Ceci disapproves of Covenant Rising’s theology or the pastor’s ability to solicit generous donations --- until a prominent church member dies unexpectedly. Fina’s investigation requires her to delve into the woman's life and ask a host of difficult questions. Is the pastor leading his flock astray? Did the church have a hand in the death, or were there less savory elements in the woman's life outside the parish?

While on a trip to the towering redwoods of northern California, war veteran Peter Ash meets investigative journalist June Cassidy, who just days ago escaped a kidnapping by the men who are still on her trail. She suspects they’re after something belonging to her mother, a prominent software designer who recently died in an accident. June needs time to figure out what’s going on, and help from someone with Peter’s particular set of skills. Only one step ahead of their pursuers, Peter and June must race to unravel this peculiar mystery. What they find leads them to an eccentric recluse, a shadowy pseudo-military organization, and an extraordinary tool that may change the modern world forever.

Warning: This is Not a Cookbook! FOOD AND FEAST does, however, contain over a hundred recipes --- medieval recipes in their original medieval form, medieval recipes in modern terms, traditional Scottish recipes, modern midwest American, recipes for eating in the wilderness, and even exotic and slightly dangerous recipes, drawn from scenes in the acclaimed Blue Bells Chronicles. In an eclectic mix, FOOD AND FEAST also digs into tasty morsels of history, succulent songs, meaty medieval philosophy, and medieval and Scottish poems, about food and drink. Here be fire-breathing roasts and live bird pies alongside oatcakes cooked on the campaign trail.

Michael “Zig” Danziger projects a certain devil-may-care persona. But don’t let the larger-than-life, hail-fellow-well-met routine fool you --- there is far more to his story than being born on third base. Zig’s intense experience as a Yale oarsman is a case study on the journey itself being the reward. He was never going to make the first varsity boat, or the second. Not even the third boat. But he worked his butt off to earn a seat in the fourth boat --- and became a Yale Crew legend. SMALL PUDDLES tells the story of those years at Yale and the people who shaped Zig’s one-of-a-kind view of the world.

December 7, 1941: One of those rare days in world history that people remember exactly where they were, what they were doing, and how they felt when they heard the news. In SEVEN DAYS OF INFAMY, historian Nicholas Best uses fascinating individual perspectives to relate the story of Japan’s momentous attack on Pearl Harbor and its global repercussions in tense, dramatic style. But he also takes readers on an unprecedented journey through the days surrounding the attack, providing a snapshot of figures around the world --- from Ernest Hemingway on the road in Texas to Jack Kennedy playing touch football in Washington.

In March 1953, four women meet in Room 408 of Moscow’s deluxe Hotel Metropol. They have gathered to reminisce about Vladimir Mayakovsky, the poet who in death had become a national idol of Soviet Russia. In life, however, he was a much more complicated figure. The ladies, each of whom could claim to have been a muse to the poet, loved or loathed Mayakovsky in the course of his life, and as they piece together their conflicting memories of him, a portrait of the artist as a young idealist emerges. Their recollections reveal Mayakovsky as a passionate, complex, sexually obsessed creature trapped in the epicenter of history, struggling to hold onto his ideals in the face of a revolution betrayed.

At 8:10am on December 7, 1941, Seaman First Class Donald Stratton was consumed by an inferno. A million pounds of explosives had detonated beneath his battle station aboard the USS Arizona, barely 15 minutes into Japan’s surprise attack on American forces at Pearl Harbor. Near death and burned across two thirds of his body, Don summoned the will to haul himself hand over hand across a rope tethered to a neighboring vessel. In this extraordinary, never-before-told eyewitness account of the Pearl Harbor attack --- the only memoir ever written by a survivor of the USS Arizona --- the 94-year-old veteran finally shares his unforgettable personal tale of bravery and survival, his harrowing recovery, and his inspiring determination to return to the fight.

All her life Vera has felt like a stranger in the old and drafty half-timbered farmhouse she arrived at as a five-year-old refugee from East Prussia in 1945, and yet she can’t seem to let it go. Sixty years later, her niece Anne suddenly shows up at her door with her small son. Anne has fled the trendy Hamburg neighborhood she never fit into after her relationship imploded. Vera and Anne are strangers to each other but have much more in common than they think. As the two strong-willed and very different women share the great old house, they find what they have never thought to search for: a family.