The year is 1861. The American Civil War has just begun, and London arms dealer Daniel Alberton is becoming a very wealthy man. His quiet dinner party seems remote indeed from the passions rending America. Yet investigator William Monk and his bride, Hester, sense growing tensions and barely concealed violence. For two of the guests are Americans, each vying to buy Alberton’s armaments. Soon Monk and Hester’s forebodings are fulfilled as one member of the party is brutally murdered and two others disappear– along with Alberton’s entire inventory of weapons. As Monk and Hester track the man they believe to be the murderer all the way to Washington, D.C., and the bloody battlefield at Manassas, Slaves of Obsession twists and turns like a powder-keg fuse and holds the reader breathless and spellbound. . . .

From Publishers WeeklyHa Jin, who emigrated from China in the aftermath of Tiananmen Square, had only been writing in English for 12 years when he won the National Book Award for Waiting in 1999. His latest novel sheds light on an émigré writer's woodshedding period. It follows the fortunes of Nan Wu, who drops out of a U.S. grad school after the repression of the democracy movement in China, hoping to find his voice as a poet while supporting his wife, Pingping, and son, Taotao. After several years of spartan living, Nan and Pingping save enough to buy a Chinese restaurant in suburban Atlanta, setting up double tensions: between Nan's literary hopes and his career, and between Nan and Pingping, who, at the novel's opening, are staying together for the sake of their young boy. While Pingping grows more independent, Nan—amid the dulling minutiae of running a restaurant and worries about mortgage payments, insurance and schooling—slowly snuffs the torch he carries for his first love. That Nan at one point reads Dr. Zhivago isn't coincidental: while Ha Jin's novel lacks Zhivago's epic grandeur, his biggest feat may be making the reader wonder whether the trivialities of American life are not, in some ways, as strange and barbaric as the upheavals of revolution. (Nov.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Bookmarks MagazineSince emigrating from China to America in the 1980s to study literature, Ha Jin has become one of the most celebrated voices in American literature. A Free Life is his first "American" book, a "Chekhovian portrait of life and its soothing dailiness" (Vikram Johri) that explores the meaning of a truly free life. Critics often comment on the author’s lyricism and the fluidity of his prose (interestingly, one reviewer notes a connection between Jin and John Steinbeck, while another noted a deficiency in prose). Although rarely plot-driven, Jin’s novels instead unfold slowlyâ€"like life itself. A Free Life offers the greatest reward to those who read with patience and in quiet contemplation, absorbing the author’s passion for language.Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

SOME THINGS ARE JUST TOO HARD TO IMAGINE...For instance, Dawn Leland never thought in a million years that she and her girls would ever end up back with her in-laws. Sixteen years is a long time to be away, but life has dealt her something unexpected. Now she has no choice.AND SOME THINGS DON'T BEAR THINKING ABOUT...Sephrona Leland said good riddance to bad rubbish when her son's widow took her two little girls and left Knoxville all those years ago. And despite her husband's best efforts, the bitterness still remains.BUT ALL THINGS TURN OUT IN THE END...It takes some forgiveness, a little understanding and the magic of two young girls to make everyone see that--although it's hard to imagine--they have all ended up where they belong.

Supposedly, nature abhors a vacuum. I'm finding this is true in the worst way...Defeating her evil ex-boyfriend hasn't exactly been the reprieve from trouble that Jade hoped for. When Alek's mentor shows up with an injured Justice and government agents start asking questions she doesn't want to answer, Jade's problems are just beginning. Enemies new and old make their moves as a war looms on the horizon in this exciting ninth book in the Twenty-Sided Sorceress series.

Anna Quindlen first visited London from a chair in her suburban Philadelphia home--in one of her beloved childhood mystery novels. She has been back to London countless times since, through the pages of books and in person, and now, in Imagined London, she takes her own readers on a tour of this greatest of literary cities.While New York, Paris, and Dublin are also vividly portrayed in fiction, it is London, Quindlen argues, that has always been the star, both because of the primacy of English literature and the specificity of city descriptions. She bases her view of the city on her own detailed literary map, tracking the footsteps of her favorite characters: the places where Evelyn Waugh's bright young things danced until dawn, or where Lydia Bennett eloped with the dastardly Wickham.In Imagined London, Quindlen walks through the city, moving within blocks from the great books of the 19th century to the detective novels of the 20th to the new modernist...

When just one happy ending is not enough...An anthology of passionate, sensual love stories about falling in love, being in love, and celebrating the love between women of every age—yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Discover the passion, the thrill, and the heartwarming satisfaction of love time and again with the tales from today's best-selling romance writers: Ali Vali, Cate Culpepper, Clifford Henderson, Erin Dutton, Gabrielle Goldsby, Gill McNight, Gun Brooke, JD Glass, Jennifer Harris, Jlee Meyer, Jove Belle, Julie Cannon, Kim Baldwin, Larkin Rose, Lee Lynch, Lisa Girolami, Meghan O'Brien, Merry Shannon, MJ Williamz, Nell Stark, Rachel Spangler, and Radclyffe.Editors Stacia Seaman and Radclyffe have edited five previous anthologies together, including the Lambda Literary winner Erotic Interludes 2: Stolen Moments and the Independent Publishers Gold medal winner, Erotic Interludes 5: Road Games.

Journey into the Shenandoah Valley of 1816 where...With Very Little Left of the Family Farm, Lily May be Forced into a Loveless Marriage. Captain McAlister "Mac" Albright has purchased land in the Shenandoah Valley. However, the land belongs to Lillyanna Laughlin—or so she erroneously thinks. Mac sets her straight and despite a poor start, the two become friends. . .if only he were financially stable to offer her more. When Lily's life is threatened and his whole future goes up in flames, Mac truly becomes a man without means, and Lily is forced to make the impossible choice between a loveless marriage with a man twice her age or the man who has shown her what true love could be. How can she choose between love and economic security? Her family is depending on her. Is her heart destined to break? Journey into Virginia's Shenandoah Valley of 1816 where a woman's dreams and future happiness are on the line."I enjoyed...

What You Can't See Can Hurt You.Returning to the hometown of her birth parents, rebellious 23-year-old Josee Walker seeks answers to long-held questions about her childhood. Her biological father, wealthy vintner Marsh Addison, wants nothing to do with her. But a determined Kara Addison sets out to meet the child she gave up years before, despite Marsh's passionate opposition. Five Days of Hell for a Glimpse of HeavenWhen Kara disappears and her car is discovered at the bottom of a ravine, however, Marsh becomes the prime suspect. Suddenly, Marsh and Josee are forced to unite in their search for Kara--and for the truth. But there's more to their family's past than meets the eye. What could the mysterious canister that Josee found in the woods contain? What does it have to do with her mother's disappearance? When an ancient evil rouses, each member of the Addison family becomes enmeshed in a terrifying supernatural battle--one with global...

Ozick's latest work of fiction brings together four long stories, including the novella-length "Dictation," that showcase this incomparable writer's sly humor and piercing insight into the human heart. Each starts in the comic mode, with heroes who suffer from willful self-deceit. From self-deception, these not-so-innocents proceed to deceive others, who don't take it lightly. Revenge is the consequence—and for the reader, a delicious if dark recognition of emotional truth.The glorious novella "Dictation" imagines a fateful meeting between the secretaries to Henry James and Joseph Conrad at the peak of those authors' fame. Timid Miss Hallowes, who types for Conrad, comes under the influence of James's Miss Bosanquet, high-spirited, flirtatious, and scheming. In a masterstroke of genius, Ozick hatches a plot between them to insert themselves into posterity.Ozick is at her most devious, delightful best in these four works, illuminating the ease with which comedy can...

In 1911, Carrie Strahorn wrote a memoir entitled Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage, which shared some of the most exciting events of 25 years of traveling and shaping the American West with her husband, Robert Strahorn, a railroad promoter, investor, and writer. That is all fact. Everything She Didn't Say imagines Carrie nearly ten years later as she decides to write down what was really on her mind during those adventurous nomadic years. Certain that her husband will not read it, and in fact that it will only be found after her death, Carrie is finally willing to explore the lessons she learned along the way, including the danger a woman faces of losing herself within a relationship with a strong-willed man and the courage it takes to accept her own God-given worth apart from him. Carrie discovers that wealth doesn't insulate a soul from pain and disappointment, family is essential, pioneering is a challenge, and western landscapes are both demanding and nourishing. Most of all, she discovers that home can be found, even in a rootless life.

The ghost of a doomed romance haunts an Oxford undergraduate's idyllic summer affair; a tragedy of hopeless love and murderous frustration is played out against the backdrop of a provincial repertory company; passion and hatred flower side by side in suburban back gardens. Angela Huth peoples her stories with elderly ladies living out extraordinary fantasy lives and betrayed wives wreaking subtle revenge, drawing out their secret disappointments and their dreams of glamour; she brings to this exquisite collection all the wry delicacy, subversive wit and keen eye for the drama of the quietest lives that characterize her acclaimed novels.