Philippe and Joseph Bridau are two extremely differentbrothers. The elder, Philippe, is a superficially heroic soldierand adored by their mother Agathe. He is nonetheless a bitterfigure, secretly gambling away her savings after a brief butglorious career in Napoleon's army. His younger brother Joseph,meanwhile, is fundamentally virtuous - but their mother is blindedto his kindness by her disapproval of his life as an artist.Foolish and prejudiced, Agathe lives on unaware that she is beingcynically manipulated by her own favourite child, but will she everdiscover which of her sons is truly the black sheep of the family?A dazzling depiction of the power of money and the cruelty of lifein nineteenth-century France, The Black Sheep compellingly exploresis a compelling exploration of the nature of deceit.
**DEBUT FICTION** Mary Todd Lincoln is one of history's mostmisunderstood and enigmatic women. The first president's wife to becalled First Lady, she was a political strategist, a supporter ofemancipation, and a mother who survived the loss of three childrenand the assassination of her beloved husband. Yet she also ran herfamily into debt, held seances in the White House, and wascommitted to an insane asylum. In Janis Cooke Newman's debut novel,Mary Todd Lincoln shares the story of her life in her own words.Writing from Bellevue Place asylum, she takes readers from hertempestuous childhood in a slaveholding Southern family through theyears after her husband's death. A dramatic tale filled withpassion and depression, poverty and ridicule, infidelity andredemption, Mary allows us entry into the inner, intimate world ofthis brave and fascinating woman.
Six years ago, Jack Till helped Wendy Harper disappear. But nowher ex-boyfriend and former business partner, Eric Fuller, is beingframed for her presumed murder in an effort to smoke her out, andTill must find her before tango-dancing assassins Paul and SylvieTurner do. The Turners are merely hired to do a job, though, andprefer to remain anonymous. When they find that a middleman has letthe true employer know their identities, finishing the job is nolonger enough. Their fee just went up. Full of masterful plottingand unnerving psychological insight, "Silence "is a mesmerizingthrill ride.
Since the series' inception in 1915, the annual volumes of TheBest American Short Stories have launched literary careers,showcased the most compelling stories of each year, and confirmedfor all time the significance of the short story in our nationalliterature. Now THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES OF THE CENTURYbrings together the best -- fifty-six extraordinary stories thatrepresent a century's worth of unsurpassed achievements in thisquintessentially American literary genre. This expanded editionincludes a new story from The Best American Short Stories 1999 toround out the century, as well as an index including every storypublished in the series. Of all the writers whose work has appearedin the series, only John Updike has been represented in each of thelast five decades, from his first appearance, in 1959, to his mostrecent, in 1998. Updike worked with coeditor Katrina Kenison tochoose the finest stories from the years since 1915. The result is"extraordinary . . . A one-volume literary history of thi
William J. Mann, author of the bestselling Kate: The WomanWho Was Hepburn, has now turned his attention to ElizabethTaylor, the quintessential movie star, and uses her biography toreveal the machinations of stardom and fame, from the studio era ofHollywood through the 1970s. How to Be a Movie Star isa totally fresh, brilliantly researched, and reported portrait ofElizabeth Taylor, as she became our first superstar. It isalso a fascinating revelation of cadre that got her there, from hermother to her managers, publicists, gossip columnists, and earlypaparazzi--and, not least of all, herself. Swathed in mink, sailing aboard her yachts, discarding husbandsnearly as frequently as she changed diamond earrings, Taylordominated the headlines for three glittering decades, rewritingrules, defying conventions, laying down the yardstick by whichcelebrity has been measured ever since. Focusing on the mostglamorous period in Taylor's career, Mann takes us inside herprivileged childhood in England to her schooling
When the Good Friday peace accords are shattered by threesavage acts of terrorism, Northern Ireland is blown back into thedepths of conflict. And after his father-in-law is nominated tobecome the new American ambassador to London, retired CIA agentMichael Osbourne is drawn back into the game. He soon discoversthat his father-in-law is marked for execution. And that he himselfis once again in the crosshairs of a killer known as October, oneof the most merciless assassins the world has ever known...
#1 "New York Times" bestselling author Nora Roberts invitesreaders to the wedding event of the year #1 "New York Times"bestselling author Nora Roberts presents her first trade original-anovel of love, friendship, and family-Book One in the BrideQuartet. Wedding photographer Mackensie "Mac" Elliot is most athome behind the camera, but her focus is shattered moments beforean important wedding rehearsal when she bumps into thebride-to-be's brother...an encounter that has them both seeingstars. A stable, safe English teacher, Carter Maguire is definitelynot Mac's type. But a casual fling might be just what she needs totake her mind off bridezillas. Of course, casual flings can turninto something more when you least expect it. And Mac will have toturn to her three best friends-and business partners-to see her wayto her own happy ending.
It is 1998, the year in which America is whipped into a frenzyof prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small NewEngland town, an aging classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forcedto retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. Thecharge is a lie, but the real truth about Silk would haveastonished his most virulent accuser. Coleman Silk has a secret.But it's not the secret of his affair, at seventy-one, with FauniaFarley, a woman half his age with a savagely wrecked past - apart-time farmhand and a janitor at the college where, untilrecently, he was the powerful dean of faculty. And it's not thesecret of Coleman's alleged racism, which provoked the collegewitch-hunt that cost him his job and, to his mind, killed his wife.Nor is it the secret of misogyny, despite the best efforts of hisambitious young colleague, Professor Delphine Roux, to expose himas a fiend. Coleman's secret has been kept for fifty years: fromhis wife, his four children, his colleagues, and his friends,includi
