by Victoria Holt (1981)
Minella Maddox grew up on a great English estate. But as the schoolmistress' daughter, her place was not, and never could be, at beautiful Derringham Manor. And that is where the trouble started, for Derringham's young heir thought he saw in Minella just the kind of wife he wanted. But a dark and cruelly handsome French count, who always got what he wanted, thought she was just the kind of mistress he had to have. Not for nothing was he called the Devil on Horseback. Yet Minella's humble heritage was to prove more precious that titles and riches, for it freed her to follow her heart, leading her into adventures and dangers she had never dreamed of. It put her directly in the path of another woman's hatred, swept her up into the deadly terrors of the French Revolution and, finally, carried her into the arms of the great and powerful man she loved.
(by) Mollie Hunter
Caught up in the struggle between Highland clansmen and the King's soldiers in seventeenth-century Scotland, a young officer gives an account of the Massacre of Glencoe during which he chooses between protecting his own life and career or saving the lives of five hundred people.
Tony Watkins
""My books are about killing God." So declares Philip Pullman. Appealing to millions of children and adults alike, Pullman's books create a universe in which the church is the enemy and God is the master villain. Cultural analyst Tony Watkins offers an evenhanded and appreciative critique of Philip Pullman's books, exploring their religious and scientific underpinnings and highlighting their cultural and spiritual significance. Interacting deeply with Pullman's published writings and providing exclusive interview material, Watkins sheds light and insight on the worldview of one of today's most influential fantasy novelists."--Jacket.
Arthur Golden
A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel tells with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha.Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. It begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old girl with unusual blue-gray eyes, she is taken from her home and sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. We witness her transformation as she learns the rigorous arts of the geisha: dance and music; wearing kimono, elaborate makeup, and hair; pouring sake to reveal just a touch of inner wrist; competing with a jealous rival for men's solicitude and the money that goes with it. In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction--at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful--and completely unforgettable.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Gore Vidal
The third volume of Gore Vidal's series of historical novels aimed at demythologizing the American past, 1876 chronicles the political scandals and dark intrigues that rocked the United States in its centennial year. Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler, Aaron Burr's unacknowledged son, returns to a flamboyant America after his long, self-imposed European exile. The narrator of Burr has come home to recoup a lost fortune by arranging a suitable marriage for his beautiful daughter, the widowed Princess d'Agrigente, and by ingratiating himself with Samuel Tilden, the favored presidential candidate in the centennial year. With these ambitions and with their own abundant charms, Schuyler and his daughter soon find themselves at the centers of American social and political power at a time when the fading ideals of the young republic were being replaced by the excitement of empire.