The Peloponnesian War, 431-404 BC

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John E. Wills

"In his brief, focused chapters, Jack Wills also shows us ordinary life in the world of 1688. We join the great caravans of Muslims on their annual pilgrimage from Damascus and Cairo to Mecca, witness the suicidal exaltation of Russian Old Believers, and walk the pungent streets of Amsterdam. There we enter the Rasp House, where vagrants, beggars, and petty criminals labored to produce powdered brazilwood for the local dyeworks. And we meet hitherto unnoticed but unforgettable characters: Constantine Phaulkon, a Greek adventurer whose efforts to advance French interests as well as his own with the court of Siam ended in betrayal and a grisly death; and Dona Teresa, a beauty at fifteen, whose chaste loves stirred local legend in the wild mining town of Potosi.". "Told with verve, color, and insight, Wills's book captures an historical moment in which the world seems both strange and familiar, when the global connections of power, money, and belief were ushering in the modern age."--BOOK JACKET.

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Michael A. Seggie

Michael Seggie was a young boy when he first watched the gothic ABC-TV soap opera, "Dark Shadows," in 1967. An unusual daytime soap, it was filled with ghosts, witches, warlocks, werewolves, and a 175-year old vampire, Barnabas Collins. In 1970, he discovered that the brooding mansion used as the exterior for "Collinwood," was located in nearby Newport, R.I. Named "Seaview Terrace," it was the home for two private boarding schools. With his first visit to Newport, and the mansion, his research on the house and the original owners, began. So much has been written about the famous Gilded Age mansions of Newport, such as "The Breakers," "Marble House," "The Elms," and "Belcourt Castle," but of "Seaview Terrace," its history was unknown. Michael Seggie is the only one to uncover its fascinating history. "In the Shadows of a Newport Mansion" is also about Michael's lifelong interest in Newport, and his time as a tour guide at "Belcourt Castle," and his humorous 12 years as a tour guide with the mansions of the Preservation Society of Newport County. Michael writes of Gloria Vanderbilt, and the movie star, Joan Crawford. And, too, there is the former First lady, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the most famous Newporter. He writes too, of the infamous Claus von Bulow, the socialite acquitted of trying to murder his rich wife, to marry his mistress, the star of "Dark Shadows." Old Crow Whiskey, A beloved Chaplain of the USMA, West Point, Newport's Queen of Wit, A tragic Newport Fireman, A Society beauty who lost her mind, A Mansion of Broken Dreams ... All, "In the Shadows of a Newport Mansion."--Amazon.

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Marie Macpherson

Hailes Castle, 1511. Midnight on a doom-laden Hallowe'en and Elisabeth Hepburn, feisty daughter of the Earl of Bothwell, makes a wish?to wed her lover, the poet David Lindsay. But her uncle has other plans. To safeguard the interests of the Hepburn family she is to become a nun and succeed her aunt as Prioress of St. Mary?s Abbey, Haddington. However, plunged into the political maelstrom and religious turmoil of the early Scottish Reformation, her life there is hardly one of quiet contemplation. Strong-willed and independent, she clashes with those who question her unorthodox regime at St. Mary?s, including Cardinal David Beaton and her rival, Sister Maryoth Hay. But her greatest struggle is against her thrawn godson, John Knox. Witnessing his rejection of the Roman Catholic Church?aided by David Lindsay?she despairs that the sins of her past may have contributed to his present disenchantment. As he purges himself from the puddle of papistry, Knox finds his voice, denouncing everything he once held dear, but will that include his godmother, Prioress Elisabeth? And by confessing her dark secrets, will Elisabeth steer Knox from the pernicious pull of Protestantism or drive him further down the fateful path he seems hell-bent on, a path that leads to burning at the stake? In a daring attempt to shed light on a wheen of unanswered questions about John Knox?s early, undocumented life, this novel throws up some startling claims and controversial conjectures. The First Blast of the Trumpet is book one of The Knox Trilogy.

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Jonathan Wilson

In 1991 a fifty-year-old Englishman, Daniel Weiss, has come to Jerusalem to bury his mother, Esta Weiss, and to see what he can find out about the father he never knew. What he uncovers is the dramatic story of the life of Esta Weiss. In 1941, Esta, a young Jewish refugee from Hitler's Europe, meets and begins an affair with Archie Rawlins, a twenty-two-year-old army intelligence officer. Their relationship, mutually suspicious and tortured in the beginning, becomes in the end an affair of desperate passion. Esta tells Rawlins that she has been an eyewitness to murder and atrocity. Rawlins passes on the information to his superiors only to discover that they are determined to cover up information concerning the plight of the Jews in Europe. He is also told that Esta may belong to a group of Zionist terrorists responsible for the assassination of a senior British diplomat. Who and what should Rawlins believe? The decision that he makes brings fateful consequences to himself and Esta, whose own secrets turn out to be darker than anything Rawlins could have imagined.