Books with category 🤨 Intrigue
Displaying books 97-144 of 185 in total

The Boleyn Inheritance

Three Women Who Share One Fate: The Boleyn Inheritance

Anne of Cleves runs from her tiny country, her hateful mother, and her abusive brother to a throne whose last three occupants are dead. King Henry VIII, her new husband, instantly dislikes her. Without friends, family, or even an understanding of the language being spoken around her, she must literally save her neck in a court ruled by a deadly game of politics and the terror of an unpredictable and vengeful king. Her Boleyn Inheritance: accusations and false witnesses.

Katherine Howard catches the king's eye within moments of arriving at court, setting in motion the dreadful machine of politics, intrigue, and treason that she does not understand. She only knows that she is beautiful, that men desire her, that she is young and in love—but not with the diseased old man who made her queen, beds her night after night, and killed her cousin Anne. Her Boleyn Inheritance: the threat of the axe.

Jane Rochford is the Boleyn girl whose testimony sent her husband and sister-in-law to their deaths. She is the trusted friend of two threatened queens, the perfectly loyal spy for her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, and a canny survivor in the murderous court of a most dangerous king. Throughout Europe, her name is a byword for malice, jealousy, and twisted lust. Her Boleyn Inheritance: a fortune and a title, in exchange for her soul.

The Boleyn Inheritance is a novel drawn tight as a lute string about a court ruled by the gallows and three women whose positions brought them wealth, admiration, and power as well as deceit, betrayal, and terror. Once again, Philippa Gregory has brought a vanished world to life—the whisper of a silk skirt on a stone stair, the yellow glow of candlelight illuminating a hastily written note, the murmurs of the crowd gathering on Tower Green below the newly built scaffold. In The Boleyn Inheritance, Gregory is at her intelligent and page-turning best.

When Will There Be Good News?

2008

by Kate Atkinson

Three lives come together in unexpected and thrilling ways in Kate Atkinson's When Will There Be Good News?

On a hot summer day, Joanna Mason's family slowly wanders home along a country lane. A moment later, Joanna's life is changed forever...

On a dark night thirty years later, ex-detective Jackson Brodie finds himself on a train that is both crowded and late. Lost in his thoughts, he suddenly hears a shocking sound...

At the end of a long day, 16-year-old Reggie is looking forward to watching a little TV. Then a terrifying noise shatters her peaceful evening. Luckily, Reggie makes it a point to be prepared for an emergency...

These three lives come together in unexpected and deeply thrilling ways in the latest novel from Kate Atkinson. It is a story about survival, loyalty, and the strength to keep moving forward.

Cast in Fury

2008

by Michelle Sagara

When a minority race of telepaths is suspected of causing a near-devastating tidal wave, Private Kaylin Neya is summoned to Court—and into a PR nightmare. To ease racial tensions, the emperor has commissioned a play, and the playwright has his own ideas about who should be the focus...

But Kaylin works her best magic behind the scenes, and though she tries to stay neutral, she is again drawn into a world of politics—and murder. To make matters worse, Marcus, her trusted sergeant, gets stripped of his command, leaving Kaylin vulnerable. Now she's juggling two troubling cases, and even magic's looking good by comparison. But then, nobody ever said life in the theater was easy.

The Heretic Queen

2008

by Michelle Moran

In ancient Egypt, a forgotten princess must overcome her family’s past and remake history. The winds of change are blowing through Thebes. A devastating palace fire has killed the Eighteenth Dynasty’s royal family—all with the exception of Nefertari, the niece of the reviled former queen, Nefertiti. The girl’s deceased family has been branded as heretical, and no one in Egypt will speak their names.

A relic of a previous reign, Nefertari is pushed aside, an unimportant princess left to run wild in the palace. But this changes when she is taken under the wing of the Pharaoh’s aunt, then brought to the Temple of Hathor, where she is educated in a manner befitting a future queen.

Soon Nefertari catches the eye of the Crown Prince, and despite her family’s history, they fall in love and wish to marry. Yet all of Egypt opposes this union between the rising star of a new dynasty and the fading star of an old, heretical one. While political adversity sets the country on edge, Nefertari becomes the wife of Ramesses the Great. Destined to be the most powerful Pharaoh in Egypt, he is also the man who must confront the most famous exodus in history.

Sweeping in scope and meticulous in detail, The Heretic Queen is a novel of passion and power, heartbreak and redemption.

The Whole Truth

2008

by David Baldacci

Matt, I need a war. So begins David Baldacci's thriller, a story unlike any he's written before. Matt is Mathew Pender of Pender Associates, a shadowy organization that specializes in managing seemingly impossible situations for its clients. Sometimes, those services extend to managing—and creating—armed conflict.

When Matt Pender is asked by his client—the largest defense contractor in the world—to manipulate two nations against each other, a shocking and surprising series of events are set in motion that will possibly bring the world to the brink of World War III.

In this epic thriller with a global backdrop, David Baldacci delivers all the twists and turns, compelling characters, and can't-put-it-down pacing that readers have come to expect from this master storyteller.

Las legiones malditas

Publio Cornelio Escipión, conocido por el apodo de Africanus, era considerado por muchos el heredero de las cualidades militares atribuidas a su padre y a su tío. Pero de ellos no sólo había recibido estos magníficos atributos, sino también algunos enemigos, entre otros Asdrúbal, el hermano de Aníbal, y el general púnico Giscón, quienes harían lo posible por acabar con su enemigo y masacrar sus ejércitos.

Los enemigos también acechaban en Roma, donde el senador Quinto Fabio Máximo, en una jugada maestra, obliga a Escipión a aceptar la demencial tarea de liderar las legiones V y VI que permanecían desde hacía tiempo olvidadas en Sicilia. Así, según creía el senador, lograría deshacerse del último de los Escipiones.

Pero otro era el destino de las legiones malditas que, de la mano de Africanus, lograrían cambiar un capítulo de la historia.

The Bastard of Istanbul

2008

by Elif Shafak

From one of Turkey’s most acclaimed and outspoken writers, a novel about the tangled histories of two families.

In her second novel written in English, Elif Shafak confronts her country’s violent past in a vivid and colorful tale set in both Turkey and the United States. At its center is the “bastard” of the title, Asya, a nineteen-year-old woman who loves Johnny Cash and the French Existentialists, and the four sisters of the Kazanci family who all live together in an extended household in Istanbul: Zehila, the zestful, headstrong youngest sister who runs a tattoo parlor and is Asya’s mother; Banu, who has newly discovered herself as a clairvoyant; Cevriye, a widowed high school teacher; and Feride, a hypochondriac obsessed with impending disaster. Their one estranged brother lives in Arizona with his wife and her Armenian daughter, Armanoush. When Armanoush secretly flies to Istanbul in search of her identity, she finds the Kazanci sisters and becomes fast friends with Asya. A secret is uncovered that links the two families and ties them to the 1915 Armenian deportations and massacres.

Full of vigorous, unforgettable female characters, The Bastard of Istanbul is a bold, powerful tale that will confirm Shafak as a rising star of international fiction.

Snakehead

No sooner has Alex splashed down off the coast of Australia than he finds himself sucked into another adventure. This time he's working for ASIS - the Australian Secret Service - and his target is the criminal underworld of South-East Asia: the ruthless world of the Snakehead.

What goes up must come down, and when we last saw Alex Rider, he was as up as can be—in outer space. When he crash lands off the coast of Australia, the Australian Secret Service recruits him to infiltrate one of the ruthless gangs operating across South East Asia. Known as snakeheads, the gangs smuggle drugs, weapons, and worst of all, people.

Alex accepts the assignment, in part for the chance to work with his godfather and learn more about his parents. What he uncovers, however, is a secret that will make this his darkest and most dangerous mission yet... and that his old nemesis, Scorpia, is anything but out of his life.

From the slums of Bangkok to the Australian Outback to the middle of the Timor Sea, Snakehead is Alex Rider's most action-packed adventure yet.

Protect and Defend

2007

by Vince Flynn

New York Times bestselling author Vince Flynn returns with his most explosive political thriller yet. A tour de force of action-packed suspense, Protect and Defend delivers an all-too-realistic and utterly compelling vision of nations navigating the minefield of international intrigue.

In Protect and Defend, the action begins in the heart of Iran, where billions of dollars are being spent on the development of a nuclear program. No longer willing to wait for the international community to stop its neighboring enemy, Israel launches one of the most creative and daring espionage operations ever conceived. The attack leaves a radioactive tomb and environmental disaster in the middle of Iran's second largest city. An outraged Iranian government publicly blames both Israel and the United States for the attack and demands retribution. Privately, Iran's bombastic president wants much more. He wants America and Israel to pay for their aggression with blood.

Enter Mitch Rapp, America's top counterterrorism operative. Used to employing deception, Rapp sees an opportunity where others see only Iranian reprisals that could leave thousands of Americans dead. Rapp convinces President Josh Alexander to sign off on a risky operation that will further embarrass the Iranian government and push their country to the brink of revolution. As part of the plan, CIA director Irene Kennedy is dispatched to the region for a clandestine meeting with Azad Ashani, her Iranian counterpart.

But Rapp isn't the only one hatching plans. Iran's President Amatullah has recruited Hezbollah master terrorist Imad Mukhtar to do his dirty work. For decades Mukhtar has acted as a surrogate for Iran, blazing a trail of death and destruction across the Middle East and beyond. When Kennedy's meeting with Ashani goes disastrously wrong, Rapp and Mukhtar are set on a collision course that threatens to engulf the entire region in war. With the clock ticking, Rapp is given twenty-four hours, no questions asked, to do whatever it takes to stop Mukhtar, and avert an unthinkable catastrophe.

Spook Country

2007

by William Gibson

Tito is in his early twenties. Born in Cuba, he speaks fluent Russian, lives in one room in a NoLita warehouse, and does delicate jobs involving information transfer.

Hollis Henry is an investigative journalist, on assignment from a magazine called Node. Node doesn't exist yet, which is fine; she's used to that. But it seems to be actively blocking the kind of buzz that magazines normally cultivate before they start up. Really actively blocking it. It's odd, even a little scary, if Hollis lets herself think about it much. Which she doesn't; she can't afford to.

Milgrim is a junkie. A high-end junkie, hooked on prescription antianxiety drugs. Milgrim figures he wouldn't survive twenty-four hours if Brown, the mystery man who saved him from a misunderstanding with his dealer, ever stopped supplying those little bubble packs. What exactly Brown is up to, Milgrim can't say, but it seems to be military in nature. At least, Milgrim's very nuanced Russian would seem to be a big part of it, as would breaking into locked rooms.

Bobby Chombo is a "producer," and an enigma. In his day job, Bobby is a troubleshooter for manufacturers of military navigation equipment. He refuses to sleep in the same place twice. He meets no one. Hollis Henry has been told to find him.

Reaper's Gale

2007

by Steven Erikson

All is not well in the Letherii Empire. Rhulad Sengar, the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths, spirals into madness, surrounded by sycophants and agents of his Machiavellian chancellor, while the Letherii secret police conduct a campaign of terror against its own people.

The Errant, once a farseeing god, is suddenly blind to the future. Conspiracies seethe throughout the palace, as the empire—driven by the corrupt and self-interested—edges ever closer to all-out war with the neighbouring kingdoms.

The great Edur fleet—its warriors selected from countless peoples—draws ever closer. Amongst them are Karsa Orlong and Icarium Lifestealer—each destined to cross blades with the emperor himself. That yet more blood is to be spilled is inevitable...

Against this backdrop, a band of fugitives seek a way out of the empire, but one of them, Fear Sengar, must find the soul of Scabandari Bloodeye. It is his hope that it might help halt the Tiste Edur, and so save his brother, the emperor. Yet, travelling with them is Scabandari's most ancient foe: Silchas Ruin, brother of Anomander Rake. And his motives are anything but certain—for the wounds he carries on his back, made by the blades of Scabandari, are still fresh.

Fate decrees that there is to be a reckoning, for such bloodshed cannot go unanswered—and it will be a reckoning on an unimaginable scale...

A brutal, harrowing novel of war, intrigue, and dark, uncontrollable magic, this is epic fantasy at its most imaginative, storytelling at its most thrilling.

God's Spy

An instant bestseller in Spain, with rights sold in twenty-eight countries and counting, God’s Spy is a spectacular contemporary thriller set in the Vatican, where, in the aftermath of Pope John Paul II’s death, the hunt for a serial killer reveals a chilling conspiracy.

In the days following the Pope’s death, a cardinal is found brutally murdered in a chapel in Rome, his eyes gouged and his hands cut off. Called in for the grisly case, police inspector Paola Dicanti learns that another cardinal was recently found dead; he had also been tortured. Desperate to find the killer before another victim dies, Paola’s investigation is soon joined by Father Anthony Fowler—an American priest and former Army intelligence officer examining sexual abuse in the Church, who knows far more about the killer than Paola could possibly imagine.

As Paola and Father Anthony struggle through a maze of tantalizing clues, they begin to question whether someone in the Vatican is aiding their cause or abetting a murderer. And when evidence leads them to powerful figures within the Church hierarchy, their own pursuit of the truth may make them the next pawns to be sacrificed in a terrifying and deadly game.

A dazzling, impossible-to-put-down thriller, Juan Gómez-Jurado’s God’s Spy marks the arrival of a major new talent to the contemporary suspense fiction scene.

Old Man's War

2007

by John Scalzi

John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First, he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army.

The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.

John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.

Sovereign

2007

by C.J. Sansom

Autumn, 1541. King Henry VIII has set out on a spectacular Progress to the North to attend an extravagant submission by his rebellious subjects in York. Already in the city are lawyer Matthew Shardlake and his assistant Jack Barak. As well as legal work processing petitions to the King, Shardlake has reluctantly undertaken a secret mission for Archbishop Cranmer – to ensure the welfare of an important but dangerous conspirator who is to be returned to London for interrogation.

But the murder of a York glazier involves Shardlake in deeper mysteries, connected not only to the prisoner in York Castle but to the royal family itself. And when Shardlake and Barak stumble upon a cache of secret documents which could threaten the Tudor throne, a chain of events unfolds that will lead to Shardlake facing the most terrifying fate of the age...

The Nanny Diaries

Wanted: One young woman to take care of four-year-old boy. Must be cheerful, enthusiastic and selfless--bordering on masochistic. Must relish sixteen-hour shifts with a deliberately nap-deprived preschooler. Must love getting thrown up on, literally and figuratively, by everyone in his family. Must enjoy the delicious anticipation of ridiculously erratic pay. Mostly, must love being treated like fungus found growing out of employers Hermès bag. Those who take it personally need not apply.

Who wouldn't want this job? Struggling to graduate from NYU and afford her microscopic studio apartment, Nanny takes a position caring for the only son of the wealthy X family. She rapidly learns the insane amount of juggling involved to ensure that a Park Avenue wife who doesn't work, cook, clean, or raise her own child has a smooth day. When the Xs' marriage begins to disintegrate, Nanny ends up involved way beyond the bounds of human decency or good taste. Her tenure with the X family becomes a nearly impossible mission to maintain the mental health of their four-year-old, her own integrity and, most importantly, her sense of humor. Over nine tense months, Mrs. X and Nanny perform the age-old dance of decorum and power as they test the limits of modern-day servitude.

Safe House

2007

by Jenny Carroll

JESS MASTRIANI was on vacation when Amber went missing. Most people blame Jess for Amber's brutal slaying, but how could Jess — even with her psychic ability to find anyone, anywhere — have stopped the cheerleader from turning up dead, without having known she was even missing?

When yet another cheerleader disappears, Jess has a chance to redeem herself. If she can just find the girl before it's too late, maybe Jess will finally have a chance to be part of the in crowd. Except that it's starting to look like being in might just get you — not to mention your loved ones — killed. So much for popularity.

Kushiel's Justice

My blood beat hard in my veins and hammered in my ears, like the sound of bronze wings clashing. And I understood for the first time what it meant that Kushiel, the One God's punisher, had loved his charges too well...

Imriel de la Courcel's blood parents are history's most reviled traitors, while his adoptive parents, Phèdre and Joscelin, are Terre d'Ange's greatest champions. Stolen, tortured, and enslaved as a young boy, Imriel is now a Prince of the Blood, third in line for the throne in a land that revels in beauty, art, and desire.

After a year abroad to study at university, Imriel returns from his adventures a little older and somewhat wiser. But perhaps not wise enough. What was once a mere spark of interest between himself and his cousin Sidonie now ignites into a white-hot blaze. But from commoner to peer, the whole realm would recoil from any alliance between Sidonie, heir to the throne, and Imriel, who bears the stigma of his mother's misdeeds and betrayals.

Praying that their passion will peak and fade, Imriel and Sidonie embark on an intense, secret affair. Blessed Elua founded Terre d'Ange and bestowed one simple precept to guide his people: Love as thou wilt. When duty calls, Imriel honors his role as a member of the royal family by leaving to marry a lovely, if merely sweet, Alban princess. By choosing duty over love, Imriel and Sidonie may have unwittingly trespassed against Elua's law.

But when dark powers in Alba, who fear an invasion by Terre d'Ange, seek to use the lovers' passion to bind Imriel, the gods themselves take notice. Before the end, Kushiel's justice will be felt in heaven and on earth.

False Impression

2006

by Jeffrey Archer

When an aristocratic old lady is brutally murdered in her country home the night before 9/11, it takes all the resources of the FBI and Interpol to work out the connection between her and the possible motive for her death – a priceless Van Gogh painting.

It’s a young woman in the North Tower when the first plane crashed into the building who has the courage and determination to take on both sides of the law and avenge the old lady’s death. Anna Petrescu is missing, presumed dead, after 9/11 and she uses her new status to escape from America, only to be pursued across the world from Toronto to London, to Hong Kong, Tokyo and Bucharest, but it is only when she returns to New York that the mystery unfolds.

Why are so many people willing to risk their own lives and others' to own the Van Gogh Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear? Jeffrey Archer, one of the greatest popular novelists of our generation, delivers a truly page-turning thriller.

واحة الغروب

2006

by Bahaa Taher

واحة الغروب هي رواية تأخذنا إلى نهايات القرن التاسع عشر، وبداية الاحتلال البريطاني لمصر. يعود بهاء طاهر في روايته الجديدة والبديعة إلى هذه الفترة الزمنية المليئة بالأحداث.

تدور أحداث الرواية حول ضابط البوليس المصري محمود عبدالظاهر، الذي كان يعيش حياة لاهية بين الحانات وبنات الليل، ويُرسل إلى واحة سيوة لشك السلطات في تعاطفه مع الأفكار الثورية لجمال الدين الأفغاني وأحمد عرابي. يصطحب معه زوجته الأيرلندية كاثرين، الشغوفة بالآثار، والتي تبحث عن مقبرة الإسكندر الأكبر.

ينغمس كلاهما في عالم جديد شديد الثراء والخصوصية يجبرهما وأهل الواحة على مواجهة أنفسهم في زمن اختلطت فيه الانتهازية والخيانة والرغبة بالحب والبطولة.

تعكس الرواية مزجًا إبداعيًا بين الماضي والحاضر، والموضوعي والتاريخ والواقع، حيث تعبر عن هموم الوطن وتقدم تجربة العلاقة بين الشرق والغرب على المستويين الإنساني والحضاري بما فيها من صراع وتوافق.

Consent to Kill

2006

by Vince Flynn

Consent to Kill is a blistering thriller by New York Times bestselling author Vince Flynn. The story follows CIA operative Mitch Rapp, who has spent over a decade on the front lines of the war on terror. His bold actions have saved countless lives, but now, he finds himself the target of a bloodthirsty vendetta.

An influential father of a slain terrorist demands retribution for his son's death at Rapp's hands. In the tangled, duplicitous world of espionage, there are those, even among America's allies, who feel Rapp has become too effective. They have been waiting for an excuse to eliminate America's number one counterterrorism operative, and now, they have it.

Rapp must rely on his razor-sharp instincts for survival as he unleashes his fury on those who have betrayed him. It's a race against time to save one more life—his own—in this fast, fun read.

The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

It began with a simple note: a letter of rejection from Miss Temple’s fiancé, written on crisp Ministry paper and delivered on her maid’s silver tray. But for Miss Temple, Roger Bascombe’s cruel rejection will ignite a harrowing quest for answers, plunging her into a mystery as dizzying as a hall of mirrors—and a remote estate where danger abounds and all inhibitions are stripped bare.

Nothing could have prepared Miss Temple for where her pursuit of Roger Bascombe would take her—or for the shocking things she would find behind the closed doors of forbidding Harschmort Manor: men and women in provocative disguise, acts of licentiousness and violence, heroism and awakening. But she will also find two allies: Cardinal Chang, a brutal assassin with the heart of a poet, and a royal doctor named Svenson, at once fumbling and heroic—both of whom, like her, lost someone at Harschmort Manor.

As the unlikely trio search for answers—hurtling them from elegant brothels to gaslit alleyways to shocking moments of self-discovery—they are confronted by puzzles within puzzles. And the closer they get to the truth, the more their lives are in danger. For the conspiracy they face—an astonishing alchemy of science, perverted religion, and lust for power—is so terrifying as to be beyond belief.

The Expected One

Two thousand years ago, Mary Magdalene hid a set of scrolls in the rocky foothills of the French Pyrenees, a gospel that contained her own version of the events and characters of the New Testament. Protected by supernatural forces, these sacred scrolls could be uncovered only by a special seeker, one who fulfills the ancient prophecy of l'attendue -- The Expected One.

When journalist Maureen Pascal begins the research for a new book, she has no idea that she is stepping into an ancient mystery so secret, so revolutionary, that thousands of people have killed and died for it. She becomes deeply immersed in the mystical cultures of southwest France as the eerie prophecy of The Expected One casts a shadow over her life and work, and a long-buried family secret comes to light.

Maureen's extraordinary journey takes her from the dusty streets of Jerusalem to the cathedrals of Paris... and ultimately to search for the scrolls themselves. She must unravel clues that link history's great artistic masters, including Sandro Botticelli, Nicolas Poussin, and Jean Cocteau; the Medici, Bourbon, and Borgia dynasties; and great scientific minds like Leonardo da Vinci and Isaac Newton.

Ultimately, she, and the reader, come face-to-face with Jesus Christ, Mary Magdalene, John the Baptist, Judas, and Salome in the pages of a deeply moving and powerful new gospel, the life of Jesus as told by Mary Magdalene.

Kushiel's Scion

Imriel de la Courcel's blood parents are history's most reviled traitors, but his adoptive parents, the Comtesse Phèdre and the warrior-priest Joscelin, are Terre d'Ange's greatest champions.

Stolen, tortured, and enslaved as a young boy, Imriel is now a Prince of the Blood, third in line for the throne in a land that revels in art, beauty, and desire. It is a court steeped in deeply laid conspiracies... and there are many who would see the young prince dead. Some despise him out of hatred for his birth mother Melisande, who nearly destroyed the realm in her quest for power. Others because they fear he has inherited his mother's irresistible allure - and her dangerous gifts. And as he comes of age, plagued by dark yearnings, Imriel shares their fears.

At the royal court, where gossip is the chosen poison and assailants wield slander instead of swords, the young prince fights character assassins while struggling with his own innermost conflicts. But when Imriel departs to study at the famed University of Tiberium, the perils he faces turn infinitely more deadly. Searching for wisdom, he finds instead a web of manipulation, where innocent words hide sinister meanings, and your lover of last night may become your hired killer before dawn.

Now a simple act of friendship will leave Imriel trapped in a besieged city where the infamous Melisande is worshiped as a goddess; where a dead man leads an army; and where the prince must face his greatest test: to find his true self.

Devil in Winter

2006

by Lisa Kleypas

Devil in Winter unfolds the captivating story of Evangeline Jenner, the shyest member of a group of young ladies who have entered London society with the aim to find husbands. Evangeline, who stands to inherit a vast fortune, finds herself in a precarious situation due to her unscrupulous relatives. In a bold move, she proposes marriage to the notorious rake, Viscount St. Vincent, to escape their clutches.

Sebastian, Viscount St. Vincent, is known for his dangerous reputation, one that could ruin any maiden's good name within seconds. Yet, Evangeline, unchaperoned and bewitching, appears on his doorstep offering her hand in marriage. This proposal, however, comes with a condition: their marriage would be devoid of lovemaking after their wedding night. Evangeline is determined not to become just another broken heart discarded by the dashing libertine. This sets the stage for a tale of seduction, where Sebastian must either work harder at his seductions or, for the first time, surrender his own heart in the name of true love.

Scorpia

Alex Rider, teen spy, has always been told he is the spitting image of the father he never knew. But when Alex learns that his father may have been an assassin for the most lethal and powerful terrorist organization in the world, Scorpia, his world shatters.

Now Scorpia wants Alex on their side, and Alex no longer has the strength to fight them. That is, until he learns of Scorpia’s latest plot: an operation known only as “Invisible Sword” that will result in the death of thousands of people.

Can Alex prevent the slaughter, or will Scorpia prove once and for all that the terror will not be stopped?

Skeleton Key

Alex Rider has been through a lot for his fourteen years. He's been shot at by international terrorists, chased down a mountainside on a makeshift snowboard, and has stood face-to-face with pure evil. Twice, young Alex has managed to save the world. And twice, he has almost been killed doing it.

But now Alex faces something even more dangerous. The desperation of a man who has lost everything he cared for: his country and his only son. A man who just happens to have a nuclear weapon and a serious grudge against the free world. To see his beloved Russia once again be a dominant power, he will stop at nothing. Unless Alex can stop him first...

Uniting forces with America's own CIA for the first time, teen spy Alex Rider battles terror from the sun-baked beaches of Miami all the way to the barren ice fields of northernmost Russia. Come along for the thrilling ride of a lifetime.

Dreams Made Flesh

2006

by Anne Bishop

Return to the realm of the Blood in Dreams Made Flesh—featuring four revelatory all-new adventures of Jaenelle and her kindred….

Jaenelle is the most powerful Witch ever known, centuries of hopes and dreams made flesh at last. She has forged ties with three of the realm’s mightiest Blood warriors: Saetan, the High Lord of Hell, who trains Jaenelle in magic and adopts her as his daughter; Lucivar, the winged Eyrien warlord who becomes her protector; and the near-immortal Daemon, born to be Witch’s lover. Jaenelle has assumed her rightful place as Queen of the Darkness and restored order and peace to the realms…but at a terrible cost.

In Dreams Made Flesh, discover the origin of the mystical Jewels, and experience the forbidden passion between Lucivar and a simple hearth witch. Witness the clash between Saetan and a Priestess that may forever change reality. And learn whether the sacrifice of Jaenelle’s magic has destroyed any hope of happiness between her and Daemon.

The Last Templar

2006

by Raymond Khoury

"It has served us well, this myth of Christ." - Pope Leo X, 16th Century

In a hail of fire and flashing sword, as the burning city of Acre falls from the hands of the West in 1291, The Last Templar opens with a young Templar knight, his mentor, and a handful of others escaping to the sea carrying a mysterious chest entrusted to them by the Order's dying Grand Master. The ship vanishes without a trace.

In present day Manhattan, four masked horsemen dressed as Templar Knights emerge from Central Park and ride up the Fifth Avenue steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art during the black-tie opening of a Treasures of the Vatican exhibit. Storming through the crowds, the horsemen brutally attack anyone standing between them and their prize. Attending the gala, archaeologist Tess Chaykin watches in silent terror as the leader of the horsemen hones in on one piece in particular, a strange geared device. He utters a few cryptic Latin words as he takes hold of it with reverence before leading the horsemen out and disappearing into the night.

In the aftermath, an FBI investigation is led by anti-terrorist specialist Sean Reilly. Soon, he and Tess are drawn into the dark, hidden history of the crusading Knights, plunging them into a deadly game of cat and mouse with ruthless killers as they race across three continents to recover the lost secret of the Templars.

The Mystery of the Yellow Room

2006

by Gaston Leroux

The Mystery of the Yellow Room is an enthralling detective novel by Gaston Leroux, known for its ingenious plot and captivating suspense. This story unfolds with a perplexing crime committed in a locked room, challenging the very essence of detective fiction. How could a crime take place in a room which shows no sign of being entered?

Join the aspiring detective, Joseph Rouletabille, as he navigates through a web of deception and intrigue. The novel begins with a chilling event: cries of "Murder!" and gunshots are heard from within a locked room, leaving the victim, Mademoiselle Stangerson, injured and the attacker vanished without a trace. With no apparent exit, the mystery deepens, and it's up to Rouletabille to unravel the truth.

Leroux's masterful storytelling and the book's atmospheric tension make it a timeless classic, continuing to captivate readers and inspire detective fiction to this day.

The Brethren

2005

by John Grisham

Trumble is a minimum-security federal prison, a "camp," home to the usual assortment of relatively harmless criminals—drug dealers, bank robbers, swindlers, embezzlers, tax evaders, two Wall Street crooks, one doctor, and at least five lawyers.

And three former judges who call themselves the Brethren: one from Texas, one from California, and one from Mississippi. They meet each day in the law library, their turf at Trumble, where they write briefs, handle cases for other inmates, practice law without a license, and sometimes dispense jailhouse justice.

And they spend hours writing letters. They are fine-tuning a mail scam, and it's starting to really work. The money is pouring in.

Then their little scam goes awry. It ensnares the wrong victim, a powerful man on the outside, a man with dangerous friends, and the Brethren's days of quietly marking time are over.

The Secret History of the Pink Carnation

2005

by Lauren Willig

Nothing goes right for Eloise. The one day she wears her new suede boots, it rains cats and dogs. When the subway stops short, she’s always the one thrown into some stranger’s lap. Plus, she’s had more than her share of misfortune in the way of love. In fact, ever since she realized romantic heroes are a thing of the past, she’s decided it’s time for a fresh start.

Setting off for England, Eloise is determined to finish her dissertation on that dashing pair of spies, the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian. But what she discovers is something the finest historians have missed: the secret history of the Pink Carnation—the most elusive spy of all time. As she works to unmask this obscure spy, Eloise stumbles across answers to all kinds of questions. Like how did the Pink Carnation save England from Napoleon? What became of the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian? And will Eloise Kelly escape her bad luck and find a living, breathing hero all her own?

The Constant Princess

The Constant Princess is a splendid and sumptuous historical novel from Philippa Gregory, telling of the early life of Katherine of Aragon. Born Catalina, the Spanish Infanta, to parents who are both rulers and warriors, she is betrothed at age four to Arthur, Prince of Wales, and raised to be Queen of England. She never doubts her destiny to rule that far-off, wet, cold land.

Her faith is tested when she arrives in her new country to a great insult from her prospective father-in-law; Arthur seems little better than a boy; the food is strange and the customs coarse. However, she slowly adapts to the first Tudor court, and life as Arthur's wife grows ever more bearable.

But when Arthur dies, Katherine is left to make her own future. How can she now be queen and found a dynasty? Only by marrying Arthur's young brother, the sunny but spoilt Henry. Despite opposition from his father and grandmother, and her powerful parents proving little use, Katherine's fighting spirit is strong. She will do anything to achieve her aim, even if it means telling the greatest lie, and holding to it.

Philippa Gregory proves again that behind the apparently familiar face of history lies an astonishing story: of women warriors influencing the future of Europe, of revered heroes making deep mistakes, and of an untold love story which changes the fate of a nation.

The Warrior Prophet

2005

by R. Scott Bakker

Book Two of The Prince of Nothing finds the Holy War continuing its inexorable march southward. But the suspicion begins to dawn that the real threat comes not from the infidel but from within...

Steering souls through the subtleties of word and expression, Kellhus strives to extend his dominion over the Men of the Tusk. The sorcerer Achamian and his lover, Esmenet, submit entirely, only to have their faith - and their love - tested in unimaginable ways. Meanwhile, the warrior Cnaiur falls ever deeper into madness. Convinced that Kellhus will betray their pact to murder his father, Cnaiur turns to the agents of the Second Apocalypse and strikes an infernal bargain.

The Holy War stands on a knife edge. If all is not to be lost, the great powers of the world will have to choose between their most desperate desires and the end of the world. Between hatred and hope. Between Anasurimbor Kellhus and the second apocalypse.

The Summons

2005

by John Grisham

Ray Atlee is a professor of law at the University of Virginia. He's forty-three, newly single, and still enduring the aftershocks of a surprise divorce. He has a younger brother, Forrest, who redefines the notion of a family's black sheep. And he has a father, a very sick old man who lives alone in the ancestral home in Clanton, Mississippi.

Known to all as Judge Atlee, a beloved and powerful official who has towered over local law and politics for forty years, he is now a recluse. With the end in sight, Judge Atlee issues a summons for both sons to return home to Clanton, to discuss the details of his estate. It is typed by the Judge himself, on his handsome old stationery, and gives the date and time for Ray and Forrest to appear in his study.

Ray reluctantly heads south, to his hometown, to the place where he grew up, which he now prefers to avoid. But the family meeting does not take place. The Judge dies too soon, and in doing so leaves behind a shocking secret known only to Ray. And perhaps someone else.

City of Masks

2004

by Mary Hoffman

Lucien is seriously ill, but his life is transformed when an old Italian notebook gives him the power to become a stravagante, a time traveller with access to 16th century Italy. He wakes up in Bellezza (Venice) during carnival time and meets Arianna, a girl his own age who is disguised as a boy in the hope of being selected as one of the Duchessa's mandoliers.

Arianna gives Lucien her boy's clothing, and he is selected as a mandolier himself, becoming a friend of fellow-stravagante Rodolfo, the Duchessa's lover, and saving the Duchessa's life when she is threatened by an assassin hired by the powerful di Chimici family.

For state occasions, the Duchessa uses her maid Giuliana as a body-double, but Giuliana commits the fatal mistake of revealing the secret to her fiancé Enrico, leading to a sequence of devastating consequences.

Meanwhile, Lucien has met the original stravagante, the Elizabethan alchemist William Dethridge, and he begins to understand that he may be called to follow in his footsteps.

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

2004

by Sidney Sheldon

All around the globe, people are being reported dead or missing. In Berlin, a woman vanishes from the city streets. In Paris, a man plunges from the Eiffel Tower. In Denver, a small plane crashes into the mountains. In Manhattan, a body washes ashore along the East River. At first, these seem to be random incidents, but the police soon discover that all four of the victims are connected to Kingsley International Group (KIG), the largest think tank in the world.

Kelly Harris and Diane Stevens—young widows of two of the victims—encounter each other in New York, where they have been asked to meet with Tanner Kingsley, the head of KIG. He assures them that he is using all available resources to find out who is behind the mysterious deaths of their husbands. But he may be too late. Someone is intent on murdering both women, and they suffer a harrowing series of near escapes.

Who is trying to kill them and why? Forced together for protection, suspicious of each other and everyone around them, and trying to find answers for themselves, the two widows embark on a terrifying game of cat and mouse against the unknown forces out to destroy them.

Taut with suspense and vivid characterization, full of shocking twists, and with an unnervingly realistic premise that could alter all of our lives, Are You Afraid of the Dark? is Sidney Sheldon at the top of his game.

The Matarese Circle

2004

by Robert Ludlum

The Matarese Circle is an international circle of killers that threatens to take over the world within just two years. Only two rival spies have the power to stop them: Scofield, CIA, and Talaniekov, KGB. They share a genius for espionage and a life of explosive terror and violence.

Though these sworn enemies once vowed to terminate each other, they must now become allies. Only they possess the brutal skills and ice-cold nerves vital to their mission: destroy the Matarese.

Mr. Nice

2003

by Howard Marks

During the mid 1980s, Howard Marks had 43 aliases, 89 phone lines, and owned 25 companies throughout the world. Whether bars, recording studios, or offshore banks, all were money laundering vehicles serving the core activity: dope dealing.

Marks began to deal small amounts of hashish while doing a postgraduate philosophy course at Oxford, but soon he was moving much larger quantities. At the height of his career, he was smuggling consignments of up to 50 tons from Pakistan and Thailand to America and Canada and had contact with organizations as diverse as MI6, the CIA, the IRA, and the Mafia. This is his extraordinary story.

Meridon

Meridon, by the #1 New York Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory, is the final book of the extraordinary Wideacre trilogy. As the heir to the great estate comes home at last, Meridon knows she does not belong in the dirty, vagabond life of a gypsy bareback rider. The half-remembered vision of another life burns in her heart, even as her beloved sister, Dandy, risks everything for their future.

Alone, Meridon follows the urgings of her dream, riding in the moonlight past the rusted gates, up the winding drive to a house—clutching the golden clasp of the necklace that was her birthright—home at last to Wideacre. The lost heir of one of England's great estates takes her place as its mistress.

Meridon is a rich, impassioned tapestry of a young woman's journey from dreams to glittering drawing rooms and elaborate deceits, from a simple hope to a deep and fulfilling love. Set in the savage contrasts of Georgian England—a time alive with treachery, grandeur, and intrigue—Meridon is Philippa Gregory's masterwork.

Angels and Demons / The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #1-2)

2003

by Dan Brown

Enter the labyrinthine world of internationally bestselling author Dan Brown with his first two spellbinding thrillers featuring Robert Langdon:

Angels and Demons
When a groundbreaking scientist is found brutally murdered, world-renowned Harvard professor Robert Langdon is summoned to identify the mysterious symbol seared onto the dead man's chest. His conclusion, that it is the work of the Illuminati, a secret brotherhood presumed long dead, leads him to Rome, where against the backdrop of a papal election, the Illuminati look set to renew their bitter vendetta against their sworn enemy, the Catholic Church.

The Da Vinci Code
Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call while on business in Paris: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been violently murdered inside the museum. Alongside the body, police have found a series of baffling codes. As Langdon begins to sort through the bizarre riddles, he is stunned to find a trail that leads to the works of Leonardo da Vinci - and suggests the answer to an age-old mystery which will take him into the vaults of history.

A Perfect Spy

2002

by John le Carré

John le Carré's classic novels deftly navigate readers through the intricate shadow worlds of international espionage with unsurpassed skill and knowledge. A Perfect Spy is one of his richest and most morally resonant novels.

Magnus Pym - son of Rick, father of Tom, and a successful career officer of British Intelligence - has vanished, to the dismay of his friends, enemies, and wife. Who is he? Who was he? Who owns him? Who trained him? Secrets of state are at risk. As the truth about Pym gradually emerges, the reader joins Pym's pursuers to explore the unsettling life and motives of a man who fought the wars he inherited with the only weapons he knew, and so became a perfect spy.

The Queen of the South

Guero Davila is a pilot engaged in drug-smuggling for the local cartels. Teresa Mendoza is his girlfriend, a typical narco's morra—quiet, doting, submissive. But then Guero's caught playing both sides, and in Sinaloa, that means death. Teresa finds herself alone, terrified, friendless, and running to save her life, carrying nothing but a gym bag containing a pistol and a notebook that she has been forbidden to read.

Forced to leave Mexico, she flees to the Spanish city of Melilla, where she meets Santiago Fisterra, a Galician involved in trafficking hashish across the Strait of Gibraltar. When Santiago's partner is captured, it is Teresa who steps in to take his place. Now Teresa has plunged into the dark and ugly world that once claimed Guero's life—and she's about to get in deeper...

Komarr

Komarr could be a garden with a thousand more years' work, or an uninhabitable wasteland if the terraforming fails. Now, the solar mirror vital to the terraforming of the conquered planet has been shattered by a ship hurtling off course.

The Emperor of Barrayar sends his newest imperial auditor, Lord Miles Vorkosigan, to find out why. The choice is not a popular one on Komarr, where a betrayal a generation before drenched the name of Vorkosigan in blood.

Thus, the Komarrans surrounding Miles could be loyal subjects, potential hostages, innocent victims, or rebels ready for revenge. Lies within lies, treachery within treachery, Miles is caught in a race against time to stop a plot that could exile him from Barrayar forever.

His burning hope lies in an unexpected ally, one with wounds as deep and honor as beleaguered as his own.

Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

2002

by Stefan Zweig

Life at the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette has long captivated readers, drawn by accounts of the intrigues and pageantry that came to such a sudden and unexpected end.

Stefan Zweig's Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman is a dramatic account of the guillotine's most famous victim, from the time when as a fourteen-year-old she took Versailles by storm, to her frustrations with her aloof husband, her passionate love affair with the Swedish Count von Fersen, and ultimately to the chaos of the French Revolution and the savagery of the Terror.

An impassioned narrative, Zweig's biography focuses on the human emotions of the participants and victims of the French Revolution, making it both an engrossingly compelling read and a sweeping and informative history.

A Heart So White

2002

by Javier Marías

Javier Marías's A Heart So White chronicles with unnerving insistence the relentless power of the past. Juan knows little of the interior life of his father Ranz; but when Juan marries, he begins to consider the past anew, and begins to ponder what he doesn't really want to know.

Secrecy—its possible convenience, its price, and even its civility—hovers throughout the novel. A Heart So White becomes a sort of anti-detective story of human nature. Intrigue; the sins of the father; the fraudulent and the genuine; marriage and strange repetitions of violence: Marías elegantly sends shafts of inquisitory light into the shadows and on to the costs of ambivalence.

"My hands are of your colour; but I shame/To wear a heart so white"Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Kushiel's Chosen

Mighty Kushiel, of rod and weal
Late of the brazen portals
With blood-tipp'd dart a wound unhealed
Pricks the eyen of chosen mortals

The land of Terre d'Ange is a place of unsurpassed beauty and grace. The inhabiting race rose from the seed of angels and men, and they live by one simple rule: Love as thou wilt.

Phèdre nó Delaunay was sold into indentured servitude as a child. Her bond was purchased by a nobleman, the first to recognize that she is one pricked by Kushiel's Dart, chosen to forever experience pain and pleasure as one. He trained Phèdre in the courtly arts and the talents of the bedchamber—and, above all, the ability to observe, remember, and analyze.

When she stumbled upon a plot that threatened the very foundations of her homeland, she gave up almost everything she held dear to save it. She survived, and lived to have others tell her story, and if they embellished the tale with fabric of mythical splendor, they weren't far off the mark.

The hands of the gods weigh heavily upon Phèdre's brow, and they are not finished with her. While the young queen who sits upon the throne is well loved by the people, there are those who believe another should wear the crown... and those who escaped the wrath of the mighty are not yet done with their schemes for power and revenge.

Brothers in Arms

In the wake of unexpected planetary peace and the disappearance of the Dendarii payroll, mercenary captain Miles Naismith attempts to discover the link between the insufferable Captain Galeni and the Komarran rebel expatriates.


For some unexplained reason, the Dendarii payroll is missing and orders from the Barrayaran Imperial Command are being delayed by Miles's superior, Captain Galeni. What connects the impeccable, insufferable Captain Galeni and the Komarran rebel expatriates on Earth anyway?


But the most deadly question of all before Miles is more personal: are Miles's two identities, Admiral Naismith of the Dendarii and Lieutenant Lord Vorkosigan of Barrayar, splitting apart along the lines of his divided loyalties? And who is trying to assassinate which version of him?


When Miles unravels the answers, then the complications really begin.

The Curse of Chalion

A man broken in body and spirit, Cazaril, has returned to the noble household he once served as page, and is named, to his great surprise, as the secretary-tutor to the beautiful, strong-willed sister of the impetuous boy who is next in line to rule. It is an assignment Cazaril dreads, for it will ultimately lead him to the place he fears most, the royal court of Cardegoss, where the powerful enemies, who once placed him in chains, now occupy lofty positions.

In addition to the traitorous intrigues of villains, Cazaril and the Royesse Iselle, are faced with a sinister curse that hangs like a sword over the entire blighted House of Chalion and all who stand in their circle. Only by employing the darkest, most forbidden of magics, can Cazaril hope to protect his royal charge—an act that will mark the loyal, damaged servant as a tool of the miraculous, and trap him, flesh and soul, in a maze of demonic paradox, damnation, and death.

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