Trying to avoid being sent off to boarding school, ten-year-old Arabella wishes she could become a cat, only for her wish to reveal itself as a nightmare after all. Against her wishes, Arabella’s stepdad is determined to send the ten-year-old off to boarding school. Thinking of every possible way to avoid this ill fate, Arabella wishes she could become a cat. Though she thought becoming a cat would solve all her problems and get her out of going to boarding school, when her wishes come true, Arabella is in for a rude awakening. As she quickly discovers that her new life as a cat is fraught with unknown terrors, she begins to realize her former life was not so bad after all.
Bella isn't evil. But even people with good intentions can end up doing bad things. Especially when they meet people with the power to persuade them to do almost anything, like John Wilkes Booth-the most charismatic and famous actor of his time. So when Booth sets his sights on Bella, an assistant seamstress to Mary Todd Lincoln, to help with his plot to kidnap President Lincoln, he is able to persuade her to betray her president and even turn her back on the boy she has loved her entire life. Bella believes Booth is only trying to force the North to release Southern war prisoners, and will not harm her dear friend Mr. Lincoln. But the kidnapping plot fails, and now Booth will stop at nothing--even if it means harming Bella in the process. Anna Myers has crafted a provocative new look at the Lincoln assassination through the eyes of both a young White House insider and the assassin himself. An author's note provides the historical background to this tragic event.
Updated edition of the beloved classic by the Queen of Regency romance herself, Georgette Heyer, featuring a new Foreword by New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James. Arabella's one little while lie has spread through the ton like wildfire... Arabella Tallant, modest daughter of a country clergyman, is on her way to her first London Season when her carriage breaks down outside the estate of the wealthy and bored Mr. Robert Beaumaris. Beau assumes she's simply another young lady throwing herself in his path, which goads the impetuous Arabella into pretending she's an heiress. Much to Arabella's dismay, rather than being brutally set-down, as she intended, Beaumaris is deeply amused. He counters by launching her into high society, which Arabella would enjoy very much if it wasn't for the fortune hunters. Arabella's unpredictable and innocent ways force Beaumaris to start helping others, including a stray dog, an unfortunate urchin, and eventually Arabella's reckless young brother. Along the way, Arabella and Beaumaris become more and more intrigued with each other—which neither will admit, of course, until under extreme duress. "Absolutely delicious tales of Regency heroes... Utter, immersive escapism."—SOPHIE KINSELLA "No one has ever matched Georgette Heyer for charm and wit." —LISA KLEYPAS "Utterly timeless charm... The dialogue sparkles with wit." —NORA ROBERTS, #1 New York Times bestselling author "Romance, adventure, side-splitting humor—no one writes like Georgette Heyer!" —LAUREN WILLIG, New York Times bestselling author
In the home where Arabella Godwin was raised it is forbidden to speak her name, and her picture is turned to the wall. But in the turbulent America of the 1850s, everyone knows her as "Belle Cora," madam of San Francisco's finest bordello. Judges and senators do her bidding; a vicious newspaper editor plots her downfall; a preacher looks at her from across his pulpit and tries to forget that once she was his wife. Merchant's daughter, farm girl, prostitute, mother, madam, murderess, avenger, protector—she has worn all these masks: the only thing that never changes is her tireless pursuit of the one man who can see her for who she really is.
A young man journeys from rural Mississippi to the battlefields of WWI to discover his family’s bloody legacy in this sequel to By Accident of Birth. On May 7, 1915, the passenger ship RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-Boat. Among the many casualties was Beverly Bethany Quinn, an American woman whose entire life was marked by the forces of bloodshed. For Ansel Quinn, the single event holds a grim double meaning. With his beloved aunt gone, he is the last of his family line. And now his country is on the brink of joining the war overseas. When Ansel discovers his Aunt Bethany’s diary, the shocking revelations within set him on an epic quest for family honor and self-discovery. President Wilson had vowed to keep America out of another war. Ansel had sworn to serve his country. Fate’s cards trumped them all. From the American South to the trenches of Verdun, nothing will ever be the same again.
This challenging book brings to light a mythic dimension of seventeen important eighteenth and early nineteenth-century narratives that revolve around the persecution of one or more important female characters, and offers original reading of novels by Richardson, Fielding, Burney, Radcliffe, Godwin, Austen, Scott, and others. The myth in question, which Raymond Hilliard calls "the myth of persecution and reparation," serves as a major vehicle for the early novel's preoccupation with the "mother," a mythic figure distinct from the historical mother or from the mother as she is represented in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century maternal ideology. Hilliard argues that the myth of persecution and reparation derives from the ropos of female sacrifice in the romance tradition, and shows that this topos is central to several kinds of novels-realist, Gothic, Jacobin, feminist, and historical. Hilliard contends that the narrative of persecution and reparation anticipates the twentieth-century maternal myth associated with the work of Melanie Klein and other "relational model" psychoanalytic theorists, and he thus also examines the psychosexual significance of the "mother." Hilliard explores the relation of psychosexual themes to social representations, and delineates a new theory of plot-both tragic and comic plots- in the early novel. --Book Jacket.
Names have power! A child’s name—and the source of that name—can have a profound effect on their character and future. Use this book to pick a name that expresses the lasting qualities valued by your family—qualities like integrity, creativity, courage, innovation, compassion and patriotism. Gathered from the pages of our history books and rooted in the nation’s heartland, the names in this book are appealing and timeless. They are the names of real-life American poets and soldiers, artists and pioneers, entrepreneurs, teachers and athletes; people whose professions ranged from venerable statesmen like William Jennings Bryan to lighthouse keepers like Barbara Mabrity. Distinctive and prestigious, these names can give your child an instant, natural role model—the heroes and positive idols who have had that name before. The entries in this magnificent baby name book include: • Wonderful classic names and moving descriptions of the heroic Americans who bore them • References to writings by and about each namesake that families can enjoy together • Historic sites related to each heirloom name suitable for family field trips • Famous names in all ethnic groups • The greatest names in medicine, law, statecraft, sports, business, philanthropy, exploration, invention, and more!
