SABINA REIGNS decides that her husband's infidelity will not define her. She's looking at the end of her marriage not as a detriment, but as an opportunity to do everything she has longed to do--what being a wife and mom kept her from doing. With her daughter out of the nest, she's free to pursue the career her ex prevented her from starting. It's a challenge and an act of empowerment. But there are more than a couple of monkey wrenches thrown in the works that could derail her dreams of being a successful interior designer. Join Sabina on her journey--with all its speed bumps.
The Nichols family is all in a tizzy when it's discovered their penny-pinching Uncle Albert is worth millions. They decide the old man has overstayed his worldly welcome, but can they bump him off and get away with it?
Tori Cannon's life is in chaos. She's lost her job, her grandmother just died, and her lease has run out. Her only hope is to live with her grandfather on Lotus Bay near Lake Ontario and revive his failing bait and tackle business. Convincing him not to sell it is one of her problems. Topping that, her troubles increase when she finds a dead body on the property—a man with spikes filling his mouth. The victim's enemies are a rich woman who wants to level his eyesore of a home and his daughter who is resentful that her father never had time for her. With no faith from her grandfather that Tori can save the failing business and discover a murderer, all her eggs are in one basket as both her life and her future hinge on her sorting through petty jealousies and deadly consequences to find the truth. Can Tori save her family bait shop—after such a deadly catch?
Things go awry for Katie Bonner when her former mother-in-law, Margo, throws a housewarming party at her lakeside rental and one of her guests ends up dead in the water. Maxwell Preston was a devoted husband--and a not-so-great dad. He was a beloved pharmacist who didn’t take care of his ramshackle property, which is destined to be a hot commodity on Victoria Square when his heir puts it up for sale. But most of all, Pettis was a stranger to the others who attended the party. Meanwhile, Nona Fiske takes charge of Victoria Square big summer extravaganza—a disaster in the making as what little power she’s seized has gone straight to her head. The Davenport sisters have their own agenda, and they’ve not only been poking around to find out more about the dead man, but what other mischief has been going on around the Square. So, who killed Maxwell Preston and why? That’s what Katie wants to know—and she’s willing to risk everything to find out. Read A Lethal Lake Effect, the 9th installment in the Victoria Square Mystery series.
“An illuminating and highly readable narrative about the role of women at the center of imperial Rome—fascinating and important.” —Lesley Adkins, author of Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero—these are the names history associates with the early Roman Empire. Yet, not a single one of these emperors was the blood son of his predecessor. In this captivating history, a prominent scholar of the era documents the Julio-Claudian women whose bloodline, ambition, and ruthlessness made it possible for the emperors’ line to continue. Eminent scholar Guy de la Bédoyère, author of Praetorian, asserts that the women behind the scenes—including Livia, Octavia, and the elder and younger Agrippina—were the true backbone of the dynasty. De la Bédoyère draws on the accounts of ancient Roman historians to revisit a familiar time from a completely fresh vantage point. Anyone who enjoys I, Claudius will be fascinated by this study of dynastic power and gender interplay in ancient Rome. “In contrast to most histories of Rome which focus almost entirely on the exploits of its male emperors, Domina examines the women who partnered them in power, from the perfect Roman wives Livia and Octavia to Cleopatra, Agrippina the Younger and the trio of Severan Julias who all stepped far beyond tradition to dominate the Roman world.”—Joann Fletcher, author of The Story of Egypt “Enjoyable, fluently written and well-balanced in approach. De la Bédoyère leaves no stone unturned by way of evidence, which he carefully evaluates with regard to its context and reliability.”—Pat Southern, author of The Roman Army
The adventures of Jane Yellowrock continue with a thrilling new installment in the New York Times bestselling series that captures “the essence of urban fantasy” (SF Site). Jane Yellowrock is a shape-shifting skinwalker...and the woman rogue vampires fear most. Jane walks softly and carries a big stake to keep the peace in New Orleans, all part of her job as official Enforcer to Leo Pellissier, Master of the City. But Leo’s reign is being threatened by a visit from a delegation of ancient European vampires seeking to expand their dominions. And there’s another danger to the city. When she hears reports of revenant vampires, loose in NOLA and out for blood, Jane goes to put them down—and discovers there’s something unusual about these revenants. They never should have risen. Jane must test her strength against a deadly, unnatural magic beyond human understanding, and a ruthless cadre of near-immortals whose thirst for power knows no bounds...
Sabina Augusta (ca. 85-ca. 137), wife of the emperor Hadrian (reigned 117-38), accumulated more public honors in Rome and the provinces than any imperial woman had enjoyed since the first empress, Augustus' wife Livia. Indeed, Sabina is the first woman whose image features on a regular and continuous series of coins minted at Rome. She was the most travelled and visible empress to date. Hadrian also deified his wife upon her death. In synthesizing the textual and massive material evidence for the empress, T. Corey Brennan traces the development of Sabina's partnership with her husband and shows the vital importance of the empress for Hadrian's own aspirations. Furthermore, the book argues that Hadrian meant for Sabina to play a key role in promoting the public character of his rule, and details how the emperor's exaltation of his wife served to enhance his own claims to divinity. Yet the sparse literary sources on Sabina instead put the worst light on the dynamics of her marriage. Brennan fully explores the various, and overwhelmingly negative, notions this empress stirred up in historiography, from antiquity through the modern era; and against the material record proposes a new and nuanced understanding of her formal role. This biographical study sheds new light not just on its subject but also more widely on Hadrian-including the vexed question of that emperor's relationship with his apparent lover Antinoös-and indeed Rome's imperial women as a group.
