The Mancini Marriage Bargain
The Mancini Marriage Bargain

Author: Trish Morey

Publisher: HarperCollins Australia

Published: 2022-07-01

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 1867263777

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‘It’s a bit late to start desiring a woman ten minutes before you divorce her’ He’d wed her to save her from a forced marriage to another man. Twelve years later, Paolo Mancini’s back to tell his wife, beautiful Helene Grainger, they can divorce at last. But Paolo is still the passionate and gorgeous Italian whom Helene married. When they are reunited for one last night, Paolo realises what he’s been missing — and decides that he cannot let her go!

Albion's Seed
Albion's Seed

Author: David Hackett Fischer

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1991-03-14

Total Pages: 981

ISBN-13: 019974369X

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This fascinating book is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time. In this sense, nearly all Americans are "Albion's Seed," no matter what their ethnicity may be. The concluding section of this remarkable book explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still help to shape attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.

Love in the Time of Cholera (Illustrated Edition)
Love in the Time of Cholera (Illustrated Edition)

Author: Gabriel García Márquez

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2020-10-27

Total Pages: 473

ISBN-13: 0593310853

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A beautifully packaged edition of one of García Márquez's most beloved novels, with never-before-seen color illustrations by the Chilean artist Luisa Rivera and an interior design created by the author's son, Gonzalo García Barcha. In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs—yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.

Blackmailed into the Italian's Bed
Blackmailed into the Italian's Bed

Author: Miranda Lee

Publisher: Harlequin

Published: 2007-09-01

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 1426805322

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As a beautiful lawyer prepares to walk down the aisle, she’s blackmailed into bed by the man she never forgot in this sexy international romance. Australian lawyer Jordan Gray is about to marry the son of a senior partner at her prestigious law firm. But she still struggles to forget Gino Bortelli, the arrogant, sexy Italian with whom she had an affair years ago. Jordan still craved Gino’s touch. No man—not even her fiancé—has made her feel as Gino had. . . . Gino never forgot Jordan either—and now he’s back! Older, richer and sexier, he still has the power to make Jordan melt. He knows something Jordan would prefer keep secret. And he’s prepared to use it—to have her, bed her, any way he wants her. And, to Jordan’s shame, she can’t say no. . . .

The Secret Wife of Louis XIV
The Secret Wife of Louis XIV

Author: Veronica Buckley

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2009-09

Total Pages: 557

ISBN-13: 0374158304

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Françoise d’Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon and secret wife of the Sun King, Louis XIV, was born in a bleak French prison in 1635, her father a condemned traitor and murderer, her mother the warden’s seduced daughter. A timely pardon and a hopeful Caribbean colonial venture failed to mend the family’s fortunes, and Françoise was reduced to begging in the streets. Yet, armed with beauty, intellect, and shrewd judgment, she was to make her way to the center of power at Versailles, the most opulent and ambitious court in all Europe. At fifteen, she was married off to the forty-two-year-old satirical poet Paul Scarron, a former roué now grievously deformed by rheumatism—“a sort of human Z,” as he described himself. Despite his ailments, Scarron presided over the liveliest and most scandalous literary salon in Paris, and Françoise quickly became its most prized ornament. After Scarron’s death, she enjoyed a merry widowhood in the fashionable Marais district, in the company of the courtesan Ninon de Lenclos and the King’s splendid mistress, Athénaïs de Montespan, who made the young widow governess to her brood of illegitimate children. The appointment transformed Françoise’s life, but was fatal to the temperamental Athénaïs herself, with the King soon turning his attentions to the graceful governess. Françoise was raised to the nobility as Madame de Maintenon—and, unofficially, “Madame de Maintenant,” the lady of the moment. The acclaimed biographer Veronica Buckley traces the extraordinary story of Françoise’s progress from pauper child to salonnière to the compromised position of Louis’s secret wife and uncrowned Queen. An absolute ruler, Louis turned away his many other mistresses to live with Françoise only, trusting her as his closest confidante and remaining in love with her for forty years. Sparkling with the irresistible wit of contemporary chroniclers such as Madame de Sévigné, this exactingly researched biography is a pinnacle of the form. In vibrant colors, The Secret Wife of Louis XIV paints a portrait of Europe in an age of violent change, and the Sun King’s France in the process of becoming its modern self.

Sweet Savage Eden
Sweet Savage Eden

Author: Heather Graham

Publisher: Dell

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0307815765

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From a marriage of convenience, a fierce, all-consuming love was born. From the first time Jasmine’s eyes met those of Lord Jamie Cameron in a smoky British inn, theirs was the wrong kind of attraction—not gentle, slow, and easy, but hot, hard, and all-consuming. The illegitimate daughter of an actress and duke, Jassy had dreams no man could wrench from her in a moment of desire. She’d resist this bold nobleman with all the strength of her soul. But her golden hair, fiery temperament, and indomitable spirit obsessed Lord Cameron . . . and he wanted her with him when he sailed for the new wilderness called Virginia. So he had a bargain for the spit-fire Jassy, one that only a very special woman would dare to make.

Captain Blood
Captain Blood

Author: Rafael Sabatini

Publisher: Courier Corporation

Published: 2013-04-09

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0486112993

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Physician and country gentleman Peter Blood is forced to turn from medicine to piracy in this swashbuckling classic brimming with stolen treasure, adventure on the high seas, and romance.

Candide
Candide

Author: By Voltaire

Publisher: BookRix

Published: 2019-06-10

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 3736801785

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Candide is a French satire by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. It begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism (or simply Optimism) by his mentor, Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this lifestyle, followed by Candide's slow, painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes with Candide, if not rejecting optimism outright, advocating a deeply practical precept, "we must cultivate our garden", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds". Candide is characterized by its sarcastic tone, as well as by its erratic, fantastical and fast-moving plot. A picaresque novel it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is mordantly matter-of-fact. Still, the events discussed are often based on historical happenings, such as the Seven Years' War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. As philosophers of Voltaire's day contended with the problem of evil, so too does Candide in this short novel, albeit more directly and humorously. Voltaire ridicules religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies, and philosophers through allegory; most conspicuously, he assaults Leibniz and his optimism. As expected by Voltaire, Candide has enjoyed both great success and great scandal. Immediately after its secretive publication, the book was widely banned because it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naïveté. However, with its sharp wit and insightful portrayal of the human condition, the novel has since inspired many later authors and artists to mimic and adapt it. Today, Candide is recognized as Voltaire's magnum opus and is often listed as part of the Western canon; it is arguably taught more than any other work of French literature. It was listed as one of The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written.