Lisa Pennington will do anything to help her family--even if that means accepting an indecent proposal from the man who broke her heart! For five years Diego Raffacani has thought of nothing but Lisa--and revenge! He's sure that she will come to his bed, if only for her family's sake. But he soon realizes that he has underestimated her--and the strength of their passion. Now the only way to right the wrongs of the past is to make her his bride. But will Lisa yield to the Spaniard's seduction?
"You con artist. Someday I'll have my revenge!" Taz is dumped without explanation by her lover, Judeo, who suddenly turns on her. He believes that she and her father schemed to trick his family out of a fortune, and continues to despise her until they meet again, six years later - and Judeo is now Taz's stepmother's fiance. Is he using her to seek revenge? Taz tries to stand up to him to protect her stepmother and her late father, but finds that his appeal has only increased in the passing years, and that she is unable to resist his cruel but beautiful eyes...
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • Entertainment Weekly • Kirkus Reviews • The Christian Science Monitor In the picturesque village of Guzmán, Spain, in a cave dug into a hillside on the edge of town, an ancient door leads to a cramped limestone chamber known as “the telling room.” Containing nothing but a wooden table and two benches, this is where villagers have gathered for centuries to share their stories and secrets—usually accompanied by copious amounts of wine. It was here, in the summer of 2000, that Michael Paterniti found himself listening to a larger-than-life Spanish cheesemaker named Ambrosio Molinos de las Heras as he spun an odd and compelling tale about a piece of cheese. An unusual piece of cheese. Made from an old family recipe, Ambrosio’s cheese was reputed to be among the finest in the world, and was said to hold mystical qualities. Eating it, some claimed, conjured long-lost memories. But then, Ambrosio said, things had gone horribly wrong. . . . By the time the two men exited the telling room that evening, Paterniti was hooked. Soon he was fully embroiled in village life, relocating his young family to Guzmán in order to chase the truth about this cheese and explore the fairy tale–like place where the villagers conversed with farm animals, lived by an ancient Castilian code of honor, and made their wine and food by hand, from the grapes growing on a nearby hill and the flocks of sheep floating over the Meseta. What Paterniti ultimately discovers there in the highlands of Castile is nothing like the idyllic slow-food fable he first imagined. Instead, he’s sucked into the heart of an unfolding mystery, a blood feud that includes accusations of betrayal and theft, death threats, and a murder plot. As the village begins to spill its long-held secrets, Paterniti finds himself implicated in the very story he is writing. Equal parts mystery and memoir, travelogue and history, The Telling Room is an astonishing work of literary nonfiction by one of our most accomplished storytellers. A moving exploration of happiness, friendship, and betrayal, The Telling Room introduces us to Ambrosio Molinos de las Heras, an unforgettable real-life literary hero, while also holding a mirror up to the world, fully alive to the power of stories that define and sustain us. Praise for The Telling Room “Captivating . . . Paterniti’s writing sings, whether he’s talking about how food activates memory, or the joys of watching his children grow.”—NPR
“You know nothing about me, except that I’m an excellent lover.” Alejandro hits Rebecca in her most sensitive spot, because five years ago they had a passionate affair, but now, for reasons unknown to her, he’s managed to secretly buy up all of her company. Rebecca searches desperately for a way to understand his motives and distract him enough to get back her hotel business. The desire between them spills over into the cold world of the hotel industry and heats them up again. Rebecca carefully calculates her moves, but Alejandro has long since been able to break through!
The Ipian Empire was once a land that welcomed dragons and spirits alike, but a century of war and bloodshed saw them all but vanish. Now, the lost things are returning and the Onryo have gathered. Five legendary spirits with mysterious powers, bent on freeing an ancient evil that would wreak havoc on humanity. Haruto swore his soul to the God of Death for the chance to hunt down the vengeful ghost of his wife. Now an onmyoji, he's tasked by the Imperial Throne to hunt down monsters and malicious spirits. But he knows not all spirits are evil and not all deserve the peace of the sword. Kira is a student at Heiwa, an academy for children with dangerous techniques. But she has a secret, she's not like the other students. When the school is attacked, she flees with one of the tutors, determined to hide both from those who would kill her, and those who would use her. As a plague of spirits sweeps across the land, the Onryo leave a bloody trail for Haruto to follow. But who's hunting who?
Bloodstained land. Harrowing secrets. Can a wrongly accused rancher solve a brutal crime before he’s locked away forever? Rural Sacramento, 1870. Caleb Stewart can’t wait to be a family man. After battling natural disasters and legal challenges to secure his land claim, he’s finally free to court the French beauty next door. But he’s forced to push his feelings aside when his own hacienda becomes the scene of a suspicious double murder. Madeleine Laurent hopes a fresh start in America will help her forget painful memories. But even though her homicidal husband fled and vanished, she’s still legally bound to a man who’s likely dead. So she’s shocked when he reappears with a false name, stirring up trouble as the local lawyer’s hired muscle. Threatened into silence, she bites her tongue despite knowing that the truth of her husband’s identity could clear her kindly neighbor of blame. And as the trumped-up case grows, Caleb fears he’s running out of time to discover the real killer before he loses his ranch and his freedom. Can Caleb and Madeleine unmask the true culprit and build a new future together? Unbridled Vengeance is the fifth book in the charming Of Gold and Blood historical mystery series. If you like suspenseful twists and turns, vivid 19th century Californian settings, and a touch of romance, then you’ll adore Jenny Wheeler’s captivating tale.
What is revenge, and what purpose does it serve? On the early modern English stage, depictions of violence and carnage—the duel between Hamlet and Laertes that leaves nearly everyone dead or the ghastly meal of human remains served at the end of Titus Andronicus—emphasize arresting acts of revenge that upset the social order. Yet the subsequent critical focus on a narrow selection of often bloody "revenge plays" has overshadowed subtler and less spectacular modes of vengeance present in early modern culture. In Civil Vengeance, Emily L. King offers a new way of understanding early modern revenge in relation to civility and community. Rather than relegating vengeance to the social periphery, she uncovers how facets of society—church, law, and education—relied on the dynamic of retribution to augment their power such that revenge emerges as an extension of civility. To revise the lineage of revenge literature in early modern England, King rereads familiar revenge tragedies (including Marston's Antonio's Revenge and Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy) alongside a new archive that includes conduct manuals, legal and political documents, and sermons. Shifting attention from episodic revenge to quotidian forms, Civil Vengeance provides new insights into the manner by which retaliation informs identity formation, interpersonal relationships, and the construction of the social body.
