Plantagenet Palliser must face new challenges and a changing world if he is to hold his family together in the final installment of the Palliser Novels. After losing his devoted wife, Glencora, Duke Plantagenet Palliser takes on a task he has never had the time or skills to bother with before: dealing with his children. Palliser has never been a doting father, what with the responsibilities of title and duty constantly beckoning him away, but now...

In this warm, engaging debut novel, four siblings make their way home, where their father, the memory of their mother, and long-held family secrets all collide just in time for Christmas For Maggie Arnaud and her siblings, childhood Christmases meant lavish feasts and beloved rituals. The day began with hot chocolate and cougnole de Noel-the sweet, rich bread traditional in their parents' native Belgium. Those special holidays ended with their mother's...

"The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today" is the collaborative work of Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner that satirized the era of political greed and corruption that followed the American Civil War. This period is often referred to as "The Gilded Age" because of this book. The corruption and greed that was typical of the era is exemplified through two fictional narratives; one of the Hawkins family, a poor family from Tennessee who try to get the government...

Thérèse Raquin (1867) is a novel by French author Émile Zola. Initially serialized in L'Artiste, a popular French literary magazine, Thérèse Raquin, Zola's third novel, earned the author widespread fame and critical condemnation for its scandalous content and unsparing vision of human sexuality and violence. Thérèse Raquin effectively launched Zola's career as a leading practitioner of literary naturalism, and has since been adapted countless...

This daring tale of revenge and exotic intrigue is demonstrative of Stevenson's broad range and unique genius. "The Master of Ballantrae", first published in 1889, follows the conflict between two Scottish brothers of noble origins during the tumultuous Jacobite Risings of 1745. Greed and envy threaten to tear the brothers apart as a race for the family inheritance intensifies. James Durie, the protagonist and Master of Ballantrae, is as charming...

★★Reminder: Book 1 of the Molly series is available so make sure to read it if you haven't already!★★Warning: This description contains spoilers for Molly 1 and 2. Do not read until you have read the first 2 books! Sarah Hartley was a single, working-class mother, raising her son, Tommy, happily, working in a bakery, and saving change to take her son south on vacation. That was eight years ago, before she met a deranged serial killer and...

The Financier (1912) is a novel by Theodore Dreiser. The first installment of Dreiser's Trilogy of Desire, The Financier has endured as a classic of naturalist fiction and remains a powerful example of social critique over a century after its publication. Followed by The Titan (1914) and The Stoic (1947), The Financier captures the greed at the heart of the Gilded Age, a time when tycoons rose with total impunity to take over swaths of American industry....

The Bostonians, by Henry James, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies of contemporary...

The Columbia space shuttle and its contents rain down on the people of Kiser, Texas, in Kathryn Schwille's imaginative debut novel set six weeks before the invasion of Iraq. What Luck, This Life begins in the aftermath of the space shuttle's break-up, as the people of Piney Woods watch their pastures swarm with searchers and reporters bluster at their doors. A shop owner defends herself against a sexual predator who is pushed to new boldness after...

Spanning over a period of sixty-five years, from the 1840s to 1905, The Rainbow by D.H Lawrence follows three generations of the Brangwen family, mapping the change in their romantic relationships amid the industrialization of Great Britain. Their story begins when Tom Brangwen meets a Polish widow named Lydia. The two soon fall in love and get married, though they find that their cultural differences cause more issues than they imagined. Due to a...