Based on Lucie Duff Gordons Letters from Egypt" this is a lushly evocative period novel. Lady Duff Gordon is the toast of Victorian London. But when her debilitating tuberculosis means exile she & her devoted ladys maid Sally set sail for Egypt. It is Sally who describes with a mixture of wonder & trepidation the odd menage marshalled by the resourceful Omar which travels down the Nile to a new life in Luxor. As Lady Duff Gordon undoes her stays & takes to native dress throwing herself into weekly salons; language lessons; excursions to the tombs; Sally too adapts to a new world affording her heady & heartfelt freedoms never known before. But freedom is a luxury that a maid can ill-afford & when Sally grasps more than her status entitles her to she is brutally reminded that she is mistress of nothing." ...

When Dewi Morgan arrives at Polrudden Manor it is to find a disappointing welcome. She had expected to take up the position of governess to Nathan Jagos son Beville but Nathan is determined to have a local girl for the post. It takes a dramatic rescue for Nathan to have a change of heart & by then Dewis gentle ways & sense of fun have made her a favourite with the entire household. Cornwall in the early years of the nineteenth century is a place of social upheaval & change. With the welfare of the villagers always at the front of his mind Nathan is eager to build a proper harbour at Pentuan which will bring increased prosperity & trade. But there are those who think an ex prize fighter has no business as Master of Polrudden... There are disappointments too in affairs of the heart. Nathan is much taken by Sir Kenwyn Penhaligans beautiful niece Abigail but she has given her affections elsewhere though is eager to extend the hand of friendship. & meanwhile Dewi makes herself an indispensable member of the household trying to disguise her growing affection for the handsome Cornishman who is her master... ...

Passion. Treachery. Murder...A heart-stopping epic about a Jewish slave girl & Romes greatest gladiator who become involved in a plot to assassinate an emperor Orphaned by Romes savage legions Thea a slave girl from Judaea has learned what it takes to survive. She knows only violence until a chance meeting with gladiator Arius offers a shred of tenderness. But their bond is severed when Thea is sold again condemned to rot in squalor. Years later a singer known as Athena betrays no hint of her troubled past. Catching the eye of the Emperor himself she is swept into a world of decadence & depravity. But although Domitian fears betrayal from every side he is unaware that the greatest threat lies next to him
- a slave girl who has come to be called the Mistress of Rome...
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Third in stunning reissues of Raymond Feist & Janny Wurts classic trilogy
- one of the most successful fantasy collaborations
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SHE MIGHT GRACE HIS BED BUT SHE WILL NEVER WEAR HIS RING They whisper her name in the ballroom's shadows
- the Marquis's mistress!
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What these ruthless Italians want they get! & now they want...MISTRESSES When Angelo Riccardi set out to get revenge he had financial devastation in mind. But innocent & pretty Gwenna Hamilton added another delicious dimension. She had no chance when the Italian tycoon swooped like an urban predator & offered her the devils bargain: pay for her fathers freedom with her body. Harriets decided to forget London an unexpected legacy in Ireland calls! Her new neighbour is ruthless businessman Rafael Cavaliere; Rafael is always on hand he oozes sex & charm. Even knowing she might be just another notch on Rafaels bedpost Harriet lets him sweep her up in a heady affair. ...

This is the tragic tale of the rise & fall of Camelot
- but seen through the eyes of Camelots women: the devout Gwenhwyfar Arthurs
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Amy has always loved cats & is thrilled when she spots a tiny little black kitten in her garden. Although she has no collar she looks too well cared for to be a stray. Misty starts to spend more & more time with Amy but just as she starts to think of the kitten as hers the real owners show up. ...

The Misunderstanding" is Irene Nemirovskys first novel written when she was just twenty-one & published in a literary journal two years later. An intense story of self-destructive & blighted love it is also a tragic satire of French society after the Great War. Yves Harteloup scarred by the war is a disappointed young man old money fallen on hard times who returns for the summer to the rich comfortable Atlantic resort of Hendaye where he spent blissful childhood holidays. He becomes infatuated by a beautiful bored young woman Denise whose rich husband is often away on business. Intoxicated by summer nights & Yves intensity Denise falls passionately in love before the idyll has to end & Yves must return to his mundane office job. In the mournful Paris autumn their love founders on mutual misunderstanding in the apparently unbridgeable gap between a life of idle wealth & the demands of making a living between a womans needs & a mans way of loving. As Denise is driven mad with desire & jealous suspicion Yves too sure of her tortures himself & her with his emotional ambivalence. Taking her sophisticated mothers advice Denise takes action.. .which she may regret forever. With a sharp satirical eye & a characteristic perception for the fault lines in human relationships Irene Nemirovskys first novel shows sure signs of the brilliant novelist she was to become." ...

Prior to the financial crisis of 2007-2008 economists thought that no such crisis could or would ever happen again in the United States that financial events of such magnitude were a thing of the distant past. In fact observers of that distant past--the period from the half century prior to the Civil War up to the passage of deposit insurance during the Great Depression which was marked by repeated financial crises--note that while legislation immediately after crises reacted to their effects economists & policymakers continually failed to grasp the true lessons to be learned. Gary Gorton considered by many to be the authority on the financial crisis of our time holds that economists fundamentally misunderstand financial crises--what they are why they occur & why there were none in the U.S. between 1934 & 2007. In Misunderstanding Financial Crises he illustrates that financial crises are inherent to the production of bank debt which is used to conduct transactions & that unless the government designs intelligent regulation crises will continue. Economists he writes looked from a certain point of view & missed everything that was important: the evolution of capital markets & the banking system the existence of new financial instruments & the size of certain money markets like the sale & repurchase market. Delving into how such a massive intellectual failure could have happened Gorton offers a back-to-basics elucidation of financial crises & shows how they are not rare idiosyncratic unfortunate events caused by a coincidence of unconnected factors. By looking back to the " from 1934 to 2007 when there were no systemic crises & to the " he brings together such issues as bank debt & liquidity credit booms & manias & moral hazard & too-big-too-fail to illustrate the costs of bank failure & the true causes of financial crises. He argues that the successful regulation that prevented crises did not adequately keep pace with innovation in the financial sector due in large part to economists misunderstandings. He then looks forward to offer both a better way for economists to conceive of markets as well as a description of the regulation necessary to address the historical threat of financial crises." ...