Thomas Hardy's deterministic art achieves fanatic intensity and raw perfection in the characterization of Jude Fawley, an impoverished stone mason who aspires to the ministry. Throughout his agonized existence, the cloistered halls and facades of Christminister--where Jude wishes to study--tempt and mock him to rid himself of ignorance. His failure to fulfill the expectations of either of the two women he loves, and the violent deaths of his children...

"Set in the glamorous worlds of an American banking dynasty and the British aristocracy . . . this is Dynasty meets Downton Abbey." -Booklist None of them are the children of Alexander, Earl of Caterham, who was married to their mother for almost twenty years. A family saga that takes the reader right from the 1950s to the end of the twentieth century, and set between the Hamptons summer homes of New York's elite and the English countryside familiar...

In Terenure, a pleasant suburb of Dublin, Gina Moynihan recalls the trail of lust and happenstance that brought her to fall for the love of her life, Sean Vallely.

Some secrets won't let go . . . Is the truth about a devastating family tragedy finally about to be unveiled? Tragedy strikes a quiet Dorset town when the bodies of Sarah and Charles Drummond are discovered in their home one morning while their two young children, Abby and Mia, sleep upstairs. The police seem certain that Charles killed his wife before taking his own life, and the girls' grandmother, Cicely Fairfax, makes sure that they are shielded...

"The Absolutes is fantastic, a dark, utterly absorbing novel about infatuation and power. It has an elegant, headlong intensity that captures its central affair with style and grace to spare." -- Andrew Martin, author of Early Work When Nora, a withdrawn American teenager, is sent to live with relatives in Turin, she meets Nicola, the enigmatic son of the most powerful aristocratic family in Italy. They forge a sudden, powerful connection and a reckless...

1860, Wimborne, Dorset. Rebecca Tullidge, miserably married to her callous husband, is having an affair with a railway officer, who she finds dead on the railway tracks. Determined to win votes for the upcoming election of mayor, Mr Feltham calls for Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Lemming to solve the hideous crime, which takes longer than anticipated. With a pregnant wife at home, Colbeck must work at speed if he is to return in time to be there...

At a literary festival, poet Linda Fallon meets, for the first time in years, fellow poet Thomas Janes. Thomas has arranged to be there hoping to reestablish contact with the woman he passionately pursued years earlier, in an affair that ended disastrously. As the story moves backward, it examines their love affair.

"The novel begins with the character of Ethan, a lawyer living in New York City who tells us the story of his family's life just as they learn his father - a textile manufacturer who spent long trips throughout Asia - has fathered a secret family from a woman he met on one of his trips and set up in a house in Queens. From here, we move to different related characters as the novel expands outward to the woman, her sons, a few surprise relations, some...

Best friends Rosie and Lisa's families had always been inseparable. But one summer, Lisa had an affair with Rosie's husband, Nick. None of them would forget that week on the wild Norfolk seacoast. Relationships were torn apart. Friendships shattered. And childish innocence destroyed. Now, after years of silence, a letter arrives that begs for help. A letter that exposes dark secrets. Then Rosie's daughter Daisy's fragile hold on reality begins to...