Wanda McCaddon
In To Shield the Queen, we were introduced to Ursula Blanchard, lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth I and one of the most entrancing mystery heroines to come along in many a season. Having once saved the Virgin Queen from political disaster, now young Ursula faces an even greater challenge. Some of her old acquaintances may be plotting to overthrow Elizabeth in favor of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the re-establishment of the Catholic faith.
...In contemporary London, a loose-knit group of political vagabonds drifts from one cause to the next, picketing and strategizing for hypothetical situations. But within this world, one particular small commune is moving inexorably toward active terrorism.
At its center is Alice Mellings, a brilliant organizer who knows how to cope with almost anything, except the vacuum of her own life. Always reliable, she makes herself indispensable to the commune,
...Rumor has linked Queen Elizabeth I to her master of horse, Robin Dudley. As gossip would have it, only his ailing wife, Amy, prevents marriage between Dudley and the queen. To quell the idle tongues at court, the queen dispatches Ursula Blanchard to tend to the sick woman's needs. But not even Ursula can prevent the "accident" that takes Amy's life. Did she fall or was she pushed? Was Ursula a pawn of Dudley and the queen?
Suddenly
...84) Susanna Wesley
Who is Osama bin Laden—the only terrorist leader ever to have declared a holy war? What drives him and his followers to hate the Western civilization that has armed them? Bin Laden's name has been linked to a number of incidents that have cost Americans their lives, most conspicuously, the catastrophic assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
In this comprehensive account of the rise of bin Laden, world-renowned terrorism
...Helen Colijn's account of her wartime experiences is a window into a largely overlooked dimension of World War II: the imprisonment of women and children in Southeast Asia by the Japanese and how these prisoners of war responded to their dire circumstances. The conditions were harsh, terrible. Food was scarce, medicine unavailable. Held in captivity for three and a half years, more than a third of the women in Helen's camp died of disease or starvation.
...88) Miss Mapp
"Long ago in 1945 all the nice people in England were poor, allowing for exceptions..." Thus begins Muriel Spark's tragic and rapier-witted portrait of a London ladies' hostel just emerging from the shadow of World War II. Like the May of Teck Club building itself—"three times window shattered since 1940 but never directly hit"—its lady inhabitants do their best to act as if the world were back to normal, practicing elocution and jostling
...In the dark winter of 1917, World War I was deadlocked. For Europe to be saved, the United States had to join the war—but President Wilson remained unshakable in his neutrality. Then, with a single stroke, the tool to propel America into the war came into a quiet British office. One of countless messages intercepted by the crack team of British decoders, the Zimmermann telegram was a top-secret message from Berlin inviting Mexico to join
...Meet the woman behind the apron in Noël Riley Fitch's revealing biography of America's favorite cook: Julia Child.
A household name, Julia Child has entered the hearts of millions of Americans through their kitchens. Yet few know the richly varied private life that lies behind this icon. Fitch takes us from her exuberant youth through her years at Smith College, where Julia was at the center of every prank and party. When most of her
...In two breathtakingly accomplished novellas, A. S. Byatt explores the landscape of Victorian England, where science and spiritualism are both popular manias and domestic decorum coexists with brutality and perversion.
In "Morpho Eugenia", a shipwrecked naturalist is rescued by a wealthy family and immediately falls for the eldest daughter. But before long the family's clandestine passions come to seem as inscrutable as the behavior of insects.
...Agatha Raisin is...
95) A Killing Season
96) Anna Karenina
Described by William Faulkner as the best novel ever written and by Fyodor Dostoevsky as “flawless,” Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and thereby exposes herself to...
This absorbing book presents the lives of twenty great founders and leading advocates of the world's foremost religions. Here are the historical facts and legends associated with these forceful personalities who have inspired and influenced humankind through the centuries.
In the telling of these vivid and fascinating life stories, the authors have also simply and clearly outlined the principal teachings of each of the great religions. The
...99) Northanger Abbey
'Jane Austen is a genius, and Northanger Abbey is hugely underrated' Martin Amis
With its irrepressible heroine and playful literary games, Northanger Abbey is the most youthful and optimistic of Jane Austen's novels. It tells the story of young, impressionable Catherine Morland, whose first experience of fashionable society introduces her to the thrills of Gothic romances, and to the sophisticated Tilneys, who invite her