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Thornton Brothers Medieval Time Travel Romance Books 1-3


Cynthia Luhrs - 2016
     Book 1 Darkest Knight A dark and stormy knight…No really. It was storming…and rather dark in the Tower. An unexpected trip to London was supposed to be the perfect distraction from Anna’s stress-filled life. Minding her own business, drooling over so many jewels, Anna Waters winds up hopelessly lost and finds herself locked in the infamous tower. Who knew an antique locket would lead her to a knight with a heart buried underneath thirty feet of stone? Searching for a way out, she stumbles over an antique locket with half the picture missing. Lightning strikes and when Anna wakes…she’s still in the Tower of London…700 years in the past. She crossed an ocean of time for him. Can she save them both before it’s too late? John Thornton almost lost his head and saw his family ruined all because of a woman. Presumed dead, he became the infamous bandit of the wood. Captured and awaiting execution in the Tower of London, a strange woman appears out of the darkness. As they flee across England, John finds himself chipping away at the stone surrounding his heart. And longing for a life with his mysterious rescuer. No matter the cost. Book 2 Forever Knight A tiny scrap of fabric sent her hurtling through time… Elizabeth Smith was good at taking charge. Fixing what she believed was wrong with the world. And then she met a lazy knight with no desire to better himself. A wager lost… Before the rakes of the regency period, there was Robert Thornton, Lord Highworth. Content to spend his days drinking, wenching, and hunting, Robert cared not what happened in the world around him. Let his brothers see to war and fighting. Perhaps if he drank enough he could forget the faces of the dead. Sparks ensue… When Robert offers the strange lass up as the wager, Elizabeth vows to hate him forever. Wanting nothing to do with the lass with beguiling eyes, Robert doesn’t know whether to kill her or kiss her… Book 3 First Knight Tumble through time… A dig on the border of Scotland sends a free-spirited damsel tumbling through time to medieval England. Jennifer Wilson was happy spending the summer on a dig and putting off finding a job. When the earth swallows her during a terrible storm, she finds herself looking at a bustling Somerforth Castle not the ruins she'd been painting. Medieval England is full of interesting sights...and knights. Perhaps she could stay a week or two, it would be the adventure of a lifetime. Pre-occupied with war, Edward Thornton has met strange lasses before. He suspects from whence she comes. But a dangerous threat across the border threatens to tear them apart. Read on with LAST KNIGHT and don't forget to pick up My One and Only Knight to find out Aunt Pittypat's story and learn about the mysterious man the Merriweather Sisters always refer to.

A Slight Change of Plan


Dee Ernst - 2013
    She quits her high-pressure job for something that will allow her more leisure time. She gets rid of the huge family home and moves into a fabulous condo that’s smaller and easier to manage. She’s pretty much got the rest of her life figured out. All she has to do is sit back, relax, and let the pieces fall into place.But her real life never gets the memo. First, her son moves back in with her—along with his girlfriend. Her dream job falls through, leaving her unemployed. Her mother, whom she hadn’t spoken to in years, can no longer live alone and has to move into her basement. And her only daughter is planning the smallest and simplest wedding in the history of all weddings, much to Kate’s dismay.Kate thinks that she and Jake, her former college love who has reemerged on an online dating site, of all places, can build something real, and that maybe her happy ending is in front of her at last. But the arrival of Edward, her daughter’s future father-in-law, presents Kate with an unexpected choice. It looks like real happiness may require a slight change of plan.

Beyond the Great River


Zoe Saadia - 2014
    Their frowns followed her like a cloud, but she didn't care. Other girls may have worked happily, danced beautifully, or sewn themselves pretty dresses, but they could not climb or run or swim as well as she did, the silly, giggly, empty-headed creatures that they were. The entire village may have been frowning at her, but when she spotted the enemy forces camping under the Sacred Hill, they had no choice but to listen. Okwaho knew they were being watched. Whether by spirits or a wandering local, he could not ignore the feeling of the wary, frightened, hate-filled eyes staring out of the forest, burning his skin. But of course! Of course, the local woods distrusted them. He and his people were invaders, not coming to trade or engage in other peaceful dealings, but to raid these settlements. The enemies from the lands of the rising sun were bad, evil, impossible to understand. And yet… And yet, when the urge to prove himself lent him enough words to convince the leader of their party to send him and his friend on the mission of scouting the suspected hill, he could not have imagined what consequences this deviation from the well-planned road would lead them all into, the attackers and defenders alike.

Four Rabbi Small Mysteries: Friday the Rabbi Slept Late, Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry, Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home, and Monday the Rabbi Took Off


Harry Kemelman - 1972
      Spend a long weekend with the scholar and spiritual leader who watches over the Jewish community in 1960s Barnard’s Crossing, Massachusetts—and in his spare time, solves crimes.  Friday the Rabbi Slept Late: A young nanny is found dead in the temple parking lot—and her purse is discovered in Rabbi David Small’s car. Now he has to collaborate with the local Irish-Catholic police chief to exonerate himself.  Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry: Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, is defiled when a body is found—and the rabbi must uncover who has something to atone for.  Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home: When Passover is overshadowed by congregational politics and a murder at a local university, the rabbi must study the clues.  Monday the Rabbi Took Off: Rabbi Small journeys to Israel for a bit of peace, but instead has to team up with an Orthodox cop to unravel a bombing case.   Don’t miss these four mystery novels featuring an amateur detective who uses Talmudic logic—an introduction to the multimillion-selling series that provides both “an eye-opening snapshot of a particular time in Jewish-American history” and delightfully entertaining whodunits (Los Angeles Review of Books).

The Pillar of the Sky


Cecelia Holland - 1985
    It is the story of hunters, of kings and matriarchs, and of one outcast boy who becomes a shaman, burning with a vision that will take shape in mighty pillars of stone.

The Turquoise Mask


Phyllis A. Whitney - 1964
    She did not know it was also the key to her future. After her father died, she decided to learn the truth of her mother and family in New Mexico. But from the moment she arrived at her grandfather's home, she was met with suspicion. And hate. They were her family, but they were strangers. And one of them was a murderer....

A Million Nightingales


Susan Straight - 2006
    At fourteen she is sold, separated from her mother without a chance to say goodbye. Bright, imaginative and well aware of everything she risks, Moinette at once begins to prepare for an opportunity to escape. Inspired by a true story, A Million Nightingales portrays Moinette’s experience–and the treacherous world she must navigate–with uncommon richness, intricacy, and drama.

A Time Travel Fantasy Bundle: Footsteps in Time/Prince of Time


Sarah Woodbury - 2011
    It tells the story of David and Anna, two teenagers catapulted back in time to alter history and save the medieval kingdom of Wales.Footsteps in Time: In December of 1282, English soldiers ambushed and murdered Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the Prince of Wales. His death marked the end of Wales as an independent nation and the beginning of over seven hundred years of English oppression.Footsteps in Time is the story of what might have happened had Llywelyn lived.And what happens to the two teenagers who save him._____________Prince of Time: Prince of Time, the second book in the After Cilmeri series, continues the story of David and Anna, two teenagers catapulted back in time to alter history and save the medieval kingdom of Wales. David and his man-at-arms, Ieuan, find themselves alone and on the run from a company of English soldiers who’ve sworn vengeance for the recent death of their king. Meanwhile, Llywelyn lays on his deathbed from a traitor’s arrow. And once again, it is David and Anna, and all they represent, that holds the key to the survival of Wales.Daughter of Time, a stand-alone novel within the world of the After Cilmeri Series, is available separately.

The Great Mistake


Mary Roberts Rinehart - 1940
     In an elaborate house known as the Cloisters, Maud Wainwright rules supreme. The queen of society in the small town of Beverly, she has a table long enough to seat one hundred, and she keeps an iron grip on the guest list. Her right-hand woman is Pat Abbott, a local girl who is beautiful, innocent, and kind. Pat has no idea how cutthroat high society can be, but she’s about to get a deadly first lesson.   Pat has fallen head over heels in love with Maud’s son, Tony, a clever young rake with a single flaw: his vicious, gold-digging wife. At the same time that she is dangerously infatuated with a married man, Pat’s world is turned upside down by a series of attacks on the estate—and a truly shocking murder. To save Tony and Maud, Pat must find the killer. But the list of suspects is as long as one of Maud’s guest lists: When a woman has room at her table for one hundred friends, she’ll have more than her share of enemies.   “Anyone who aspires to become a writer,” said the New York Times, “could not do better than to study carefully the methods of Mary Roberts Rinehart.” The Great Mistake is a classic example of the golden age murder mystery at its best.

Tiggy


Miss Read - 1971
    A stray cat fiercely protective of her kittens, Tiggy was soon befriended by Miss Read - although it took some time before Tiggy allowed her kittens to go anywhere near the house.Written with the charm that made Miss Read a bestseller, this delightful book tells how a small stray cat, struggling to look after her kittens, won a home, a hearth and a name from the author and her husband. Tiggy's resourcefulness, perseverance and indomitable spirit are beautifully observed, and Miss Read's affectionate admiration of the newcomer will touch the hearts of cat lovers everywhere.

The Knife Slipped


A.A. Fair - 2016
    Gardner also created the hardboiled detective team of Cool and Lam, stars of 29 novels published between 1939 and 1970—and one that’s never been published until now.Lost for more than 75 years, THE KNIFE SLIPPED was meant to be the second book in the series but got shelved when Gardner’s publisher objected to (among other things) Bertha Cool’s tendency to "talk tough, swear, smoke cigarettes, and try to gyp people." But this tale of adultery and corruption, of double-crosses and triple identities —however shocking for 1939—shines today as a glorious present from the past, a return to the heyday of private eyes and shady dames, of powerful criminals, crooked cops, blazing dialogue, and delicious plot twists.Donald Lam has never been cooler—not even when played by Frank Sinatra on the U.S. Steel Hour of Mystery in 1946. Bertha Cool has never been tougher. And Erle Stanley Gardner has never been better. First publication ever! Erle Stanley Gardner is one of the most popular American authors of all time, with over 100 million books sold Brand new cover painting by Robert McGinnis of modern-day pin-up icon Dita von Teese Brand new afterword by former Ellery Queen editor Russell Atwood about Gardner, Cool & Lam, and THE KNIFE SLIPPED

The Islam Quintet: Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, The Book of Saladin, The Stone Woman, A Sultan in Palermo, and Night of the Golden Butterfly


Tariq Ali - 2014
    At once a meditation on the millennia-spanning clash of Islam with the West and a series of riveting fictions, these five works are a compelling portrait of worlds in conflict and the lives lived between them.

A Free State


Tom Piazza - 2015
    Blackface minstrelsy is the most popular form of entertainment in a nation about to be torn apart by the battle over slavery. Henry Sims, a fugitive slave and a brilliant musician, has escaped to Philadelphia, where he earns money living by his wits and performing on the street. He is befriended by James Douglass, leader of a popular minstrel troupe struggling to compete with dozens of similar ensembles, who imagines that Henry’s skill and magnetism might restore his troupe’s sagging fortunes.The problem is that black and white performers are not allowed to appear together onstage. Together, the two concoct a masquerade to protect Henry’s identity, and Henry creates a sensation in his first appearances with the troupe. Yet even as their plan begins to reverse the troupe’s decline, a brutal slave hunter named Tull Burton has been employed by Henry’s former master to track down the runaway and retrieve him, by any means necessary.Bursting with narrative tension and unforgettable characters, shot through with unexpected turns and insight, A Free State is a thrilling reimagining of the American story by a novelist at the height of his powers.

The Year of the Jackpot


Robert A. Heinlein - 1952
    (Heinlein’s novel The Puppet Masters had been serialized in the September through November 1951 issues of Galaxy but Gold had merely acquired serial rights to a contract novel which had been written for Scribner’s.) Heinlein never again appeared in Gold’s Galaxy. This novelette, set in a near-future only subtly different from the McCarthyite and politically menacing present deals with social deterioration, cultural breakdown in a careful, documentary style which becomes terrifying. His romantically-linked leads are emotionally affecting but never sentimentalized, the background of chaos in which they enact their tragic, drowning love, is sparingly but furiously painted. Heinlein’s 1952 is clearly the apotheosis of those “Crazy Years” which he had noted in his famous chronological Future History, published a decade earlier in Astounding Science Fiction as a precis of his intended career. Perhaps no story of this period limns its political and cultural dysfunction as accurately as this novelette. Overshadowed by Heinlein’s juveniles and his famous later novels, The Year of the Jackpot may be the purest version of his portfolio and his most memorable work of less than novel length. It is one of his most exemplary stories and perhaps his best.

An Elephant for Aristotle


L. Sprague de Camp - 1958
    *** Leon leads a motley crew of companions (and the elephant) from India to Greece, encountering all sorts of dangers and adventures while attempting the long and arduous journey. *** "An amazing narrative vehicle for the display of ... a fairly complete composite of the life and times of which the author writes."-The Chicago Daily Tribune *** "By hybridizing a Middle-Eastern travelogue with an Alexandrine comedy of manners, the author has produced a specimen only slightly less rare then elephants in Westchester-to wit, a historical novel with a sense of humor."-The New York Times