This monument would soon become known as the Taj Mahal - a sight famous around the world for its beauty and the emotions it symbolizes.Princess Jahanara, the courageous daughter of the emperor and his wife, recounts their mesmerizing tale, while sharing her own parallel story of forbidden love with the celebrated architect of the Taj Mahal. Set during a time of unimaginable wealth and power, murderous sibling rivalries, and cruel despotism, this impressive novel sweeps you away to a historical Hindustan brimming with action and intrigue in an era when, alongside the brutalities of war and oppression, architecture and the art of love and passion reached a pinnacle of perfection.

    Queen Elizabeth is dying, childless. The nervous kingdom has no heir. It is a capital crime even to think that Elizabeth will ever die. Potential successors secretly maneuver to be in position when the inevitable arrives. The leading candidate is King James VI of Scotland, but there is a problem.The queen's spymasters--hardened veterans of a long war on terror and religious extremism--fear that James is not what he appears. He has every reason to claim he is a Protestant, but if he secretly shares his family's Catholicism, then the last forty years of religious war will have been for nothing, and a bloodbath will ensue. With time running out, London confronts a seemingly impossible question: What does James truly believe?It falls to Geoffrey Belloc, a secret warrior from the hottest days of England's religious battles, to devise a test to discover the true nature of King James's soul. Belloc enlists Mahmoud Ezzedine, a Muslim physician left behind by the last diplomatic visit from the Ottoman Empire, as his undercover agent. The perfect man for the job, Ezzedine is the ultimate outsider, stranded on this cold, wet, and primitive island. He will do almost anything to return home to his wife and son.Arthur Phillips returns with a unique and thrilling novel that will leave readers questioning the nature of truth at every turn.

    Hoping to reunite with her brother, a soldier, she trades her life sentence for exile to the fledgling French colony of Louisiana. The price of her transport, however, is a forced marriage to a fellow convict.New Orleans is nothing like Julianne expects. The settlement is steeped in mud and mosquitoes, and there is no news of her brother, Benjamin. When tragedy strikes, she turns to military officer Marc-Paul Girard for help, but does he know more about her brother than he will admit?With her dreams shattered, Julianne must find her way in this dangerous land, where only grace—and love—can overcome the stigma of the king's mark upon her shoulder.

     Stumbling in the dark of an unfinished tomb beneath the sands of Saqqara, American tourist Tim Hope unknowingly passes through a time portal that leads to ancient Egypt — a time before the Sphinx, before the great pyramids of Giza, and long before the loss of his beloved Addy. When he discovers that two other Americans preceded him through the time portal, Tim immerses himself in the ancient world to search for them. As he becomes more comfortable with the simpler, more immediate land, he finds himself irresistibly attracted to the delicate Meryt, a wbt-priestess for the god Re. Learning that a seven-year famine has led to a plot to overthrow King Djoser, Tim discovers that his fate, the lives of the two Americans and the future of Egypt rest in the hands of the legendary Imhotep, master architect of the Step Pyramid, renowned physician and intimate adviser to King Djoser. Downloaded by more than 100,000 readers, “Imhotep" is the first book in an acclaimed four-book series about the ancient Egyptian architect Imhotep. The second book in the series is "The Buried Pyramid." The third book is "The Forest of Myrrh." The fourth book is "The Field of Reeds."

    As Philbrick reveals in this electrifying new book, the story of the Pilgrims does not end with the First Thanksgiving; instead, it is a fifty-five-year epic that is at once tragic and heroic, and still carries meaning for us today.

    With all the intricate detail of historical nonfiction and all the pace of romantic drama, this is beautifully written stuff.”—Glamour (UK) In Oxford’s Bodleian Library, Elizabeth Staveley has found a fragment of ancient paper that may hold the key to a story hidden for four centuries: a British sea captain’s daughter held captive in the sultan’s harem. Constantinople, 1599. In the sultan’s palace, the chief eunuch has been poisoned by a beautiful ship made of spun sugar, and a rebellion is rising within the palace’s most private quarters. A British merchant, Paul Pindar, brings a precious gift to the sultan and discovers that the woman he once loved, Celia, may be alive, hidden among the ranks of slaves in the sultan’s harem. Can this really be his shipwrecked Celia? And if it is, can they be reunited? Steeped in mystery and sexual intrigue, The Aviary Gate transports readers to exotic sixteenth-century Constantinople, offering the rarest glimpse into the forbidden confines of the sultan’s harem.

    Spoiled by the novels of Rousseau, she refuses to be married unless it is for passion. Yet the love she finds with a young English poet will test Annette in unexpected ways, bringing great joy and danger in a time of terror and death.Told in sparking prose, Annette Vallon captures the courage and fearlessness of a woman whose dramatic story illuminates a turbulent and fascinating era.

    After her mother’s death, penniless May Kimble lives a lonely life until an aunt she didn’t know existed summons her to San Francisco. There she’s welcomed into the wealthy Sullivan family and their social circle.Initially overwhelmed by the opulence of her new life, May soon senses that dark mysteries lurk in the shadows of the Sullivan mansion. Her glamorous cousin often disappears in the night. Her aunt wanders about in a laudanum fog. And a maid keeps hinting that May is in danger. Trapped by betrayal, madness, and murder, May stands to lose everything, including her freedom, at the hands of those she trusts most.Then, on an early April morning, San Francisco comes tumbling down. Out of the smoldering ruins, May embarks on a harrowing road to reclaim what is hers. This tragic twist of fate, along with the help of an intrepid and charismatic journalist, puts vengeance within May’s reach. But will she take it?

    One of the results of its publication in the West was Pasternak's complete rejection by Soviet authorities; when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 he was compelled to decline it. The book quickly became an international best-seller.Dr. Yury Zhivago, Pasternak's alter ego, is a poet, philosopher, and physician whose life is disrupted by the war and by his love for Lara, the wife of a revolutionary. His artistic nature makes him vulnerable to the brutality and harshness of the Bolsheviks. The poems he writes constitute some of the most beautiful writing featured in the novel.

    After a hailstorm destroys the château’s orchards, gardens and fields, an ambitious young Welshman, David Stronach, accepts the commission to plan new gardens in the hope of making his name as a landscape designer. However, the love that blossoms between them is doomed: Viviane is betrothed to a duke, and David is forced to leave the property. In the aftermath, Viviane enters an unhappy marriage and moves to Versailles, while David embarks upon a mission to China to procure the secrets of tea-growing. There, he is inspired by the story of the Blue Rose, a fable of impossible love. Can he and Viviane - a world apart - ever hope to rekindle what they had together?

    Owen Tudor, incredibly handsome and gifted, a poet and singer by nature, a warrior by necessity, and a man ready to risk life for love. Theirs was a passion too perilous to reveal—and too fiery to be long restrained or concealed. This is their story.

    In 1547 Lymond is returning to his native Scotland, which is threatened by an English invasion. Accused of treason, Lymond leads a band of outlaws in a desperate race to redeem his reputation and save his land.

    Widowed at twenty-two, Martha has no desire to lose the independence she has gained in the wake of her husband's death. But she cannot deny her feelings indefinitely. Despite her intentions, her friendship with Thomas develops into an intense and all-consuming love. History casts a shadow on Martha's newfound joy. Through her father's slave and mistress, Betty Hemings, she comes to understand the true nature of slavery, an institution she has always taken for granted. As Betty's revelations tear down the walls of her ignorance, Martha begins to work with her husband to end the despicable practice forever. This story is essentially true. Thomas Jefferson was such an obsessive record-keeper that we know what he was doing nearly every day of his adult life, and all the public things he is quoted as saying in My Thomas come from his contemporary writings. Martha's marriage to Thomas spanned the decade from 1772 to 1782, so it put her at the center of the audacious grab at freedom that was the American Revolution. Jefferson's writings suggest that if he had not been widowed, he would have retired from politics following the war and devoted himself to finding a way to end slavery that could have truly and forever healed the separations between the races. It is hard to read Martha's story now and not think about what might have been.

    A man of secrets accused of a terrible crime ... In a place of new beginnings their destinies are joined --- in a glorious romantic new work from the incomparable storyteller KATHLEEN E. WOODWISSThe fiery and outspoken adopted daughter of one of England's most formidable women, Shemaine O'Hearn has made powerful enemies. And now her adversaries have found a way to remove the hot-blooded beauty from her life of privilege: by falsely convicting Shemaine of thievery, and sending her in shackles to America, where she is to be sold in indentured servitude to the highest bidder.In a bustling port city in the colony of Virginia, she becomes the servant of Gage Thornton --- a shipbuilder with a young child in need of a nanny. And despite whispered rumors condemning the handsome widower for the untimely death of his wife, Shemaine cannot ignore her desire for this caring, generous and enigmatic stranger who silently aches with his growing need for her --- even as grave peril reaches out from across a vast ocean to threaten their flowering love.

    Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition. As death reaches into every household and villagers turn from prayers to murderous witch-hunting, Anna must find the strength to confront the disintegration of her community and the lure of illicit love. As she struggles to survive and grow, a year of catastrophe becomes instead annus mirabilis, a "year of wonders."Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a village in the rugged hill country of England, Year of Wonders is a richly detailed evocation of a singular moment in history.