Abel's Daughter


Meg Hutchinson - 1996
    She has a guardian angel in the form of Sir William Dartmouth, but even when he engineers her release, Phoebe must struggle to make a living for herself. And Annie has not given up her own perverse quest for revenge . . .

Because Love Said So


Aubreé Pynn - 2019
     Avion has the weight of the world on her shoulders. Everyone relies on her to hold it together and keep the family moving. But when she seeks a much-needed break, she finds herself stumbling into something that isn't easy for her to get out of. Samson has the world at his fingertips and isn't looking for a soul to share it with. When his best friend drags him out for a night of relaxation, he spots his forever. But when Avion runs off to return to her reality he stops at nothing to find her. Relinquishing themselves to love is easy, staying in love is the hard part. Can Avion and Samson climb the mountain and let love have the final say so, or will they falter and give up on everything love has to offer? Find out in Because Love Said So.

The Connect's Wife


Nako - 2017
    She was unaware of his lifestyle. A man of his caliber was way out of her reach, yet he chose her anyway. Christian Knight was a man that people only dreamed about in their sleep. Petty hustlers admired him off the strength of stories they heard in the hood. You could walk past Christian Knight in the mall and not know that he was “The Connect." Real men moved in silence. Wealth is quiet, rich is flashy. Christian Knight was more than a man that supplied the streets with the work. He was a mogul, a self-made billionaire who found comfort, peace and joy in the arms of Farren, a woman almost ten years younger than he was. Many people never expected him to settle down or to be so open with his affection. Despite what he heard about her, he chose her to wear his last name and to become, “The Connect’s Wife."

Nicholas Nickleby


Charles Dickens - 1839
    But Ralph Nickleby proves both hard-hearted and unscrupulous, and Nicholas finds himself forced to make his own way in the world. His adventures gave Dickens the opportunity to portray an extraordinary gallery of rogues and eccentrics: Wackford Squeers, the tyrannical headmaster of Dotheboys Hall, a school for unwanted boys; the slow-witted orphan Smike, rescued by Nicholas; and the gloriously theatrical Mr and Mrs Crummles and their daughter, the 'infant phenonenon'. Like many of Dickens's novels, Nicholas Nickleby is characterised by his outrage at cruelty and social injustice, but it is also a flamboyantly exuberant work, revealing his comic genius at its most unerring.

A Portrait of Dorian Grey


Dru Simon - 2012
    Birds are beautiful and fascinating but living with them is nothing like living with dogs or cats.Enter the laughter- and amazement-filled world of an African Grey Parrot named Dorian and discover the trials and delights of what life is really like for those who live with these wonderful creatures. A Portrait of Dorian Grey is not only a history of the authors' life with Dorian and his “flock mates” but a treasure trove of priceless information about the reality of what it takes and what can be expected when you live with these astonishingly intelligent and highly demanding animals. Many colorful photographs illustrate the rewarding behaviors and requirements along with some of the more disturbing and trying aspects of life as part of a flock. Why do so many people spend more time making breakfast for their birds than they do for themselves and spend more money on bird toys and treats than they do on their own wardrobes? Come discover the thrill of having a cogent conversation with an evolved dinosaur, the delight of an animal that makes intelligent jokes, the challenge of how to keep a winged Houdini in his cage, and the pure delight of having your pet look up at your and actually say aloud, “I love you!”

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein


Kiersten White - 2018
    Her thin arms are covered with bruises from her "caregiver," and she is on the verge of being thrown into the streets . . . until she is brought to the home of Victor Frankenstein, an unsmiling, solitary boy who has everything--except a friend.Victor is her escape from misery. Elizabeth does everything she can to make herself indispensable--and it works. She is taken in by the Frankenstein family and rewarded with a warm bed, delicious food, and dresses of the finest silk. Soon she and Victor are inseparable.But her new life comes at a price. As the years pass, Elizabeth's survival depends on managing Victor's dangerous temper and entertaining his every whim, no matter how depraved. Behind her blue eyes and sweet smile lies the calculating heart of a girl determined to stay alive no matter the cost . . . as the world she knows is consumed by darkness.

Love in the Time of Cholera


Gabriel García Márquez - 1985
    When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is heartbroken, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs—yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.

The Mermaid of Black Conch


Monique Roffey - 2020
    But David attracts a sea-dweller that he never expected - Aycayia, an innocent young woman cursed by jealous wives to live as a mermaid.When American tourists capture Aycayia, David rescues her and vows to win her trust. Slowly, painfully, she transforms into a woman again. Yet as their love grows, they discover that the world around them is changing - and they cannot escape the curse for ever...

Mademoiselle de Maupin


Théophile Gautier - 1835
    In this shocking tale of sexual deception, Gautier draws readers into the bedrooms and boudoirs of a French château in a compelling exploration of desire and sexual intrigue, and gives voice to a longing which is larger in scope, namely, the wish for completeness in oneself.

My Brilliant Career


Miles Franklin - 1901
    Sybylla rejects the opportunity to marry a wealthy young man in order to maintain her independence. As a consequence she must take a job as a governess to a local family to which her father is indebted. "My Brilliant Career" is an early romantic novel by this popular Australian author.

How a Ghastly Story Was Brought to Light by a Common or Garden Butcher's Dog


Johann Peter Hebel - 2015
    Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Johann Peter Hebel (1760-1826). Hebel's The Treasure Chest is available in Penguin Classics.

The Return of the Young Prince


A.G. Roemmers - 2008
    Even princes from faraway planets do not always remain small. Eventually they grow up and – no longer content with their tiny planet – set off once again to explore the universe anew. So the Little Prince, now a teenager, one day returns to Earth and finds himself on a lonely country road in the vast, desolate plains of Patagonia. There he meets the narrator of this novel, who rescues him and takes him on a journey. Slowly the Prince shares the stories of his adventures, and together they begin to explore some of life’s most important questions, taking readers along with them on a wonderful spiritual journey. An inspiring, life-changing book.

Villette


Charlotte Brontë - 1853
    First published in 1853, Villette is Brontë's most accomplished and deeply felt work, eclipsing even Jane Eyre in critical acclaim. Her narrator, the autobiographical Lucy Snowe, flees England and a tragic past to become an instructor in a French boarding school in the town of Villette. There she unexpectedly confronts her feelings of love and longing as she witnesses the fitful romance between Dr. John, a handsome young Englishman, and Ginerva Fanshawe, a beautiful coquette. The first pain brings others, and with them comes the heartache Lucy has tried so long to escape. Yet in spite of adversity and disappointment, Lucy Snowe survives to recount the unstinting vision of a turbulent life's journey - a journey that is one of the most insightful fictional studies of a woman's consciousness in English literature.

Precious Bane


Mary Webb - 1924
    Set in Shropshire in the 1800s, it is alive with the many moods of Nature, benevolent and violent and the many moods -- equally benevolent and violent -- of the people making lives there. Prue Sarn is an unlikely heroine, born with a facial disfiguration which the Fates have dictated will deny her love. But Prue has strength far beyond her handicap, and this woman, suspected of witchcraft by her fellow townspeople, rises above them all through an all-encompassing sweetness of spirit. Precious Bane is also the story of Gideon, Prue's doomed brother, equally strong-willed, but with other motives. Determined to defeat the poverty of their farm, he devotes all his energies to making money. His only diversion from this ambition, he abandons her for the stronger drive of his money lust. And finally, it is the story of Kester Woodseaves, whose steady love for all created things leads him to resist people's cruelty toward nature and each other, and whose love for Prue Sarn enables him to discern her natural loveliness beneath her blighted appearance. Rebecca West, a contemporary of Mary Webb, called her, simply, "a genius," and G. K. Chesterton, another contemporary, asserted: "the light in the stories . . . is a light not shining on the things but through them." Critic Hilda Addison summed up Precious Bane: "The book opens with one of those simple sentences which haunt the mind until the curiosity has been satisfied . . . It strikes a note which never fails throughout; it opens with a beauty which is justified to the last sentence." When the book was first published in 1926 in America, the New York Times Book Review predicted: " on some bookshelves, we feel sure, Precious Bane will find almost a hallowed place."

Briar Rose


Jana Oliver - 2013
    She's stuck in a small town in deepest Georgia with parents who won't let her out of their sight, a bunch of small-minded, gossiping neighbours and an evil ex who's spreading nasty rumours about what she may or may not have done in the back of his car. She's tired of it all, so when, on her sixteenth birthday, her parents tell her that she is cursed and will go to sleep for a hundred years when the clock strikes midnight, she's actually kind of glad to leave it all behind. She says her goodbyes, lies down, and closes her eyes . . . And then she wakes up. Cold, alone and in the middle of the darkest, most twisted fairy tale she could ever have dreamed of. Now Briar must fight her way out of the story that has been created for her, but she can't do it alone. She never believed in handsome princes, but now she's met one her only chance is to put her life in his hands, or there will be no happy ever after and no waking up.