And certainly what Melville did for whaling Austen does for marriage--tracing the intricacies (not to mention the economics) of 19th-century British mating rituals with a sure hand and an unblinking eye. As usual, Austen trains her sights on a country village and a few families--in this case, the Bennets, the Philips, and the Lucases. Into their midst comes Mr. Bingley, a single man of good fortune, and his friend, Mr. Darcy, who is even richer. Mrs. Bennet, who married above her station, sees their arrival as an opportunity to marry off at least one of her five daughters. Bingley is complaisant and easily charmed by the eldest Bennet girl, Jane; Darcy, however, is harder to please. Put off by Mrs. Bennet's vulgarity and the untoward behavior of the three younger daughters, he is unable to see the true worth of the older girls, Jane and Elizabeth. His excessive pride offends Lizzy, who is more than willing to believe the worst that other people have to say of him; when George Wickham, a soldier stationed in the village, does indeed have a discreditable tale to tell, his words fall on fertile ground. Having set up the central misunderstanding of the novel, Austen then brings in her cast of fascinating secondary characters: Mr. Collins, the sycophantic clergyman who aspires to Lizzy's hand but settles for her best friend, Charlotte, instead; Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mr. Darcy's insufferably snobbish aunt; and the Gardiners, Jane and Elizabeth's low-born but noble-hearted aunt and uncle. Some of Austen's best comedy comes from mixing and matching these representatives of different classes and economic strata, demonstrating the hypocrisy at the heart of so many social interactions. And though the novel is rife with romantic misunderstandings, rejected proposals, disastrous elopements, and a requisite happy ending for those who deserve one, Austen never gets so carried away with the romance that she loses sight of the hard economic realities of 19th-century matrimonial maneuvering. Good marriages for penniless girls such as the Bennets are hard to come by, and even Lizzy, who comes to sincerely value Mr. Darcy, remarks when asked when she first began to love him: "It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." She may be joking, but there's more than a little truth to her sentiment, as well. Jane Austen considered Elizabeth Bennet "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print". Readers of Pride and Prejudice would be hard-pressed to disagree. --Alix Wilber

    Both longtime fans and newcomers to Corcoran are sure to enjoy Crime Almost Pays, starring an offbeat pair of private eyes. Dubbie Tanner, a man of substance who used to live in his car, and Wiley Fecko, who once drank and slept in the weeds, are now Southernmost Aristocratic Investigations. While they call themselves The Aristocrats, certain members of law enforcement have been heard calling them the Bumsnoops. Introduced in The Quick Adiòs (Times Six), Tom Corcoran’s most recent Alex Rutledge novel, the rookie investigators have a case in their tropical in-box—and they are over their heads from the start. Rutledge plays no part here—but his friend Key West Detective Beth Watkins must deal with murders, street fights, an attempted kidnapping and a flaky federal agent. The Aristocrats—who now live in and work out of a home bought by Tanner—are hired for a simple task, but the pay is far too generous and the job goes haywire. By helping a stranger, Tanner draws Fecko and their lovely friend Kim Salazar, a Key West cab driver, into a crossfire of intrigue, dirty tricks, scams and potential double-cross. It gets worse. It gets ugly. Cuban tourism, island crazies, typical greed, wealthy fathers, good cops, fearful cops and—okay—there’s a car chase… As in previous Tom Corcoran novels, Key West, with its characters, history, natural beauty and isolation, plays a fundamental role in the story.

    The pressures of war threaten to tear apart two sisters traumatised by their mother's murder by their father.With her new husband Will, a merchant seaman, deployed on dangerous Atlantic convoy missions, Hannah needs her younger sister Judith more than ever. But when Mussolini declares war on Britain, Judith's Italian sweetheart, Paolo is imprisoned as an enemy alien, and Judith's loyalties are divided.Each sister wants only to be with the man she loves but, as the war progresses, tensions between them boil over, and they face an impossible decision.A heart-wrenching page-turner about the everyday bravery of ordinary people during wartime. From heavily blitzed Liverpool to the terrors of the North Atlantic and the scorched plains of Australia, Sisters at War will bring tears to your eyes and joy to your heart.

    Her fiancé taken from her. Esther Weiss sees only one way to fight back.Life is good for Esther and her Jewish family until Hitler annexes their home country Austria. Her wedding to fiancé Carl Bernstein is postponed, and her family's entire life is uprooted.Thinking they’ll be safe in Oslo, the Weiss’s hope is short-lived when Norway is invaded in 1940 and the fascist Quisling Regime is put into place. Esther returns home one day to discover her entire family has been deported. Gone. Without a trace.Something snaps inside Esther. The soft-hearted, gentle girl is no longer. Her desire to fight the enemy becomes her only drive. She joins the Norwegian resistance movement and with her blond hair and light eyes, all it takes is a false passport to give Esther the freedom she needs. The freedom to kill. No German or Norwegian fascist is safe when she’s nearby.Destruction of those who took her family gives Esther a license to live, but it has also hardened her heart. Not even Tore Ringdal, her rock and protector in the Resistance movement, is able to break through the walls she’s placed around her heart.When all she loves is gone, and only hate remains, can the Norwegian Assassin reopen her heart and find love again?

    After being kicked out of a Catholic orphanage when it is discovered that he is of Jewish descent, a confused and deeply distraught Frankie turns to a life of crime, the only life he knows, and he’s good at it. Frankie quickly makes a name for himself and becomes one of New York’s most dangerous men, ruling the city with an iron fist and indulging in his passion for sex, power and the best things life has to offer—regardless of whether they’re for sale.In Stiletto, Cesare Cardinale is an amoral, aristocratic Italian playboy—an entrepreneur and race car driver who wants for nothing—whether it’s fast cars, beautiful women, or orgies of debauchery. Cesare, however, has two dirty secrets: First, he has a penchant for violence that borders on the sadistic and sociopathic; second, he owes his extravagant life to a Sicilian Mafia don, creating a seemingly perfect relationship—as he leads a double life as a Mafia assassin.“Robbins’s books are packed with action, sustained by strong narrative drive, and are given vitality by his own colorful life.” —The Wall Street JournalThe Harold Robbins Organized Crime Double includes: Never Love A Stranger and Stiletto.

    "Exceptional" ... "Surprised and delighted"BANGKOK, MARCH 2018. The world looked on in horror as millions of innocent lives were snuffed out in a matter of hours. Countless men, women and children slaughtered without mercy, torn apart by a violent mob that attacked without reason, motive or warning.Tom Freeman witnessed the aftermath. He reported on the tragedy and looked into the eyes of the sole survivor, an old friend, and what he saw looking back sent him running home to the United States. Back to safety. Back to a place where the world made sense, and the putrid stink of the dead didn't haunt his nightmares...Turns out he didn't run quickly enough. They're coming.Remain indoors...Gather supplies...Find a weapon...The zombies are here, and they're hungry.This is the Last Man Standing zombie apocalypse trilogy, complete, unabridged and collected for the first time in a single volume. From the author of the internationally bestselling This Is the Way the World Ends: An Oral History of the Zombie War.

    The furthest thing from Yatta’s mind is love and relationships. He’s focused on providing for his family, hitting licks with his day one niggas, Alaric and Zamir, and staying out of the way of the law. But, as fate has it, he meets the alluring Erin Hughes and his perception of love shifts in a new direction. Erin is a born and raised Detroit city girl with dreams as big as her heart. Her love for drawing and painting made her a bit of an out cast. But with the support of her cousin Dreka, her best friend Cassidy and her father, she has never known the feeling of not being loved, despite the lack of it it she received from her distant mother. Erin doesn’t let anything discourage her from living life and being happy. Lately, the one thing that would truly make her happy is being with Yatta. But its easier said than done as many things get on the way of them being together. One of them being Yatta’s baby mama, Cleo. Things slowly unravel and before you know it love, secrets, and deadly decisions causes great turmoil in their lives. Will Erin regret the day she gave her heart to a bad boy? Or will Yatta sweep her off her feet, showing her that bad boys fall in love, too?

    Now, a few months on, the Martian invaders are dead, slain by the earthly bacteria against which they had no defence.Then, as England begins to rebuild, terrorist outrages begin to rock society. A new adventure begins, as a daring plan is put into place to discover the source of these disruptions.

    Cassidy, the best-selling author of Spilt Milk: A Collection of Stories, continues the story of some of the characters that first appeared in Spilt Milk. Everyone believes in their own version of reality. Will the past deeds of Caleb, Joy, and George come back to haunt them? Discover realities on the spectrum between normal and fantasy. Earlier experiences shape the present and future. Choices change lives. • Can a murderer decide to stop killing? • Can a woman regain the confidence she had in her twenties? • Can a lonely man find the perfect companion? Welcome to the world of Curious Reality. Are any of your realities curious?

    As the body count continues to rise, he and Detective Aundray Rogers must embark upon their own descent into the underworld, one that mirrors the decline of the Motor City, if they’re to have any chance of stopping the murderer before it’s too late. With the city deteriorating around them, they learn that the abandoned buildings aren’t the only things that have been condemned.

    It’s been a year since novelist Desmond Carmichael's wife Sandy was brutally murdered. Now, with someone stalking him and his four-year-old son, he fears that the wrong man has been imprisoned for the crime. Sandy’s parents and Detective Chuck Fournier have a different fear: that Desmond, despondent over Sandy’s death, has become too unstable to raise his own son.To prove them wrong, Desmond must work outside the law to defeat a threat born in the dust of an American wasteland, baptized by fire, and hellbent on riding the winds of karma.

     Three bone-chilling Mysteries from Best selling Author Willow Rose. - Seven, eight ... Gonna stay up late: She thought she could keep it a secret. Just fourteen years old, Amalie thought she could take off and go to the festival with her best friend without anyone knowing it - without her parents finding out. She thought she was safe when she met a man offering her drugs, she thought she was safe when she went alone to her tent to take the pills. But when she opened her eyes and found herself in the man's basement, she knew she wasn't safe anymore. She was trapped. Seven, eight ... Gonna stay up late is a Scandinavian mystery novel from the Amazon Bestselling author Willow Rose. It is the fourth book in her series about the Danish reporter Rebekka Franck. - Nine, ten ... Never sleep again: It is business as usual when Henrik Fenger picks up a girl in the bar and cheats on his wife with her in his hotel room. But, when he opens his eyes the very next morning nothing is as usual anymore. Henrik Fenger is the victim of a horrendous crime whose like has never been seen in the small kingdom of Denmark. Rebekka Franck is on her way to spend a nice relaxing week of vacation with her ex-husband Peter and her daughter Julie. They're supposed to work on their relationship and find each other as a family again, but soon Rebekka is pulled away for work when she is called in to cover the case for the newspaper along with her photographer and former boyfriend Sune Johansen. Nine, Ten ... Never sleep again is the fifth installment in Willow Rose's popular Rebekka Franck-series. - Eleven, twelve ... Dig and delve: Everybody hates Mondays. This Monday is particularly bad for the residents on Blegevej in the Northern part of Denmark. Just before eight o'clock Monday morning, the entire neighborhood sinks into the ground in a matter of seconds when a giant sinkhole opens up underneath it. Rebekka Franck is visiting a dear friend when she is swallowed up by the hole and ends up trapped inside a limestone mine. Together with the surviving residents from the neighborhood, she tries to get by underground while waiting to be rescued. When the body of one of the survivors turns up inside the mines, they suddenly know that not only do they face starvation and thirst, they also have a killer among them. Eleven, Twelve...Dig and Delve is the sixth book in Willow Rose's internationally bestselling series about the Danish reporter Rebekka Franck. It's followed by Thirteen, Fourteen ... Little boy unseeen Scroll up and grab a copy today.

    His is murder...When a woman staggers, naked, from a river, she has no idea that she’s been saved from a killer.Laura Fell is horrified when she discovers of her friend Gina’s suicide.Everton Bowe, a cop whose career is as dead as his marriage, is handed the case. Was it really suicide?Meanwhile, DC Helen Lake, insists there are similarities between the traumatized river woman and the cold case of three missing women; the victims, she fears, of a serial killer.Is there a serial killer on the loose?If so, what is his motive?

    They'll camp out in the backyard for their last vacation before high school. There's only one problem — even though they're just a hundred feet from the safety of the house, they're being hunted by a serial killer.Join Jack, Ben, and Stephen as they strap on their backpacks and go out looking for adventure. The woods behind Jack's house contain endless trails to explore, and the boys have weeks to investigate them all. Their neighborhood finally seems at peace again, now that the man who snatched the kid from down the street has been caught. But there's still danger in those woods, and the boys are about to stumble into it...