"After Margherita's father steals parsley from the walled garden of the courtesan Selena Leonelli, he is threatened with having both hands cut off, unless he and his wife relinquish their precious little girl. Selena is the famous red-haired muse of the artist Tiziano, first painted by him in 1512 and still inspiring him at the time of his death. She is at the center of Renaissance life in Venice, a world of beauty and danger, seduction and betrayal,...

"Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and to devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Moderna and Regio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father...

First appearing as an anonymous serial in "Harper's Magazine" in 1895, "Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc" was Mark Twain's final novel and was published as a complete work under his name in 1896. The novel is a stark departure from Twain's usual comic and satirical writings, which is why Twain insisted it initially be published anonymously so that the public would take it seriously. The work is told from the perspective of a fictionalized version...

After breaking up with her boyfriend, seventeen-year-old Rowena takes an out-of-town summer job at a Renaissance fair, but romantic entanglements soon follow.

A satire set in Texas during America's war in Iraq that explores the gaping national disconnect between the war at home and the war abroad. Follows the surviving members of the heroic Bravo Squad through one exhausting stop in their media-intensive "Victory Tour" at Texas Stadium, football mecca of the Dallas Cowboys, their fans, promoters, and cheerleaders.

A shortened, simplified version of an adventure in seventeenth-century France, when young d'Artagnan initially quarrels with, then befriends, three musketeers and joins them in trying to outwit the enemies of the king and queen.

A Bundle of Letters is a comic short story by Henry James, originally published in The Parisian magazine in 1879, which is also when the story takes place. The story is one of James' few ventures into epistolary fiction. As he did so often, especially in the early stages of his career, James made the tale part of his international theme: his letter-writers represent a number of different countries. Although some of the characters look like well-worn...

Ten twisted tales that have haunted generations of readers and writers from H. P. Lovecraft to the creators of the hit TV series True Detective Nightmare imagery courses through these stories like blood through the veins. In "The Repairer of Reputations," a Lethal Chamber stands at the edge of Washington Square Park, open to all who can no longer bear the sorrows of life. A Parisian sculptor discovers a liquid solution that can turn any living thing-a...

What do a desperate woman with a secret, a dead man in a drainage ditch and a dark figure in the night have in common? Physician-sleuth Dr Gabriel Taverner has to connect the dots before time runs out in this thrilling historical mystery.

Orlando doubles as first an Elizabethan nobleman and then as a Victorian heroine who undergoes all the transitions of history in this novel that examines sex roles and social mores.