Christian Grey exercises control in all things; his world is neat, disciplined, and utterly empty ... until the day that Anastasia Steele falls into his office, in a tangle of shapely limbs and tumbling brown hair. He tries to forget her, but instead is swept up in a storm of emotion he cannot comprehend and cannot resist. Unlike any woman he has known before, shy, unworldly Ana seems to see right through him ... past the business prodigy and the...

She's out to save her town from a real-life Scrooge... The small town of Miller's Point is known across the country for their annual Dickensian Christmas festival. When the celebration is threatened by Clark Woodward, a miserly, big-city businessman, Kate Buckner steps up to save her hometown, their traditions, and her favorite holiday. But, along the way, she realizes that the man she's trying to protect her town from might need some rescuing...

Miss Cleopatra Lewis is about to be launched in society by her aristocratic grandfather. But since she has no intention of marrying, she visits a costume emporium specifically to order unflattering dresses guaranteed to put off any prospective suitors. Jacob Astor Addison is in London, acquiring businesses to add to his theatrical holdings in America--as well as buying an emerald for a young lady back in Boston. He's furious when a she-devil masquerading...

Promise Me Forever: "Physical therapist Joy Nielsen has never been daunted by the challenges of her career. And her latest patient, businessman Sloan Whittaker, isn't going to change that, no matter how hard he's making things. After a serious accident, he's refusing to relearn how to walk. Joy is determined to make sure he recovers, and once he does, she's prepared to move on to her next patient. There's only one problem: after a soul-searing kiss,...

On a luminous spring day in Venice, Commissario Brunetti and his assistant Vianello play hooky from the Questura in order to help Vianello's friend Marco Ribetti, arrested during an environmental protest. They secure his release, only to be faced by the fury of the man's father-in-law, Giovanni De Cal, a cantankerous glass factory owner who has been heard in the bars of Murano making violent threats about Ribetti. Brunetti's curiosity is piqued, and...

Detroit businessman Harry Mitchell had had only one affair in his twenty-two years of happy matrimony. Unfortunately someone caught his indiscretion on film and now wants Harry to fork over one hundred grand to keep his infidelity a secret. And if Harry doesn't pay up, the blackmailer and his associates plan to press a lot harder--up to and including homicide, if necessary. But the psychos picked the wrong pigeon for their murderous scam. Because...

"Set against the construction of the Eiffel Tower, this novel charts the relationship between a young widow and an engineer who, despite constraints of class and wealth, fall in love. In February 1887, Caitriona Wallace and Emile Nouguier meet in a hot air balloon, floating high above Paris a moment of pure possibility. But back on firm ground, their vastly different social strata become clear. Cait is a widow who because of her precarious financial...

In a rising Saudi Arabian city, far from weary, recession-scarred America, a struggling businessman named Alan Clay pursues a last-ditch attempt to stave off foreclosure, pay his daughter's college tuition, and finally do something great.

1794: War and the revolution in France hang over Britain. In Cornwall, George Warleggan grows his empire with a view to crush the Poldarks while Ross and Demelza attempt to repair their relationship. Ross must ask himself how long he can allow George's ascent to continue unchecked. Facing battles both at home and abroad, will Ross answer the call and risk losing everything he holds dear?

First published in 1873, The Gilded Age is both a biting satire and a revealing portrait of post-Civil War America-an age of corruption when crooked land speculators, ruthless bankers, and dishonest politicians voraciously took advantage of the nation's peacetime optimism. With his characteristic wit and perception, Mark Twain and his collaborator, Charles Dudley Warner, attack the greed, lust, and naivete of their own time in a work which endures...