Author: J'nell Ciesielski
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 0785233571
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 417

View

Book Description
In Ciesielski’s latest sweeping romance, an American heiress finds herself in Scotland amid the fallout of the Great War, and a wounded Scottish laird comes face-to-face with his past and a woman he never could have expected. American socialite Lily Durham is known for enjoying one moment to the next, with little regard for the consequences of her actions. But just as she is banished overseas to England as a “cure” for her frivolous ways, the Great War breaks out and wreaks havoc. She joins her cousin in nursing the wounded at a convalescent home deep in the wilds of Scotland at a crumbling castle where its laird is less than welcoming. Alec MacGregor has given his entire life to preserving his home of Kinclavoch Castle, but mounting debts force him to sell off his family history bit by bit. Labeled a coward for not joining his countrymen in the trenches due to an old injury, he opens his home to the Tommies to make recompense while he keeps to the shadows. But his preference for the shadows is shattered when a new American nurse comes streaming into the castle on a burst of light. Lily and Alec are thrown together when a series of mysterious events threatens to ruin the future of Kinclavoch. Can they put aside their differences to find the culprit before it’s too late, or will their greatest distraction be falling in love? Praise for Beauty Among Ruins “An atmospheric, engrossing romance for fans of Downton Abbey and Somewhere in France. A real gem!” —Aimie K. Runyan, internationally bestselling author “A satisfying and highly enjoyable read that I recommended for readers of historical fiction, mystery, and romance.” —Tea Cooper, author of The Woman in the Green Dress World War I historical romance Full-length stand-alone novel Book length: 113,000 words Includes discussion questions for book clubs

Author: Mika Lane
Publisher: Mika Lane
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 734

View

Book Description
These spicy, over-the-top Russian Mafia romances are about sexy, dangerous men who'll stop at nothing to pursue and protect the woman they want. If you love outrageously naughty stories as a way to indulge your not-so-secret bad girl side, these Why Choose romances are for you. 1) Cruel Promise 2) Brutal Ruin 3) Vicious Revenge Note: while not required, you may like to read the novella, My Bratva Christmas, first. These books is intended for adults. They feature a heroine with multiple love interests as well as mature themes including kidnapping, murder, spanking, edging, and page-turning sexy times.

Author: Piper Lawson
Publisher: Piper Lawson Steamy Romance Books
ISBN: 1777526426
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 146

View

Book Description
Enjoy this steamy British billionaire romance novel from USA Today bestselling author Piper Lawson! “Marry me here. Now. In Vegas.” Trapped in a corner, my only way out was the ruthless billionaire who put me there. In the three years since, we’ve healed each other. We did things in the dark we’re not proud of, things that will forever be kept secret from the world. Those sins forged a bond as strong as the love that binds us together. King and Queen. Freedom and Salvation. Now, we have a chance at forever. And nothing—not a jewelry mystery, our friends’ hijinx, or The King himself—will steal it from us. BEAUTIFUL SALVATION is a Vegas wedding novella and should be read after BEAUTIFUL RUIN (Enemies #3). Don’t miss the steamy, delicious book readers are calling “the BEST POSSIBLE ending to Harrison and Rae’s story!” PRAISE FOR THE ENEMIES SERIES: ★★★★★ “Beautiful Enemy has the spice of romance and brute force of a cage fight. Drama. Suspense. Temptation. Lawson finds a place for each and every conflicting emotion and creates a combustible inferno.” -Isha, Goodreads reviewer ★★★★★ “Captivatingly sexy and fresh. It consumed me.” -Beautiful Chaos Reviews ★★★★★ “Overflowing with drama and suspense. Rae and Harrison will take you on an emotional roller coaster.” -BP34, Goodreads reviewer ★★★★★ “I am not usually a fan of the billionaire sweeps poor girl off her feet trope, but this book grabbed me by the heart strings and tugged hard. Leaves you breathless and wanting more.” -Amanda, Goodreads reviewer ★★★★★ “Powerful and full of feels...my new obsession.” -Stital, Goodreads reviewer ★★★★★ “WOW! My heart stuttered at the ending! Keeps you gripped.” -Suzanne, Goodreads reviewer ★★★★★ “What an explosive couple...I cannot wait for more!!!” -Nicola, Goodreads reviewer ★★★★★ “I love Piper’s musical world of Wicked, and this new saga is just as delicious.” -Michelle, Goodreads reviewer ★★★★★ “Loud, gritty, hot and freaking amazing!!! Little Queen and her King will burn up your pages.” -Debbie, Goodreads reviewer ★★★★★ “This book was amazing! I’m in love with Harrison and Rae.” -Kristen, Goodreads reviewer ★★★★★ “I want a Harrison, pretty please with whipped cream and a cherry on top...I was completely blown away by this book.” -Shelly, Goodreads reviewer ★★★★★ “Suspense, romance...Enemies to lovers at its best! Can’t wait to get my hands on the second installment. HIGHLY recommend.” -Anneli, Goodreads reviewer ★★★★★ “I felt every touch, every emotion through Pipers writing. I absolutely LOVE books that just transport me away so clearly... Beautiful Enemy is one of those books. 5 outstanding, phenomenal Stars.” -Cat, Goodreads reviewer *** KEYWORDS: Alpha, Alpha billionaire, alpha male, billionaire, travel, billionaire romance, alpha male romance, strong heroine, Ibiza, EDM, holiday, beach romance, contemporary romance, enemies to lovers, forbidden love, age gap, British billionaire, interracial romance, series, romantic series, women’s fiction, romance saga, romance series, romance saga, romantic family saga, bestseller romance, sexy, family, love, love books, kissing books, emotional journey, captivating romance, emotional, healing, hot, hot romance, sparks, loyalty, swoon, funny romance, modern romance, new release, forbidden romance, hidden romance, strong alpha, alpha hero, family business, strong female lead, strong heroine, family secrets, top romance reads, best seller, New Adult, best seller, series, romance novels, love story, alpha, bully, angst. Readers also enjoyed books by: Carrie Ann Ryan, Corinne Michaels, Susan Stoker, Natasha Madison, Chelle Bliss, Christina Lauren, Colleen Hoover, Talia Hibbert, Helena Hunting, Elle Kennedy, Kristen Callihan, Melissa Foster, Bella Andre, Sarina Bowen, Vi Keeland, Winter Renshaw, Meghan March, Willow Winters, Carly Phillips, Erika Wilde, Kendall Ryan, Jillian Dodd, Melissa Foster, Nana Malone, Anna Todd, Lauren Blakely, Julia Kent, Siobhan Davis, Vivian Wood, JS Scott, LJ Shen, Louise Bay, TL Swan, Nicole Snow, MS Parker, Lucy Score, Ava Harrison, Parker S Huntington, Ivy Layne, Tia Louise and Ainsley St Claire.

Author: Dora Apel
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813574099
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 229

View

Book Description
Once the manufacturing powerhouse of the nation, Detroit has become emblematic of failing cities everywhere—the paradigmatic city of ruins—and the epicenter of an explosive growth in images of urban decay. In Beautiful Terrible Ruins, art historian Dora Apel explores a wide array of these images, ranging from photography, advertising, and television, to documentaries, video games, and zombie and disaster films. Apel shows how Detroit has become pivotal to an expanding network of ruin imagery, imagery ultimately driven by a pervasive and growing cultural pessimism, a loss of faith in progress, and a deepening fear that worse times are coming. The images of Detroit’s decay speak to the overarching anxieties of our era: increasing poverty, declining wages and social services, inadequate health care, unemployment, homelessness, and ecological disaster—in short, the failure of capitalism. Apel reveals how, through the aesthetic distancing of representation, the haunted beauty and fascination of ruin imagery, embodied by Detroit’s abandoned downtown skyscrapers, empty urban spaces, decaying factories, and derelict neighborhoods help us to cope with our fears. But Apel warns that these images, while pleasurable, have little explanatory power, lulling us into seeing Detroit’s deterioration as either inevitable or the city’s own fault, and absolving the real agents of decline—corporate disinvestment and globalization. Beautiful Terrible Ruins helps us understand the ways that the pleasure and the horror of urban decay hold us in thrall.

Author: Jess Walter
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 006209808X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 310

View

Book Description
“Why mince words? Beautiful Ruins is an absolute masterpiece.” — Richard Russo The acclaimed, award-winning author of the national bestseller The Financial Lives of the Poets returns with his funniest, most romantic, and most purely enjoyable novel yet: the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962 . . . and is rekindled in Hollywood fifty years later. The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, deep in daydreams, looks out over the waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an American starlet, he soon learns, and she is dying. And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot—searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier. What unfolds is a dazzling roller coaster of a novel, spanning fifty years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion—along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow. Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.

Author: Susan Stewart
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022663261X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 401

View

Book Description
How have ruins become so valued in Western culture and so central to our art and literature? Covering a vast chronological and geographical range, from ancient Egyptian inscriptions to twentieth-century memorials, Susan Stewart seeks to answer this question as she traces the appeal of ruins and ruins images, and the lessons that writers and artists have drawn from their haunting forms. Stewart takes us on a sweeping journey through founding legends of broken covenants and original sin, the Christian appropriation of the classical past, and images of decay in early modern allegory. Stewart looks in depth at the works of Goethe, Piranesi, Blake, and Wordsworth, each of whom found in ruins a means of reinventing his art. Lively and engaging, The Ruins Lesson ultimately asks what can resist ruination—and finds in the self-transforming, ever-fleeting practices of language and thought a clue to what might truly endure.

Author: Patricia Young
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 170

View

Book Description
Gathering the best work from Patricia Young's eight books of poetry, as well as strong new poems that fittingly speak to the passage of time, Ruin & Beauty brings together in one volume the elusive yet buoyant epiphanies that together form a life.

Author: Jess Walter
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241963001
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 352

View

Book Description
The No. 1 New York Times Bestseller Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins is a gorgeous, glamorous novel set in 1960s Italy and a modern Hollywood studio. The story begins in 1962. Somewhere on a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and views an apparition: a beautiful woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an American starlet, he soon learns, and she is dying. And the story begins again today, half a world away in Hollywood, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot searching for the woman he last saw at his hotel fifty years before. Gloriously inventive, funny, tender and constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a novel full of fabulous and yet very flawed people, all of them striving towards another sort of life, a future that is both delightful and yet, tantalizingly, seems just out of reach. 'Magic...A monument to crazy love with a deeply romantic heart' New York Times 'A novel shot in sparkly Technicolor' Booklist 'Hilarious and compelling' Esquire

Author: Mika Lane
Publisher: Mika Lane
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 260

View

Book Description
A Beauty and the Beast retelling... NOW AVAILABLE IN AUDIO! In a world that makes sense, I would hate the three Alekseev brothers. And yet… because nothing about my life does make sense, I see them in a surprising light. This leaves me with a glimmer of… something. Is it passion? Desire? Lust? Hope? All while I’m faced with the unlikeliest of horrors. Ashamed as I am, I crave them with a longing that reaches into every corner of my being. They represent my deepest fears and darkest dreams, and yet have become my sanctuary. A beacon in the darkness. The darkness of a pawn caught in treacherous dealings with dangerous adversaries. Powerful forces seek to tear Vadik, Kir, and Niko apart, and do even worse to me. Only they can keep me safe. The three men whose hands claimed me first. Who touched me first. Who gave birth to the very nightmares that haunt me. But who are also my hopes and dreams. Without them, I will perish, and not only at the hand of their rivals. This hot, over-the-top Russian Mafia romance is about sexy, dangerous men who'll stop at nothing to pursue and protect the women they want. If you love outrageously naughty stories as a way to indulge your not-so-secret bad girl side, this is for you. 1) Cruel Promise 2) Brutal Ruin 3) Vicious Revenge This is book #2 in the Beauty & the Bratva trilogy. You may want to read book #1, CRUEL PROMISE, first. This book is intended for adults. It features a heroine with multiple love interests as well as mature themes including kidnapping, murder, spanking, edging, and page-turning sexy times.

Author: J'nell Ciesielski
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 0785233547
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 364

View

Book Description
When her younger sister runs away to Paris to live with a German officer high up in Hitler’s favor, English socialite Kat embarks on a dangerous journey to save her sister from the Nazis. Glamour, romance, and espionage collide in this exciting, high-stakes adventure. As the daughter of Sir Alfred Whitford, Kat has certain responsibilities. Chasing her wayward younger sister, Ellie, to Nazi-occupied Paris was never supposed to be one of them. Unfortunately, Ellie has grown accustomed to the luxurious lifestyle her Nazi lover provides and has no intention of going back to the shackled life their parents dictate—but Kat will stop at nothing to bring her sister home. Barrett Anderson was arrested for defending himself against a drunken bully of high birth. Given the option of jail or training Resistance fighters in Paris, Barrett chooses the latter. He poses as a bar owner, entertaining Nazis at night while his men train right below their jackboots during the day. An assignment to watch over two English debutantes is the last thing he needs, but a payout from their father is too tempting to resist. From the moment Kat and Barrett meet, tempers flare and sparks fly. Despite their differences, they’ll have to find a way to trust each other in order to survive this deadly mission. In the end, their hearts may prove more traitorous than the dangers waiting around the corner. Both a daring journey into Nazi-occupied Paris and a captivating love story, The Socialite will enchant readers with its beautiful prose and unforgettable characters. Praise for The Socialite: “Smart, savvy, and seductive, J’nell Ciesielski’s The Socialite takes the reader on a high-stakes thrill ride through the darkness of WWII–occupied Paris.”—Kristy Cambron, bestselling and award-winning author “In the tradition of Ariel Lawhon and Kate Quinn, The Socialite immerses readers in the glamor and destruction of Nazi-occupied Paris. A picture-perfect portrait of early 1940s Paris, this impeccably researched love story stands out in a sea of WWII-era fiction with its distinctive crystalline voice and unforgettable hero and heroine.”—Rachel McMillan, author of The London Restoration Exciting World War II historical romance Full-length, stand-alone novel Book length: 110,000 words Includes discussion questions for book clubs