Since thier father died, the five Pepper children and their mother have been living in poverty, with only potatoes and brown bread for supper. Ben chops wood to help support the family, and Polly looks after the little ones while their mother earns what she can by sewing. The Peppers are so poor, they've never even had a Christmas. But from measles to monkeys, through bad times and good, the cozy kitchen in the little brown house rings with laughter...

Undine Spragg is a beautiful and ambitious, yet vain and socially dense young woman with dreams of marrying a rich man. Hoping for a life of prominence and luxury, Undine convinces her family to relocate to New York. The Spragg family, who have earned their modest wealth from shady practices, are happy to accommodate Undine's request. When Undine meets Ralph Marvell, an aspiring poet from a family of old New York high society, she is determined to...

The Lethal Stuff of Legends. For Jessica Tregarth, an unexpected invitation to visit her grandfather in England is a wonderful surprise-an opportunity to open doors to a family past that have always been closed to her. But sinister acts greet her arrival. A stranger tries to steal her luggage and later accosts her in Salisbury Cathedral. Mysterious villains pursue her through Cornwall, their motive and intentions unknown. Jessica's only clue is an...

A good salary and an all-expenses-paid summer spent a sprawling Arizona ranch is too good a deal for fledgling anthropologist D.J. Abbott to turn down. What does it matter that her rich new employer/benefactor, Hank Hunnicutt, is a certified oddball who is presently funding all manner of off-beat projects, from alien conspiracy studies to a hunt for dragon bones? There's even talk of treasure buried in the nearby mountains, but D.J. isn't going to...

A strange twist of fate brings Elizabeth Jones face to face with her idol, the brilliant, eccentric historian Margaret Rosenberg, at the Copenhagen Airport. An even stranger accident makes Elizabeth the esteemed scholar's new private assistant. But luck can go from good to bad in an instant -- and less than twenty-four hours later, the great lady is kidnapped by persons unknown. Suddenly desperate in a foreign land, Elizabeth must cast her lot with...

In a remote English manor house, modern admirersof the much-maligned King Richard III-one of Shakespeare's most extraordinary villains-are gathered for a grand weekend of dress-up and make-believe murder. But the fun ends when the masquerade turns more sinister... and deadly. Jacqueline Kirby, an American librarian on hand for the festivities, suddenly finds herself in the center of strange, dark doings... and racing to untangle a murderous puzzle...

It was the start of a grand adventure in a land of antiquity, a rare opportunity to visit biblical places shrouded in mystery. But in a Jerusalem hotel room a world away from everything she knows, Dinah van der Lyn hears angry voices through the wall, followed by a crash and a brief cry in English... for help! The brutal shattering of an evening's stillness becomes a prelude to terror. Without warning, Dinah has been unwittingly pulled into something...

Passion and politics, Rome and Egypt, clash in an epic recreation of the story of Cleopatra, Egypt's last queen, and her lover, Anthony. Cleopatra's priestess cousin Dione, standing in the shadows, is witness to all Cleopatra's romantic and military alliances. The queen is determined to maintain her hold on the throne of Egypt despite Rome's persistent attacks. But what happens when a queen falls in love with the man she intended only to use for...

A woman returns to Egypt to clear her archaeologist father's name in this mystery by the New York Times–bestselling author of the Amelia Peabody series.   Althea Tomlinson's ostensible reason for returning to Egypt is to chaperone a spoiled teenager through this fabulous desert land. The truth is more complex-and dangerous. Ten years ago, something that happened here brought about her archaeologist father's ruin and subsequent death. . . ....

Thousands of books on interior design have come and gone since the 1897 publication of this pioneering manual, but The Decoration of Houses remains, thanks to the insightful and inspiring advice of its co-authors. Before she became the Pulitzer Prize—winning author of “The Age of Innocence”, Edith Wharton was a society matron, remodeling a summer home in Newport, Rhode Island. With the able assistance of architect Ogden Codman, Jr., Wharton...