Roses For Isabella

"Afterword by Lynn Lohr for Fair Trade USA."

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Alison Weir's Mary Boleyn. In this vibrant biography, acclaimed author Alison Weir reexamines the life of Isabella of England, one of history’s most notorious and charismatic queens. Isabella arrived in London in 1308, the spirited twelve-year-old daughter of King Philip IV of France. Her marriage to the heir to England’s throne was designed to heal old political wounds between the two countries, and in the years that followed she became an important figure, a determined and clever woman whose influence would come to last centuries. Many myths and legends have been woven around Isabella’s story, but in this first full biography in more than 150 years, Alison Weir gives a groundbreaking new perspective.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions—now with a new Afterword by the author. #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, O: The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, New York Post, The New York Public Library, Fortune, Smithsonian Magazine, Marie Claire, Slate, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews Winner of the Carl Sandberg Literary Award • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • National Book Award Longlist • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalist • PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Finalist • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Longlist • Kirkus Prize Finalist “As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.” In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched, and beautifully written narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their outcasting of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Original and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.

White light. Heat. A drawn-out moment of complete silence. And then the screaming starts. An Underground carriage in London is destroyed by a suicide bomber. The injured and the dead litter the platform. But as a crowd forms at street level, Michael Pope knows that this is only the beginning. Pope, head of top-secret Group Fifteen, is tasked with finding the perpetrators of this atrocity and bringing them to justice, any way he can. He knows that the answers to many of his questions will lie at the end of the money trail, but he also knows that whoever funded and organised the attack will kill again for their freedom. This is an operation that requires a very special kind of agent. Pope needs someone who exists outside of normality. Someone who floats above it, treading softly through a fractured life. He needs the Angel. The Angel is the first part in a continuing story involving Isabella Rose. The story will be continued in Act II, The Asset.

Isabella Rose is on the run, hunted by the very people she had been hired to work for. Trained killer Isabella and former handler Michael Pope are forced into hiding in India and, when a mysterious informer passes them clues on the whereabouts of Pope's family, the prey see an opportunity to become the predators. Chased from the poverty of Mumbai's slums into the sights of a sniper's rifle amongst the lavish wealth of Shanghai, Isabella and Pope hunt fleeting shadows in a race against time. And they can't afford to lose. The Agent is the third part in a continuing story involving Isabella Rose that also includes The Angel and The Asset.

Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, is the most dangerous city in the world. And when a mission to break the local cartel's grip goes wrong, Isabella Rose, the Angel, finds herself on the wrong side of prison bars. Fearing the worst, Isabella plays her only remaining card... British agent Vivian Bloom is determined to be the first to reach her, certain she will lead him to other operatives he's under pressure to hunt down. But US agents are circling too. And with the shadowy Prometheus group pulling the strings, Isabella knows that she and her mentor, the Asset, are living on borrowed time... The Assassin is the fourth part in a continuing story involving Isabella Rose that also includes Act I: The Angel, Act II: The Asset and Act III: The Agent.

Three glorious gripping novels - formerly known as The She-Wolves trilogy, now all in one volume for the first time as THE ROSE TRILOGY 'Here is a novelist at ease with her subject. A compulsive read' Anne O'Brien 'A real tour de force of gripping writing, rich historical detail and complex, fascinating characters' Nicola Cornick 'Carol McGrath excels at sweeping the reader away on an engrossing journey through history . . . she brings her characters vividly to life' Jane Johnson 'A wonderful little piece of time travel for any lover of historical fiction' Joanna Courtney 'Full of intricate details, historical accuracy and complex plotting' Alexandra Walsh Three queens of England - and three women who lived in their shadow. THE SILKEN ROSE They called her the She-Wolf. She'd shape the destiny of England ... 1236. Ailenor of Provence, cultured and intelligent, is only thirteen when she meets her new husband, Henry III of England. Rosalind, a commoner catches the young queen's attention and a friendship blossoms. But she is unprepared for the dangerous ramifications of winning the queen's favour ... THE DAMASK ROSE A beloved wife. A hated queen. A journey to her destiny ... 1266. Eleanor of Castile, adored wife of the Crown Prince of England, is still only a princess when she is held hostage in the brutal Baron's Rebellion, and her baby daughter dies. As she rises to become Queen, Eleanor keeps Olwen - a trusted herbalist, by her side. But it is dangerous to be friendless in a royal household, and Olwen and Eleanor discover that the true battle for Europe may not be a matter of swords and lances, but one fanned by whispers and spies. THE STONE ROSE A queen must know her place, in a court of men . . . London, 1350. Agnes, daughter of a stonemason, is struggling to keep her father's trade in a city decimated by plague. And then she receives a mysterious message from the disgraced Queen Isabella: mother of King Edward III, and widow of Edward II. Isabella has a task that only Agnes can fulfil. She wants her truth to be told. But can either woman choose independence, follow her own desires, and survive?

Rose expert and author Bill Welch shares his knowledge about the care and propogation of old roses and landscaping with old roses.