The Robber Bride

From the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments—one of Margaret Atwood’s most unforgettable characters lurks at the center of this intricate novel like a spider in a web. The glamorous, irresistible, unscrupulous Zenia is nothing less than a fairy-tale villain in the memories of her former friends. Roz, Charis, and Tony—university classmates decades ago—were reunited at Zenia’s funeral and have met monthly for lunch ever since, obsessively retracing the destructive swath she once cut through their lives. A brilliantly inventive fabulist, Zenia had a talent for exploiting her friends’ weaknesses, wielding intimacy as a weapon and cheating them of money, time, sympathy, and men. But one day, five years after her funeral, they are shocked to catch sight of Zenia: even her death appears to have been yet another fiction. As the three women plot to confront their larger-than-life nemesis, Atwood proves herself a gleefully acute observer of the treacherous shoals of friendship, trust, desire, and power.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author takes a classic fairy tale and turns it into a novel set along the eighteenth-century frontier of the Natchez Trace. In the clammy forests of Louisiana, somewhere between New Orleans and the muddy Mississippi River, the berry-stained bandit of the woods, Jamie Lockhart, saves the life of a gullible planter. In reward, Jamie is given shelter—only to kidnap the planter’s lovely young daughter, Rosamund. It’s an impulsive act that will have far-reaching consequences, and will set in motion a series of fantastic, murderous, and flamboyantly uncivilized romantic adventures. With legendary figures of Mississippi’s past—including notorious riverboatman Mike Fink and the thrill-killing Harp brothers—mingling side-by-side with characters from legendary fairy tales and the author’s own imagination, The Robber Bridegroom in an exuberant cocktail of fantasy, folklore and history along the treacherous Natchez Trace. The basis of the popular musical that has run both on and off Broadway, The Robber Bridegroom is “a modern fairy tale, where irony and humor, outright nonsense, deep wisdom and surrealistic extravaganzas becomes a poetic unity through the power of a pure exquisite style” (The New York Times). “As sly and irresistible as anything in Candide. For all her wild, rich fancy, Welty writes prose that is as disciplined as it is beautiful.” —The New Yorker

Daring Debutantes, Book 1... When Victoria Barclay, privileged daughter of the Viscount Grantham, has a life-altering experience as a young girl, it sets the course for the rest of her life. She is determined to make a difference in the world, no matter the consequence, and becomes a highwayman-or woman, as it were-robbing the rich and donating her pilfered gains to the poor. Life-long friend and neighbor, Phineas Dartwell, Earl of Leyburn, suspects his dear friend is up to no good. She's become evasive, and even worse, he cares that she's become evasive. When she refuses to confide in him, claiming it's for his own good, he severs the friendship out of wounded pride and a wounded heart. But when Victoria's activities are brought to light in the eyes of the magistrate, Phineas must find a way to acquit his friend-and dare he hope, future wife?-of the charges.

From the author of the New York Times bestselling novels The Handmaid’s Tale—now an Emmy Award-winning Hulu original series—and Alias Grace, now a Netflix original series. A powerfully and brilliantly crafted novel, Bodily Harm is the story of Rennie Wilford, a young journalist whose life has begun to shatter around the edges. Rennie flies to the Caribbean to recuperate, and on the tiny island of St. Antoine she is confronted by a world where her rules for survival no longer apply. By turns comic, satiric, relentless, and terrifying, Margaret Atwood's Bodily Harm is ultimately an exploration of the lust for power, both sexual and political, and the need for compassion that goes beyond what we ordinarily mean by love.

After his expulsion from Russia in 1974 for undermining the Communist regime, Solzhenitsyn wrote a secret record, while it was still fresh in his mind, of the courageous efforts of people who hid his writings and smuggled them to the West. Before the fall of Communism he could not have published Invisible Allies in conjunction with his memoir The Oak and the Calf without putting those friends in jeopardy. Now the facts may be revealed in this intimate account of the network of individuals who risked life and liberty to ensure that his works were concealed, circulated in "samizdat", and exported via illicit channels. These conspirators, often unknown to one another, shared a devotion to the dissident writer's work and a hatred of an oppressive regime of censorship and denunciation. The circle was varied enough to include scholars and fellow writers, and also elderly babushkas who acted as couriers. With tenderness, respect and humour, Solzhenitsyn speaks of these partners in conspiracy: the women who typed copies of his works under the noses of prying neighbours; the journalists and diplomats who covertly carried microfilms across borders; the friends who hid various drafts of his works from the vigilance of the secret police.

A breathtaking novel of a woman grappling with the tangled knot of her life—from the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments Disturbing, humorous, and compassionate, Cat’s Eye is the story of Elaine Risley, a controversial painter who returns to Toronto, the city of her youth, for a retrospective of her art. Engulfed by vivid images of the past, she reminisces about a trio of girls who initiated her into the the fierce politics of childhood and its secret world of friendship, longing, and betrayal. Elaine must come to terms with her own identity as a daughter, a lover, an artist, and a woman—but above all she must seek release form her haunting memories.

From the author of the New York Times bestselling novels The Handmaid’s Tale—now an Emmy Award-winning Hulu original series—and Alias Grace, now a Netflix original series. Joan Foster is the bored wife of a myopic ban-the-bomber. She takes off overnight as Canada's new superpoet, pens lurid gothics on the sly, attracts a blackmailing reporter, skids cheerfully in and out of menacing plots, hair-raising traps, and passionate trysts, and lands dead and well in Terremoto, Italy. In this remarkable, poetic, and magical novel, Margaret Atwood proves yet again why she is considered to be one of the most important and accomplished writers of our time.

The bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments reveals the life of one of the most notorious women of the nineteenth century in this "shadowy, fascinating novel" (Time). • A Netflix original miniseries. It's 1843, and Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer and his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders. An up-and-coming expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness is engaged by a group of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace. He listens to her story while bringing her closer and closer to the day she cannot remember. What will he find in attempting to unlock her memories? Captivating and disturbing, Alias Grace showcases bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author Margaret Atwood at the peak of her powers.

From the author of the New York Times bestselling novels The Handmaid’s Tale—now an Emmy Award-winning Hulu original series—and Alias Grace, now a Netflix original series. Imprisoned by walls of their own construction, here are three people, each in midlife, in midcrisis, forced to make choices--after the rules have changed. Elizabeth, with her controlled sensuality, her suppressed rage, is married to the wrong man. She has just lost her latest lover to suicide. Nate, her gentle, indecisive husband, is planning to leave her for Lesje, a perennial innocent who prefers dinosaurs to men. Hanging over them all is the ghost of Elizabeth's dead lover...and the dizzying threat of three lives careening inevitably toward the same climax.

The battle has been joined... Hardened warrior Simon de Burgh has no use for women and their wiles until he’s waylaid by one. Now he plans to best the wench who dared capture him—and his heart. Bethia Burnel leads a band of outlaws, striking from the fastness of the forest at the tyrant who holds her father prisoner. Although she knows how to deal with those who trespass in her woods, this arrogant knight threatens her very existence—and her heart. But all’s fair in love and war. “A delight to read… Robber Bride has an interesting plot, lots of tension between Simon and Bethia, and a few interesting secondary characters, including Simon’s brothers and the steward of Baddersly Castle. The hero is unique and the heroine wonderfully capable.” – All About Romance Two-time RITA Finalist Deborah Simmons is a USA Today bestselling author of historical romances originally published by Avon, Harlequin, and Berkley, as well as a romantic comedy. Key Themes: medieval historical romance, alpha male, strong heroine, knight, action adventure, historical romance series, historical romantic suspense, enemies to lovers, warrior hero, dangerous heroine, adventure stories, family, warrior heroine, brothers, independent heroine, Robin Hood, happily ever after, passionate medieval romance, love story, romance series, witty medieval romance