The Silent Partner

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER At a party for a controversial Los Angeles sex therapist, Alex Delaware encounters a face from his own past—Sharon Ransom, an exquisite, alluring lover who left him abruptly more than a decade earlier. Sharon now hints that she desperately needs help, but Alex evades her. The next day she is dead, an apparent suicide. “A complex and haunting story of tangled personalities, deeply buried family secrets, and of violence lying thinly under the surface . . . hits the reader right between the eyes.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review Driven by guilt and sadness, Alex plunges into the maze of Sharon’s life—a journey that will take him through the pleasure palaces of California’s ultrarich, into the alleyways of the mind, where childhood terrors still hold sway.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1871.

Alex Sheridan, a Maverick entrepreneur and her high-powered business partner, Christine Welbourne, are poised for epic success in the oil and gas business. Brilliant and beautiful, the women are recognized as hard-charging leaders in the business community, as well as the traditionally male dominated oil and gas industry.Business dreams and love relationships are shattered when Alex discovers Chris brutally murdered in their office. It looks like a professional hit. The case immediately becomes a high-profile media event. The murder investigation shuts down their business as it follows a maze of evidence that leads to dead ends and destruction. When Chris’ secret affair with a powerful senator is discovered, events escalate. The unsolved murder of her dearest friend combined with the destruction of their business emotionally hobbles Alex. Powerful politicians, cutthroat associates and business enemies are suspects and Alex is interrogated about her possible motive. Amidst the chaos, her burgeoning love interest with the rugged engineer, Colt Forrester is abandoned. As leads are exhausted, the murder case of prominent Denver businesswoman, Christine Welbourne goes cold. Sequel…..Crude Intent, Coming in 2020

The truth behind the lies. It was an unforgettable scene. Dina Matos McGreevey, an attractive woman in her mid-thirties, wife, mother, and First Lady of the state of New Jersey, watched silently as her husband, then New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, resigned his office with the revelation that he was a "gay American." The picture of grace and loyalty, perfectly composed in her pale blue suit, Dina Matos McGreevey gave no sign of the tangled mixture of fear, sorrow, and anger she felt that day, no hint of the devastation that was to come. Since then she has been asked repeatedly about the nature of her marriage, about what she knew and when she knew it. Since then, she has remained silent. Until now. Speaking up at last, Dina Matos McGreevey here recounts the details of her marriage to Jim McGreevey. What emerges is a tale of love and betrayal, of heartbreak and scandal . . . and, ultimately, hope. It all began with so much promise. Dina Matos was a responsible and civic-minded young woman who fell in love with the passion of political action. When Jim McGreevey walked into her life, he appeared to be a kind and loving man, someone with whom she could build a life based on shared ideals, a strong spiritual commitment, and a desire to make a difference in the world. Beyond their initial chemistry, Dina Matos was attracted by Jim McGreevey's principles and his unwavering devotion to his work. She didn't know that his life, and thus their marriage, were built on a foundation of lies; that his past was littered with casual sexual encounters in seedy bookstores and public parks; or that, by his own admission, he began an adulterous affair with another man while she was in the hospital awaiting the birth of their child. "Could I have known," she asks. "How could I have known?" With scalding honesty, she tells of her life with the former governor, of the politics and public service that brought them together, and the lies that tore them apart. Here is a story of a marriage that was anything but happily-ever-after, told by a strong and resilient woman who can, and finally will, speak for herself.

Successful florist Mildreth Faulkner finds that the flower business is no bed of roses when her arch-competitor, Harry Peavis, secretly buys stock in her small, family-owned corporation. While Peavis proposes a partnership, Mildreth suspects he's really plotting a power play. So to keep the scurrilous shareholder from muscling her out, she seeks Perry Mason's expertise. But even the legendary legal eagle may be stymied when Mildreth's company is plundered by her ne'er-do-well brother-in-law to pay off a gambling debt. The money trail leads to a nightclub hostess and her crooked boss. And when one is poisoned, and the other murdered, the trail of evidence leads right back to Mildreth. Mason knows the feisty florist is no shrinking violet...but does she have the pluck to be a cold-blooded killer?

Andover author and feminist, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844 - 1911) was an early advocate of clothing reform for women, urging them to burn their corsets. Inspired by the Lawrence Pemberton Mill Tragedy of 1860, Phelps wrote this story based upon one of the actual workers Asenath S. Martin. It originally appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in 1868. Preface to this edition by Louise Sandberg, Special Collections, Lawrence Public Library, author of Lawrence in the Gilded Age. "The story is sentimental, but the events of that night are very real." Louise Sandberg

Successful florist Mildreth Faulkner finds that the flower business is no bed of roses when her arch-competitor, Harry Peavis, secretly buys stock in her small, family-owned corporation. While Peavis proposes a partnership, Mildreth suspects he's really plotting a power play. So to keep the scurrilous shareholder from muscling her out, she seeks Perry Mason's expertise.

"Gripping and beautiful. Truly a masterpiece of the heart." - Becky Monson, USA Today Bestselling Author ★★★★★ He thinks his silence will protect her. She needs to hear what's in his heart. When it comes to love and life, Kinsley Kramer knows one thing-she's always second best. Tired of feeling like she's never enough, she decides to give up on men and adopt a cat. What Kinsley doesn't know is that Brant Holland wants nothing more than to tell the world how much he loves her, but he has kept his distance to protect Kinsley from the secrets he keeps and from his ex-fiancée's family. But when Kinsley is about to lose her restaurant, Brant can't help but act. He steps in and becomes her silent partner. Unable to deny the passion that sizzles between them, they must open painful doors to the past, and the secrets Brant has been keeping must be unleashed. Secrets that threaten to destroy everything and everyone he holds dear. Kinsley must now decide if she can bear the pain of Brant's past choices and an uncertain future as everything in the Hollands' world hangs in the balance. See how it all unfolds in this heart-tugging final chapter of the Pine Falls series.

The articulated human figure made of wax or wood has been a common tool in artistic practice since the 16th century. Its mobile limbs enable the artist to study anatomical proportion, fix a pose at will, and perfect the depiction of drapery and clothing. Over the course of the 19th century, the mannequin gradually emerged from the studio to become the artist's subject, at first humorously, then in more complicated ways, playing on the unnerving psychological presence of a figure that was realistic, yet unreal--lifelike, yet lifeless. Silent Partners locates the artist's mannequin within the context of an expanding universe of effigies, avatars, dolls, and shop window dummies. Generously illustrated, this book features works by such artists as Poussin, Gainsborough, Degas, Courbet, Cézanne, Kokoschka, Dalí, Man Ray, and others; the astute, perceptive text examines their range of responses to the uncanny and highly suggestive potential of the mannequin. Published in association with the Fitzwilliam Museum Exhibition Schedule: Musée Bourdelle, Paris (03/15/15-05/15/15) Fitzwilliam Museum (10/14/14-01/15/15)