From author Mary Blayney comes this riveting new romantic novel set in a world of turbulent change. Here the scion of a powerful English family and a woman every bit his match begin an affair that will leave them both vulnerable to forces beyond their control. A year after the death of his wife, Lynford Pennistan, Duke of Meryon, has returned to London and his weighty political responsibilities. But no burden can equal the regret Lyn feels for never allowing himself to show his wife the emotion that could have saved his marriage. Now an unexpected encounter with a beautiful widow may offer him a second chance.. As reluctant guests at a ball, Lyn and an elegant stranger talk of love and loss in ways they never have before. And when they are later introduced, their attraction goes from passionate to scandalous. As England’s political unrest explodes, so do the fires between Lyn and Elena Verano. But when a secret is revealed that will turn Elena’s life upside down, Lyn is forced to make a choice that could destroy them both…if Elena doesn’t make it for him.

“Strawberries and cigarettes still taste like you.” Arya, a voguish overachiever gets into IIT and finds herself in a whirlwind of reckless antics and youthful highs. She is a misfit at the prestigious engineering college as she resolves to pursue art. As life happens on campus that seems estranged to her, she keeps chasing highs with her friends until she stumbles upon an art instructor. The irrevocable collision of their worlds turns out to be an aesthetic awakening for Arya. She is caught up in an exquisite affair of love and pain as she encounters strangers on the way who make her world tragical and magical in their own ways.

From the Man Booker Prize–winning author of The Line of Beauty: a magnificent, century-spanning saga about a love triangle that spawns a myth, and a family mystery, across generations. In the late summer of 1913, George Sawle brings his Cambridge schoolmate—a handsome, aristocratic young poet named Cecil Valance—to his family’s modest home outside London for the weekend. George is enthralled by Cecil, and soon his sixteen-year-old sister, Daphne, is equally besotted by him and the stories he tells about Corley Court, the country estate he is heir to. But what Cecil writes in Daphne’s autograph album will change their and their families’ lives forever: a poem that, after Cecil is killed in the Great War and his reputation burnished, will become a touchstone for a generation, a work recited by every schoolchild in England. Over time, a tragic love story is spun, even as other secrets lie buried—until, decades later, an ambitious biographer threatens to unearth them. Rich with Hollinghurst’s signature gifts—haunting sensuality, delicious wit and exquisite lyricism—The Stranger’s Child is a tour de force: a masterly novel about the lingering power of desire, how the heart creates its own history, and how legends are made. This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.

She wasn't supposed to fall in love with her next door neighbor “Can you hear me?” Adaline Starling needs a new tenant for the flat above her store, and Callum Hague needs somewhere to live. Adaline is a genius, hiding in a magazine store, she has never opened. She is trying to convince the world that she is whole, that there is nothing wrong with her. Callum Hague likes to fix things, preferably thousands of miles away from his hometown. He’s returned from a year long project in Nairobi where he has built a school. They both have hidden imperfections that have shaped their lives from childhood. If they were left to their own devices, they would both become reclusive. Their best friends think they would be perfect for each other and set about fixing them up. It takes a serious incident for them to confess their invisible flaws, but will they accept each other’s hidden imperfection? With supporting characters that include a cheeky apprentice and an overbearing charity chairwoman. Will Adaline turn a deaf ear to everyone’s advice to own her imperfections?

Disease is a social issue, not just a medical issue. Using examples of specific legends and rumors, The Kiss of Death explores the beliefs and practices that permeate notions of contagion and contamination. Author Andrea Kitta offers new insight into the nature of vernacular conceptions of health and sickness and how medical and scientific institutions can use cultural literacy to better meet their communities’ needs. Using ethnographic, media, and narrative analysis, this book explores the vernacular explanatory models used in decisions concerning contagion to better understand the real fears, risks, concerns, and doubts of the public. Kitta explores immigration and patient zero, zombies and vampires, Slender Man, HPV, and the kiss of death legend, as well as systematic racism, homophobia, and misogyny in North American culture, to examine the nature of contagion and contamination. Conversations about health and risk cannot take place without considering positionality and intersectionality. In The Kiss of Death, Kitta isolates areas that require better communication and greater cultural sensitivity in the handling of infectious disease, public health, and other health-related disciplines and industries.

From Mary Blayney, the acclaimed author of Stranger’s Kiss, comes this irresistible new novel of historical romance featuring the Pennistan family. In Courtesan’s Kiss, an independent woman is determined to make her way in the world—even if it’s a scandalous one. But first she must escape a nobleman with plans of his own In the wake of a broken engagement and shunned by the ton, Mia Castellano does not retire to the country, as a proper young lady might, but sees her chance to escape society’s restraints—by becoming a courtesan. In her mind, no unmarried young woman is as free as a courtesan. She alone controls her destiny: managing her own money, having her own house, choosing her lovers. There’s only one obstacle in Mia’s path—Lord David Pennistan. As a favor to his brother, Lord David agrees to escort Mia to his family’s home in Derbyshire, where her guardian awaits. Mia attracts nothing but trouble from the outset of their journey, yet with every adventure they share, Lord David’s desire for his charge grows. When they’re caught in a compromising situation, Lord David insists that she marry him. But there’s only one thing Mia wants from David, and it isn’t his charity or his title. Can he convince her before it’s too late that the love she wants is already hers—to take or to lose forever? Can he win more from this untamed beauty than just a courtesan’s kiss?