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  The Leaves of Fate - Tobacco and...

  George Robert Minkoff

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  The Leaves of Fate is the third and final volume of the epic fictional chronicle In the Land of Whispers.    
  Here, we find the hero of Jamestown, Captain John Smith, forced to return to England, never to set foot again in the colony. Beyond his compelling memories of life in Jamestown, with its famine, disease, and discord, lies the sordid history of the rapacious greed of desperate colonists and wealthy London financiers who develop tobacco as a cash crop in lieu of food.     
  Even a reunion with Pocahontas is brief and bittersweet, but despite continuing hardship and neglect, Smith becomes the best-selling author of his time. 
  “The concluding volume of Minkoff’s heavyweight Jamestown trilogy (The Weight of Smoke; The Dragons of the Storm) covers 1610 to 1630 and offers a detailed history of the English colonies told in flowery Elizabethan English ('I am all that I know, a motion sensed, a current from forgetfulness'). A fitting wrap-up to an impressive trilogy, this expansive epic will surely please series fans with its authenticity, intrigue, and stylistic verve." (Publishers Weekly) 
  “No author that I know of has brought home [Jamestown’s] trials and tribulations more vividly than Minkoff.... It is obvious that Mr. Minkoff has done an enormous amount of research on the periods he covers. Any reader who enjoys having history come alive will benefit from acquiring and reading all three volumes of In the Land of Whispers.” (Virginia Gazette)

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  The Pharaoh and the Priest

  Boleslaw Prus

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  The Pharaoh and the Priest (Polish: Faraon) is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Boleslaw Prus. It was the sole historical novel by an author who had earlier disapproved of historical novels on the ground that they inevitably distort history. Pharaoh has been described by Czeslaw Milosz as a "novel on mechanisms of state power and, as such, probably unique in world literature of the nineteenth century.... Prus, in selecting the reign of 'Pharaoh Ramses XIII' in the eleventh century BCE, sought a perspective that was detached from pressures of topicality and censorship. Pharaoh is set in the Egypt of 1087–85 BCE as that country experiences internal stresses and external threats that will culminate in the fall of its Twentieth Dynasty and New Kingdom. The young protagonist Ramses learns that those who would challenge the powers that be are vulnerable to co-option, seduction, subornation, defamation, intimidation and assassination. Perhaps the chief lesson, belatedly absorbed by Ramses as pharaoh, is the importance, to power, of knowledge. Prus' vision of the fall of an ancient civilization derives some of its power from the author's intimate awareness of the final demise of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795, a century before the completion of the novel. (Summary by Wikipedia)

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  No Fond Return of Love - A Novel

  Barbara Pym

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  Three lonely people come together in this poignant, witty novel of star-crossed romance from the New York Times bestselling author of Jane and Prudence. 
  After being jilted by her fiancé, Dulcie Mainwaring despairs of ever finding true love. For a distraction, she goes to a publishing conference, where she meets Viola Dace, a dramatic woman who refuses to live without romance, as well as Aylwin Forbes, an editor whom Viola adores. The fact that Aylwin is married doesn't stop Viola. When her amorous pursuit prompts Aylwin's wife to leave him, the academic heartthrob is wide open to Viola's romantic attentions. That is, until Dulcie's eighteen-year-old niece moves in with Viola, and the young girl soon catches Aylwin's roving eye.  
  Set in London in the early 1960s, No Fond Return of Love is a delightful comedy of manners that comes full circle as Dulcie discovers a love as unexpected as it is liberating.

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  A Trace of Poison

  Colleen Cambridge

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  In England's stately manor houses, murder is not generally a topic for polite conversation. Mallowan Hall, home to Agatha Christie and her husband, Max, is the exception. And housekeeper Phyllida Bright delights in discussing gory plot details with her friend and employer . . . The neighboring village of Listleigh has also become a hub of grisly goings-on, thanks to a Murder Fête organized to benefit a local orphanage. Members of The Detection Club—a group of celebrated authors such as G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Agatha herself—will congregate for charitable events, including a writing contest for aspiring authors. The winner gets an international publishing contract, and entrants have gathered for a cocktail party—managed by the inimitable Phyllida—when murder strikes too close even for her comfort. It seems the victim imbibed a poisoned cocktail intended for Alastair Whittlesby, president of the local writers' club. The insufferable Whittlesby is thought to be a shoo-in for the prize, and ambition is certainly a worthy motive. But narrowing down these suspects could leave even Phyllida's favorite fictional detective, M. Poirot, twirling his mustache in frustration.

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  The Best of Thomas Hardy

  Thomas Hardy

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  This collection includes two of the most notable titles from author Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd. Tess Durbeyfield, the daughter of an impoverished family, must navigate a world of desire and romance once she meets Alec d'Urberville. The son of a rich widow, he takes a fancy to her and gets her a position as the poultry keeper on his family's estate. However, her good fortune is soon complicated by Alec's libertine ways, and Tess returns home shamed. Once recovered, she separates herself from the gossip by finding work at a dairy farm outside the village. There, she meets and falls for Angel Clare, the eligible youngest son of the local reverend. But as her life begins to change for the better, she is troubled by a moral dilemma: whether or not to tell Angel about her past. Gabriel Oak is a shepherd struggling to get ahead when Bathsheba Everdene moves next door. Although he loves her, she sees him as a friend and rejects him for two other suitors. After she leaves town, she and Gabriel are reunited years later, once everything has changed. In this classic novel, Thomas Hardy depicts the English countryside as idyllic but also hard and unforgiving, much like the Victorian mindsets of the day.

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  Come Rack! Come Rope!

  Robert Hugh Benson

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  Come Rack! Come Rope! is a historical novel by the English priest and writer Robert Hugh Benson, a convert to Catholicism from Anglicanism.  Set in Derbyshire at the time of the Elizabethan persecution of Catholics, when being or harboring a priest was considered treason and was punishable with death, it tells the story of two young lovers who give up their chance of happiness together, choosing instead to face imprisonment and martyrdom, so that "God's will" may be done. The book was written nearly nine years after Benson's reception into the Catholic Church. The inspiration for the story comes from Dom Bede Camm's account of the recusant Fitzherbert family in Forgotten Shrines (1910), and from Benson's own visit in 1911 to Padley, home of the Fitzherberts, and scene of part of the novel, in order to preach at the annual pilgrimage there. The title of the book is taken from a letter of Saint Edmund Campion in which, after torture, he assured Catholics that he had revealed "no things of secret, nor would he, come rack, come rope."  Most of the characters in the book are historical people; only the hero and heroine, their parents, and some minor characters are fictional.  (Summary adapted from Wikipedia)

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