His Last Duchess

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Khaled Hosseini · 416 pages

After 103 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and with four million copies of The Kite Runner shipped, Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today. Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an

Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs

Elissa Wall, Lisa Pulitzer · 438 pages

In September 2007, a packed courtroom in St. George, Utah, sat hushed as Elissa Wall, the star witness against polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs, gave captivating testimony of how Jeffs forced her to marry her first cousin at age fourteen. This harrowing and vivid account proved to be the most compelling evidence against Jeffs, showing the harsh realities of this closed community and the lengths

The Taming of the Shrew

William Shakespeare · 138 pages

This play within a play is a delightful farce about a fortune hunter who marries and tames" the town shrew. The comedy, often produced today because of its accessibility, is one of the plays Shakespeare intended for the general public rather than for the nobility. CliffsComplete combines the full original text of The Taming of the Shrew with a helpful glossary and CliffsNotes-quality commenta

The Pearl That Broke Its Shell

Nadia Hashimi · 464 pages

In Kabul, 2007, with a drug-addicted father and no brothers, Rahima and her sisters can only sporadically attend school and rarely leave the house. Their only hope lies in the ancient custom of bacha posh, which allows young Rahima to dress and be treated as a boy until she is of marriageable age.

The Sword of Kaigen

M.L. Wang · 651 pages

Rivals in the Tudor Court

D.L. Bogdan · 344 pages

"As Queen Catherine's maid and daughter of the Duke of Buckingham, the future seems bright for Elizabeth Stafford. But when her father gives her hand to Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, the spirited young woman must sacrifice all for duty. Yet Elizabeth is surprised by her passion for her powerful new husband. And when he takes on a mistress, she is determined to fight for her love and her ho

Katharine of Aragon: The Wives of Henry VIII

Jean Plaidy · 643 pages

For the first time in paperback--all three of Jean Plaidy's Katharine of Aragon novels in one volume.Legendary historical novelist Jean Plaidy begins her tales of Henry VIII's queens with the story of his first wife, the Spanish princess Katharine of Aragon.As a teenager, Katharine leaves her beloved Spain, land of olive groves and soaring cathedrals, for the drab, rainy island of England. There s

Daughter of the Empire

Raymond E. Feist, Janny Wurts · 421 pages

Mara, a young, untested Ruling Lady of Kelewan, is called upon to lead her people in a heroic stuggle for survival. But first she must rally an army of rebel warriors, form a pact with the alien cho-ja and marry the son of a hated enemy. Queen Mara of Acoma vows to avenge the deaths of her brother and father, even if it means killing her own husband.

The Constant Princess

Philippa Gregory · 393 pages

Splendid and sumptuous historical novel from this internationally bestselling author, telling of the early life of Katherine of Aragon. We think of her as the barren wife of a notorious king; but behind this legacy lies a fascinating story. Katherine of Aragon is born Catalina, the Spanish Infanta, to parents who are both rulers and warriors. Aged four, she is betrothed to Arthur, Prince of Wal

I Let You Go

Clare Mackintosh · 384 pages

Devastated by a hit-and-run accident that has ended the life of her young son, Jenna moves to the remote Welsh coast to search for healing while two dedicated policemen try to get to the bottom of the case.

Michal

Jill Eileen Smith

As the daughter of King Saul, Michal lives a life of privilege-but one that is haunted by her father's unpredictable moods and by competition from her beautiful older sister. When Michal falls for young David, the harpist who plays to calm her father, she has no idea what romance, adventures, and heartache await her.As listeners enter the colorful and unpredictable worlds of King Saul and King Dav

The Devil's Queen: A Novel of Catherine de Medici

Jeanne Kalogridis · 496 pages

Grave Mercy

Robin LaFevers · 549 pages

*Why be the sheep, when you can be the wolf?* Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death Himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she will be trained as an assassi

Wide Sargasso Sea

Jean Rhys · 189 pages

Jean Rhys's reputation was made upon publication of this passionate and heartbreaking novel, in which she brings into the light one of citsion's most mysterious characters: the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre". A sensual and protected young woman, the narrator grows up in the lush, natural world of the Caribbean. She is sold into marriage to the cold-hearted and prideful R

The Accidental Empress

Allison Pataki · 512 pages

The New York Times best-selling author of The Traitor's Wife fictionalizes the little-known and tumultuous love story of "Sisi," the 19th-century Austro-Hungarian empress and captivating wife of Emperor Franz Joseph.

Escape

Carolyn Jessop, Laura Palmer · 426 pages

The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman's courageous flight to freedom with her eight children.When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral par

The Pakistani Bride

Bapsi Sidhwa · 246 pages

"Wild, austere, and magnificently beautiful, the territories of northern Pakistan are a forbidding place, particularly for women. Traveling alone from the isolated mountain village where he was born, a tribal man takes an orphaned girl for his daughter and brings her to the glittering city of Lahore. Amid the pungent bazaars and crowded streets, he makes his fortune and a home for the two of them.

A Reliable Wife

Robert Goolrick · 291 pages

A widower advertises for "a reliable wife" and he chooses Catherine. To her surprise, Catherine learns to love Ralph and must, as a result, abandon the remaining traces of her former life and cope with the haunting effects of family secrets.

Honolulu

Alan Brennert · 439 pages

The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage that Forever Changed the Fate of England

Susan Higginbotham · 388 pages

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Anne Bronte · 416 pages

**Librarian note: Alternate cover editions for this ISBN are: "Woman in white dress" (with the title on white and black background), "Woman at the easel" on a black and blue background, and "Furniture, easel and window".** ***Anne Brontë's second novel is a passionate and courageous challenge to the conventions supposedly upheld by Victorian society and reflected in circulating-library fiction.

To Defy a King

Elizabeth Chadwick · 560 pages

The privileged life of Mahelt Marshal, the daughter of England's greatest knight, is shattered when her father falls foul of the volatile and dangerous King John.

The Silent Wife

A.S.A. Harrison · 331 pages

Todd Gilbert and Jodie Brett are in a bad place in their relationship. They've been together for twenty-eight years, and with no children to worry about there has been little to disrupt their affluent Chicago lifestyle. But there has also been little to hold it together, and beneath the surface lie ever-widening cracks. When it becomes clear that their precarious world could disintegrate at any mo

Wild Hearts

Virginia Henley · 469 pages

What Rasom for love? Surrounded by the glitter and gold of a lavish Renaissance palace, beautiful Tabby Lamont was given in marriage to the wealthy old man who had taken her out of an Edinburgh orphanage. Her true identity lay hidden in the past. Suddenly, her future was filled with dangerous intrigue when, on her wedding night, she was kidnapped by Paris Cockburn, a Scottish lord called The Rogue