Lady Vernon and Her Daughter


Book Description

After the death of Sir Frederick Vernon, Lady Vernon and her daughter, Frederica, confront the surviving heir of her husband's estate, Charles Vernon, about his treatment of his family. They are faced with Charles's indifference, his wife Catherine's distrustful animosity, and a flood of rumors that threaten to undo them all. Will Lady Vernon and Frederica find love and happiness--and financial security--or will their hopes be dashed with their lost fortune?




Love & Friendship


Book Description

***THE NOVEL OF THE HIT INDIE FILM*** 'If, like me, you like your Austen subversive, cruel, funny and outrageous, then you will love Stillman's Love & Friendship' The Times 'Lady Susan is finally getting some long overdue respect' New York Times 'Lady Susan remains deliciously wicked' Vogue With a pitch-perfect Austenian sensibility and wry social commentary, filmmaker and writer Whit Stillman cleverly re-imagines and completes one of our greatest writers' unfinished works. Love & Friendship is a sharp comedy of manners, and a fiendishly funny treat for Austen and Stillman fans alike. JANE AUSTEN'S FUNNIEST NOVEL IS ALSO HER LEAST KNOWN - UNTIL NOW. Impossibly beautiful, disarmingly witty, and completely self-absorbed: meet Lady Susan Vernon, both the heart and the thorn of Love & Friendship. Recently widowed with a daughter who's coming of age as quickly as their funds are dwindling, Lady Susan makes it her mission to find them wealthy husbands - and fast. But when her attempts to secure their futures result only in the wrath of a prominent conquest's wife and the title of 'most accomplished coquette in England', Lady Susan must rethink her strategy. Unannounced, she arrives at her brother-in-law's country estate. Here she intends to take refuge - in no less than luxury, of course - from the colorful rumors trailing her, while finding another avenue to 'I do'. Before the scandalizing gossip can run its course, though, romantic triangles ensue. A SPECIAL EDITION FEATURING JANE AUSTEN'S ORIGINAL NOVELLA AS ANNOTATED BY THE NARRATOR. PRAISE FOR LOVE & FRIENDSHIP THE FILM 'A RACY DELIGHT' Guardian ***** 'FIND ME A FUNNIER SCREEN STAB AT AUSTEN, AND I'M TEMPTED TO OFFER YOUR MONEY BACK PERSONALLY' Telegraph ***** 'TREMENDOUSLY WITTY' Independent ***** 'MAY JUST BE THE BEST JANE AUSTEN FILM EVER MADE' London Evening Standard *****




Jane Austen


Book Description

At her death in 1817, Jane Austen left the world six of the most beloved novels written in English—but her shortsighted family destroyed the bulk of her letters; and if she kept any diaries, they did not survive her. Now acclaimed biographer Claire Tomalin, author of A Life of My Own, has filled the gaps in the record, creating a remarkably fresh and convincing portrait of the woman and the writer. While most Austen biographers have accepted the assertion of Jane's brother Henry that "My dear Sister's life was not a life of events," Tomalin shows that, on the contrary, Austen's brief life was fraught with upheaval. Tomalin provides detailed and absorbing accounts of Austen's ill-fated love for a young Irishman, her frequent travels and extended visits to London, her close friendship with a worldly cousin whose French husband met his death on the guillotine, her brothers' naval service in the Napoleonic wars and in the colonies, and thus shatters the myth of Jane Austen as a sheltered and homebound spinster whose knowledge of the world was limited to the view from a Hampshire village.




3 Willows


Book Description

In this follow-up novel to the #1 New York Times bestselling Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, it's time to discover a new sisterhood. A story of growing up, friendship, and understanding yourself, about three girls enjoying one last summer before high school. summer is a time to grow seeds Polly has an idea that she can't stop thinking about, one that involves changing a few things about herself. She's setting her sights on a more glamorous life, but it's going to take all of her focus. At least that way she won't have to watch her friends moving so far ahead. roots Jo is spending the summer at her family's beach house, working as a busgirl and bonding with the older, cooler girls she'll see at high school come September. She didn't count on a brief fling with a cute boy changing her entire summer. Or feeling embarrassed by her middle school friends. And she didn't count on her family at all. . . leaves Ama is not an outdoorsy girl. She wanted to be at an academic camp, doing research in an air-conditioned library, earning A's. Instead her summer scholarship lands her on a wilderness trip full of flirting teenagers, blisters, impossible hiking trails, and a sad lack of hair products. “Brashares gets her characters’ emotions and interactions just right.” --Publishers Weekly "Like the previous Pants books, this one will travel from girl to girl." --Kirkus Reviews




Crazy Lady!


Book Description

Increasingly alienated from his widowed father, Vernon joins his friends in ridiculing the neighborhood outcasts'Maxine, an alcoholic prone to outrageous behavior, and Ronald, her retarded son. But when a social service agency tries to put Ronald into a special home, Vernon fights against the move. 1994 Newbery Honor Book Notable Children's Books of 1994 (ALA) 1994 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA) 1994 Young Adult Editors' Choices (BL) 1994 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library) Young Adult Choices for 1995 (IRA)




The Incomplete Amorist


Book Description




Frederica


Book Description

New York Times bestselling author Georgette Heyer's beloved tale of an entertaining heroine stumbling on happiness when her marital machinations for her sister go awry. Determined to secure a brilliant marriage for her beautiful sister, Frederica seeks out their distant cousin the Marquis of Alverstoke. Lovely, competent, and refreshingly straightforward, Frederica makes such a strong impression on him that to his own amazement, the Marquis agrees to help launch them all into society. Normally Lord Alverstoke keeps his distance from his family, which includes two overbearing sisters and innumerable favor-seekers. But with his enterprising — and altogether entertaining—country cousins chasing wishes and getting into one scrape after another right on his doorstep, before he knows it the Marquis finds himself dangerously embroiled. The Georgette Heyer Signature Regency Collection is a fresh celebration of an author who has charmed tens of millions of readers with her delightful sense of humor and unique take on Regency romance. Includes fun and fascinating bonus content—a glossary of Regency slang, a Reading Group Guide, and an Afterword by official biographer Jennifer Kloester sharing insights into what Georgette herself thought of Frederica and what was going on in her life as she was writing. Praise for Georgette Heyer: "I have Georgette Heyer's books in every room of my house."—#1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts




Lady Susan


Book Description

Inspired by "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," and written in a similar epistolary form, "Lady Susan" is one of Jane Austen's earliest finished works. In it, she reveals all the caustic wit and brilliant social satire of her later novellas. The victim of a vicious scandal, the impoverished Lady Susan is obliged to take up residence with her brother-in-law and his family. Refusing to resign herself to the role of placid houseguest, she conspires to baffle her hosts, seducing her sister-in-law's brother in the process by means of her impeccable gentility and some well-judged flirtation. Yet before her victory is complete, she must first contend with the untimely appearance of a former lover. The author of "Pride and Prejudice" and "Emma, "Jane Austen is one of the best-loved novelists of all time.




Daughters of Decadence


Book Description

This collection brings together 20 short stories of the "fin-de-siecle" and includes such writers as George Egerton, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Vernon Lee, Ada Leverson and Olive Schreiner. The stories range from the lyrical to the Gothic and frequently deal with the conflicts of women writers. At the turn of the century, short stories by- and often about- 'New Women' flooded the pages of English and American magazines like The Yellow Book, The Savoy, Atlantic Monthly and Harpers. This daring new fiction, often innovative in form, and courageous in its candid literary aspiration, shocked Victorian critics who parodied the experimental stories in Punch as symptoms of fin de siecle decadence, or denounced the authors as 'literary degenerates' or 'erotomaniacs.' This collection brings together twenty of the most original and important stories, including such little-known writers as Victoria Cross, George Egerton, Vernon Lee, Constance Fenimore Wollson and Charlotte Mew. Ranging from the lyrical to the Gothic, and frequently dealing with the conflicts of women artists, the short fiction of the fin de siecle is the missing link between the Golden Age of Victorianism women writers and the new era of feminist modernism.




Dreamland Burning


Book Description

A compelling dual-narrated tale from Jennifer Latham that questions how far we've come with race relations. Some bodies won't stay buried. Some stories need to be told. When seventeen-year-old Rowan Chase finds a skeleton on her family's property, she has no idea that investigating the brutal century-old murder will lead to a summer of painful discoveries about the present and the past. Nearly one hundred years earlier, a misguided violent encounter propels seventeen-year-old Will Tillman into a racial firestorm. In a country rife with violence against blacks and a hometown segregated by Jim Crow, Will must make hard choices on a painful journey towards self discovery and face his inner demons in order to do what's right the night Tulsa burns. Through intricately interwoven alternating perspectives, Jennifer Latham's lightning-paced page-turner brings the Tulsa race riot of 1921 to blazing life and raises important questions about the complex state of US race relations--both yesterday and today.