The French Sultana (The Veil and the Crown, Book 2)


Book Description

The Sultan found her irresistible. The Chief Eunuch wanted to use her to his own ends. Jealous rivals plotted her demise. Can an innocent former convent girl survive in such a strange and dangerous world? In a tale deeply enmeshed in the histories of two of the world’s greatest empires, The French Sultana continues the true story of Aimée Dubucq de Rivery and her cousin Rose who were both destined to be queens...one beside the Emperor Napoleon and the other from behind the thrones of three consecutive sultans of the Ottoman Empire. The saga spans two continents from the decadent aristocratic courts of pre-revolutionary France, to the unimaginable opulence and deadly intrigues inside forbidden Turkish harem walls. Publisher's Note: This is an extraordinarily well-researched novel that is true to the period. As such, there is explicit sexual and violent content that, while typical to the era, is most appropriate for adult readers. The Veil and the Crown, in series order: The Stolen Girl The French Sultana “I felt as if the book had been written originally in French during the 18th century...as if the author had remembered and translated it into English, keeping the exact tone of the original account, with detailed description of the places, manners, clothing, tastes and smells transporting me into the actual moment and location of each scene, making me feel like I was immersed in a film instead of a book.” Fredric Lehrman, author of The Sacred Landscape




The Stolen Girl (The Veil and the Crown, Book 1)


Book Description

The Incredible True Story of Two Girls in the Seventeen-Hundreds Who Become the Powers Behind the Thrones of the World's Greatest Empires The fulfillment of an outrageous prediction seals the fates of two cousins in this true story that begins on a Caribbean sugar plantation and careens wildly towards the thrones of two empires. Innocent Aimée refuses to believe she might ever have to face the intrigue and evil that lurks beneath the exotic beauty and opulence of the Ottoman Empire. Rose mistakenly believes that her marriage to an aristocratic French lieutenant will insure her place in Parisian society. Both will be proven wrong. This first book in Zia Wesley’s The Veil and the Crown series tells the beginning of the extraordinary true story of Aimée Dubucq de Rivery and her cousin, Rose Tascher de La Pagerie...both destined to be queens. Publisher's Note: This is an extraordinarily well-researched novel that is true to the period. As such, there is explicit sexual and violent content that, while typical to the era, is most appropriate for adult readers. The Veil and the Crown, in series order: The Stolen Girl The French Sultana “I lingered over and savored the vivid descriptions and found it absorbing, historically interesting, well researched and constantly enticing. It was as if Zia took me by the hand and we followed the heroine through all her adventures. Scheherazade, eat your heart out!” - Lorain Fox Davis, Grammy winner and educator




Fifty and Fabulous


Book Description

Zia is living proof that sun-damaged and wrinkled skin can be improved at any age! Her philosophy combines two decades of experience in the field of skin care with wisdom she received from herbalists, acupuncturists, nutritionists, aerobics instructors, and meditation teachers.










Candide


Book Description

Candide by Voltaire from Coterie Classics All Coterie Classics have been formatted for ereaders and devices and include a bonus link to the free audio book. “Do you believe,' said Candide, 'that men have always massacred each other as they do to-day, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools?' Do you believe,' said Martin, 'that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?” ― Voltaire, Candide Candide is a young man who is raised in wealth to be an optimist but when he is forced to make his own way in the world, his assumptions and outlook are challenged.




Confessions of a Courtesan


Book Description

"Scandalous but True! From the harsh streets of 18th century London, Lizzie Cane rose to become the most successful and sought-after courtesan in England! Mistress of earls, dukes and even the young Prince of Wales, she lived an exciting luxurious life that was not without its perils. A single misstep could spell disaster! Then, at the height of her career, she risked everything she had struggled to gain by breaking the courtesan's cardinal rule ... Never fall in love!"--Publisher.




Hard Times


Book Description




The Sultan and the Queen


Book Description

The fascinating story of Queen Elizabeth’s secret outreach to the Muslim world, which set England on the path to empire, by The New York Times bestselling author of A History of the World in Twelve Maps We think of England as a great power whose empire once stretched from India to the Americas, but when Elizabeth Tudor was crowned Queen, it was just a tiny and rebellious Protestant island on the fringes of Europe, confronting the combined power of the papacy and of Catholic Spain. Broke and under siege, the young queen sought to build new alliances with the great powers of the Muslim world. She sent an emissary to the Shah of Iran, wooed the king of Morocco, and entered into an unprecedented alliance with the Ottoman Sultan Murad III, with whom she shared a lively correspondence. The Sultan and the Queen tells the riveting and largely unknown story of the traders and adventurers who first went East to seek their fortunes—and reveals how Elizabeth’s fruitful alignment with the Islamic world, financed by England’s first joint stock companies, paved the way for its transformation into a global commercial empire.




American Chick in Saudi Arabia


Book Description

It all begins with an ad in the newspaper. When Jean Sasson, a young Southern woman living in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, answers a call to work in the royal hospital in Saudi Arabia, what should have been a two-year stay turns into a life-changing adventure spanning over a decade. Over the years Jean is plunged into the hidden lives of the veiled women in Riyadh, where women are locked in luxurious homes and fundamentalist mutawas terrorize the streets. Jean meets women from all walks of life--a feisty bedouin, an educated mother, a conservative wife of a high-ranking Saudi, and a Saudi princess the world knows as Princess Sultana--all who open a window into Saudi culture and help to reshape Jean's worldviews ... the first installment in a heartfelt, inspiring memoir about Jean's thirty-year travels and adventures in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait and Iraq.