Trials of Passion


Book Description

A journey into the heart of dark passions and the crimes they impel. When passion is in the picture, what is criminal, what is sane, what is mad or simply bad? Through court and asylum records, letters and newspaper accounts, this book brings to life some sensational trials between 1870 and 1914, a period when the psychiatric professions were consolidating their hold on our understanding of what is human. Outside fiction, individual emotions and the inner life had rarely been publicly discussed: now, in an increasingly popular press and its courtroom reports, people avidly consumed accounts of transgressive sexuality, savage jealousy and forbidden desires. These stood revealed as aspects not only of those labelled mad, but potentially, of everyone. With great story-telling flair and a wealth of historical detail, Lisa Appignanesi teases out the vagaries of passion and the clashes between the law and the clinic as they stumble towards a (sometimes reviled) collaboration. Sexual etiquette and class roles, attitudes to love, madness and gender, notions of respectability and honor, insanity and lunacy, all are at play in that vital forum in which public opinion is shaped—the theater of the courtroom.




Public Passions


Book Description

In 1935, a Chinese woman by the name of Shi Jianqiao murdered the notorious warlord Sun Chuanfang as he prayed in a Buddhist temple. This riveting work of history examines this well-publicized crime and the highly sensationalized trial of the killer. In a fascinating investigation of the media, political, and judicial records surrounding this cause célèbre, Eugenia Lean shows how Shi Jianqiao planned not only to avenge the death of her father, but also to attract media attention and galvanize public support. Lean traces the rise of a new sentiment—"public sympathy"—in early twentieth-century China, a sentiment that ultimately served to exonerate the assassin. The book sheds new light on the political significance of emotions, the powerful influence of sensational media, modern law in China, and the gendered nature of modernity.




Act of Passion


Book Description




A Crime of Passion


Book Description

An Amazon Top 30 bestseller.***Each Joe Dillard novel can be read as a standalone.***A beautiful, young, rising star in the country music world is found dead in a Nashville hotel room.The owner of her record company is charged with murder.In the seventh installment of Scott Pratt's best-selling Joe Dillard series, Dillard is hired to travel to Tennessee's capital city to defend Paul Milius, a record company baron accused of strangling Kasey Cartwright, his label's young star. Dillard navigates Nashville's unfamiliar legal system and the world of country music in search of the truth, but he soon finds himself confronted with a web of lies so masterfully woven that he fears he may never find any answers. As the trial begins and the tension mounts, Dillard fears that not only will his client be wrongfully convicted, but that Dillard himself may not survive."Pratt's richly developed characters are vivid and believable, especially the strong Southern women who fight their male-dominated culture from behind a facade of vulnerability." -Publisher's Weekly




Evidence of Love


Book Description

The “fascinating” true story behind the HBO Max and Hulu series about Texas housewife Candy Montgomery and the bizarre murder that shocked a community (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Candy Montgomery and Betty Gore had a lot in common: They sang together in the Methodist church choir, their daughters were best friends, and their husbands had good jobs working for technology companies in the north Dallas suburbs known as Silicon Prairie. But beneath the placid surface of their seemingly perfect lives, both women simmered with unspoken frustrations and unanswered desires. On a hot summer day in 1980, the secret passions and jealousies that linked Candy and Betty exploded into murderous rage. What happened next is usually the stuff of fiction. But the bizarre and terrible act of violence that occurred in Betty’s utility room that morning was all too real. Based on exclusive interviews with the Gore and Montgomery families, Edgar Award finalist Evidence of Love is the “superbly written” account of a gruesome tragedy and the trial that made national headlines when the defendant entered the most unexpected of pleas: not guilty by reason of self-defense (Fort Worth Star-Telegram). Adapted into the Emmy and Golden Globe Award–winning television movie A Killing in a Small Town—as well as the new limited series Candy on Hulu and Love and Death on HBO Max—this chilling tale of sin and savagery will “fascinate true crime aficionados” (Kirkus Reviews).




One Night of Passion


Book Description

They Met At London's Notorious Cyprian's Ball . . . Georgiana Escott has one night to find the perfect man to ruin her and leave her with a tattered reputation so she can avoid an arranged marriage to an aging, despicable roue. With a misstep, she tumbles into the arms of the disgraced and dashing Lord Danvers. But Georgie doesn't know that the lover she has enticed to follow her into the night and the stranger she holds responsible for her misfortunes are in the same . . . When Lord Danvers find himself entangled with a tempting Cyprian, his secret mission to expose a dangerous spy goes awry. Yet once he starts to unmasked this bewitching lady, he realizes the seductress who claims his heart may be the traitor he seeks. Mistrust makes them adversaries in a perilous game—but how can he dismiss his obsession with her when one night of passion entwined their lives forever?




The Hades Trials


Book Description

This is a special edition of the complete Hades Trials series, in hardback. I've been kidnapped by Zeus. Plucked from the streets of Manhattan and frightened half to death by a freaking Olympian god. And now I'm trapped in the Underworld, being forced to compete in a series of deadly trials for the position of Queen of the Underworld. Which would mean marrying Hades, the utterly terrifying Lord of the Dead. Who the hell wants a husband at all, let alone one made of smoke and riddled with death? I have to get back home, to New York and my brother. But I can't leave without completing the trials and they've been designed for a godly Queen, not Persephone - barista and botanical garden enthusiast. I'm surrounded by lethal, all-powerful maniacs. Sexy-as-hell maniacs, sure, but as dangerous as they come. And I'm going to have to prove to all of them that there's a goddess of hell inside me. It's the only way I'll survive the Hades Trials. But then what? And why, why, why am I so desperate to see under Hades' smoky exterior and find out what he's hiding from me? If I win the trials, I have to marry the devil himself. But losing might mean losing my life.




The Passion of Hades


Book Description

I'm trapped in actual hell. And just about everything here is trying to kill me. Even the god who claims he once loved me has come pretty close to ending my life. But things are about to change. I'm fed up of being Persephone - human underdog in the Hades Trials. I've managed to awaken a little bit of goddess inside me, and now I have power, I'm not afraid to use it. Although I don't actually have a clue how to. Nor do I know what I did to get cast out of Olympus twenty-six years ago, or why strangers are seeking to punish me for it. All I know for sure is that I survived the first round of the Hades Trials, and now I need to survive another. One step at a time I will get back to New York. Olympus is filled with monsters, and ruled by monsters, and I do not fit in. The trouble is, the more I discover about the mysterious King of the Underworld, the less sure I am that he fits in either. If I can survive, I'm a step closer to getting home. But if I spend much more time with Hades, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to leave.




Proof of Passion


Book Description

TO BECOME HIS OWN MAN and WIN the WOMAN HE LOVES, A LAW STUDENT TAKES ON the GREATEST CONTROVERSY of the LAST 2000 YEARSEric Stafford is the son of the most powerful attorney in Massachusetts. With good looks, intelligence, wealth and charm, he's poised to sail through his final year of law school and join his father's firm. But for every night he leads the playboy life that's expected of him, he wakes with a longing for something real.When he meets Kathy Stevens he finds a gorgeous woman who is his intellectual equal. She challenges him to do something unexpected with his final school project - to defend the Resurrection of Jesus Christ in a mock court.Eric sees it as an opportunity to romance Kathy, but she isn't interested in playboys. His father takes it as a personal affront because he picked a different, controversy-free case for his son. With considerable resources and an arsenal of dirty tricks, his father tries to undermine the case and drive a wedge between Eric and Kathy. And he's not alone. Kathy's boyfriend, an influential leader of the Campus Christians, has the same goals and his own underhanded tactics.A perfect storm of money, controversy and local celebrity, the Resurrection mock trial pits father against son, Christian against Atheist, and Eric against himself. There is only one way for him to win Kathy's heart. He must strip away his playboy facade and follow his true passion.




Lost Love


Book Description

An account of the 1869 murder of Albert Richardson describes how a jealous Daniel McFarland killed Richardson, his ex-wife's lover, in a case that prompted a seething debate on the sanctity of marriage and the rights of women. Reprint.