It's 1895, and after the death of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma's reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she's being followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence's most powerful girls - and their foray into the spiritual world - lead to?

A history of the twentieth century which covers all the ideas, people, great events, literary and artistic movements, scientific discoveries which have shaped the twentieth century. Terrible Beauty presents a unique narrative of the twentieth century. Unlike more conventional histories, where the focus is on political events and personalities, on wars, treaties and elections, this book concentrates on the ideas that made the century so rich, rewarding and provocative. Beginning with four seminal ideas which were introduced in 1900 - the unconscious, the gene, the quantum and Picasso's first paintings in Paris - the book brings together the main areas of thought and juxtaposes the most original and influential ideas of our time in an immensely readable narrative. From the creation of plastic to Norman Mailer, from the discovery of the 'Big Bang' to the Counterculture, from Relativity to Susan Sontag, from Proust to Salman Rushdie, and Henri Bergson to Saul Bellow, the book's range is encyclopedic. We meet in these pages the other twentieth century, the writers, the artists, the scientists and philosophers who were not cowed by the political and military disasters raging around them, and produced some of the most amazing and rewarding ideas by which we live. Terrible Beauty, endlessly stimulating and provocative, affirms that there was much more to the twentieth century than war and genocide.

A classic fairy tale gets a horrifying, adult twist, in this suspenseful romance by the author of The Night Inside. Twenty years ago, Simon Donovan, an antiquities scholar, wronged Sidonie Moreau, his former research assistant—and she has not forgotten. Threatening to expose him, she demands he come to her remote mansion in the mountainous north to repay his debt. But she wasn’t expecting his son, Matthew, a struggling painter, to take his place. Matthew is intrigued by the mysterious Sidonie, but when she reveals what she wants, he is horrified: his blood, willingly given. No harm will come to him if he refuses, and his days leave him free to paint as he pleases, but each night she must ask and he must answer. Trapped by the vast wilderness all around them, Matthew has no choice but to submit to her terms. Although he vows to never surrender to Sidonie, Matthew cannot ignore her smile, her charm, or the sorrow in her eyes. Grappling with secrets within his heart, tempted by desire and despair, he knows one night he just might say yes . . . Praise for A Terrible Beauty “A polished and enchanting tale. . . . It is, in a word, breathtaking.” —Ottawa Citizen “Baker’s prose is lush and sensual . . . she has a real gift for making the fantastic seem plausible and investing the mundane with eerie significance.” —Sunday Sun (Toronto) “A Terrible Beauty is modern Canadian Gothic. . . . Nancy Baker shows her mastery of the form—the mysterious letter, the journey into the wilderness, the shadows that hide from the flickering firelight—and her real affection for a good ol’ fashioned vampire yarn.” —Telegraph-Journal “Baker’s narrative is seductive and compelling. Like Rice, she transcends the horror genre.” —The Province “Don’t hold your breath waiting for Disney to film this very adult and erotic version of Beauty and the Beast.” —Winnipeg Free Press

Details the life of the legendary, record-holding baseball player, who retired in 1928 and became the first inductee into the Hall of Fame, but who has also been categorized as a belligerent, aggressive player and a racist who hated women and children.

From the bestselling author of The Forgotten Hours comes an unforgettable story of one woman's journey to reclaim what she lost in a country torn apart by the devastating legacy of WWII. On the windswept shores of an East German island, Bettina Heilstrom struggles to build a life from the ashes. World War II has ended, and her country is torn apart. Longing for a family, she marries Werner, an older bureaucrat who adores her. But after joining the fledgling secret police, he is drawn deep into its dark mission and becomes a dangerous man. When Bettina falls in love with an idealistic young renegade, Werner discovers her infidelity and forces her to make a terrible choice: spend her life in prison or leave her home forever. Either way she loses both her lover and child. Ten years later, Bettina has reinvented herself as a celebrated photographer in Chicago, but she's never stopped yearning for the baby she left behind. Surprised by an unexpected visitor from her past, she resolves to return to her ravaged homeland to reclaim her daughter and uncover her beloved's fate, whatever the cost.

'But I, being poor, have only my dreams; / I have spread my dreams under your feet...' By turns joyful and despairing, some of the twentieth century's greatest verse on fleeting youth, fervent hopes and futile sacrifice.

"Lady Emily retreats to her villa on the island of Santorini for a brief respite from London. But when she arrives, the housekeeper informs her that the master of the house has returned--Emily's first husband, who died a decade earlier"--