Pearl's Secret is a remarkable autobiography and family story that combines elements of history, investigative reporting, and personal narrative in a riveting, true-to-life mystery. In it, Neil Henry—a black professor of journalism and former award-winning correspondent for the Washington Post—sets out to piece together the murky details of his family's past. His search for the white branch of his family becomes a deeply personal odyssey, one in which Henry deploys all of his journalistic skills to uncover the paper trail that leads to blood relations who have lived for more than a century on the opposite side of the color line. At the same time Henry gives a powerful and vivid account of his black family's rise to success over the twentieth century. Throughout the course of this gripping story the author reflects on the part that racism and racial ignorance have played in his daily life—from his boyhood in largely white Seattle to his current role as a parent and educator in California. The contemporary debate over the significance of Thomas Jefferson's longtime romantic relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings, and recent DNA evidence that points to his role as the father of black descendants, have revealed the importance and volatility of the issue of dual-race legacies in American society. As Henry uncovers the dramatic history of his great-great-grandfather—a white English immigrant who fought as a Confederate officer in the Civil War, found success during Reconstruction as a Louisiana plantation owner, and enjoyed a long love affair with Henry's great-great-grandmother, a freed black slave—he grapples with an unsettling ambivalence about what he is trying to do. His straightforward, honest voice conveys both the pain and the exhilaration that his revelations bring him about himself, his family, and our society. In the book's stunning climax, the author finally meets his white kin, hears their own remarkable story of survival in America, and discovers a great deal about both the sting of racial prejudice as it is woven into the fabric of the nation, and his own proud identity as a teacher, father, and black American.

A thrilling detective tale by the husbandd wife team of the Williamsons.

A maid opened the door leading from a bedroom to a salon of the "royal suite" at Harridge's Hotel. Dusk had fallen, and entering, she switched on the electricity. The room, with its almost Louis Seize decorations, was suddenly flooded with light; and to her surprise the Frenchwoman saw a slim black figure nestled deep among cushions on a sofa before the fire. A small white face, with a frame of terra-cotta hair crushed under a mourning toque, turned a pair of big black eyes upon her.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Mary Balogh's The Secret Mistress. Mary Balogh has no equal when it comes to capturing the complex, irresistible passions between men and women. Her classic novel, The Secret Pearl, is one of the New York Times bestselling author’s finest–a tale of temptation and seduction, of guarded hearts and raw emotion…and of a love so powerful it will take your breath away…. He first spies her in the shadows outside a London theatre, a ravishing creature forced to barter her body to survive. To the woman known simply as Fleur, the well-dressed gentleman with the mesmerizing eyes is an unlikely savior. And when she takes the stranger to her bed, she never expects to see him again. But then Fleur accepts a position as governess to a young girl…and is stunned to discover that her midnight lover is a powerful nobleman. As two wary hearts ignite–and the threat of scandal hovers over them–one question remains: will she be mistress or wife?

Simone flung out her hands, palm upward. They were beautifully manicured hands, ascarefully tended as her mistress's. And as she smiled her teeth showed very white. When her facewas grave, she looked somewhat sullen, and might be thirty-five; but the smile was rejuvenating.It put her back to twenty-eight, and made her almost handsome as well as chic. "Miladi hasknown Mademoiselle since her schooldays, is it not?" she hedged. "Miladi will be able to judgeas well as if I told her whether Mademoiselle would have made that answer.""I thought it rang true when I read it!" laughed Lady West. "But Simone, when you say Ihave 'known Mademoiselle since her schooldays', you make me sound awfully antique. We wereat Madame de Sain's together. I came over to England the year I left, and married poor Sir Algyonly three months after I was presented." She thought it best to hammer these details intoSimone's head, in case the woman really was in touch with those back-door, kitchen-stairsreporters. Then, to give an air of carelessness to her words, she turned the subject. "Perhaps youmight let Mademoiselle know I've come. Parker told me that she was lying down-that she'dpromised her uncle to rest till tea time. So I wouldn't have her disturbed. But if her hair is beingwashed, she might let me in.""I will ask Miladi," said Simone. "I came to the salon to see if the curtains were drawn. IfMadame permits!" She tripped with her short, high-heeled step first to one window, then theother, and closed the draperies of old-rose brocade. Having done this, she pattered out of theroom.