“Gladiator or toy?” Kaspar asks, as if it’s the easiest choice in the world.It might be an easy answer for someone branded, brainwashed, and who remembers no other life. But that’s not me, not yet anyway. I’m a cop—or at least I was until my cover got blown.Now, I’m a captive on a ship; one of the trafficked people I vowed to save.Kaspar’s a toy —a pleasure slave— content to warm our sadistic owner’s bed; he laps up the abuse he’s conditioned to associate with affec...

Grayson Adams is living a double life in Victorian England. By day, he paints erotic pictures, by evening he attends the balls where eager mamas throw their virginal daughters at him, though he is merely the youngest son of a baron. Lately, however, he’s lost his muse, and wonders what it would be like to paint one of those virginal society misses.Sarah Dusenberry is enduring her fifth season, and is tired of her mother pushing her toward a husband, when it’s clear no man wants her...

Rebecca Chatham is no stranger to scandal. She and her husband delighted in shocking San Francisco society with their sexual exploits, not hard to do in 1888. But now her husband is dead. He left her penniless, forced to live under her wealthy father’s thumb. While searching for a protector, she once again becomes the focus of society gossip, and her father exiles her to her brother’s ranch in Central California.Rebecca is miserable, until she meets the very handsome, very virile r...

Marshal Rhys Burgess always gets his man. To catch a notorious bank robber, he seeks out the man's sometimes-mistress Maddy Colby. She lives on her own on a farm that needs a lot of work. He presents himself to her as a handyman...and waits. As he waits, he gets to know Maddy, who is nothing like he expected. Isolated on the farm, shunned by the townspeople because of the choices she's made, Maddy is smart, generous and hard-working--and lonely. Every day he finds her harder and harder to ...

Sarah loved her husband, and he'd always insisted he loved her too, but did he?Since his latest promotion, he'd changed. He worked longer hours and spent less time with her and their children. When she complained, he insisted her demands were unreasonable, and he was only working this hard so he could provide for their future.But what about the here and now? Was it unreasonable to expect him to be part of that too? She knew she had to make a decision, Stay with Andrew and d...

This collection brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars and experts from Australia and beyond to examine the persistent settler-colonial patterns of denial, ignorance and antipathy that continue to constrain the possibilities of truth and justice in settler-colonial societies. Written from diverse cultural and disciplinary perspectives, the chapters identify and analyse the social, cultural and political barriers to listening, hearing, and responding on the part of settlers,...

***Rogues! Even the word conjures a special sort of hero—***a playful bad boy with a heart of gold—at least when it comes to his lady love. This volume is filled with the Jack Sparrows of old—pirates sailing the high seas, Regency-era highway men, modern day jewel thieves, like Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief—men doing bad things, bending or breaking the law, but in a very sexy way. With thirteen stories sure to satisfy the reader who craves that ultimate bad boy, prepare to have your heart...

Being different is sometimes hard – especially if you believe that you have an astonishing Hollywood-bound talent!Meet eleven-year-old Dara Palmer. She loves dancing and dreams of being a world-famous actress - which means she has to get the main part in the school play. When she doesn't get any part at all, Dara begins to wonder whether it's because of her looks rather than her acting skills. But Dara has big ideas - and is determined not to let prejudice stop her from being in th...

From the award-winning author of the national bestseller Idaho comes a “stunning collection” (Harper’s Bazaar) of stories that explore how unexpected intuitions forever alter the lives of ordinary people.“These are marvelous and unsettling stories.”—Kelly Link, author of The Book of Love“In clear and distinctive prose, Emily Ruskovich evokes the epic scope of quiet lives.”—Paula Hawkins, author of A Sl...

'Simply superb.' NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'Excellent from beginning to end.' NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'A bone-chilling thriller.' NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐‘WARNING: do not start reading this if you have things to do. It’s a page-turner you won’t be able to stop thinking about.’ NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐It started with a rumour. But rumours can be deadly…In a small town,...

Here is a true story of how the great nations of America and England almost went to war in 1859 over a pig--but learned to share instead.In 1859, the British and Americans coexist on the small island of San Juan, located off the coast of the Pacific Northwest. They are on fairly good terms--until one fateful morning when an innocent hog owned by a British man has the misfortune to eat some potatoes on an American farmer's land. In a moment of rash anger, Lyman Cutl...

"It's Christmas time. Just like the first St Stephan once did, Stephan has a tradition of riding around the village with his men to be invited to the farms. This year he will visit Adam, a man he has encountered before. Once at Adam's house, the men drink together, eat Christmas food, laugh. It's not long before they are tearing each other's clothes off with a special Christmas spirit. But soon it's time for the next Christmas ride.'St. Stephan and the horny stable boys' is a short...