Elizabeth Miles is preparing for her wedding to Gideon Bates, when a menacing shadow from her past threatens to destroy the life she has built for herself in this all-new Counterfeit Lady Novel from USA Today bestselling author Victoria Thompson. The Great War is over, and Elizabeth and Gideon are busily planning their wedding and welcoming home old friends now discharged from the army. One of them, Captain Logan Carstens, the son and heir of a wealthy family, seems less than happy to be home and with good reason. While Logan was in France, he fell in love with a beautiful French woman named Noelle. He desperately wanted to propose, but he was already engaged and felt bound to honor his commitment. When Logan receives a letter supposedly from Noelle begging for money to help her flee the terrible conditions in France and come to America, Elizabeth is suspicious. There is no way to verify the letter is actually from Noelle, and she fears that a con man or woman might be trying to take advantage of Logan in his vulnerable state. But that is not all Elizabeth has to worry about. Vicious thug Oscar Thornton has gotten wind of her wedding announcement and realizes the woman who conned him is still alive and well. Gideon and Elizabeth have to figure out a way to help their friend while making sure their worst enemy does not destroy their future. . . .

The stunning final novel from East Germany's most acclaimed writer Three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the writer Christa Wolf was granted access to her newly declassified Stasi files. Known for her defiance and outspokenness, Wolf was not especially surprised to discover forty-two volumes of documents produced by the East German secret police. But what was surprising was a thin green folder whose contents told an unfamiliar—and disturbing—story: in the early 1960s, Wolf herself had been an informant for the Communist government. And yet, thirty years on, she had absolutely no recollection of it. Wolf's extraordinary autobiographical final novel is an account of what it was like to reckon with such a shocking discovery. Based on the year she spent in Los Angeles after these explosive revelations, City of Angels is at once a powerful examination of memory and a surprisingly funny and touching exploration of L.A., a city strikingly different from any Wolf had ever visited. Even as she reflects on the burdens of twentieth-century history, Wolf describes the pleasures of driving a Geo Metro down Wilshire Boulevard and watching episodes of Star Trek late at night. Rich with philosophical insights, personal revelations, and vivid descriptions of a diverse city and its citizens, City of Angels is a profoundly humane and disarmingly honest novel—and a powerful conclusion to a remarkable career in letters.

“One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades.”—John Gray, New York Times Book Review Hailed as “a magisterial critique of top-down social planning” by the New York Times, this essential work analyzes disasters from Russia to Tanzania to uncover why states so often fail—sometimes catastrophically—in grand efforts to engineer their society or their environment, and uncovers the conditions common to all such planning disasters. “Beautifully written, this book calls into sharp relief the nature of the world we now inhabit.”—New Yorker “A tour de force.”— Charles Tilly, Columbia University

In this all-new Counterfeit Lady Novel from USA Today bestselling author Victoria Thompson, newlywed Elizabeth Miles must use her unlawful skills to expose a dangerous charlatan. Elizabeth Miles Bates has returned from her honeymoon with Gideon and is taking great pride in having completely forsaken her disreputable past. Then her friend Anna Vanderslice begs her to use her talents to save her widowed mother from an unscrupulous medium. Since the war and the flu epidemic left so many families in mourning, séances have come back into vogue as desperate families long to communicate with their loved ones. Anna's mother has been attending séances in hopes of connecting with her son, David, who died of influenza. Anna had thought it a heartbreaking but harmless activity, but she's just learned that Mrs. Vanderslice is paying the medium ever-increasing sums of money in her eagerness to make contact. Since David's death has already caused Anna and her mother financial hardship, Mrs. Vanderslice's obsession is in danger of ruining them. Madame Ophelia is working with a group of con artists to fleece as many grieving New Yorkers as possible before moving on to another city. Several of Mrs. Vanderslice's friends, as well as some of Gideon's clients, have already been victims. Elizabeth knows that simply exposing the medium as a fraud will not be enough to recoup the stolen money; the only way is to con the medium and her cohorts. But will Elizabeth's family help her when it means betraying other con artists? Elizabeth recruits Gideon, her aunt Cybil, and her partner, Zelda, to lend a hand. Can Elizabeth and her gang of amateurs fool the professionals? Or will speaking to the dead lead to deadly consequences?

In The Divided City, urban practitioner and scholar Alan Mallach presents a detailed picture of what has happened over the past 15 to 20 years in industrial cities like Pittsburgh and Baltimore, as they have undergone unprecedented, unexpected revival. He spotlights these changes while placing them in their larger economic, social and political context. Most importantly, he explores the pervasive significance of race in American cities, and looks closely at the successes and failures of city governments, nonprofit entities, and citizens as they have tried to address the challenges of change. The Divided City concludes with strategies to foster greater equality and opportunity, firmly grounding them in the cities' economic and political realities.

Crafty politicians, railroad barons, bank robbers, and bounty hunters just barely on the right side of the law are all on stage as the transcontinental railroad comes at last to Old Los Angeles. America's premier historical novelist takes readers on a dangerous ride through the Old West, alongside an orphaned young woman and the railroad bandit who has adopted her.