On a hot July night on Cape Cod, at the age of 14, Brodeur became a confidante to her mother's affair with her husband's closest friend. Malabar came to rely on her daughter to help, but when the affair had calamitous consequences for everyone involved, Brodeau was driven into a precarious marriage of her own, and then into a deep depression. In her memoir she examines how the people close to us can break our hearts simply because they have access to them, and the lies we tell in order to justify the choices we make. -- adapted from jacket

Author Introduction Alexei Maximovich Peshkov primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the socialist realism literary method and a political activist. He was also a five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Gorky's most famous works were The Lower Depths (1902), Twenty-six Men and a Girl, The Song of the Stormy Petrel, My Childhood, The Mother, Summerfolk and Children of the Sun. He had an association with fellow Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov; Gorky would later mention them in his memoirs.

A mesmerizing tale of art and passion in Belle Époque France As a woman, aspiring sculptor Camille Claudel has plenty of critics, especially her ultra-traditional mother. But when Auguste Rodin makes Camille his apprentice--and his muse--their passion inspires groundbreaking works. Yet, Camille's success is overshadowed by her lover's rising star, and her obsessions cross the line into madness. Rodin's Lover brings to life the volatile love affair between one of the era's greatest artists and a woman entwined in a tragic dilemma she cannot escape.

Moyes delivers a sophisticated, page-turning double love story spanning 40 years--an unforgettable "Brief Encounter" for modern times.

Short stories are but a slice of life, yet they are complete, even in few words. Although the endings are not always happy, they are indeed endings. These slices of life take us to many times and places, where we meet people with a distinct set of problems-and sometimes, if they are very lucky, solutions. A Lover's Potion is an imaginative walk through fantasy and fiction. In these collected stories, we visit a small shire where witchcraft mania runs wild. A peasant girl becomes pregnant with her aristocratic lover, who presents her with a gift of jewellery, confounding a team of modern archaeologists. There is even a girl with incredibly long hair, locked in a tower, but she is not what she seems. Each story focuses on people and their fascination with one another. All human beings share desires, endeavors, and loyalties. Through actions, we reveal ourselves. The characters in these stories each long for something-and in some cases, the characters aren't human at all. Read of compassion, romance, and revenge in this riveting collection of wiles and whimsy.

Despite the outpour of interpretations, from critics of all schools, on Shakespeare's dramatic works and other poetic works, A Lover's Complaint has been almost totally ignored by criticism. This collection of essays is designed to bring to the poem the attention it deserves for its beauty, its aesthetic, psychological and conceptual complexity, and its representation of its cultural moment. A series of readings of A Lover's Complaint, particularly engaging with issues of psychoanalysis and gender, the volume cumulatively builds a detailed picture of the poem, its reception, and its critical neglect. The essays in the volume, by leading Shakespeareans, open up this important text before scholars, and together generate the long-overdue critical conversation about the many intriguing facets of the poem.