Emperor Tiberius rules a Rome where patrician life is reaching its luxurious zenith. But after the Emperor’s nephew is violently murdered in the streets, the aristocratic lifestyle immediately becomes hazardous. The relentless partying of the wealthy is suddenly interrupted. Someone is targeting the nobles of Rome. The casualties begin to mount, and the perpetrators seem impossible to catch. The gossips dub them “The Palatine Bandits” and a true crime wave begins. Pontious Pilate, the Emperor’s watchdog and newly commissioned commander of Rome’s Urban Cohorts, is called in to put a stop to this continuing crime wave, and he immediately puts the city on lockdown. With the city boiling over with stress, and the Palatine Bandits remaining at large, Pilate wants appointed the new government post – Prefect of Judea – as a reward for ending the crime wave. But Lucius Quinteros, the richest man in Rome, also wants the Judean post, and sets off on his own to solve the mystery. Using his own private resources – including a championship, gladiatorial team – to help him probe the crimes, Lucius embarks on his own investigation. Lucius also initiates his bid for the Judean post using his own brand of politicking. Meanwhile, the slums of Rome are teaming with millions of lost souls. Life there is a struggle just to survive, and even the basest essentials are doled out sparingly and used as weapons of manipulation. Thrust into this world is Darius, a youthful innocent who was raised from birth in a brothel. When Darius meets Poppaea, stunningly beautiful ward of Lucius Quinteros, she tries to convince him that their way to happiness is love. But is Poppaea’s love aiming too high for a boy from the ghetto, or will his own pride be his stumbling block? Meet these, and many more characters in this fast-paced, tightly woven tale of 1st century Rome.

Why, asks Kelly Johnson, does Christian ethics so rarely tackle the real-life question of whether to give to beggars? Examining both classical economics and Christian stewardship ethics as reactions to medieval debates about the role of mendicants in the church and in wider society, Johnson reveals modern anxiety about dependence and humility as well as the importance of Christian attempts to rethink property relations in ways that integrate those qualities. She studies the rhetoric and thought of Christian thinkers, beggar saints, and economists from throughout history, placing greatest emphasis on the life and work of Peter Maurin, a cofounder of the Catholic Worker movement. Challenging and thought-provoking, The Fear of Beggars will move Christian economic ethics into a richer, more involved discussion.

In a genetically altered future America that is overrun by beautiful and super-intelligent people, the entire planet faces destruction in the face of overpopulation and unemployment. Reprint.

The second novel in Paullina Simons's stunning End of Forever saga continues the heartbreaking story of Julian and Josephine, and a love that spans lifetimes. Is there a fate beyond the fates? Julian has failed Josephine once. Despite grave danger and impossible odds, he is determined to do the unimaginable and try again to save the woman he loves. What follows is a love story like no other as the doomed lovers embark on an incredible adventure across time and space. Racing through history and against the merciless clock, they face countless dangers and deadly enemies. Living amid beauty and ecstasy, bloodshed and betrayal, each time they court and cheat death brings Julian and Josephine closer to an unthinkable sacrifice and a confrontation with the harshest master of all…destiny.

When the Six-Day War began, Elie Wiesel rushed to Israel. "I went to Jerusalem because I had to go somewhere, I had to leave the present and bring it back to the past. You see, the man who came to Jerusalem then came as a beggar, a madman, not believing his eyes and ears, and above all, his memory." This haunting novel takes place in the days following the Six-Day War. A Holocaust survivor visits the newly reunited city of Jerusalem. At the Western Wall he encounters the beggars and madmen who congregate there every evening, and who force him to confront the ghosts of his past and his ties to the present. Weaving together myth and mystery, parable and paradox, Wiesel bids the reader to join him on a spiritual journey back and forth in time, always returning to Jerusalem.

In a world where the slightest edge can mean the difference between success and failure, Leisha Camden is beautiful, extraordinarily intelligent ... and one of an ever-growing number of human beings who have been genetically modified to never require sleep. Once considered interesting anomalies, now Leisha and the other "Sleepless" are outcasts -- victims of blind hatred, political repression, and shocking mob violence meant to drive them from human society ... and, ultimately, from Earth itself. But Leisha Camden has chosen to remain behind in a world that envies and fears her "gift" -- a world marked for destruction in a devastating conspiracy of freedom ... and revenge.