In the glittering, sumptuous court of Eleanor of Acquitaine, betrayal lurks around every corner. The queen is at odds with her king, and to obey one could mean treason against the other. Even Alienore, considered the most virtuous lady at court, holds secrets. He is called the Raven--his face scarred by a Saracen blade, his voice raspy with the effects of Greek fire. His parentage is unknown, his prowess legendary. And he'll sell his sword to the highest bidder. As his piercing eyes track her every move, Alienore wonders who he's working for now.

A fast-paced reverse harem, fantasy romance and the beginning of an epic quartet for those that love reading about romance, magic, and revenge.

Are we either good or bad, and do we really know the difference? Why do we want what we cannot have, and even to be what we’re not? Can we desire others without wanting to possess them? Can we open to others and not risk possession ourselves? And where, in these cases, do we draw the line? Ewan Fernie argues that the demonic tradition in literature offers a key to our most agonised and intimate experiences. The Demonic ranges across the breadth of Western culture, engaging with writers as central and various as Luther, Shakespeare, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Melville and Mann. A powerful foreword by Jonathan Dollimore brings out its implications as an intellectual and stylistic breakthrough into new ways of writing criticism. Fernie unfolds an intense and personal vision, not just of Western modernity, but of identity, morality and sex. As much as it’s concerned with the great works, this is a book about life.

Named a 2022 Richard Wall Award Finalist by the Theatre Library Association From the late 1920s through the thirties, Greta Garbo (1905–1990) was the biggest star in Hollywood. She stopped making films in 1941, at only thirty-six, and thereafter sought a discreet private life. Still, her fame only increased as the public and press clamored for news of the former actress. At the time of her death, forty-nine years later, photographers continued to stalk her, and her death was reported on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. In The Savvy Sphinx: How Garbo Conquered Hollywood, Robert Dance traces the strategy a working-class Swedish teenager employed to enter motion pictures, find her way to America, and ultimately become Hollywood’s most glorious product. Brilliant tactics allowed her to reach Hollywood’s upper-most echelon and made her one of the last century’s most famous people. Garbo was discovered by director Mauritz Stiller, who saw promise in her nascent talent and insisted that she accompany him when he was lured to America by an MGM contract. By twenty she was a movie star and the epitome of glamour. Soon Garbo was among the highest-paid performers, and in many years she occupied the number one position. Unique among studio players, she quickly insisted on and was granted final authority over her scripts, costars, and directors. But Garbo never played the Hollywood game, and by the late twenties her unwillingness to grant interviews, attend premieres, or meet visiting dignitaries won her the sobriquet the Swedish Sphinx. The Savvy Sphinx, which includes over a hundred beautiful images, charts her rise and her long self-imposed exile as the queen who abdicated her Hollywood throne. Garbo was the paramount star produced by the Hollywood studio system, and by the time of her death her legendary status was assured.

"As the psalms are a microcosm of the Old Testament, so the Expositions of the Psalms can be seen as a microcosm of Augustinian thought. In the Book of Psalms are to be found the history of the people of Israel, the theology and spirituality of the Old Covenant, and a treasury of human experience expressed in prayer and poetry. So too does the work of expounding the psalms recapitulate and focus the experiences of Augustine's personal life, his theological reflections and his pastoral concerns as Bishop of Hippo."--Publisher's website.

Anti-erotic elements in feminism have joined forces with Islam and Christianity to condemn prostitution, the male gaze and the natural love men have for the feminine body as a symbol of universal beauty. The author, whose religion is based in Tantra regards these attitudes both wrong and offensive to pagans. Lee Huxley, claims to be a ?knower? - an enlightened one who sees with the third eye and whose wisdom and lateral thinking demonstrate his special insights in this book. Lee knows the truth ? the unthinkable ? that Jesus Christ, the hellfire and damnation preacher, is not the Son of God but the Son of Evil. If Christ is the Son of Evil, then Lee argues from this basis, that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are blasphemies. This book asks how Western civilization could be founded on lies, delusions and blasphemies that even today are still taken seriously. This book is the result of a lifetime of research which has culminated in the formulation of the Devil's Wager. The Devil's Wager challenges you, the reader, to name any moral idea from the worst evildoers of history that is as evil as the central teaching of the Bible and the Koran, namely that God will resurrect the human race and torture most of them in hell for all eternity. Fifty per cent of the damned will be women. The male God of monotheism is a hellfire pyromaniac: Jesus Christ and Allah are arsonists who burn women alive! This is the feminist issue of our times. Lee uses the writings of theologian and lapsed Catholic Mary Daly, one of the greatest feminist thinkers, to explain their common conviction that feminism must now assume the role of the Antichrist and bring an end to monotheism!

This comparative study of Defoe’s and Swift’s treatments of liberty embraces what seemed the most significant parts of their vast, multifaceted oeuvres, both non-fictional and fictional. Defoe’s and Swift’s positions with regard to the English constitution and liberties are assessed here through a close examination of their views on contemporary religious and political issues. Moreover, their involvement in the debates on the liberties and constitutions of Scotland and Ireland, respectively, could not be left out of this comparative approach to their treatments of liberty in the broader sense. Also of primary concern is the liberty of expression and of the press underlined (though ambiguously) by both authors as an essential precondition for any debate, political or otherwise. The antithetic relationship between “snare” and “liberty” is examined in the context of the analogy between the political constitution (the body politic) and the human constitution (the natural body) commonly drawn in early 18th century political writings, including Defoe’s and Swift’s. This analogy provides appropriate means of identifying important links within, as well as between, the two authors’ works, since both focused on “snares” in the political and human constitutions. The part of the study devoted to the “snare” in human nature mainly considers the fictional works. Much attention has been given in this regard to the contrasting ways in which both authors have dealt with those “snares” and the interaction between the human and the political constitutions.