The relationship between a daring young chamois hunter from the remote Bernese Oberland and a prosperous miller’s daughter living in the comfortable French-speaking Swiss canton of Vaud plays out a complex of themes, such as the instinctive life versus rational civilization and the role of early experience in shaping personal destiny, in this dark and affecting Hans Christian Andersen adult novella.In the terrifying Ice Virgin and her eerie minions, with their implacable hatred of mankind, we get a glimpse of the fairy tale Andersen. But The Ice Virgin, the most disturbing, ambitious, and searching of all of Andersen’s narratives, is also a thoroughly absorbing story of the real world. Andersen here is writing about a world he saw as something of a paradigm of the human condition, and this lies behind the story’s multilayered complexity.This splendid new translation by Paul Binding and his erudite and comprehensive afterword together make a compelling case for just why The Ice Virgin deserves to be placed in the first rank of world literature.

A monk embarks on a dangerous quest to find a trio of missing travelers in this medieval mystery by an Edgar Award–winning author. The winter of 1139 will disrupt Brother Cadfael’s tranquil life in Shrewsbury with the most disturbing of events. Raging civil war has sent refugees fleeing north from Worcester. Among them are two orphans from a noble family, a boy of thirteen and an eighteen-year-old girl of great beauty, and their companion, a young Benedictine nun. The trio never reaches Shrewsbury, having disappeared somewhere in the wild countryside. Cadfael is afraid for these three lost lambs, but another call for help sends him to the church of Saint Mary. A wounded monk, found naked and bleeding by the roadside, will surely die without Cadfael’s healing arts. Why this holy man has been attacked and what his fevered ravings reveal soon give Brother Cadfael a clue to the fate of the missing travelers. Now Cadfael sets out on a dangerous quest to find them. The road will lead him to a chill and terrible murder and a tale of passion gone awry. And at journey’s end awaits a vision of what is best, and worst, in humankind.

It's hardly a surprise to discover that Sam Branson has a love of adventure and a real concern about our future in a world where the climate is changing rapidly. Journeying into the heart of the Arctic wilderness with his father and a film crew, Sam explores the changing landscape and the lives of the native Inuit people who have survived in a relentlessly inhospitable environment for 5000 years. Sleeping on frozen seas and encountering majestic polar bears, Sam and his father embark together on a winter expedition which Sam must ultimately complete on his own, finding new depths of resilience and courage in a formidable and breathtaking landscape.

First in the series featuring the darkly handsome, proud, and arrogant Orsini brothers—the perfect Sicilian husbands—from the USA Today–bestselling author. Raffaele Orsini doesn’t want a wife . . . But when he meets his arranged bride, Raffaele feels honor bound to marry her. She’s not what he was expecting . . . but her dowdy clothes can’t hide her lusciously feminine figure or her wildcat temperament! Chiara Cordiano will not love her husband! She’s tried everything to avoid her fate, but in the blink of an eye Chiara is swept away from her quaint Sicilian town to New York! She wants to hate Rafe, but seduction is in his blood. With his dark, brooding looks and tempting masculinity, she’ll be purring like a kitten!

The Virgin and the Gypsy is a short story by English author D. H. Lawrence, about personal and sexual liberation. It was written in 1926 and published posthumously in 1930. The Virgin and the Gypsy has become a classic and is one of Lawrence’s most vibrant short novels.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A STARZ ORIGINAL SERIES Unrivaled storytelling. Unforgettable characters. Rich historical detail. These are the hallmarks of Diana Gabaldon’s work. Her New York Times bestselling Outlander novels have earned the praise of critics and captured the hearts of millions of fans. Here is the story that started it all, introducing two remarkable characters, Claire Beauchamp Randall and Jamie Fraser, in a spellbinding novel of passion and history that combines exhilarating adventure with a love story for the ages. One of the top ten best-loved novels in America, as seen on PBS’s The Great American Read! Scottish Highlands, 1945. Claire Randall, a former British combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding clans in the year of Our Lord . . . 1743. Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of a world that threatens her life, and may shatter her heart. Marooned amid danger, passion, and violence, Claire learns her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives. This eBook includes the full text of the novel plus the following additional content: • An excerpt from Diana Gabaldon’s Dragonfly in Amber, the second novel in the Outlander series • An interview with Diana Gabaldon • An Outlander reader’s guide Praise for Outlander “Marvelous and fantastic adventures, romance, sex . . . perfect escape reading.”—San Francisco Chronicle “History comes deliciously alive on the page.”—New York Daily News