I'm the one they all fear. The one they whisper about. A faceless ghost. My hands are coated in crimson from souls I've sent to hell - at a price. I've never missed a target, and I always deliver. I'm the Grim Reaper of the Cosa Nostra. Then there's her. The cellist whose music soothes the malignance of my existence. For years I've lurked in the shadows watching her play. Waiting. Anticipating the day I'll come for her. Her innocence tempts me. My blackened heart craves to ruin it, to smother her light with my darkness. She's the nucleus of my obsession... and my next victim.

This book recounts the amazing life story of a 16-year-old American Revolutionary-era soldier, including his captivity, adoption, and eventual flight to freedom from the Iroquois Six-Nation Indian tribes. The story is retold with historical accuracy and an even-handed treatment of the conflicting interests of the loyalists, Iroquois, and Patriots. David Ogden was born into an unusually tumultuous time in America—the colonials were struggling to throw off the yoke of British rule while also battling the Iroquois tribes for control of their ancestral lands. The bibliography of anyone who survived a life in the late 1700s frontier days of New York would be a great tale, but David Ogden's story stands alone, even within historical context of his times. Captive! The Story of David Ogden and the Iroquois is a compelling true adventure story of one young colonial soldier's bravery, choosing a daunting 126-mile race to freedom fraught with the risk of death over being assimilated into an alien society. This story is told with all the factual historical information that was missing from all the original captivity narratives, but accurately retains the flavor of the period and the voice of the 18th-century protagonist.

Examines the film industry's fascination with bondage and captivity.

All five books in the Villains Club series in one volume! Fall in love with five billionaire brothers, all anti-heroes in this dark romance collection. This collection includes RULE (Maddox Rule’s story), TAKE (Trace Rule’s story), BURN (Julian Rule’s story), PLAY (Nick Rule’s story), and BANG (Helix Rule’s story). RULE Maddox Rule lives a life most men can only dream of. Nothing is out of his reach, thanks to his family’s wealth and power. He wields that control with one goal—his pleasure. But the good life he enjoys comes with strings, and if he wants to keep doing all those things he loves, he has to live up to his family’s expectations. That means taking a wife, even if he doesn’t want one. Not that I have any interest in being shackled to him either. When the man holding the most of my father’s debt, the notoriously cruel Stephen Rule, decides I’d be a perfect wife for his wayward son, I understand the true effect of my father’s lifetime of mistakes. He won’t have to pay for them. I will. Just how I’ll have to do that is up to one man. Maddox Rule. TAKE Trace Rule takes what he wants in this world. Jewels, money, anything he desires, thanks to his skill as a thief. There’s nothing like the thrill of possessing what isn’t his. But he’s not supposed to steal another man’s wife, especially the wife of a fellow Villains Club member. The problem is when he sets his sights on me, I don’t know who I’m dealing with. Powerful, manipulative, and charming, he doesn’t take no for an answer. If only I loved my husband. If only he cared about me. If only ours wasn’t a marriage of convenience. If only I could find it in me to say no. A villain skilled at taking what he desires has chosen me for his next crime. There’s nowhere for me to hide when Trace Rule decides what he wants. BURN Julian Rule had a life he loved. He had his future all planned out, and he did everything they told him he had to do for that life he dreamed of. Then it was taken away, and he was sent to hell. Never truly a Rule like the rest of his brothers, now he wants revenge. And if that means he has to burn it all down to get it, then that’s what he’ll do. The world thinks he’s all logic and brains, but I know a different man. A man who seethes at the wrong they did to him. A man whose passion burns white hot when it’s just the two of us. He’s ready to be the villain they forced him to be. And I’m ready to walk through fire for Julian Rule to have what we both want. PLAY The youngest of Stephen Rule’s sons, Nick Rule doesn’t have to worry about the pressures of pleasing his father like his older brothers have all their lives. That’s just one of the perks of being the baby. He’s grown up after four years in Europe, though, and the family he left isn’t the same anymore. His brothers are at war with one another, and both sides expect him to choose in this family fight. But he’s got better things to do now that he’s returned. He’s ready to step into the family business with a winning idea that will make his billionaire family even richer. Everyone’s thrilled to see the youngest Rule back home, but not me. Nick Rule is the quintessential bad boy with too much money. Charming, sexy, and unbelievably good looking, he expects women to fall at his feet. But I kneel for no Rule. I’ve hated him and his family for so long, nothing he can do will ever change that. Nick Rule is the enemy. As long as I hate all things Rule. BANG Helix Rule is a madman. Some say it comes from who his mother was. Others say it’s because of his father. Whatever the reason, he gets more dangerous with every passing day. His brothers think he’s the favorite son of Stephen Rule. If that’s true, his favor has been bought and paid for with blood, sweat, and tears. I don’t care about any of that, though. To me, Helix will always be that one soul who’s meant for me. Everyone thinks I’m some fool who doesn’t know what he does when I’m not around. I know. I also know why he does those things. You see, just as he’s the only person who understands me, I’m the only one who knows what lies beneath the madness. We’re joined together until the end. Only Helix decides when the end will come. Perfect for fans of Renee Rose, Faith Summers, Zoe Black, J.L. Beck, Natasha Knight, Jane Henry, Rina Kent, Vanessa Vale, Lee Savino, Anna Zaires, A. Zavarelli, Clarissa Wild, Stasia Black, Alta Hensley, CD Reiss, Julia Sykes, Skye Warren, Pepper Winters, Penelope Sky, Aleatha Romig, Charmaine Pauls, Amelia Wilde, Willow Winters Topics: dark romance, organized crime thrillers, crime thrillers, romantic suspense, anti-hero, mafia romance, contemporary romance, women's psychological fiction, villain, happily ever after, standalone, kidnapping thriller, suspense thriller, organized crime romance, Gothic romance, kidnapping thrillers romance, women's crime fiction, organized crime romance mafia, dark suspense thriller romance, Abbi Cook

The captivity narrative, the earliest genre of American popular literature, continues to be of cultural significance in late 20th-century Hollywood. Many popular films of the last four decades incorporate the most common elements of the captivity narrative tradition, including a politically contested frontier setting and a plot involving innocent, family-oriented white Americans held captive by hostile, culturally alien natives. At the same time, these films offer something new to the narrative tradition: they focus on the captive who resists rescue and the challenge this resistance poses to American cultural self-confidence. By focusing on the lost captive, these films, beginning with The Searchers (1956), deal with questions about American identity raised by a white American's cultural and potentially political transformation. Films as diverse as Little Big Man, Taxi Driver, and The Deer Hunter adapted the captivity narrative's conventions to criticize aspects of contemporary American society and reject outworn models of male heroism; at the same time, however, they retained the genre's traditional assumption of white superiority and its fear of female sexuality. Bibliography. Index.

A series of in-depth examinations of the motion picture many consider to be Hollywood's finest western film.

This magisterial study, ten years in the making by one of the field's most distinguished historians, will be the first to explore the impact fugitive slaves had on the politics of the critical decade leading up to the Civil War. Through the close reading of diverse sources ranging from government documents to personal accounts, Richard J. M. Blackett traces the decisions of slaves to escape, the actions of those who assisted them, the many ways black communities responded to the capture of fugitive slaves, and how local laws either buttressed or undermined enforcement of the federal law. Every effort to enforce the law in northern communities produced levels of subversion that generated national debate so much so that, on the eve of secession, many in the South, looking back on the decade, could argue that the law had been effectively subverted by those individuals and states who assisted fleeing slaves.