From the acclaimed author of Four Hundred and Forty Steps to the Sea and Under a Sardinian Sky comes a lyrical new novel set against a stunning Italian backdrop. Famed for its natural beauty and rich history, Sardinia in 1968 is notorious, too, for the bandits who kidnap wealthy landowners for ransom. Eleven-year-old Alba Fresu’s brother, and her father, Bruno, are abducted by criminals who mistake Bruno for a rich man. After a grueling journey through the countryside, the two are eventually released—but the experience leaves Alba shaken and unable to readjust to normal life, or to give voice to her inner turmoil. Accompanying her mother to cleaning jobs, Alba visits the villa of an eccentric signora and touches the keys of a piano for the first time. The instrument’s spell is immediate. During secret lessons, forbidden by her mother, Alba is at last able to express emotions too powerful for words alone. Ignoring her parents’ insistence that she work in the family’s car dealership and marry a local boy, Alba accepts a scholarship to the Rome Accademia. There she immerses herself in a vibrant world of art—and a passionate affair. But her path will lead her to a crossroads, where Alba will have to reconcile the past she fled with her longing for love and family to fully convey the music of her heart . . . Praise for Sara Alexander’s Under a Sardinian Sky “Alexander paints a loving and breathtaking picture of the Mediterranean island, especially glorious descriptions of food. For readers who enjoy women’s fiction set against a background of momentous events and clashing cultures.” —Library Journal “Will leave readers riveted until the explosive conclusion.” —Publishers Weekly

The perfect summer read for fans of Santa Montefiore, Victoria Hislop and Dinah Jeffries

The arrival of a letter delayed by 33 years sparks off a quest that leads both on a nostalgic journey back to the 1980s and right to the heart of France today. Middle-aged doctor Alain Massoulier has received a life-changing letter – thirty-three years too late. Lost in the Paris postal system for decades, the letter from Polydor, dated 1983, offers a recording contract to The Holograms, in which Alain played lead guitar. Overcome by nostalgia, Alain is tempted to track down the members of the group. But in a world where everything and everyone has changed...where could his quest possibly take him?

“Family secrets and a transportive Italian setting keep the reader thoroughly immersed, making for a satisfying story of one woman’s coming-of-age.” —Publishers Weekly Nestled into the cliffs in southern Italy’s Amalfi coast, Positano is an artist’s vision, with rows of brightly hued houses perched above the sea and picturesque staircases meandering up and down the hillside. Santina, still a striking woman despite old age and the illness that saps her last strength, is spending her final days at her home, Villa San Vito. The magnificent eighteenth-century palazzo is very different from the tiny house in which she grew up. And as she decides its fate, she must confront the choices that led her here so long ago . . . In 1949, Positano is as yet undiscovered by tourists, a beautiful, secluded village shaking off the dust of war. Hoping to escape poverty, young Santina takes domestic work in London, ultimately becoming a housekeeper to a distinguished British major and his creative, impulsive wife, Adeline. When they move to Positano, Santina returns with them, raising their daughter as Adeline’s mental health declines. With each passing year, Santina becomes more deeply enmeshed within the family, trying to navigate her complicated feelings for a man who is much more than an employer—while hiding secrets that could shatter the only home she knows . . . “Pick up this book to be swept away like a frothy Mediterranean wave, with its melodic writing style that’s richly filled with beautiful imagery in a setting so sunny and beautiful you will be transported!” —Beachcombing Magazine

This is the first study which brings together the references to ancient Greek myths (154 episodes) in medieval Armenian literature. The main source for such stories are translations, but direct citations from Greek in original Armenian works also exist.

“[A] shining rendition of Swift and Gershwin’s star-crossed love.” —Therese Anne Fowler, New York Times bestselling author In the vein of the New York Times bestseller Loving Frank, this fascinating and compelling novel “will have you humming, toe-tapping, and singing along with every turn of the page” (Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author) as it explores the decade-long relationship between the celebrated composer George Gershwin and gifted musician Katharine “Kay” Swift. When Katharine “Kay” Swift—the restless but loyal society wife of wealthy banker James Warburg and a serious pianist who longs for recognition—attends a performance of Rhapsody in Blue by a brilliant, elusive young musical genius named George Gershwin, her world is turned upside down. Transfixed, she’s helpless to resist the magnetic pull of George’s talent, charm, and swagger. Their ten-year love affair, complicated by her conflicted loyalty to her husband and the twists and turns of her own musical career, ends only with George’s death from a brain tumor at the age of thirty-eight. Set in Jazz Age New York City, this stunning work of fiction explores the timeless bond between two brilliant, strong-willed artists. George Gershwin left behind not just a body of work unmatched in popular musical history, but a woman who loved him with all her heart, knowing all the while that he belonged not to her, but to the world.

While the advent and structure of electronic mail has been discussed in web caucuses, newspapers, hypertext theory, and communication theory, it has not yet been considered in conjunction with epistolary scenarios in film, art, and literature. To address this gap, Mail-Orders explores the status of the epistolary form at the end of the twentieth century and its connections to feminist criticism, literary theory, and postmodernism. One of the first works to consider electronic mail in relation to the history of epistolary fiction, Mail-Orders concerns itself with individual letters, as well as fiction written in letter form, and widens the debate on the often postulated "death of letters" by considering the epistolary connections between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries' systems of communication and representation.