No one likes a rebellious captive. I learned that the hard way. I've been abducted from earth and cruelly tormented for my fighting spirit until I learned that the only thing that would keep me safe is to be sweet and calm and agreeable. It's what keeps me alive. When I'm rescued by space pirates, they tell me I'm safe. I'm told I can be myself again. I don't believe them, of course. I certainly don't believe Alyvos, the muscle of the pirate ship. Everyone says that he like nothing more than a good fight, but to me, he's kind and protective. How can I fear someone who holds me tenderly through the night and has fuzzy skin?

A pirate doesn't ask for permission - he takes.When I see the delicate human female collared and enslaved by the smuggler I'm about to swindle, I do what any male would do. I take her from him. It's what I do best, after all.Now Fran's mine, and I'm never giving her up. On board my spaceship, she'll be safe. She'll wear my clothes, eat my food, and sleep in my bed. I'll keep her safe from a galaxy that wishes her harm. But my sweet Fran wants nothing more than to return to Earth. How can I take her home when she holds my heart in her dainty, five-fingered hands? This story stands completely alone and is only marginally connected to the Ice Planet Barbarians series and Prison Planet Barbarian. You do not need to read those books in order to follow this one.

The crew of the pirate ship the Lovesick Fool are worried about their navigator, Sentorr. He's obsessed with working, spending all his time on the bridge. It's not work the big blue alien is truly obsessed with, though. It's a female. Sentorr's convinced that Zoey, a female navigator on another pirate ship, is his mate. She won't show him her face, though, or agree to meet him. She's happy to have steamy, late-night conversations with him over comm channels, though. He's determined to find her and claim her, no matter what it takes. But when he does locate her and discovers that she's been lying to him about who - and what - she is, will he still love her? Or is the fact that Zoey's human too much for this blue-skinned male?

In 1943 a submarine returning from a secret mission is attacked, its vital cargo believed lost . . . Three quarters of a century later, NUMA director Dirk Pitt is asked to help locate a missing person: the scientist responsible for the design of the revolutionary Poseidon's Arrow submarine. This craft is so advanced and dangerous that any government would kill to posses it - and not only has its designer disappeared, but so too have the plans. But this is no simple search. It leads Pitt from Washington to the Panama jungle, draws in the full resources of NUMA, and slowly unravels a deadly conspiracy that seeks to bring the world to its knees- and only Pitt can prevent it. Poseidon's Arrow follows Arctic Drift, Crescent Dawn and Atlantis Found as the next in the enthralling Dirk Pitt adventures. Praise for Clive Cussler 'The Adventure King' Sunday Express 'Cussler is hard to beat' Daily Mail 'The guy I read' Tom Clancy

What's worse than finding a lost ship full of stolen humans? It's finding out that your family is responsible. This is a wrong I have to somehow right, so I take off to find answers...and discover one of those kidnapped humans has stowed away on my ship. She's furious that I've deserted her friends. She's determined to make me pay. Ruth swears vengeance and won't be satisfied until she sees me destroyed. It's a battle of wills I'm determined to win. Instead of breaking Ruth, I find that I'll do just about anything to get her to kiss me again. Now...who's bending who?

"Severin Unck's father is a famous director of Gothic romances in an alternate 1986 in which talking movies are still a daring innovation due to the patent-hoarding Edison family. Rebelling against her father's films of passion, intrigue, and spirits from beyond, Severin starts making documentaries, traveling through space and investigating the levitator cults of Neptune and the lawless saloons of Mars. For this is not our solar system, but one drawn from classic science fiction, in which all the planets are inhabited and we travel through space on beautiful rockets. Severin is a realist in a fantastic universe"--Dust jacket flap.

Today we associate the Renaissance with painting, sculpture, and architecture—the “major” arts. Yet contemporaries often held the “minor” arts—gem-studded goldwork, richly embellished armor, splendid tapestries and embroideries, music, and ephemeral multi-media spectacles—in much higher esteem. Isabella d’Este, Marchesa of Mantua, was typical of the Italian nobility: she bequeathed to her children precious stone vases mounted in gold, engraved gems, ivories, and antique bronzes and marbles; her favorite ladies-in-waiting, by contrast, received mere paintings. Renaissance patrons and observers extolled finely wrought luxury artifacts for their exquisite craftsmanship and the symbolic capital of their components; paintings and sculptures in modest materials, although discussed by some literati, were of lesser consequence. This book endeavors to return to the mainstream material long marginalized as a result of historical and ideological biases of the intervening centuries. The author analyzes how luxury arts went from being lofty markers of ascendancy and discernment in the Renaissance to being dismissed as “decorative” or “minor” arts—extravagant trinkets of the rich unworthy of the status of Art. Then, by re-examining the objects themselves and their uses in their day, she shows how sumptuous creations constructed the world and taste of Renaissance women and men.