NOT ALL WOMEN ARE SUBMISSIVE… Ava Archer had everything a woman could ever desire. She was beautiful, rich, sociable, and free to do whatever she wanted between the sheets. Her job was easier than breathing when she worked as an assistant for her old man. Ava got everything she wanted and was used to getting her own way… Until she met Nathaniel Brooks. Order and control were all that Nate knew when he was a managing partner of the prestigious law firm Archer and Brooks. When his business partner takes ill, he must leave his comfortable Manhattan branch and tend to the firm in London. He didn’t foresee this change being problematic but then again… He hadn’t yet met his fiery and tenacious assistant, Ava Archer. In a battle for dominance, Ms. Archer would need to fall in line if she were to work under Mr. Brooks but there was just one problem: not all women are submissive. When the clock strikes five, both would soon realise the difficulty in keeping things business as usual behind office doors… Will Nate be able to maintain control over his heart? Will Ava lose everything when she learns that for a lawyer, deception is their art? ​​​​​​​ ____________________ BY DEBUT ROMANCE AUTHOR HOLLY DIXON ★★★★★ "You'll gasp, you'll moan, you may even shed a tear or two like I did!" ★★★★★ “If you're looking for a spicy romance with hilarity for pages and pages, this is the book for you!” ★★★★★ "Read at your own caution it will start an obsession. You have been warned!" ★★★★★ "Illicit Affairs is fabulous! This is not an exaggeration. This book is SO good!" ★★★★★ "You'll laugh from chapter one, bite your lip by chapter thirty and cry when it's all over!" ★★★★★ "Sexy, sultry, heart-racing, unique and exciting!"

How many mistakes does it take to ruin you? How many lies can a person tell before you see them for who they are?Mia Johnson blew me away in more ways than I could count. Her body. Her taste. Her need. However, her poisonous past started to affect me, and I knew what that meant-what needed to be done. Still, I was never a man who listened to reason.This time I should have.My name is Wesley Black, and this story may be twisted, but this woman is mine.

A Today Show Summer Reads Pick A Washington Post Book of the Year "We think we know the ones we love." So Pearlie Cook begins her indirect, and devastating exploration of the mystery at the heart of every relationship--how we can ever truly know another person. It is 1953 and Pearlie, a dutiful young housewife, finds herself living in the Sunset District in San Francisco, caring not only for her husband's fragile health, but also for her son, who is afflicted with polio. Then, one Saturday morning, a stranger appears on her doorstep, and everything changes. Lyrical, and surprising, The Story of a Marriage is, in the words of Khaled Housseini, "a book about love, and it is a marvel to watch Greer probe the mysteries of love to such devastating effect."

Taylor Swift for Adults is a tantalizing opening salvo in Swiftology - the study of the work of Taylor Swift. While Swift's private life has been covered to death, her talent as a lyricist has rarely been analyzed. Until now. Swifties are well aware that she's a lyricist par excellence but this book makes that case to the unbelievers. Swift's gift as a songwriter is not merely sentimentality and circumstance - and this book takes a deep look at her 10 albums to isolate what makes her a beloved lyricist for millions. Any serious study of a lyricist or poet needs to establish what are the tropes, the patterns, and the style of that artist, and this book does precisely that. With careful attention to poetic detail, the scansion, flow, and form of her writing, this brings out those details that pass by in a flash on the radio, bringing them fully into focus. Many have made the argument that Swift is a gifted lyricist - in online forums and YouTube comments - but this is the first time in writing those arguments have been given shape and serious attention. It's a book aimed at adults but not po-faced bores - taking a subject seriously can also mean laughing at swearwords and sex metaphors. Rather than po-faced and straitened, this is a lightly witty book expressing, at its core, a deep affection for this generation's favorite songwriter.

"A fresh look at infidelity, broadening the focus from the havoc it wreaks within a committed relationship to consider also why people do it, what it means to them, and why breaking up is the expected response to duplicity — but not necessarily the wisest one.” — LA Review of Books From iconic couples’ therapist and bestselling author of Mating in Captivity comes a provocative and controversial look at infidelity with practical, honest, and empathetic advice for how to move beyond it. An affair: it can rob a couple of their relationship, their happiness, their very identity. And yet, this extremely common human experience is so poorly understood. What are we to make of this time-honored taboo—universally forbidden yet universally practiced? Why do people cheat—even those in happy marriages? Why does an affair hurt so much? When we say infidelity, what exactly do we mean? Do our romantic expectations of marriage set us up for betrayal? Is there such a thing as an affair-proof marriage? Is it possible to love more than one person at once? Can an affair ever help a marriage? Perel weaves real-life case stories with incisive psychological and cultural analysis in this fast-paced and compelling book. For the past ten years, Perel has traveled the globe and worked with hundreds of couples who have grappled with infidelity. Betrayal hurts, she writes, but it can be healed. An affair can even be the doorway to a new marriage—with the same person. With the right approach, couples can grow and learn from these tumultuous experiences, together or apart. Affairs, she argues, have a lot to teach us about modern relationships—what we expect, what we think we want, and what we feel entitled to. They offer a unique window into our personal and cultural attitudes about love, lust, and commitment. Through examining illicit love from multiple angles, Perel invites readers into an honest, enlightened, and entertaining exploration of modern marriage in its many variations. Fiercely intelligent, The State of Affairs provides a daring framework for understanding the intricacies of love and desire. As Perel observes, “Love is messy; infidelity more so. But it is also a window, like no other, into the crevices of the human heart.”

In 1950, China's new Communist government enacted a Marriage Law to allow free choice in marriage and easier access to divorce. Prohibiting arranged marriages, concubinage, and bigamy, it was one of the most dramatic efforts ever by a state to change marital and family relationships. In this comprehensive study of the effects of that law, Neil J. Diamant draws on newly opened urban and rural archival sources to offer a detailed analysis of how the law was interpreted and implemented throughout the country. In sharp contrast to previous studies of the Marriage Law, which have argued that it had little effect in rural areas, Diamant argues that the law reshaped marriage and family relationships in significant--but often unintended--ways throughout the Maoist period. His evidence reveals a confused and often conflicted state apparatus, as well as cases of Chinese men and women taking advantage of the law to justify multiple sexual encounters, to marry for beauty, to demand expensive gifts for engagement, and to divorce on multiple occasions. Moreover, he finds, those who were best placed to use the law's more liberal provisions were not well-educated urbanites but rather illiterate peasant women who had never heard of sexual equality; and it was poor men, not women, who were those most betrayed by the peasant-based revolution. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 2000. In 1950, China's new Communist government enacted a Marriage Law to allow free choice in marriage and easier access to divorce. Prohibiting arranged marriages, concubinage, and bigamy, it was one of the most dramatic efforts ever by a state to change mari