"Brad Ricca’s Olive MacLeod is my favorite sort of woman from history—bold and unconventional, utterly unsinkable—and her story is so full of adventure and acts of courage, it’s hard to believe she actually lived. And yet she did! Brad Ricca has found a heroine for the ages, and written her tale with a winning combination of accuracy and imagination." — Paula McLain, author of Love and Ruin and The Paris Wife From the Edgar-nominated author of the bestselling Mrs. Sherlock Holmes comes the true story of a woman's quest to Africa in the 1900s to find her missing fiancé, and the adventure that ensues. In 1910, Olive MacLeod, a thirty-year-old, redheaded Scottish aristocrat, received word that her fiancé, the famous naturalist Boyd Alexander, was missing in Africa. So she went to find him. Olive the Lionheart is the thrilling true story of her astonishing journey. In jungles, swamps, cities, and deserts, Olive and her two companions, the Talbots, come face-to-face with cobras and crocodiles, wise native chiefs, a murderous leopard cult, a haunted forest, and even two adorable lion cubs that she adopts as her own. Making her way in a pair of ill-fitting boots, Olive awakens to the many forces around her, from shadowy colonial powers to an invisible Islamic warlord who may hold the key to Boyd’s disappearance. As these secrets begin to unravel, all of Olive’s assumptions prove wrong and she is forced to confront the darkest, most shocking secret of all: why she really came to Africa in the first place. Drawing on Olive’s own letters and secret diaries, Olive the Lionheart is a love story that defies all boundaries, set against the backdrop of a beautiful, unconquerable Africa. This book is not for sale in the United Kingdom.

True Raiders is The Lost City of Z meets The Da Vinci Code, from critically acclaimed author Brad Ricca. This book tells the untold true story of Monty Parker, a British rogue nobleman who, after being dared to do so by Ava Astor, the so-called “most beautiful woman in the world,” headed a secret 1909 expedition to find the fabled Ark of the Covenant. Like a real-life version of Raiders of the Lost Ark, this incredible story of adventure and mystery has almost been completely forgotten today. In 1908, Monty is approached by a strange Finnish scholar named Valter Juvelius who claims to have discovered a secret code in the Bible that reveals the location of the Ark. Monty assembles a ragtag group of blueblood adventurers, a renowned psychic, and a Franciscan father, to engage in a secret excavation just outside the city walls of Jerusalem. Using recently uncovered records from the original expedition and several newly translated sources, True Raiders is the first retelling of this group’s adventures– in the space between fact and faith, science and romance.

In time for the 75th anniversary of the Man of Steel, comes the first comprehensive literary biography of Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, creators of the DC Comics superhero Superman and the inspiration for Michael Chabon's Kavalier and Clay Drawing on ten years of research in the trenches of Cleveland libraries, boarded-up high schools, and secret, private collections, and a love of comic books, Brad Ricca's Super Boys is the first ever full biography about Superman's creators. Among scores of new discoveries, the book reveals the first stories and pictures ever published by the two, where the first Superman story really came from, the real inspiration for Lois Lane, the template for Superman's costume, and much, much more. Super Boys also tracks the boys' unknown, often mysterious lives after they left Superman, including Siegel's secret work during World War II and never-before-seen work from Shuster. Super Boys explains, finally, what exactly happened with the infamous check for $130 that pulled Superman away from his creators—and gave control of the character to the publisher. Ricca also uncovers the true nature of Jerry's father's death, a crime that has always remained a mystery. Super Boys is the story of a long friendship between boys who grew to be men and the standard that would be impossible for both of them to live up to.

Here is an America of absences, monsters, perfect sandwiches, and opposites. Here Sasquatch hides in Sears at Christmas. The night sky remembers a dog that died in orbit, compliments of the Soviets. And here, in the beginning, a five-foot-four human girl was sniffed for by hounds that stayed on Earth.

Winner of the African Photobook of the Year Award A Choice Outstanding Title of the Year A USA Today "Must-Read for Black History Month" An NPR "Goats and Soda" Editors' Pick A BookRiot Favorite Nonfiction Book of the Year An unprecedented visual history of African women told in striking and subversive historical photographs-featuring an Introduction by Edwidge Danticat and a Foreword by Jacqueline Woodson. Most of us grew up with images of African women that were purely anthropological-bright displays of exotica where the deeper personhood seemed tucked away. Or they were chronicles of war and poverty-“poverty porn.” But now, curator Catherine E. McKinley draws on her extensive collection of historical and contemporary photos to present a visual history spanning a hundred-year arc (1870–1970) of what is among the earliest photography on the continent. These images tell a different story of African women: how deeply cosmopolitan and modern they are in their style; how they were able to reclaim the tools of the colonial oppression that threatened their selfhood and livelihoods. Featuring works by celebrated African masters, African studios of local legend, and anonymous artists, The African Lookbook captures the dignity, playfulness, austerity, grandeur, and fantasy-making of African women across centuries. McKinley also features photos by Europeans-most starkly, striking nudes-revealing the relationships between white men and the Black female sitters where, at best, a grave power imbalance lies. It's a bittersweet truth that when there is exploitation there can also be profound resistance expressed in unexpected ways-even if it's only in gazing back. These photos tell the story of how the sewing machine and the camera became powerful tools for women's self-expression, revealing a truly glorious display of everyday beauty.

Jungle Wife, first published in 1949, is the warm-hearted story of a Philadelphia woman who married a professional hunter and sportsman, Sasha Siemel (1890-1970) and raised a family in the wilds of the Brazilian state Mato Grosso. Sasha met his future wife, Edith Bray Siemel (1919-2012), in Philadelphia while on a lecture tour, and moved together to Brazil where they raised their three young children. The family's many adventures are described in the book. Later, the couple returned to the U.S. and settled on a farm in southeastern Pennsylvania. Included are 2 maps and 8 pages of photographs.

In this gripping tale of passion, politics and conflict, King Henry II finds himself brutally betrayed by his wife Eleanor and three eldest sons when they enter into a rebellion against him. Aligning themselves with Henry's most bitter enemy, King Louis of France, their treacherous actions will have devastating consequences as they bring about the downfall of a brilliant man and a powerful empire. In Devil's Brood, the compelling story of Henry and Eleanor's once great love affair is explored in an uniquely vivid way. What twists of fate turn love to hatred? What points of principle and ambition cause these two icons to struggle for power, leaving their family tragically divided and their turbulent marriage finished in all but name? Sharon Penman's glorious trilogy reaches its spellbinding conclusion.