He probably thinks he has only to stand there to seduce women. Cally goes to a bar with a mysterious, handsome man she met at an auction, and they end up sharing a passionate kiss. Cally is a painting restorator, and she was desperate when she lost the paintings she longed to work on at the auction. But the man bandons her after their kiss, leaving her unsatisfied. The next day, she receives an email. The prince of an island in the Mediterranean Sea wants her to restore his paintings. What Cally doesn'’t know is that the prince is the man she shared the kiss with, and he'’s also the one who bought the paintings she yearns to work on!

It's the night of a most glamorous art auction in London, and Cally Greenway is due to land the restoration commission of her dreams…. Until the paintings sell to an unknown bidder and, devastated and dashed, Cally uncharacteristically finds solace in the arms of a handsome yet ruthless stranger. He's the very same man who bought her precious paintings—the Prince of Montéz! Leon summons Cally by royal decree—His Majesty wants a mistress: biddable, pleasurable…and pregnant?

Featuring rumpled PIs, shyster lawyers, corrupt politicians, double-crossers, femmes fatales, and, of course, losers who find themselves down on their luck yet again, film noir is a perennially popular cinematic genre. This extensive encyclopedia describes movies from noir's earliest days – and even before, looking at some of noir's ancestors in US and European cinema – as well as noir's more recent offshoots, from neonoirs to erotic thrillers. Entries are arranged alphabetically, covering movies from all over the world – from every continent save Antarctica – with briefer details provided for several hundred additional movies within those entries. A copious appendix contains filmographies of prominent directors, actors, and writers. With coverage of blockbusters and program fillers from Going Straight (US 1916) to Broken City (US 2013) via Nora Inu (Japan 1949), O Anthropos tou Trainou (Greece 1958), El Less Wal Kilab (Egypt 1962), Reportaje a la Muerte (Peru 1993), Zift (Bulgaria 2008), and thousands more, A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Film Noir is an engrossing and essential reference work that should be on the shelves of every cinephile.

Throughout history women have caused wars, defied the rules, and brought men to their knees. The famous and the infamous, queens, divorcées, actresses, and outlaws have created a ruckus during their lifetimes-turning heads while making waves. Scandalous Women tells the stories of the risk takers who have flouted convention, beaten the odds, and determined the course of world events. *When Cleopatra (69 BC-30 BC) wasn't bathing in asses' milk, the last pharaoh of the Ptolemaic dynasty ruled Egypt and forged an important political alliance with Rome against her enemies-until her dalliance with Marc Antony turned the empire against her. *Emilie du Châtelet (1706-1748), a mathematician, physicist, author, and paramour of one of the greatest minds in France, Voltaire, shocked society with her unorthodox lifestyle and intellectual prowess-and became a leader in the study of theoretical physics in France at a time when the sciences were ruled by men. *Long before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1928) fought to end discrimination and the terrible crime of lynching and helped found the NAACP, but became known as a difficult woman for her refusal to compromise and was largely lost in the annals of history. *Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) had a passion for archaeology and languages, and left her privileged world behind to become one of the foremost chroniclers of British imperialism in the Middle East, and one of the architects of the modern nation of Iraq.