Laura applies for the position of personal secretary to Vasilii Demidov, a Russian businessman whose origin is also of the people of the desert. Laura has been yearning for him?this older brother of her friend?and even treasures a photo of him that she secretly took ten years ago. However, for some reason during the interview, he shows a strange animosity against Laura as he asks questions full of malevolence. Although she is furious and wishes to leave, out of his urgent need for a secretary who is fluent in Chinese he unexpectedly hires her. The next day, Laura departs for Monte Negro for a business trip alone with him!

Laura Westcotte is the only suitable candidate for the job as Russian tycoon Vasilii Demidov's secretary. He may be forced to hire Laura, but Vasilii is far too cynical ever to trust a woman--particularly one with such a dubious reputation.... Desperate for work, Laura knows she must impress her cool and complex new boss. However, it's not the chillingly ruthless Russian's legendary reputation that terrifies her, but the magnetic power of her attraction to him And when Laura realizes she's in terrible danger, she finds herself at Vasilii's mercy....

Now in English for the first time, the prequel to Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate, the War and Peace of the twentieth Century. In April 1942, Hitler and Mussolini meet in Salzburg where they agree on a renewed assault on the Soviet Union. Launched in the summer, the campaign soon picks up speed, as the routed Red Army is driven back to the industrial center of Stalingrad on the banks of the Volga. In the rubble of the bombed-out city, Soviet forces dig in for a last stand. The story told in Vasily Grossman’s Stalingrad unfolds across the length and breadth of Russia and Europe, and its characters include mothers and daughters, husbands and brothers, generals, nurses, political activists, steelworkers, and peasants, along with Hitler and other historical figures. At the heart of the novel is the Shaposhnikov family. Even as the Germans advance, the matriarch, Alexandra Vladimirovna, refuses to leave Stalingrad. Far from the front, her eldest daughter, Ludmila, is unhappily married to the Jewish physicist Viktor Shtrum. Viktor’s research may be of crucial military importance, but he is distracted by thoughts of his mother in the Ukraine, lost behind German lines. In Stalingrad, published here for the first time in English translation, and in its celebrated sequel, Life and Fate, Grossman writes with extraordinary power and deep compassion about the disasters of war and the ruthlessness of totalitarianism, without, however, losing sight of the little things that are the daily currency of human existence or of humanity’s inextinguishable, saving attachment to nature and life. Grossman’s two-volume masterpiece can now be seen as one of the supreme accomplishments of twentieth-century literature, tender and fearless, intimate and epic.

God, Tsar, and People brings together in one volume essays written over a period of fifty years, using a wide variety of evidence—texts, icons, architecture, and ritual—to reveal how early modern Russians (1450–1700) imagined their rapidly changing political world. This volume presents a more nuanced picture of Russian political thought during the two centuries before Peter the Great came to power than is typically available. The state was expanding at a dizzying rate, and atop Russia's traditional political structure sat a ruler who supposedly reflected God's will. The problem facing Russians was that actual rulers seldom—or never—exhibited the required perfection. Daniel Rowland argues that this contradictory set of ideas was far less autocratic in both theory and practice than modern stereotypes would have us believe. In comparing and contrasting Russian history with that of Western European states, Rowland is also questioning the notion that Russia has always been, and always viewed itself as, an authoritarian country. God, Tsar, and People explores how the Russian state in this period kept its vast lands and diverse subjects united in a common view of a Christian polity, defending its long frontier against powerful enemies from the East and from the West.

Harlequin Presents® offers you another chance to enjoy these two sensational duets from Entertainment Weekly Top 10 Romance Authors Penny Jordan and Carole Mortimer. The Most Coveted Prize by Penny Jordan Russian oligarch Kiryl Androvonov plans to seduce his rival's sister, the tantalizingly beautiful Alena, and use her to gain the contract that will complete his business empire. But Alena herself might well be the most coveted prize of all… The Power of Vasilii by Penny Jordan Laura Westcotte must impress her cool and complex new boss, tycoon Vasilii Demidov. However, it's not the Russian's ruthless reputation that terrifies her, but the magnetic power of her attraction to him! A Taste of the Forbidden by Carole Mortimer Cesar Navarro's new sexy spitfire of a chef should be off-limits. But Grace has tantalized his jaded palate, and the Argentinian boss finds himself ordering something new from the menu—a taste of the forbidden… A Touch of Notoriety by Carole Mortimer Guarding Beth should be easy for bodyguard Raphael Cordoba as long as he remembers the golden rule: do not touch the client. But feisty Beth requires a particular attentiveness that brings illicit temptation even closer… Carole Mortimer is the recipient of the RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award 2015

A New York Review Books Original Everything Flows is Vasily Grossman’s final testament, written after the Soviet authorities suppressed his masterpiece, Life and Fate. The main story is simple: released after thirty years in the Soviet camps, Ivan Grigoryevich must struggle to find a place for himself in an unfamiliar world. But in a novel that seeks to take in the whole tragedy of Soviet history, Ivan’s story is only one among many. Thus we also hear about Ivan’s cousin, Nikolay, a scientist who never let his conscience interfere with his career, and Pinegin, the informer who got Ivan sent to the camps. Then a brilliant short play interrupts the narrative: a series of informers steps forward, each making excuses for the inexcusable things that he did—inexcusable and yet, the informers plead, in Stalinist Russia understandable, almost unavoidable. And at the core of the book, we find the story of Anna Sergeyevna, Ivan’s lover, who tells about her eager involvement as an activist in the Terror famine of 1932–33, which led to the deaths of three to five million Ukrainian peasants. Here Everything Flows attains an unbearable lucidity comparable to the last cantos of Dante’s Inferno.