Laura Robinson's life is on a desperate downward spiral… Both Laura and her dear friend Bette are prostitutes working the streets of Bath, but now Bette is dying, and the possibility of Laura falling into the clutches of a renowned and brutal pimp grows ever more likely. She has to find a way out. Her dreams of being onstage are only heightened once she gets a job as an orange seller at the Theatre Royal. And then she comes to the attention of a handsome and determined playwright. As soon as Adam Lacey sees Laura, he knows he has found the perfect woman to play his heroine Lucinda—he just needs to convince Laura the same. Yet, how was he to know how affected he would be by her violet eyes, fierce intelligence, or her need to look after everything and everyone...including him.

Existing research on monsters acknowledges the deep impact monsters have especially on Politics, Gender, Life Sciences, Aesthetics and Philosophy. From Sigmund Freud’s essay ‘The Uncanny’ to Scott Poole’s ‘Monsters in America’, previous studies offer detailed insights about uncanny and immoral monsters. However, our anthology wants to overcome these restrictions by bringing together multidisciplinary authors with very different approaches to monsters and setting up variety and increasing diversification of thought as ‘guiding patterns’. Existing research hints that monsters are embedded in social and scientific exclusionary relationships but very seldom copes with them in detail. Erving Goffman’s doesn’t explicitly talk about monsters in his book ‘Stigma’, but his study is an exceptional case which shows that monsters are stigmatized by society because of their deviations from norms, but they can form groups with fellow monsters and develop techniques for handling their stigma. Our book is to be understood as a complement and a ‘further development’ of previous studies: The essays of our anthology pay attention to mechanisms of inequality and exclusion concerning specific historical and present monsters, based on their research materials within their specific frameworks, in order to ‘create’ engaging, constructive, critical and diverse approaches to monsters, even utopian visions of a future of societies shared by monsters. Our book proposes the usual view, that humans look in a horrified way at monsters, but adds that monsters can look in a critical and even likewise frightened way at the very societies which stigmatize them.

Never before has so much popular culture been produced about what it means to be a girl in today's society. From the first appearance of Nancy Drew in 1930, to Seventeen magazine in 1944 to the emergence of Bratz dolls in 2001, girl culture has been increasingly linked to popular culture and an escalating of commodities directed towards girls of all ages. Editors Claudia A. Mitchell and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh investigate the increasingly complex relationships, struggles, obsessions, and idols of American tween and teen girls who are growing up faster today than ever before. From pre-school to high school and beyond, Girl Culture tackles numerous hot-button issues, including the recent barrage of advertising geared toward very young girls emphasizing sexuality and extreme thinness. Nothing is off-limits: body image, peer pressure, cliques, gangs, and plastic surgery are among the over 250 in-depth entries highlighted. Comprehensive in its coverage of the twenty and twenty-first century trendsetters, fashion, literature, film, in-group rituals and hot-button issues that shape—and are shaped by—girl culture, this two-volume resource offers a wealth of information to help students, educators, and interested readers better understand the ongoing interplay between girls and mainstream culture.

Elizabeth Simpson Inchbald (1753–1821) was one of the leading literary figures of the late eighteenth century—an actress, a successful playwright and editor of several collections of plays, a popular novelist, and a drama critic. Considered a beautiful, independent woman, Inchbald was much involved in the theatrical, literary, and publishing life of London. Elizabeth Simpson ran away from home at age eighteen to seek fame as an actress in London and quickly married Joseph Inchbald, an actor twice her age. They toured the stage together until his sudden death in 1779. She made her London stage debut a year later, and her writing debut came in 1784 with the play The Mogul Tale; Or, The Descent of the Balloon. Over the next two decades she wrote or adapted twenty-one plays: comedies, farces, and works from French and German, including the version of Kotzebue's Lovers' Vows, later used in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. Inchbald's acclaimed first novel, A Simple Story, prefigured the work of later women writers such as Austen. Using material from Inchbald's own pocket books detailing her daily life (she destroyed most of her letters and journals late in her life at the advice of her Catholic confessor) as well as a wealth of other sources, Annibel Jenkins tells for the first time not only the full story of Mrs. Inchbald's life but also provides a fascinating look at the society and politics, both public and private, of London in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Ashley Johnson is a talented American actress and voice actress who has appeared in a variety of television shows and movies. She made her acting debut in 1990 with a guest appearance on the popular sitcom, Growing Pains. Following this, she landed several small roles in films like Lionheart and Dancer, Texas Pop. 81. In 1994, Ashley's career took off when she was cast as Chrissy Seaver in the family sitcom, Growing Pains. Throughout her career, Ashley has worked in a range of genres and mediums, showcasing her versatility as an actress. She has received critical acclaim for her performances in projects such as What Women Want, The Help, and Blindspot. Ashley is also well known for her voice-over work, lending her voice to popular video game characters like Ellie in the award-winning game, The Last of Us and its sequel, The Last of Us Part II. She has also voiced characters in animated TV shows like Teen Titans Go!, The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and Ben 10: Alien Force.