The Prisoner of Zenda - Anthony Hope - The Prisoner of Zenda (1894), by Anthony Hope, is an adventure novel in which the King of Ruritania is drugged on the eve of his coronation and thus is unable to attend the ceremony. Political forces within the realm are such that, in order for the king to retain the crown, his coronation must proceed. Fortuitously, an English gentleman on holiday in Ruritania who resembles the monarch is persuaded to act as...

Why do otherwise intelligent individuals form seething masses of idiocy when they engage in collective action? Why do financially sensible people jump lemming-like into hare-brained speculative frenzies--only to jump broker-like out of windows when their fantasies dissolve? We may think that the Great Crash of 1929, junk bonds of the '80s, and over-valued high-tech stocks of the '90s are peculiarly 20th century aberrations, but Mackay's classic--first...

This rather simple plot is a most compelling drama that bristles with suspense as it contains all the elements of a classic 19th-century mystery including, reversed identities, a horrible crime, an eccentric detective, and a tense courtroom scene. Set in the fictional frontier town of Dawson's Landing on the banks of the Mississippi River in the first half of the 19th century, the book turned from a farce to a tragedy in the course of Twain's writing...

"Evie Porter has everything a nice, Southern girl could want: a perfect, doting boyfriend, a house with a white picket fence and a garden, a fancy group of friends. The only catch: Evie Porter doesn't exist. The identity comes first: Evie Porter. Once she's given a name and location by her mysterious boss Mr. Smith, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it. Then the mark: Ryan Sumner. The last piece of the puzzle...

As the fires of war raged around him, Lord Alleyne Bedwyn was thrown from his horse and left for dead—only to awaken in the bedchamber of a ladies' brothel. Suddenly the dark, handsome diplomat has no memory of who he is or how he got there—yet of one thing he is certain: The angel who nurses him back to health is the woman he vows to make his own. But like him, Rachel York is not who she seems. A lovely young woman caught up in a desperate...

When a man's family is abducted following the seeming reappearance of his long-lost brother, he'll go to any lengths to save them in this heart-pounding thriller by award-winning author David Morrell.
Brad Denning is a successful architect living a perfect life in Denver with his loving wife and son. Or so it would be, if not for the haunting memory of his brother Petey who disappeared while under Brad's supervision when they were kids....

"In a world dominated by the brutal Vathek empire, eighteen-year-old Amani is a dreamer. She dreams of what life was like before the occupation; she dreams of writing poetry; she dreams of having adventures, and travelling beyond her isolated home. But when adventure comes for Amani, it is not what she expects: she is kidnapped and brought to the royal palace, where she discovers that she is to become a body double for the hated princess Maram"--

The Inventive Peasant Arnaud du Tilh had almost persuaded the learned judges at the Parlement of Toulouse, when on a summer's day in 1560 a man swaggered into the court on a wooden leg, denounced Arnaud, and reestablished his claim to the identity, property, and wife of Martin Guerre. The astonishing case captured the imagination of the Continent. Natalie Zemon Davis reconstructs the lives of ordinary people, in a sparkling way that reveals the hidden...

"Twenty years ago, Myra Barkley's daughter disappeared from the rocky beach across from the family inn, on the Oregon coast. Ever since, Myra has waited at the front desk for her child to come home. One rainy afternoon, the miracle happens - her missing daughter, now twenty-eight years old with a child of her own, walks in the door. Elizabeth Lark is on the run with her son. She's just killed her abusive husband and needs a place to hide. Against...

In 1870, during the heart of the war between France and Germany, two women's lives tragically and fatefully intersect. When Grace Roseberry, an Englishwoman traveling home, is struck by a mortar shell, French nurse Mercy Merrick seizes upon the chance to escape her checkered past and reinvent herself in England.