Planning her wedding takes a dangerous turn, when a woman realizes a member of her engagement party would rather kill her than walk down the aisle. So far, Miss Samantha Hastings' engagement to Benjamin, Lord Westwood, has been tumultuous at best. Kidnapped by the man who murdered her father, nearly beaten to death, and severely poisoned, Samantha barely manages to escape alive. When the killer reveals his revenge plot had assistance, the Hastings and Westwood families must band together to defend themselves against a new threat, and Samantha concocts a risky plan to draw the accomplice out of hiding. However, this scheme may cost her more than she is willing to sacrifice. There is a traitor in their midst—one who has already committed murder and is willing to do so again. The masked ball approaches and, by the evening's end, at least one more person will die. Will Samantha survive until her wedding day... or will her imperfect engagement become a grizzly prelude to murder? The second book into this intriguing series drags you deeper into the mystery, surrounding the reader in a dizzying array of passion, intrigue, and the richness of the Victorian era. In the vein of Deanna Raybourn and Amanda Quick, this darker installment of the Wiltshire Chronicles will reveal the violent nature of man.] Click now to capture the culprits. *Author's note - Dear readers, this story is part two of a trilogy, with a happily ever after in this book and a surprising conclusion in book 3.

My first impression in reading this text was that it was rightly named in its title. Indeed the author intends to lead the reader through an exploration of a book that he describes as an imperfect book, and does so in a way that enables the book to speak for itself. Given the fact that so many approach the Book of Mormon through lenses already adjusted to read the text for apologetic purposes, I found the author's engagement of the Book of Mormon to be respectfully and critically refreshing. Feeling unable to rely on historians, archeologists, self-designated authorities, or others with sure knowledge of the Book of Mormon, the author turns to the book itself for what it might reveal about itself. Rather than turning to external evidences to vindicate the central claims of the Book of Mormon, the author invites the reader to explore internal evidences to be discovered in the book itself. He does this while engaging a broad range of contemporary scholarship. Dale E. Luffman, Association for Mormon Letters

An Imperfect God is a major new biography of Washington, and the first to explore his engagement with American slavery When George Washington wrote his will, he made the startling decision to set his slaves free; earlier he had said that holding slaves was his "only unavoidable subject of regret." In this groundbreaking work, Henry Wiencek explores the founding father's engagement with slavery at every stage of his life--as a Virginia planter, soldier, politician, president and statesman. Washington was born and raised among blacks and mixed-race people; he and his wife had blood ties to the slave community. Yet as a young man he bought and sold slaves without scruple, even raffled off children to collect debts (an incident ignored by earlier biographers). Then, on the Revolutionary battlefields where he commanded both black and white troops, Washington's attitudes began to change. He and the other framers enshrined slavery in the Constitution, but, Wiencek shows, even before he became president Washington had begun to see the system's evil. Wiencek's revelatory narrative, based on a meticulous examination of private papers, court records, and the voluminous Washington archives, documents for the first time the moral transformation culminating in Washington's determination to emancipate his slaves. He acted too late to keep the new republic from perpetuating slavery, but his repentance was genuine. And it was perhaps related to the possibility--as the oral history of Mount Vernon's slave descendants has long asserted--that a slave named West Ford was the son of George and a woman named Venus; Wiencek has new evidence that this could indeed have been true. George Washington's heroic stature as Father of Our Country is not diminished in this superb, nuanced portrait: now we see Washington in full as a man of his time and ahead of his time.

Ditch the storybook wedding, banish Bridezilla, and walk down the aisle in truth and in style: You are a Stone Fox Bride and this is your bridal guide. Molly Rosen Guy founded the brand Stone Fox Bride as an alternative to outdated, plastic-princess wedding culture. Her stylish and subversive approach is being embraced by creative, modern brides who believe in love and romance, but have no interest in running off into the sunset. In an inspiring mix of intimate storytelling, gorgeous visuals, and candid advice, with an aesthetic that channels Bianca Jagger in a white tux rather than Cinderella in a frilly gown, Molly Rosen Guy—your cool, hippie chic guide through the wilds of wedding planning—encourages brides-to-be, and their ladies in tow, to say no to all things phony, frilly, and silly. Featuring personal essays that explore the nuances of the process, including a raw, unairbrushed look at the realities of the early days of marriage, she tells us that a Stone Fox Bride should never sacrifice her style, her story, or her sanity to please others; she reassures us that weddings don't have to be free of confusion, shades of gray, or cellulite; and reminds us that marriage, like love, is equal parts complicated and beautiful. Praise for Molly Rosen Guy and the Stone Fox Bride phenomenon “The current wedding-wear darling of the jammin’ and Instagrammin’ set [offers] an insouciant, antiestablishment approach to weddings.”—The New York Times “[Molly Rosen Guy is] making waves in the bridal industry thanks to her eclectic eye and refusal to conform to clichéd traditions.”—W “Molly Rosen Guy built a business filling the needs of women who long for something more than your run-of-the-mill, princess-y flou for their big day.”—Vogue

Explores the hidden political and ethical dimensions of the work of Samuel Beckett, an author who might otherwise be considered indifferent to such considerations.

"... aspirations to perfection awaken us to our actual imperfection." It is in the space between these aspirations and our inability to achieve them that Grant reflects upon imperfection. Grant argues that an awareness of imperfection, defined as both suffering and the need for justice, drive us to an unrelenting search for perfection, freedom, and self-determination. The twenty-one brief chapters of Imperfection develop this governing idea as it relates to the present situation of the God debate, modern ethnic conflicts, and the pursuit of freedom in relation to the uncertainties of personal identity and the quest for self-determination.

The theory of cosmopolitanism is built on a paradoxical commitment to a universal idea of humanity and to a respect for human pluralism. Toward an Imperfect Education critiques the assumed "goodness" of humans that underwrites the idea of humanity and explores how antagonistic human interactions such as conflict, violence, and suffering are a fundamental aspect of life in a pluralistic world. This book proposes that the inescapable difference between humans compels our ethical and political observations in education. Todd persuasively argues that facing humanity in all its complexity and imperfection ought to be a central element of the cosmopolitan project to create a more just and humane education. Informed primarily by poststructural philosophy and feminist theory, she focuses on how sexual, cultural, and religious difference intersect with universal claims made in the name of humanity. Individual chapters develop a novel framework for dealing with antagonism in relation to human rights, democracy, citizenship, and cross-cultural understanding.

Architects have long operated based on the assumption that a building is 'complete' once construction has finished. Striving to create a perfect building, they wish for it to stay in its original state indefinitely, viewing any subsequent alterations as unintended effects or the results of degeneration. The ideal is for a piece of architecture to remain permanently perfect and complete. This contrasts sharply with reality where changes take place as people move in, requirements change, events happen, and building materials are subject to wear and tear. Rumiko Handa argues it is time to correct this imbalance. Using examples ranging from the Roman Coliseum to Japanese tea rooms, she draws attention to an area that is usually ignored: the allure of incomplete, imperfect and impermanent architecture. By focusing on what happens to buildings after they are ‘complete’, she shows that the ‘afterlife’ is in fact the very ‘life’ of a building. However, the book goes beyond theoretical debate. Addressing professionals as well as architecture students and educators, it persuades architects of the necessity to anticipate possible future changes and to incorporate these into their original designs.