First in the Fluke Family series, Fluke Family Fortune sets the stage for the comical misadventures of Maynerd Fluke Dumsted. To afford the love of the beautiful but shrewish Sue Tue, Maynerd Dumsted sets out to follow the clues to the family fortune hidden somewhere in the cursed kingdom of Gnat. A sometimes well-intentioned ghost gnome tags along for laughs, but his selfish machinations often mean more trouble for Maynerd. Other friends join the fun, such as the lovable fire-year-old orphan, Dandy May, who cavorts with dandelion fairies; the head-bashing ogress, Grissel who hates songs sung about her; an ineffectual thousand-year-old madman; a retired clodhopper named Sam Simple and his fun loving mule, Jazibell. A family curse and the grandiose scheme of the brigand King Kryan Kruke to transform him into the new national hero, in order to reunite the four scattered kingdoms of the land of Gnaught, further complicates Maynerd's plans to find the family fortune.

Second in the Fluke Family series, Fluke Family Hero explores Maynerd Fluke Dumsted's career as the sheriff of his hometown. King Kryan Kruke now rules the Kingdom of Gnat, but he is still up to his old tricks. He schemes to rule the four lands of Gnaught by capitalizing on Maynerd's relationship to the long dead hero, Richard the Brave. The King hopes to springboard that fame to his advantage by transforming Maynerd into the new national hero. The chance arrivals of bad luck Fata Morgana and a young felon named Blacky further complicates Maynerd's efforts to keep the peace, but Fata may hold the keys to his heart. Dumsted town falls into turmoil when the local banker plots to fix the elections for Mayor and Sheriff by kidnapping the incumbents. He intends to sell them to the notorious bandits, the Moola Rude, but the plan goes awry. With Maynerd's only supporters locked in jail, his fate seems sealed. King Kruke has vanished and Scarface, the leader of the Moola Rude, sits on the throne of Gnat. Oh, where is a hero when a kingdom is in such grave need? Maynerd must save his friends and the Kingdom of Gnat from certain destruction by King Scarface or lose everything.

Going back for generations, the fortunes of great families consist of far more than money; they are also symbols of culture and social interaction. They are at the heart of dense family and extra-family networks, of international coalitions and divisions. The authors elucidate the mechanisms by which they accumulate and expand their wealth, status and influence even while staying out of the public eye. Paradoxically there is a quasi-collective nature to these private fortunes, as families enjoy sojourns at each other's estates, help each other weather difficult times and intermarry.

In the tradition of Sean Wilsey's Oh The Glory of It All and Augusten Burrough's Running With Scissors, the great-great-great granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt gives readers a grand tour of the world of wealth and WASPish peculiarity, in her irreverent and darkly humorous memoir. For generations the Burdens were one of the wealthiest families in New York, thanks to the inherited fortune of Cornelius "The Commodore" Vanderbilt. By 1955, the year of Wendy's birth, the Burden's had become a clan of overfunded, quirky and brainy, steadfastly chauvinistic, and ultimately doomed bluebloods on the verge of financial and moral decline-and were rarely seen not holding a drink. In Dead End Gene Pool, Wendy invites readers to meet her tragically flawed family, including an uncle with a fondness for Hitler, a grandfather who believes you can never have enough household staff, and a remarkably flatulent grandmother. At the heart of the story is Wendy's glamorous and aloof mother who, after her husband's suicide, travels the world in search of the perfect sea and ski tan, leaving her three children in the care of a chain- smoking Scottish nanny, Fifth Avenue grandparents, and an assorted cast of long-suffering household servants (who Wendy and her brothers love to terrorize). Rife with humor, heartbreak, family intrigue, and booze, Dead End Gene Pool offers a glimpse into the fascinating world of old money and gives truth to an old maxim: The rich are different.

CINDERELLA 2.0 Zoe Robinson had never known true love—until Joaquin Mendoza rode into Austin and stole her innocent heart. The new guy at work is brilliant and aloof, but Zoe's nursing a secret of her own: her dad might be connected to the famed Fortune clan! But the determined beauty has never backed down from a challenge—not when it comes to her family, and not when it comes to love. Joaquin believes he's all wrong for the wealthiest gal in Texas—he's got one too many family issues keeping him from surrendering his heart to lovely, innocent Zoe. Until shocking allegations surface about her family drama and Joaquin realizes that he might be the ideal match for his Texas princess after all!

Welcome back to the Five Hundred Kingdoms, where the greatest fortune is the one you make… The seventh daughter of the Sea King, Ekaterina is more than a pampered princess—she's also the family spy. Which makes her the perfect emissary to discover secrets in the neighboring kingdom…and nothing interests her more than Sasha, the seventh son of the king of Belrus. She suspects he's far from the fool people think he is, but before she can find out what lies beneath his façade, she runs into trouble… Kidnapped and trapped in a Jinn’s castle, Ekaterina knows her chances of being found are slim. Now fortune, a fool and a paper bird are the only things she can count on to escape—along with her own clever mind and intrepid heart.… Previously Published. Read the Tale of Five Hundred Kingdoms Series by Mercedes Lackey: Book 1: The Fairy Godmother Book 2: One Good Knight Book 3: Fortune’s Fool Book 4: The Snow Queen Book 5: The Sleeping Beauty Book 6: Beauty and the Werewolf

Written in the form of satire, this tragic story begins with a false report of two signal flares fired by a class enemy in a small town in South China during Mao Zedongs Cultural Revolution. From 1966 to 1976, a haze of persecution, confusion, and hate befell China. The so-called class enemies were paraded through the streets, and schools were closed. Domestic calamities went head to head with political rebellions while spies ran rampant and property was cruelly confiscated. There was an eventual fight for power as brothers mistreated brothers, wives were stolen, and families murdered. Now, decades later, these silenced voices are remembered in order to avoid the repetition of history. A Decade of Nightmares reminds us of what is true, good, and beautiful but also what is false, evil, and ugly. This book dissects the soul of a nation from a historical cross-section. It calls for the return of dignity and reveals the brutal persecution of the soul. From the vicissitudes of fate, we see clearly the extent and depth of the devastation caused by a decade of disaster.

“An extraordinary collection” (San Francisco Chronicle) of twenty-four short stories from Nobel Prize–winning author Alice Munro. “Superb . . . Munro is a writer to be cherished.”—NPR A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Minneapolis Star Tribune A selection of Alice Munro’s most accomplished and powerfully affecting short fiction from 1995 to 2014, these stories encompass the fullness of human experience, from the wild exhilaration of first love (in “Passion”) to the punishing consequences of leaving home (“Runaway”) or ending a marriage (“The Children Stay”). And in stories that Munro has described as “closer to the truth than usual”—“Dear Life,” “Working for a Living,” and “Home”—we glimpse the author’s own life. Subtly honed with her hallmark precision, grace, and compassion, these stories illuminate the quotidian yet astonishing particularities in the lives of men and women, parents and children, friends and lovers as they discover sex, fall in love, part, quarrel, suffer defeat, set off into the unknown, or find a way to be in the world.

A stunning star-crossed love story set against the glitz and grit of 1980s New York City When Elise Perez meets Jamey Hyde on a desolate winter afternoon, fate implodes, and neither of their lives will ever be the same. Although they are next-door neighbors in New Haven, they come from different worlds. Elise grew up in a housing project without a father and didn’t graduate from high school; Jamey is a junior at Yale, heir to a private investment bank fortune and beholden to high family expectations. Nevertheless, the attraction is instant, and what starts out as sexual obsession turns into something greater, stranger, and impossible to ignore. The couple moves to Manhattan in search of a new life, and White Fur follows them as they wander through Newport mansions and East Village dives, WASP-establishment yacht clubs and the grimy streets below Canal Street, fighting the forces determined to keep them apart. White Fur combines the electricity of Less Than Zero with the timeless intensity of Romeo and Juliet in this searing, gorgeously written novel that perfectly captures the ferocity of young love.