"Afterword by Lynn Lohr for Fair Trade USA."

White light. Heat. A drawn-out moment of complete silence. And then the screaming starts. An Underground carriage in London is destroyed by a suicide bomber. The injured and the dead litter the platform. But as a crowd forms at street level, Michael Pope knows that this is only the beginning. Pope, head of top-secret Group Fifteen, is tasked with finding the perpetrators of this atrocity and bringing them to justice, any way he can. He knows that the answers to many of his questions will lie at the end of the money trail, but he also knows that whoever funded and organised the attack will kill again for their freedom. This is an operation that requires a very special kind of agent. Pope needs someone who exists outside of normality. Someone who floats above it, treading softly through a fractured life. He needs the Angel. The Angel is the first part in a continuing story involving Isabella Rose. The story will be continued in Act II, The Asset.

An engrossing and revolutionary biography of Isabella of Castile, the controversial Queen of Spain who sponsored Christopher Columbus's journey to the New World, established the Spanish Inquisition, and became one of the most influential female rulers in history. In 1474, when most women were almost powerless, twenty-three-year-old Isabella defied a hostile brother and a mercurial husband to seize control of Castile and León. Her subsequent feats were legendary. She ended a twenty-four-generation struggle between Muslims and Christians, forcing North African invaders back over the Mediterranean Sea. She laid the foundation for a unified Spain. She sponsored Columbus’s trip to the Indies and negotiated Spanish control over much of the New World. She also annihilated all who stood against her by establishing a bloody religious Inquisition that would darken Spain’s reputation for centuries. Whether saintly or satanic, no female leader has done more to shape our modern world. Yet history has all but forgotten Isabella’s influence. Using new scholarship, Downey’s luminous biography tells the story of this brilliant, fervent, forgotten woman, the faith that propelled her through life, and the land of ancient conflicts and intrigue she brought under her command.

A major biography of the queen who transformed Spain into a principal global power, and sponsored the voyage that would open the New World. In 1474, when Castile was the largest, strongest, and most populous kingdom in Hispania (present day Spain and Portugal), a twenty-three-year-old woman named Isabella ascended the throne. At a time when successful queens regnant were few and far between, Isabella faced not only the considerable challenge of being a young, female ruler in an overwhelmingly male-dominated world, but also of reforming a major European kingdom riddled with crime, debt, corruption, and religious factionism. Her marriage to Ferdinand of Aragon united two kingdoms, a royal partnership in which Isabella more than held her own. Their pivotal reign was long and transformative, uniting Spain and setting the stage for its golden era of global dominance. Acclaimed historian Giles Tremlett chronicles the life of Isabella of Castile as she led her country out of the murky Middle Ages and harnessed the newest ideas and tools of the early Renaissance to turn her ill-disciplined, quarrelsome nation into a sharper, truly modern state with a powerful, clear-minded, and ambitious monarch at its center. With authority and insight he relates the story of this legendary, if controversial, first initiate in a small club of great European queens that includes Elizabeth I of England, Russia's Catherine the Great, and Britain's Queen Victoria.

Three glorious gripping novels - formerly known as The She-Wolves trilogy, now all in one volume for the first time as THE ROSE TRILOGY 'Here is a novelist at ease with her subject. A compulsive read' Anne O'Brien 'A real tour de force of gripping writing, rich historical detail and complex, fascinating characters' Nicola Cornick 'Carol McGrath excels at sweeping the reader away on an engrossing journey through history . . . she brings her characters vividly to life' Jane Johnson 'A wonderful little piece of time travel for any lover of historical fiction' Joanna Courtney 'Full of intricate details, historical accuracy and complex plotting' Alexandra Walsh Three queens of England - and three women who lived in their shadow. THE SILKEN ROSE They called her the She-Wolf. She'd shape the destiny of England ... 1236. Ailenor of Provence, cultured and intelligent, is only thirteen when she meets her new husband, Henry III of England. Rosalind, a commoner catches the young queen's attention and a friendship blossoms. But she is unprepared for the dangerous ramifications of winning the queen's favour ... THE DAMASK ROSE A beloved wife. A hated queen. A journey to her destiny ... 1266. Eleanor of Castile, adored wife of the Crown Prince of England, is still only a princess when she is held hostage in the brutal Baron's Rebellion, and her baby daughter dies. As she rises to become Queen, Eleanor keeps Olwen - a trusted herbalist, by her side. But it is dangerous to be friendless in a royal household, and Olwen and Eleanor discover that the true battle for Europe may not be a matter of swords and lances, but one fanned by whispers and spies. THE STONE ROSE A queen must know her place, in a court of men . . . London, 1350. Agnes, daughter of a stonemason, is struggling to keep her father's trade in a city decimated by plague. And then she receives a mysterious message from the disgraced Queen Isabella: mother of King Edward III, and widow of Edward II. Isabella has a task that only Agnes can fulfil. She wants her truth to be told. But can either woman choose independence, follow her own desires, and survive?

[Siren Publishing: The Lynn Hagen ManLove Collection: Erotic Romance Contemporary, Alternative, Paranormal, Werewolves, Shape-shifters, Romantic Suspense, MM, HEA] Liam’s world came crashing down around him, and now he’s in witness protection from a ruthless criminal who slaughtered Liam’s entire family. Not all of them. Now Liam has custody of his four-year-old nephew who witnessed the murders. Liam is thrust into a small town called Willow Point and has no idea what to do or how to raise a child. When Bruno Rawbone finds out where Liam is hiding, Liam turns to the man who inserts himself into Liam’s life. His knight in furry armor. Gatlin never thought to find his mate. In truth, he never thought to have one. Not when he holds a dark secret that is a mark on his soul. But when he discovers Liam and Morgan renting Braylon’s childhood home, and learns the two are in hiding, Gatlin will protect them with his life. But trouble finds them, and now Liam is missing. It’s up to Gatlin to save his mate and bring him home where he belongs. Lynn Hagen is a Siren-exclusive author.

A follow-up to The Secret Language of Flowers: Notes on the Hidden Meanings of Flowers in Art . To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Louvre pyramid, Jean-Michel Othoniel was invited to create a work relating the importance of flowers in the Museum's eight art departments. The artist photographed the floral wealth concealed in the masterpieces of the Museum's painting, drawing, sculpture, embroidery and enamel collections. Using this, Othoniel composes his own original herbarium, accompanied with notes on the secret language of flowers and their symbolism in the history of art. Among the seventy details of flowers, you will find the thistle in Dürer's selfportrait, the poppy in the Paros funerary stele, the apple sitting on a stool in The Lock by Fragonard, or the peony attached to the unfastened blouse of the young woman in Greuze's Broken Pitcher. The work also introduces us to lesser-known details in works, offering a magnificent treasure hunt for visitors of the museum. Amid this vast prairie spangled with symbolic flowers, the artist asks this question: If there could be only one, which would be the Louvre's flower? A question to which the artist himself offers his own response.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions—now with a new Afterword by the author. #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, O: The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, New York Post, The New York Public Library, Fortune, Smithsonian Magazine, Marie Claire, Slate, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews Winner of the Carl Sandberg Literary Award • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • National Book Award Longlist • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalist • PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Finalist • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Longlist • Kirkus Prize Finalist “As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.” In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched, and beautifully written narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their outcasting of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Original and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.

Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, is the most dangerous city in the world. And when a mission to break the local cartel's grip goes wrong, Isabella Rose, the Angel, finds herself on the wrong side of prison bars. Fearing the worst, Isabella plays her only remaining card... British agent Vivian Bloom is determined to be the first to reach her, certain she will lead him to other operatives he's under pressure to hunt down. But US agents are circling too. And with the shadowy Prometheus group pulling the strings, Isabella knows that she and her mentor, the Asset, are living on borrowed time... The Assassin is the fourth part in a continuing story involving Isabella Rose that also includes Act I: The Angel, Act II: The Asset and Act III: The Agent.