Fashion reporter Lacey Smithsonian is touring a failing velvet factory in Virginia on its final day of operations-and finds one of the factory owners dead, lashed to a spool of velvet and soaked in blue dye. The workers are delighted, since they blamed the "Blue Devil" for killing their jobs. But when another nickname, the "Velvet Avenger", makes the rounds, and ribbons of blue velvet start popping up, it could be more than Lacey's job at stake-it could be her life...

From New York Times bestselling author Simon Baatz, the first comprehensive account of the murder that shocked the world. In 1901 Evelyn Nesbit, a chorus girl in the musical Florodora, dined alone with the architect Stanford White in his townhouse on 24th Street in New York. Nesbit, just sixteen years old, had recently moved to the city. White was forty-seven and a principal in the prominent architectural firm McKim, Mead & White. As the foremost architect of his day, he was a celebrity, responsible for designing countless landmark buildings in Manhattan. That evening, after drinking champagne, Nesbit lost consciousness and awoke to find herself naked in bed with White. Telltale spots of blood on the bed sheets told her that White had raped her. She told no one about the rape until, several years later, she confided in Harry Thaw, the millionaire playboy who would later become her husband. Thaw, thirsting for revenge, shot and killed White in 1906 before hundreds of theatergoers during a performance in Madison Square Garden, a building that White had designed. The trial was a sensation that gripped the nation. Most Americans agreed with Thaw that he had been justified in killing White, but the district attorney expected to send him to the electric chair. Evelyn Nesbit's testimony was so explicit and shocking that Theodore Roosevelt himself called on the newspapers not to print it verbatim. The murder of White cast a long shadow: Harry Thaw later attempted suicide, and Evelyn Nesbit struggled for many years to escape an addiction to cocaine. The Girl on the Velvet Swing, a tale of glamour, excess, and danger, is an immersive, fascinating look at an America dominated by men of outsize fortunes and by the women who were their victims.

Lily Ivory hopes to score some great vintage fashions when she buys an antique trunk full of old clothes. But she may have gotten more than she bargained for.… As soon as Lily opens the trunk, she feels strange vibrations emanating from a mysterious velvet cloak. When she tries it on, Lily sees awful visions from the past. And when the antiques dealer who sold her the cape is killed, Lily suspects a supernatural force might be behind his death. Then Lily’s familiar, Oscar the potbellied pig, disappears. Lily will do anything to get him back—including battling the spirit of a powerful witch reaching out from the past. But even with the aid of her grandmother, unmasking a killer and saving Oscar might be more than one well-intentioned sorceress can handle.

Velvet is a laundress in a Victorian steam laundry. With both her mother and father dead, she is an orphan and has to rely upon her own wits to make a living. The laundry's work is back-breaking and Velvet is desperate to create a better life for herself. Then Velvet is noticed by Madame Savoya, a famed medium, who asks Velvet to come to work for her. Velvet is dazzled at first by the young yet beautifully dressed and bejewelled Madame. But soon Velvet realises that Madame Savoya is not all that she says she is, and Velvet's very life is in danger . . . A romantic and thrillingly exciting new novel from an acclaimed and much loved historical writer for teens.

50 Masterpieces you have to read before you die is the book that everyone should read to understand themselves and each other. The authors and works for this book were selected, as a result of numerous studies, analysis of the texts over the past 100 years and the demand for readers. It must be read in order to understand the world around us, its history, to recognize the heroes, to understand the winged expressions and jokes that come from these literary works. Reading these books will mean the discovery of a world of self-development and self-expression for each person. These books have been around for decades, and sometimes centuries, for the time they recreate, the values they teach, the point of view, or simply the beauty of words. This volume includes famous works: Frances Hodgson Burnett - The Secret Garden Homer - The Iliad Homer - The Odyssey Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens - Great Expectations Charles Dickens - Bleak House Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist Lyman Frank Baum - The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne - The House Of The Seven Gables Thomas Hardy - Jude The Obscure Robert Louis Stevenson -The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson - Treasure Island Henry Haggard - King Solomon's Mines Wilkie Collins - The Woman In White H. G. Wells - The Island Of Doctor Moreau Sir Walter Scott - Ivanhoe Wilkie Collins - The Moonstone A Romance Lucy Maud Montgomery - Anne Of Green Gables Louisa May Alcott - Little Women Henry Fielding - Amelia Mary Shelley - Frankenstein, Or The Modern Prometheus Arthur Conan Doyle - The Lost World Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina Euripides - Medea Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Idiot Fyodor Dostoevsky - Crime And Punishment Alexander Pushkin - Eugene Onegin A Romance Of Russian Life In Verse James Fenimore Cooper - The Last Of The Mohicans Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe Joseph Conrad - Heart Of Darkness Jonathan Swift - Gulliver’s Travels William Shakespeare - Romeo And Juliet William Shakespeare - Hamlet, Prince Of Denmark William Shakespeare - Othello Oscar Wilde - The Picture Of Dorian Gray John Bunyan - The Pilgrim's Progress From This World To That Which Is To Come Charles Darwin - The Origin Of Species Or The Preservation Of Favoured Races In The Struggle For Life Alfred Tennyson - Idylls Of The King Bram Stoker - Dracula James Joyce - Ulysses Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy Howard Pyle - Robin Hood Jane Austen - Emma Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights Thomas Hardy - Tess Of The D'urbervilles A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented Giovanni Boccaccio - The Decameron Rudyard Kipling - The Jungle Book

This book, first published in 1989, examines the controversial position of commercial utilisation in relation to wildlife conservation. Production of large mammals has earned respectability as an agricultural strategy and its evaluation has been listed as a priority requirement in the World Conservation Strategy. However, many authorities question whether wildlife production is a viable economic and environmental strategy, and suggest that it runs counter to its claimed purpose. This book evaluates this controversy by chronicling the changing role of wildlife and by reflecting on the implications of these trends. The book should be of interest to people both applauding and deploring the use of wildlife in this economic role.

The women of the Potluck Club have decided on a bold move. They're launching a catering business that's a lot like them: saucy, spicy, and well-seasoned. But will personal secrets cause the business to crumble before it gets off the ground? As the women focus on their new venture they will have to deal with a steamy past that threatens a marriage, the scalding truth about those they thought they knew, and the outrageous situations that come out of an unexpected--and revealing--trip back home. Readers will be delighted to see that the ladies of Summit View, Colorado, haven't left the kitchen--they've merely turned up the heat on their most delectable adventure to date.