"You'll be mine. You'll be my wife." With her identity concealed, Allegra Valenti enters Italy's most glorious masquerade ball determined to make happy memories to sustain her through her impending coldly arranged betrothal. But a passionate encounter with a masked stranger has consequences that tear apart her dutiful life. Brooding Spanish duke Cristian Acosta cannot believe the masked siren he let his guard down for was his best friend's sister—the pampered heiress he grew up despising. To safeguard the Acosta legacy, Cristian must adorn Allegra with a trinket of his own—a gold wedding band!

Leandro Carrera Marquez, Duque de Sandoval, was as aristocratic, proud and arrogant as his name…and darkly handsome in an impossible, breathtaking way. What would this billionaire Spanish banker want with a struggling, impoverished waitress like Molly? But Leandro did want Molly—and he took her, accidentally making her pregnant with his child. In Leandro's traditional world, there was only one option—marry the mother of his heir. After all, none of his noble ancestors had actually married for love….

In the early years of the 18th century, a band of French scientists set off on a daring, decade-long expedition to South America in a race to measure the precise shape of the earth. Like Lewis and Clark's exploration of the American West, their incredible mission revealed the mysteries of a little-known continent to a world hungry for discovery. Scaling 16,000foot mountains in the Peruvian Andes, and braving jaguars, pumas, insects, and vampire bats in the jungle, the scientists barely completed their mission. One was murdered, another perished from fever, and a third-Jean Godin-nearly died of heartbreak. At the expedition's end, Jean and his Peruvian wife, Isabel Gramesen, became stranded at opposite ends of the Amazon, victims of a tangled web of international politics. Isabel's solo journey to reunite with Jean after their calamitous twenty-year separation was so dramatic that it left all of 18th-century Europe spellbound. Her survival-unprecedented in the annals of Amazon exploration-was a testament to human endurance, female resourcefulness, and the power of devotion. Drawing on the original writings of the French mapmakers, as well as his own experience retracing Isabel's journey, acclaimed writer Robert Whitaker weaves a riveting tale rich in adventure, intrigue, and scientific achievement. Never before told, The Mapmaker's Wife is an epic love story that unfolds against the backdrop of "the greatest expedition the world has ever known."

“Just for tonight, forget about the future. Be with me…” Those are the words Angel, a very wealthy mogul from New York, whispered to Belle, the far-less-wealthy waitress. She has trouble believing the hot, arrogant prince wants her. It can’t be… But with the way his gleaming eyes are looking at her, his attraction can’t be denied. Belle decides that, for once, she won’t be the good girl! It was just supposed to be a night to remember. Belle didn’t expect it to become something she might regret for the rest of her life…

Samuel Williams (1743-1817) was a minister, astronomer, newspaper editor, surveyor, social historian, and philosopher. While a student at Harvard, he assisted John Winthrop on an expedition to Newfoundland to observe the 1761 transit of Venus. Following Winthrop as Hollis Professor of Natural Philosophy, Williams modernized the teaching of science at Harvard, taught such illustrious students as John Quincy Adams, and led a Harvard expedition to observe the solar eclipse of 1780. He was a major force in the founding of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, contributing many of its first scientific papers. To escape a charge of forgery Williams fled to Vermont by night on horseback. There he preached the Enlightenment view that mankind could achieve the greatest happiness in a life based on the God-given power of reason. Williams founded and edited the Rutland Herald, wrote one of the first histories of the American Revolution, and one of the first state histories, The Natural and Civil History of Vermont. He was co-founder of the University of Vermont and taught astronomy there. Superior surveying skills enabled him in 1806 to add 600 square miles of Canadian-claimed territory to the state of Vermont. In 1970, the American Philosophical Society published Williams's Philosophic Lectures, yet Williams has remained little known. The author hopes this book will correct this.

Taken: The Spaniard's Virgin Lucy Monroe Her innocence turned on Spanish billionaire Miguel Menendez in ways it probably shouldn't have. But she was a model – exposed across countless magazines and on billboards every day. Although Amber Taylor hadn't been with a man before, Miguel's penetrating grey eyes, his rich Castilian accent and his Mediterranean charm made her feel beautiful for the first time in her life. Could there be more between Amber and Miguel than just a two–week affair?

This volume of the Documentary History of the Jews in Sicily is the eighteenth volume of the two series and concludes them. It is a monograph describing the last centuries of the Jewish presence on the island, under the rule of Aragon and Spain and a sequel to the Introduction at the beginning of volume one. It is based on the documents contained in vols 2-17 and illustrates the political, legal, economic, social and religious history of the Jewish minority and its relations with the Christian majority. The records show that the Jews in Sicily were citizens and suffered from relatively few disabilities. This was true in particular in the economic sphere. No discriminatory legislation forced them into moneylending and trade in old clothes. They engaged in agriculture and industry, trade and commerce, including international trade and shipping, and in most professions, which in turn enhanced their social status. There was as an unusually large number of craftsmen and physicians among them. The majority, however, were labourers, on the land and in town. In the fifteenth century the Jewish population reached 25,000 or thereabouts. All this came to a sudden end with the expulsion order issued by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492. Some 80% of the Jews went into exile, while the remainder converted to Catholicism, only to be caught in the net of the Spanish inquisition. This volume is provided with addenda and corrigenda, additional bibliography and indexes.

The history of the Jews in Sicily covers a period of over a thousand years, from Antiquity to the Expulsion, based on some 40,000 archival records, most of them hitherto unpublished. It illustrates the political, legal, economic, social and religious vicissitudes of the Jewish minority and its relations with the surrounding majority of Romans, Moslems and Christians. While the antecedents of the Jewish presence on the island are shrouded in mystery, more and more historical records surface with the passage of time. Those become abundant toward the later Middle Ages. At that time the Jews in Sicily were citizens and suffered from relatively few disabilities. This was true in particular in the economic sphere. No discriminatory legislation forced them into moneylending and trade in old clothes. They engaged in agriculture and industry, trade and commerce, including international trade and shipping, and in most professions, which in turn enhanced their social status. There was as an unusually large number of craftsmen and physicians among them. The majority, however, were labourers, on the land and in town. In the fifteenth century the Jewish population reached 25,000 or thereabouts, over half of contemporary Italian Jewry. All this came to a sudden end with the expulsion order issued by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492. Some 80% of the Jews went into exile, while the remainder converted to Catholicism, only to be caught in the net of the Spanish inquisition. "This final volume of Simonsohn’s series provides readers with an excellent opportunity to obtain the gist of the scholarship in the previous volumes. Replete with tables detailing commodity prices, wages and salaries, marriage contracts, and demographics this work is an extremely informative and very readable description of the interaction between Jews and non-Jews in a not-so-closed society in the Middle Ages." Randall C. Belinfante, Librarian/Archivist, American Sephardi Federation, New York (AJL Reviews, Nov/Dec 2011)

Christopher Heaney takes the reader into the heart of Peru's past to relive the dramatic story of the final years of the Incan empire, the recovery of their final cities and the fight over their future. Drawing on original research in untapped archives, Heaney portrays both a stunning landscape and the complex history of a region that continues to inspire awe and controversy today. --from publisher description