Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s enchanting and unforgettable novel, based on little-known fact, combines the narrative allure of Cane River by Lalita Tademy and the moral complexities of Edward P. Jones’s The Known World as it tells the story of four black enslaved women in the years preceding the Civil War. wench \'wench\ n. from Middle English “wenchel,”1 a: a girl, maid, young woman; a female child. Situated in Ohio, a free territory before the Civil War, Tawawa House is an idyllic retreat for Southern white men who vacation there every summer with their enslaved black mistresses. It’s their open secret. Lizzie, Reenie, and Sweet are regulars at the resort, building strong friendships over the years. But when Mawu, as fearless as she is assured, comes along and starts talking of running away, things change. To run is to leave everything behind, and for some it also means escaping from the emotional and psychological bonds that bind them to their masters. When a fire on the resort sets off a string of tragedies, the women of Tawawa House soon learn that triumph and dehumanization are inseparable and that love exists even in the most inhuman, brutal of circumstances—all while they bear witness to the end of an era. An engaging, page-turning, and wholly original novel, Wench explores, with an unflinching eye, the moral complexities of slavery. “Readers entranced by The Help will be equally riveted by Wench. A deeply moving, beautifully written novel told from the heart.”—USA Today

A funny, fiercely feminist YA epic fantasy—following the adventures of a tavern wench Tanya has worked at her tavern since she was able to see over the bar. She broke up her first fight at 11. By the time she was a teenager she knew everything about the place, and she could run it with her eyes closed. She’d never let anyone—whether it be a drunkard or a captain of the queen’s guard—take advantage of her. But when her guardian dies, she might lose it all: the bar, her home, her purpose in life. So she heads out on a quest to petition the queen to keep the tavern in her name—dodging unscrupulous guards, a band of thieves, and a powerful, enchanted feather that seems drawn to her. Fast-paced, magical, and unapologetically feminist, Wench is epic fantasy like you’ve never seen it before.

"Leveraging her love and knowledge of fine beer, Ashley Routson's book highlights how and why craft beer is such a popular (and growing) industry"--

She fought for liberty in the American Civil War like a woman -- with her beauty, her brains . . . and her body!

Emma Price has eyes like a summer sky and is as kind and generous as she is beautiful. She is in love with Paul Felton and he with her, but their love seems sure to fail as Emma's father works in the coal mine that Paul will inherit when he comes of age. They are too in love to realise that their different classes mean they can never have a future. Paul's brother and guardian Carver Felton is ambitious and revels in cruelty. He razes the village of Plovers Croft, pays subsistence wages to his workers and ruthlessly exploits the greed of his peers and his brother's good nature. And one day, Carver decides to get rid of Emma for good by taking the one thing of value she has – her good reputation. Left with nothing, Emma looks destined for the workhouse, but she has vowed to exact her own revenge on Carver. Who will triumph – the evil Carver, or the humble pit bank wench...

She was slim and she was stacked and the gold of her hair matched the gold of her bank account. In a word, she had everything. The trouble was she was too eager to give it away. The money too. I’m Joe Puma. I was hired to investigate some crackpot cult she was playing around with. The crackpots were mixed up with thugs, the blonde got mixed up in murder and I got mixed up with the blonde. And somewhere a mixed-up killer was waiting to strike again.

Romance author Meg Carroll has a problem. Her new home is haunted by an extremely sexy ghost who refuses to pass on. One who makes her think indecent thoughts about what being with this man would be like. Come along for the wild ride and see for yourself as Alex and Meg blur the lines between real and fantasy.

Even as costumed crime fighter Empowered fights a desperate battle against a functionally invulnerable, grave-robbing supervillain inside a secret underground mausoleum for fallen superheroes, back at Emp's apartment, the alien demonlord imprisoned upon her coffee table spins a tempestuous tell-all tale of the often-struggling heroine's deepest secrets_The scruple-free storyteller soon reveals how all of Empowered's many frustrations at work, at home, and even in the bedroom can be conveyed strictly through the vocabulary of her extraordinarily expressive exhalations, thus making her_"The Wench with a Million Sighs"! Adam Warrenwriter/artist of the English-language Dirty Pair comics and warped mastermind behind the popular _Empowered_ graphic-novel seriesbrings you the first Empowered tale told in conventional comics format! "One of the most laugh-out-loud-funny works I've read in years."Rob Vollmar, Comics Worth Reading "Stellar art, great character work, a sense of humor_Empowered_ has it all."Newsarama "_Empowered_ is Adam Warren's best work yetit's naughty but sweet, and REALLY funny, and the characters are just immensely appealing and likeable. Terrific, terrific stuff."Bruce Timm, producer of _Batman: The Animated Series_

Pull up a stool and learn about beer with the Wench!Craft beer is officially everywhere: there are now more breweries in the United States since any time before prohibition. At the local grocery store, the beer aisle is as big as the cereal aisle. At the bar, it's increasingly hard to choose a beer--the IPA is stronger than the ESB, right?In this book, Ashley V. Routson (aka The Beer Wench) provides the first all-in-one guide that demystifies beer and makes learning fun. She'll quickly bring you up to speed on beer styles, the brewing process, how to taste beer like a pro, and how to pair beer with food. Unconventional tastings, delicious recipes from killer craft breweries, eye-catching photos--and, of course, plenty of beer--means there's never a dull moment.

Winner of the CWA Gold Dagger award, The Wench is Dead is the eighth novel in Colin Dexter's Oxford-set detective series. As portrayed by John Thaw in ITV's Inspector Morse. That night he dreamed in Technicolor. He saw the ochre-skinned, scantily clad siren in her black, arrowed stockings. And in Morse's muddled computer of a mind, that siren took the name of one Joanna Franks . . . Early in the morning of the 22nd of June, 1859, the body of Joanna Franks was found floating at Duke’s Cut along the Oxford Canal – an event which led to the trial and hanging of two suspected murderers. A hundred and thirty years later Chief Inspector Morse is bedbound and recovering from a perforated ulcer at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital when he is handed an old book to read, one that recounts the trial of a murder aboard the Barbara Bray canal boat: the murder of Joanna Franks. Investigating the account of the trial, Morse begins to question whether the two men hanged were truly guilty and sets out to prove his suspicions from the confines of his hospital bed . . . The Wench is Dead is followed by the ninth Inspector Morse book, The Jewel That Was Ours.