This book, the first full-length cross-period comparison of medieval and modern literature, offers cutting edge research into the textual and cultural legacy of the Middle Ages: a significant and growing area of scholarship. At the juncture of literary, cultural and gender studies, and capitalizing on a renewed interest in popular western representations of the Islamic east, this book proffers innovative case studies on representations of cross-religious and cross-cultural romantic relationships in a selection of late medieval and twenty-first century Orientalist popular romances. Comparing the tropes, characterization and settings of these literary phenomena, and focusing on gender, religion, and ethnicity, the study exposes the historical roots of current romance representations of the east, advancing research in Orientalism, (neo)medievalism and medieval cultural studies. Fundamentally, Representing Difference invites a closer look at medieval and modern popular attitudes towards the east, as represented in romance, and the kinds of solutions proposed for its apparent problems.

Her Christmas wish come true… Nurse Eden Hadley hopes for only two things this Christmas. More than anything she wishes that the little orphaned boy on the children's ward, who has stolen her heart, can have one real family Christmas before it's too late. And secondly she wants consultant Nick Watson to notice her again and remember the friendship they once had. But before that can happen, Nick has to reveal the truth about his past…and then maybe he can make both her dreams become reality.

Expecting His Love–Child Carol Marinelli Family once meant everything to Levander Kolovsky until they betrayed him. Now the brooding billionaire trusts only himself: he doesn't want a permanent woman in his life, or an heir to the Kolovsky name. Millie has returned to Australia to find Levander. They shared a night of passion when Millie went from serving him champagne to drinking it out of the finest crystal in his penthouse. However, ordinary girl Millie wasn't seduced by Levander's riches and power, but by the man himself – and now she must reveal her secret to him...

Understanding Africa is critical for all concerned with the world today: in what promises to be his final great work of reportage, one of the keenest observers of the continent surveys the effects of belief and religion on the disparate peoples of Africa. The Masque of Africa is Nobel Prize-winning V. S. Naipaul's first major work of non-fiction to be published since his internationally bestselling Beyond Belief. Like all of Naipaul's great works of non-fiction, The Masque of Africa is superficially a book of travels — full of people, stories and landscapes he visits — but it also encompasses a larger narrative and purpose: to judge the effects of belief (whether in indigenous animisms, faiths imposed by other cultures, or even the cults of leaders and mythical history) upon the progress of civilization.