Lethal Attractions In the gritty underbelly of the city, where danger lurks around every corner, Valentine reigns as one of the formidable leaders of the Sukeban gang. A master of manipulation and a woman of lethal prowess, Valentine is both captivating and deadly. When attractive widower and bank manager Cohen is drawn into her world through his best friend, Alec, he finds himself caught in a whirlwind of passion and peril. As Cohen navigates this treacherous landscape, he is unprepared for the chaos that Valentine brings into his life. With political plots spiraling out of control and death threats hanging over the heads of the Sukeban women, their forbidden romance ignites a fire he never expected. Can love survive in a world where every decision is a gamble, and trust is a rare commodity? "Lethal Attractions" is a thrilling tale of love, loyalty, and the lengths one will go to protect those they care about. Perfect for fans of dark romance and crime fiction, this gripping novel will keep you on the edge of your seat, turning pages late into the night. Dive into "Lethal Attractions" today and discover a world where passion meets danger, and nothing is as it seems.

'Romance' is one of the most enduring of the 'grand narratives': this collection examines the ways in which it is being renegotiated in popular culture in our postmodern, post-colonial times.

Intimate Relationships covers both classic and current material in a concise yet thorough and rigorous manner. Chapters range from attraction to love, attachment to jealousy, conflict to relationship dissolution — all written in a warm, personal, and engaging voice. Each chapter is organized around the major issues and relevant theories, in addition to a critical evaluation about the research. When appropriate, the authors discuss and evaluate popular ideas about relationship processes in the context of scientific research. This includes critical evaluations of evolutionary approaches to attraction, victim-based accounts of abuse, and the separate-cultures view of the sexes.

This bold and original book examines in detail a relatively new genre of film--the erotic thriller. Linda Ruth Williams traces the genre's exploitation of pornography and noir, discusses mainstream stars (including Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone) as well as genre-branded direct-to-video stars, charts the work of key producers and directors, and considers home videos as a distinct form of viewing pleasure. She maps the history of the genre, analyzing hundreds of movies from blockbusters such as Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction, and In the Cut to straight-to-video film titles such as Carnal Crimes, Sins of Desire, and Night Eyes. Williams's witty and illuminating readings tell the story of this sensational genre and contribute to the analysis of mainstream screen sex--and its censorship--at the beginning of the 21st century. She shows that as the erotic thriller plays out the sexual fantasies of contemporary America, it also provides a vehicle for marketing those fantasies globally.

B. Ruby Rich designated a brand new genre, the New Queer Cinema (NQC), in her groundbreaking article in the Village Voice in 1992. This movement in film and video was intensely political and aesthetically innovative, made possible by the debut of the camcorder, and driven initially by outrage over the unchecked spread of AIDS. The genre has grown to include an entire generation of queer artists, filmmakers, and activists. As a critic, curator, journalist, and scholar, Rich has been inextricably linked to the New Queer Cinema from its inception. This volume presents her new thoughts on the topic, as well as bringing together the best of her writing on the NQC. She follows this cinematic movement from its origins in the mid-1980s all the way to the present in essays and articles directed at a range of audiences, from readers of academic journals to popular glossies and weekly newspapers. She presents her insights into such NQC pioneers as Derek Jarman and Isaac Julien and investigates such celebrated films as Go Fish, Brokeback Mountain, Itty Bitty Titty Committee, and Milk. In addition to exploring less-known films and international cinemas (including Latin American and French films and videos), she documents the more recent incarnations of the NQC on screen, on the web, and in art galleries.

Creating a nexus between techno-science and more fundamental disciplines, a phenomenon is emerging in our personal lives: we are beginning to preempt traditional sources for relationship formation; we are becoming more insular and more cautious in starting relationships. The media play an enormous role in our activities, encouraging us to self-advertise in newspapers and magazines, to participate vicariously through pornographic and borderline books, talk radio, and tabloid television, to use our telephones and computers for the ultimate in “safe sex,” to engage in video dating, and to explore many other aspects in the field of technoeroticism. As straight and gay people alike live in a time of reluctant commitments, a period of playtime, and the Age of AIDS, the time has come to chronicle the role of mass communication in our search for interpersonal connections. Media-Mediated Relationships investigates the historical, economic, psychological, and sociocultural ramifications of the print and broadcast media, motion pictures, music, and new communications technologies (computers, video, interactive media, virtual reality, phone sex) in terms of both our individual and societal concerns. An extension of “cultivation analysis” by means of systems theory, it reports on a baseline survey of over 200 people regarding relationship mediation--demonstrating yet one more example of the symbiosis among and between various media sources. A descriptive case study, Media-Mediated Relationships provides a barometer for better understanding the many “singles” and others searching for meaning and relationships in the sociocultural milieu of the 1990s and beyond.

Stalin-era cinema was designed to promote emotional and affective education. The filmmakers of the period were called to help forge the emotions and affects that befitted the New Soviet Person - ranging from happiness and victorious laughter, to hatred for enemies. Feeling Revolution shows how the Soviet film industry's efforts to find an emotionally resonant language that could speak to a mass audience came to centre on the development of a distinctively 'Soviet' cinema. Its case studies of specific film genres, including production films, comedies, thrillers, and melodramas, explore how the genre rules established by Western and prerevolutionary Russian cinema were reoriented to new emotional settings. 'Sovietising' audience emotions did not prove to be an easy feat. The tensions, frustrations, and missteps of this process are outlined in Feeling Revolution, with reference to a wide variety of primary sources, including the artistic council discussions of the Mosfil'm and Lenfil'm studios and the Ministry of Cinematography. Bringing the limitations of the Stalinist ideological project to light, Anna Toropova reveals cinema's capacity to contest the very emotional norms that it was entrusted with crafting.

This volume comprises seven essays by Hans Dieter Betz dealing with contested passages or issues in Paul's most difficult and personal letter written during his imprisonment in Rome. The chapters represent exegetical investigations and apply the methods of rhetorical and literary criticism, including philological and historical analysis. As a result, Betz is able to offer new proposals for interpreting the apostle's unique last message to his churches. The proposals explore the letter's literary composition, genre and history; furthermore they examine Paul's situation prior to his presumed martyrdom, his expectations for the future and his relation to his churches.

In The Trail of Gold and Silver, historian Duane A. Smith details Colorado's mining saga - a story that stretches from the beginning of the gold and silver mining rush in the mid-nineteenth century into the twenty-first century. Gold and silver mining laid the foundation for Colorado's economy, and 1859 marked the beginning of a fever for these precious metals. Mining changed the state and its people forever, affecting settlement, territorial status, statehood, publicity, development, investment, economy, jobs both in and outside the industry, transportation, tourism, advances in mining and smelting technology, and urbanization. Moreover, the first generation of Colorado mining brought a fascinating collection of people and a new era to the region. Written in a lively manner by one of Colorado's preeminent historians, this book honors the 2009 sesquicentennial of Colorado's gold rush. Smith's narrative will appeal to anybody with an interest in the state's fascinating mining history over the past 150 years.