MAIL-ORDER MARRIAGE It’s whispered in Smoke River that single father Thad MacAllister is a few quarters short of a dollar: his ambitious plans for his farm are downright crazy and his young son is heading off the rails. This family needs a woman’s touch! But the arrival of Leah Cameron, Thad’s mail-order bride, causes a ripple of disapproval.

Hailed as "powerful," "accomplished," and "spellbinding," Lalita Tademy's first novel Cane River was a New York Times bestseller and the 2001 Oprah Book Club Summer Selection. Now with her evocative, luminous style and painstaking research, she takes her family's story even further, back to a little-chronicled, deliberately-forgotten time...and the struggle of three extraordinary generations of African-American men to forge brutal injustice and shattered promise into a limitless future for their children... For the newly-freed black residents of Colfax, Louisiana, the beginning of Reconstruction promised them the right to vote, own property-and at last control their own lives. Tademy saw a chance to start a school for his children and neighbors. His friend Israel Smith was determined to start a community business and gain economic freedom. But in the space of a day, marauding whites would "take back" Colfax in one of the deadliest cases of racial violence in the South. In the bitter aftermath, Sam and Israel's fight to recover and build their dreams will draw on the best they and their families have to give-and the worst they couldn't have foreseen. Sam's hidden resilience will make him an unexpected leader, even as it puts his conscience and life on the line. Israel finds ironic success-and the bitterest of betrayals. And their greatest challenge will be to pass on to their sons and grandsons a proud heritage never forgotten-and the strength to meet the demands of the past and future in their own unique ways. An unforgettable achievement, a history brought to vibrant life through one of the most memorable families in fiction, Red River is about fathers and sons, husbands and wives-and the hopeful, heartbreaking choices we all must make to claim the legacy that is ours.

A New York Times bestseller and Oprah's Book Club Pick-the unique and deeply moving saga of four generations of African-American women whose journey from slavery to freedom begins on a Creole plantation in Louisiana. Beginning with her great-great-great-great grandmother, a slave owned by a Creole family, Lalita Tademy chronicles four generations of strong, determined black women as they battle injustice to unite their family and forge success on their own terms. They are women whose lives begin in slavery, who weather the Civil War, and who grapple with contradictions of emancipation, Jim Crow, and the pre-Civil Rights South. As she peels back layers of racial and cultural attitudes, Tademy paints a remarkable picture of rural Louisiana and the resilient spirit of one unforgettable family. There is Elisabeth, who bears both a proud legacy and the yoke of bondage... her youngest daughter, Suzette, who is the first to discover the promise-and heartbreak-of freedom... Suzette's strong-willed daughter Philomene, who uses a determination born of tragedy to reunite her family and gain unheard-of economic independence... and Emily, Philomene's spirited daughter, who fights to secure her children's just due and preserve their dignity and future. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Cane River presents a slice of American history never before seen in such piercing and personal detail.

Sixteen-Year-Old Celstia spends every summer with her family at the elite resort at Lake Conemaugh, a shimmering Allegheny Mountain reservoir held in place by an earthen dam. Tired of the society crowd, Celestia prefers to swim and fish with Peter, the hotel’s hired boy. It’s a friendship she must keep secret, and when companionship turns to romance, it’s a love that could get Celestia disowned. These affairs of the heart become all the more wrenching on a single, tragic day in May, 1889. After days of heavy rain, the dam fails, unleashing 20 million tons of water onto Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in the valley below. The town where Peter lives with his father. The town where Celestia has just arrived to join him. This searing novel in poems explores a cross-class romance—and a tragic event in U. S. history.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Giver of Stars and the forthcoming Someone Else's Shoes, a post-WWII story of the war brides who crossed the seas by the thousands to face their unknown futures 1946. World War II has ended and all over the world, young women are beginning to fulfill the promises made to the men they wed in wartime. In Sydney, Australia, four women join 650 other war brides on an extraordinary voyage to England—aboard HMS Victoria, which still carries not just arms and aircraft but a thousand naval officers. Rules are strictly enforced, from the aircraft carrier’s captain down to the lowliest young deckhand. But the men and the brides will find their lives intertwined despite the Navy’s ironclad sanctions. And for Frances Mackenzie, the complicated young woman whose past comes back to haunt her far from home, the journey will change her life in ways she never could have predicted—forever.

Readers continue to be charmed by bestselling author Georgette Heyer, the Queen of Regency Romance, and her flashes of wit, wonderful dialogue, and delightful intrigue. An impetuous flight... Tiffany Wield's bad behavior is a serious trial to her chaperone. "On the shelf" at twenty-eight, Ancilla Trent strives to be a calming influence on her tempestuous charge, but then Tiffany runs off to London alone and Ancilla is faced with a devastating scandal. A gallant rescue... Sir Waldo Hawkridge, confirmed bachelor and one of the wealthiest men in London, comes instantly to the aid of the intrepid Ancilla to stop Tiffany's flight, and in the process discovers that it's never too late for the first bloom of love. Praise for Georgette Heyer: "A writer of great wit and style... I've read her books to ragged shreds."—Kate Fenton, Daily Telegraph "Triumphantly good...Georgette Heyer is unbeatable."—India Knight, Sunday Telegraph

It was a battle that would change the course of World War II... New York Times bestselling author Lauren Tarshis commemorates the Normandy landings in this pulse-pounding story of the largest seaborne invasion in history. Eleven-year-old Paul’s French village has been under Nazi control for years. His Jewish best friend has disappeared. Food is scarce. And there doesn’t seem to be anything Paul can do to make things better. Then Paul finds an American paratrooper in a tree near his home. The soldier says the Allies have a plan to crush the Nazis once and for all. But the soldier needs Paul’s help. This is Paul’s chance to make a difference. Soon he finds himself in the midst of the largest invasion in history. Can he do his part to turn horror into hope? New York Times bestselling author Lauren Tarshis tells the story of the battle that became the foundation for the Allied victory in World War II. Includes a section of nonfiction backmatter with more facts about the real-life event.

This fascinating book is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time. In this sense, nearly all Americans are "Albion's Seed," no matter what their ethnicity may be. The concluding section of this remarkable book explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still help to shape attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.

The invention of mass marketing led to cigarettes being emblazoned in advertising and film, deeply tied to modern notions of glamour and sex appeal. It is hard to find a photo of Humphrey Bogart or Lauren Bacall without a cigarette. No product has been so heavily promoted or has become so deeply entrenched in American consciousness. And no product has received such sustained scientific scrutiny. The development of new medical knowledge demonstrating the dire harms of smoking ultimately shaped the evolution of evidence-based medicine. In response, the tobacco industry engineered a campaign of scientific disinformation seeking to delay, disrupt, and suppress these studies. Using a massive archive of previously secret documents, historian Allan Brandt shows how the industry pioneered these campaigns, particularly using special interest lobbying and largesse to elude regulation. But even as the cultural dominance of the cigarette has waned and consumption has fallen dramatically in the U.S., Big Tobacco remains securely positioned to expand into new global markets. The implications for the future are vast: 100 million people died of smoking-related diseases in the 20th century; in the next 100 years, we expect 1 billion deaths worldwide.

1654: Following the death of her young husband, Catrin Barentsdochter takes a job as a housekeeper in Amsterdam. The city is flourishing; and as she assists her mistress with painting lessons, she dreams of developing her own skill as an artist. But when the past catches up with her, Catrin must leave behind the comfortable security of her new home for the smaller city of Delft. There she is introduced to Evert van Nulandt, owner of a pottery factory. Working together, they dream of replicating the prized blue-and-white porcelain arriving from the Far East. And Catrin dreams of a life in which her secret stays safely buried...