I went to the land of my youthful dreams. And it was all true! I knew these people. I knew how they lived and died. I walked among their ruins. I ate their food. I viewed the hills and rivers. And so...let me introduce you to some of my brothers and sisters. Separated by generations, yes, but as close to each other as any family could be. They like me, have failed at times. They cried. They prayed. They laughed. They feared. They loved. And this family has room for you, too.

A writer travels to a fabled estate and uncovers a mystery both sensational and deadly in master storyteller Jennifer Wilde’s novel of unparalleled romantic suspense Mystery novelist Susan Marlow visited Gordonwood only once, as an impressionable twelve-year-old girl, but she never forgot the stately Victorian mansion. When her aunt Agatha invites her for a second visit, she meets Craig Stanton, a devilishly attractive scholar who is writing a history book about Sir Robert Gordon, the legendary Victorian-era explorer. Lady Agatha has given Stanton exclusive access to her family’s papers. But some of those priceless documents are missing. A series of break-ins convince Susan—and the local police—that someone is desperate to get their hands on the Gordon manuscripts. The disappearance of a local girl, a suspicious death, and a body that washes up along the Thames make Susan realize that she might be the final obstacle in a killer’s cunningly orchestrated endgame.

“Spellbinding. Another outstanding novel by Kimberly Belle, masterfully written to lure you in and never let go.” — Samantha Downing, USA Today bestselling author of My Lovely Wife When Charlotte married the wealthy widower Paul, it caused a ripple of gossip in their small lakeside town. They have a charmed life together, despite the cruel whispers about her humble past and his first marriage. But everything starts to unravel when she discovers a young woman’s body floating in the exact same spot where Paul’s first wife tragically drowned. At first, it seems like a horrific coincidence, but the stranger in the lake is no stranger. Charlotte saw Paul talking to her the day before, even though Paul tells the police he’s never met the woman. His lie exposes cracks in their fragile new marriage, cracks Charlotte is determined to keep from breaking them in two. As Charlotte uncovers dark mysteries about the man she married, she doesn’t know what to trust—her heart, which knows Paul to be a good man, or her growing suspicion that there’s something he’s hiding in the water. Don't miss bestselling author Kimberly Belle's next deeply addictive thriller, The Personal Assistant—where she explores the dark side of the digital world when a mommy-blogger’s assistant goes missing! Look for these other pulse-pounding thrillers by Kimberly Belle: The Marriage Lie The Last Breath My Darling Husband Three Days Missing Dear Wife The Ones We Trust

As many critics and theorists have noted, non-pornographic films, documentaries, and quality television series have increasingly included explicit sex scenes since the 1990s, some of such scenes featuring the performance of actual sex acts. The incidence of sex in narratively powerful, resonant visual media can no longer be dismissed as a trend. What was once an aesthetic weapon in the arsenal of provocateurs is now frequently integrated seamlessly into the mise-en-scène and exposition of widely viewed and culturally significant films and television series. Intercourse in Television and Film: The Presentation of Explicit Sex Acts analyzes the aesthetic and narrative contexts for the visual media presentation of the sexual act, both those which are non-simulated and those which are explicit to that point that their simulation is brought into question by the viewer. In this book, questions involving the performance choices of actors, the framing and editing of the sex act, and the director's attempts at integrating sexuality into the overall narrative structure as well as their effects are explored.

Typically, films are suspenseful when they keep us on the edge of our seats, when glimpses of a turning doorknob, a ticking clock, or a looming silhouette quicken our pulses. Exemplified by Alfred Hitchcock’s masterworks and the countless thrillers they influenced, such films captivate viewers with propulsive plots that spur emotional investment in the fates of protagonists. Suspense might therefore seem to be a curious concept to associate with art films featuring muted characters, serene landscapes, and unrushed rhythms, in which plot is secondary to mood and tone. This ambitious and wide-ranging book offers a redefinition of suspense by considering its unlikely incarnations in the contemporary films that have been called “slow cinema.” Rick Warner shows how slowness builds suspense through atmospheric immersion, narrative sparseness, and the withholding of information, causing viewers to oscillate among boredom, curiosity, and dread. He focuses on works in which suspense arises where the boundaries between art cinema and popular genres—such as horror, thriller, science fiction, and gothic melodrama—become indefinite, including Chantal Akerman’s La captive, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria, Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves, Lucrecia Martel’s Zama, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Creepy, and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return. Warner investigates the pivotal role of sound in generating suspense and traces how the experience of suspense has changed in the era of digital streaming. The Rebirth of Suspense develops a fresh theory, history, typology, and analysis of suspense that casts new light on the workings of films across global cinema.

Beasts of the Forest: Denizens of the Dark Woods offers its readers an in-depth and interdisciplinary engagement with the forest and its monstrous inhabitants; through critical readings of folklore, fiction, film, music video and animation. Within the text there are a multitude of convergent critical perspectives used to engage and explore fictional and real monsters of the forest in media and folklore. The collection features chapters from a variety of academic perspectives: film and media studies, cultural studies, queer theory, Tolkien studies, mythology and popular music are featured. Under examination are a wide range of narratives and media forms that represent, reimagine and create the werewolves, witches and weird apparitions that inhabit the forest, along with the forest as a monstrous entity in itself. Whether they be our shelter and safe-haven or the domain of malevolent spirits and sprites, forests have the capacity to horrify and threaten those that venture into them without permission. Human interference has continually threatened forests across the world, yet this threat is reversed in myth, folklore and more recent cultural forms. This collection ranges widely to analyse how forests figure in contemporary culture, as well as the wider contexts in which such representations are inserted.

Twenty-first century media has increasingly turned to provocative sexual content to generate buzz and stand out within a glut of programming. New distribution technologies enable and amplify these provocations, and encourage the branding of media creators as "provocauteurs" known for challenging sexual conventions and representational norms. While such strategies may at times be no more than a profitable lure, the most probing and powerful instances of sexual provocation serve to illuminate, question, and transform our understanding of sex and sexuality. In Provocauteurs and Provocations, award-winning author Maria San Filippo looks at the provocative in films, television series, web series and videos, entertainment industry publicity materials, and social media discourses and explores its potential to create alternative, even radical ways of screening sex. Throughout this edgy volume, San Filippo reassesses troubling texts and divisive figures, examining controversial strategies—from "real sex" scenes to scandalous marketing campaigns to full-frontal nudity—to reveal the critical role that sexual provocation plays as an authorial signature and promotional strategy within the contemporary media landscape.

As my eyes adjust, seeing clearer than I ever have before, I realize that I'm staring at my own sleeping body on the bed in front of me! What is this? I have not died - I know this, I can feel that there is still a connection to the old body I have left behind. My only thought: I have to get help...I have to wake up Grandpa! A week. I was beginning my summer stay with Grandpa for a week - our usual yearly routine. This is the first night of my time over here and I thought I was having trouble falling asleep, but apparently, I was already sleeping and I didn't realize it. As I run in a panic towards his closed door and reach for the doorknob...I can't grab it! My hand passes right through as if I were...a ghost. "What am I?" I ask myself this, and thinking about the doorknob, I decide to hesitantly push my way through the door and suddenly I'm in his room. I immediately run over to Grandpa and my hand passes through him in the same way. "Something happened...I don't know what to call this, but I'm obviously not me!" I cried. Shortly afterward, in the silence and in the middle of my fright, a voice questions, "You feel helpless?" The golden outline of a man appears. I have yet to realize that this man will change my life forever.