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Welcome to an awe-inspiring world of Shanghai in the roaring 1920s.
White colonialists see themselves as the supreme race exploiting China for its cheap labor and reaping the rewards of its opium market. But then Russians come and ruin the perfect world Europeans and Americans built for themselves in China. Fleeing the Bolsheviks, Russian refugees arrive in thousands, noblemen and common laborers alike, ready to take any job and get their hands dirty. They don’t care if it made other white people look not so exceptional in front of the locals.
Klim Rogov, a Russian journalist famous for his wit, used to be a rich man who won the heart of a brilliant, passionate young business woman, Nina Kupina. Now, they find themselves in a rusty refugee ship anchoring in Shanghai harbor without money, documents, and any prospect in the near future, but Klim believes that he and Nina can cope with any challenge as long as they are together.
One night, Nina disappears from the ship amidst strange circumstances, and Klim’s fellow refugees suspect that she ran away with another man.
Once in the city, Klim is rejected by both the whites and the Chinese, and his only dubious ally is a difficult teenage dancer who decides to seduce him for sport. Klim knows that the “fallen gods” should keep a low profile, but he is obsessed with winning his life back and finding out what happened to Nina.
He writes a diary, which becomes a whimsical China travel guide to the world of weapon smugglers, opium traders, corrupt police, and communist agents doing everything possible to ignite a civil war in China.
But when Klim discovers Nina’s dark secret, he begins to doubt if he can handle it. And to make things worse, the Chinese nationalists gather an army and launch an attack on defenseless Shanghai.

**The #1 *New York Times* bestselling author and «one of the great storytellers of our time» ( *San* *Francisco Book Review* ) turns from the glamour of the royal courts to tell the story of an ordinary woman, Alinor, who cannot bear to conform to the life that lies before her.**Midsummer’s Eve, 1648, and England is in the grip of a civil war between a renegade king and a rebellious parliament. The struggle reaches every corner of the kingdom, even to the remote Tidelands—the marshy landscape of the south coast.Alinor, a descendant of wise women, trapped in poverty and superstition, waits in the graveyard under the full moon for a ghost who will declare her free from her abusive husband. Instead, she meets James, a young man on the run, and shows him the secret ways across the treacherous marsh, not knowing she is leading disaster into the heart of her life.Suspected of possessing dark secrets in superstitious times, Alinor’s ambition…

With the advent of Joseph Stalin to power in 1927, the Soviet Union begins to turn into a monstrous totalitarian state eager to enslave its own population and consume the neighboring countries. But the world is not aware of what is going on since Soviet Russia closely guards its secrets and knows how to deal with the inquisitive.
Nina Kupina, a Russian political exile, is abducted by the Soviet agents in China who bring her to Moscow. She takes refuge at the house of Oscar Reich, an American millionaire who, unaccountably, has a privilege to run a private enterprise in the USSR.
Nina suspects that Mr. Reich is not who he pretends to be, and there is some shady deal between him and the Bolsheviks. But she accepts his advances, knowing that he is the only person able to help her return home to her husband, Klim, who is living in Shanghai.
Little does she know that Klim is already in Russia looking for her. To make inquiries about Nina’s whereabouts, he takes a position in the United Press as a correspondent in Moscow. His search leads him not to the reunion with his wife but to his imminent arrest as a spy. And Oscar Reich is ready to do everything to make sure Klim gets into the trap set by the OGPU (the predecessor of the KGB).

The thirteen qualities of Robin’s Perfect Man range from the mildly important «Handsome»? to the all-important «Great taste in music.»? After all, Westfield’s best high school folk musician can’t go out with some schmuck who only listens to top 40 crap. So when hot Carter Paulson walks in the door of Robin’s diner, it looks like the list may have come to life after all…until she realizes he’s profoundly deaf.
Carter isn’t looking for a girlfriend. Especially not a hearing one. Not that he has anything against hearing girls, they just don’t speak the same language. But when the cute waitress at Grape Country Dairy makes an effort to talk with him, he takes her out on his yellow Ducati motorcycle.
Music, language, and culture all take a backseat as love drives the bike. But how long can this summer really last?

Savannah Darby would do almost anything to revisit her family home. So when new owner, Aidan Bedford, a Boston attorney and former Union soldier, seeks to redecorate the house for his fiancée, Savannah jumps at the opportunity. But the clock is ticking. Can she find the box her father supposedly hid there during the war before her assignment is completed? And before she sees yet another battle lost on the home front. This time, one of the heart.
*To Mend a Dream* is one of four Southern love stories included in the collection entitled AMONG THE FAIR MAGNOLIAS which features Tamera’s novella (sold separately here), as well as novellas by Shelley Shepard Gray, Dorothy Love, and Elizabeth Musser (Harper Collins).
This novella includes a scrumptious Southern recipe perfect for a book club meeting. Discussion questions included.

**Embark on the breathtaking romantic adventures of The Lady Travelers Society in the brand-new series by #1** **New York Times** **bestselling author Victoria Alexander**
Really, it’s too much to expect any normal man to behave like a staid accountant in order to inherit the fortune he deserves to support the lifestyle of an earl. So when Derek Saunders’s favorite elderly aunt and her ill-conceived—and possibly fraudulent—Lady Travelers Society loses one of their members, what’s a man to do but step up to the challenge? Now he’s escorting the world’s most maddening woman to the world’s most romantic city to find her missing relative.
While India Prendergast only suspects his organization defrauds gullible travelers, she’s certain a man with as scandalous a reputation as Derek Saunders cannot be trusted any farther than the distance around his very broad shoulders. As she struggles not to be distracted by his wicked smile and the allure of…

**From Christi Caldwell – *Only for Her Honor
***
When Captain Lucas Rayne returned from fighting Boney’s forces, he was a shell of the man he’d been—until Eve Ormond begins work in his household. Desperate for new beginnings, Eve conceals secrets of her past from her employer. But can she break down the walls protecting Lucas’s heart, or will the secrets between them shatter all hope of true love?
**From Eva Devon – *Sleepless in a Scandal
***
All Lady Felicity Drake wants is to make a good match but after her father leaves herself and her sisters almost entirely ruined due to some very scandalous behavior, such a thing is next to impossible. . . That is, until she’s caught in a compromising position with the Marquess of Talbot. The question is, will the oh so staid Marquess save her from the proverbial wolves or will he leave her to her scandal?
**From Elizabeth Essex – *A Fine Madness*** ** *
***
*Miss Otis regrets…
*
The entirely of Miss Elspeth Otis’s inheritance from her wastrel of a father is a battered old trunk with some scrawled-upon foolscap sheets. Nothing that could free her from a stifling life with her fusty maiden aunties in a musty old cottage in a misty corner of Scotland. Nothing that will give her the life she’s always dreamed of—a life full of kindness and kisses and love. Or will it?
*Nothing…
*
Mr. Hamish Cathcart wants more than anything to avoid the hasty marriage to a brewer’s daughter his father, the earl, has arranged to revive his fortunes. Hamish’s only hope is his failing publishing company, whose only asset is a scandalously banned book by an infamous, but unfortunately deceased, author. But when a new novel written by the same man lands on Hamish’s doorstep, he’ll go to any length to secure it—any length but love.
**From Anthea Lawson – *A Lady’s Choice*
**
Lady Sara Ashford has spent years cultivating her spotless reputation: a difficult task in the face of her mother’s scandalous exploits abroad. Now she is set on a path toward a perfect, respectable future—until the highly unsuitable Comte du Lac comes to London, and she is given the task of instructing him on how to behave properly in English Society.
At first Lady Sara finds him intolerable, but after he steals a kiss she realizes he is a terrible danger to her future. As soon as possible, she must put him out of her life—and her heart—forever.
**From Erica Ridley – *Lord of Chance
***
Charming rake Anthony Fairfax is on holiday to seek his fortune…and escape his creditors. When an irresistible Lady Luck wins him in a game of chance—and a slight mishap has them leg-shackled by dawn—the tables have finally turned in his favor. But when past demons catch up to them, holding on to new love will mean destroying their dreams forever.

The year is 1917. Ten years after leaving his home on bad terms, Klim Rogov returns to Russia to claim his inheritance after his wealthy father’s death. As a famous journalist now holding Argentinean citizenship, he wants nothing to do with the ongoing Great War, Tsar Nicholas II, or the collapsing Russian Empire.
Klim knows that he should leave the country as soon as possible, but then he meets Nina, a young businesswoman, and falls in love with her. She is, in some ways, an “immigrant” too—a brave soul who dared to enter the hostile, man-dominated world of business and succeeded despite the odds. But all of her achievements are ruined during a gloomy October night when the Reds seize power and ban all private property.
People like Klim and Nina suddenly become public enemies. As a foreign citizen, Klim has a chance to escape the civil war unleashed by the Bolshevik revolution, though now he feels like a first-class passenger on the Titanic, who has to save only himself or die.
Time is running out, and Klim must make a fateful decision that will cost him dearly either way.

Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
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**January – Duke in Winter by Alyssa Alexander** — When the highwayman demanded that the Duke of Highrow stand and deliver, he didn’t know she would steal his heart.
**February – The Difference One Duke Makes by Elizabeth Essex** — All it takes is one frosty night for two imperfect people, former naval commander Marcus Beecham and ruined Penelope Pease, to meet and make the perfect February Valentine.
**March – Discovering the Duke by Madeline Martin** — Reunited at a house party after a lackluster start to their marriage, the Duke of Stedton attempts to win his Duchess’ heart. Will a sizzling wager be enough to melt the frost between them, or will it truly remain the coldest winter in London?
**April – The Duke and the April Flowers by Grace Burrowes** — The Duke of Clonmere must marry one of the Earl of Falmouth’s three giggling younger daughters, but Lady Iris—Falmouth’s oldest, who is not at all inclined to giggling—catches Clonmere’s eye, and his heart!
**May – Love Letters from a Duke by Gina Conkle** — The Duke of Richland needs a proper duchess, but he wants his thoroughly fun, entirely inappropriate neighbor, Mrs. Charlotte Chatham. She’s widowed, older, and if the whispers prove true—barren.
**June – Her Perfect Duke by Ella Quinn** — Still suffering over the loss of his wife and child, Giles, Duke of Kendal sees Lady Thalia Trevor at a market and is instantly smitten. There is only one problem. She is already betrothed to another man. Will she defy her powerful father to marry him?
**July – How to Ditch a Duke by May McGoldrick** — Lady Taylor Fleming is an heiress with a suitor on her tail. Her plan to ditch him is simple, escape to the Highlands. But there is nothing simple about the Duke of Bamberg. And even with the best laid plans, things can go awry…
**August – To Tempt A Highland Duke by Bronwen Evans** — Widowed Lady Flora Grafton must be dreaming. Dougray Firth, Duke of Monreith, who once pledged her his heart but then allowed her to marry another, has just proposed. Why now, after eight years? When she learns the truth, can she trust Dougray to love her enough this time?
**September – Duke in Search of a Duchess by Jennifer Ashley** — The meticulous Duke of Ashford is dismayed when his children ask Helena Courtland, the gossipy, busybody young widow next door, to find Ash a new wife. But she sweeps into his home and his life, turning Ash’s precisely ordered world into a chaotic whirlwind.
**October – Dear Duke by Anna Harrington** — When the Duke of Monmouth, decides to build a canal, he isn’t prepared for an old mill owner and his daughter to stand in his way. The only person who understands him is the anonymous pen pal to whom he’s been pouring out his heart, a woman not at all who she seems.
**November – Must Love Duke by Heather Snow** — Lady Emmaline Paulson already has the only Duke she wants in her life—an adorable puppy she rescued from the Serpentine with the help of a handsome stranger. Can Maxwell Granville, heir to a dukedom, convince her there’s room for him, too?
**December – The Mistletoe Duke by Sabrina York** — The Duchess of Devon can’t think of a better way to tempt her widowed son into marrying again, than to throw a Christmas Ball. And there simply must be mistletoe everywhere! But it’s not until Jonathan meets his mother’s humble companion under the mistletoe, that fireworks erupt.
**January – Dueling with the Duke by Eileen Dreyer** — When Adam Marrick, Duke of Rothray, shows up on Georgie Grace’s doorstep, she thinks it is to become acquainted with his cousin James’s widow and daughter. Instead he brings news that will completely upend their lives and put them all in danger.