Bella And The Merciless Sheikh

When a sheikh rescues a spoiled socialite in the desert, the sun and sand won’t be all that’s heating up in this fiery romance by a USA Today bestseller. Sheikh Zafiq Al-Rashid is furious when his week of solitude is interrupted by Bella Balfour, lost in the desert! While his fierce honor demands he rescue her, the willful heiress is a little less grateful than he’d expected. Zafiq is tempted to leave the spoiled socialite wandering the wilderness . . . but where would be the challenge in that? He’s powerful enough to tame the rebellious beauty. However, when they depart from the seclusion of the oasis, will Zafiq leave the memory of the fiery passion behind or announce to his kingdom that he is taking a queen?

Bella, the daughter of a wealthy family, disgraced the Balfour name and was banished to the desert as punishment. She had lived in the city and led an exciting life?she couldn’t bear the uncivilized life of the desert camp, so she decided to escape to a nearby village… Sheikh Zafiq, the country’s ruler, was headed to the desert for his yearly week of relaxation and meditation when he rescues a woman who has collapsed in his path. What will happen to these opposites who met in the middle of the desert? What will happen when they start living in an oasis together under the same roof?

A curious figure stalks the pages of a distinct subset of mass-market romance novels, aptly called “desert romances.” Animalistic yet sensitive, dark and attractive, the desert prince or sheikh emanates manliness and raw, sexual power. In the years since September 11, 2001, the sheikh character has steadily risen in popularity in romance novels, even while depictions of Arab masculinity as backward and violent in nature have dominated the cultural landscape. An Imperialist Love Story contributes to the broader conversation about the legacy of orientalist representations of Arabs in Western popular culture. Combining close readings of novels, discursive analysis of blogs and forums, and interviews with authors, Jarmakani explores popular investments in the war on terror by examining the collisions between fantasy and reality in desert romances. Focusing on issues of security, freedom, and liberal multiculturalism, she foregrounds the role that desire plays in contemporary formations of U.S. imperialism. Drawing on transnational feminist theory and cultural studies, An Imperialist Love Story offers a radical reinterpretation of the war on terror, demonstrating romance to be a powerful framework for understanding how it works, and how it perseveres.

Arab American women have played an essential role in shaping their homes, their communities, and their country for centuries. Their contributions, often marginalized academically and culturally, are receiving long- overdue attention with the emerging interdisciplinary field of Arab American women’s studies. The collected essays in this volume capture the history and significance of Arab American women, addressing issues of migration, transformation, and reformation as these women invented occupations, politics, philosophies, scholarship, literature, arts, and, ultimately, themselves. Arab American women brought culture and absorbed culture; they brought relationships and created relationships; they brought skills and talents and developed skills and talents. They resisted inequities, refused compliance, and challenged representation. They engaged in politics, civil society, the arts, education, the market, and business. And they told their own stories. These histories, these genealogies, these narrations that are so much a part of the American experiment are chronicled in this volume, providing an indispensable resource for scholars and activists.

Laurel Ferrara wouldn't know a happy ending if she fell over it--of course her whirlwind wedding was always going to end in disaster. But it wasn't as simple as just walking away. From the moment she is summoned back to Sicily, the shivers of unease set in.... The command comes from legendary billionaire Cristiano Ferrara, the husband she can't forget--but it might as well have come from the devil himself. The outrageously gorgeous Cristiano's power is a potent reminder of this Sicilian dynasty's unbreakable rule: once a Ferrara wife, always a Ferrara wife....

With her family business in crisis, Polly Prince does her best to keep calm and carry on. But hard work alone can't save her London company from a takeover by the infamously ruthless Damon Doukakis…or her traitorous body from the lethal sensuality of her boss! As his new apprentice, Polly accompanies Damon to Paris to negotiate the most challenging business deal of her life! Worse still, Polly must at all costs resist Damon in the most dangerously romantic city in the world.…

The Balfour girls are glitzy, glamorous and gorgeous—except Sophie. Convinced she's dumpy and plain, she avoids the limelight. But her father has had enough of Sophie hiding herself away. He's arranged a job for her to boost her self-confidence. Working for gorgeous Sicilian Marco Speranza is a revelation. Sophie knows that she's not pretty enough to catch the eye of such a powerful man, yet he seems determined to seduce her. Does the gorgeous billionaire have an ulterior motive?

She fled from her fairy-tale lifestyle when she'd discovered it was built on lies. Now naive Emily Balfour is struggling to make ends meet. Prince Luis Cordoba instantly recognizes the Balfour heiress—the only woman who didn't fall at his feet! Penniless Emily can't refuse the offer of a roof over her head—even knowing she'll be sharing the playboy's bed! Whisked away to his royal kingdom, inexperienced Emily is no match for Luis's potent sexuality. But her heart is warning her not to become just another notch on his regal bedpost!