The Ordeal Of Saint Natalia

Andac the narrator is the son of a Syrian and an Alan. Although he is a freeborn Roman citizen, he has always regarded himself as an outsider, and for this reason he feels that he is singularly equipped to tell the story of a young Roman matron who deliberately made herself an outsider by exiling herself from the aristocratic circle in which she was born. In spite of her fabulous wealth, Natalia is determined to emulate her famous grandmother, who lived for years as an ascetic in the harsh desert of the Holy Land. Natalia wants not only to dispose of all her wealth, but also to live in poverty, and to coerce her husband Valerian into a life of chastity. As the story develops, Andac and his friend Valerian see that Natalia's existence has become a life of desperation. For some unknown reason, she has convinced herself that she is worthless and one of the damned. She becomes more and more a fanatic as the years pass, struggling to follow the example of some of the extremists in Africa. At a later time, having moved to the Holy Land, Natalia becomes involved in the power struggle between the great patriarchs of the Eastern church. She has been in contact with Augustine of Hippo, Pelagius, Rufinus of Aquileia, Paulinus of Nola, Jerome, and the Patriarch of Alexandria. Andac survives both Natalia and Valerian. It is he who ultimately finds the cause of Natalia's desperation, and he does his best to tell her story in a way that will engender sympathy, while still preserving what he feels is her deserved reputation as a saint.

Colonel Erbe's daughters have different views of woman's place in the world. The eldest, Dickey, is a confirmed feminist. Her younger sister, Petra, is employed as a cartographer in the US Land Office, rather against her will. She refuses to regard herself as a "career woman." The youngest of the trio, Agatha, is widowed in the first year of her marriage and returns to Washington from a western Army garrison, facing the need to support herself although she has no special training. Much of the story is seen through the eyes of Kurt Steiner, a veteran of the failed revolution in Germany (1848) and of the Union Army. As a friend of Colonel Erbe, and chief of the Land Office cartographic section, he tries to help the young women and becomes entangled in their lives. He features prominently in the consciousness of all three sisters.

The Duke and I Widowed Nicolas Westfall, the Duke of Stapleton, cannot prevent the upcoming debut of his youngest daughter no matter how much he wishes her eventual marriage wouldn’t leave him all alone. Convinced to host a Christmas Ball to prepare her for the season, he’s aware he’s considered a catch on the marriage mart too, but Nicolas is drawn to companion Gillian Thorpe instead. Gillian was hired to prepare the duke’s daughter for her first season, but it's not easy when the girl hasn’t the least interest in men and the widowed father makes her knees weak when he laughs with her. Gillian respects and admires (perhaps too frequently) the Duke of Stapleton so when she’s lured into a mistletoe kiss with him, will she be able to stop at one or even want to? A Gentleman’s Vow Jaded by the experience of dodging fortune hunters during her first season, Lady Jessica Westfall returns home to the estate she loves expecting peace… until the biggest fortune hunter of all follows her from London. To keep Lord James at bay, Jessica enlists the aid of her neighbor, Gideon. As her lifelong friend, Giddy can be trusted to help thwart James’ pursuit, while also satisfying Jessica’s budding interest in things of an intimate nature…things like the kisses she’d missed out on during her season. Gideon Whitfield’s quiet bachelorhood is interrupted by the arrival of a marriage-minded widow to the nearby village, with her sights set on him as her savior. But the greater threat to his peace proves to be his dear friend’s daughter, Lady Jessica Westfall. Gideon has always adored Jessica and had expected the headstrong beauty to marry well in her first season. When she comes to him for help avoiding the unwanted advances of a fortune hunter, and also lessons in love—he may prove utterly incapable of helping her while guarding his own heart in the process. An Earl of Her Own Rebecca Warner’s devotion to her family is the perfect distraction from the loneliness of widowhood. Not that she’d ever admit a need for someone special in her life after her husband’s betrayal. With the responsibility of arranging her sister’s wedding falling into her lap, Rebecca has no time for a certain maddening earl bent on seducing her—until he proves her most ardent ally. For Adam Croft, Earl of Rafferty, what began as an amusing pursuit—shocking Rebecca Warner—becomes something deeper when he recognizes how perfect a wife and mother she would make. Adam’s keenly aware of his loneliness…and that his habit to curb it with drink lost him Becca’s respect. He’ll happily change his ways to win her approval, but what more can he do to win her love? The Lady Tamed Fortune hunters and fools. Those are the gentlemen Fanny Rivers has endured since her husband’s passing. Men who believe women too feeble-brained to manage a fortune, much less help it grow. So for her sister’s upcoming wedding festivities, she’s combined her business acumen with her habit of collecting strays—hiring an actor to play her besotted beau. And it’s working marvelously. Too marvelously. Before long, her attraction to Jeremy makes it difficult to discern fact from fiction, and Fanny herself is in danger of falling for her own scheme. Jeremy Dawes can scarcely believe his luck when Fanny Rivers agrees to be his patroness. Despite learning he’s the latest in a long line of charity cases, he willingly takes on the most complicated role of his fledgling career—that of a proper gentleman. She’ll never need know of his unsavory beginnings, though the closer they become, the more Jeremy wishes he could be what she deserves. It’s only after a thrilling moment of intimacy—and a regrettable decision by Fanny—that Jeremy finds unexpected allies in the negotiation for his savvy lady’s heart. Four complete stand-alone steamy regency romances

The author of Unexpected Return weaves a tale and leads us by the hand down the paths of her imagination fecund with dreams and ideas. Unexpected Return's author starts off at a site from which she moves onwards in the vehicle of a narrative free from vanity and the constraints of effete literature. Thus in the hands of her characters---each masterfully situated within his own milieu---she achieved that for which she was striving: a concatenation of countless events, woes, tears, tragedies and times of anguish which make each character spring to life upon this novel's stinging pages. She describes with passionate affliction the arduous personal fight of one man to outrun a past which overshadowed his present and mercilessly punished him. A man who unflaggingly sought a possible redemption to deliver him beyond all doubt to the embrace of the only woman whom he ever truly loved.

Fifteen countries have emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union. Freedom's Ordeal recounts the struggles of these newly independent nations to achieve freedom and to establish support for fundamental human rights. Although history has shown that states emerging from collapsed empires rarely achieve full democracy in their first try, Peter Juviler analyzes these successor states as crucial and not always unpromising tests of democracy's viability in postcommunist countries. Taking into account the particularly difficult legacies of Soviet communism, Freedom's Ordeal is distinguished by its careful tracing of the historical background, with special attention to human rights before, during, and after communism. Juviler suggests that the culture and practices of despotism may wither wherever modernization conflicts with tyranny and with the curtailment or denial of democratic rights and freedoms.

This volume makes available for the first time in English a variety of primary source materials relating to the life and work of Natalia Shelikov, a pioneering nineteenth-century Russian-American businesswoman. As a principal of the Russian-American Company, Shelikov worked in Alaska, and her business acumen and wide-ranging connections—including the empress of Russia and a swathe of northern leaders—were crucial to the growth of Alaska’s economy, as well as to the welfare of the Native people, in whose life and culture she took a strong interest. The letters, petitions, and personal documents presented here will be indispensable for students of Alaska and nineteenth-century women’s history.