In 1667 Hal becomes a man after the Dutch torture and kill his father while on his ship off the coast of Africa, and he carefully works his way overland to claim his father's treasure and to face the British captain who betrayed them.
"When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated mountain village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna's eyes, we follow the story of the plague year, 1666, as her fellow villagers make an extraordinary choice. Convinced by a visionary young minister, they elect to quarantine themselves within the village boundaries to arrest the spread of the disease. But as death reaches into every household, faith frays. When villagers turn from prayers and herbal cures to sorcery and murderous witch-hunting, Anna must confront the deaths of family, the disintegration of her community, and the lure of a dangerous and illicit love. As she struggles to survive, a year of plague becomes, instead, annus mirabilis, a "year of wonders.' Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a village in the rugged mountain spine of England. Year of Wonders is a detailed evocation of a singular moment in history."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
In a tale that stretches from Renaissance Italy to the future colonization of the moons of Jupiter, a renegade colonist named Ganymede brings Galileo into the future to alter the history of the human race.
The national bestseller--now in paperback with an exquisite cover with foil and French flaps. Umberto Eco, one of the greatest storytellers of all time, continues to enthrall readers with this exquisitely crafted novel that celebrates the romance, war, politics, philosophy, and science of the baroque period in all its lush and colorful detail.
London 1700. The intrepid and impecunious heroines Countess Ashby de la Zouche and her maidservant, Alpiew, are scavenging for scandal for that scurrilous rag, the London Trumpet. With the bailiffs, as ever, in hot pursuit, the Countess and Alpiew escape to a philosophical lecture at the York Building's concert hall. But their dull evening is confounded when one player staggers onto the stage, hands dripping with blood. A doyenne has been decapitated under their very noses! The unlikely sleuths find an abundance of suspects: players, fanatics, a Punch-and-Judy man -- not to mention a painter with a silver proboscis. They pursue their quarry from the Tower of London to Bedlam, with a brief detour to the wilds of Wapping, uncovering a shocking web of intrigue and corruption extending to the highest echelons of society and the judiciary.
A sweeping epic of two families—one Dutch, one English—from the time when New Amsterdam was a raw and rowdy settlement, to the triumph of the Revolution, when New York became a new nation’s city of dreams. In 1661, Lucas Turner, a barber surgeon, and his sister, Sally, an apothecary, stagger off a small wooden ship after eleven weeks at sea. Bound to each other by blood and necessity, they aim to make a fresh start in the rough and rowdy Dutch settlement of Nieuw Amsterdam; but soon lust, betrayal, and murder will make them mortal enemies. In their struggle to survive in the New World, Lucas and Sally make choices that will burden their descendants with a legacy of secrets and retribution, and create a heritage that sets cousin against cousin, physician against surgeon, and, ultimately, patriot against Tory. In what will be the greatest city in the New World, the fortunes of these two families are inextricably entwined by blood and fire in an unforgettable American saga of pride and ambition, love and hate, and the becoming of the dream that is New York City.
