Download or read book The Secret History written by Procopius and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2007-10-04 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A trusted member of the Byzantine establishment, Procopius was the Empire's official chronicler, and his History of the Wars of Justinian proclaimed the strength and wisdom of the Emperor's reign. Yet all the while the dutiful scribe was working on a very different - and dangerous - history to be published only once its author was safely in his grave. The Secret History portrays the 'great lawgiver' Justinian as a rampant king of corruption and tyranny, the Empress Theodora as a sorceress and whore, and the brilliant general Belisarius as the pliable dupe of his scheming wife Antonina. Magnificently hyperbolic and highly opinionated, The Secret History is a work of explosive energy, depicting holy Byzantium as a hell of murder and misrule.
Download or read book Empress Of Mijak written by Karen Miller and published by HarperCollins Australia. This book was released on 2010-02-01 with total page 13 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A truly epic fantasy of power and politics, treason and betrayal, and the rise and fall of Empires ... When a scrawny unwanted girl child is sold into slavery, a chain of events is set in motion that will have a profound impact on all the civilized world.Hekat is taken in chains to Mijak's largest city, home of the warlord Raklion. She is sold into his service and learns all she can about power - its wielding and its uses - as she fetches and carries and cleans and serves. She grows into a beautiful woman and through ambition and manipulation, Hekat becomes a powerful woman eventually taking over the rulership of Mijak ... and then she sets about making it the greatest Empire ever known.
Download or read book Fathermucker written by Greg Olear and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A day in the life of a dad on the brink: Josh Lansky—second-rate screenwriter, fledgling freelancer, and stay-at-home dad of two preschoolers—has held everything together while his wife is away on business . . . until this morning’s playdate, when he finds out through the mommy grapevine that she might be having an affair. What Josh needs is a break. He’s not going to get one.
Download or read book The Empress Holds the Key written by Gabriel Geza Farago and published by Moshpit Publishing. This book was released on 2013 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you enjoy current best-selling thriller novels by authors such as Clive Cussler, James Rollins, Steve Berry and Brad Thor, if you like high adventure, exotic locations and action thrillers with a historical twist, then this is page-turner for you THE EMPRESS HOLDS THE KEY is a mystery action thriller for the thinking reader who has an open mind and likes to be challenged. In THE EMPRESS HOLDS THE KEY, author Gabriel Farago takes you on an exciting journey of discovery where the stakes are high, the rewards great, but where the price of failure is oblivion. This fast-paced international thriller weaves fact and fiction into an adventure of epic proportions as it follows the lives of a handful of diverse individuals tied together by destiny and fate. Journalist Jack Rogan knows a great story when he finds one. A charred old photograph found in the ruins of a burnt-out Blue Mountains cottage hints at dark secrets and unwittingly reignites an ancient and deadly quest for a holy relic mysteriously erased from the pages of history. Federal Police officer Jana Gonski in pursuit of a suspected Nazi war criminal joins forces with Rogan, barrister and amateur archaeologist Marcus Carrington QC, and celebrated composer Benjamin Krakowski. Together they uncover a murky web of intrigue and greed, hoards of Nazi gold and hidden Swiss bank accounts. All implicate wealthy banker Sir Eric Newman. When Newman goes on trial, unexpected clues are discovered pointing the way to a mystery that has haunted the Catholic Church for centuries. On a dangerous journey to find the relic, Rogan and his companions trace links back as far as the reign of Akhenaten, the heretic pharaoh of ancient Egypt, and King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. What is this dark secret guarded by the Knights Templar, and so feared by the Vatican? Will religious fanatics foil the quest which could destroy the very foundations of their Church and challenge Christianity itself? To preview the opening chapters, please click on the Look Inside Feature.
Download or read book The Alexiad written by Anna Komnene and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2009-08-06 with total page 1069 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revised edition of Anna Komnene's Alexiad, to replace our existing 1969 edition. This is the first European narrative history written by a woman - an account of the reign of a Byzantine emperor through the eyes and words of his daughter which offers an unparalleled view of the Byzantine world in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Download or read book Dirty Rubles written by Greg Olear and published by Four Sticks Press. This book was released on 2018-05-23 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trump/Russia is the greatest political scandal in American history. It's also the most complex. In this remarkable and necessary work, novelist Greg Olear weaves the loose threads of Trump/Russia into a short, easy-to-follow narrative. Dirty Rubles is an ideal primer for those new to the story, a useful review for those already in the know, and a guidebook for the agnostic #MAGA fan--a compelling overview of Trump/Russia that every American should read.
Download or read book I the Supreme written by Augusto Roa Bastos and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I the Supreme imagines a dialogue between the nineteenth-century Paraguayan dictator known as Dr. Francia and Policarpo Patiño, his secretary and only companion. The opening pages present a sign that they had found nailed to the wall of a cathedral, purportedly written by Dr. Francia himself and ordering the execution of all of his servants upon his death. This sign is quickly revealed to be a forgery, which takes leader and secretary into a larger discussion about the nature of truth: “In the light of what Your Eminence says, even the truth appears to be a lie.” Their conversation broadens into an epic journey of the mind, stretching across the colonial history of their nation, filled with surrealist imagery, labyrinthine turns, and footnotes supplied by a mysterious “compiler.” A towering achievement from a foundational author of modern Latin American literature, I the Supreme is a darkly comic, deeply moving meditation on power and its abuse—and on the role of language in making and unmaking whole worlds.
Download or read book Totally Killer written by Greg Olear and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-09-16 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Smart, unexpected, and wonderfully savage in its humor. Totally Killer nails, without mercy, the mood and minutiae of a weary America at the end of the 20th century.” —Brad Listi, author of Attention. Deficit. Disorder. Debut novelist Greg Olear gets nostalgic for a recently bygone era with Totally Killer—a quirky, darkly funny, and fiendishly clever noirish tale of intrigue and suspense. The ’90s are back in this brilliant collision of conspiracy theory and pop culture that ingeniously blends assassination, politics, paranoia, Dick Cheney, CIA duplicity, and Duran Duran. The raves are already rolling in for this wonderfully twisted tale of an innocent and beautiful young Midwestern girl who finds a “totally killer” job through a most unusual employment agency in New York City. Jerry Stahl, bestselling author of Permanent Midnight, says, “The title doesn’t lie—Totally Killer truly is.”
Download or read book Daughters of Ruin written by K. D. Castner and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a war begins, four princesses of enemy kingdoms who were raised as sisters must decide where their loyalties lie: to their kingdoms, or to each other.
Download or read book Daughters of Rome written by Kate Quinn and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-04-05 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fast-paced historical novel about two women with the power to sway an empire, from the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Alice Network and The Diamond Eye. A.D. 69. The Roman Empire is up for the taking. Everything will change—especially the lives of two sisters with a very personal stake in the outcome. Elegant and ambitious, Cornelia embodies the essence of the perfect Roman wife. She lives to one day see her loyal husband as Emperor. Her sister Marcella is more aloof, content to witness history rather than make it. But when a bloody coup turns their world upside-down, both women must maneuver carefully just to stay alive. As Cornelia tries to pick up the pieces of her shattered dreams, Marcella discovers a hidden talent for influencing the most powerful men in Rome. In the end, though, there can only be one Emperor...and one Empress.
Download or read book The Secret History written by Donna Tartt and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2004-04-13 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK • INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A contemporary literary classic and "an accomplished psychological thriller ... absolutely chilling" (Village Voice), from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Goldfinch. Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries. But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality. “A remarkably powerful novel [and] a ferociously well-paced entertainment.... Forceful, cerebral, and impeccably controlled.” —The New York Times
Download or read book The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter written by Timothy Miller and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paris, 1890. When Sherlock Holmes finds himself chasing an art dealer through the streets of Paris, he’s certain he’s smoked out one of the principals of a cunning forgery ring responsible for the theft of some of the Louvre’s greatest masterpieces. But for once, Holmes is dead wrong. He doesn’t know that the dealer, Theo Van Gogh, is rushing to the side of his brother, who lies dying of a gunshot wound in Auvers. He doesn’t know that the dealer’s brother is a penniless misfit artist named Vincent, known to few and mourned by even fewer. Officialdom pronounces the death a suicide, but a few minutes at the scene convinces Holmes it was murder. And he’s bulldog-determined to discover why a penniless painter who harmed no one had to be killed–and who killed him. Who could profit from Vincent’s death? How is the murder entwined with his own forgery investigation? Holmes must retrace the last months of Vincent’s life, testing his mettle against men like the brutal Paul Gauguin and the secretive Toulouse-Lautrec, all the while searching for the girl Olympia, whom Vincent named with his dying breath. She can provide the truth, but can anyone provide the proof? From the madhouse of St. Remy to the rooftops of Paris, Holmes hunts a killer—while the killer hunts him.
Download or read book Ghislaine Maxwell an Unauthorized Biography written by Kirby Sommers and published by . This book was released on 2021-07-05 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Book Washington Doesn't Want You to Read: Book 4 in the "Epstein Series" Her friends--powerful. Her victims--helpless. How did Ghislaine Maxwell, born into a life of luxury, fall so far? This is the question everyone is asking. GHISLAINE MAXWELL: AN UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY Ghislaine Maxwell is the daughter of Robert Maxwell, media baron, fraudster and spy. After her father mysteriously drowned at sea in 1991 she turned to another man: Jeffrey Epstein. Ghislaine went from high society to being accused of sex trafficking. Jeffrey Epstein is now dead having committed suicide in jail. Meanwhile Ghislaine awaits her trial and sits in a New York City prison for charges that include enticing a minor to travel to engage in criminal sexual activity, transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, conspiracy to commit both of those offenses, and perjury in connection with a sworn deposition. Ghislaine Maxwell was born into a life of constant luxury in a 53-room Italianate mansion known as Headington Hill Hall in Oxford, England. It was a place where her slightest wish was her command. From the time she could speak she only had to snap her fingers and a small army of servants would appear. The book covers the first half of her life--from birth to her ill-fated meeting with Jeffrey Epstein. GHISLAINE MAXWELL: AN UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY is a riveting tale of wealth, power and the price of corruption. FOREWORD BY GREG OLEAR *This is Book 4 in the "Epstein Series". Books in this series can be read independently of each other. Other books by Kirby Sommers include: 'Jeffrey Epstein: Predator, Spy' 'Jeffrey Epstein, Unsealed (co-authored with Bob Fitrakis) 'Bonnie's Clyde: The True Story of Jeffrey Epstein & Ghislaine Maxwell' For these and other books by Kirby Sommers please visit the author's website: https://kirbysommers.com 'Reading Kirby Sommmers' books is like drinking from a fire hose. I cannot believe how deep and wide this story goes." -Katherine H.
Download or read book Nicholas and Alexandra written by Robert K. Massie and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-11-08 with total page 663 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “magnificent and intimate” (Harper’s) modern classic of Russian history, the spellbinding story of the love that ended an empire—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, The Romanovs, and Catherine the Great “A moving, rich book . . . [This] revealing, densely documented account of the last Romanovs focuses not on the great events . . . but on the royal family and their evil nemesis. . . . The tale is so bizarre, no melodrama is equal to it.”—Newsweek In this commanding book, New York Times bestselling author Robert K. Massie sweeps readers back to the extraordinary world of the Russian empire to tell the story of the Romanovs’ lives: Nicholas’s political naïveté, Alexandra’s obsession with the corrupt mystic Rasputin, and little Alexis’s brave struggle with hemophilia. Against a lavish backdrop of luxury and intrigue, Massie unfolds a powerful drama of passion and history—the story of a doomed empire and the death-marked royals who watched it crumble.
Download or read book Adora written by Bertrice Small and published by Cerridwen Press. This book was released on 2007-11 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adora!Her beauty was legend. And in the dying days of the great Byzantine Empire - that last vestige of what had once been Imperial Rome - her value as the emperor's daughter was priceless. Three men claimed her as wife. Orkhan, the powerful Ottoman sultan; the dashing pirate Alexander, lord of Mesembria; and Prince Murad, to whom Adora's heart truly belonged. In a grand epic that sweeps the reader from the golden palaces of fourteenth-century Byzantium to the blazing sensuality of the sultan's harem, Adora was a woman who firmly controlled her own destiny because she and Murad were meant only for each other. And together their passions would forge an empire. Adora! Her name was the secret of all love. Publisher Note: This story was previously published elsewhere, 1980-1995.
Download or read book The Secret Daughter of the Tsar written by Jennifer Laam and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-10-22 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Veronica is an aspiring historian living in present-day Los Angeles when she meets a mysterious man who may be heir to the Russian throne. As she sets about investigating the legitimacy of his claim through a winding path of romance and deception, the ghosts of her own past begin to haunt her. Lena, a servant in the imperial Russian court of 1902, is approached by the desperate Empress Alexandra. After conceiving four daughters, the Empress is determined to sire a son and believes Lena can help her. Charlotte, a former ballerina living in World War II occupied Paris, receives a surprise visit from a German officer. Determined to protect her son from the Nazis, Charlotte escapes the city, but not before learning that the officer's interest in her stems from his longstanding obsession with the fate of the Russian monarchy.
Download or read book Women in Purple written by Judith Herrin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2004-01-25 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the eighth and ninth centuries, three Byzantine empresses—Irene, Euphrosyne, and Theodora—changed history. Their combined efforts restored the veneration of icons, saving Byzantium from a purely symbolic and decorative art and ensuring its influence for centuries to come. In this exhilarating and highly entertaining account, one of the foremost historians of the medieval period tells the story of how these fascinating women exercised imperial sovereignty with consummate skill and sometimes ruthless tactics. Though they gained access to the all-pervasive authority of the Byzantine ruling dynasty through marriage, all three continued to wear the imperial purple and wield tremendous power as widows. From Constantinople, their own Queen City, the empresses undermined competitors and governed like men. They conducted diplomacy across the known world, negotiating with the likes of Charlemagne, Roman popes, and the great Arab caliph Harun al Rashid. Vehemently rejecting the ban on holy images instituted by their male relatives, Irene and Theodora used craft and power to reverse the official iconoclasm and restore icons to their place of adoration in the Eastern Church. In so doing, they profoundly altered the course of history. The art—and not only the art—of Byzantium, of Islam, and of the West would have been very different without them. As Judith Herrin traces the surviving evidence, she evokes the complex and deeply religious world of Constantinople in the aftermath of Arab conquest. She brings to life its monuments and palaces, its court ceremonies and rituals, the role of eunuchs (the "third sex"), bride shows, and the influence of warring monks and patriarchs. Based on new research and written for a general audience, Women in Purple reshapes our understanding of an empire that lasted a thousand years and splashes fresh light on the relationship of women to power.
