Download or read book The Birth of Venus written by Sarah Dunant and published by Random House. This book was released on 2004-11-30 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter’s abilities. But their burgeoning relationship is interrupted when Alessandra’s parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy, much older man. Meanwhile, Florence is changing, increasingly subject to the growing suppression imposed by the fundamentalist monk Savonarola, who is seizing religious and political control. Alessandra and her native city are caught between the Medici state, with its love of luxury, learning, and dazzling art, and the hellfire preaching and increasing violence of Savonarola’s reactionary followers. Played out against this turbulent backdrop, Alessandra’s married life is a misery, except for the surprising freedom it allows her to pursue her powerful attraction to the young painter and his art. The Birth of Venus is a tour de force, the first historical novel from one of Britain’s most innovative writers of literary suspense. It brings alive the history of Florence at its most dramatic period, telling a compulsively absorbing story of love, art, religion, and power through the passionate voice of Alessandra, a heroine with the same vibrancy of spirit as her beloved city.

Download or read book The Dragon Lady written by Louisa Treger and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-06-13 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A daring blend of romance, crime and history, and an intelligent exposé of the inherent injustice and consequences of all forms of oppression' Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions Opening with the shooting of Lady Virginia 'Ginie' Courtauld in her tranquil garden in 1950s Rhodesia, The Dragon Lady tells Ginie's extraordinary story, so called for the exotic tattoo snaking up her leg. From the glamorous Italian Riviera before the Great War to the Art Deco glory of Eltham Palace in the thirties, and from the secluded Scottish Highlands to segregated Rhodesia in the fifties, the narrative spans enormous cultural and social change. Lady Virginia Courtauld was a boundary-breaking, colourful and unconventional person who rejected the submissive role women were expected to play. Ostracised by society for being a foreign divorcée at the time of Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson, Ginie and her second husband ,Stephen Courtauld, leave the confines of post-war Britain to forge a new life in Rhodesia, only to find that being progressive liberals during segregation proves mortally dangerous. Many people had reason to dislike Ginie, but who had reason enough to pull the trigger? Deeply evocative of time and place, The Dragon Lady subtly blends fact and fiction to paint the portrait of an extraordinary woman in an era of great social and cultural change.

Download or read book Sacred Hearts written by Sarah Dunant and published by Random House Incorporated. This book was released on 2009 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Condemned by sixteenth-century demands for lucrative dowries in order to marry, young Serafina is ripped from an illicit love affair and confined in a Renaissance Italy convent, a situation against which she passionately rebels and reminds the convent's doctor of her own unhappy early years. 200,000 first printing.

Download or read book The Snake Tattoo written by Linda Barnes and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-07-07 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hailed by Sue Grafton as “a true original,” ex-cop turned private eye Carlotta Carlyle risks her neck in Boston’s Combat Zone for two very different clients Six-foot-tall, redheaded ex-cop and Boston-based private eye Carlotta Carlyle is “the genuine article: a straightforward, funny, thoroughly American mystery heroine” (New York Post). Carlotta Carlyle is halfway through a pizza when her former boss, Lieutenant Mooney of the Boston Police, shows up at her door needing help even more than Carlotta needs a case. In a Combat Zone bar, Mooney got into a scrap with a stranger over a woman. Now the stranger is comatose, the woman has vanished, and Mooney has been suspended. He wants Carlotta to find the blond hooker with a snake tattoo who witnessed the brawl, and who can exonerate him. Doing surveillance in the Zone, Carlotta gets a second case. A ritzy prep school kid with a bloody lip hires her to find his missing girlfriend. Drawn into two different yet equally dangerous worlds where dead bodies are showing up, Carlotta has only two weeks to save the most honest cop in Boston from going to jail, and to find a girl whose privileged parents don’t seem to care that she’s run away. The Snake Tattoo was named an outstanding book of the year by the London Times. The Snake Tattoo is the 2nd book in the Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Download or read book Vintage Tattoo Flash written by Jonathan Shaw and published by powerHouse Books. This book was released on 2016-04-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vintage Tattoo Flash is a one-of-a-kind visual explorationof the history and evolution of tattooing in America. Aluscious, offset-printed, hardcover tome-a beautiful andserious addition to the understanding of one of the world'soldest and most popular art forms. Electric tattooing as we know it today was invented inNew York City at the turn of the 19th century. In the firstdays of American tattooing, tattoos were primarily wornby sailors and soldiers, outlaws and outsiders. The visuallanguage of what came to be known as "traditional tattooing"was developed in those early days on the Boweryand catered to the interests of the clientele. Commonimagery that soon became canon included sailing ships,women, hearts, roses, daggers, eagles, dragons, wolves,panthers, skulls, crosses, and popular cartoon charactersof the era. The first tattooists also figured out that usingbold outlines, complimented by solid color and smoothshading, was the proper technique for creating art on abody that would stand the test of time. In the over 100years since then, techniques and styles have evolved, andthe customer base has expanded, but the core subjectmatter and philosophy developed at the dawn of electrictattooing has persisted as perennial favorites through themodern era. While most tattoos are inherently ephemeral, transportedon skin until the death of the collector, a visual recordexists in the form of tattoo flash: the hand-painted sheetsof designs posted in tattoo shops for customers to selectfrom. Painted and repainted, stolen, traded, bought andsold, these sheets are passed between artists through onechannel or another, often having multiple useful lives in avariety of shops scattered across time and geography. Theutility of these original pieces of painted art has made itso that original examples can still be found in use or up forgrabs if you know where to look. Vintage Tattoo Flash draws from the personal collectionof Jonathan Shaw-renowned outlaw tattooist andauthor-and represents a selection of over 300 pieces offlash from one of the largest private collections in existence.Vintage Tattoo Flash spans the first roughly 75years of American tattooing from the 1900s Bowery, to50s Texas, through the Pike in the 60s and the developmentof the first black and grey, single-needle tattooingin LA in the 70s. The book lovingly reproduces entirelyunpublished sheets of original flash from the likes of BobShaw, Zeke Owen, Tex Rowe, Ted Inman, Ace Harlyn, EdSmith, Paul Rogers, the Moskowitz brothers, and many,many others relatively known and unknown.

Download or read book High Voltage Tattoo written by Kat Von D and published by Harper Design. This book was released on 2009-01-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: High Voltage Tattoo is a graphic perspective on today's global tattoo culture by Kat Von D, star of The Learning Channel's L.A. Ink and one of the most talented and popular artists working today. Designed in a style that is reminiscent of a handmade Gothic journal with its red padded cover, ornate typography, and parchmentlike pages, it throws the door wide open to tattooing culture in the way only an insider like Kat can. High Voltage Tattoo traces Kat's career as an artist, from early childhood influences to recent work, along with examples of what inspires her, information about the show and her shop, her sketches, and personal tattoos. The book goes deep into tattoo process and culture: readers can see up close the pigments, the tools, and the making of complex, even collaborative, tattoos. With a foreword by MÖtley CrÜe's Nikki Sixx, the book features images and stories about celebrities, rockers, pro skaters, and everyday citizens, including Slayer's Kerry King, Anthrax's Scott Ian, Margaret Cho, Jackass' Bam Margera, David Letterman, and many others. It profiles and showcases the work of artists Kat has selected from all over the world, her interviews with people who have compelling tattoos and stories, and amazing images of extraordinary tattoo work. Numerous portfolios throughout the book showcase a range of relevant subjects, from the black and gray portrait work for which Kat is famous to a popular tattoo theme, such as the rose or biblical images. There is a knockout ten-page full-body spread of Kat—clad in a yellow bikini and seven-inch, rhinestone-studded red stilettos—that catalogs in detail all her personal tattoos on her front, back, left, and right sides—even her hands and head.

Download or read book The Perfect Ghost written by Linda Barnes and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A ghostwriter is lured by her dangerous celebrity subject in “a captivating story of love, rivalry, and revenge” from an award-winning mystery author (Publishers Weekly). From Linda Barnes, Anthony Award–winning author of the Carlotta Carlyle mystery series, a stunning breakout novel with pitch-perfect pacing and mesmerizing prose. Shy to the point of agoraphobic, Em Moore is the writing half of a celebrity biography team. Her charismatic partner, Teddy, does the interviewing and the public schmoozing. But Em’s dependence on Teddy runs deeper than just the job—Teddy is her bridge to the world. So when Teddy dies in a car accident, Em is devastated, alone in a world she doesn’t understand. The only way she can honor his memory and cope with his loss is to finish the interviews for their current book—an “autobiography” of renowned and reclusive film director Garrett Malcolm. Ensconced in a small cottage near Malcolm’s Cape Cod home, Em slowly builds the courage to interview Malcolm the way Teddy would have. She finds Malcolm at once friendlier, more intimidating, and much sexier than she had imagined. But Em soon starts hearing whispers of skeletons in the Malcolm family closet. And then the police begin looking into the accident that killed Teddy, and Em’s control on her life—tenuous at best—is threatened. “The flawed and fascinating protagonist of this literary mystery, is wily and driven . . . as she barrels down a twisty road leading to a spectacular and unexpected ending.” —B.A. Shapiro, New York Times–bestselling author of The Art Forger “Em’s dramatic story of rebirth, addressed to Teddy in absentia, unfolds with the fitting precision of a stage play. . . . Outstanding.” —Booklist, starred review

Download or read book Lie Down with the Devil written by Linda Barnes and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2008-08-05 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bestseller and multiple award–winning author Linda Barnes returns with the most personal case to date for her popular Boston PI, Carlotta Carlyle. Carlotta, in unfamiliar territory working on her own behalf, finds herself in the middle of a complicated case that has as much to do with the people she loves as the backstreets of Boston, and beyond. For starters, Carlotta wants to know what her on-again, off-again boyfriend Sam Gianelli did to earn himself a secret indictment for murder that's keeping him out of the country. A man with plenty of secrets, he won't tell her anything, much less let her help, and she isn't having any more luck with her old friends at the Boston PD. Sam's exile could be connected to the mob—he is in the family—but she's not buying it. It couldn't be that simple. Nothing involving Sam ever is. Faced with nothing but dead ends, Carlotta goes back to basics and takes a case for a nervous bride-to-be who wants to make sure her fiancé is being faithful. Simple enough, but when her client turns up dead, Carlotta catches the kind of break she wished she hadn't. While nothing is as it seems in Lie Down with the Devil, one thing is clear: Readers know that when they're reading Linda Barnes, they're in the hands of a maestro.

Download or read book Duel Art written by Kazuki Takahashi and published by Udon Entertainment. This book was released on 2015-05-12 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's time to DUEL! The original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga ran for 38 volumes, has been adapted into multiple anime television series, and spawned one of the most popular trading card games in the world. Duel Art collects the fantastic color artwork of series creator Kazuki Takahashi, along with rough concept sketches, tutorials, and an exclusive interview with Takahashi-sensei himself.

Download or read book Prince So Tantalizing written by Luo YingSha and published by Funstory. This book was released on 2020-10-20 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bullying? framing? As a top assassin, how could she be afraid of these ancient people stirring up trouble? It was just that why did a certain prince always circle around her?

Download or read book The Velveteen Serpent written by Elinor Hobart and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2016-02-12 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No one can remember a murder ever being committed in the small town of Tobias Springs, Missouri. Suddenly, within a day of each other, there are two. A quiet elderly woman with no known enemies and, on the other side of town, the local bad boy who most everyone agrees needed killin’. Mike Maldonado, the only PI in town, is asked to investigate the woman’s murder on behalf of her neighbor, who the police have taken into custody. As he follows clues as far away as Chicago and Joliet Prison, to as close to home as the local convenience store, Mike finds that all little old ladies aren’t as innocent as they seem, and bad boys are sometimes even worse than imagined.

Download or read book Colossal written by and published by Quills Ink Publishing. This book was released on 2014-06-02 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colossal: The Cobra Symbol is a story that will stay with you forever. It is a battle of fact and fiction. The story uses many historical events and personalities to boost the interest of the reader. It starts where humanity is believed to have taken its first step and continues to present day Munich, Bangalore, Delhi and the mysterious village of Manchale. It is difficult to decide a genre for the book as you will discover a twist in the tale after every few pages, a hint of romance throughout, sarcasm in the dialogues and drama throughout. In short it is the story of two terrorists who are undercover form past two decades in the country cooking up a plan, the key to their plan lies with a young man who is completely unaware and is mourning the separation of a loved one. Unknown to him he holds secrets that dates back to the time when God’s greatest messengers walked the earth. The journey of the characters is shown through continuous flashbacks and instances from their memories. It is surely a tale that is colossal in nature and will enchant you with its magic.

Download or read book Tattoos Desire and Violence written by Karin Beeler and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-01-27 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether they graphically depict an individual's or a community's beliefs, express the defiance of authority, or brand marginalized groups, tattoos are a means of interpersonal communication that dates back thousands of years. Evidence of the tattoo's place in today's popular culture is all around--in advertisements, on the stereotypical outlaw character in films and television, in supermarket machines that dispense children's wash-away tattoos, and even in the production of a tattooed Barbie doll. This book explores the tattoo's role, primarily as an emblem of resistance and marginality, in recent literature, film, and television. The association of tattoos with victims of the Holocaust, slaves, and colonized peoples; with gangs, inmates, and other marginalized groups; and the connection of the tattoo narrative to desire and violence are discussed at length.

Download or read book Dark Corners written by Megan Goldin and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2023-08-08 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A gripping story that is equal parts shocking, unnerving, and thrilling. Goldin takes the ‘true crime’ trope to new and unexpected territory.” —Karin Slaughter, New York Times and #1 international bestselling author of Girl, Forgotten Rachel Krall, the true crime podcaster star of Megan Goldin’s acclaimed The Night Swim, returns to search for a popular influencer who disappears after visiting a suspected serial killer. Terence Bailey is about to be released from prison for breaking and entering, though investigators have long suspected him in the murders of six women. As his release date approaches, Bailey gets a surprise visit from Maddison Logan, a hot, young influencer with a huge social media following. Hours later, Maddison disappears, and police suspect she’s been kidnapped—or worse. Is Maddison’s disappearance connected to her visit to Bailey? And why was she visiting him in the first place? When they hit a wall in the investigation, the FBI reluctantly asks for Rachel Krall’s help in finding the missing influencer. Maddison seems to only exist on social media; she has no family, no friends, and other than in her posts, most people have never seen her. Who is she, really? Using a fake Instagram account, Rachel goes undercover to BuzzCon, a popular influencer conference, where she discovers a world of fierce rivalry that may have turned lethal. When police find the body of a woman with a tattoo of a snake eating its tail—identical to a tattoo Rachel had seen on Bailey’s hand—the FBI must consider a chilling possibility: Bailey has an accomplice on the outside and a dangerous obsession with influencers, including Rachel Krall herself. Suddenly the target of a monster hiding in plain sight, Rachel is forced to confront the very real dangers that lurk in the dark corners of the internet.

Download or read book Chasing Before written by Lenore Appelhans and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-08-26 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ideal for fans of "The Matrix" and "Inception, " this second installment of the Memory ChroniclesNthe sequel to "The Memory of After"Nfollows Felicia as she grapples with a futuristic afterlife.

Download or read book The Serpent s Spell written by Rae St. Clair Bridgman and published by FriesenPress. This book was released on 2021-04-08 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unbeknownst to ten-year-old Wil Wychwood, he comes from a long line of mages. But with the death of his grandmother and his world upended, Wil moves to live with “the Aunts” and finds himself in MiddleGate – where buses drive through brick walls and leaning houses dot streets named Wog’s Hollow and Half Moon Lane. The four-hundred-and-ninety-four-year-old school, Gruffud’s Academy, is out of this world too. With classes in numeristics, botanicals, cartology and verbology, and textbooks like "Magykal Spelling, Grammar and Palaver," this is no ordinary school. Yet something dark brews beneath the veneer of this idyllic hidden city. When Wil and his cousin Sophie rescue the sacred snakes of Narcisse, they find themselves swept up in a dangerous plot. The secret society known as the Serpent’s Chain is on the loose, and Wil is carrying the very thing they’ve been searching for. "Beware the Serpent’s Chain," they were told, but what does that mean? What dangers await Wil and Sophie as they unravel this wicked mystery?

Download or read book The Tattoo Murder Case written by Akimitsu Takagi and published by Soho Press. This book was released on 2003-07-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kinue Nomura survived World War II only to be murdered in Tokyo, her severed limbs discovered in a room locked from the inside. Gone is the part of her that bore one of the most beautiful full-body tattoos ever rendered. Kenzo Matsushita, a young doctor who was first to discover the crime scene, feels compelled to assist his detective brother, who is in charge of the case. But Kenzo has a secret: he was Kinue’s lover, and soon his involvement in the investigation becomes as twisted and complex as the writhing snakes that once adorned Kinue’s torso. The Tattoo Murder Case was originally published in 1948; this is the first English translation.