The Last King of California

Author: JORDAN. HARPER
Publisher: Mulholland Books
ISBN: 9780316581400
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Jordan Harper's "darkly irresistible" novel, a tragic, Hamlet-esque noir for readers of S.A. Cosby and Don Winslow, now available for the first time in the United States. (Megan Abbott) This stirring and brutal bildungsroman tells the story of young Luke Crosswhite, who after years apart from his criminal family returns to their flock deep in the California desert. Luke's father is serving time for a brutal murder that Luke himself witnessed; now, his uncle vies for power and rival biker gangs encroach on the family's various criminal enterprises. A sensitive boy grown hard man, Luke navigates the vicious pressures of "home," and the loyalties to his old friend, Cassie, who has hatched a scheme with her boyfriend Pretty Baby to escape the control of the gang, the Combine. Hanging over these desperate, lonesome parties is the gang's motto, tattooed indelibly across the heart: Blood is Love. The Last King of California is a story of the West unlike any you will read. "When I say The Last King of California subverts the stereotypical American Outlaw Mythos, it's the highest praise I can give it. No one is thinking deeper about what crime fiction is than Jordan Harper."-- S. A. Cosby "Burns bright and fast"-- Peter Swanson "Darkly irresistible" -- Megan Abbott "Urgent and beautiful" -- Lauren Beukes

The King Of California

Author: Mark Arax
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 0786752793
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 550

Book Description
The fascinating story of a cotton magnate whose voracious appetite for land drove him to create the first big agricultural empire of the Central Valley of California, and shaped the landscape for decades to come. J.G. Boswell was the biggest farmer in America. He built a secret empire while thumbing his nose at nature, politicians, labor unions and every journalist who ever tried to lift the veil on the ultimate "factory in the fields." The King of California is the previously untold account of how a Georgia slave-owning family migrated to California in the early 1920s,drained one of America 's biggest lakes in an act of incredible hubris and carved out the richest cotton empire in the world. Indeed, the sophistication of Boswell 's agricultural operation -from lab to field to gin -- is unrivaled anywhere. Much more than a business story, this is a sweeping social history that details the saga of cotton growers who were chased from the South by the boll weevil and brought their black farmhands to California. It is a gripping read with cameos by a cast of famous characters, from Cecil B. DeMille to Cesar Chavez.

The King Next Door

Author: Maureen Child
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 146030358X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 189

Book Description
Single mom Nicole Baxter is perfectly fulfilled without a man in her life. But when billionaire Griffin King moves in next door, she considers a fling. Not only is he gorgeous and exciting, but he’s not staying. It’s an ideal situation, as long as she doesn’t fall in love…. Griffin King never met a woman he couldn’t leave. But desire sparks with Nicole like lightning: quick and hot. It’s just what this workaholic commitmentphobe needs. But why does the thought of summer’s end have Griffin longing for more with the one woman he shouldn’t have?

California

Author: Edan Lepucki
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316250821
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Book Description
The world Cal and Frida have always known is gone, and they've left the crumbling city of Los Angeles far behind them. They now live in a shack in the wilderness, working side-by-side to make their days tolerable in the face of hardship and isolation. Mourning a past they can't reclaim, they seek solace in each other. But the tentative existence they've built for themselves is thrown into doubt when Frida finds out she's pregnant. Terrified of the unknown and unsure of their ability to raise a child alone, Cal and Frida set out for the nearest settlement, a guarded and paranoid community with dark secrets. These people can offer them security, but Cal and Frida soon realize this community poses dangers of its own. In this unfamiliar world, where everything and everyone can be perceived as a threat, the couple must quickly decide whom to trust. A gripping and provocative debut novel by a stunning new talent, California imagines a frighteningly realistic near future, in which clashes between mankind's dark nature and deep-seated resilience force us to question how far we will go to protect the ones we love. "In her arresting debut novel, Edan Lepucki conjures a lush, intricate, deeply disturbing vision of the future, then masterfully exploits its dramatic possibilities."-Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit from the Goon Squad

The Last King of America

Author: Andrew Roberts
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1984879278
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 1033

Book Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of Churchill and Napoleon The last king of America, George III, has been ridiculed as a complete disaster who frittered away the colonies and went mad in his old age. The truth is much more nuanced and fascinating--and will completely change the way readers and historians view his reign and legacy. Most Americans dismiss George III as a buffoon--a heartless and terrible monarch with few, if any, redeeming qualities. The best-known modern interpretation of him is Jonathan Groff's preening, spitting, and pompous take in Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda's Broadway masterpiece. But this deeply unflattering characterization is rooted in the prejudiced and brilliantly persuasive opinions of eighteenth-century revolutionaries like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, who needed to make the king appear evil in order to achieve their own political aims. After combing through hundreds of thousands of pages of never-before-published correspondence, award-winning historian Andrew Roberts has uncovered the truth: George III was in fact a wise, humane, and even enlightened monarch who was beset by talented enemies, debilitating mental illness, incompetent ministers, and disastrous luck. In The Last King of America, Roberts paints a deft and nuanced portrait of the much-maligned monarch and outlines his accomplishments, which have been almost universally forgotten. Two hundred and forty-five years after the end of George III's American rule, it is time for Americans to look back on their last king with greater understanding: to see him as he was and to come to terms with the last time they were ruled by a monarch.

Into the Narrowdark

Author: Tad Williams
Publisher: Astra Publishing House
ISBN: 069819151X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 609

Book Description
The New York Times bestselling world of Osten Ard returns in the third Last King of Osten Ard novel, as threats to the kingdom loom... The High Throne of Erkynland is tottering, its royal family divided and diminished. Queen Miriamele has been caught up in a brutal rebellion in the south and thought to have died in a fiery attack. Her grandson Morgan, heir to the throne, has been captured by one of Utuk’ku’s soldiers in the ruins of an abandoned city. Miriamele’s husband, King Simon, is overwhelmed by grief and hopelessness, unaware that many of these terrible things have been caused by Pasevalles, a murderous traitor inside Simon’s own court at the Hayholt. Meanwhile, a deadly army of Norns led by the ageless, vengeful Queen Utuk’ku, has swept into Erkynland and thrown down the fortress of Naglimund, slaughtering the inhabitants and digging up the ancient grave of Ruyan the Navigator. Utuk’ku plans to use the Navigator’s fabled armor to call up the spirit of Hakatri, the evil Storm King’s brother. Even the Sithi, fairy-kin to the Norns, are helpless to stop Utuk’ku’s triumph as her armies simultaneously march on the Hayholt and force their way into the forbidden, ogre-guarded valley of Tanakirú—the Narrowdark—where a secret waits that might bring Simon’s people and their Sithi allies salvation—or doom.

The Dreamt Land

Author: Mark Arax
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1101875216
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 577

Book Description
A vivid, searching journey into California's capture of water and soil—the epic story of a people's defiance of nature and the wonders, and ruin, it has wrought Mark Arax is from a family of Central Valley farmers, a writer with deep ties to the land who has watched the battles over water intensify even as California lurches from drought to flood and back again. In The Dreamt Land, he travels the state to explore the one-of-a-kind distribution system, built in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, that is straining to keep up with California's relentless growth. The Dreamt Land weaves reportage, history and memoir to confront the "Golden State" myth in riveting fashion. No other chronicler of the West has so deeply delved into the empires of agriculture that drink so much of the water. The nation's biggest farmers—the nut king, grape king and citrus queen—tell their story here for the first time. Arax, the native son, is persistent and tough as he treks from desert to delta, mountain to valley. What he finds is hard earned, awe-inspiring, tragic and revelatory. In the end, his compassion for the land becomes an elegy to the dream that created California and now threatens to undo it.

King of the Night

Author: Mark J. Van Aken
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520336690
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394

Book Description
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1989.

Empire of Grass

Author: Tad Williams
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1473603250
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 688

Book Description
Set in Williams' New York Times bestselling fantasy world, the second book of The Last King of Osten Ard returns to the trials of King Simon and Queen Miriamele as threats to their kingdom loom . . . The kingdoms of Osten Ard have been at peace for decades, but now, the threat of a new war grows to nightmarish proportions. Simon and Miriamele, royal husband and wife, face danger from every side. Their allies in Hernystir have made a pact with the dreadful Queen of the Norns to allow her armies to cross into mortal lands. The ancient, powerful nation of Nabban is on the verge of bloody civil war, and the fierce nomads of the Thrithings grasslands have begun to mobilize, united by superstitious fervor and their age-old hatred of the city-dwellers. But as the countries and peoples of the High Ward bicker among themselves, battle, bloodshed, and dark magics threaten to pull civilizations to pieces. And over it all looms the mystery of the Witchwood Crown, the deadly puzzle that Simon, Miriamele, and their allies must solve if they wish to survive. But as the kingdoms of Osten Ard are torn apart by fear and greed, a few individuals will fight for their own lives and destinies-not yet aware that the survival of everything depends on them. Praise for Tad Williams 'One of my favourite fantasy series' - George R. R. Martin, author of A Game of Thrones 'Ground-breaking . . . changed how people thought of the genre and paved the way for so much modern fantasy, including mine' - Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Kingkiller Chronicle 'One of the main reasons I started writing fantasy . . . Tad Williams' work is an essential part of any science fiction and fantasy library' - Christopher Paolini, author of the Inheritance Cycle series

King Charles I

Author: Pauline Gregg
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520051461
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 532

Book Description
A biography of the British monarch examines his upbringing, personality, and the events that led to his downfall