"Anna works as a housekeeper for a wealthy family in the town of Bridgepoint. Doting on her three small dogs, she attempts to put her traumatic past behind her. Melanctha, a mixed-race woman, is trusting and magnanimous to a fault. Lena, a German immigrant, leads an unhappily married life. Three Lives is a collection of novellas by Gertrude Stein." --

The Awakening is a novel by Kate Chopin, first published in 1899. Set in New Orleans and on the Louisiana Gulf coast at the end of the 19th century, the plot centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle between her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century American South. It is one of the earlier American novels that focuses on women's issues without condescension. It...

"Verity Beresford is worried about her husband. Oliver didn't come home last night, so of course Verity goes straight to Judith Potts, Marlow's resident amateur sleuth, for help. Oliver, founder of the Marlow Amateur Dramatic Society, had rented The Marlow Belle, a private pleasure cruiser, to host an exclusive party for the society, but no one remembers seeing him disembark. And when Oliver's body washes up on the Thames with two bullet holes in...

"Sunflower Sisters is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical figures, are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real : As we roamed the neat brick streets of Charleston, past filigreed fences and palmetto trees, the atmosphere so gentle and refined, we never dreamed we'd stumble headlong into hell. Mother, my sister Georgy and I had come from...

In early nineteenth-century England, an orphaned young woman accepts employment as a governess at Thornfield Hall, a country estate owned by the mysteriously remote Mr. Rochester.

The classic tale of a young woman's struggle for love and money from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence. Raised among New York's high society, Lily Bart is beautiful, charming, and entirely without means. Determined to maintain the extravagant lifestyle to which she is accustomed, Lily embarks on a mission to marry a wealthy man who can secure her station. However, the businesslike proposals from her many suitors...

"Cussy Mary Carter is the last of her kind, her skin the color of a blue damselfly in these dusty hills. But that doesn't mean she's got nothing to offer. As a member of the Pack Horse Library Project, Cussy delivers books to the hill folk of Troublesome, hoping to spread learning in these desperate times. But not everyone is so keen on Cussy's family or the Library Project, and the hardscrabble Kentuckians are quick to blame a Blue for any trouble...

Virginia Woolf's "Night and Day" offers a fascinating glimpse into Edwardian England, where the lives of two women-Katharine Hilbery and Mary Datchet-serve as the focal point for exploring issues of love, marriage, gender roles, and intellectual ambition. Katharine, born into a privileged family, is caught between the traditional expectations of society and her own intellectual pursuits, while Mary, an independent suffragette, embodies the changing...

For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. She's barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark. But Kya is not what they say. Abandoned at age ten, she has survived on her own in the marsh that she calls home. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life lessons from the...

Anne Bronte's 'Agnes Grey' tells the story of a young woman forced by circumstances to take on the role of governess in an aristocratic Victorian household, and how this stressful and at times humiliating role shapes her youthful character. The book is seen by many as a barely-disguised critique of Victorian morality, especially that society's hypocritical stance on women's enforced domesticity, marriage and the bringing up of children. --Publisher....