Patricia Matthews

LOVE'S WILDEST PROMISE It seemed so distant and unreachable to the innocent, young Sarah Moody, lady's maid in a wealthy London home. Then suddenly the world turns upside down. Sarah is abducted and smuggled aboard a ship sailing for the Colonies ... a dark and stormy voyage filled with violence, treachery, and unbridled lust. In the midst of wanton revelry and unspeakable hardship Sarah recognizes a spark of something solid and true in one man, Captain Jebediah Hawkins. As the ship reaches New Orleans, Sarah quickly realizes that her adventures have only just begun. The young girl who cringed at the least threat would now boldly face the turbulent dangers of a strange land where bravery and passion know no bounds. And would Captain Hawkins be but the first man to kindle the flaming desires of the raven-haired Sarah ... or the last?

How Now Purple Cow - short story by Bill Pronzini Just Call Me Irish - short story by Richard Wilson Zoo - short story by Edward D. Hoch Dog Star - short story by Mack Reynolds Creature of the Snows - short story by William Sambrot King of Beasts - short story by Philip José Farmer (variant of The King of the Beasts 1964) Little William - short story by Patricia Matthews Appointment at Noon - short story by Eric Frank Russell The Boy with Five Fingers - short story by James E. Gunn [as by James Gunn] The Last Paradox - short story by Edward D. Hoch Dreamworld - short story by Isaac Asimov Kin - short story by Richard Wilson The Fun They Had - juvenile - short story by Isaac Asimov Hometown - short story by Richard Wilson Speed of the Cheetah, Roar of the Lion - short story by Harry Harrison Buy Jupiter - short story by Isaac Asimov (variant of Buy Jupiter! 1958) Gantlet - short story by Richard E. Peck

In Colonial Virginia, Hannah Verner --- once indentured servant, now the widow of a wealthy planter --- shocks society by personally supervising her beloved plantation, Malvern. Learning that her husband, who was killed in a mysterious accident, has left the place heavily mortgaged to arrogant,enigmatic Courteney Wayne, she determines to free herself from his debt. Butshe cannot free herself from her own attraction to Courteney, for he has ignited the warm passion she has suppressed for too long. Their joyously abandoned affair leaves her vulnerable --- and she is shattered when she learns that Courteney might have engineered her husband's death as part of his scheme to possess Malvern. Heartsick, she sails for France, where her daughter, Michele, has been pursuing her own dreams in the famous ballet school of Arnaud Deampierre. Dazzled and inspired by the charismatic master, Michele triumphs at her debut --- even catching the eye of King Louis himself. But success is acostly prize, as she discovers when her lover, handsome Scottish aristocratIan MacLeven, proposes marriage --- under one condition: As lady of MacLevenCastle, she must give up the ballet for which she has worked so long. And yet the lure of the theater is so powerful --- with its glamour, its promiseof stardom, and the mesmerizing attraction of the master, Deampierre himself.

HAPPY AND INNOCENT, DAWN'S DAUGHTER CHRISTIE HAS GROWN UP IN THE SAFEST, MOST LOVING OF HOMES ... Yet Christie can't help feeling as if a dark cloud hovers over Cutler's Cove ... a cloud whose origins lie in her family's troubled history, and the many questions no one, not even Dawn, will answer. Only one person can always chase away her blues: Gavin, Daddy Jimmy's young and handsome stepbrother. Then, in one harsh night, Christie's world is changed forever. She is shocked to discover her Uncle Philip's unbrotherly love for her mother, but even worse is the way he now looks at Christie, his eyes bright with tortured passion. Fleeing to New York City, she finds her real father, a pathetic, helpless has-been. Desperate and heartbroken, she turns to Gavin, who travels with her to The Meadows, the plantation where Christie was born. In Gavin's arms, in the first, tender moments of true love, Christie finds a refuge from her painful memories. But The Meadows is blighted by its own dark secrets --- and all too soon Christie is torn from Gavin's embrace. Now as black storms of evil gather around her, Christie must struggle to break the cruel bonds of the past ... to defy the curse that has haunted Cutler's Cove for generations ... (back cover)

REBECCA HAWKINS She was young, beautiful and used to winning. But at nineteen her ideas of victory were confined to equestrian contests and harness racing. Now, as her womanly graces began to attract men, it would be a different kind of competition. Horses, she'd learned were much more easily understood, and handled, than men. Soon, two men would challenge each other in a race for her heart, while still another man's lust would cruelly attempt to entrap her... In the vividly colorful world of Kentucky thoroughbred farms and the social whirl that gave birth to the first Kentucky derby, an exciting glimpse of Americana heightens this dramatic love story. And, as in all races, there are losers and winners -- and the thrill of the race. But most of all, for Rebecca, there is love triumphant!

Catharine "Cat" Carnahan grew up on the Erie Canal, working side by side with her father on their boat, towing freight from Albany to Buffalo. Gutsy and independent, she holds her own with the roughnecks who work the canal, including the brutal, lascivious Simon Maphis. She has yet to discover her own passionate nature --- until she and her father rescue a mysterious stranger who has been beaten by thugs. His head woulds have left him with no memory of his past, but his gold pocket watch identifies him as Morgan Kane. Obviously a gentleman, he gratefully accepts Cat's offer to recuperate aboard the boat, doing odd jobs for his keep. It is Morgan's presence that finally awakens Cat to her own womanhood. And it is Morgan who fulfills her passion one languid evening on the canal. But Cat's new-found love turns to revulsion when Morgan becomes involved with the lottery company that has ruined the lives of so many canal men, taking their hard-earned cash in exchange for false promises of instant wealth. What she does not know is that Morgan's memory has returned --- and that he is on a dangerous mission to expose the corruption of the lottery by working from the inside. Rejecting Morgan, Cat tries to forget him in the arms of an idealistic young doctor who serves the canal families. But when Simon Maphis, infuriated by Cat's many rejections, tries to kill her and her father --- and succeeds in destroying their boat --- Morgan returns, determined to claim her, tame her and marry her. Investing in a new boat, he persuades Cat to try for the most coveted cargo on the canal --- the U.S. Mail. But Simon Maphis has not yet finished with his evil schemes.

Throughout his career, Eduardo Galeano has turned our understanding of history and reality on its head. Isabelle Allende said his works "invade the reader's mind, to persuade him or her to surrender to the charm of his writing and power of his idealism." Mirrors, Galeano's most ambitious project since Memory of Fire, is an unofficial history of the world seen through history's unseen, unheard, and forgotten. As Galeano notes: "Official history has it that Vasco Nunez de Balboa was the first man to see, from a summit in Panama, the two oceans at once. Were the people who lived there blind??" Recalling the lives of artists, writers, gods, and visionaries, from the Garden of Eden to twenty-first-century New York, of the black slaves who built the White House and the women erased by men's fears, and told in hundreds of kaleidoscopic vignettes, Mirrors is a magic mosaic of our humanity.

Temporarily staying with a grandfather he has never met before, Mike decides to run away in a boat that must pass through some "raging rapids."

Sapphire Jones doesn't believe in relationships anymore –not since she caught her husband in bed with another woman. Now Sapphire only sees men on her terms which is why her current lover is younger than her, good looking, doesn't place any emotional demands on her [so far, fingers crossed] and is great in bed. What more does a girl need? Sapphire puts all her passion into running her own business – a high end lingerie and hen weekend company. She is doing well and life seems pretty good until she meets a very handsome, charming businessman who seems more than a match for Sapphire. Then things go badly wrong at the hen party she has planned for a soap star and tabloid darling. The evening is one that everyone will be talking about for all the wrong reasons and Sapphire faces front page headlines all of her own…. Suddenly her business is in jeopardy, her well-controlled private life is falling apart, and in the middle of all this Sapphire realises that she is not immune to love after all, but has she left it too late?