Sarah Dunant

#2

"Jackson Steele and Sylvia Brooks are back in the powerful finale of a provocative, sizzling-hot new erotic trilogy set in the world of J. Kenner's beloved Stark novels: Release Me, Claim Me, and Complete Me. He's the only man I've ever loved, and the one man I can't bear to lose. Jackson Steele is my light in this world. Charismatic, bold, and always in control, he knows what he wants and how to get it--and absolutely nothing stands in his way. His hold on me is magnetic, his claim on me complete, his kiss my ultimate escape. We both harbor dark secrets that could tear our lives apart. Though we've tried to bury our pasts, there are certain people who won't let us forget. But the closer danger comes, the brighter the fire between us burns--our ecstasy consuming and soothing us both. There's no telling what lies ahead, but I know that Jackson never gives in without a fight. I'd do anything he wants to keep him safe, give him anything he needs. And now that we're in deep, nothing can make me run. Under My Skin is intended for mature audiences"-- "From New York Times and internationally bestselling author J. Kenner, the finale in her latest smoking hot, emotionally compelling erotic trilogy"--

#3

The year is 1570, and in the convent of Santa Caterina, in the Italian city of Ferrara, noblewomen find space to pursue their lives under God's protection. But any community, however smoothly run, suffers tremors when it takes in someone by force. And the arrival of Santa Caterina's new novice sets in motion a chain of events that will shake the convent to its core. Ripped by her family from an illicit love affair, sixteen-year-old Serafina is willful, emotional, sharp, and defiant--young enough to have a life to look forward to and old enough to know when that life is being cut short. Her first night inside the walls is spent in an incandescent rage so violent that the dispensary mistress, Suora Zuana, is dispatched to the girl's cell to sedate her. Thus begins a complex relationship of trust and betrayal between the young rebel and the clever, scholarly nun, for whom the girl becomes the daughter she will never have. As Serafina rails against her incarceration, others are drawn into the drama: the ancient, mysterious Suora Magdalena, with her history of visions and ecstasies, locked in her cell; the ferociously devout novice mistress Suora Umiliana, who comes to see in the postulant a way to extend her influence; and, watching it all, the abbess, Madonna Chiara, a woman as fluent in politics as she is in prayer. As disorder and rebellion mount, it is the abbess's job to keep the convent stable while, outside its walls, the dictates of the Counter-Reformation begin to purge the Catholic Church and impose on the nunneries a regime of terrible oppression.