Carolyn

In retreat from a devastating loss and crushing injustice, Katie lives alone in a fortresslike stone house on Jacob’s Ladder island. Once a rising star in the art world, she finds refuge in her painting. The neighboring island of Ringrock houses a secret: a government research facility. And now two agents have arrived on Jacob’s Ladder in search of someone—or something—they refuse to identify. Although an air of menace hangs over these men, an infinitely greater threat has arrived, one so strange even the island animals are in a state of high alarm.

A stunning debut novel from Jesmyn Ward, Where the Line Bleeds is a rich tale of twins raised by their grandmother in a stiflingly poor rural community on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Upon graduating from high school, growing tensions between brothers Joshua and Christophe test their loyalties—and a violent altercation forever changes their lives.

Her father’s prodigal ways have forced the extremely lovely Alexandra Ashmore into an engagement with a strange man in a strange land: a man blind to the effect her unearthly beauty has on other men, and which has earned her the title "the English Witch"! So when she’s kidnapped by another love-struck suitor, Alexandra assumes she’s truly doomed to a loveless marriage with her captor.

Leila Beaumont is a gorgeous and talented portrait painter trapped in a loveless marriage with her profligate husband, Francis. Though long ago, Francis very much played the hero, rescuing and wedding the orphaned 17-year-old Leila - Francis' more recent hedonistic lifestyle of drinking, drugging and womanizing has not only earned him quite a few enemies in London, but lost him the love of his wife.