The Pride Of The Peacock

A young woman uncovers her family's dark secrets in this mystery and her connection to a famously cursed gemstone in this Victorian gothic thriller from an internationally bestselling author To secure her inheritance, Jessica Clavering agrees to a marriage of convenience, but will her handsome new husband's desire for her ever surpass his obsession with a famously cursed opal? Raised in the shadow of her family's financial ruin, Jessica has never felt as though she fit in. When her only friend, an elderly neighbor, offers her the chance at a new life, she's eager to take it. His only condition: she must marry her son, Joss. The newlyweds inherit a fabled opal mine in Australia. It's only once they arrive on the faraway continent that Jessica starts to uncover her family's dark past and her connection to the Green Flash, an exquisite and spellbinding opal. The stone arouses a dangerous desire in anyone who sees it-even her husband. Blending historical romance with elements of the paranormal, The Pride of the Peacock is an exhilarating tale from the Queen of Gothic Romance. Fans of Susanna Kearsley, Daphne Du Maurier, and Kate Morton will be spellbound by classic story of an overseas voyage, a cursed opal, and forbidden desire. Other Titles from Victoria Holt The India Fan: Drusilla's glamorous neighbors gift her a priceless family heirloom-a beautiful fans with a terrible curse The Shivering Sands: Caroline Verlaine's sister has gone missing and no one can tell her why. The only option is to go where Roma was last seen-an estate with a deadly history. The Time of the Hunter's Moon: According to legend, a girl will see her future husband at the time of the hunter's moon. But when the handsome stranger revealed to Cordelia Grant disappears after an all-too-brief encounter, she has to wonder: Was he merely an apparition...or something more? What readers are saying about The Pride of the Peacock "The heroine is adventurous, the hero is brooding, and the twists and turns of the story are unexpected, culminating in a surprise but satisfying ending." "It's suspenseful, full of relationship tales, uplifting, and I had a hard time putting it down!" "I couldn't put it down. The twist at the end is surprising and reminiscent of Agatha Christie's style. Definitely a classic." "One of Holt's best books." "I loved this book. I have read it over and over again-along with every novel ever written by Victoria Holt!" What reviewers are saying about The Pride of the Peacock "The mysteries drew me in and kept me guessing right up to the end..."-The Good, the Bad, and the Unread "This is just story telling at its finest."-Romancing the Book What everyone is saying about the Queen of Gothic Romance Victoria Holt "Victoria Holt's writing is captivating"-Bookfoolery "She spins history with romance and intrigue and always leaves me wanting more." "Holt's stories are spell binding....page turners." "I love her books! I have read all of them again and again. She is a wonderful storyteller." "One of the supreme writers of gothic romance, a compelling storyteller whose gripping novelshave thrilled millions."-RT Book Reviews.

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Portrait of a reckless and romantic woman who throws lives of four generations of her family into discord..

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A healthy ego is necessary to achieving our goals, to building healthy relationships, and to leading a satisfying and meaningful life. But an ego that gets too big—that becomes egotism—can actually inhibit all those wonderful possibilities. In this luminous guide, David Richo offers wisdom from psychology, myth, and spiritual traditions to show us how to let go of the kind of ego that causes suffering for ourselves and others. As a wonderful result, we gain self-confidence and find new ways to love too. It’s not a matter of getting rid of ego but of seeing through it. When we learn to do that, Dave says, we’ll discover the core of indestructible goodness in our enlightened nature. Then, when we see "big ego" expressed in ourselves or others, we begin to regard it with compassion rather than disdain. We are truly, Dave shows, not what we think but much, much more..

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In the Greek world under the Roman Empire, the tradition of rhetorical learning reached its heyday in the second century A.D., with the cultural movement named as “Second Sophistic”. Despite the emphasis on rhetoric, literary culture lato senso was was also part of it, granting a special place to poetics and literary criticism. In the wake of this hermeneutical and interdisciplinary approach, the papers assembled in this volume explore signi cant issues, which are linked to the narrative structure of the ancient novel and to the tradition of rhetorical training, both envisaged as a web of well-constructed narrative devices..

Unexpected things happen in life. How you handle them defines you, makes or breaks you. For author Estelle Reder, that journey evolved though a series of exciting new experiences from shamanic journeys to Reiki healings and teachings and guidance from a variety of mystics both earth-bound and celestial..

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The medieval bestiary was a contribution to didactic religious literature, addressing concerns central to all walks of Christian and secular life. These essays analyze the bestiary from both literary and art historical perspectives, exploring issues including kinship, romance, sex, death, and the afterlife..

"Best Film Book of 2013" -- Huffington Post In 1912, producer Henry Miller became smitten with his young discovery Ruth Chatterton. They teamed on stage in The Rainbow and for a time, off stage as well. In 1928 Hollywood beckoned. ‘Talkies’ needed ‘voices’ and Chatterton’s faultless English was her ticket to film stardom. Nominated for Best Actress in popular tearjerkers like Madame X and Sarah and Son, Chatterton proved equally adept in feminist turn, Female. In 1936, she offered her cinematic piece de resistance as the superficial, selfish wife of Walter Huston in the Academy Award nominated Dodsworth. A friend of Amelia Earhart, Ruth also earmarked her career as an aviator and sponsor of successful air derbies. By 1950, the actress/aviator became recognized as a novelist whose courageous, controversial work made The New York Times best-seller list. She tackled Anti-Semitism, McCarthyism, racism, and proved adept in making a positive ripple amid society’s prejudices..

On January 18, 1914, seven male poets gathered to eat a peacock. W. B. Yeats and Ezra Pound, the celebrities of the group, led four lesser-known poets to the Sussex manor house of the man they were honouring, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt: the poet, horse-breeder, Arabist, and anti-imperialist married to Byron's only granddaughter. In this story of the curious occasion that came to be known as the 'peacock dinner,' immortalized in the famous photograph of the poets standing in a row, Lucy McDiarmid creates a new kind of literary history derived from intimacies rather than 'isms.' The dinner evolved from three close literary friendships, those between Pound and Yeats, Yeats and Lady Gregory, and Lady Gregory and Blunt, whose romantic affair thirty years earlier was unknown to the others. Through close readings of unpublished letters, diaries, memoirs, and poems, in an argument at all times theoretically informed, McDiarmid reveals the way marriage and adultery, as well as friendship, offer ways of transmitting the professional culture of poetry. Like the women who are absent from the photograph, the poets at its edges (F.S. Flint, Richard Aldington, Sturge Moore, and Victor Plarr) are also brought into the discussion, adding interest by their very marginality. This is literary history told with considerable style and brio, often comically aware of the extraordinary alliances and rivalries of the 'seven male poets' but attuned to significant issues in coterie formation, literary homosociality, and the development of modernist poetics from late-Victorian and Georgian beginnings. Poets and the Peacock Dinner is written with critical sophistication and a wit and lightness that never compromise on the rich texture of event and personality..

Although readers of modern literature have always known about the collaboration of W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound, the crucial winters these poets spent living together in Stone Cottage in Sussex (1913-1916) have remained a mystery. Working from a large base of previously unpublished material, James Longenbach presents for the first time the untold story of these three winters. Inside the secret world of Stone Cottage, Pound's Imagist poems were inextricably linked to Yeats's studies in spiritualism and magic, and early drafts of The Cantos reveal that the poem began in response to the same esoteric texts that shaped Yeats's visionary system. At the same time, Yeats's autobiographies and Noh-style plays took shape with Pound's assistance. Having retreated to Sussex to escape the flurry of wartime London, both poets tracked the progress of the Great War and in response wrote poems--some unpublished until now--that directly address the poet's political function. More than the story of a literary friendship, Stone Cottage explores the Pound-Yeats connection within the larger context of modern literature and culture, illuminating work that ranks with the greatest achievements of modernism..

Animals and their symbolism in diverse world cultures and different eras of human history are chronicled in this lovely volume..

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A pourquoi tale from India that reveals why the Peacock "came to drag his train of feathers behind him, no longer blinded with pride.".

"In Peacock, Christine E. Jackson provides a comprehensive survey of the influence of the peacock in the visual arts of many cultures, and of its role in religion and mythology. She also explores its natural history, and reveals how this sedentary bird, native to India and Sri Lanka and reluctant to fly great distances, has come to live in semi-domesticated conditions in so many Western countries."--BOOK JACKET..