Emperor of Rome is not your usual chronological account of Roman rulers, one after another: the mad Caligula, the monster Nero, the philosopher Marcus Aurelius. Beard asks bigger questions: What power did emperors actually have? Was the Roman palace really so bloodstained?Emperor of Rome goes directly to the heart of Roman (and our own) fantasies about what it was to be Roman, offering an account of Roman history as it has never been presented before.

These sermons led to the infamous ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ – a series of fires lit throughout Florence for the incineration of everything from books, extravagant clothing, playing cards, musical instruments, make-up and mirrors, to paintings, tapestries and sculptures. Railing against the vice and avarice of the ruling Medici family, he was instrumental in their removal from power, and for a time became the puritanical leader of the city. After turning his attention to corruption in the entire Catholic Church, he was first excommunicated and then executed by a combination of hanging and being burnt at the stake.

Denise Mina brings a modern take to this fascinating historical story – drawing parallels between the febrile atmosphere of medieval Florence and the culture wars of the present day. In dramatising the life and last days of Savonarola she explores the downfall of the original architect of cancel culture and in the process explores the neverending tensions between wealth, inequality, and freedom of speech that so dominate our modern world.

In Three Fires, la pluripremiata autrice Denise Mina reinterpreta il “Rogo delle Vanità”, una serie di roghi accesi in tutta Firenze alla fine del XV secolo, ispirandosi al fanatico Girolamo Savonarola. Girolamo Savonarola era un frate domenicano vissuto a Firenze alla fine del XV secolo. Propugnatore della lotta alla corruzione, le sue prediche sull’inferno si trasformarono sempre più in invettive contro ogni lusso che inducesse al peccato.

Questi sermoni portarono al famigerato “Rogo delle Vanità”, una serie di roghi accesi in tutta Firenze per l’incenerimento di qualsiasi cosa, da libri, abiti stravaganti, carte da gioco, strumenti musicali, trucchi e specchi, a dipinti, arazzi e sculture. Inveendo contro il vizio e l’avarizia della famiglia Medici al potere, Savonarola fu determinante nella loro destituzione dal potere e, per un certo periodo, divenne il leader puritano della città. Dopo aver rivolto la sua attenzione alla corruzione dell’intera Chiesa cattolica, fu prima scomunicato e poi giustiziato con una combinazione di impiccagione e rogo.

Denise Mina offre una rivisitazione moderna di questa affascinante storia storica, tracciando parallelismi tra l’atmosfera febbrile della Firenze medievale e le guerre culturali odierne. Drammatizzando la vita e gli ultimi giorni di Savonarola, esplora la caduta del primo artefice della cultura della cancellazione e, nel frattempo, esplora le infinite tensioni tra ricchezza, disuguaglianza e libertà di parola che dominano il nostro mondo moderno.

But one night, TJ’s world turns upside down after his older brother John confesses that he just murdered one of the clients, an accountant he’d confronted with proof of embezzlement. It seems impossible coming from John, the firstborn son and Most Valuable Devlin. TJ plunges into the investigation, seizing the chance to prove his worth and save his brother.

But in no time, TJ and John find themselves entangled in a lethal web of deception and murder. TJ will fight to save his family, but what he learns might break them first.

Lisa Scottoline, autrice bestseller di What Happened to the Bennetts, presenta un altro avvincente thriller familiare su famiglia, giustizia e le bugie che ci distruggono. TJ Devlin è l’affascinante delusione dell’importante famiglia Devlin, composta da tutti avvocati del loro studio legale di successo, tranne lui. Dopo un periodo in prigione e un periodo di riabilitazione per alcolismo, TJ non riesce a trovare lavoro se non nello studio, in un lavoro di facciata con il titolo di investigatore.

Ma una notte, il mondo di TJ si capovolge quando suo fratello maggiore John confessa di aver appena ucciso uno dei clienti, un commercialista che aveva interrogato con prove di appropriazione indebita. Sembra impossibile, visto che proviene da John, il primogenito e il più prezioso Devlin. TJ si lancia nelle indagini, cogliendo l’occasione per dimostrare il suo valore e salvare il fratello.

Ma in men che non si dica, TJ e John si ritrovano invischiati in una rete letale di inganni e omicidi. TJ combatterà per salvare la sua famiglia, ma ciò che scoprirà potrebbe distruggerla per prima.

Discover the haunting, heart-breaking post-apocalyptic TikTok sensation. Deep underground, thirty-nine women are kept in isolation in a cage. Above ground, a world awaits.

Has it been abandoned? Devastated by a virus? Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only vague recollection of their lives before. But, as the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl – the fortieth prisoner – sits alone an outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others’ escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.

The woman who will never know men.

The Treason of Isengard continues the account of the creation of The Lord of the Rings started in the earlier volume, tracing the great expansion of the tale into new lands and peoples south and east of the Misty Mountains: the emergence of Lothlorien, of Ents, of the Riders of Rohan, and of Saruman the White in the fortress of Isengard. The War of the Ringtakes up the story with the Battle of Helm’s Deep and the drowning of Isengard by the Ents, continues with the journey of Frodo, Sam and Gollum to the Pass of Cirith Ungol, describes the war in Gondor, and ends with the parley between Gandalf and the ambassador of the Dark Lord before the Black Gate of Mordor. Sauron Defeated completes Christopher Tolkien’s fascinating study of The Lord of the Rings, beginning with Sam’s rescue of Frodo from the Tower of Cirith Ungol, and giving a very different account of the Scouring of the Shire, with many additional scenes and the unpublished Epilogue in its entirety.

Published together for the first time, these four books collect a fascinating period of Christopher Tolkien’s forty-year career devoted to presenting his father J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings on Middle-earth, a unique accomplishment that celebrates the greatest invented world in all of fantasy literature.

When Viola Marek hires Fox D’Mora to deal with a ghost-infested mansion, she expects a competent medium. But unbeknownst to Viola, Fox is not a medium at all. He’s a fraud – and the godson of Death.

As the mystery of the mansion unfolds, Viola and Fox are drawn into an unlikely quest that neither wants nor expects. They’ll need the help of a demonic personal trainer, a steadfast reaper, and an angel with her own secrets. It transpires that an inconvenient dead body and a lost love are intrinsically linked.

Can this coalition of unwilling allies solve this conundrum and un-haunt a house – by winning a devious immortal game?

She dreams of a creative life, but just she can’t find the right inspiration. One night, Mira witnesses an argument between Hana and her husband. Their words spark something in her and she starts typing.

But what stories are ours to tell? And how much can be forgiven?

Teddy Huntley Carlyle is fresh off a plane from Texas with a new husband in tow and a new life on the horizon. After some wayward years of bad men and bad decisions, she’s promised herself a fresh start. In Rome, Teddy will be good.

She will wear the right clothes and the perfect lipstick and she will charm her husband’s colleagues at the Embassy.And Teddy is good, until the Fourth of July, when her new life explodes with the fireworks above her head. She is caught on camera in the arms of the American ambassador just moments after spotting a man from the darkest corner of her past across the room. There it is: the evidence of her depravity on film.

Trying to recover the photographs and keep her reputation intact, Teddy descends into the dark underbelly of the city… but is she in over her head?

Change makes its way to Salt Point. The Kindred sisters – Ezra and Cinthy – grew up with an abundance of love. Love from their parents, who let them believe that the stories they tell on stars can come true.

Love from their neighbours, the Junketts, the only other Black family in town, whose home is filled with spice-rubbed ribs and ground-shaking hugs. And love for their adopted hometown of Salt Point, a beautiful New England village perched high up on coastal bluffs. But as the girls hit adolescence, their white neighbours, including Ezra’s best friend, Ruby, start to see their maturing bodies and minds in a different way.

And as the news from distant parts of the country fills with calls for freedom, equality, and justice for Black Americans, the white villagers of Salt Point begin to view the Kindreds and the Junketts as a threat to their way of life. Amidst escalating violence, prejudice, and fear, bold Ezra and watchful Cinthy must reach deep inside the wells of love they’ve built to commit great acts of heroism and grace on the path to survival. In luminous, richly descriptive writing, Promise celebrates one family’s story of resistance.

She knows how to survive in a world of constant surveillance, Thought Police, Newspeak, Doublethink, child spies and the black markets of the prole neighbourhoods. She’s very good at staying alive. But Julia becomes intrigued by a colleague from the Records Department – a mid-level worker of the Outer Party called Winston Smith, she comes to realise that she’s losing her grip and can no longer safely navigate her world.

Seventy-five years after Orwell finished writing his iconic novel, Sandra Newman has tackled the world of Big Brother in a truly convincing way, offering a dramatically different, feminist narrative that is true to and stands alongside the original. For the millions of readers who have been brought up with Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, here, finally, is a provocative, vital and utterly satisfying companion novel.