This packaged set of three acclaimed novels, covers twelve transformative years—1875 to 1887—in the life of the series’ big-hearted protagonist. The Reformer’s Apprentice opens with Frieda juggling a double life: adoring follower of a pioneer feminist and unpaid, harassed cook at her father’s San Francisco kosher boardinghouse. At twenty-two, she flees with an Arizona pioneer, a Jew, of sorts. In the First Lady of Dos Cacahuates Frieda survives sandstorms, flashfloods, heat, infidelity (surprisingly hers), fraudulence, and poverty. But Bennie’s love for her, Dos Cacahuates, and the desert proves contagious. Reckoning occurs in On Her Way Home, when her visiting kid sister is kidnapped by a murderer.
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Luis de Santángel, chancellor to the court and longtime friend of the lusty King Ferdinand, has had enough of the Spanish Inquisition. As the power of Inquisitor General Tomás de Torquemada grows, so does the brutality of the Spanish church and the suspicion and paranoia it inspires. When a dear friend’s demise brings the violence close to home, Santángel is enraged and takes retribution into his own hands. But he is from a family of conversos, and his Jewish heritage makes him an easy target. As Santángel witnesses the horrific persecution of his loved ones, he begins slowly to reconnect with the Jewish faith his family left behind.
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The Flower of Chinese Buddhism illuminates the development and role of Buddhism in Chinese society, with the introduction of Buddhism into China by traders and monks traveling along the Silk Route. The author examines the career and achievements of Kumarajiva, famed for his philosophical treaties and translations that form the core of much Buddhist literature. Special emphasis is given to faith in the Lotus Sutra, affording the uninitiated reader a useful and accessible introduction to the school of Buddhism that was to become influential in Japan and the inspiration for the teachings of the 13th-century Buddhist reformer Nichiren.
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Italy, 1456. The Renaissance is in glorious bloom. A Carmelite monk, the great artist Fra Filippo Lippi acts as chaplain to the nuns of the Convent Santa Margherita. It is here that he encounters the greatest temptation of his life, beautiful Lucrezia Buti, who has been driven to holy orders more by poverty than piety. In Lucrezia’s flawless face Lippi sees the inspiration for countless Madonnas and he brings the young woman to his studio to serve as his model. But as painter and muse are united in an exhilarating whirl of artistic discovery, a passionate love develops, one that threatens to destroy them both even as it fuels some of Lippi’s greatest work.
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Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize, tells the story of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, of the execution of Thomas More and the English Reformation, all from a new vantage point—through the eyes of the man traditionally considered its villain. For centuries Thomas Cromwell has been widely regarded as the unprincipled and power-hungry opportunist whose influence on Henry VIII contributed to the worst excesses of Tudor England. But Mantel gives Cromwell a chance to tell his side of the story, from his humble beginnings at the hands of a drunk and abusive father,
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Rebecca never felt safe as a child. In 1969, her father, Robert Nichols, moved to Sellerstown, North Carolina, to serve as a pastor. There he found a small community eager to welcome him—with one exception. Glaring at him from pew number seven was a man obsessed with controlling the church. Determined to get rid of anyone who stood in his way, he unleashed a plan of terror that was more devastating and violent than the Nichols family could have ever imagined. Refusing to be driven away by acts of intimidation, Rebecca’s father stood his ground until one night when an armed man walked into the family’s kitchen .
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