Passion after dark Sophie Eden refuses to sell her family’s legacy, especially not to Jake Wheeler. He and Sophie have history – a night of passion that first left her elated, then heartbroken. Now the heiress wants him to stay away. But when they’re snowed in for Christmas, they surrender to temptation. Meanwhile, a secret awaits to tear them apart… • When guarded billionaire Lukas Christophedes finds maid Ashleigh Murphy living in his mansion, he strikes a deal with his gorgeous gate crasher. If Ashleigh pretends to be Lukas’ girlfriend to help him close a crucial business deal, she can stay until the New Year. For newly single Ashleigh, agreeing to keep hearts off the table sounds easy…until the line between what’s real and what’s fake starts to blur! • Shy Chloe Russo is dreading her first Christmas running the family business. Working with Nico Di Fiore is the last straw! Once, Nico’s kisses promised Chloe every sensual delight – until he coldly rejected her. And now he’s her boss! Control is paramount to Nico – he’s always kept a tight rein on his craving for Chloe. But now, unable to deny their connection, Nico is determined to reclaim control and take Chloe as his own!

From uninvited guest to emergency bride! Sneaking into ruthless Spaniard Lionel’s wedding ceremony, Geraldine arrives just in time to see him jilted. But Lionel is still in need of a convenient wife…and innocent Geraldine suddenly finds herself being led to the altar! Will they mix business with pleasure? To save his failing fashion house, CEO Cristiano needs the face of the brand, Jensen, to clean up her headline-hitting reputation. But while she’s lying low at his Lake Como estate he’s caught between his company…and his desire for the scandalous supermodel!

One last night He may have craved her for a decade, but one exquisite night with Mia Rodriguez is all Nikandros Drakos, the Daredevil Prince of Drakon, will allow himself. It’s time to face the duty he’s denied for so long. But when their sizzling liaison leads to an unexpected pregnancy, Nik won’t rest until his child is part of the Drakon legacy, and Mia is at his side. • One last night with Sofía Ramirez was all Prince Nikandros Constantinides allowed himself before returning to Akathinia after a dreadful accident took his brother’s life. But before the royal rebel is crowned, Nik discovers that he didn’t leave Sofía behind alone! Dissolving a politically perfect engagement is not what Nik – or his country – had in mind, but this proud Prince will do whatever it takes to legitimise his new rule…with a wife and child! • Seeking revenge for his royal family’s rejection, warrior Sheikh Adir seduces his brother’s innocent fiancée! But when he returns to steal Amira from the altar, he discovers their illicit encounter has left her pregnant. Secluded in the desert, longing soon consumes them. But Adir’s baby must be legitimate – and he’ll claim his heir with a vow!

A whirlwind romance The last six years of Bree Evans’ personal life have been such a disaster that she’s decided to solely refocus on her successful cookie business. Until her gorgeous former crush, Brand Wallace – now a dashing internet tycoon – sweeps her into his world… • Justine Winter’s home is her sanctuary – but it’s under threat from property developer Casson Forrester! Justine goes head-to-head with the formidable millionaire but must resist his charms. It soon transpires that he threatens not just Justine’s home, but her heart… • To win the most important deal of his life, Lazzero Di Fiore needs a fake fiancée. He strikes a pact with his gorgeous but guarded local barista Chiara Ferrante: he’ll save her father from bankruptcy if she agrees to wear his ring! But any convenience is consumed by their explosive attraction. Now Lazzero is determined to see his diamond on Chiara’s finger – for good!

MARIA GRAHAM'S JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO BRAZIL is a scholarly edition of nineteenth century travel writer Graham's travel narrative first published in 1824. One of only a few women travelers to have written about her experiences in South America in the early nineteenth century, Graham provides an invaluable first-hand account of Brazil and its transformation from a Portuguese colony to an independent nation. She offers not only observations about social customs, politics, and the role of the British in South America but also insights into Brazilian slavery at a time of rising abolitionist activism. This edition is unique in incorporating Graham's own unpublished corrections to her first edition and in bringing together supplementary materials to contextualize the journal, including contemporary reviews of her narrative, early nineteenth century maps of Brazil, and Graham's unpublished autobiographical and historical sketch, "Life of Don Pedro." The edition also provides an editors' introduction situating Graham's narrative in relation to the few extant travel narratives about Brazil-all written by men-as well as within the socio-historical and cultural landscape of her time, with particular focus on abolitionist discourses and the process of Brazilian independence. Graham actively imagined Brazil as a New World site of extraordinary possibility, and she envisioned herself as furthering the country's development; she critiqued slavery in particular as a practice antithetical to Brazil's transformation into a modern, civilized nation. Graham creates a complex, and sometimes contradictory, portrait of Brazil as a wilderness ripe with plenitude and possibility as well as an emergent nation-state, a visionary site of New World modernity. ABOUT THE AUTHORS: JENNIFER HAYWARD, professor and chair of English at The College of Wooster, received her PhD in English Literature from Princeton University. In addition to essays on nineteenth century British travelers in Latin America, she is author of CONSUMING FICTIONS: ACTIVE AUDIENCES AND SERIAL FICTIONS FROM DICKENS TO SOAPS (University Press of Kentucky, 1997) and editor of MARIA GRAHAM'S 1824 JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE IN CHILE (University Press of Virginia, 2003). Hayward's academic awards include an NEH Summer Stipend (2006), and BSA and Huntington Library/British Academy Fellowships (2006). Her current research focuses on nineteenth century Scottish travellers in the Americas, with particular focus on gendered perspectives and issues of national identity. M. SOLEDAD CABALLERO is an associate professor of English at Allegheny College and received her PhD from Tufts University. Her teaching and research interests include British Romanticism, travel writing, women's literature, and Latino/a contemporary literatures. She has published articles about women travel writers Maria Dundas Graham and Frances Calderon de la Barca in scholarly journals as well as edited collections. She has also published a short memoir piece about bilingualism. Currently she is working on a longer project about the aesthetics of monstrosity in the nineteenth century, in particular how ideas of the monstrous map onto foreign bodies or alienated bodies in the body politics of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century England.

"To be continued..." Whether these words fall at the end of The Empire Strikes Back or a TV commercial flirtation between coffee-loving neighbors, true fans find them impossible to resist. Ever since the 1830s, when Charles Dickens's Pickwick Papers enticed a mass market for fiction, the serial has been a popular means of snaring avid audiences. In Consuming Pleasures jennifer Hayward establishes serial fiction as a distinct genre-one defined by the activities of its audience rather than by the formal qualities of the text. Ranging from installment novels, mysteries, and detective fiction of the 1800s to the television and movie series, comics, and advertisements of the twentieth century, serials are loosely linked by what may be called, after Wittgenstein, "family resemblances." These traits include intertwined subplots, diverse casts of characters, dramatic plot reversals, suspense, and such narrative devices as long-lost family members and evil twins. Hayward chooses four texts--Dickens's novel Our Mutual Friend (1864-65), Milton Caniff's comic strip Terry and the Pirates (1934-46), and the soap operas All My Children (1970-) and One Life to Live (1968-)--to represent the evolution of serial fiction as a genre, and to analyze the peculiar draw serials have upon their audiences. Although the serial has enjoyed great marketplace success, traditional literary and social critics have denounced its ties to mass culture, claiming it preys upon passive fans. But Hayward argues that active serial audiences have developed identifiable strategies of consumption, such as collaborative reading and attempts to shape the production process.