Second in the trilogy that began with The Good Earth, Buck's classic and starkly real tale of sons rising against their honored fathers tells of the bitter struggle to the death between the old and the new in China. Revolutions sweep the vast nation, leaving destruction and death in their wake, yet also promising emancipation to China's oppressed millions who are groping for a way to survive in a modern age.

Exactly at midnight on Aug. 15, 1947, two boys are born in a Bombay hospital, where they are switched by a nurse. Saleem Sinai, who will be raised by a well-to-do Muslim couple, is actually the illegitimate son of a low-caste Hindu woman and a departing British colonist. Shiva, the son of the Muslim couple, is given to a poor Hindu street performer whose unfaithful wife has died. Saleem represents modern India. When he is 30, he writes his memoir,...

In the city of Egunu, Nigeria, fifteen year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a somewhat cloistered life. Their father is a wealthy businessman, they live in a beautiful home, and attend private school. But, through Kambili's eyes, we see that their home life is anything but harmonious. Her father, a fanatically religious man has impossible expectations of his children and his wife, and if things don't go his way he becomes physically abusive....

Agatha Raisin has finally opened her own detective agency. But when it seems like all she's doing is looking for missing cats while being outclassed by her sixty-seven year-old secretary, she wonders if she has finally bitten off more than she can chew? When the wealthy Mrs. Laggat-Brown walks in, claiming that her daughter is receiving death threats, Agatha realizes that this is the chance she's been waiting for. But as she careens through the case,...

Irish rebel: She was practically royalty--the daughter of a rich, renowned horse-breeding dynasty. He was just a hardworking horse trainer. But Brian Donnelly was in America now, where even he might aspire to possess the breathtaking Keeley Grant. Her wealth and position didn't deter Brian...for it was the innocence Keeley offered him that beguiled the wild Irish rebel and threatened to corral his restless heart. Sullivan's woman: Fired from yet...

"Saint Ambrose Prep is a place where the wealthy send their children for the best possible education, with teachers and administrators from the Ivy League, and graduates who become future lawyers, politicians, filmmakers, and CEOs. Traditionally a boys-only school, Saint Ambrose has just enrolled one hundred and forty female students for the first time. Even though most of the kids on the campus have all the privilege in the world, some are struggling,...