The Prisoner of Zenda - Anthony Hope - The Prisoner of Zenda (1894), by Anthony Hope, is an adventure novel in which the King of Ruritania is drugged on the eve of his coronation and thus is unable to attend the ceremony. Political forces within the realm are such that, in order for the king to retain the crown, his coronation must proceed. Fortuitously, an English gentleman on holiday in Ruritania who resembles the monarch is persuaded to act as...

What's the harm in a pseudonym? Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn't write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American--in this chilling and hilariously cutting novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author R. F. Kuang in the vein of White Ivy and The Other Black Girl. Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year...

The Inventive Peasant Arnaud du Tilh had almost persuaded the learned judges at the Parlement of Toulouse, when on a summer's day in 1560 a man swaggered into the court on a wooden leg, denounced Arnaud, and reestablished his claim to the identity, property, and wife of Martin Guerre. The astonishing case captured the imagination of the Continent. Natalie Zemon Davis reconstructs the lives of ordinary people, in a sparkling way that reveals the hidden...

After a heist she planned lands two men she loves in prison, a woman flees Paris and assumes a new identity, furtively checking news from her hometown as her web of deception unravels. On the grubby outskirts of Paris a woman restores bric-a-brac, mends teapots, re-sets gems. She calls herself Julie, says she's from California. Regularly, furtively, she checks the hometown paper on the Internet. Home is Garland, Tennessee, and there, two young men...

An orphan girl dreams of becoming a ballerina and flees her rural Brittany for Paris, where she passes for someone else and accedes to the position of pupil at the Grand Opera house.

"In a world dominated by the brutal Vathek empire, eighteen-year-old Amani is a dreamer. She dreams of what life was like before the occupation; she dreams of writing poetry; she dreams of having adventures, and travelling beyond her isolated home. But when adventure comes for Amani, it is not what she expects: she is kidnapped and brought to the royal palace, where she discovers that she is to become a body double for the hated princess Maram."--...

Think You Know Who Your Friends Are? Think again... From Mata Hari to D. B. Cooper, history is littered with people pretending to be someone else. Some go undetected for years, cultivating their false identities so skillfully, even their spouses don't know. Other frauds go up in flames after one misstep. The Ultimate Book of Impostors presents the astonishing true stories behind over one hundred of the craziest and funniest phonies in history, including:...

It's a big night at the London Palladium. Jimmy Conway is about to perform his stand-up comedy routine in front of two thousand invited guests and millions more watching the event live on TV. He steps into the spotlights and waits for the applause to die down. He tries to appear confident but he can't help wondering whether he should have shared his little secret with someone by now. Jimmy has never performed comedy, or anything, before. Ever. How...

"The New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Knew Too Much sweeps readers back to 1930s California--where the most dazzling of illusions can't hide the darkest secrets... After escaping from a private sanitarium, Adelaide Blake arrives in Burning Cove, California, desperate to start over. Working at an herbal tea shop puts her on the radar of those who frequent the seaside resort town: Hollywood movers and shakers always in need of hangover...

"Have you ever wondered why Bernie Madoff thought he could brazenly steal his clients' money? Or why investors were so easily duped by Elizabeth Holmes? Or how courageous people like Jeffrey Wigand are willing to become whistleblowers and put their careers on the line? Fraud is everywhere-from Nigerian "princes," embezzlers, and Ponzi schemers to corporate giants like Enron and Volkswagen. And fraud is costly. Each year, consumers, small businesses,...