Born into the tumultuous world of ancient Antioch, Selene is orphaned at birth. But before her father dies, he leaves a puzzling clue to her heritage: she has come from the gods and has a special destiny to fulfill. In the coming years, Selene studies the primitive healing arts with Mera, the healer-woman who adopts her. She learns how to lower fevers by brewing Hecate's Cure from the willow tree, how to apply green mold to an open wound to prevent infection, and most importantly, how to calm a patient by summoning the inner power of the "soul flame." But on her sixteenth birthday, Selene falls in love with Andreas, a passionate and troubled surgeon. When fate cruelly separates them, Selene's search for Andreas takes her to the great centers of civilization in the ancient world-Egypt, Babylon, and Rome. Desperate to find Andreas, Selene is torn between love and her dreams of healing when a revolutionary vision brings her to the fulfillment of her destiny-and the dawn of modern medicine.
Barbara Wood Books
- Barbara Wood







The Far River
- 440 pages
- 16 hours of reading
For as long as anyone could remember, the Schallers and the Newmans had been enemies. When the skeletal remains of a victim of foul play are discovered at the Schaller estate, a decades-old feud between the rival winemaking families is reignited and dark secrets begin to see the light of day. Set against the lush backdrop of the rolling hills of California's Central Coast, The New York Times best-selling author Barbara Wood's thirtieth novel is a generation-spanning saga of love, treachery, and bitterly held grudges.
Newlywed Emily Stone and her husband, Isaac, are young missionaries who have traveled from New England to Honolulu to share the Gospel with the Hawaiian natives. Gentle, adventurous, well-bred, and beautiful, Emily soon finds herself struggling with intense homesickness but remains determined to share her faith, and ignore her growing feelings for handsome Captain MacKenzie Farrow. Just as she begins to bond with the influential High Chiefess Pua and her daughter, Mahina, unexpected tragedy threatens to force her off the island. In a state of confusion, Emily makes a decision that could destroy everything she knows and loves. Three decades later, Sister Theresa comes to the islands as a missionary nurse and becomes acquainted with Captain Farrow's charming son, a powerful man who is instrumental in Hawaii's alliance with America. Theresa discovers that a dark curse is plaguing his family and the island's inhabitants, a curse that only Emily and Mahina can help her reverse.
Set in Kenya, in 1919, this book is of a British family, the Trevertons, who settle on an estate on the homeland of Kikuyu and the antagonism that develops between them and the tribe's own medicine woman, whose powers they disregard. Domina and Vital Signs are written by the same author.
A matriarchal saga set in post-war Egypt and spanning four decades. The pregnant Yasmina, cast out and sentenced to death by her family, journeys to England and becomes a doctor in America before returning to her homeland. The author's other novels include Green City in the Sun and Domina.
The Johnson Family Treasury: A Collection of Household Recipes and Remedies, 1741-1848
- 252 pages
- 9 hours of reading
"Compiled between 1741 and 1858, the recipes and remedies in this collection offer a fascinating glimpse into household technology, domestic medicine, and new foods available to the privileged classes in an age of expanding colonialism. Readers will be able to see the original pages and familiarize themselves with the different and very beautiful handwriting of the manuscript. Recipes on each page also appear in typescript so contemporary readers can quickly find information about ingredients and methods of preparation"--Back cover blurb
BOOK ONE OF THE BUTTERFLY TRILOGY From New York Times bestselling author Kathryn Harvey comes an arousing, passionate story of three women's hidden desires and the place called Butterfly, where dreams are kept and where fantasies come to life. Above an exclusive men's store on Rodeo Drive there is a private club called Butterfly, where women are free to act out their secret erotic fantasies. Only the most beautiful and powerful women in Beverly Hills are invited to join: Jessica, a lawyer who longs for the days when men were men, and women dressed to please them; Trudie, a builder who wants a man who will challenge her--all of her--with no holds barred; and Linda, a surgeon, who uses masks to unmask the desires she hides even from herself. But the most mysterious of them all is the woman who created Butterfly. She has changed her name, her accent, even her face to hide her true identity. And now she is about to reveal everything to realize the dream that has driven her since childhood--the secret obsession that will carry her beyond ecstasy, or destroy her and everyone around her.
The rich, the glamorous, the powerful all come to Stars, a magnificent and secluded Palm Springs mountain-top resort. And behind it all is the beautiful owner of Stars, a woman of great mystery.
Alias Papa. A Life of Fritz Schumacher
- 300 pages
- 11 hours of reading
E. F. Fritz Schumacher was a profound, influential thinker and economist, and this fascinating biography traces his life: from his early years in Germany and his move to England and internment during World War II, through to his later years, with the publication of "Small Is Beautiful" and the worldwide fame that resulted. Schumacher, at a time of unlimited economic growth, challenged this ideology and proposed an approach that recognized the impossibility of continuous growth in a finite world, and warned against the world's increasing dependence on oil. He was a key figure in the development of the environmental movement and was adamantly opposed to what he saw as violent solutions to economic problems, arguing against nuclear energy and advocating human-scale technology and organic cultivation. Schumacher's particular genius was to bring together the theoretical and the practical. He set up the Intermediate Technology Development Group (now Practical Action) to provide small-scale technology for developing countries, and his people-centered approach to development has now been adopted throughout the world. "Alias Papa," written by his eldest daughter, shows how his thinking and beliefs changed and evolved as his rigorous and questioning search for truth caused him to reflect on the events of his life and embark on a spiritual journey which was to change him as an economist and as a person."
In this gripping tale, Egyptologist Dr. Mark Davison seeks a legendary treasure in the desert after receiving a mysterious journal from a vanished Victorian scholar. As he journeys to Tel el-Amarna, he faces the seven curses of ancient guardians determined to protect the tomb, risking everything for a monumental discovery.