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Interview with the Vampire
and other titles by Anne Rice

     Louis, a New Orleans vampire, recounts the story of his travels throughout the world in search of identity and companionship. Rice's riveting account features compelling characters and evocative, gothic settings that frame the hero's internal struggle between conventional human morality and self-realization.

The Oracle Glass
and other titles by Judith Merkle Riley

     A young woman's gift of vision brings her freedom and fortune, but with it comes the threat of a dark destiny. Riley's enticing narrative about a diviner in Seventeenth-Century Paris dazzles us with exquisite details about the price one must pay to gain wealth, fame, power, and beauty in the Sun King's court.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
by Mark Twain

     This parody of chivralric literature pits a practical, prosaic Yankee born of the Industrial Revolution against a realm dominated by a frivilous and ignorant aristocracy, a manipulative sorcerer, an unwieldy code of honor, superstitious peasants, and the unquestionable authority of the medieval church. Twain adds healthy doses of self-assured pluck and sharp-eye skepticism as he traces his hero's creation of order from chaos, but the dénouement foreshadows the self-doubt and pessimism that predominates his later writings.

I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem
by Maryse Condé

     In this revealing novel about a slave who is but a footnote in the history of the Salem witch trials, Condé gives voice to the forgotten victims of that tumultuous period. By combining well-documented historical details with original narrative, she reveals the hypocrisy and barbarism of Tituba's tormentors, effectively implicating an entire culture in their crime. In addition to displaying a strong social conscience, the narrative successfully incorporates metatextual elements, anachronism, and the exploration of sexual identity in a most intriguing blend of genres.