Showing results by author "Lynn Cullen" in All Categories

In 1940s and ’50s America, polio is as dreaded as the atomic bomb. No one’s life is untouched by this disease that kills or paralyzes its victims, particularly children. Outbreaks of the virus across the country regularly put American cities in lockdown. Some of the world’s best minds are engaged in the race to find a vaccine. The man who succeeds will be a god.

Inspired by literature's most haunting love triangle, award-winning author Lynn Cullen delivers a pitch-perfect rendering of Edgar Allan Poe, his mistress's tantalizing confession, and his wife's frightening obsession . . . in this "intelligent, sexy, and utterly addictive" (M. J. Rose) new masterpiece of historical fiction.

1934. Ruth has been single-handedly raising four young daughters and running her family's Indiana farm for eight long years, ever since her husband, John, was infected by the infamous "sleeping sickness" devastating families across the country. If only she could trade places with her older sister, June: blonde and beautiful, married to a wealthy doctor, living in a mansion in St. Paul. And June has a coveted job, too, as one of "the Bettys", the perky recipe developers who populate the famous Betty Crocker test kitchen.

Juana of Castile, third child of the Spanish monarchs Isabel and Fernando, grows up with no hope of inheriting her parents' crowns, but as a princess knows her duty: to further her family's ambitions through marriage. Yet stories of courtly love, and of her parents' own legendary romance, surround her. When she weds the Duke of Burgundy, a young man so beautiful that he is known as Philippe the Handsome, she dares to hope that she might have both love and crowns.

In March of 1909, Mark Twain cheerfully blessed the wedding of his private secretary, Isabel V. Lyon, and his business manager, Ralph Ashcroft. One month later he fired both. He proceeded to write a ferocious 429-page rant about the pair, calling Isabel "a liar, a forger, a thief, a hypocrite, a drunkard, a sneak, a humbug, a traitor, a conspirator, a filthy-minded and salacious slut pining for seduction".

Vanderbilt-Hospital, Nashville 1940: Dr. Dorothy Millicent Horstmann fällt auf unter den Ärzten der Klinik. Sie ist 1,85 m groß. Und sie ist eine Frau - meistens die einzige im Raum. Dorothy hat Großes vor: Sie will die Kinderlähmung bezwingen, die so viel Leid im ganzen Land verursacht. Zu viele Patienten hat sie in der Eisernen Lunge um Luft ringen und sterben sehen. Dorothy kennt nur ein Ziel : Das Polio-Virus auszulöschen, durch Heilung oder einen Impfstoff. Die berühmten Forscher in ihrem Umfeld zweifeln an ihrer These zur Ausbreitung des Virus im Körper, aber sie wird ihnen beweisen, dass sie recht hat - um jeden Preis.

From acclaimed historical novelist Lynn Cullen comes a lush and compelling tale of intrigue and longing, set in the 16th-century Spanish court. After a scandal ends her apprenticeship with Michelangelo in 1559, artist Sofonisba Anguissola accepts an invitation from King Felipe II to become lady-in-waiting and painting teacher to his teenage bride Elisabeth. And though Sofi’s developing affair may be risky, Elisabeth’s dalliance with the king’s brother, Don Juan, could be deadly.