In a world where ambition is as fragile as porcelain, two lives are shaped by a king's dangerous obsessions.

In 18th-century Dresden, the dangerous whims of King Augustus the Strong shape the court and the lives of those held captive, both people and animals.

Johann Kändler, a talented young artist, is drawn into the world of King Augustus the Strong. The king's relentless desire for a lifelike porcelain menagerie could make or break Johann's future. As Johann works to meet the king's impossible demands, he finds unexpected allies in former royal mistress Maria and her daughter Katharina. Johann's art might secure his future-or ruin it if he fails to satisfy the king.

Decades earlier, another story unfolds. Fatima, a Turkish handmaiden, is chosen to replace Augustus's discarded mistress. As she tries to create a menagerie of exotic animals and navigate the intrigues of an unpredictable court, Fatima must learn to survive in a world that values beauty and power above all. She must fight to keep her identity and unlock her own cage in the king's dangerous realm.

Two timelines, bound by a king's art and survival intertwine as Johann and Fatima navigate the king's unpredictable demands and the deadly allure of court life, where ambition can be as fragile as porcelain.

Set at the turn of the 20th century, a mystical, tantalizing novel about a visionary’s journey toward her destiny. 

In 1888, Katherine Tingley, a medium and clairvoyant, continues to have a childhood vision of a white city on a sundown sea. While serving the poor at her Do-Good Mission on Manhattan’s East Side, she encounters William Q. Judge, a mesmerist and leader of the American Theosophical Society. He recognizes her potential, convinces her to become his student, and guides her on a spiritual path that could make her mystical dream become a reality.

After Judge’s passing, Katherine assumes leadership of the Society and embarks on a world crusade to spread brotherhood, learn from ancient cultures, and search for a Himalayan Mahatma. In 1900, she moves the Theosophical headquarters to San Diego. Here, she sets out to establish Lomaland—a sacred space of learning, artistry, and divine harmony, built on a barren peninsula yet brimming with hidden potential. As people from around the world converge to share in her vision, they form a community united in purpose to spread enlightenment. However, betrayals, lies, and libels accumulate until a monumental court case ultimately decides her future and the fate of the white city on a sundown sea.

As Paris rebuilds in the aftermath of World War II, one ex-pat uses the skills she learned in French kitchens during the war to bring long-held secrets to light.

Paris, 1952 -- An ex-pat wife living in Paris signs up for a cookery class taught by an American chef with an indomitable wit and decidedly French airs--an instructor by name of Julia Child. Amongst classes of the L'Ecole des Trois Gourmandes, with pots and pans and prim Paris wives learning to sauté in the French way, Kat Fontaine learns much more than she bargained for.

Still haunted by the years she spent serving in the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during WWII, Kat soon finds a simple cookery class unearths the tangle of gut-wrenching memories of war and questions about the high-ranking society husband whose past is as murky as her own. But when the puzzle pieces start to come together--and her carefully crafted Paris world begins to fall apart--Kat must confront her own secrets against the mounting suspicions of the husband she thought she knew . . .

Rue, 1943 -- Deep in the heart of Nazi-controlled northern France, Manon Altier shifts between working for the enemy by day--as a French chef at the famous Château du Broutel, where names like Himmler, Rommel, and Goebbels frequent the guest list--and running with underground networks against the Vichy regime at night. Working undercover to filter information to agents within the burgeoning OSS, Manon digs deep into the glitz and glamour of a Nazi stronghold that has her teetering on the edge of being discovered at any turn. But when an intriguing stranger appears at the chateau claiming to work with the French Resistance, Manon must lean on her instincts to judge whether to run and hide or stand firm--even as a terrifying discovery tests her resolve to continue the fight.

From the heights of culinary cuisine in 1950s Paris society to the underbelly of a WWII spy network embedded deep within Nazi-controlled Vichy France--and the spy backstory of the world's most famous would-be French chef, Julia Child--The French Kitchen turns up the heat on the pasts of women whose worlds collide, and forces each to question what she thought she'd planned for a perfect future.

Love is the only lifeline.

Post-WWI England is a nation in upheaval, its foundations shaken by the Great War and the collapse of genteel Edwardian society. The streets are haunted by shell-shocked men, runaways, mutilated veterans, damned poets, and revolutionaries.

Marion has fled Galway for Oxford after her elopement with a violent man ended violently. In the City of Dreaming Spires, where the cobbled streets, barely lit pubs, and underground book presses hum with restless energy, she meets Jamie, a damaged soul like her who is struggling to recover from his experiences at the front. He alone sees her scars. She alone knows his secret name. Their love is wild, anarchic, dangerous, absolute. Everything, it seems, is at stake. When the "talkers" in Marion's head get too loud and the circumstances of her life too dire, she disappears, leaving Jamie bereft and without word. But their love is like gravity--an undeniable force pitted against the dark forces that would keep them apart.

At once an erotic drama, a formally inventive romantic epic, and a historical novel written with an emotional intensity that bears comparison to classics like Wuthering Heights, Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square, and Madame Bovary, Amanda is a poignant, atmospheric meditation on love, trauma, and redemption. H.S. Cross delivers an unforgettable novel on the infinite varieties of human experience.