When Steve Lopez sees Nathaniel Ayers playing his heart out on a two-string violin on Los Angeles’ Skid Row. He finds it impossible to walk away. At first, he is drawn by the opportunity to crank out another column for the Los Angeles Times. Just one more item on an ever-growing to-do list: “Violin Man.”

Things change…

But what Lopez begins to unearth about the mysterious street musician leaves an indelible impression.” “More than thirty years earlier, Ayers had been a promising classical bass student at Juilliard. Ambitious, charming, and one of the few African-Americans. Until he gradually lost his ability to function, overcome by a mental breakdown. When Lopez finds him, Ayers is alone, suspicious of everyone, and deeply troubled, but glimmers of that brilliance are still there.”

From an impromptu concert of Beethoven’s Eighth in the Second Street tunnel to a performance of Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suites on Skid Row, the two men learn to communicate through Ayers’s music.

The Soloist is a story about unwavering commitment, artistic devotion, and the transformative magic of music.

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In this wholly absorbing historical novel, Mrs. Lucy Carelton, who comes from one of the wealthiest and most prominent families in 1880s New York City, has been completely undone by her nerves. Her ambitious husband. A nouveau riche stockbroker, drags her from one doctor to another in search of a cure that will allow her to fulfill her many social obligations without giving in to hysteria.

They think they have found the solution in charismatic neurologist Victor Seth. A champion of a relatively new procedure called hypnotism. Seth sets about freeing Lucy from the social constraints that have made her so unhappy. While encouraging her to pursue her artistic talents and explore her sexuality.

Seth convinces himself that his techniques, including his handy way with an electrotherapy wand, are all in the name of science. But even he is unprepared for the new Lucy who emerges–a passionate, calculating, amoral creature of large appetites. Chance’s straightforward prose and over-the-top plotting effectively combine in this diabolically clever, thoroughly entertaining take on women’s liberation.

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When a beautiful, aspiring writer strides into the East Village bookstore where Joe Goldberg works, he does what anyone would do: he Googles the name on her credit card.

There is only one Guinevere Beck in New York City. She has a public Facebook account and Tweets incessantly, telling Joe everything he needs to know: she is simply Beck to her friends, she went to Brown University, she lives on Bank Street, and she’ll be at a bar in Brooklyn tonight—the perfect place for a “chance” meeting.

As Joe invisibly and obsessively takes control of Beck’s life, he orchestrates a series of events to ensure Beck finds herself in his waiting arms. Moving from stalker to boyfriend, Joe transforms himself into Beck’s perfect man, all while quietly removing the obstacles that stand in their way—even if it means murder.

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The enemy is massing on the borders, a united force for once.

The king, a man of many victories, is in failing health, and his heir is an untested youth.

Uthred, the king’s champion, leads his country’s forces to war. However his victory is soured by personal tragedy and by the envy of the king’s court. So he breaks with the king and takes off for the land of his birth, determined to resist all calls for his return. That is, until one unexpected request…

This is the making of England brought magnificently to life by the master of historical fiction.

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