title: Stealing Athena: A Novel
author:  Karen Essex 
description: Lord Elgin may be famous for bringing the Parthenon's sculptural masterpieces to England during the Napoleonic wars, but for Essex (<i>Leonardo's Swans</i>), it's Lady Elgin who pays for it, in fortune and in reputation. More about money than sex, and more about art than either, Essex's latest alternates the story of Scottish heiress Mary Hamilton Nisbet Bruce, countess of Elgin, with that of Aspasia, courtesan lover of the great Pericles and the inspiration for the Parthenon's Athena. Essex begins with 21-year-old Mary, newly wed and pregnant, en route to Constantinople with her diplomat husband. She soon discovers his obsession with dismantling the Ottoman-controlled Parthenon and his plan to reconstruct it in his Greek revival home. Over years, Mary endures his neglect and gives him five children before turning to fellow Scot Robert Ferguson, a powerful Englishman who stands by her during a racy divorce trial. That trial, in which English society spurns Mary, is mirrored by Aspasia's run-in with an Athenian court for sexual impropriety. Both of their stories are overshadowed by the marbles themselves; their creation, recovery, transport and restoration provide the most vivid passages of the novel. Essex shines light on the women who inspired and protected some of the greatest art ever created, and the men who exploited them. <i>(June)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  Cherry Hill 1: A Place to Call Home
  Athena is in hiding and will do whatever is necessary to be free. No one can be trusted. Not even the good-
  looking local sheriff.
  Battered, abused, forced to live as a prisoner after her father double-crosses some business man, her 
  future looked grim until she decided there was no one to save her but herself. She was willing to die for 
  freedom and never once thought by running would she wind up in a place like Cherry Hill, Texas. The local 
  sheriff, Kane McCabe and his three brothers aren't exactly buying her story. Culter runs a dojo, Chase and 
  Fox are mercenaries, and they know when someone is in trouble and lying to survive. They do their best to 
  convince Athena to trust them before it's too late.
  Athena never knew love before, she feared intimacy and letting down that guard. The McCabe brothers 
  prove to her that love is real, and they can make a safe and loving home in Cherry Hill, only if they eliminate
  the real threat and save her an