Timothy Crump's Ward: A Story of American Life

Slow and Sure: The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant by Jr. Horatio Alger

Alger's writings happened to correspond with America's Gilded Age, a time of increasing prosperity in a nation rebuilding from the Civil War.This is another fine work by Alger in the vein of 'rags to riches' tales.

The class of boys described in the present volume was called into existence only a few years since, but they are already so numerous that one can scarcely ride down town by any conveyance without having one for a fellow-passenger. Most of them reside with their parents and have comfortable homes, but a few, like the hero of this story, are wholly dependent on their own exertions for a livelihood.

A youth of sturdy qualities elects to follow the calling of a deckhand on a Hudson River steamboat...

Alger describes young men in the city trying to get a head as newsboys, match boys, pedlars, street musicians, and many others. Through luck and hard work, sixteen-year-old Ohio farm boy Nat finds surprising success in nineteenth-century New York City.

This book is written in the typical Alger style. Herbert is a poor boy who sets out, with the help of his great uncle, to clear his father's name of a crime he did not commit...

I was sitting in the Presidential Suite of The Pierre, wearing a Vera Wang gown worth more than most people earn in a decade. It was supposed to be the wedding of the century, the final move to merge two of Manhattan's most powerful empires. Then my phone buzzed. It was an Instagram Story from my fiancé, Jameson. He was at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris with a caption that read: "Fuck the chains. Chasing freedom." He hadn't just gotten cold feet; he had abandoned me at the altar to run across the world. My father didn't come in to comfort me. He burst through the door roaring about a lost acquisition deal, telling me the Holland Group would strip our family for parts if the ceremony didn't happen by noon. My stepmother wailed about us becoming the laughingstock of the Upper East Side. The Holland PR director even suggested I fake a "panic attack" to make myself look weak and sympathetic to save their stock price. Then Jameson’s sleazy cousin, Pierce, walked in with a lopsided grin, offering to "step in" and marry me just to get his hands on my assets. I looked at them and realized I wasn't a daughter or a bride to anyone in that room. I was a failed asset, a bouncing check, a girl whose own father told her to go to Paris and "beg" the man who had just publicly humiliated her. The girl who wanted to be loved died in that mirror. I realized that if I was going to be sold to save a merger, I was going to sell myself to the one who actually controlled the money. I marched past my parents and walked straight into the VIP holding room. I looked the most powerful man in the room—Jameson’s cold, ruthless uncle, Fletcher Holland—dead in the eye and threw the iPad on the table. "Jameson is gone," I said, my voice as hard as stone. "Marry me instead."

For seventeen years, I was the crown jewel of the Kensington empire, the perfect daughter groomed for a royal future. Then, a cream-colored envelope landed in my lap, bearing a gold crest and a truth that turned my world into ice. The DNA test result was a cold, hard zero percent-I wasn't a Kensington. Before the ink could even dry, my parents invited my replacement, a girl named Alleen, into the drawing room and treated me like a trespasser in my own home. My mother, who once hosted galas in my honor, wouldn't even look me in the eye as she stroked Alleen's arm, whispering that she was finally "safe." My father handed me a one-million-dollar check-a mere tip for a billionaire-and told me to leave immediately to avoid tanking the company's stock price. "You're a thief! You lived my life, you spent my money, and you don't get to keep the loot!" Alleen shrieked, trying to claw the designer jacket off my shoulders while my "parents" watched with clinical detachment. I was dumped on a gritty sidewalk in Queens with nothing but three trunks and the address of a struggling laborer I was now supposed to call "Dad." I traded a marble mansion for a crumbling walk-up where the air smelled of exhaust and my new bedroom was a literal storage closet. My biological family thought I was a broken princess, and the Kensingtons thought they had successfully erased me with a payoff and a non-disclosure agreement. They had no idea that while I was hauling trunks up four flights of stairs, my secret media empire was already preparing to move against them. As I sat on a thin mattress in the dark, I opened my encrypted laptop and sent a single command that would cost my former father ten million dollars by breakfast. They thought they were throwing me to the wolves, but they forgot one thing: I'm the one who leads the pack.

I lived as the "scarred ghost" of the Stephens penthouse, a wife kept in the shadows because my facial burns offended my billionaire husband’s aesthetic. For years, I endured Kason’s coldness and my family's abuse, a submissive puppet who believed she had nowhere else to go. The end came with a blue folder tossed onto my silk sheets. Kason’s mistress was back, and he wanted me out by sunset, offering a five-million-dollar "silence fee" to go hide my face in the countryside. The betrayal cut deep when I discovered my father had already traded my divorce for a corporate bailout. My step-sister mocked my "trashy" appearance at a high-end boutique, while the sales staff treated me like a common thief. At home, my father threatened to cut off my mother's life-saving medicine unless I crawled back to Kason to beg for a better deal. I was the girl who took the blame for a fire she didn't start, the wife who worshipped a man who never looked her in the eye, and the daughter used as a human bargaining chip. I was supposed to be broken, penniless, and desperate. But the woman who stood up wasn't the weak Elease Finch anymore; she was Phoenix, a tactical predator with a $500 million secret. I signed the divorce papers without a single tear, walked past my stunned husband, and wiped the Finch family's bank accounts clean with a few taps on my phone. "Your money is dirty," I told Kason with a cold smile. "I prefer clean hands." The cage is open, the hunt has begun, and I’m starting with the people who thought a scar made me weak.

The rain assaulted the glass, mirroring the storm inside me. For three years, I, Vivian Sterling, played the perfect wife to Julian Kensington, draining my life. The antique clock ticked, a reminder of time lost. Then, I found it: a blonde hair on Julian's suit, reeking of Midnight Rose, and a text, ""Candy: You left your cufflinks on my nightstand. I'm already missing you."" My world shattered, revealing his betrayal. This was just the beginning. I exposed Julian's fraud and his family's violent plots, surviving assassination. But their malice stole my past. Then Alexander Vance, my protector, uncovered a terrifying truth: my birth mother was alive, held captive by a shadowy order. My life was a lie, built to shield me from my dangerous bloodline. I found strength and love with Alexander, the man who walked into fire for me. Yet, as I prepared to rescue my mother, a new life stirred within me, a secret threatening to complicate the impending war.

"I will marry you. Wait for me!" Mabel woke up. She had that dream again. In her dream, a man said he would marry her. Just a dream. Five years ago, she was set up by her stepsister and became pregnant out of wedlock. She lost everything, including her baby. Five years later, she was forced to marry her stepsister's fiance, Jayden, who was sick and going to pass away. Having no choice, Mabel decided to marry Jayden, not expecting that Jayden was the man...

Lyric had spent her life being hated. Bullied for her scarred face and hated by everyone-including her own mate-she was always told she was ugly. Her mate only kept her around to gain territory, and the moment he got what he wanted, he rejected her, leaving her broken and alone. Then, she met him. The first man to call her beautiful. The first man to show her what it felt like to be loved. It was only one night, but it changed everything. For Lyric, he was a saint, a savior. For him, she was the only woman that had ever made him cum in bed-a problem he had been battling for years. Lyric thought her life would finally be different, but like everyone else in her life, he lied. And when she found out who he really was, she realized he wasn't just dangerous-he was the kind of man you don't escape from. Lyric wanted to run. She wanted freedom. But she desired to navigate her way and take back her respect, to rise above the ashes. Eventually, she was forced into a dark world she didn't wish to get involved with.