Elite Women

In Women Who Spark After 50, Aleta will continue to inspire the spark within you by sharing stories of midlife women who got up and got busy, helping you tap into unrealized dreams and passions, giving you the courage, and a roadmap, to put your dreams first after years of taking care of others. 

In June 1941, when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, Lyudmila Pavlichenko left her university studies and ignored the offer of a position as a nurse to become one of Soviet Russia's 2,000 female snipers. Less than a year later, she had 309 recorded kills, including 29 enemy sniper kills. She was withdrawn from active duty after being injured. She was also regarded as a key heroic figure for the war effort.

Ever since she was a child, every aspect of Julia Haart’s life—what she wore, what she ate, what she thought—was controlled by the dictates of ultra-Orthodox Judaism. At 19, after a lifetime spent caring for her seven younger siblings, she was married off to a man she barely knew. For the next 23 years, her marriage would rule her life. Eventually, when Haart’s younger daughter, Miriam, started to innocently question why she wasn’t allowed to sing in public, run in shorts, or ride a bike without being covered from neck to knee, Haart reached a breaking point.

In the late 2000s, Molly Bloom, a 20-something petite brunette from Loveland, Colorado, ran the highest stakes, most exclusive poker game in existence. Hundreds of millions of dollars were won and lost at her table. Molly's game became the game for those in the know - celebrities, business moguls and millionaires. Molly staged her games in palatial suites with beautiful views and exquisite amenities. She flew privately, dined at exquisite restaurants, hobnobbed with the heads of Hollywood studios, was courted by handsome leading men....

Dottir is two-time consecutive CrossFit Games Champion Katrin Davidsdottir's inspiring and poignant memoir. As one of only two women in history to have won the title of “Fittest Woman on Earth” twice, Davidsdottir knows all about the importance of mental and physical strength. She won the title in 2015, backing it up with a second win in 2016, after starting CrossFit in just 2011.

In Second Class, working-class Americans of all races, political orientations, and occupations share their stories—cleaning ladies, health care aides, cops, truck drivers, fast food workers, electricians, and more. In their own words, these working-class Americans explain the struggles and triumphs of their increasingly precarious lives—as well as what policies they think would improve them.

Bridal shop owner Mikayla Martin has witnessed a murder - and got an up-close-and-personal look at the killer. What's worse: She knows she knows him. But the police, after doing an alibi check, don't believe her. It's up to Mikayla to prove them wrong…and do whatever it takes to solve the murder by herself. Elite Ops agent Nikolai Steele, code name Renegade, is asked to pay an old comrade a favor. This friend swears he's no killer - and Nik believes him - even though he's been mistaken as one by Mikayla. So Nik goes to set her straight…but the moment he lays eyes on the fiery and determined beauty, he knows he's in too deep.

Micah Sloane knows almost everything there is to know about Risa Clay, including the vicious betrayal she endured years ago and the distrust she’s harbored ever since. The only way for the Elite Ops agent to uncover an assassin - and banish the ghosts of his own dark past - is to use Risa as bait. But nothing has prepared him for her disarming blend of innocence and sensuality, or for his overwhelming need to protect her.… Risa has spent six years rebuilding her life. And now, to save it, she must pose as Micah’s lover and draw a killer into the open.

In The Power Trip you will meet Aleksandr Kasianenko, a billionaire Russian oligarch, as he sets sail on The Bianca. You'll meet his sexy supermodel girlfriend, whom The Bianca is named after, and five dynamic, powerful, and famous couples invited on the yacht's maiden voyage: Hammond Patterson, a driven Senator, and his lovely but unhappy wife, Sierra; Cliff Baxter, a charming, never-married movie star, and his ex-waitress girlfriend, Lori; Taye Sherwin, a famous black UK footballer and his interior designer wife, Ashley; Luca Perez, a male Latin singing sensation with his older boyfriend.

Nixon Abandonato made his choice. And now he has to pay the price. Tracey is the love of his life, but being with him has made her a target of his family's enemies. The only way to keep Trace alive is convince the world she means nothing to him. Trace Rooks has fallen irrevocably in love with the son of her family's sworn rival, and she knows in her bones nothing can tear them apart. Until Nix suddenly pushes her away and into the arms of his best friend... But Trace isn't ready to give up on a future with Nix.

It was supposed to be simple. All Navy SEAL Nathan Malone had to do was rescue three young girls from a Colombian drug cartel, then allow himself to be captured just long enough to draw out a government spy. That was before his mission went disastrously wrong… and before his wife, Bella, was told that Nathan was never coming home. Bella’s mourned her husband’s death for three long years, having no idea that he was still alive....

Laura, a student from a modest background, escapes her small town to join the ranks of the academic elite on a Weatherfield fellowship to study at Oxford University. She enthusiastically throws herself into her coursework, yet she is never able to escape a feeling of unease and dislocation. Years later, back in the United States with a PhD and dissertation on Henry James, she loses her job as an adjunct and reconnects with the Weatherfield Foundation. Commissioned to write a history for its centennial, she becomes obsessed by the Gilded Age origins of the Weatherfield fortune.

Online dating can be overwhelming. I know, I’ve been there. But through trial and error, I came up with proven and tested ways to find women you are interested in online and then meet them for real. No more endless conversations that go nowhere and no more struggling to get noticed. I will reveal the best dating sites and apps to use, regardless of the type of relationship you are looking for, whether that is just for “some fun” or to “find your soulmate”.

Do it right, or don’t do it at all. London Chantelle’s mantra has brought her to the brink of success as a public relations consultant. Landing a contract with Whitestone International will push her career to the next level - if her ideas get past the firm’s legal “Gladiator”, Carson Drake. When he enters the boardroom, filling it with his commanding presence, her belly flips in a way that spells trouble.

In Erotic Exchanges, Nina Kushner reveals the complex world of elite prostitution in 18th-century Paris by focusing on the professional mistresses who dominated it. In this demimonde, these dames entretenues exchanged sex, company, and sometimes even love for being "kept". Most of these women entered the profession unwillingly, either because they were desperate and could find no other means of support or because they were sold by family members to brothels or to particular men.

For Nyla Holmes, life is never easy. Two steps forward always end up turning into ten steps back. As the coldest female barber in Elite Cutz, Nyla wants to own her own shop. She plans for years and has set her sights on the perfect building. Disappointment settles in once again when she finds out that her dream has to be put on hold. The one person Nyla believes will never hurt her does the unthinkable.

In Sister Style, Nadia E. Brown and Danielle Casarez Lemi argue that Black women's political experience and the way that voters evaluate them is shaped overtly by their skin tone and hair texture, with hair being a particular point of scrutiny....

The plan was simple: Elizabeth would ignore the fact that she was unjustly fired from her dream job, fly across the pond to settle an unexpected inheritance in her father’s home country, and quickly return to reclaim her position among the Silicon Valley elite. But when Elizabeth stumbles upon an abandoned puppy, she’s shocked to realize that her brief trip to England might turn into an extended stay. Her strict itinerary is upended completely by the pup’s dogged devotion, and soon the lovable puppy helps her to connect with a tight-knit community of new friends.

Julia, a hip, downtown salesgirl at Pelham's jewelry store, finds her social life turned on its head when she is asked to deliver a necklace to the store's young heiress, Lell Pelham, on Lell's wedding day. Beguiled by Julia's earnest cluelessness and her vintage-chic vibe, Lell and her gang adopt Julia, and "Eliza Doolittle" her into passing as the heiress to a family fortune, just for a laugh.

Julia, a hip, downtown salesgirl at Pelham's jewelry store, finds her social life turned on its head when she is asked to deliver a necklace to the store's young heiress, Lell Pelham, on Lell's wedding day. Beguiled by Julia's earnest cluelessness and her vintage-chic vibe, Lell and her gang adopt Julia, and "Eliza Doolittle" her into passing as the heiress to a family fortune, just for a laugh.