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Gorgeous goddesses seem to surround script-reader and wannabe movie-maker Anna Brown - from her deranged glamour-queen boss to her perfect, pouting flat-mates - for Anna, being less-than-beautiful is very hard to bear. With a dead-end job and a ghastly boyfriend to boot, she wonders if she can ever be a success. In fashion- and beauty-crazed London, perhaps being talented just isn't enough. Enter Mark Swan, Britain's hottest director. Rugged, reclusive and powerful, everybody wants a piece of him - from studio heads to supermodels. He could be Anna's ticket to the top, but how can she ever hope to snag such a big star? Fed up of being downbeat and dowdy, Anna decides to chase her dreams and, with a little help from her friends, embarks on a madcap scheme to get just what she's after...
Continuing the brilliant World War Two fighter pilot series - this time the theatre of war is the incredible story of the Siege of Malta. Summer 1941. The tiny island of Malta has become the most bombed place on earth. The Germans and Italians want to destroy it. For the fighter pilots of the RAF, initially equipped with ageing Hurricanes and outnumbered in the air, defeat seems almost certain. Flight commanders Englishman Kit Curtis and American Ossie Wolf have survived the Fall of France and the Battle of Britain but Curtis remains idealistic and eager to prove himself. Wolf, by contrast, is ruthless and thrives in the chaos of imminent invasion. But as each man is tested to the limit, they come to share a fresh understanding.
In September 1939, World War Two is declared. For RAF fighter pilots patrolling the Franco-German border it is a bizarre time: one moment they are chasing an elusive Luftwaffe, the next ordering champagne in Paris. Then, in May 1940, Hitler launches Blitzkrieg and the Hurricane squadrons find themselves engulfed in battle. Blue Man Falling follows the fortunes of two RAF pilots; Englishman Kit Curtis, and American Ossie Wolf, who clash not only with the Germans, but also with each other, fighting for different reasons and employing different methods as France collapses and the Allies face humiliation and defeat. They also encounter the insidious Fifth Column, the enemy within, and those intent on profiting from chaos...
North Africa, 23 October 1942. The eve of El Alamein, the battle that turned the Second World War. The greatest artillery barrage in the history of warfare is about to be unleashed. Within twelve days the Axis forces will be in full retreat, their dreams of controlling the Mediterranean and seizing the Suez Canal shattered. RAF fighter pilot, Englishman Kit Curtis, is in an unarmed photo-reconnaissance Spitfire, reporting Axis movements. Ossie Wolf, American volunteer, is seconded to fly in a covert operation behind enemy lines. Since they flew together during the Siege of Malta, both men have taken different paths, Curtis following his conscience, Wolf insouciant and headstrong, killer in the air, liability on the ground. But Alamein unites them in a desperate struggle for survival. And together they encounter the commander of the Axis forces, the Desert Fox himself...
A hilarious page-turner about passion, possibilities and the powder room from a brilliant new voice in romantic fiction
How would Antigone fare in a New Labor milieu? "One of Us" is a subtle and poignant novel about the dangerous space between private and public lives, about king makers and power, by a writer who should know...The narrative opens in March 2003. A leading journalist and a forty-two-year-old woman meet at a dingy London cafe in the immediate aftermath of the invasion of Iraq. Anna Adams has a story she is burning to tell, one that goes right to the top of the Cabinet. Her middle brother Jack, the black sheep of the family, has committed a shocking, violent act that the authorities have tried to cover up, and Anna is determined both to defend and celebrate him, at all costs.Anna's tale takes us on a journey to the heart of British politics and through the lives of two families, over thirty years. It charts the rise of Andy Givings, ambitious, ruthless New Labor star; of Matt Adams, Anna's elder brother and Andy's closest aide; and Christopher Mason, the charming left-leaning solicitor whom Anna marries. But it is also the story of Anna herself, loyal daughter, wife and sister. As the story unfolds and her marriage begins to crumble, Anna finds herself at the mercy of events, emotions and the most vicious form of blackmail. "One of Us" is a gripping story of love and betrayal, giving unparalleled insights into the conflicts that arise when vaulting ambition clashes with private values and family life. ISBN: 9780099507994
Adam Tomaszewski is a Polish airman, flying Hurricanes alongside British pilots as the Battle of Britain rages in the summer skies over Kent and Sussex. Facing death daily and far from his friends and family, Adam finds himself drawn to a maverick Irish soldier called Gerry Cunningham.'You're out of luck, brother,' are the first words Gerry says when they meet in the crush of men competing for the few women at a dance in a seaside hotel, but when Gerry betrays his lover Moira, Adam's fortunes seem to have changed. For the next four years, Adam's life and Gerry's are intertwined like good luck and bad, love and loss, life and death, their paths crossing at various points on Adam's perilous journey from the ruins of Poland to the rolling English countryside, from Egypt to Occupied France.
Dino really fancies fit, sexy Jackie, but she just won't give him what he wants. Jonathan likes Deborah, but she's a bit fat; what will his mates say? Ben's been secretly shagging his teacher for ages. He used to love it, but what if he wants to stop? Three lads discovering sex for the first time; but do any of them really know what they're doing?
An unforgettable story of a young woman striving to find herself amidst the glitz and glamour of the film world. Actress Lara Latner is enjoying a golden summer - her new play is the toast of London's West End, and she and her boyfriend Alex are setting up their first home together. But when her agent calls with an extraordinary opportunity - her potential break into Hollywood - she is plunged into turmoil. For the part, the lead in an American remake of a classic French film, is the role that made her mother, tragic actress Eve Lacloche, a legend. Lara does not know what to do. How can she bear to leave Alex, and their precious home for the months of the shoot? How can she ever hope to measure up to Eve's luminous performance? But perhaps it is only by stepping into her mother's shadow that Lara can hope to truly understand her, and to lay the past to rest.
The gorgeous women of Churchminster know exactly what they want - a constant flow of champagne (on tap at the local pub) and the love of a good man. But faced with the likes of braying, beer-guzzling farmer Angus, foul-tempered Lord Fraser and suave banker Sebastian (devoted only to himself), their attentions are increasingly drawn to more attractive possibilities ...Meanwhile, when a part of their beloved village comes under threat from a villainous property developer and his bulldozer, the community is united by a different kind of passion. Can they raise enough money to save Churchminster? Will Mick Jagger turn up to the charity ball? And can a person actually die from too much extra-marital sex? ISBN: 9780552157063
When schoolgirl Jodie Foot goes missing from a sleepyDorset village, the shockwaves that reverberate through her community are as far-reaching as they are devastating. When Rachel Turner finds out her husband has lied about his whereabouts that evening, she is shattered. All she's ever wanted is a secure family life, and now it's about to be torn apart. Henry Streeter, Rachel's neighbour, is overwhelmed by old feelings of misery and loneliness as he struggles to stifle painful memories of his own childhood. And Juliet Fairweather, arriving in the village on the evening of the disappearance, is involved in an unexpected personal drama, while her mother, Bobbie, so often a bystander, is drawn inexorably into other people's lives. For everyone involved, one ordinary summer's day will bring extraordinary consequences and the need to examine their own sense of loss and longing.
Becca thought she was happy. She's been with her husband Martin so long it rarely occurs to her that there could be any other way; her fourteen-year-old daughter is growing up to be confident and clever; and she has an unusually good relationship with her parents. But when her mother announces that she's leaving Becca's father, suddenly everything changes. Becca's in freefall, as everything she thought was certain is slipping away. When Martin becomes too preoccupied with training for the marathon to listen to her concerns, Becca is drawn, dangerously, to a man who has no right to pursue her...Whether her marriage will survive or not, Becca's woken up, and she's never going to be quite the same woman again.
So who put the body in with the spring bulbs? The merest hint of spring has arrived in Cheshire, and so has young reporter Daisy Dalrymple. The feisty flappers visit is a breath of fresh air for gloomy Occles Hall. But while photographing the rather barren grounds, Daisy spots that someones been digging among the first green shoots and much to her horror unearths the corpse of missing parlour maid Grace Moss. So begins an extraordinary adventure, as first the dead womans shocking secret is revealed and then Daisy swiftly realizes she needs to catch the killer before she herself is left pushing up the daisies . . .
Jordan returns from California to Utah to visit his mother in jail. As a teenager he was expelled from his family and religious community, a secretive Mormon offshoot sect. Now his father has been found shot dead in front of his computer, and one of his many wives - Jordan's mother - is accused of the crime. Over a century earlier, Ann Eliza Young, the nineteenth wife of Brigham Young, Prophet and Leader of the Mormon Church, tells the sensational story of how her own parents were drawn into plural marriage, and how she herself battled for her freedom and escaped her powerful husband, to lead a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. Bold, shocking and gripping, "The 19th Wife" expertly weaves together these two narratives: a page turning literary mystery and an enthralling epic of love and faith.
The night Dr David Henry delivers his wife's twins is a night that will haunt five lives for ever. For though David's son is a healthy boy, his daughter has Down's syndrome. And, in a shocking act of betrayal whose consequences only time will reveal, he tells his wife their daughter died while secretly entrusting her care to a nurse.
When 'Virtual Assistant' Jenny Porter's boyfriend accuses her of being impulsive, soft-hearted and unbusinesslike, dashing off to Scotland to sort out a failing mill for one of her clients may not be the best way of proving him wrong. Should she do the sensible thing and follow Henry back to London? Or is this adventure more than just a fling...?
Set in the 1950s, "The Broken Word" is an extraordinary poetic sequence that animates and illuminates a dark, terrifying period in British colonial history. The combination here of language and imagery that feel utterly contemporary, and subject matter - tribal violence and subsequent retribution - that seems almost Homeric, gives the narrative all the febrile energy of classical drama, re-charged and re-imagined. Tom has returned to his family's farm in Kenya for the summer vacation between school and university when he is swept up by the events of the Mau Mau uprising. Beginning with sporadic, brutal attacks by dispossessed Kikuyu on the British now occupying their land - attacks often executed with nothing more than traditional panga knives - the conflict escalates as the terrified British stop at nothing to re-impose order, eventually driving most of the Kikuyu population into the prison camps of what has become known as 'Britain's Gulag'.As Tom is propelled into violence and horror the poem mutates into a meditation on the inheritance of conflict, the destruction of innocence and the impossibility of afterwards saying what one has seen. Written with rigour, intelligence, and a fierce, unsparing clarity, this is profound, lyrical work with that rare confidence and thrilling originality that announce the arrival of a significant new voice.ISBN: 9780224084444
After three years in prison, Shadow has done his time. But as the time until his release ticks away, he can feel a storm brewing. Two days before he gets out, his wife Laura dies in a car crash, in adulterous circumstances. Dazed, Shadow travels home, only to encounter the bizarre Mr Wednesday claiming to be a refugee from a distant war.
Under the streets of London there's a world most people could never even dream of - a city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, and pale girls in black velvet. Richard Mayhew is a young businessman who is about to find out more than he bargained for about this other London. A single act of kindness catapults him out of his safe and predictable life and into a world that is at once eerily familiar and yet utterly bizarre. There's a girl named Door, an Angel called Islington, an Earl who holds Court on the carriage of a Tube train, a Beast in a labyrinth, and dangers and delights beyond imagining...And Richard, who only wants to go home, is to find a strange destiny waiting for him below the streets of his native city.
This is the top 10 bestseller, now in paperback. Snipers in the hills overlook the shattered streets of Sarajevo. Knowing that the next bullet could strike at any moment, the ordinary men and women below strive to go about their daily lives as best they can. Kenan faces the agonizing dilemma of crossing the city to get water for his family. Dragan, gripped by fear, does not know who among his friends he can trust. And Arrow, a young woman counter-sniper must push herself to the limits - of body and soul, fear and humanity.Told with immediacy, grace and harrowing emotional accuracy, "The Cellist of Sarajevo" shows how, when the everyday act of crossing the street can risk lives, the human spirit is revealed in all its fortitude - and frailty.
Young Charlotte Mortimer loves her job teaching the poor children in the local school and she is happy with her steadfast fiance Luke. Then, one day, a terrible mining explosion rocks the town and suddenly everything Charlotte thinks she knows is thrown into doubt. The arrival of wealthy businessman Justin Weatherby complicates things further. Charlotte must marry him to save the school she loves even if it means sacrificing everything else that is dear to her. There are secrets and lies at every turn to challenge her; will she ever make it as a bargain bride? And can she ever love the austere man who has married her and saved her beloved school from certain destruction? ISBN: 9780552154345
At a cafe table in Lahore, a Pakistani man converses with a stranger. As dusk deepens to dark, he begins the tale that has brought him to this fateful meeting...Among the brightest and best of his graduating class at Princeton, Changez is snapped up by an elite firm and thrives on New York and the intensity of his work. And his infatuation with fragile Erica promises entree into Manhattan society on the exalted footing his own family once held back in Lahore. For a time, it seems as though nothing will stand in the way of Changez's meteoric rise to personal and professional success: the fulfillment of the immigrant's dream. But in the wake of September 11, he finds his position in the city he loves suddenly overturned, and his budding relationship with Erica eclipsed by the reawakened ghosts of her past. And Changez's own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and perhaps even love.
Shy, sweet-natured Lucy Collins is used to being pushed around. For the first eighteen years of her life, her widowed mother Judith ruled the roost. Now Lucy's husband, her seven-year-old daughter and even Buster the cat boss her about. But her mother's premature death leaves Lucy an orphan at the age of thirty-five. She's devastated...but she's also free. After a lifetime of being a disappointment to everyone, is it finally time Lucy grew up? As she clears out her mother's rambling house, Lucy discovers a trunk full of memories...her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother were all Brown Owls: capable, no-nonsense matriarchs who were the leading lights of the Girl Guide movement. They spent their spare time preparing the next generation for their roles as wives and mothers with a mixture of campfire songs, sew-on badges and reef knots. But could the old values and frontier spirit now hold the key to help Lucy make the changes she needs in her life?
'There was this time when everything seemed to have come together. And so obviously it was time to go and screw it all up'. Sam is sixteen and a skater. Just so there are no terrible misunderstandings: skating = skateboarding. There's no ice. Life is ticking along nicely for Sam: his mum's got rid of her rubbish boyfriend, he's thinking about college and he's met someone. Alicia. Then a little accident happens. One with big consequences for someone just finding his way in life. Sam can't run (let alone skate) away from this one. He's a boy facing a man's problems and the question is - has he got what it takes to confront them?
Iris Vegan, a graduate student living alone and impoverished in New York, encounters four strong characters who fascinate and in different ways subordinate her: an inscrutable urban recluse who employs her to record the possessions of a murdered woman; a photographer whose eerie portrait of Iris takes on a life of its own; an old woman in hospital who tries to claim a remnant of the ailing Iris; and a professor she has an affair with. An exploration of female identity in an age when the old definitions - as some mans daughter/wife/mother - no longer apply, fuelled with eroticism and a sense of menace.
This is the story of two men who first become friends in 1970s New York, of the women in their lives, and of their sons, born the same year. Both Leo Hertzberg, an art historian, and Bill Weschler, a painter, are cultured, decent men, but neither is equipped to deal with what happens to their children -- Leo's son drowns when he's 12, while Bill's son Mark grows up to be a delinquent, and the acolyte of a sinister, guru-like artist who spawns murder in his wake. Spanning the hedonism of the eighties and the chill-out nineties, this multi-layered novel combines a plot of mounting menace with a deeply moving account of familial relationships and a superbly observed portrait of an artist, set against the backdrop of a society reaching new depths of depravity in its frenetic quest for the next fashion, drug and thrill.
Sebastian, at 17, has never eaten pizza, never been to school, never even hung out with other kids. He rides the subway at night to escape his father's strict, possessive parenting. Maria, 22 and mother to two young children, has just lost her job. Afraid to confess to her violent boyfriend, Maria resorts to riding the subway when he thinks she's at work. And then one night, on an empty train, Sebastian and Maria make eye contact.ISBN: 9780552774666
Leah and Toby have lived across the street from one another for years without meeting ... and Leah has been itching to peek behind the front door of Toby's eccentric house, always packed to the rafters with weird and wonderful tenants. When fate finally lets her in, Leah finds that Toby needs her as much as she is surprised to realize she might need him. Sometimes life needs a helping hand and with a sprinkle of romance and their own special magic, Toby and Leah's dreams show the glimmer of a chance of coming true. 31 Dream Street is a wonderfully warm and insightful novel that will capture the imagination and soothe the soul.
A fabulous coming-of-age debut novel which has sold over 5 million copies worldwide and has now been made into a stunning feature film. Lily has grown up believing she accidentally killed her mother when she was four. She not only has her own memory of holding the gun, but her father's account of the event. Now fourteen, she yearns for her mother, and for forgiveness. Living on a peach farm in South Carolina with her father, she has only one friend: Rosaleen, a black servant whose sharp exterior hides a tender heart. South Carolina in the sixties is a place where segregation is still considered a cause worth fighting for. When racial tension explodes one summer afternoon, and Rosaleen is arrested and beaten, Lily is compelled to act. Fugitives from justice and from Lily's harsh and unyielding father, they follow a trail left by the woman who died ten years before. Finding sanctuary in the home of three beekeeping sisters, Lily starts a journey as much about her understanding of the world, as about the mystery surrounding her mother. ISBN: 9780755349807
At the outbreak of the World War II, Ruby O'Hagen's life takes a dramatic turn when she is asked to look after a large house. The house becomes a refuge - not just for Ruby and her family, but for many others, as loves, triumphs, sorrows and friendships are played out in the house by Princes Park.
The first of the Liverpool Pearl Street novels set against the backdrop of the Second World War, from the bestselling author of THE LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL.
September 1940 - the cruellest year of war for Britain's civilians as the Luftwaffe mercilessly blitz their cities. In Pearl Street, near Liverpool's docks, families struggle to cope the best they can. A nasty surprise for ever-cheerful dressmaker Brenda Mahon, and flighty Sean's love for little Alice, show how life goes on even when it appears to be falling apart. Yet while Eileen Costello tries to hide her ruined hopes of happiness with Nick and do her best by the husband she hoped had gone forever, Ruth Singerman returns, having escaped from Austria. Even the joy of seeing her father again cannot make up for the bitter loss of her children.
'Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamourous blonde Ukrainian divorcee. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside.' Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must put aside a lifetime of feuding to save their émigré engineer father from voluptuous gold-digger Valentina. With her proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, she will stop at nothing in her pursuit of Western wealth. But the sisters' campaign to oust Valentina unearths family secrets, uncovers fifty years of Europe's darkest history and sends them back to roots they'd much rather forget...
He's blown up a factory, lost his job, and there's a chance that he's not really a Third Grade wizard after all. Career disaster strikes again. Luckily, an influential friend manages to get him a posting. So it's off to New Ottosland to be the new Court Wizard for King Lional. His back-up, an ensorcelled bird with a mysterious past, seems dubious. But it's New Ottosland, or nothing. Unfortunately, King Lional isn't the vain, self-centred young man he appeared to be. With a Princess in danger, a bird-brained back-up, and a kingdom to save, Gerald soon suspects he might be out of his depth. And if he can't keep this job, how can he become the wizard he was destined to be ... ISBN: 9781841497273
Just when Karen and Joe Eastman thought they had it all - the perfect marriage and the perfect family - they learn that their young son, Ben, has a terminal illness. The only cure is for them to have a 'designer baby' to provide him with a perfect match bone-marrow transplant. But in the process, a devastating family secret is revealed.
A lost child: On the eve of the First World War, a little girl is found abandoned on a ship to Australia. A mysterious woman called the Authoress had promised to look after her - but has disappeared without a trace. A terrible secret: On the night of her twenty-first birthday, Nell Andrews learns a secret that will change her life forever. Decades later, she embarks upon a search for the truth that leads her to the windswept Cornish coast and the strange and beautiful Blackhurst Manor, once owned by the aristocratic Mountrachet family.A mysterious inheritance: On Nell's death, her granddaughter, Cassandra, comes into an unexpected inheritance. Cliff Cottage and its forgotten garden are notorious amongst the Cornish locals for the secrets they hold - secrets about the doomed Mountrachet family and their ward Eliza Makepeace, a writer of dark Victorian fairytales. It is here that Cassandra will finally uncover the truth about the family, and solve the century-old mystery of a little girl lost. ISBN: 9780330449601
The Spanish House is a hotch-potch of designs, Georgian, Gothic and Moorish, as if whoever started it had simply got bored. It has long been known as an architectural folly to locals, and is now nearly derelict to boot. When its reclusive owner dies intestate the Spanish House is left to his city-dwelling niece. For Isabel, recently widowed, the house is a potential lifeline the only hope she has of providing for her two children without having to sell her most treasured possession. But for neighbour Matt McCarthy, the house is revenge on the family who ruined his father. For his wife it's the key to the perfect family life, while a struggling property developer sees in it a whole new future. As desires clash and intertwine, lives and loves are demolished and the Spanish House becomes a true folly indeed . . .
Toru Watanabe is looking back on the love and passions of his life and trying to make sense of it all. As his first love Naoko sinks deeper into mental despair, he is inexorably pushed to find a new meaning and a new love in order to survive.
This extraordinary, magical novel is the story of Clare and Henry who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-two and Henry thirty.
The Queen of Storytellers is back - with a triumphant tale of one woman's struggle over adversity. In 1786 a fisherman's daughter from Cornwall called Mary Broad was sentenced to be hung for theft. But her sentence was commuted, and she was transported to Australia, one of the first convicts to arrive there. How Mary escaped the harsh existence of the colony and found true love, and how she was captured and taken back to London in chains, only to be released after a trial where she was defended by no less than James Boswell, is one of the most gripping and moving stories of human endeavour (based on an amazing true story) you will ever read. ISBN: 9780141006499
If only you knew then what you know now Imagine if you could go back ten years and meet your younger self would you recognise her? And what advice would you give? Wear sunscreen! Back away from those PVC trousers? DONT give that idiot your phone number? Lemon juice wont bleach your hair it just attracts waspsHe's the one - don't let him go! For Charlotte Merryweather, theres no need to imagine. Shes about to find out for real. With surprising consequences Alexandra Potters deliciously funny and enchanting romantic comedy looks at life, love and what might happen if you could turn back time. ISBN: 9780340954119
Crystal is beautiful, talented and ambitious. All her life she has dreamed of making it as a singer. After years of trying to break into the music industry her chance finally comes when her girl band enters a TV reality show contest. But Crystal has a secret. She's fallen for the wrong man and this one mistake could cost her everything.
When Conrad Harrison impulse-buys a big old house in Wisconsin, his wife Jo doesn't share his enthusiasm, reluctant at the idea of leaving their LA life - so Conrad is left to set up their new home as she ties up loose ends at work. But Conrad's new purchase is not all that it seems. Soon Conrad is hearing the ghostly wailing of a baby in the night, seeing blood on the floor and being haunted by a woman who looks exactly like Jo. With his wife away, Conrad becomes obsessed by the pregnant girl next door, Nadia, who claims to be a victim of the evil in the house. The crying leads him to a bricked-up body, and the mystery of the Birthing House unravels, pulling in Jo, Nadia and leading Conrad to a nightmarish conclusion... ISBN: 9780751541717
The scope and detail of American Wife are reminiscent of Richard Russo. Like Russo, she creates characters from the ground up, ancestry, neighborhood, culture and all. Certain singing coaches advise clients to sing in their speaking voice for a more natural, organic sound. This is the way Sittenfeld writes -- in her speaking voice. Her characters are carefully rendered and the story is well-constructedISBN: 9780385616744
When the genteely impoverished and rebellious Evelyn marries the charming Emil, scion of a privileged Sinhalese family, she thinks that her dream of a life in England can now at last come true. So the family travel, with their young son Milton, from Ceylon to Tilbury Docks. But this is England in the 1950s and, no matter how hard Evelyn wishes that it would, England does not take kindly to strangers, especially families who are half black and half white. A profound and moving novel, this is the story about the search to feel at home in your own skin. ISBN: 9781844083114
Charming, handsome Edward Somers has been recovering from his wartime injuries in a small hotel in the South of France where he is an extremely popular guest. One day, he happens upon a nearby villa, within which lives a mysterious and beautiful countess, Katerina, who does not appear to be allowed any visitors. Edward manages to break through to her and soon the pair develop a wonderful friendship. As each day passes the pair grow closer and closer but Edward soon finds there is more to Katerina than meets the eye. Why is she confined to the villa, guarded by a man with a rifle? Who is observing her with a telescope? Why is she so reluctant to be photographed? Soon a sinister chain of events begins to unfold, and several attempts on Katerina's life are made. Must Katerina always be on the run? Constantly forced into hiding, will she ever find the love she craves so dearly? ISBN: 9780552150903
On a warm May night in San Francisco, a glittering, celebrity-studded crowd gathers for a charity event. Just minutes before midnight, the room begins to sway. Glass shatters, the lights go out, and people start to scream...In the earthquake's aftermath, the lives of four strangers will converge: Sarah Sloane, the beautiful wife of a financial star, watches her perfect world fall to pieces; Melanie Free, award-winning singer, comes to a turning point in her career; Everett Carson, a former war correspondent whose personal demons have demoted him to covering society parties, finds new purpose amid the carnage; and, Sister Maggie Kent, a nun who does her best work in jeans and trainers, searches through the rubble - and knows instantly that there is much work to be done. The city staggers back to life, and a chain reaction will touch each of the survivors as they find the amazing grace of new beginnings.
An unforgettable story of love and adventure, spanning three decades of Jamaican history. Jamaica, 1946. Errol Flynn washes up on in the Zaca, his storm-wrecked yacht. Ida Joseph, the teenaged daughter of Port Antonio's Justice of the Peace, is intrigued to learn that the 'World's Handsomest Man' is on the island, and makes it her business to meet him. For the jaded swashbuckler, Jamaica is a tropical paradise that Ida, unfazed by his celebrity, seems to share. Soon Flynn has made a home for himself on Navy Island, where he entertains the cream of Hollywood at parties that become a byword for decadence - and Ida has set her heart on marrying this charismatic older man who has singled her out for his attention. Flynn and Ida do not marry, but Ida bears Flynn a daughter, May, who will meet her father but once. The Pirate's Daughter is a tale of passion and recklessness, of two generations of women and their battles for love and survivial, and of a nation struggling to rise to the challenge of hard-won independence.
From the acclaimed author of THE PIRATE'S DAUGHTER comes a story of three women born into the divided, troubled paradise of Jamaica. Easter, 1981. With Jamaica in a state of emergency, the Landing family gathers to bury one of its own. For Monica Landing, who had not spoken to her daughter for fifteen years, the death of Lana is the cruellest kind of loss. For Lana's youngest sister, Jean, it is an imcomprehensible tragedy. All she knows is that her beloved homeland holds no future for her. But flight means crossing a landscape where soldiers turned executioners and armed gangs rule. It means making her way through the memories that engulf her, with perhaps the only man she has ever loved by her side. THE TRUE HISTORY OF PARADISE captures the grace, beauty and brutality that are indelible parts of the Jamaican experience.
Meet: Gayle Beck, the matriarch of Hunting Ridge society, who struggles to reconcile her picture-perfect life with a numbing sense of unfulfilment; Love Welsh, adoring mother, who battles with memories of a childhood lived in the shadow of a genius father; Marie Passeti, over-stretched divorce lawyer and mother, who has lost her passion for life and for her husband; and, Janie Kirk, yummy mummy, whose quest for acceptance knows no bounds. In a world where happiness comes second to appearances, their domestic discontent spirals into an irreversible course of risk-taking, secrecy and self-destruction. For these four wives perfection is just a facade and behind closed doors infidelity, self-doubt and deceit run rife.
If you've ever dreamt of a new life in the country, this highly entertaining and candid account of country living might make you think again...Fresh air, rolling fields, Cath Kidston tea towels and home-baked cake -- isn't that what Martha's new life will be? Apparently not. Having upped sticks and moved her young family from the gritty city to Paradise, she discovers things aren't quite that easy. Collapsing kitchen ceilings; a plague of slugs; coffee mornings with Stepford mums and garden warfare with the neighbours are just a few of the trials. And with her husband away working in London, Martha just can't stop thinking about the sexy builder who's meant to be turning the house into her dream home! ISBN: 9780007265237
Eleven-year-old Isabelle hasn't spoken in nine months, and as December begins the situation is getting desperate. Her mother has stopped work to devote herself to her daughter's care. Four psychiatrists have already given up on her, and her school will not take her back in the New Year. Her parents are frantically trying to understand what has happened so they can help their child, but they cannot escape the thought of darker possibilities. What if Isabelle is damaged beyond their reach? Will she never speak again? Is it their fault? As they spiral around Isabelle's impenetrable silence, she herself emerges as a bright young girl in need of help yet too terrified to ask for it.
Britain's former prime minister is holed up in a remote, ocean-front house in America, struggling to finish his memoirs, when his long-term assistant drowns. A professional ghostwriter is sent out to rescue the project - a man more used to working with fading rock stars and minor celebrities than ex-world leaders. The ghost soon discovers that his distinguished new client has secrets in his past that are returning to haunt him - secrets with the power to kill. Robert Harris is once again at his gripping best with the most controversial new thriller of the decade. ISBN: 9780099515838
The stunning new novel from the author of THE SHADOW OF THE WIND.In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a young man - David Martin - makes his living by writing sensationalist novels under a pseudonym. The survivor of a troubled childhood, he has taken refuge in the world of books, and spends his nights spinning baroque tales about the city's underworld. But perhaps his dark imaginings are not as strange as they seem, for in a locked room deep within the house are letters hinting at the mysterious death of the previous owner. Like a slow poison, the history of the place seeps into his bones as he struggles with an impossible love. Then David receives a letter from a reclusive French editor, Andreas Corelli, who makes him the offer of a lifetime. He is to write a book with the power to change hearts and minds. In return, he will receive a fortune, perhaps more. But as David begins the work, he realises that there is a connection between this haunting book and the shadows that surround his home. Set in the turbulent 1920s, The Angel's Game takes us back to the gothic universe of the Cemetery of the Forgotten Books, the Sempere and Son bookshop, and the winding streets of Barcelona's old quarter, in a masterful tale about the magic of books and the darkest corners of the human soul.