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Books > Fiction > General & literary fiction > Modern fiction
'A very good novel indeed about the fragility and also the tenacity
of love' commented the "Spectator" about this 1953 novel by Dorothy
Whipple, which was ignored fifty years ago because 'editors are
going mad for action and passion' (as she was told by her
publisher). But this last novel by a writer whose books had
previously been bestsellers is outstandingly good by any standards.
Apparently 'a fairly ordinary tale about the destruction of a happy
marriage' (Nina Bawden in the Preface) yet 'it makes compulsive
reading' in its description of an ordinary family ('Ellen was that
unfashionable creature, a happy housewife') struck by disaster when
the husband, in a moment of weak, mid-life vanity, runs off with a
French girl.Dorothy Whipple is a superb stylist, with a calm
intelligence in the tradition of Mrs Gaskell (both wrote in the
"Midlands" and had similar preoccupations). 'The prose is simple,
the psychology spot on' said the "Telegraph", and John Sandoe Books
commented: 'We have all delighted in this unjustly forgotten novel;
it is well written and compelling'.
The bombing of an American Embassy in Africa pulls Special Agent
Jack Randall out of his current doghouse status with the FBI and
sends him on the trail of one of the worlds most wanted terrorist.
While sifting through the debris, his team discovers a mysterious
shipment of medications. Medications they soon discover that are
valuable enough to kill for. Jack is forced to embark on two
missions, catching the terrorist responsible for the bombing and
discovering the source of the medications. The trail leads him from
the deserts of Africa, to the Centers for Disease Control, and on
to the higher offices of the United States Government. As the team
uncovers the true nature and purpose of the medications, Jack is
faced with a decades old plot involving secret treaties, biological
warfare, and deadly plagues.
A teenage girl is kidnapped in Mexico City as a young boy in
Afghanistan is wounded by artillery fire. A plane crashes in
Florida while a man waits for a new heart in Maryland. A senator's
daughter survives a car accident while a captured drug runner makes
a deal with the DEA. Soon all of their fates converge into a
twisted web of deceit driven by greed, desperation and hope. As
Jack Randall of the FBI and his friend Lenny Hill of Interpol work
to untangle the web, they soon discover that evil exist everywhere,
and its deeds can be forced on anyone.
Since the end of the war with Japan in 1945, an almost continuous
search has taken place on many of the islands captured by the
Japanese for the legendary hoard of gold looted during the capture
of Malaya, Singapore and the Philippine Islands. The intention of
the Japanese had been to send the gold, silver and precious stones
to Japan to assist in financing the war, but American submarine
activity in the Sea of Japan prevented this. Our story covers the
present-day search and the rewards that favour those who seek The
Tiger's Hoard.
New York Times bestselling author and Queen of the Beach Reads Mary
Kay Andrews delivers her next blockbuster, Hello Summer. It's a new
season... Conley Hawkins left her family's small town newspaper,
The Silver Bay Beacon, in the rearview mirror years ago. Now a star
reporter for a big-city paper, Conley is exactly where she wants to
be and is about to take a fancy new position in Washington, D.C. Or
so she thinks. For small town scandals... When the new job goes up
in smoke, Conley finds herself right back where she started,
working for her sister, who is trying to keep The Silver Bay Beacon
afloat--and she doesn't exactly have warm feelings for Conley. Soon
she is given the unenviable task of overseeing the local gossip
column, "Hello, Summer." And big-time secrets. Then Conley
witnesses an accident that ends in the death of a local
congressman--a beloved war hero with a shady past. The more she
digs into the story, the more dangerous it gets. As an old
heartbreaker causes trouble and a new flame ignites, it soon looks
like their sleepy beach town is the most scandalous hotspot of the
summer.
If you're a fan of Jodie Picoult, you'll love Necessary Lies by
Diane Chamberlain, bestselling author of The Midwife's Confession .
. . North Carolina, 1960. Newlywed Jane Forrester, fresh out of
university, is seeking what most other women have shunned: a
career. But life as a social worker is far from what she expected.
Out amongst the rural Tobacco fields of Grace County, Jane
encounters a world of extreme poverty that is far removed from the
middle-class life she has grown up with. But worse is still to
come. Working with the Hart family and their fifteen-year-old
daughter Ivy, it's not long before Jane uncovers a shocking secret,
and is thrust into a moral dilemma that puts her career on the
line, threatens to dissolve her marriage, and ultimately,
determines the fate of Ivy and her family forever. Soon Jane is
forced to take drastic action, and before long, there is no turning
back. A companion short story, The First Lie, is available in
eBook.
This is the first book in a series of magical adventures with
Hannah and her pony. When an unexpected visitor appears in the
woods just beside the meadow on the farm where Hannah lives with
Brandy, he asks for help , and all things change. Hannah and Brandy
embark on a magical adventure where new friends come in all shapes
and sizes, and their challenges are just beginning. Can they
complete their quest to save the kingdom from destruction and
defeat the Dragon King?
In 1942 a small child watches the swirling vapour trails of
Spitfires and Messerschmitts battling in the summer skies as he
stands in the fields outside his Hertfordshire village and thinks
how far away from his world that conflict is. Thirty-four years
later a man is woken from sleep in an affluent suburb of Auckland
hearing the whooshing rush of air as a bomb goes off and blasts
through the front of his family house. Even before the dust has
cleared the man is reaching for a weapon and planning the demise of
the person who arranged the bombing. How has the child from the
peaceful English village become the target of a key figure in the
Antipodean criminal underworld? Join adventurer, sailor, raconteur,
con man, businessman and story teller Len Russell as he recounts
the trials and tribulations of a life at sea and on land, at peace
and at war, in times of poverty and great wealth, through hilarity
and sadness as he makes his way from an English childhood through a
life in New Zealand and Australia and finally back home to England.
When Don Stevens is asked at short notice to stage a pre-season
summer show at the Golden Sands Theatre, Great Yarmouth in 1969 he
pulls together variety acts he has worked with before, with one
exception - the leading lady, June Ashby. Making up the company are
'Man of Magic' Mystic Brian, comedian Ted Ricer, the Jenny Benjamin
Dancers, the Maurice Beeney Orchestra and fresh from Opportunity
Knocks, the Dean Sisters, a mind-blowing balancing act. Lots of
interest is aroused by the return of June Ashby to the stage. The
locals are intrigued about why a West End leading lady should play
an end-of-the-pier show after being absent from the theatre for
five years. Will this be a new beginning for the once-loved star,
or will her world come tumbling down - ? Has Don Stevens bitten off
more than he can chew by going "twice nightly"? Will Maud Bennett
at the box office ever finish her knitting? What secret is cleaner
Lilly Brockett hiding? And will Freda and Muriel ever agree on what
to give their paying guests? Intrigue, mystery and comedy abound;
this is a story that will appeal to all those who love variety
entertainment and have experienced a holiday in a British seaside
resort.
It seems that anyone, with some assistance from TV chefs, can whip
up a meal worthy of serving at the classiest highbrow "a la carte"
restaurants. Wrong! Somewhere between TV "celebrity chefs" and
"Come Dine With Me" lays a void for the ordinary person. Not So
Perfect Cooking fills that void. The focus is on good wholesome
meals for the working family, using fresh vegetables from the
garden or allotment. The recipes are easy to follow with your own
variations being encouraged. But that's not all! Alongside the
recipes is a new kitchen experience, the "ABC" game, which focuses
on fun in the kitchen. There are prepared examples and
recommendations on new topics to play along with the family whilst
waiting for the meals to be cooked.
A middle aged, middle-class couple are spending a holiday in
Cornwall. The husband wakes on the beach after lunch to find his
wife has disappeared. It is totally out of character and, for a
while, he is puzzled but not too worried. This is the beginning of
twenty-three days of torment and fear for him as he involves the
police and tries to discover exactly what has happened to his
staid, school mistress wife. It is also the beginning of
twenty-three days for his wife, Jannah, as she flings her cap over
a windmill and goes off to an uncertain future. Often, in later
life, we all wonder about rekindling an old liaison, about
opportunities missed, wrong roads taken and maybe reminisce about
what would, or could, have been if we had done things differently.
How has that special person fared? What are they doing now? Are
they happy and content? Given the opportunity of a reunion, what
would most of us do? Read on and see what Jannah did...
When Bob Gifford takes up a one-year appointment as counselor at
elite Biltmore College, Minnesota, he has no idea his life will
soon be in danger. Okay, the hostility from most of his colleagues
is evident from the outset - as an orphan brought up in a boys'
home, with degrees from obscure state colleges in Arkansas and
Texas, he will never fit in to their privileged, blue-blood world.
But it soon becomes obvious that workplace politics constitutes the
least of his worries. One of his student clients dies in a car
crash shortly after hinting that she has something to tell him
about the recent, violent death of a professor on the Biltmore
campus. Immediately afterwards, a home-made bomb explodes in Bob's
apartment. Then he finds secret messages being left for him in the
university library. Someone, or some organization, it appears,
believes Bob is on the brink of uncovering a conspiracy. But what
is it they think Bob knows? Who are they? And is he being
encouraged to dig deeper or being warned off? Gradually he comes to
realize he can trust no one - not the college staff, not his
landlord, and not the police. It is even too risky to confide in
Steve Washington, the flamboyant black colleague and fellow
"outsider" who has been almost alone in offering Bob friendship, or
Janet, the spirited Jewish woman with whom Bob has a tantalizing
on-off relationship. And just when a new appointment in
back-of-beyond Texas appears to offer an escape route, Bob comes
closer than ever to death. City of Shadows combines the qualities
of a superior thriller with a deep understanding of human nature
and insights into the claustrophobic, competitive world of academe.
With as many twists as a mountain road, and set-piece
confrontations that would have made Hitchcock proud, it is as
entertaining as it is compelling.
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not
used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad
quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are
images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to
keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the
original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain
imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made
available for future generations to enjoy.
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Homesick
(Paperback)
Jennifer Croft
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R344
R313
Discovery Miles 3 130
Save R31 (9%)
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Ships in 9 - 17 working days
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The coming of age story of an award-winning translator, Homesick is
about learning to love language in its many forms, healing through
words and the promises and perils of empathy and sisterhood.
Sisters Amy and Zoe grow up in Oklahoma where they are homeschooled
for an unexpected reason: Zoe suffers from debilitating and
mysterious seizures, spending her childhood in hospitals as she
undergoes surgeries. Meanwhile, Amy flourishes intellectually,
showing an innate ability to glean a world beyond the troubles in
her home life, exploring that world through languages first. Amy's
first love appears in the form of her Russian tutor Sasha, but when
she enters university at the age of 15 her life changes drastically
and with tragic results. "Croft moves quickly between powerful
scenes that made me think about my own sisters. I love how the
language displays a child's consciousness. A haunting
accomplishment." Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Now a Major Motion Picture from Director Luca Guadagnino, Starring
Armie Hammer and Timothee Chalamet, and Written by James Ivory
WINNER BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY ACADEMY AWARD Nominated for Four
Oscars A New York Times Bestseller A USA Today Bestseller A Los
Angeles Times Bestseller A Vulture Book Club Pick An Instant
Classic and One of the Great Love Stories of Our Time Andre
Aciman's Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful
romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest
at his parents' cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera. Each is
unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, when, during
the restless summer weeks, unrelenting currents of obsession,
fascination, and desire intensify their passion and test the
charged ground between them. Recklessly, the two verge toward the
one thing both fear they may never truly find again: total
intimacy. It is an instant classic and one of the great love
stories of our time.
The death of her beloved father, has left artistic and idealistic
Tempera and her stunning, scatterbrained stepmother Lady Rothley
bereft not only of love but also of money. So when Lady Rothley's
womanly wiles attract an invitation from none other than the Duke
of Chevingham to join him in the South of France, it's a Godsend.
At last ? the prospect of a handsome, aristocratic suitor for
Tempera's Belle-m?re who would keep them both in the style to which
they would dearly love to be re-acquainted To arrive without a
lady's maid is inconceivable ? to afford one impossible. So Tempera
escorts her Belle-m?re in the guise of a servant and attempts to
coach her in fine art, the Duke's consuming passion. While her
stepmother flirts with C?te D?Azur society Tempera contents herself
with capturing the local flora's beauty on canvas. And when the
flair she inherited from her father captivates and mystifies the
magnificent Duke, something stirs in Tempera that she has never
felt before. Is it love? Or is it betrayal?
If Fiona was surprised when she inherited Claymore Hall she was
even more surprised to find that she had two sitting tenants in the
form of mother and son. Yet upon meeting Bertha Carpenter she
wondered whether she should have followed her partner's advice and
sold the place, but then Clive's eyes had registered like a cash
machine at the time. Not that he was prepared to give up his quest
however but by this time other characters had appeared on the
scene; the man in charge of plotting a route for pylons to serve
the National Grid; a secretive character by the name of James
Fuller and not least William Carpenter himself who apparently had
interests of his own! Thus perhaps the scene was now set for even
more sinister happenings destined to disturb the peace of the
tranquil Scottish countryside beset now with gold mining rumours.
Events that followed forced Fiona into becoming involved as well as
falling in love quite unexpectedly!
Baxter Bixley (Two Xs if you please) wins 16 million pounds on the
National Lottery. So begins the transition from shop sweeper to
multi-millionaire. Not only that but Baxter, unwanted and
friendless, finds true companionship in the shape of an aged and
diminutive pensioner called Hugo Harper. Together they share a
series of adventures that stretch from his end-of-terrace house in
Neasden to Venice, Milan and Monte-Carlo. Hugo and Baxter meet many
people on their travels including such illustrious names as Lana
Turner, Rex Harrison and Alfred Hitchcock. Jane Eyre and James
Cagney together with a baby called Dolores and another baby called
David Copperfield join in en route as does a fluffy dog aptly named
Fluffy. Ava Gardner and The Queen have walk on parts as does Roy
Rogers and Tony Blair. It could be true. But I doubt it!
Eviscerated Panda are a newly formed thrash metal band. They are
the brainchild of ageing lead guitarist Phil Winter. They represent
his big hope for regaining his former musical self-esteem and his
luck with the ladies. Phil had to hastily exit stage left from his
last band when his dalliances with the drummer's fiancee were
discovered. Young singer and underachiever Nick loves the band
because it provides an escape from his dull job in a supermarket.
For rhythm guitarist Ian it's all he's ever wanted to do. For bass
player Jim it's a pleasant hobby, at least to begin with. For
drummer Paul it's a step up from being in a covers band and a
sometime causer of arguments between him and his wife. A band is
much more than just the musicians in it, it's a whole ecosystem. A
female perspective is given by close friends Cleo and Jenni as the
Pandas play to and hang out with an audience comprised of friends,
fans, wives, girlfriends, future girlfriends, lovers, promoters,
other bands, interested spectators and uninterested spectators.
After a nervous first gig in their native Reading they play in
Swindon, Coventry, Oxford, Dudley, Brighton, Birmingham and Camden.
In between gigs they mostly go to the pub, eat biscuits, record an
E.P, read a girl's guide to heavy metal written by Cleo, practice
and make grandiose plans for their future. Occasionally they get
laid. Even more occasionally they get paid to play. This is a niche
novel and proud of it. If you like heavy metal and reading books
which are not designed for education nor enlightenment then this is
for you.
Sir Hereward Grantley is angry, as usual. A bad tempered man with
little to commend him, he is determined that his niece, the
orphaned Diona, will understand the great favour he has done by
offering her a home. Never missing an opportunity to mention
Diona's penniless status and dependency, her uncle is an arrogant
bully. Diona, aghast at being thrust into a world of unkindness and
bullish behaviour after the love in her parent's home, mourns their
loss and clings to the last thing that her popular, horse-loving
papa gave her beloved Dalmatian, Sirius. But no misdemeanor is safe
from the mean attentions of Sir Grantley, especially when his sly
son Simon is there to pour fuel onto the fire. So when Sirius
accidently breaks an ornament, Simon sees his opportunity to avenge
Diona for rejecting his fumbled attempts to grab a kiss, by telling
his father that the dog is a menace and should be shot. Traumatised
at the thought of losing her dog, Diona decides that she can no
longer take the misery of Grantley Hall and flees. Scared, but
certain that fate is guiding her to safety she seeks refuge with
the handsome Marquis of Irchester. A confirmed bachelor and friend
of the Prince of Wales, the Marquis has become used to a life of
pleasure amongst the Beau Monde following the privations of the war
in which he distinguished himself. A prized catch amongst Society
debutantes and wealthy widows alike, he has so far managed to evade
being trapped, whilst enjoying the companionship of some of the
most beautiful women in London. But when touchingly innocent,
educated and ethereal Diona begs him for a job, she provokes
protective feelings in the Marquis that he didn't realise he had.
Accepting her wish to remain anonymous, he admires her
determination to save her beloved dog, and swears to prevent anyone
harming her or Sirius. But can Diona remain anonymous once her
uncle starts looking for her? And just how far will the Marquis go
to protect a girl he doesn't know? As fate throws Diona an
unexpected wild card the pressure is on and faith, loyalty and true
love will all be tested to the ultimate limits.
The sun dipped behind a cloud and made a mirror of his computer
screen. He saw a pair of eyes, his eyes. But they were elongated,
angled and a deep, angry red...Thame is, on the surface, an average
guy. Suffocated by the politics of his city job and his
increasingly complicated love life, he seeks refuge in his weekend
football and the hope that there is, somewhere, something more for
him. He has always felt that underneath he is special; destined for
greatness. As his world becomes darker and his frustrations grow,
this sense of difference grows more powerful. Daydreams are no
longer idle fantasy but visions of a dark history; his reflection
in the bathroom mirror is no longer quite...human. What beast lurks
beneath the man? Why is he being watched? And what terrible
consequences accompany the fulfilment of his ancient destiny?
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