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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

LETTING GO FOR GOOD . . . 

Once, Jane Moore and Alexandra Walsh were inseparable, sharing secrets and stolen candy, plotting their futures together. But when Jane became pregnant at seventeen, they drifted slowly apart. Jane has spent the years since raising her son, now seventeen himself, on her own, running a gallery, managing her sister’s art career, and looking after their volatile mother—all the while trying not to resent the limited choices life has given her. 

Then a quirk of fate and a faulty elevator bring Jane into contact with Tom, Alexandra’s husband, who has some shocking news. Alexandra disappeared from a south Dublin suburb months ago, and Tom has been searching fruitlessly for her. Jane offers to help, as do the elevator’s other passengers—Jane’s brilliant but self-absorbed sister, Elle, and Leslie Sheehan, a reclusive web designer who’s ready to step back into the world again. And as Jane quickly realizes, Tom isn’t the only one among them who’s looking for something . . . or traveling toward unexpected revelations about love, life, and what it means to let go, in every sense. 

In this insightful and irresistible novel, by turns profound, poignant, and laugh- out-loud funny, acclaimed Irish writer Anna McPartlin tells a story of friendship and love, of the families we are born into and the ones we create for ourselves, and of the hope and strength that remain when we fi nd the courage to leave the past behind at last.


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For more than twenty years, Joseph "Big Joey" Massino ran what was called the largest criminal network in the U.S., employing over two hundred and fifty made men and untold numbers of associates. The Bonanno family was responsible for over thirty murders, even killing a dozen of its own members to enforce discipline and settle scores. He would be brought down by Salvatore "Good Looking Sal" Vitale, the underboss who was not only Massino's closest and most trusted friend, but also his brother-in-law. In the end, facing the death penalty and the prospect of leaving his family penniless, Massino started talking to the FBI - the first Mafia Godfather to break the sacred code of omerta, and the end of a centuries-old tradition.


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A“diabolically good” hacker puts a message on the pope’s computer, pleading for him to save a seventeenth-century Spanish church—a church that is killing to defend itself.Although Our Lady of the Tears is but a crumbling baroque building in the heart of Seville, it is also the center of a multilayered mystery—one that will force ecclesiastical sleuth Father Lorenzo Quart to question his loyalty, his vow of chastity, and his faith itself.


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Politically incorrect, provocative, and steeped in wit and irony, a fast-paced tragicomedy about the perfectly ordinary madness in today's Middle East  A thirtysomething Tel Aviv businessman, Eitan "Croc" Einoch's life is turned upside down when he narrowly escapes a suicide bombing on the minibus he rides to work. When he lives through a second attack, and then a third, he becomes, reluctantly, a national media celebrity. Naturally, the Palestinian terrorists responsible for the attacks are less than happy. This embarrassing symbol of their failure--this "CrocAttack"--must be neutralized.  Meanwhile, Fahmi Sabih lies in a coma, quarrelling with his conscience. The young Palestinian suicide bomber has learned everything he knows about bombs, targets, and revenge from his brother. So why has Einoch survived? As Fahmi's story unfolds, it becomes clear that their paths are destined to cross again--for there is another bombing still to come--and then luck will change drastically for one or both of them. But who, if anyone, has right on his side?


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We have seen the future.

 

A universe cursed with life after death.

 

It all started deep beneath the Yucatan peninsula, where an archaeological discovery took us into a new age, bringing us face-to-face with our origins and destiny.

 

Michael Altman had a theory no one would hear.

 

It cursed our world for centuries to come.

 

This, at last, is his story.


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Kathy Kolla's first case is one for the books. Something isn't quite right about the death of Meredith Winterbottom, an elderly woman who was living with her two sisters. The sisters—who happen to be the great-granddaughters of Karl Marx—reside in a charming Dickensian section of London called Jerusalem Lane, surrounded by a collection of old books and odd neighbors—mainly refugees who fled war-torn Central Europe during the tumultuous 1930s.The case initially appears to be routine. While her superiors see it as merely a test of her relatively green investigative skills, Kathy senses an opportunity to prove her mettle. She's surprised when Detective Chief Inspector David Brock unexpectedly joins her examination of what had been an unexciting "suspicious death." But the motives for murder proliferate. Was the septuagenarian Winterbottom "liquidated" by a property developer hoping to gentrify the area? Or have some of the ghosts of the World War I remained unexorcised, leaving neighbors who aren't so neighborly? Would a scholar of Marxiania kill for Meredith's collection of unpublished Marx correspondence? Or did her unhappily married son wish to receive his inheritance sooner rather than later? And what exactly is Brock investigating: Winterbottom's death or Kathy herself?When a second Marx sister is found slain, Kathy and Brock delve even deeper into the Lane's eccentric melting pot and hidden past. They uncover clues pointing to an unsuspected fourth volume of Das Kapital, a laundry list of suspects, and a plan to make Kathy history. Tightly plotted, The Marx Sisters bristles with the intelligence and nuance of a modem British who-dun-it and adds an unforgettable team to the ranks of great fictional detectives—Kathy Kolla and Detective Chief Inspector David Brock.


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**Greetings. There is a body buried on your property, covered in your blood. The unfortunate young lady's name is Rita Jones. In her jeans pocket you'll find a slip of paper with a phone number on it. Call that number. If I have not heard from you by 8:00 P.M., the police will receive an anonymous call. I'll tell them where Rita Jones is buried on your property, how you killed her, and where the murder weapon can be found in your house. (I do believe a paring knife is missing from your kitchen.) I strongly advise against going to the police, as I am always watching you.**Dear Reader: Please keep the light on tonight. What happens next will scare you. Guaranteed.*In one of the most chilling debuts of the year, Blake Crouch tells a tale that shatters the boundaries of fear. Caution: You've Been Warned--Read at Your Own Risk!*Andrew Z. Thomas is a successful writer of suspense thrillers, living the dream at his lake house in the piedmont of North Carolina. One afternoon in late spring, he receives a bizarre letter that eventually threatens his career, his sanity, and the lives of everyone he loves. A murderer is designing his future, and for the life of him, Andrew can't get away.An edge-of-your-seat thriller, *Desert Places* introduces the American public to a new suspense writer who will be scaring us all for years to come.


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Master of suspense and #1 *New York Times* bestselling author Brad Thor returns with his most riveting international thriller yet.

A new administration and a new approach to dealing with America's enemies have left covert counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath without a job. But when American doctor Julia Gallo is kidnapped in Afghanistan, the terms of her ransom leave the president with only one course of action.

In a dangerous assignment that the United States government will deny any knowledge of, Scot Harvath must secretly infiltrate Kabul's notorious Policharki Prison and free the man the kidnappers demand as ransom - al-Qaeda mastermind, Mustafa Khan.

But when Harvath arrives, he quickly learns that there is more to the kidnapping than anyone dares to admit. And as the subterfuge is laid bare, Harvath must examine his own career of hunting down and killing terrorists, and ask himself if he has what it takes to help one of the world's worst go free.

Brimming with the kind of ripped-from-the-headlines authenticity Brad Thor's internationally bestselling novels are known for, *The Apostle* doubles down on the blockbuster success of *The Last Patriot* and reaffirms Thor's status as the master of the political thriller. 

**Unabridged Compact Disk Includes a Bonus MP3 CD of Brad Thor's *The Lions Of Lucerne***


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**Mr. September:** Callum Austell, sexy Australian ranch owner

**His Deepest Desire:** The elusive Gemma Westmoreland

**The Seduction Plan:** Get her on his turf—ASAP!

He'd been biding his time, and now the perfect opportunity had arrived to pursue the ultimate object of his affections. Offering Gemma a job to decorate his new home meant she had to come to him. And on his territory, the Aussie knew he could easily woo her into his bed. But this Westmoreland woman was no pushover. If Callum was going to get what he wanted—as always—the millionaire just might have to utter three little words first.


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Jonathan Quinn, freelance operative and professional 'cleaner', is on a mission in Ireland - purely as an observer - but things go wrong when a hidden assassin kills four men and suddenly Quinn has bodies to dispose of and a clue which is to lead him on an extraordinary odyssey to Africa and back. Along with his beautiful Vietnamese colleague, Orlando, Quinn is charged with finding a disappeared UN aide worker and the child she is protecting. But as soon as he finds her, she flees - and Quinn and Orlando become involved in a terror plot so insidious that it could change the world.


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From master storyteller Carlos Ruiz Zafon, author of the international phenomenon **The Shadow of the Wind**, comes **The Angel’s Game** — a dazzling new page-turner about the perilous nature of obsession, in literature and in love.*****The whole of Barcelona stretched out at my feet and I wanted to believe that when I opened those windows *— *my new windows *— *each evening its streets would whisper stories to me, secrets in my ear, that I could catch on paper and narrate to whomever cared to listen*…**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 lie photographs and 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. Close to despair, 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 unlike anything that has ever existed — a book with the power to change hearts and minds. In return, he will receive a fortune, and perhaps more. But as David begins the work, he realizes that there is a connection between his haunting book and the shadows that surround his home.Once again, Zafon takes us into a dark, gothic universe first seen in **The Shadow of the Wind** and creates a breathtaking adventure of intrigue, romance, and tragedy. Through a dizzyingly constructed labyrinth of secrets, the magic of books, passion, and friendship blend into a masterful story.


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As Earth's ability to support human life diminishes, the Global Space Agency is formed with a single mandate: protect humanity from extinction by colonizing the solar system. Venus, being almost the same mass as Earth, is chosen over Mars as humanity's first permanent steppingstone into the universe.Arik Ockley is part of the first generation to be born and raised off-Earth. After a puzzling accident, Arik wakes up to find that his wife is three months pregnant. Since the colony's environmental systems cannot safely support any increases in population, Arik immediately resumes his work on AP, or artificial photosynthesis, in order to save the life of his unborn child.Arik's new and frantic research uncovers startling truths about the planet, and about the distorted reality the founders of the colony have constructed for Arik's entire generation. Everything Arik has ever known is called into question, and he must figure out the right path for himself, his wife, and his unborn daughter.


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**Move over, Merlot. Craft beer has finally found a place at the fine dining table.**



Renowned beer sommeliers Hallie Beaune and Christina Perozzi offer a down-to-earth guide to craft and artisanal brews that celebrates beer for what it truly is: sophisticated, complex, and flavorful.



 Beaune and Perozzi cover everything from beer basics to the science behind beer, food and beer pairings, home brewing, and tips for perfecting one's palate. This edgy, no-nonsense guide exposes hidden truths, debunks every misconception, and reveals the power that comes with knowing an ale from a lager.


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From two masters of dark fantasy comes a chilling tale of magic and possession, set in-and beneath-fabulous Venice, a city slowly being swallowed by the very waters that have made it one of the wonders of the world. Geena Hodge is an American archaeologist working to salvage Venicers"s past from the encroaching Adriatic Sea. When she and her lover, Nico, discover the lost library of Petrarch under the Piazza San Marco, they rejoice not only at the historical significance of the find but at the opportunity to bring worldwide attention-and much-needed funding-to their endeavors. But that find soon leads to another, a room buried more deeply still: the fabledChamber of Ten, where centuries ago the secret rulers of Venice, in their quest for absolute power, met to plot betrayals and murders. After entering the Chamber, Geena and Nico are thrust into the midst of an ancient feud, a deadly battle of wills and black magic that threatens to poison the cityrs"s future with the evils of its past.


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"Lively and inspiring!"--*Hartford Courant*    

"A great feel-good story."--*Philadelphia Examiner*    

*Just one step at a time. *    

After losing her boyfriend and her job in one fell swoop, Noreen finds it hard to know what the   next step is--never mind take it. For the first time in a great many years, Noreen has time to   herself. So she puts on a new pair of sneakers and a seriously outdated pair of exercise pants, and walks.     

It isn't long before she's joined by neighbors Tess and Rosie, two women as lost as she is. As   the Wildwater women walk and talk, and talk and walk, they tally their steps, share their secrets,   and begin putting their lives back together. And along the way, they learn what women everywhere are finding out -- time flies, and getting fit is actually fun when you're walking with friends.


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Business is booming at Clare Cosi's Village Blend, until her female customers start to die. Lieutenant Quinn is convinced that someone has an axe to grind, and, unfortunately, his prime suspect is the new man in Clare's life. Now Clare will risk her heart - and her life - to follow the killer's trail to the bitter end.


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When one of her baristas unwittingly serves a poisonous latte to a prominent figure on the fashion scene, Clare Cosi must uncover some jolting secrets to save her shop.


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Clare Cosi-s new friend, millionaire David Mintzer, has an offer no New York barista could turn down: an all-expenses-paid summer away from the sticky city. At his Hamptons mansion, she-ll relax, soak up the sun, and, oh yes, train the staff of his new restaurant. So Clare packs up her daughter, her former mother-in-law, and her special recipe for iced coffee-for what she hopes will be one de-latte-ful summer-

Soon, Clare tends the coffee bar at her first Hamptons gala. But the festivities come to a bitter end when an employee turns up dead in David-s bathroom-a botched attempt on the millionaire-s life. Thanks to the Fourth of July fireworks no one heard any gunshots, and the police are stuck in holiday traffic. Concerned for everyone-s safety, Clare begins to investigate. What she finds will keep her up at night-and it-s not the java jitters-


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When an old friend of her ex-husband develops the world's first botanically decaffeinated coffee bean and smuggles it into the country, Clare Cosi, manager of Village Blend, believes it's a business opportunity she needs to investigate...at least until the first dead body shows up.


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Murder takes the plunge in the sixth book in the Coffeehouse mystery series. Clare Cosi's daughter, Joy, is interning - and falling - for a top New York chef when his kitchen turns cutthroat, and Joy becomes a murder suspect. Clare knows she must catch the real killer - even if it lands her in the hottest water of her life.


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**The latest in the steaming hot national bestselling series— now in hardcover.**



 Manager and head barista of the bustling New York coffeehouse The Village Blend, Clare Cosi’s been hired to create a gourmet coffee and dessert bar for a swanky wedding. Clare should be thrilled at this chance to shine, but it’s Matteo Allegro, her ex-husband and current business partner, who’s tying the knot—to *Trend* magazine editor Breanne Summour, who’s in full-blown bridezilla mode. Claire’s got to put her misgivings aside and focus on business, but since she’s a successful amateur sleuth, murder is Clare’s business, too. And when fatal accidents begin befalling people close to Breanne, Clare becomes suspicious. But what she unveils, amid melted chocolate and steaming mochaccinos, may just get her burned...


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*There's nothing cozier than a winter evening in Greenwich Village. Streetlights shimmer through icy flakes, cafés glow with welcoming warmth, and a layer of snow dusts historic townhouses like powdered sugar on holiday confections. Murder has no place in such a pretty picture, until now...*

  Coffeehouse manager Clare Cosi has grown very fond of Alfred Glockner, the part-time comic and genuinely jolly charity Santa who's been using her Village Blend as a place to warm his mittens. When she finds him brutally gunned down in a nearby alley, a few subtle clues convince her that Alfred's death was something more than the tragic result of a random mugging--the conclusion of the police. With Clare's boyfriend, NYPD Detective Mike Quinn, distracted by a cold case of his own, and ex-husband Matt investigating this year's holiday lingerie catalogs (an annual event), Clare charges ahead solo to solve her beloved Santa's slaying. Then someone tries to ice Clare, and she really gets steamed. But she'd better watch out, because if she fails to stop this stone cold killer, she may just get the biggest chill of her life.

**   This very special holiday entry in Cleo Coyle's nationally bestselling mystery series includes a bonus section of delicious holiday recipes as well as a glossary of coffeehouse terms, instructions on making espressos and lattes without an expensive machine, and tips for creating tasty coffeehouse syrups at home.**


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From the author of Deadlock, Whirlpool and Double Jeopardy comes the reissue of, Terminal. Each of Colin Forbes' books have been published worldwide and translated into 30 languages.


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Hot on the heels of his bestsellingBlood Stormcomes Colin Forbes' dramatic and topical new thriller,The Main ChanceAt the urgent plea of his old friend, Commander Buchanan of Scotland Yard, Tweed, once ace detective, now Deputy Chief SIS, visits Mrs Bella Main, formidable matriarch controlling the Main Chance, the most powerful private bank in Europe. Bella tells Tweed and Paula Grey, his assistant, that she has refused an enormous offer from Calouste Gubenkian, the most ruthless and villainous man in Europe. Within days of their visit Bella is murdered.Tweed and Paula return to investigate the atrocious act. The bank's HQ is based in a huge Elizabethan manor hidden in The Forest, a vast area in the deep south of England. Tweed has already met members of the two families, run by their forefathers for generations. Was Bella murdered by one of them — or is it the work of the vicious Calouste?The movement never stops, changing to Calouste's Chateau Les Rochers in the Belgian Ardennes. A ferocious battle takes place. Two more murders are committed at the manor. Tweed and Paula race to tiny Seacove on the rugged Cornish coast to prevent another murder. Finally, Tweed proves the Bank, founded in 1912, was based on a brutal crime all those years ago.


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TWO BRILLIANT AGENTS    

FBI Special Agent Monica Davenport has made a career out of profiling serial killers. But getting inside the twisted minds of the cruel and the sadistic has taken its toll: She's walled herself off from the world. Yet Monica can't ignore fellow agent Luke Dante, the only man who ever broke through her defenses.    

ONE DREAM TEAM    

Luke has the unique ability to put victims at ease...professionally, he and Monica made a perfect team. Now they're reunited to catch a murderer who uses his victims' deepest, darkest fears for sport - but their investigative skills aren't enough. Luke and Monica will have to face the secrets from their past, the ones that terrify them the most, if they are to have a future together.    

But can they catch a killer whose weapon is...DEADLY FEAR


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Tessa had loved Paul Demetrius from the start, but from the moment she introduced him to her beautiful sister Lucinda he had had eyes for no one else. At last, unable to bear seeing the two of them together, Tessa had gone away.

Now, two years later, she was home again, expecting to hear that they were married -- only to learn that they had never in fact married, that after a terrible accident in which Paul had been blinded, Lucinda had walked out on him and he was now living the life of a recluse in Cyprus. So Tessa took her courage in both hands, went out to Cyprus pretending to be Lucinda, begged Paul's forgiveness -- and married him.

Would her love be strong enough to stand the strain of living such a lie? And what if Paul ever found out?


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The Richard Blade novels were a series of adventures featuring the titular character (MI6A's special agent Richard Blade), who was teleported into a random alternate dimension at the beginning of each novel and forced to rely on his wits and strength. Richard Blade was distinctly British, and all the stories are set in England (at least at the beginning and end, with Blade being teleported to some other dimension for the bulk of each tale).


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It is the fourth book in the Richard Blade series.  __________________________________________  Blade's newest mission: Projection by computer to Dimension X, to track down and kill the russian agent posing as his double.In Sarma, land of weird customs and barbaric punishments, he could survive only by satisfying the cravings of the royal women. Failure ment live burial, or being hurled into the flaming jaws of Bek-Tor. And always the danger from the man who was his double...and might prove to be his final destruction.


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Richard Blade arrives in the Empire of Gaikon - a feudal society - a land much like Japan ruled by the Tokugawa Shoguns. This is the 18th volume in the Richard Blade Heroic Fantasy Series.


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The first book in the Richard Blade series (1969)   Blasted into a fantastic new world, Richard Blade woke at the feet of a strange and beautiful woman, Taleen, Princess of Voth. Running for her life from the savage Albs who had kidnapped her. Without clothes or weapons of any kind, Blade was in trouble himself - but the seductive Taleen needed help... Strange experiences were nothing new to Blade, but he was ill-prepared for his trial by fire and sword, the secret cannibal rites of the Drus, the unquenchable lusts of the evil Queen Beata, and the maddening teasing of the virgin Taleen.


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It is the second book in the Richard Blade series.  __________________________________________  When a computer transported Richard Blade to Dimension X, he found himself in Mortal danger. Dimension X was a land in peril. The aristocratic Caths, besieged by the Mongs, a cruel and mindless people, were constantly engulfed in wars and violence. Richard Blade was their only hope. But he was a man alone - and time was running out . . .


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It is the third book in the Richard Blade series.  __________________________________________  The third volume in the Richard Blade series, the continuing saga,of a modern man's exploits in the hitherto uncharted realm of worlds beyond our knowledge. Richard Blade is everyman and at the same time, a mighty and intrepid warrior. In the best tradition of America's most popular fictional heroes-giants such as Tarzan, Doc Savage, and Conan-Richard Blade is once again in print and battling man, beast and forces unnamed.


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The Richard Blade novels were a series of adventures featuring the titular character (MI6A's special agent Richard Blade), who was teleported  into a random alternate dimension at the beginning of each novel and forced to rely on his wits and strength. Richard Blade was distinctly British, and all the stories are set in England (at least at the beginning and end, with Blade being teleported to some other dimension for the bulk of each tale).


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At the outset of this adventure filled with disaster and delight, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin pursue a heavy American privateer through the Great South Sea. The strange color of the ocean water reminds Stephen of Homer's famous description, but it also portends a spectacular submarine volcanic eruption that will create a new island overnight and leave an indelible impression on the reader's imagination. Their ship, the Surprise, is now also a privateer, the better to escape diplomatic complications from Stephen's mission, which is to ignite the revolutionary tinder of South America. Jack will survive a desperate open-boat journey and come face to face with his illegitimate black son; Stephen, caught up in the aftermath of his failed coup, will flee for his life into the high, frozen wastes of the Andes; and Patrick O'Brian's brilliantly detailed narrative will reunite them at last in a breathtaking chase through storm seas and icebergs south of Cape Horn, where the hunters suddenly become the hunted. This is storytelling without models or equals in recent literature; critics have noted in O'Brian's great Aubrey/Maturin epic, now sixteen volumes in length, haunting echoes of such writers as Joseph Conrad, Herman Melville, and Jane Austen. Some readers will respond to the undeniable excitement of the chases, storms, and battles, others to the precision of language, or the humor, or the wealth of erudition in Maturin's researches and conversations. But the truest mark of O'Brian's stature as a novelist may be the great number of readers who find fresh delights and deeper resonances in rereading his novels.


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Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of their beginning, with Master and Commander, these evocative stories are being re-issued in paperback with smart new livery. This is the eighteenth book in the series.  The Yellow Admiral -- the eighteenth novel in the sequence hailed as the greatest series of historical novels ever written -- 

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At last! Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are back as Patrick O'Brian provides his indomitably loyal fans with another adventure, this one by land as well as by sea. Lucky Jack Aubrey finds himself not so lucky as his troubles amount ashore, his prospects of admiralty dimmed and Sophie's affection waning. At sea, he fares little better: in the storms off Brest he captures a French privateer ladden with gold and ivory at the expense of missing a signal and deserting his post. And worst of all, in the spring of 1814, peace breaks out... Fortunately, Maturin returns from a mission in Chile with news that may help restore Aubrey to good favor with both his beloved navy and wife. Then, off to Gibraltar: Napoleon has escaped from Elba. The Yellow Admiral is a change of pace, a reversion to the themes of the earlier novels in the Aubrey/Maturin series. Much of the story takes place on land, giving scope to O'Brian's fascination with the landscape, physical and social, of early nineteenth-century England. In vivid glimpses of various rural pursuits, and nuanced observation of politics and domestic arrangements, O'Brian proves himself ever more surely to be the heir of Jane Austen. Not to say there aren't some rousing and bloody sea-battles!


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The brand new Aubrey-Maturin novel, the twentieth in this classic series. 'If we had only two or three of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, we would count ourselves lucky; with six or seven the author would be safely among the greats of historical fiction...This is great writing by an undiminished talent. Now on to Volume Twenty, and the liberation of Chile.' WILLIAM WALDEGRAVE, Literary Review This is the twentieth book in Patrick O'Brian's highly acclaimed, bestselling series chronicling the adventures of lucky Jack Aubrey and his best friend Stephen Maturin, part ship's doctor, part secret agent. The novel's stirring action follows on from that of The Hundred Days. Napoleon's hundred days of freedom and his renewed threat to Europe have ended at Waterloo and Aubrey has finally, as the title suggests, become a blue level admiral. He and Maturin have -- at last -- set sail on their much postponed mission to Chile. Vivid with the salty tang of life at sea, O'Brian's writing is as powerful as ever whether he writes of naval hierarchies, night-actions or the most celebrated fictional friendship since that of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. Blue at the Mizzen also brings alive the sights and sounds of revolutionary South America in a story as exciting as any O'Brian has written.


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The fifteenth Aubrey-Maturin novel in which Jack finds himself re-united with the Surprise, but dangerously out of touch with his crew. All the elements that have made Patrick O'Brian's astonishing series one of the most highly praised works in contemporary fiction are here in Clarissa Oakes -- the narrative grip, the impeccable ear for dialogue, the humour and the unsurpassed capacity to create and recreate a rich and true friendship between two men in the late eighteenth-century. Captain Jack Aubrey sails away from the hated Australian prison colonies in his favourite vessel the Surprise, pondering on middle age and sexual frustration. He soon becomes aware that he is out of touch with the mood of his ship: to his astonishment he finds that in spite of a lifetime's experience he does not know what the foremost hands or even his own officers are thinking. They know, as he does not, that the Surprise has a stranger aboard: and what they, for their part, do not know is that the stranger is potentially as dangerous as a light in the powder magazine itself.


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The seventeenth Aubrey-Maturin novel. Jack Aubrey's long service is at last rewarded: he is promoted to the rank of Commodore and given a squadron of ships to command. His mission is twofold -- to make a large dent in the slave trade off the coast of Africa and, on his return, to intercept a French fleet set for Bantry Bay with a cargo of weapons for the disaffected among the Irish. Invention and surprise follow at every turn in this tale of nineteenth-century seamanship, as rich, as compelling, as masterly as any of its predecessors.

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The 18th Century heroes, Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin of the Royal Navy, are sent to the fever-ridden Gulf of Guinea to disrupt the slave trade. But their ultimate destination is Ireland where the French are mounting an invasion, a mission that will test Aubrey's seamanship and Maturin's talents as a secret agent. By the author of The Wine-Dark Sea.


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First published in 1978 a historical maritime adventure featuring Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend and surgeon Stephen Maturin, who are bound for Australia with a cargo of convicts, among them a beautiful but dangerous spy and a treacherous disease that decimates the crew.  By the author of HMS SURPRISE and POST CAPTAIN.


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Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. All eighteen books are being re-issued in hardback by HarperCollins with stunning new jackets to coincide with a new film based on the adventures and to introduce these modern classics to a new generation. Commissioned to rescue Governor Bligh of Bounty fame, Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend and surgeon, Stephen Maturin, sail the Leopard to Australia with a hold full of convicts. Among them is a beautiful and dangerous spy and a treacherous disease which decimates the crew. The ingredients of a wonderfully powerful and dramatic O'Brian novel are heightened by descriptive writing of rare quality. Nowhere in contemporary prose have the majesty and terror of the sea been more effectively rendered than in the thrilling chase through an Antarctic storm in which Jack's ship, under-manned and out-gunned, is the quarry not the hunter.


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 It is still the War of 1812. Patrick O'Brian takes his hero Jack Aubrey and his tetchy, sardonic friend Stephen Maturin on a voyage as fascinating as anything he has ever written. They set course across the South Atlantic to intercept a powerful American frigate outward bound to play havoc with the British whaling trade. If they do not come up with her before she rounds the Horn, they must follow her into the Great South Sea and as far across the Pacific as she may lead them. It is a commission after Jack's own heart. Maturin has fish of his own to fry in the world of secret intelligence. Aubrey has to cope with a succession of disasters -- men overboard, castaways, encounters with savages, storms, typhoons, groundings, shipwrecks, to say nothing of murder and criminal insanity. That the enemy is in fact faithfully dealt with, no one who has the honour of Captain Aubrey's acquaintance can take leave to doubt.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

"A marvellously full-flavoured, engrossing  book, which towers over its current rivals in  the genre like a three-decker over a ship's  longboat."'Times Literary Supplement  

Captain Jack Aubrey, R. N., arrives in the Dutch East Indies to find himself appointed to the command of the fastest and best-armed frigate in the Navy. He and his friend Stephen Maturin take passage for England in a dispatch vessel. But the War of 1812 breaks out while they are en route. Bloody actions precipitate them both into new and unexpected scenes where Stephen's past activities as a secret agent return on him with a vengeance. .


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

"Few, very few books have made my heart thud with excitement. H.M.S. Surprise managed  it." 'Helen Lucy Burke, Irish Press  Third in the series of Aubrey/Maturin adventures, this book is set among the strange sights and  smells of the Indian subcontinent, and in the  distant waters ploughed by the ships of the East India Company. Aubrey is on the defensive,  pitting wits and seamanship against an enemy  enjoying overwhelming local superiority. But  somewhere in the Indian Ocean lies the prize  that could make him rich beyond his wildest  dream: the ships sent by Napoleon to attack the  China Fleet... .


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The year is 1815, and Europe's most unpopular (not to mention tiniest) empire-builder has escaped from Elba. In The Hundred Days, it's up to Jack Aubrey--and surgeon-cum-spymaster Stephen Maturin--to stop Napoleon in his tracks. How? For starters, Aubrey and his squadron have been dispatched to the Adriatic coast, to keep Bonapartist shipbuilders from beefing up the French navy. Meanwhile, one Sheik Ibn Hazm is fomenting an Islamic uprising against the Allies. The only way to halt this maneuver is to intercept the sheik's shipment of gold--because in the Napoleonic era, as in our own, even the most ardent of mercenaries requires a salary. The Hundred Days is the 19th (and, we are told, the penultimate) installment of O'Brian's epic. Like many of its predecessors, it features a fairly swashbuckling plot, complete with cannon fire, exotic disguises, and Aubrey's suspenseful, slow-motion pursuit of an Algerian xebek. Yet it never turns into a mere exercise in Hornblowerism. Partly this is due to O'Brian's delicate touch with character--the relationship between extroverted Aubrey and introverted Maturin has deepened with each book, and even Aubrey's reunion with his childhood companion Queenie Keith is full of novelistic nuance: "They sat smiling at one another. An odd pair: handsome creatures both, but they might have been of the same sex or neither." Nor does the author focus too exclusively on his dynamic duo. Indeed, The Hundred Days is very much a chronicle of a floating community, which Maturin describes as "his own village, his own ship's company, that complex entity so much more easily sensed than described: part of his natural habitat." Finally, O'Brian shows his usual expertise in balancing the great events with the most minuscule ones. Other authors have written about battles at sea, and still others have recorded the rapid rise and fall of Napoleon's fortunes after his escape from confinement. But who else would give equal time--and an equal charge of delight--to Maturin's discovery of an anomalous nuthatch? --James Marcus


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Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, veterans now of many battles, return in this novel to the seas where they first sailed as shipmates. But a sudden turn of events takes them off on a hazardous mission to the Greek isles, where they are soon involved in fierce and thrilling action.
EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of their beginning, with Master and Commander, these evocative stories are being re-issued in paperback with smart new livery. This is the eighth book in the series.  Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, veterans of many battles, return in this novel to the seas where they first sailed as shipmates. But Jack is now a senior Captain commanding a line-of-battle ship sent out to reinforce the squadron blockading Toulon, and this is a longer, harder, colder war than the dashing frigate action of his early days.  A sudden turn of events takes him and Stephen off on a hazardous mission to the Greek islands. All his old skills of seamanship, and his proverbial luck when fighting against odds, come triumphantly into their own. The book ends with as fierce and thrilling an action as any in this magnificent series of novels.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of their beginning, with Master and Commander, these evocative stories are being re-issued in paperback with smart new livery. This is the twelfth book in the series.  Jack Aubrey is a naval officer, a post-captain of experience and capacity. When The Letter of Marque opens he has been struck off the Navy List for a crime he has not committed. With Aubrey is his friend and ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin, who is also an unofficial British intelligence agent. Maturin has bought for Aubrey his old ship the Surprise, so that the misery of ejection from the service can be palliated by the command of what Aubrey calls a 'private man-of-war' -- a letter of marque, a privateer. Together they sail on a voyage which, if successful, might restore Aubrey to the rank, and the raison d'etre, whose loss he so much regrets. Around these simple, ostensibly familar elements Patrick O'Brian has written a novel of great narrative power, exploring his extraordinary world once more, in a tale full of human feeling and rarely matched in its drama.


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'Aubrey-Maturin - book 1' Master and Commander is the first of Patrick O'Brian's now famous Aubrey/Maturin novels, regarded by many as the greatest series of historical novels ever written. It establishes the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey RN and Stephen Maturin, who becomes his secretive ship's surgeon and an intelligence agent. It contains all the action and excitement which could possibly be hoped for in a historical novel, but it also displays the qualities which have put O'Brian far ahead of any of his competitors: his depiction of the detail of life aboard a Nelsonic man-of-war, of weapons, food, conversation and ambience, of the landscape and of the sea. O'Brian's portrayal of each of these is faultless and the sense of period throughout is acute. His power of characterisation is above all masterly. This brilliant historical novel marked the debut of a writer who grew into one of our greatest novelists ever, the author of what Alan Judd, writing in the Sunday Times, has described as 'the most significant extended story since Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time'.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of their beginning, with Master and Commander, these evocative stories are being re-issued in paperback with smart new livery. This is the fourth book in the series.  Captain Jack Aubrey is ashore on half-pay without a command -- until his friend, and occasional intelligence agent, Stephen Maturin, arrives with secret orders for Aubrey to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope, under a Commodore's pennant. But the difficulties of carrying out his orders are compounded by two of his own captains -- Lord Clonfert, a pleasure-seeking dilettante, and Captain Corbett, whose severity can push his crews to the verge of mutiny.  Based on the actual campaign of 1810 in the Indian Ocean, O'Brian's attention to detail of eighteenth-century life ashore and at sea is meticulous. This tale is as beautifully written and as gripping as any in the series; it also stands on its own as a superlative work of fiction.


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At the end of O'Brian's Thirteen Gun Salute, Captain Aubrey and the crew of the Diane are shipwrecked by a typhoon on a remote island in the Dutch East Indies. After they are rescued, Aubrey and crew continue their interrupted mission aboard a new vessel, the Nutmeg.

The fourteenth novel in the classic Aubrey-Maturin series finds Aubrey and Maturin shipwrecked, harassed by pirates and then in the brutal penal colonies of New South Wales. Patrick O'Brian is regarded by many as the greatest living historical novelist writing in English. In The Nutmeg of Consolation, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin begin stranded on an uninhabited island in the Dutch East Indies, attacked by ferocious Malay pirates. They contrive their escape, but after a stay in Batavia and a change of ship, they are caught up in a night chase in the fiercely tidal waters and then embroiled in the much more insidious conflicts of the terrifying penal settlements of New South Wales. It is one of O'Brian's most accomplished and gripping books.

EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of their beginning, with Master and Commander, these evocative stories are being re-issued in paperback with smart new livery. This is the fourteenth book in the series.  Patrick O'Brian is regarded by many as the greatest living historical novelist writing in English. In The Nutmeg of Consolation, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin begin stranded on an uninhabited island in the Dutch East Indies, attacked by ferocious Malay pirates. They contrive their escape, but after a stay in Batavia and a change of ship, they are caught up in a night chase in the fiercely tidal waters and then embroiled in the much more insidious conflicts of the terrifying penal settlements of New South Wales. It is one of O'Brian's most accomplished and gripping books.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of their beginning, with Master and Commander, these evocative stories are being re-issued in paperback with smart new livery. This is the second book in the series.  Patrick O'Brian is regarded by many as the greatest historical novelist now writing. Post Captain, the second novel in his remarkable Aubrey/Maturin series, led Mary Renault to write: 'Master and Commander raised dangerously high expectations; Post Captain triumphantly surpasses them.'  This tale begins with Jack Aubrey arriving home from his exploits in the Mediterranean to find England at peace following the Treaty of Amiens. He and his friend Stephen Maturin, surgeon and secret agent, begin to live the lives of country gentlemen, hunting, entertaining and enjoying more amorous adventures. Their comfortable existence, however, is cut short when Jack is overnight reduced to a pauper with enough debts to keep him in prison for life.  He flees to the continent to seek refuge: instead he finds himself a hunted fugitive as Napoleon has ordered the internment of all Englishmen in France. Aubrey's adventures in escaping from France and the debtors' prison will grip the reader as fast as his unequalled actions at sea.


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Returning from his duties protecting whalers off South America, Jack Aubrey is persuaded to make investments in the city. It is the first step into the half-worlds of the London criminal underworld and of government espionage.
EDITORIAL REVIEW:

"An overwhelming, outstanding  novel...!"âIrish Times  Captain Jack Aubrey, R. N., ashore after a successful cruise, is persuaded by a casual acquaintance to make certain investments in the City. This innocent decision ensnares him in the London criminal underground and in government espionageâthe province of his friend Stephen Maturin. Is Aubrey's humiliation and the threatened ruin of his career a deliberate plot? This dark tale is a fitting backdrop to the brilliant characterization and sparkling dialogue which O'Brian's readers have come to expect. .


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Aubrey and Maturin are ordered home by desptach vessel to bring the news of their latest victory to the government. But Maturin is a marked man for the havoc he has wrought in the French intelligence network in the New World, and the attentions of two privateers soon become menacing.


EDITORIAL REVIEW:

"Vividly detailed 19th-century settings and  dramatic tension punctuated with flashes of wry  humor make O'Brian's nautical adventure a  splendid treat."âPublishers Weekly  Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are ordered home by dispatch vessel to bring the news of their latest victory to the government. But Maturin is a marked man for the havoc he has wrought in the French intelligence network in the New World, and the attention of two privateers soon becomes menacing. The chase that follows through the fogs and shallows of the Grand Banks is as tense, and as unexpected in its culmination, as anything Patrick O'Brian has written. .


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Captain Jack Aubrey sets sail for the South China Sea with a new lease on life. Following his dismissal from the Royal Navy (a false accusation), he has earned reinstatement through his daring exploits as a privateer, brilliantly chronicled in The Letter of Marque. Now he is to shepherd Stephen Maturin--his friend, ship's surgeon, and sometimes intelligence agent--on a diplomatic mission to prevent links between Bonaparte and the Malay princes which would put English merchant shipping at risk.The journey of the Diane encompasses a great and satisfying diversity of adventures. Maturin climbs the Thousand Steps of the sacred crater of the orangutans; a killer typhoon catches Aubrey and his crew trying to work the Diane off a reef; and in the barbaric court of Pulo Prabang a classic duel of intelligence agents unfolds: the French envoys, well entrenched in the Sultan's good graces, against the savage cunning of Stephen Maturin.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of their beginning, with Master and Commander, these evocative stories are being re-issued in paperback with smart new livery. This is the ninth book in the series.  Uniquely among authors of naval fiction, Patrick O'Brian allows his characters to develop with experience. The Jack Aubrey of Treason's Harbour has a record of successes equal to that of the most brilliant of Nelson's band of brothers, and he is no less formidable or decisive in action or strategy. But he is wiser, kinder, gentler too.  Much of the plot of Treason's Harbour depends on intelligence and counter-intelligence, a field in which Aubrey's friend Stephen Maturin excels. Through him we get a clearer insight into the life and habits of the sea officers of Nelson's time than we would ever obtain seeing things through their own eyes.  There is plenty of action and excitement in this novel, but it is the atmosphere of a Malta crowded with senior officers waiting for news of what the French are up to, and wondering whether the war will end before their turn comes for prize money and for fame, that is here so freshly and vividly conveyed.


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The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman’s courageous flight to freedom with her eight children.When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral part of Carolyn’s heritage: She was born into and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the radical offshoot of the Mormon Church that had settled in small communities along the Arizona-Utah border. Over the next fifteen years, Carolyn had eight children and withstood her husband’s psychological abuse and the watchful eyes of his other wives who were locked in a constant battle for supremacy.Carolyn’s every move was dictated by her husband’s whims. He decided where she lived and how her children would be treated. He controlled the money she earned as a school teacher. He chose when they had sex; Carolyn could only refuse—at her peril. For in the FLDS, a wife’s compliance with her husband determined how much status both she and her children held in the family. Carolyn was miserable for years and wanted out, but she knew that if she tried to leave and got caught, her children would be taken away from her. No woman in the country had ever escaped from the FLDS and managed to get her children out, too. But in 2003, Carolyn chose freedom over fear and fled her home with her eight children. She had $20 to her name.Escape exposes a world tantamount to a prison camp, created by religious fanatics who, in the name of God, deprive their followers the right to make choices, force women to be totally subservient to men, and brainwash children in church-run schools. Against this background, Carolyn Jessop’s flight takes on an extraordinary, inspiring power. Not only did she manage a daring escape from a brutal environment, she became the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FLDS. And in 2006, her reports to the Utah attorney general on church abuses formed a crucial part of the case that led to the arrest of their notorious leader, Warren Jeffs.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

** The national bestselling author brews up another mystery-and this time, it's New York's Bravest that get burned ** 



 After local firefighters pull Clare out of a blazing café, she happily comes to their rescue by teaching them the finer points of operating their newly donated espresso machine. But matters really heat up when somebody is torching cafes around the city and firefighters begin to die in suspicious ways... 



 Believing the two events are related, Clare investigates, staking out a five-borough bake sale and sniffing out clues in the pizza ovens of Brooklyn. When her detective boyfriend, Mike Quinn, is pulled into the fire of a false accusation, Clare is desperate to put out the flames. But will she be able to come to Mike's rescue before someone tries to extinguish her?


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Book-loving Bailey Chambers yearned to give herself, body and soul, to sexy SWAT cop Conall O'Rourke. His passionate kisses torched a four-alarm blaze in her body, but her growing fears of losing him to the hazards of his job led to a New Year's Eve breakup. 

Then fate intervened....

Trying to convince Bailey to give them a second chance put Con and his lover in the line of fire, fighting deadly enemies with only a few short hours to save innocent hostages--and themselves. As the deadline ticked closer and the danger mounted, Bailey risked losing much more than just her heart....


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Having fled the violent breakup of Yugoslavia, Tanja Lucic is now a professor of literature at the University of Amsterdam, where she teaches a class filled with other young Yugoslav exiles, most of whom earn meager wages assembling leather and rubber S&M clothing at a sweatshop they call the "Ministry." Abandoning literature, Tanja encourages her students to indulge their "Yugonostalgia" in essays about their personal experiences during their homeland's cultural and physical disintegration. But Tanja's act of academic rebellion incites the rage of one renegade member of her class—and pulls her dangerously close to another—which, in turn, exacerbates the tensions of a life in exile that has now begun to spiral seriously out of control.


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From the terror of a lightless, smoke-clogged building to the secrets kept by the men and women who trust their partners with their lives, Earl Emerson knows the world of firefighting like no other author–and writes about it with passion and piercing honesty. In his remarkable new thriller, Emerson fuses together a gripping drama with unforgettable scenes of peril that, in this realm, can explode at any second.Jason Gun, a risk-taking rookie firefighter who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, has found in his firehouse the family he never had as a child. Then, in one ill-fated turn of events, it all begins to go wrong.A bizarre accident brings a thrill-seeking woman into Engine Company 29–and into Jason’s life. Suddenly, his future on the job is at risk. Two fellow firefighters know that he missed a call because of some sexual heroics at the wrong time and place. Now, deeply in their debt, he will find out what kind of men his partners really are.When these two firefighters come upon a fortune in missing bearer bonds–money found in a dead man’s house–Jason is forced to become an accessory to their crime. And when evidence of their greed, foolishness, and thievery begins to emerge, Jason is witness to an even darker deed.Suddenly, the twenty-four-year-old, who only wanted to do the right thing, is trapped behind a wall of silence. Trying to undo his mistake, Jason moves further into the darkness, where a beautiful young woman might just be his emotional rescue–or yet one more very wrong move. Unfortunately for Jason, the worst isn’t behind him. Like a fire hit by wind, the killing has raged out of control.Capturing the thin line that separates a hero from a criminal, and an enemy from a friend, Earl Emerson’s new novel is a gripping tale of a man’s dangerous fall from grace–and of his fierce battle for redemption.From the Hardcover edition.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**A New York Times Bestseller**

   "Driver" is an ex-con trying to make his life right but who shares an expensive secret and a past affair with his boss's wife - a woman who is nothing but trouble. Dickey's rich characters jump off the page, drawing readers into the hustle-filled pool hall, the bedroom, and the Lincoln Town Car as Driver chauffeurs his wealthy and notorious clients around. A fast-paced novel of raw emotion softened with humor, this is Dickey at his best.


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Dana moves to Los Angeles to start over with a new job, a new environment, and a new man, the industrious Vincent, but the arrival of her former lover and Vincent's ex-wife forces them both to confront their pasts.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Discover the delicious mystery that started it all!    

     

No one cooks up a delectable, suspense-filled mystery quite like Hannah Swensen, Joanne Fluke’s dessert-baking, red-haired heroine whose gingersnaps are as tart as her comebacks, and whose penchant for solving crimes—one delicious clue at a time—has made her a bestselling favorite. And it all began on these pages, with a bakery, a murder, and some suddenly scandalous chocolate-chip crunchies. Featuring a bonus short story and brand new, mouthwatering recipes, this limited edition of the very first Hannah Swensen mystery is sure to have readers coming back for seconds…    

     

Hannah Swenson already has her hands full trying to dodge her mother’s attempts to marry her off while running The Cookie Jar, Lake Eden, Minnesota’s most popular bakery. But once Ron LaSalle, the beloved delivery man from the Cozy Cow Dairy, is found murdered behind her bakery with Hannah’s famous Chocolate Chip Crunchies scattered around him, her life just can’t get any worse. Determined not to let her cookies get a bad reputation, she sets out to track down a killer.     

     

Who would have the sheer audacity—and the motive—to kill the most punctual delivery man Hannah ever had? Topping the list is the high school football coach. What exactly was his wife doing, making the rounds with the milkman? Could Max Turner, owner of Cozy Cow Dairy, have had a secret he didn’t want to share with his top employee? The more Hannah snoops, the more suspects turn up. Why has Lake Eden’s most prominent prodigal son, Benton Woodley, just resurfaced? And what about the mysterious Mr. Harris who seemed interested in buying the property next to the dairy, but then disappeared? This is one murder that’s starting to leave a very bad taste in Hannah’s mouth. And if she doesn’t watch her back, Hannah’s sweet life may get burned to a crisp.    

     

Filled with a healthy sprinkling of humor and a delightful assortment of nuts, CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE MURDER serves up a great new mystery series and introduces a delicious, down-home sleuth that mystery readers will surely savor for years to come.


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When Emma Donahoe becomes a nanny to John Chen's daughter Simone, she does not expect to be drawn into a world of martial arts, magic and extreme danger, where both gods and demons can exist in the mortal world.


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The demon threat closes around mortals and gods alike'Ś When Emma became nanny to John Chen's daughter, she never expected to be caring for the child of a Chinese god, or that all the demons in hell would want him dead.Now she's in love with John, and they are hunted from China to Europe by a race of demons. But who are the real pawns in this deadly celestial game?Kylie Chan's Dark Heavens trilogy is the most exciting Urban Fantasy debut of 2010. Already a smash-hit in the author's native Australia it brings a world of Oriental Gods, martial arts action and romance to the genre.FILE UNDER: Modern Fantasy [Martial arts / Chinese Gods / Magical action / Save the child!]


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The forces of Hell are poised to strike'Ś Emma's beloved, John Chen, is a 3000 year old Chinese god. He is becoming weaker by the day in his battle to protect her and his daughter from the Demons who pursue them relentlessly. But it is Emma who is nagged by doubts about her own nature, and must find the courage to save them all'ŚDark Heavens, Book One.Emma Donahue went to Hong Kong to become a nanny to John Chen's daughter. But John's world is different, and he is no ordinary businessman - all the gods, demons and dragons in hell want him dead. And though she doesn't know it, Emma holds the power to save them all'ŚKylie Chan's Dark Heavens trilogy is the most exciting Urban Fantasy debut of 2010. Already a smash-hit in the author's native Australia it brings a world of Oriental Gods, martial arts action and romance to the genre.FILE UNDER: Modern Fantasy [Martial arts / Chinese Gods / Magical action / Save the child!]


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With his first novel since the internationally acclaimed The English Patient, Booker Prize—winning author Michael Ondaatje gives us a work displaying all the richness of imagery and language and the piercing emotional truth that we have come to know as the hallmarks of his writing. Anil’s Ghost transports us to Sri Lanka, a country steeped in centuries of tradition, now forced into the late twentieth century by the ravages of civil war. Into this maelstrom steps Anil Tissera, a young woman born in Sri Lanka, educated in England and America, who returns to her homeland as a forensic anthropologist sent by an international human rights group to discover the source of the organized campaigns of murder engulfing the island. What follows is a story about love, about family, about identity, about the unknown enemy, about the quest to unlock the hidden past–a story propelled by a riveting mystery. Unfolding against the deeply evocative background of Sri Lanka’s landscape and ancient civilization, Anil’s Ghost is a literary spellbinder–Michael Ondaatje’s most powerful novel yet.


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Associate history professor, Kari Montgomery, has carried the feelings of loss and inadequacy ever since she broke off her engagement to Geoffrey Hudson. All that changes when she looks into a pair of steel blue eyes as she attempts to make it through a rain storm the day of her cousin Emily's wedding. But even though Kari begins to feel compelled toward him, she isn't sure if she can love again or if she is even worthy of that love. Youth pastor Randy Steele has a sense of humor and a pair of remarkable eyes that make him fascinating to most of the women he meets. As he tries to get Kari to see her own worthiness and ability to let God heal her heart, he realizes that he also has something in his own life to heal - the relationship with his parents. But can he reach Kari and show her how wonderful life can be with God in control of their futures?


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**A debut so magical so extraordinary it has to be read to be believed.**

Imprisoned for life aboard a zeppelin that floats high above a fantastic metropolis, the greeting-card writer Harold Winslow pens his memoirs. His only companions are the disembodied voice of Miranda Taligent, the only woman he has ever loved, and the cryogenically frozen body of her father Prospero, the genius and industrial magnate who drove her insane.

The tale of Harold’s life is also one of an alternate reality, a lucid waking dream in which the well-heeled have mechanical men for servants, where the realms of fairy tales can be built from scratch, where replicas of deserted islands exist within skyscrapers.. As Harold’s childhood infatuation with Miranda changes over twenty years to love and then to obsession, the visionary inventions of her father also change Harold’s entire world, transforming it from a place of music and miracles to one of machines and noise. And as Harold heads toward a last desperate confrontation with Prospero to save Miranda’s life, he finds himself an unwitting participant in the creation of the greatest invention of them all: the perpetual motion machine.

Beautifully written, stunningly imagined, and wickedly funny, The Dream of Perpetual Motion is a heartfelt meditation on the place of love in a world dominated by technology.


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Can a man fall in love with a painting? The girl in the blue dress was in a portrait that Franklin Lowell had owned and admired for years. And when, at last, he met the original model for the picture, it seemed to be too late. Not only was she in love with the artist who had painted her, but Franklin himself was engaged to another woman.


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*Amadeus* meets *Little Women* in this irresistibly delightful historical novel by award-  winning author Stephanie Cowell. The year is 1777 and the four Weber sisters, daughters of a   musical family, share a crowded, artistic life in a ramshackle house. While their father scrapes by   as a music copyist and their mother secretly draws up a list of prospective suitors in the kitchen,   the sisters struggle with their futures, both marital and musical—until twenty-one-year-old   Wolfgang Mozart walks into their lives. Bringing eighteenth-century Europe to life with unforgiving   winters, yawning princes, scheming parents, and the enduring passions of young talent,   Stephanie Cowell’s richly textured tale captures a remarkable historical figure—and the four   young women who engage his passion, his music, and his heart.


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From the *New York Times* bestselling author of *To Desire a Devil* comes this thrilling tale of danger, desire, and dark passions.**A MAN CONTROLLED BY HIS DESIRES . . . **Infamous for his wild, sensual needs, Lazarus Huntington, Lord Caire, is searching for a savage killer in St. Giles, London's most notorious slum. Widowed Temperance Dews knows St. Giles like the back of her hand-she's spent a lifetime caring for its inhabitants at the foundling home her family established. Now that home is at risk . . . **A WOMAN HAUNTED BY HER PAST . . . **Caire makes a simple offer-in return for Temperance's help navigating the perilous alleys of St. Giles, he will introduce her to London's high society so that she can find a benefactor for the home. But Temperance may not be the innocent she seems, and what begins as cold calculation soon falls prey to a passion that neither can control-one that may well destroy them both.**A BARGAIN NEITHER COULD REFUSE**


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For years Jackie, Georgina, Meg and Rowan were loyal friends. But time, secrets and misunderstandings created a rift that seemed impossible to bridge. Ten years after leaving school they attempt a reunion. But Rowan never appears, Georgina has a surprise none of them could have expected, Meg is typically outlandish and Jackie's heart just isn't in it. The evening is a fiasco and Jackie decides it's time to move on once and for all. And that's just what she does for the following ten years. That is until yesterday, when out of the blue she's contacted by Meg. But her timing couldn't be worse as Jackie's personal life is in tatters and the last thing she's ready to do is revisit her past.


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When Private Matt Duffy wakes up in an army hospital in Iraq, he's honored with a Purple Heart. But he doesn't feel like a hero.   There's a memory that haunts him: an image of a young Iraqi boy as a bullet hits his chest. Matt can't shake the feeling that he was somehow involved in his death. But because of a head injury he sustained just moments after the boy was shot, Matt can't quite put all the pieces together.   Eventually Matt is sent back into combat with his squad—Justin, Wolf, and Charlene—the soldiers who have become his family during his time in Iraq. He just wants to go back to being the soldier he once was. But he sees potential threats everywhere and lives in fear of not being able to pull the trigger when the time comes. In combat there is no black-and-white, and Matt soon discovers that the notion of who is guilty is very complicated indeed.   National Book Award Finalist Patricia McCormick has written a visceral and compelling portrait of life in a war zone, where loyalty is valued above all, and death is terrifyingly commonplace.


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The author of The Blood of Roses presents the dark forests and royal intrigues ues of medieval England. En route to her wedding, Lady Servanne's party is attacked by notorious Black Wolf and his band. Her kingdom's future is changed forever when she and Black Wolf submit to their growing passion, and he claims to be the true heir to her future husband's title.


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What if the guy in the airplane seat next to you turned out to be the love of your life? 

Juliana, happy in her career as a hair stylist, is on her way to visit her boyfriend of ten years who's working out of state. She's wondering why they're not engaged yet. Michael is going to his fiance's parents' home for an engagement party he doesn't want. A states' prosecutor, he's about to try the biggest case of his career, he hates the distraction, and he's having doubts about the relationship. 

They sit together on the plane, and discover they're on the same flight coming back. When the weekend is a disaster for each of them, they bond on the plane ride home. But life is full of complications, including their exes, who don't want to let go, and when Michael's trial turns dangerous, the two must confront what they value most in life... 

Praise for Line of Scrimmage: 

"I will definitely be reading more Marie Force." -Revisiting the Moon's Library 

"It was a book that made me laugh as well as cry. The three-dimensional characters were so vivid... hands down, this is the best romance I've read this year." -J. Kaye's Book Blog 

"With its humor and endearing characters, Force's charming novel will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers, reaching far beyond sports fans." -Shelley Mosley, Booklist (20090420)


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Vagabonding is about taking time off from your normal life—from six weeks to four months to two years—to discover and experience the world on your own terms. Veteran shoestring traveler Rolf Potts shows how anyone armed with an independent spirit can achieve the dream of extended overseas travel. Potts gives the necessary information on:• financing your travel time • determining your destination • adjusting to life on the road• working and volunteering overseas • handling travel adversity • re-assimilating back into ordinary lifeNot just a plan of action, vagabonding is an outlook on life that emphasizes creativity, discovery, and the growth of the spirit. Visit the vagabonding community’s hub at www.vagabonding.net.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**The long-awaited new novel from Margaret Atwood. *The Year of the Flood* is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power. **The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners—a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life—has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers . . .Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away . . .By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, *The Year of the Flood* is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.


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Just before dawn one winter's morning, a hijacked jetliner explodes above the English Channel. Through the falling debris, two figures, Gibreel Farishta, the biggest star in India, and Saladin Chamcha, an expatriate returning from his first visit to Bombay in fifteen years, plummet from the sky, washing up on the snow-covered sands of an English beach, and proceed through a series of metamorphoses, dreams, and revelations.


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"It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born." First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear-of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse. As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he's done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey-spanning miles and decades-towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun. With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterful prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction. From the Hardcover edition.


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Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for his radiant novel in stories, Mary and O’Neil, Justin Cronin has already been hailed as a writer of astonishing gifts. Now Cronin’s new novel, The Summer Guest, fulfills that promise—and more. With a rare combination of emotional insight, narrative power, and lyrical grace, Cronin transforms the simple story of a dying man’s last wish into a rich tapestry of family love. On an evening in late summer, the great financier Harry Wainwright, nearing the end of his life, arrives at a rustic fishing camp in a remote area of Maine. He comes bearing two things: his wish for a day of fishing in a place that has brought him solace for thirty years, and an astonishing bequest that will forever change the lives of those around him.From the battlefields of Italy to the turbulence of the Vietnam era, to the private battles of love and family, The Summer Guest reveals the full history of this final pilgrimage and its meaning for four people: Jordan Patterson, the haunted young man who will guide Harry on his last voyage out; the camp’s owner Joe Crosby, a Vietnam draft evader who has spent a lifetime “trying to learn what it means to be brave”; Joe’s wife, Lucy, the woman Harry has loved for three decades; and Joe and Lucy’s daughter Kate—the spirited young woman who holds the key to the last unopened door to the past.As their stories unfold, secrets are revealed, courage is tested, and the bonds of love are strengthened. And always center stage is the place itself—a magical, forgotten corner of New England where the longings of the human heart are mirrored in the wild beauty of the landscape. Intimate, powerful, and profound, The Summer Guest reveals Justin Cronin as a storyteller of unique and marvelous talent. It is a book to treasure.From the Hardcover edition.


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Mary and O’Neil frequently marveled at how, of all the lives they might have led, they had somehow found this one together. When they met at the Philadelphia high school where they’d come to teach, each had suffered a profound loss that had not healed. How likely was it that they could learn to trust, much less love, again? Justin Cronin’s poignant debut traces the lives of Mary Olson and O’Neil Burke, two vulnerable young teachers who rediscover in each other a world alive with promise and hope. From the formative experiences of their early adulthood to marriage, parenthood, and beyond, this novel in stories illuminates the moments of grace that enable Mary and O’Neil to make peace with the deep emotional legacies that haunt them: the sudden, mysterious death of O’Neil’s parents, Mary’s long-ago decision to end a pregnancy, O’Neil’s sister’s battle with illness and a troubled marriage. Alive with magical nuance and unexpected encounters, Mary and O’Neil celebrates the uncommon in common lives, and the redemptive power of love.


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It is the middle of the twentieth century, and in a home economics program at a prominent university, real babies are being used to teach mothering skills to young women. For a young man raised in these unlikely circumstances, finding real love and learning to trust will prove to be the work of a lifetime. In this captivating novel, bestselling author Lisa Grunwald gives us the sweeping tale of an irresistible hero and the many women who love him.From his earliest days as a “practice baby” through his adult adventures in 1960s New York City, Disney’s Burbank studios, and the delirious world of the Beatles’ London, Henry remains handsome, charming, universally adored—and never entirely accessible to the many women he conquers but can never entirely trust.Filled with unforgettable characters, settings, and action, The Irresistible Henry House portrays the cultural tumult of the mid-twentieth century even as it explores the inner tumult of a young man trying to transcend a damaged childhood. For it is not until Henry House comes face-to-face with the real truths of his past that he finds a chance for real love.


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Intense, powerful, and compelling, Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead and James Jones’s The Thin Red Line. It is the timeless story of a young Marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the mountain jungle of Vietnam as boys and forced to fight their way into manhood. Standing in their way are not merely the North Vietnamese but also monsoon rain and mud, leeches and tigers, disease and malnutrition. Almost as daunting, it turns out, are the obstacles they discover between each other: racial tension, competing ambitions, and duplicitous superior officers. But when the company finds itself surrounded and outnumbered by a massive enemy regiment, the Marines are thrust into the raw and all-consuming terror of combat. The experience will change them forever. Written by a highly decorated Marine veteran over the course of thirty years, Matterhorn is a spellbinding and unforgettable novel that brings to life an entire world—both its horrors and its thrills—and seems destined to become a classic of combat literature.


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From the bestselling author of *Oracle Bones* and *River Town* comes the final book in his award-winning trilogy, on the human side of the economic revolution in China.   

 In the summer of 2001, Peter Hessler, the longtime Beijing correspondent for *The New Yorker*, acquired his Chinese driver's license. For the next seven years, he traveled the country, tracking how the automobile and improved roads were transforming China. Hessler writes movingly of the average people—farmers, migrant workers, entrepreneurs—who have reshaped the nation during one of the most critical periods in its modern history.  

 *Country Driving* begins with Hessler's 7,000-mile trip across northern China, following the Great Wall, from the East China Sea to the Tibetan plateau. He investigates a historically important rural region being abandoned, as young people migrate to jobs in the southeast. Next Hessler spends six years in Sancha, a small farming village in the mountains north of Beijing, which changes dramatically after the local road is paved and the capital's auto boom brings new tourism. Finally, he turns his attention to urban China, researching development over a period of more than two years in Lishui, a small southeastern city where officials hope that a new government-built expressway will transform a farm region into a major industrial center.  

 Peter Hessler, whom *The Wall Street Journal* calls "one of the Western world's most thoughtful writers on modern China," deftly illuminates the vast, shifting landscape of a traditionally rural nation that, having once built walls against foreigners, is now building roads and factory towns that look to the outside world.


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Kingsley is fresh out of university, eager to find an engineering job so he can support his family and marry the girl of his dreams. Being the opara of the family, he is entitled to certain privileges - a piece of meat in his egusi soup, a party to celebrate his graduation. But times are hard in Nigeria and jobs are not easy to come by.For much of his young life, Kingsley believed that education was everything, that through wisdom, all things were possible. But when a tragedy befalls his family, Kingsley learns the hardest lesson of all: education may be the language of success in his country, but it is money that does the talking. In desperation he turns to his uncle, Boniface-aka Cash Daddy-an exuberant character who suffers from elephantiasis of the pocket. He is also rumoured to run a successful empire of email scams. But he can help. With Cash Daddy's intervention, Kingsley and his family can be as safe as a tortoise under its shell. It is up to Kingsley now, to reconcile his passion for knowledge with his hunger for money, to fully assume his role of first son. But can he do it without being drawn into this outlandish milieu?


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Justin Kramon’s debut novel, Finny, is a sweeping, enchanting voyage, an insightful story about a young woman’s complicated path to adulthood. We meet Finny Short as an observant, defiant fourteen-year-old who can’t make sense of her family’s unusual habits: Her mother offers guidance appropriate for a forty-year-old socialite; her father quotes Nietzsche over pancakes. Finny figures she’s stuck with this lonely lot until she meets Earl Henckel, a boy who comes from an even stranger place than she does. Unhappy with Finny’s budding romance with Earl, her parents ship her off to Thorndon boarding school. But mischief follows Finny as she befriends New York heiress Judith Turngate, a girl whose charm belies a disquieting reckless streak.Finny’s relationships with Earl and Judith open her up to dizzying possibilities of love and loss and propel her into a remarkable adventure spanning twenty years and two continents. Justin Kramon has given us a wickedly funny odyssey with a moving and original love story at its core. Finny introduces us to an unforgettable heroine, a charmingly intricate world, and an uncommonly entertaining and gifted young novelist.


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*"I have promised to be a model citizen daughter....I have confined my Shrimp time to making out with him in the Java the Hut supply closet and quick feels on the cold hard sand at the beach during our breaks, but enough is enough....Delia and I are planning a party at Wallace and Shrimp's house and I am spending the night whether Sid and Nancy notice or not. I will be as wild as I wanna be."* 

 After being kicked out of a fancy New England boarding school, Cyd Charisse is back home in San Francisco with her parents, Sid and Nancy, in a household that drives her crazy. Lucky for Cyd, she's always had Gingerbread, her childhood rag doll and confidante. 

 After Cyd tests her parents' permissiveness, she is grounded in Alcatraz (as Cyd calls her room) and forbidden to see Shrimp, her surfer boyfriend. But when her incarceration proves too painful for the whole family, Cyd's parents decide to send her to New York to meet her biological father and his family, whom Cyd has always longed to know. 

 Summer in the city is not what Cyd Charisse expects -- and Cyd isn't what her newfound family expects, either. 

 With *Gingerbread,* debut author Rachel Cohn creates a spirited world of in-your-face characters who are going to stay with readers for a long time.


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Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she's made it out of the bloody arena alive, she's still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what's worse, President Snow has made it clear that no one else is safe either. Not Katniss's family, not her friends, not the people of District 12. Powerful and haunting, this thrilling final installment of Suzanne Collins's groundbreaking The Hunger Games trilogy promises to be one of the most talked about books of the year.


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6, C.S. Lewis, a confirmed bachelor, married Joy Davidman, an American poet with two small children. After four brief, intensely happy years, Lewis found himself alone again, and inconsolable. To defend himself against the loss of belief in God, Lewis wrote this journal, an eloquent statement of rediscovered faith. In it he freely confesses his doubts, his rage, and his awareness of human frailty. In it he finds again the way back to life.


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Written in 1888 just before the final years of insanity that would plague Friedrich Nietzsche until his death in 1900, "Ecce Homo" is an insightful reflection by the author upon his own life and his impact on the world of philosophy. In "Ecce Homo" Nietzsche offers his personal perspective on his various philosophical works including: "The Birth of Tragedy", "Thoughts out of Season", "Human, All-Too-Human", "The Dawn of Day", "The Gay Science", "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", "Beyond Good and Evil", "The Genealogy of Morals", "The Twilight of the Idols", and "The Case of Wagner". In this revealing little work we gain great insight into what Nietzsche was as he saw himself and a final reiteration of his core philosophy, a rejection of the Christian ideal that asserts suffering as a noble necessity of life and of Christianity as the bastion of supreme morality.


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Andy Warhol kept these diaries faithfully from November 1976 right up to his final week, in February 1987. Written at the height of his fame and success, Warhol records the fun of an Academy Awards party, nights out at Studio 54, trips between London, Paris and New York, and surprisingly even the money he spent each day, down to the cent. With appearances from and references to everyone who was anyone, from Jim Morrison, Martina Navratilova and Calvin Klein to Shirley Bassey, Estee Lauder and Muhammad Ali, these diaries are the most glamorous, witty and revealing writings of the twentieth century.


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As the citizens of Venice compete for advantageous marriages, wealth, and status, a moneylender is intent on deadly revenge. Mistrust and resentment thrive in Shakespearers"s dark comedy. Under the editorial supervision of Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, two of todayrs"s most accomplished Shakespearean scholars, this Modern Library series incorporates definitive texts and authoritative notes from William Shakespeare: Complete Works. Each play includes an Introduction as well as an overview of Shakespearers"s theatrical career; commentary on past and current productions based on interviews with leading directors, actors, and designers; scene-by-scene analysis; key facts about the work; a chronology of Shakespearers"s life and times; and black-and-white illustrations. Ideal for students, theater professionals, and general readers, these modern and accessible editions from the Royal Shakespeare Company set a new standard in Shakespearean literature for the twenty-first century.


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The visionary creator of the Academy Award-winning Pan's Labyrinth and a Hammett Award-winning author bring their imaginations to this bold, epic novel about a horrifying battle between man and vampire that threatens all humanity. It is the first installment in a thrilling trilogy and an extraordinary international publishing event.  The Strain  They have always been here. Vampires. In secret and in darkness. Waiting. Now their time has come.  In one week, Manhattan will be gone. In one month, the country.  In two months—the world.  A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.  In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing . . .  So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city—a city that includes his wife and son—before it is too late.


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Five hundred years have passed since the devastating demon-led war that almost exterminated humankind. Those who escaped the carnage were led to sanctuary by the boy saviour known as Hawk: the gypsy morph. But now, the unimaginable has come to pass: the cocoon of protective magic surrounding the valley has vanished. When Sider Ament, last surviving Knight of the Word, detects unknown predators stalking the valley, and Trackers from the human village of Glensk Wood, find two of their own gruesomely killed, there can be no doubt: the once safe haven of generations has been laid bare. Together, the young Trackers, the aging Knight, and a daring Elf princess race to spread word of the encroaching danger. But suspicion and hostility among their countrymen threaten to doom their efforts from within, while beyond the breached borders, a ruthless Troll army masses for invasion. Standing firm between the two, the last wielder of the black staff and its awesome magic must find a successor to carry on the fight against the cresting new wave of evil.


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Author Rowe Devlin never expected the solution to writer’s block to be a beautiful psychic, her sexy twin, and a haunted house that is not only very real, but very deadly.
Best-selling horror author Rowe Devlin keeps writing flops and falling for straight women. Seeking inspiration and a fresh start, she abandons life in Manhattan for an old Victorian home in Maine. But Dark Harbor Cottage is a far cry from the tranquil writing environment she was hoping for. Rowe doesn’t believe in ghosts, yet she finds herself sharing a home with one who scares her dogs and wants her out. As if that’s not distraction enough, she is living next door to irresistible identical twins, Phoebe and Cara Temple. Phoebe is psychic, Cara is a flirt, and both twins seem to be hitting on her.
When Rowe delves into the past to find out why her cottage is haunted, she uncovers a dark and disturbing mystery. Even more disquieting is the startling connection to her beautiful neighbors, one of whom has begun haunting her dreams.
Intrigue, passion and suspense combine in this taut paranormal thriller/romance, the first in Jennifer Fulton's new Dark Vista series. Reprint


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Fiona O'Rourke doesn't believe in love—and certainly not in a marriage arranged by her cruel father. And even if her unexpected betrothed seems honorable and kind, can she trust his motives…or the attraction between them?Ian McPherson came to Montana to salvage his family's dwindling fortune, not to take a wife. But he's instantly drawn to Fiona. He wants to protect her—even if that means pretending that they're engaged. In a season of surprises and miracles, there's nothing he won't give to show Fiona his love is for always.


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They were born on the same day, in the same hospital, into families that could hardly have been less alike. Ruth is an artist and a romantic, with a rich and passionate imaginative life. Dana is a scientist and realist whose faith is firmly planted in what she can see or hear or touch. Yet these two very different women share the same struggle to make sense of their place in a world in which neither of them has ever truly felt she belonged. Told in the alternating voices of Ruth and Dana, The Good Daughters follows these "birthday sisters" as they make their way through the decades, from the 1950s to the present. Master storyteller Joyce Maynard chronicles the unlikely ways the two women's lives intersect-from childhood and adolescence to first loves, first sex, marriage, and parenthood; from the deaths of parents to divorce, the loss of home, and the loss of a beloved partner-until an unavoidable moment when a long-held secret from the past alters everything....


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- Special low price of $4.99 - Includes a teaser of his next thriller, The Last Victim (Pinnacle 9/05) - The Next To Die and Make Them Cry both spent three weeks on the USA Today bestseller list. - Watch Them Die was a selection of the Doubleday Book Club, the Literary Guild and the Mystery Guild. - Make Them Cry was a selection of the Doubleday Book Club, the Literary Guild, the Book-of-the-Month Club, and the Mystery Guild. - Will appeal to fans of John Sandford and David Baldacci.


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Different Victims - The blonde film student. The brunette paralegal. The red-headed artist.Different Methods - The first victim is strangled. The second is stabbed repeatedly. And the third is pushed out of an open window.Same Madman - In the city of Seattle, no single woman is safe. From afar he watches the ones he so desperately wants. Willing to do whatever it takes to prove his love. But should his latest obsession betray him, he will have no choice but to punish her. By finding new and brutal ways to teach her a lesson. And by finally loving her - to death...


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In her satisfying, sensual third novel, Nicole Mones takes readers inside the hidden world of elite cuisine in modern China through the story of an American food writer in Beijing. When recently widowed Maggie McElroy is called to China to settle a claim against her late husband’s estate, she is blindsided by the discovery that he may have led a double life. Since work is all that will keep her sane, her magazine editor assigns her to profile Sam, a half-Chinese American who is the last in a line of gifted chefs tracing back to the imperial palace. As she watches Sam gear up for China’s Olympic culinary competition by planning the banquet of a lifetime, she begins to see past the cuisine’s artistry to glimpse its coherent expression of Chinese civilization. It is here, amid lessons of tradition, obligation, and human connection that she finds the secret ingredient that may yet heal her heart.


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** Do you dare set foot in Spooking?  ** 

 It's the terrible town on the hideous hill -- and Joy Wells is a proud resident. A fan of classic horror stories, Joy is convinced that famous author E. A. Peugeot based his spine-tingling tales on Spooking. Take the eerie similarities between the nearby swamp and the setting of his masterpiece, "The Bawl of the Bog Fiend." Could the story be true? Could the bog fiend be on the loose?  

 Things become truly horrifying when Joy learns that Darlington, the despicable suburban city where she is forced to go to school, is planning to build a water park over her beloved bog. It is up to her to safeguard the endangered area and its secrets. Little does she know that there is someone determined to destroy not only the bog but the town of Spooking itself -- and anyone who dares stand in his way.  

 P. J. Bracegirdle spins a yarn of delicious devilry and macabre mayhem in the very first book of *The Joy of Spooking* trilogy.


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The Fletchers' beautiful new house is everything they dreamed it would be. Built between two churches in Heptonclough, a small village on the moors that time forgot, it ought to be paradise for this young family of five, but they barely have a chance to settle in before they find that they’re anything but welcome. Someone seems to be trying to drive them away--at first with silly pranks but then with threats that become increasingly dangerous, especially to the oldest child, ten-year-old Tom Fletcher, who begins to believe that someone is always watching him. 



The adults in Tom’s life are trying to help, including his parents; the vicar next door, younger and more dashing than you’d expect a vicar to be; and a therapist, Evi Oliver, who believes him more than she wants to.  But there are other clues that something isn’t quite right in Heptonclough, including the mysterious accidental deaths of three toddlers over the last ten years.  It is not until Tom’s siblings, two-year-old Milly and five-year-old Joe Fletcher, go missing in turn that the little village’s evil secret turns the Fletchers’ dreams into a nightmare.



With *Sacrifice*, *Awakening*, and now *Blood Harvest*, S. J. Bolton displays time and time again her remarkable talent as a beguiling storyteller, a master of thrills, and the mistress of her own brand of modern Gothic tale.


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Who formed the first modern nation?Who created the first literate society?Who invented our modern ideas of democracy and free market capitalism?The Scots.Mention of Scotland and the Scots usually conjures up images of kilts, bagpipes, Scotch whisky, and golf. But as historian and author Arthur Herman demonstrates, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Scotland earned the respect of the rest of the world for its crucial contributions to science, philosophy, literature, education, medicine, commerce, and politics—contributions that have formed and nurtured the modern West ever since.Arthur Herman has charted a fascinating journey across the centuries of Scottish history. He lucidly summarizes the ideas, discoveries, and achievements that made this small country facing on the North Atlantic an inspiration and driving force in world history. Here is the untold story of how John Knox and the Church of Scotland laid the foundation for our modern idea of democracy; how the Scottish Enlightenment helped to inspire both the American Revolution and the U.S. Constitution; and how thousands of Scottish immigrants left their homes to create the American frontier, the Australian outback, and the British Empire in India and Hong Kong.How the Scots Invented the Modern World reveals how Scottish genius for creating the basic ideas and institutions of modern life stamped the lives of a series of remarkable historical figures, from James Watt and Adam Smith to Andrew Carnegie and Arthur Conan Doyle, and how Scottish heroes continue to inspire our contemporary culture, from William “Braveheart” Wallace to James Bond.Victorian historian John Anthony Froude once proclaimed, “No people so few in number have scored so deep a mark in the world’s history as the Scots have done.” And no one who has taken this incredible historical trek, from the Highland glens and the factories and slums of Glasgow to the California Gold Rush and the search for the source of the Nile, will ever view Scotland and the Scots—or the modern West—in the same way again. For this is a story not just about Scotland: it is an exciting account of the origins of the modern world and its consequences.“The point of this book is that being Scottish turns out to be more than just a matter of nationality or place of origin or clan or even culture. It is also a state of mind, a way of viewing the world and our place in it. . . . This is the story of how the Scots created the basic idea of modernity. It will show how that idea transformed their own culture and society in the eighteenth century, and how they carried it with them wherever they went. Obviously, the Scots did not do everything by themselves: other nations—Germans, French, English, Italians, Russians, and many others—have their place in the making of the modern world. But it is the Scots more than anyone else who have created the lens through which we see the final product. When we gaze out on a contemporary world shaped by technology, capitalism, and modern democracy, and struggle to find our place as individuals in it, we are in effect viewing the world as the Scots did. . . . The story of Scotland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is one of hard-earned triumph and heart-rending tragedy, spilled blood and ruined lives, as well as of great achievement.”—FROM THE PREFACE


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The senior pupils of St Peter's High School are on retreat to a secluded outdoor activity centre, coming to terms with the murder of a fellow pupil through the means you would expect: counselling, contemplation, candid discussion and even prayer ? not to mention booze, drugs, clandestine liaisons and as much partying as they can get away with. Not so far away, the commanders of a top-secret military experiment, long-since spiralled out of control, fear they may have literally unleashed the forces of Hell.Two very different worlds are on a collision course, and will clash in an earthly battle between science and the supernatural, philosophy and faith, civilisation and savagery.The bookies are offering evens.


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The smart-mouthed but sensitive runaway socialite Madeline Dare is shocked when she discovers the skeleton of a brutalized three-year-old boy in her own weed-ridden family cemetery outside Manhattan. Determined to see that justice is served to the perpetrators, Madeline finds herself examining her own troubled personal history, and the sometimes hidden, sometimes all-too-public class and racial warfare that penetrates every level of society in the savage streets of New York City during the early 1990s. She is aided in her efforts by a colorful assemblage of friends, relatives, and new acquaintances, each one representing a separate strand of the patchwork mosaic city politicians like to brag about. The result is a gripping narrative that relates the causes and consequences of a vicious crime to the wider relationships that connect and divide us all. In INVISIBLE BOY Cornelia Read depicts, with sensitivity, eloquence, and powerful emotion, the unstable fault lines of family, friendship, and society at large.


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From the glittering ballrooms of Manhattan to the fires of World War I, Danielle Steel takes us on an unforgettable journey in her new novel—a spellbinding tale of war, loss, history, and one woman’s unbreakable spirit....Nineteen-year-old Annabelle Worthington was born into a life of privilege, raised amid the glamour of New York society, with glorious homes on Fifth Avenue and in Newport, Rhode Island. But everything changed on a cold April day in 1912, when the sinking of the Titanic shattered her family and her privileged world forever. Finding strength within her grief, Annabelle pours herself into volunteer work, nursing the poor, igniting a passion for medicine that would shape the course of her life. But for Annabelle, first love, and a seemingly idyllic marriage, will soon bring more grief—this time caused by the secrets of the human heart. Betrayed, and pursued by a scandal she does not deserve, Annabelle flees New York for war-ravaged France, hoping to lose herself in a life of service. There, in the heart of the First World War, in a groundbreaking field hospital run by women, Annabelle finds her true calling, working as an ambulance medic on the front lines, studying medicine, saving lives. And when the war ends, Annabelle begins a new life in Paris—now a doctor, a mother, her past almost forgotten…until a fateful meeting opens her heart to the world she had left behind. Finding strength in the most unlikely of friendships, pulling together the broken fragments of her life, Annabelle will return to New York one more time—this time as a changed woman, a woman of substance, infused with life’s experience, building a future filled with hope…out of the rich soil of the past. Filled with breathtaking images and historical detail, Danielle Steel’s new novel introduces one of her most unique and fascinating characters: Annabelle Worthington, a remarkable woman, a good woman, a true survivor who triumphs against overwhelming odds. For Annabelle’s story is more than compelling fiction, it is a powerful celebration of life, dignity, and courage—and a testament to the human will to survive.From the Hardcover edition.


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Jason Manning is content with his life as a bachelor, a slob and a sports fan. Then a precocious girl named Carrie Weston decides to play matchmaker, introducing him to her mother, Charlotte. To his relief, Charlotte is as averse to marriage as he is. But Jason's feelings start to change once he gets to know his Bride on the Loose.James Wilkens was almost a Manning groom—because he almost married one of the Manning sisters. With that broken engagement behind him, he spends New Year's Eve in Las Vegas…where he meets Summer Lawton. She's just suffered a painful betrayal, and James promises her that in a year, she'll be over it. To prove his point, he makes a date to meet her in Vegas Same Time, Next Year. Except it turns out to be more than a date—it's a wedding!


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Her new husband may be handsome - but his heart is black Desperate to safeguard the future of her precious nephew, penniless Lady Artemis Dearing will do anything - even marry the man whose brother ruined her darling sister! Forced to wed a gold-digger - or a loving wife? Calculating and deceitful as Lady Artemis may be, Hadrian Northmore will marry her if he must! But he isn-t prepared for overwhelming desire, or his new wife-s sweet disposition-his hard-built defences are crumbling before his very eyes! Gentlemen of Fortune Three men with money, power and success- Looking to share life with the right woman


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A keenly observed depiction of the effects of a mother's mental illness on her young daughter, Another Life Altogether is a profoundly moving, funny, and ultimately heartrending coming-of-age story. After years of living in the shadow of her mother's mental illness, Jesse Bennett is given a fresh chance at happiness when her family moves to a village in northern England. But just as it seems that she might be able to build a perfect life for herself after befriending two of her new school's most popular girls, her mother's worsening mental state and the secret Jesse fiercely guards about herself threaten to destroy her fragile stability. Caught in the storm of her mother's moods, her father's desperation, and her classmates' strict adherence to cruel social hierarchies, Jesse is forced to choose between doing what's right and preserving her long-held hope for a normal life. At the heart of a maddening, eccentric, and ultimately lovable family--from her manic mother and her long-suffering father to her blowsy Aunt Mabel and her Uncle Ted, a comically inept criminal--Jesse is an utterly sympathetic narrator who navigates the ups and downs of adolescence with insight, emotional vulnerability, and a wickedly sharp sense of humor. Alternately hilarious and heartbreaking, Another Life Altogether marks the arrival of an immensely gifted novelist. "From the Hardcover edition."


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This is a crime writing gem featuring vanished children, haunted mansions and family secrets from one of the masters of the crime-writing genre.


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"Add the voice of Helen Tursten to the list of mystery writers who know how to craft a truly satisfying police procedural."-Philadelphia Inquirer "An absorbing, intelligent mystery that holds its own alongside the best feminine hardboiled novels currently being written by Englishwomen Val McDermid and Liza Cody, and our own Sara Paretsky."-Maureen Corrigan, NPR, "Fresh Air," Washington Post Book World "The picture Tursten provides of Sweden's growing anti-immigrant resentment-embodied in Huss' skinhead daughter-imbues this novel with a cold chill of dread that can't be attributed only to the subfreezing temperatures of Goteborg in winter."-Chicago Sun-Times Inspector Irene Huss, stationed in Goteborg, is called through the rain-drenched wintry streets to the scene of an apparent suicide. The dead man landed on the sidewalk in front of his luxurious duplex apartment. He was a wealthy financier connected, through an old-boys' network, with the first families of Sweden. But the "Society Suicide" turns out to have been a carefully plotted murder. As more murders ensue, she tangles with street gang members, skinheads, immigrants and neo-Nazis-a cross-section of Sweden's disaffected-in order to catch the killer. Helene Tursten has been compared to P.D. James in her native Sweden. Her three subsequent Irene Huss mysteries have been highly praised. She was born in Goteborg in 1954 where she now lives.


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“The scenes in which Huss tracks her killer through the underbelly of Copenhagen are as good as Louise Welsh’s similarly creepy tour of Glasgow in *The Cutting Room.*”—*Entertainment Weekly* 

“[Tursten] is a master at setting the scene, detailing a foreign milieu until it feels familiar. She juggles a large cast of characters with aplomb.”—*Time Out Chicago* 

“One of the better examples of the Swedish crime fiction invasion.”—*Baltimore Sun* 

“Outstanding.”—*Publishers Weekly* (starred review)  

“Spins a good story . . . this is a solid police procedural.”—*Library Journal* 

Part of a human torso washes up on a beach near Göteborg, Sweden. It is so mutilated that gender is only established by DNA testing. A similar crime, now several years old, remains unsolved in Denmark. Detective Inspector Irene Huss is dispatched to Copenhagen to liaise with police. Then a third corpse is discovered. This time it’s identified. It is a girl Detective Huss knew; she had been asked by the girl’s mother to locate her missing daughter. A fourth victim, the son of a woman heading the Copenhagen crime squad, is also known to Huss. She fears the killer is tracking her, killing people with whom she is connected. There is even a chilling suggestion that he or she is one of her colleagues.  

 **Helene Tursten** has been compared to P.D. James in her native Sweden. Her Irene Huss mysteries have been highly praised. She lives in Göteborg, where she was born in 1954.


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“Know[s] how to craft a truly satisfying police procedural.”—*The Philadelphia Inquirer* 

The principal of a high school telephones his friend, Inspector Andersson of the Göteborg Crime Police; one of his teachers failed to show up for work. To Inspector Irene Huss’ surprise, on the basis of this vague complaint her boss drives out with her to a remote cottage in snowbound southern Sweden to investigate. There they find a body, its head blasted by a rifle. Teacher Jacob Schyttelius has been murdered. When they go to break the news to his elderly parents, Pastor Sten Schyttelius and his wife, they find the couple dead in their beds, each shot between the eyes. Upside-down pentagrams have been drawn in blood on their computer screens. The only surviving member of the family is a daughter, now residing in London, but she is too distressed to be interviewed. Is the killer a member of a satanic cult? Is it the parish treasurer, rumored to have been embezzling church funds? Or one of the assistant pastors, tired of waiting for a promotion? Perhaps the attractive blonde who sings in church and practices witchcraft? Irene Huss has a hunch that the answer lies in England, and she travels there twice to discover the reason for this triple homicide.  

 **Helene Tursten** is the author of *Detective Inspector Huss* and *The Torso.* The latter is now a German film, and her series is being filmed for Swedish television. She lives with her husband in Göteborg.


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SUMMARY: The Devil is known by many names: Serpent, Tempter, Beast, Adversary, Wanderer, Dragon, Rebel. His traps and machinations are the stuff of legends. His faces are legion. No matter what face the devil wears, Sympathy for the Devil has them all. Edited by Tim Pratt, Sympathy for the Devil collects the best Satanic short stories by Neil Gaiman, Holly Black, Stephen King, Kage Baker, Charles Stross, Elizabeth Bear, Jay Lake, Kelly Link, China Mieville, Michael Chabon, and many others, revealing His Grand Infernal Majesty, in all his forms. Thirty-five stories, from classics to the cutting edge, exploring the many sides of Satan, Lucifer, the Lord of the Flies, the Father of Lies, the Prince of the Powers of the Air and Darkness, the First of the Fallen... and a Man of Wealth and Taste. Sit down and spend a little time with the Devil.


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This very special Kindle collection covers all the culinary ground, from barbecue, grilling, garden vegetables, holiday roasts, potatoes, soups, stews, stir-fries, pasta sauces, pizza, appetizers, salads, shrimp and shellfish, to pies, layer cakes, cookies and brownies, holiday desserts, ice cream, simple fruit desserts, and lots more. It's all you really need in the kitchen and it all sits nice and handy on a Kindle as well. Now your own definitive recipe collection is portable and easy to access, the perfect helper in the kitchen.


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**“An extraordinary real-life adventure of men battling the elements and themselves, told with ice-cold precision.”–*Kirkus Reviews* (starred review)****In the dark years following the Civil War, America’s foremost Arctic explorer, Charles Francis Hall, became a figure of national pride when he embarked on a harrowing, landmark expedition. With financial backing from Congress and the personal support of President Grant, Captain Hall and his crew boarded the *Polaris*, a steam schooner carefully refitted for its rigorous journey, and* *began their quest to be the first men to reach the North Pole. Neither the ship nor its captain would ever return.What transpired was a tragic death and whispers of murder, as well as a horrifying ordeal through the heart of an Arctic winter, when men fought starvation, madness, and each other upon the ever-shifting ice. *Trial by Ice *is an incredible adventure that pits men against the natural elements and their own fragile human nature. In this powerful true story of death and survival, courage and intrigue aboard a doomed ship, Richard Parry chronicles one of the most astonishing, little known tragedies at sea in American history.**“ABSORBING . . . Suspense builds as Parry describes the events leading up to Hall’s ‘murder,’ then climaxes in horrifying detail.”*–Publishers Weekly*“RIVETING.”*–Library Journal***


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The definitive collection of Emerson's major speeches, essays, and poetry, The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson chronicles the life's work of a true "American Scholar."As one of the architects of the transcendentalist movement, Emerson embraced a philosophy that championed the individual, emphasized independent thought, and prized "the splendid labyrinth of one's own perceptions." More than any writer of his time, he forged a style distinct from his European predecessors and embodied and defined what it meant to be an American. Matthew Arnold called Emerson's essays "the most important work done in prose."


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It is 1797 and Thomas Kydd is now master's mate on Achilles, a 64-gun ship-of-the-line, on his way back from the Caribbean. After a dangerous rescue mission to Venice Kydd sails for England, but his joy at returning home after many years' absence is soon forgotten when he finds himself at the centre of one of the most extraordinary events in English history -" the Mutiny at the Nore. Ten thousand men, one thousand guns and scores of ships hold the country to ransom: the government is near collapse; the economy on the brink of ruin. And Kydd is faced with a terrible choice. Abandon his friends and shipmates? Or join the rebellion and put his career -" and even his life -" on the line?


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Peter F. Hamilton's startling perspectives on tomorrow's technological and cultural trends span vast tracts of space and time, his stories are as compelling as they are epic in scope, and yet they are always grounded in characters - human, alien and other - who, for all their strangeness, still touch our hearts and fire our imaginations. Now, in "The Evolutionary Void", Hamilton concludes the highly acclaimed Commonwealth saga that has unfolded in "The Dreaming Void" and "The Temporal Void". 'The master of widescreen baroque' - "Guardian". 'Compulsively readable and abundantly full of ideas' - "The Times". 'Epic, multi-stranded, full of wonders' - "SFX".


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This text offers a definitive account of Zionism. The term "Zionism" was first coined at the end of the 19th century, but the idea long reflected the misery of Jewish existence in central and eastern Europe, and the longing for the ancient homeland. Updated, and with a new preface, Walter Laqueur's comprehensive history begins with a discussion of the background of Zionism since the French Revolution, covers the many decades of Zionist activities worldwide, and ends with the establishment of the state of Israel.


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A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR"Elaborate and playful...Honest and deeply felt....Here is the Quindlen wit, the sharp eye for the details of class and manners, [and] the ardent reading of domestic lives."THE NEW YORK TIMESIt is the 1960s, in suburban New York City. Maggie and her family, are in the thrall of her powerful grandfather Jack Scanlan. In the summer of her twelfth year, Maggie is despertately trying to master the object lessons her grandfather fills her head with. But there is too much going on to concentrate. Everything at home is in upheaval, her grandfather is changing, and Maggie is unsure if what she wants is worth having....


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A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOKBALTIMORE WOMAN DISAPPEARS DURING FAMILY VACATION, declares the headline. Forty-year-old Delia Grinstead is last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing nothing more than a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To her husband and three almost-grown children, she has vanished without trace or reason. But for Delia, who feels like a tiny gnat buzzing around her family's edges, "walking away from it all" is not a premeditated act, but an impulse that will lead her into a new, exciting, and unimagined life . . . . "TYLER DETAILS DELIA'S ADVENTURE WITH GREAT SKILL . . . As so often in her earlier fiction--Celestial Navigation, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The Accidental Tourist, and her nine other novels--[she] creates distinct characters caught in poignantly funny situations. . . .Tyler writes with a clarity that makes the commonplace seem fresh and the pathetic touching."--The New York Times"UTTERLY COMPELLING. . .WONDERFULLY SATISFYING. . .Ladder of Years is virtually flawless."--Chicago Tribune"A 'PAGE-TURNER' IN THE BEST SENSE . . . One wants to lightly caress the pages of the story because one cares for Ms. Tyler's touchingly flawed characters. . . . Both madcap and genteel, Anne Tyler knows as well as anyone that 'human beings lead many lives.' Casually, delightfully, Ladder of Years will tell you just how we humans manage this trick."--The Baltimore Sun "From the Trade Paperback edition."


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Gavin Guile is the Prism, the most powerful man in the world. He is high priest and emperor, a man whose power, wit, and charm are all that preserves a tenuous peace. But Prisms never last, and Guile knows exactly how long he has left to live: Five years to achieve five impossible goals. But when Guile discovers he has a son, born in a far kingdom after the war that put him in power, he must decide how much he's willing to pay to protect a secret that could tear his world apart.


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Think vampires are romantic, sexy, and powerful? Think again. Vampires are dead. And unless they want to end up staked, they have to give up fanging people, admit their addiction, join a support group, and reform themselves.Nina Harrison, fanged at fifteen and still living with her mother, hates the Reformed Vampire Support Group meetings every Tuesday night. Even if she does appreciate Dave, who was in a punk band when he was alive, nothing exciting ever happens. That is, until one of group members is mysteriously destroyed by a silver bullet. With Nina (determined to prove that vamps aren't useless or weak) and Dave (secretly in love with Nina) at the helm, the misfit vampires soon band together to track down the hunter, save a werewolf, and keep the world safe from the likes of themselves.The perfect anecdote to slick vampire novels, this murder-mystery comedy of errors will thrill fans of Evil Genius.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Seventeen-year-old Annika Truman knows about the power of positive thinking. With a little brother who has cancer, it’s all she ever hears about. And in order to help Jeremy, she will go to the ends of the earth (or at least as far as Hollywood) to help him believe he can survive his upcoming surgery.

 But Annika’s plan to convince Jeremy that a magic genie will grant him any wish throws her a curveball when he unexpectedly wishes that his television idol would visit him. Annika suddenly fi nds herself in the desperate predicament of getting access to a hunky star actor and convincing him to come home with her. Piece of cake, right?

 Janette Rallison’s proven talent for laugh-out-loud humor, teen romance, and deep-hearted storytelling shines in a novel that will have readers laughing and crying at the same time.


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Thirteen-year-old Lainey Emerson is the middle child in a household that police are already familiar with: her mother works too much and her step-father favors his own blood over another man's problems--namely, Lainey and her wild older sister, Liza. So when Lainey does not come home from a Friday night out with her friends, it is dismissed by the Coral Springs Police Department as just another disillusioned South Florida teen running away from suburban drama and an unhappy home life.But Special Agent Bobby Dees, who has headed up the department's di4cult Crimes Against Children (CAC) Squad in Miami for more than a decade, is not quite so sure. Nicknamed "The Shepherd" by colleagues, he has an uncanny ability to find the missing and bring them back home--dead or alive. Haunted by the still unsolved disappearance of his own daughter, Bobby recognizes the all too familiar up-swell inside him, the gut feeling that Lainey Emerson is no runaway.A search of Lainey's computer and a talk with her best friend reveal Lainey was involved in a secret Internet relationship, spawned over a chat room, and nurtured through untraceable instant messages. Bobby fears she may be the victim of an on-line predator, and he fears she may not be the only one.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

When her part-time reporting gig gives Lucy the opportunity to attend a Boston newspaper conference, she looks forward to the vacation from domestic bliss. But then Luther Read suddenly drops dead. He is head of a near-bankrupt newspaper dynasty - and father to several resentful children.


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After finally arriving at the offices of Jolie, meeting their fellow makeover candidates, and being treated to a fashion show, Elizabeth is enamored of the extreme outfits and stick-thin models-while Lucy's having some misgivings. The pampering is nice (never underestimate the transformative powers of a $500 haircut) and the glitz and glamour of haute couture is bizarrely fascinating, but bitterness and aggression lurk behind the Jolie's hipper-than-thou façade. And things turn downright ugly when self-absorbed fashion editor Nadine Nelson falls mysteriously ill and then dies. Lucy saw first-hand some of the backstabbing going on at Jolie. And the red-hot rumor mill soon reveals that the cliquish connection among the magazine's cabal of high-style executives-fierce tempered fashionistas Camilla Keith, Elise Frazier, and Nadine herself-has stirred up plenty of bad blood over the years. Numerous staffers, from workaholic assistant Phyllis Finch to oft-maligned photo editor Pablo Prinz, have found themselves at the other end of the trio's sharp claws. To say suspects abound would be an understatement. But this Manhattan murder mystery hits too close to home when Elizabeth gets rushed to the hospital with symptoms that are disturbingly similar to Nadine's. Now, it's up to Lucy to dress down a killer before the ball drops in Times Square...


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Ever since local developer Fred Stanton and his wife, Mimi, built five modular homes next door to Lucy Stone's farmhouse, life just hasn't been the same. With Mimi complaining about everything from the state of Lucy's lawn to another neighbor's lovable dog, quaint Tinker's Cove, Maine, is now entangled in cul-de-sac politics and backstabbing. And when Mimi doesn't show up for her shift at The Hat and Mitten Fund bake sale, the scent of burnt sugar leads Lucy to a shocking discovery: Mimi, face down on her kitchen floor--with a knife in her back.  

  While the police start their investigation, Lucy gets busy writing up the murder for the local Pennysaver--and following a few leads of her own. Lucy knows the women in her neighborhood didn't like Mimi, but they certainly didn't want her dead...right?  

    

 "I like Lucy Stone a lot, and so will readers."  --Carolyn Hart  

    

"Leslie Meier writes with sparkle and warmth."  --*Chicago Sun Times*  

    

"Mothers everywhere will identify with Lucy Stone and the domestic problems she encounters."  --*Publishers Weekly*


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Fern is glaring thirty in the face and can't ignore the love lies any longer. Life with Adam was amazing once - although these days swinging from the chandeliers means D.I.Y not S.E.X. She believes a romantic wedding should be the next step but Adam just won't go down on one knee.
Then a chance meeting with Scottie Taylor - the UK's sexiest pop star - lights fireworks in Fern that won't stop exploding. It's mind-expanding love at first sight for them both so when he proposes in front of a sell-out crowd at Wembley Stadium, there's only one answer. Yes, yes, yes!
Before you know it, Fern is living the celebrity dream in LA and a wedding planner is arranging designer shoe fittings. But isn't it all happening a little too fast? Why is this modern day Cinderella homesick for a rented two-bedroom flat in Clapham?
How do you know whether love is telling the truth? Fern must choose which version of this fairy tale is hers ?


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Drawing from decades of work, travel, and research in Russia, Robert Alexander re-creates the tragic, perennially fascinating story of the final days of Nicholas and Alexandra as seen through the eyes of the Romanovs’ young kitchen boy, Leonka. Now an ancient Russian immigrant, Leonka claims to be the last living witness to the Romanovs’ brutal murders and sets down the dark secrets of his past with the imperial family. Does he hold the key to the many questions surrounding the family’s murder? Historically vivid and compelling, *The Kitchen Boy* is also a touching portrait of a loving family that was in many ways similar, yet so different, from any other.


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**The next in the bestselling trilogy —the drama of a grand duchess and the peasant who determines her fate**



As the Russia of Nicholas and Alexandra rushes toward catastrophe, the Grand Duchess Elisavyeta is ensconced in the lavish and magnificent Romanov court. In the same city, but worlds apart, Pavel is a simple village man in search of a better life. When his young wife, Shura, is shot and killed by tsarist soldiers during a political demonstration, Pavel dedicates his life to overthrowing the Romanovs. Pavel’s underground group assassinates Elisavyeta’s husband, the grand duke, changing her life forever.



 Grief-stricken, the grand duchess gives up her wealth and becomes a nun dedicated to the poor people of Russia. When revolution finally sweeps in, Elisavyeta is the last Romanov captured, ripped from her abbey in the middle of the night and shuttled to Siberia. It is here, in a distant wood on a moonlit night, that Pavel is left to decide her fate.



 *The Romanov Bride* is Alexander’s fullest and most engaging book yet. Combining stunning writing with a keen talent for storytelling, Alexander uncovers more compelling Romanov drama and intrigue for his many readers and all fans of historical fiction.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**From the author of the national bestseller *The Kitchen Boy* comes a gripping historical   novel about imperial Russia’s most notorious figure**  

  Called "brilliant" by *USA Today*, Robert Alexander’s historical novel *The Kitchen   Boy* swept readers back to the doomed world of the Romanovs. His latest masterpiece once   again conjures those turbulent days in a fictional drama of extraordinary depth and suspense. In   the wake of the Russian Revolution, Maria Rasputin—eldest of the Rasputin children—recounts   her infamous father’s final days, building a breathless narrative of intrigue, excess, and   conspiracy that reveals the shocking truth of her father’s end and the identity of those who   arranged it. What emerges is a nail-biting, richly textured new take on one of history’s most   legendary episodes.


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An unpopular teenage girl whose mother is a religious fanatic is tormented and teased to the breaking point by her more popular schoolmates and uses her hidden telekinetic powers to inflict a terrifying revenge


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**A passenger train hurtling through the night. An unwed teenage mother headed to Moscow to seek a new life. A cruel-hearted soldier looking furtively, forcibly, for sex. An infant disappearing without a trace. **So begins Martin Cruz Smith’s masterful *Three Stations*, a suspenseful, intricately constructed novel featuring Investigator Arkady Renko. For the last three decades, beginning with the trailblazing *Gorky Park*, Renko (and Smith) have captivated readers with detective tales set in Russia. Renko is the ironic, brilliantly observant cop who finds solutions to heinous crimes when other lawmen refuse to even acknowledge that crimes have occurred. He uses his biting humor and intuitive leaps to fight not only wrongdoers but the corrupt state apparatus as well. In *Three Stations*, Renko’s skills are put to their most severe test. Though he has been technically suspended from the prosecutor’s office for once again turning up unpleasant truths, he strives to solve a last case: the death of an elegant young woman whose body is found in a construction trailer on the perimeter of Moscow’s main rail hub. It looks like a simple drug overdose to everyone—except to Renko, whose examination of the crime scene turns up some inexplicable clues, most notably an invitation to Russia’s premier charity ball, the billionaires’ Nijinksy Fair. Thus a sordid death becomes interwoven with the lifestyles of Moscow’s rich and famous, many of whom are clinging to their cash in the face of Putin’s crackdown on the very oligarchs who placed him in power. Renko uncovers a web of death, money, madness and a kidnapping that threatens the woman he is coming to love and the lives of children he is desperate to protect. In *Three Stations*, Smith produces a complex and haunting vision of an emergent Russia’s secret underclass of street urchins, greedy thugs and a bureaucracy still paralyzed by power and fear.*

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Tells a story of a young boy and life on his father's California ranch, raising a sorrel colt.


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The novelist who wrote *The Grapes of Wrath* and the director who produced *Crisis and Lights Out* in Europe combined their superb talents to tell the story of the coming of modern medicine to the natives of Mexico. There have been several notable examples of this pen-camera method of narration, but *The Forgotten Village* is unique among them in that the text was written before a single picture was shot. The book and the movie from which it was made have, thus, a continuity and a dramatic growth not to be found in the so-called "documentary" films. 



 The camera crew that, headed by Kline and with Steinbeck's script at hand, recorded this narrative of birth and death, of witch doctors and vaccines, of the old Mexico and the new, spent nine months off the trails of Mexico. They traveled thousands of miles to find just the village they needed; they borrowed children from the government school, took men from the fields, their wives from the markets, and old medicine woman from her hut by the side of the trail. The motion picture they made (for release in 1941) is 8000 feet long. From this wealth of pictures 136 photographs were selected for their intrinsic beauty and for the graceful harmony with which they accompany Steinbeck's text. 



 This new script-photograph technique of narration conveys its ideas with unexcelled brilliance and immediacy. In the hands of such master story-tellers as Steinbeck and Kline, it makes the reader catch his breath for the beauty and the truth of the tale.


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Avery Cates is a wanted man. After surviving the worst bioengineered disaster in history, Cates finds himself incarcerated - in Chengara Penitentiary. As Chengara has a survival rate of exactly zero, the system's most famous gunner must do some serious plotting. And a betrayal or so later, he achieves his goal. At a price.All he has to do now is defeat some new personal demons, forge some unlikely alliances, and figure out why the people he's killed lately just won't stay dead.


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Avery Cates is an army man. Between the army's new dental plan and a set of first class augments, he's been given a second chance - albeit a quick one.When a corrupt officer decides to make some money on the side by selling new recruits, Cates finds himself in uncharted territory. Sold to the highest bidder, his visions of escape and revenge quickly come to an end when he realizes who's bought him - and for what. Because the high bidder is Canny Orel himself. And he wants Cates to do one last job as the System slides into chaos. Cates will have one shot at getting back at Canny - but this time, Canny is holding all the cards.


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Avery Cates is a very rich man. He's probably the richest criminal in New York City. But right now, Avery Cates is pissed. Because everyone around him has just started to die - in a particularly gruesome way. With every moment bringing the human race closer to extinction, Cates finds himself in the role of both executioner and savior of the entire world.


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Avery Cates is a very bad man. Some might call him a criminal. He might even be a killer - for the Right Price. But right now, Avery Cates is scared. He's up against the Monks: cyborgs with human brains, enhanced robotic bodies, and a small arsenal of advanced weaponry. Their mission is to convert anyone and everyone to the Electric Church. But there is just one snag. Conversion means death.


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A memoir based on the Emmy-nominated actor's Broadway play is a humorous and poignant portrayal of his youth that describes his experiences of growing up in a family headed by a father who worked two jobs to support the family before succumbing to heart failure when Crystal was fifteen. Reprint.


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Who knows what awaits us tomorrow?  Much of the most innovative and exhilarating work performed in the boundary-less arena of SF is being done in the short form. This year's magnificent harvest--gathered, as always, by acclaimed award-winning editors and anthologists David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer--offers glimpses of worlds and tomorrows that would have been inconceivable just a few years ago. Brilliant, bold, unusual, and soaring flights into the hitherto unforeseen yet increasingly possible future, "Year's Best SF 15" offers truly breathtaking stories by some of speculative fiction's brightest lights, including:  Stephen Baxter - Nancy Kress - Alastair Reynolds - Geoff Ryman - Bruce Sterling - Peter Watts - Robert Charles Wilson - Gene Wolfe - and others


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Fantasy fiction. All resistance has been crushed. In a few minutes of overwhelming violence the Council's air-dreadnought fleet has destroyed Fiz Gorgo's defences. Xervish Flydd, Irisis and their rallies have been condemned to die in a brutal aerial spectacle designed to reinforce Chief Scrutator Ghorr's power and majesty. The only one left uncaptured is Nish, but he is trapped in a burning watchtower, and hunted by both the scrutators and his former lover, Ullii, whose twin brother he accidentally killed. Before Nish can hope to rescue his friends, he must convince Ullii to spare him, then overcome the most powerful cabal of mancers in the world as well as the Council's four hundred crack guards. And even if he succeeds, to win the war the allies still have to defeat the scrutators and overthrow Nennifer, the corrupt Council's dread bastion, before the rampaging lyrinx overwhelm all Santhenar.


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Rage Winnoway’s closest friends have always been her four dogs: Bear, Billy Thunder, Elle, and Mr. Walker. When Rage sets off for the hospital where her mother lies in a coma, the dogs and the neighbor’s goat tag along. On the way, they run into the firecat, who talks them into going through a magical gate. And something wonderful happens! Each of Rage’s friends is transformed. Bear becomes a real bear; Billy Thunder, a teenage boy; Elle, a warrior woman; Mr. Walker, a small, large-eared gentleman; and the goat, a satyr with an inferiority complex. Together, Rage and her companions embark on a quest to save the world of Valley, a journey that is somehow tied to Rage’s family. In this brilliant tale of courage and transformation, Isobelle Carmody captures the magic of Narnia and the whimsy of Wonderland without losing sight of the real world and all its difficulties.From the Hardcover edition.


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In the midst of the worst winter on record, Rage is beset with worry. Her mother still hasn’t fully recovered from her car accident despite Rage’s successful quest for healing magic. Her stoic uncle seems to be having second thoughts about looking after her. The school bully, Logan, is increasingly malicious. And her only friend, Billy Thunder, is just a dog again. As if that weren’t enough, there’s something wild lurking in the woods around the farm. Do Rage’s dreams hint at a sinister threat to two worlds?From the Hardcover edition.


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"I’m not hanging noodles from your ear." In Moscow, this curious, engagingly colorful assertion is common parlance, but unless you’re Russian your reaction is probably "Say what?" The same idea in English is equally odd: "I’m not pulling your leg." Both mean: Believe me.As author Jag Bhalla demonstrates, these amusing, often hilarious phrases provide a unique perspective on how different cultures perceive and describe the world. Organized by theme—food, love, romance, and many more—they embody cultural traditions and attitudes, capture linguistic nuance, and shed fascinating light on "the whole ball of wax." For example, when English-speakers are hard at work, we’re "nose to the grindstone," but industrious Chinese toil "with liver and brains spilled on the ground" and busy Indians have "no time to die."If you’re already fluent in 10 languages, you probably won’t need this book, but you’ll "get a kick out of it" anyhow; for the rest of us, it’s a must. Either way, this surprising, often thought-provoking little tome is gift-friendly in appearance, a perfect impulse buy for word lovers, travelers, and anyone else who enjoys looking at life in a riotous, unusual way. And we’re not hanging noodles from your ear.


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HE WAS THE MAN SHE COULDN'T HAVE . . .On a humanitarian mission to fly doctors to a remote village in Mexico, pilot Lisa Merrick discovers something sinister lurking behind the organization in charge. Her plane is sabotaged, leaving her trapped in the Mexican wilderness with a price on her head and no way out. Injured and desperate, she manages to contact the one man she knows will help her: Dave DeMarco, a tough but compassionate Texas cop she was once wildly in love with, a man who left her with nothing but a whispered promise that now provides her only hope.. . . SHE WAS THE WOMAN HE COULDN'T FORGETDave DeMarco is stunned when a woman from his past phones him late one night with an incredible story of smuggling, sabotage, and attempted murder. Just hearing Lisa Merrick’s voice brings back memories Dave doesn’t want to face, but a promise he once made leaves him no choice but to help her. Soon, though, his mission to rescue Lisa becomes a struggle for survival against an enemy who wants them both dead. When the danger they face clashes with the passion that still burns between them, Dave vows to protect the woman he never stopped loving–and keep her in his life forever. . . .


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With Kydd, Julian Stockwin introduced us to a young wig-maker from Guildford who was kidnapped and pressed into duty with the tempestuous crew of the Duke William battle ship. Now, Thomas Paine Kydd is back -- with a vengeance -- in the latest installment of Stockwin's thrilling naval adventure series.Artemis is the eighteenth-century crack frigate that Kydd and sea-mate Nicholas Renzi are set to sail all the way to the fabled Far East. In this great age of fighting sailing ships, Kydd's voyage promises to be a perilous undertaking. But not even shipwreck, mutiny, or a confrontation with a mighty French frigate manages to thwart Artemis and her crew. It's only when Kydd receives an urgent message from home -- one that threatens to cut short his career and trap him on shore forever -- that Artemis's real journey begins.Filled with mesmerizing suspense and vivid details of Napoleonic-era seafaring, Artemis is classic, page-turning storytelling at its best.


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**In the tradition of Seabiscuit, the riveting tale of twoproud Scotsmen who beat all comers to   become the heroesof a golden age—the dawn of professional golf**  



  Bringing to life golf’s founding father and son, Tommy’s Honor is a stirring tribute to two legendary   players and a vivid evocation of their colorful, rip-roaring times.  



  The Morrises were towering figures in their day. Old Tom, born in 1821,began life as a nobody—  he was the son of a weaver and a maid. But he was born in St. Andrews, Scotland, the cradle of   golf, and the game was in his blood. He became the Champion Golfer of Scotland, a national   hero who won tournaments (and huge bets) while his young son looked on. As "Keeper of the   Green" at the town’s ancient links, Tom deployed golf’s first lawnmower and banished sheep from   the fairways.   



  Then Young Tommy’s career took off. Handsome Tommy Morris, the Tiger Woods of the   nineteenth century, was a more daring player than his father. Soon he surpassed Old Tom and   dominated the game. But just as he reached his peak—with spectators flocking to see him play—  Tommy’s life took a tragic turn, leading to his death at the age of twenty-four. That shock is at the   heart of *Tommy’s Honor*. It left Tom to pick up the pieces—to honor his son by keeping   Tommy’s memory alive.  



  Like the *New York Times* bestseller *The Greatest Game Ever Played*, *Tommy’s   Honor* is both fascinating history and a moving personal saga. Golfers will love it, but this   book isn’t only for golfers. It’s for every son who has fought to escape a father’s shadow and for   every father who had guided a son toward manhood, then found it hard to let him go.


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The acclaimed *New York Times* bestselling author returns with a new stand-alone novel—a powerful and utterly riveting tale that skillfully moves between past and present to explore the lasting effects of crime on a victim's life....*I'd Know You Anywhere*   

 Eliza Benedict cherishes her peaceful, ordinary suburban life with her successful husband and children, thirteen-year-old Iso and eight-year-old Albie. But her tranquillity is shattered when she receives a letter from the last person she ever expects—or wants—to hear from: Walter Bowman. *There was your photo, in a magazine. Of course, you are older now. Still, I'd know you anywhere*.  

 In the summer of 1985, when she was fifteen, Eliza was kidnapped by Walter and held hostage for almost six weeks. He had killed at least one girl and Eliza always suspected he had other victims as well. Now on death row in Virginia for the rape and murder of his final victim, Walter seems to be making a heartfelt act of contrition as his execution nears. Though Eliza wants nothing to do with him, she's never forgotten that Walter was most unpredictable when ignored. Desperate to shelter her children from this undisclosed trauma in her past, she cautiously makes contact with Walter. She's always wondered why Walter let her live, and perhaps now he'll tell her—and share the truth about his other victims.  

 Yet as Walter presses her for more and deeper contact, it becomes clear that he is after something greater than forgiveness. He wants Eliza to remember what really happened that long-ago summer. He wants her to save his life. And Eliza, who has worked hard for her comfortable, cocooned life, will do anything to protect it—even if it means finally facing the events of that horrifying summer and the terrible truth she's kept buried inside.  

 An edgy, utterly gripping tale of psychological manipulation that will leave readers racing to the final page, *I'd Know You Anywhere* is a virtuoso performance from acclaimed, award-winning author Laura Lippman that is sure to be her biggest hit yet.


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You don't stumble upon a series like the Daring Finds novels every day... Divorced mom, Candyce "Dyce" Dare is the owner of the furniture refinishing store Daring Finds. When she discovers decades-old letters inside an antique piano she's renovating, she becomes distracted by an investigation that puts her at odds with the letter-writer's very powerful local family.


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Facing down mercenaries in Africa, Jason Bourne witnesses the death of an art dealer named Tracy Atherton. Her killing dredges up snatches of Bourne's impaired memory, in particular the murder of a young woman on Bali who entrusted him with a strangely engraved ring - an artifact of such powerful significance that people have killed to obtain it. Now he's determined to find the ring's owner and purpose. But Bourne never knows what terrible acts he'll discover he committed when he digs into the past.


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Welcome to secret world hidden behind shadowy fairy glamour, where thieving spriggans rob you blind, beautiful banshees mesmerize you with their song, big green trolls kick heads at nightclubs and vampire Mafiosi rule the streets. Here a seductive magic mirror lies hidden deep in a demon's lair, with a simple warning: don't stare at the glass...Ice is a light-fingered fairy who can't resist a look at the powerful mirror. She and her fairy friends run confidence games, pretending to be fortune tellers and bedazzling customers with their glamour. But Ice longs for moreshe wants a real life, a respectable job and something to strive for. The mirror offers her a chance to achieve everything she's ever dreamed of. But when she pilfers it, she discovers that its power comes with a price: the mirror is a gateway to obsession and madness... and it will take every trick in her arsenal just to survive.


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The moment she heard herself say she would marry him, she knew she had hit rock bottom. Kate never intended the get-over guy to fall in love with her ...No, Keith was just the lovely fella who was definitely not her type, but would help her feel good about herself while she got over one of the World's Biggest Bastards. However, after the initial shock of hearing herself agree to marry him, Kate reckons that for once she is doing the right thing. A future with a wonderful man who is kind, generous, great in bed, sure to be a model husband and father and who - no mean feat this - can put up with her big mad family, is exactly what she wants.But is it?Because whatever her head might be doing, she can't stop her heart pushing her towards the most surprising - and unsuitable - man she could possibly fall for...


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Set in the haunting landscape of eastern Australia, this is a stunningly accomplished debut novel about the inescapable past: the ineffable ties of family, the wars fought by fathers and sons, and what goes unsaid.After the departure of the woman he loves, Frank drives out to a shack by the ocean that he had last visited as a teenager. There, among the sugarcane and sand dunes, he struggles to rebuild his life.Forty years earlier, Leon is growing up in Sydney, turning out treacle tarts at his parents’ bakery and flirting with one of the local girls. But when he’s drafted to serve in Vietnam, he finds himself suddenly confronting the same experiences that haunt his war-veteran father.As these two stories weave around each other–each narrated in a voice as tender as it is fierce–we learn what binds Frank and Leon together, and what may end up keeping them apart.


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A winter of discontent...January 1766. A dangerous mishap brings young widow Charlotte Willett unexpectedly to bleak and marshy Boar Island, a few miles from the village of Bracebridge and home to two eccentric elderly women. Some say that arrogant, unpopular Alexander Godwin — the only villager to regularly call upon the island's two residents — hopes to inherit the cavernous house when its owner finally passes on. But when Alexander is brutally murdered after the town's annual winter fête, Charlotte and her neighbor Richard Longfellow can't help but wonder who among Alexander's detractors might be responsible. Is his death connected to his activities on Boar Island — or to the unearthly trickery rumored to take place there? Could the rivalry over a beautiful young woman have sparked a more dangerous passion? And will the answers reveal themselves before death strikes Boar Island again?


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The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beaten the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED.Now, twenty years after the Rising, bloggers Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives - the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will get out, even if it kills them.


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Emília and Luzia dos Santos, orphaned when they are children, grow up under the protection of their aunt in the hillside village of Taquaritinga, Brazil. Raised as seamstresses, the sisters learn how to cut, how to mend and how to conceal. Emília treasures pretty, girlish things and longs to escape from the confines of the little town. Captivated by the romances she reads in magazines, she dreams of finding love in the bustle and glamour of the city. Luzia, scarred by a childhood accident that has left her with a deformed arm, knows that for her, real life can not be romantically embroidered, and so she finds solace in her sewing and in the secret prayers to the saints she believes once saved her life. But when Luzia is abducted by a gang of rebel bandits, the sisters' lives diverge in ways they never imagined. Whilst Luzia learns to survive in the unforgiving Brazilian outland, discovering love in the most unexpected of places, Emília meets the son of a wealthy doctor who seems to offer her everything she has always desired. But for the innocent dreamer, the excitement of her escape to the city is soon overshadowed by disillusion and loneliness. As she learns how to navigate the treacherous waters of Brazilian high society, the bandits' campaign against the land-owning 'Colonels' intensifies, and when a price is placed upon Luzia's head Emília realises she must risk everything in order to save her sister.


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Fred Thompson has enjoyed a remarkable career in Hollywood and politics, but when he sat down to write a memoir about how he got to be the person he is, he discovered that his best stories all seemed to come out of the years he spent growing up in and around his hometown of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. It was a small town but not the smallest—after all, it was the county seat and it did have a courthouse, a couple of movie theaters, and its own Davy Crockett statue. For truly small, you had to travel to nearby Summertown, where the regular Sunday dinner was possum and chocolate gravy. But Lawrenceburg is where Fred got to be a kid, get in his share of trouble and scrapes, get to know folks he didn’t realize were so colorful at the time but sure does now, get married, have a few kids, become a man, and start his career as a country lawyer (pretty much in that order). And as Fred tells it, getting that law degree was something of a surprise for him, since in school he’d been less than stellar as a scholar. “Teaching Latin to someone like me,” he says, “was like trying to teach a pig to dance. It’s a waste of the teacher’s time and it irritates the pig.” In these reflections, as hilarious as they are honest and warm, Fred touches on the influences—family, hometown neighbors and teachers, team sports, jobs, romances, and personal crises—that molded his character, his politics, and the way he looks at life today. We get to know the unforgettable characters who congregated at the Blue Ribbon Caf, like the rotund gentleman called “Shorty” whose claim to fame was his ability to quickly suck in his stomach and cause his pants to fall to the floor. Or Fred’s Grandma Thompson, who became an early TV adopter for the sole purpose of watching “Wrestling from Hollywood” and who once had a “gourder” removed from her neck and subsequently walked around town with it in a handkerchief showing it to folks. One day Fred and an accomplice placed small explosive Fourth of July “cracker balls” under the four legs of their teacher’s chair. Mrs. Garner sat down and, despite the racket, didn’t flinch so much as a muscle—but Fred felt a twinge of the one emotion he hated most—shame. Fred idolized Coach Staggs from his high school football days, even though he was “like Captain Ahab without the humor” and didn’t like smart alecks, comics, or individualists, which put the young Fred at a disadvantage. More than anyone else from those days though, Fred remembers his mom and dad, who taught him that kids are shaped most of all by the love and support they can take for granted. Teaching the Pig to Dance will delight everyone who admires Fred Thompson for his contributions to politics or for his work in movies and on TV, along with all those who just love to hear rollicking but unforgettable stories about growing up in a place where, as one of the local old timers put it, “We weren’t big enough to have a town drunk, so a few of us had to take turns.”


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**The remarkable life story of the man who inspired the film *Hotel Rwanda***  

  Readers who were moved and horrified by *Hotel Rwanda* will respond even more   intensely to Paul Rusesabagina’s unforgettable autobiography. As Rwanda was thrown into   chaos during the 1994 genocide, Rusesabagina, a hotel manager, turned the luxurious Hotel   Milles Collines into a refuge for more than 1,200 Tutsi and moderate Hutu refugees, while fending   off their would-be killers with a combination of diplomacy and deception. In *An Ordinary   Man*, he tells the story of his childhood, retraces his accidental path to heroism, revisits the   100 days in which he was the only thing standing between his "guests" and a hideous death, and   recounts his subsequent life as a refugee and activist.


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Jake Entwhistle is smart and handsome, but living with a shadow over his romantic history. Janet Rossi is a bright, witty aide to the governor of Massachusetts, but Janet suffers from an illness that makes her, as she puts it, “not exactly a good long-term investment.” After meeting by accident late one night, they begin a love affair filled with humor, startling intimacy, and a deep, abiding connection.


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There are secrets that must remain buried . . .   Nine people have been slain in New York City—nine strangers with nothing in common—the apparent victims of a frighteningly elusive serial killer. Only one thing links the dead: postcards they received, mailed from Las Vegas, announcing the day they would die.   Assigned to the case is a legendary FBI profiler with a troubled past, a drinking problem, and nothing left to lose . . .   Abandoned to a monastery is an unwanted son born under a curse on the seventh day of the seventh month of the year 777 . . .   Unprepared for a momentous discovery is a post-World War II expedition into the crypts of a clandestine medieval society . . .   . . . but all lead to a secret embroiled in destiny, history, evil, faith, and corruption . . . and one terrifying truth that no one must ever know . . .


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Abbey of Ruac, rural France: A medieval script is discovered hidden behind an antique bookcase. Badly damaged, it is sent to Paris for restoration, and there literary historian Hugo Pineau begins to read the startling fourteenth-century text. Within its pages lies a fanciful tale of a painted cave and the secrets it contains and a rudimentary map showing its position close to the abbey. Intrigued, Hugo enlists the help of archaeologist Luc Simard and the two men go exploring.When they discover a vast network of prehistoric caves, buried deep within the cliffs, they realise that theyve stumbled across something extraordinary. And at the very core of the labyrinth lies the most astonishing chamber of all, just as the manuscript chronicled. Aware of the significance of their discovery, they set up camp with a team of experts, determined to bring their find to the world. But as they begin to unlock the ancient secrets the cavern holds, they find themselves at the centre of a dangerous game. One accidental death leads to another.And it seems that someone will stop at nothing to protect the enigma of the tenth chamber


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From the author of *The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart*, a finalist for the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award, comes this sweeping novel of love and war, power and oppression, faith and deception, over the course of three defining american decades.   

 1941. Loyal Ledford works the swing shift tending furnace at the Mann Glass factory in Huntington, West Virginia. He courts Rachel, the boss's daughter, a company nurse with spike-straight posture and coal-black hair. But when Pearl Harbor is attacked, Ledford, like so many young men of his time, sets his life on a new course.  

 Upon his return from service in the war, Ledford starts a family with Rachel, but he chafes under the authority at Mann Glass. He is a lost man, disconnected from the present and haunted by his violent past, until he meets his cousins, the Bonecutter brothers. Their land, mysterious, elemental Marrowbone Cut, calls to Ledford, and it is there, with help from an unlikely bunch, that the Marrowbone Marble Company is slowly forged. Over the next two decades, the factory grounds become a vanguard of the civil rights movement and the war on poverty, a home for those intent on change. Such a home inevitably invites trouble, and Ledford must fight for his family.  

 Returning to the West Virginia territory of the critically acclaimed *The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart*, Glenn Taylor recounts the transformative journey of a man and his community. Told in clean and powerful prose in the tradition of Cormac McCarthy and John Irving, *The Marrowbone Marble Company* takes a harrowing look at the issues of race and class throughout the tumultuous 1950s and '60s. It is a story of struggle and loss, righteousness and redemption, and it can only be found in the hills of Marrowbone.


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Homeless Michael Fox is about to commit suicide when a mysterious billionaire surgeon stops him and offers him two million dollars...for his right arm. But Fox's arm is only the beginning, as the surgeon continues his mad experiments, removing parts of Fox's body bit by bit and reassembling him from other parts. And Fox isn't the only one the doctor is experimenting on.


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In this riveting work of narrative nonfiction, journalist Graham Bowley re-creates one of the most dramatic tales of death and survival in mountaineering history, vividly taking readers through the tragic 2008 K2 ascent that claimed the lives of eleven climbers, severely injured two others, and made headlines around the world.   With its near-perfect pyramid shape, the 28,251-foot K2—the world's second-highest mountain, some 800 feet shorter than the legendary Everest hundreds of miles to the south—has lured serious climbers for decades. In 2008, near the end of a brief climbing season cut even shorter by bad weather, no fewer than ten international teams—some experienced, others less prepared—crowded the mountain's dangerous slopes with their Sherpas and porters, waiting to ascend.   Finally, on August 1, they were able to set off. But hindered by poor judgment, lack of equipment, and overcrowded conditions, the last group did not summit until nearly 8 p.m., hours later than planned. Then disaster struck when a huge ice chunk from above the Bottleneck, a deadly 300-foot avalanche-prone gulley just below the summit, came loose and destroyed the fixed guide ropes. More than a dozen climbers and porters still above the Bottleneck—many without oxygen and some with no headlamps—faced the near impossibility of descending in the blackness with no guideline and no protection. Over the course of the chaotic night, some would miraculously make it back. Others would not.   Based on in-depth interviews with surviving climbers and many Sherpas, porters, and family and friends of the deceased, No Way Down reveals for the first time the full dimensions of this harrowing drama.


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Dispatched to investigate an unidentified ship that has emerged from a mysterious rift in space, Cherijo discovers technology far more advanced than anything she's ever seen. Before she can unravel the alien ship's mystery, Cherijo's own ship is sucked into the rift and transported through time. Unless she can find a way to reopen the rift, they will remain trapped in another time. And Cherijo will never see her family-which she's only just been reunited with-again...


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Jacks best friend, Charlie, is in serious trouble, possessed by an ancient demon called the Scourge who plans to use Charlie to bring about its evil endswhich, unfortunately, involve the destruction of the entire universe. Now Jack and the butt-kicking, sword-wielding Esme must contend with floating sharks, intelligent jelly, oversized centipedes, gladiator pits, and vomiting bats, all for the sake of saving Charlie from the Scourge. And, hopefully, saving the universe from total and utter annihilation.


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Two thousand years in the future, the Moon has become a run-down experiment in terraforming and colonization with a dusty patina and a bright red sky. To sixteen-year-old Hieronymus Rexaphin, it is the only world he has ever known until he meets a girl from Earth called Windows Falling on Sparrows, who is inexplicably drawn to him because of his special--some say dangerous--condition.    Hieronymus is a One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy who can see the fourth primary color, which gives him the ability to see the future path of time and matter. To look into his eyes will cause madness or even death, authorities say, so he is forced to wear goggles at all times. The color of his eyes is against Lunar law, and some say against nature. After breaking the Moon s most serious law and exposing his eyes to the curious young Earth girl, Hieronymus embarks on a tremendous misadventure to protect his friends and save his family, and to escape exile and imprisonment on the far side of the moon.


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As summer begins on Osprey Island, preparations at the Lodge -- the island's one and only hotel are underway for the busy season. On maintenance and housekeeping there's Lance and Lorna Squire, Osprey locals and raging drinkers; and their irrepressible son Squee. There are college boys to wait tables and Irish girls to clean rooms. And a few unusual returnees, too: Suzy Chizek, single mom and daughter of the Lodge's owners, who's looking for a parentally funded vacation; and Roddy Jacobs, another former local, who has come back after a mysterious twenty-year absence. But when tragedy strikes, dark secrets explode, dividing the island community over the fate of a young boy suddenly more vulnerable to his violent father than ever. In the uniquely ephemeral atmosphere of a summer resort, Thisbe Nissen unfolds, with charecteristic warmth and charm, an ever-deepening story of lost loves and found romance, of loyalties and betrayals; and of lingeringsometimes fleetingjoy.


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London, 1889. Oscar Wilde, celebrated poet, wit, playwright and raconteur is the literary sensation of his age. All Europe lies at his feet. Yet when he chances across the naked corpse of sixteen-year-old Billy Wood, posed by candlelight in a dark stifling attic room, he cannot ignore the brutal murder. With the help of fellow author Arthur Conan Doyle he sets out to solve the crime - but it is Wilde's unparalleled access to all degrees of late Victorian life, from society drawing rooms and the bohemian demi-monde to the underclass, that will prove the decisive factor in their investigation of what turns out to be a series of brutal killings. The Oscar Wilde Murders is a gripping detective story of corruption and intrigue, of Wilde's growing success, of the breakdown of his marriage, and of his fatal friendship with Aidan Fraser, Inspector at Scotland Yard.... Set against the exotic background of fin-de-siecle London, Paris, Oxford and Edinburgh, Gyles Brandreth recreates Oscar Wilde's trademark sardonic wit with huge flair, intertwining all the intrigue of the classic English murder mystery with a compelling portrait of one of the greatest characters of the Victorian age.


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People who wouldn't dream of blaming parents for a child's asthma or diabetes are often quick to blame bad parenting for a child's hyperactivity, depression, or school phobia. The parents, in turn, often blame their children, believing that they're lazy or rebellious. Even worse, the children with these psychological problems often blame themselves, convinced that they're just bad kids. In It's Nobody's Fault, esteemed child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Harold S. Kopelwicz at last puts an end to this pointless--and erroneous--cycle of blame and helps parents get the help they need for their troubled children. Written in an easy, anecdotal style and filled with fascinating stories of real children and their parents, It's Nobody's Fault is an indispensable guide for anyone who lives or works with children who need help. "From the Trade Paperback edition."


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"You can always start again," Kate Robinson's mother once told her. "All it takes is a new thread."Overwhelmed by heartbreak and loss, Kate follows her mother's advice and flees to Ireland, her ancestral homeland, hoping to reinvent herself. In the seaside hamlet of Glenmara, the struggling twentysix-year-old fashion designer quickly develops a bond with members of the local lace-making society—and soon she and the lace makers are creating a line of exquisite lingerie, their skilled hands bringing flowers, Celtic dragons, nymphs, saints, kings, and queens to life with painterly skill. The circle also offers them something more: the strength to face their desires and fears. But not everyone in this charming, fading Gaelic village welcomes Kate, and a series of unexpected events threatens to unravel everything the women have worked so hard for.


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Raised on their parents’ Kentucky horse farm, Charlotte and Knox Bolling grow up steeped in the cycles of breeding, foaling, weaning, and preparation for sale that the Thoroughbreds around them undergo each year. As sisters, they are as tightly connected within that vast and beautiful landscape as their opposing natures—and the subtly shifting allegiances within their close family—allow.When Charlotte leaves Four Corners Farm, marries Bruce, and moves to Manhattan’s West Village, the sisters’ feelings for each other remain as intense and contradictory as ever, despite the distance between them. But nothing will solder their lives more fatefully than Charlotte’s pregnancy and the day on which she delivers twin boys, then dies of complications following their birth.Together, Knox and Bruce—sister- and brother-in-law in name, but strangers in every other respect—take up the work of caring for Charlotte’s two motherless boys. In their mourning, and in the joy and desolation that flood in as their love for the children deepens, Bruce and Knox confront the ways in which their bonds to Charlotte have shaped them and struggle to define the tentative bond they are forming with each other as they navigate their exhausting, emotional daily rounds. A gripping, powerfully affecting debut novel from a stunning new writer.


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New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham presents the prequel the Bone Island Trilogy....

In the early nineteenth century, pirates and privateers still wreaked havoc in the Caribbean. Bartholomew Miller had been one of them. After years of plying the seas for England as a privateer, he finally found a home and love on Bone Island off the Florida coast.

But Bartholomew also made enemies in his time--enemies that would take everything Bartholomew loved and create a curse to haunt Bone Island for centuries..


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There are those who walk among us who are no longer alive, but not yet crossed over. They seek retributionhellip;vengeancehellip;to warn. Among the living, few intuit their presence.Katie O'Hara is one who can.As she's drawn deeper and deeper into a gruesome years-old murder, whispered warnings from a spectral friend become more and more insistent. But Katiemustuncover the truth: could David Beckett really be guilty of his fiancee's murder?Worse-the body count's rising on the Island of Bones, andthe dead seem to be reenacting some macabre tableaux from history. The danger is increasing by the moment-especially as Katie finds herself irresistibly drawn to David, who may be responsible for more than just one killinghellip;.


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Missy Charms just got the shock of her life. The man she thought was dead has turned up on her doorstep.Her ex-husband-Jonas Abel.Four years ago, Missy Charms fell hard for Jonas. But his FBI job always came first. Missy only wanted-still wants-a home and family. Jonas isn't husband material, not even close. And now his latest undercover mission has trailed him to Mirabelle Island. With both their lives on the line, Missy knows she's been fooling herself. She loves Jonas as much as she ever did-maybe more. His return also means finally admitting the truth: she can't lose him againhellip;.


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This poignant novel explores how a unilateral decision can change a life.Two things are hard for Joel Gustafson to cope with: not knowing why, and not being able to do anything about it. Joel’s father was once a sailor who lived by the sea. Joel’s mother once lived with them. Joel’s father abandoned the sea. Joel’s mother abandoned Joel and his father. While looking out his window one night, Joel sees a lonely dog on the street. Joel spots the animal again and begins sneaking out night after night, trying to find it. During these nocturnal outings, Joel discovers aspects of life he has never imagined. And then one night he discovers that his father’s bed, too, is empty.As Joel investigates his father’s mysterious absences and continues to search for the dog, he discovers his own inner strength and learns about adult disappointments and needs.


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JOEL WILL SOON be 12, and he thinks nothing is going on in the small community where he lives. But he’s wrong. One day, an incident that could easily have been a catastrophe turns into a miracle. Now Joel believes he owes the world a good deed, to prove that he deserved what might have been divine intervention. He thinks up an elaborate scheme, but it doesn’t go as anticipated. Even though his heart is in the right place, feelings are hurt. If he confesses what he’s done and why, will things be put right again? Readers who met Joel Gustafson, his father, and their friends in A Bridge to the Stars will follow, with appreciation, Henning Mankell’s shrewd depiction, in this companion novel, of the surprising changes in Joel’s existence. Mankell deftly explores Joel’s self-discovery, his realization that lives can be altered in a single moment, and his new understanding that a choice between telling the truth and keeping silent can make all the difference.


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*Joel Gustafson’s journey toward becoming a man continues.*As it has in the past, the first snow of the year signifies to Joel Gustafson his very own New Year’s Eve. So when the snow begins to fall on a cold November day, Joel gets busy making new resolutions—three, to be exact. As the winter days pass, life becomes ever more complicated. Joel has questions and the answers don’t necessarily come easily, but he is determined to keep his resolutions—for his father, for himself, and for their future. In this companion novel to *A Bridge to the Stars *and *Shadows in the Twilight*, readers follow Joel’s journey as he realizes along the way that it will require determination, strength, and valor to truly become a man.


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First in the Kurt Wallander series.It was a senselessly violent crime: on a cold night in a remote Swedish farmhouse an elderly farmer is bludgeoned to death, and his wife is left to die with a noose around her neck. And as if this didn’t present enough problems for the Ystad police Inspector Kurt Wallander, the dying woman’s last word is foreign, leaving the police the one tangible clue they have–and in the process, the match that could inflame Sweden’s already smoldering anti-immigrant sentiments. Unlike the situation with his ex-wife, his estranged daughter, or the beautiful but married young prosecuter who has peaked his interest, in this case, Wallander finds a problem he can handle. He quickly becomes obsessed with solving the crime before the already tense situation explodes, but soon comes to realize that it will require all his reserves of energy and dedication to solve.


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A few days later what they have been warned of comes to pass: a life raft is washed up on a beach. In it are two men, dressed in expensive suits, shot dead.The dead men were Eastern European criminals, victims of what seems to have been a gangland hit. But what appears in Sweden to be an open-and-shut case soon takes on a far more sinister aspect. Wallander travels across the Baltic Sea to Riga in Latvia, a nation experiencing the massive social and political upheaval that will lead to its independence from the Soviet Union. There Wallander is plunged into a frozen, alien world of police surveillance, scarcely veiled threats, and lies. Doomed always to be one step behind the shadowy figures he pursues , he comes to understand what it is to live in a nation in which democracy is still only a dream. Only his dogged, almost subconscious desire to se that justice is done brings the truth to light.


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In this riveting Henning Mankell thriller, a disillusioned Inspector Kurt Wallander finds himself in a deep personal and professional crisis after killing a man in the line of duty. After almost a year of sick leave, he hits rock bottom and resolves to quit the police force for good. Against his better judgment Wallander stays on the force when unforeseen circumstances compel him to investigate the murder of a friend. While working closely with Ann-Britt Hoglund, the department’s first female detective, he stumbles on a horrific world where human body parts are traded like stock, and just as he comes close to uncovering the truth, the same shadowy threats responsible for the murders close in on Wallander himself.


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Cas Perry wants nothing to do with love -- her dad walking out on her mother was quite enough romantic drama, thank you very much. And why should she bother with relationships when she can manipulate just about any man for sex? The steely-hearted TV producer plays with other people's love lives and orchestrates unscripted fireworks on the edgy reality show "Sex with an Ex" -- a ratings blockbuster that is sending her already-hot career skyrocketing.  Now, the woman who has all the answers meets the man who, for the first time, poses questions other than "buy you a drink?." Stunningly handsome Darren would be a sensation on "Sex with an Ex" -- and Cas needs him to ensure the show's success. So why is she wining and dining the sexiest man she's ever met -- and talking about family values, marriage, and fidelity? Darren's principles are changing the rules of attraction. And this may be one game Cas won't mind losing....


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Fourth in the Kurt Wallander series.In the award-winning Sidetracked, Kurt Wallander is called to a nearby rapeseed field where a teenage girl has been loitering all day long. He arrives just in time to watch her douse herself in gasoline and set herself aflame. The next day he is called to a beach where Sweden’s former Minister of Justice has been axed to death and scalped. The murder has the obvious markings of a demented serial killer, and Wallander is frantic to find him before he strikes again. But his investigation is beset with a handful of obstacles—a department distracted by the threat of impending cutbacks and the frivolity of World Cup soccer, a tenuous long-distance relationship with a murdered policeman’s widow, and the unshakably haunting preoccupation with the young girl who set herself on fire. Fascinating and astute, Sidetracked is a compelling mystery enhanced by keen social awareness.


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Fifth in the Kurt Wallander series.In an African convent, four nuns and a unidentified fifth woman are brutally murdered--the death of the unknown woman covered up by the local police. A year later in Sweden, Inspector Kurt Wallander is baffled and appalled by two murders. Holger Eriksson, a retired car dealer and bird watcher, is impaled on sharpened bamboo poles in a ditch behind his secluded home, and the body of a missing florist is discovered--strangled and tied to a tree. The only clues Wallander has to go on are a skull, a diary, and a photo of three men. What ensues is a case that will test Wallander’s strength and patience, because in order to discover the reason behind these murders, he will also need to uncover the elusive connection between these deaths and the earlier unsolved murder in Africa of the fifth woman.


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Stopping to get money from a cash machine one evening, a man inexplicably falls to the ground: dead. A taxi driver is brutally murdered by two teenaged girls. Quickly apprehended they appal local policemen with their total lack of remorse. One girl escapes police custody and disappears without trace. Soon afterwards a blackout covers half the country. When an engineer arrives at the malfunctioning power station, he makes a grisly discovery. Inspector Kurt Wallander is sure that these events must be linked - somehow. Hampered by the discovery of betrayals in his own team, lonely and frustrated, Wallander begins to lose conviction in his role as a detective. The search for answers leads Wallander dangerously close to a shadowy group of anarchic terrorists, hidden within the anonymity of cyberspace. Somehow these criminals seem always to know the police's next move. Wallander finds himself fighting to outsmart them In their gripping police procedural about our increasing vulnerability in the modern digitalised world.


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From internationally bestselling author Henning Mankell comes a gripping mystery and a depiction of every parent's worst nightmare.When Louise Cantor finds her twenty-eight year old son dead in his apartment, everything indicates it was a suicide. Louise, however, refuses to accept this, and with nothing more than few suspicions and a mother's intuition, she and her ex-husband set out to find what happened. What they discover is a dark underworld of people exploiting the victims of the AIDS epidemic: corrupt businessmen dealing infected blood, suspicious researchers carrying out dangerous tests, and lecherous drug dealers peddling black market medicine. Their investigation takes them across three continents, and leads them into some mighty financial institutions and highest corridors of power, where suddenly their own lives are at stake.


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Interweaving past and present, Sweden and Zambia, rich and poor, The Eye of the Leopard is a stunning novel from a modern master.Hans Olofson arrives in Zambia not long after independence, hoping to fulfill the missionary dream of his recently deceased friend Janice. Africa is a complete shock to Olofson, yet he chooses to stay and make it his home, eventually taking control of a small farm. Here, he learns of the fragile truce between the white and black populations of Zambia, and rumors of an underground army of revolutionaries wearing leopard skins alert him that violence may erupt at any moment. As a wealthy white man, he grows increasingly fearful and returns in his mind to the traumatic events that drove him from Sweden, playing back the complicated events of his past, as his present races toward a thrilling climax.


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MAX MCDANIELS LIVES a quiet life in the suburbs of Chicago, until the day he stumbles upon a mysterious Celtic tapestry. Many strange people are interested in Max and his tapestry. His discovery leads him to Rowan Academy, a secret school where great things await him.But dark things are waiting, too. When Max learns that priceless artworks and gifted children are disappearing, he finds himself in the crossfire of an ancient struggle between good and evil. To survive, he'll have to rely on a network of agents and mystics, the genius of his roommate, and the frightening power awakening within him.


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*A fast-paced, genre-blending adventure—now in paperback! *The Tapestry series continues to weave threads of fantasy, mythology, science fiction, and mystery into a wholly original adventure that appeals to fans of everything from Harry Potter to Lord of the Rings to The X-Men. Genre-blending and fully illustrated, The Tapestry novels have caught the attention of middle-grade and young adult readers alike—and the series is only getting bigger.In this second book of the series, grave forces are converging  to seize control of the Book of Thoth, a hidden artifact whose pages hold the key  to creating—or unraveling—the very threads of existence. Max McDaniels and David Menlo embark on a quest  to protect the book from the demon Astaroth, who would exploit its secrets with dire  consequence. And with Astaroth free after centuries of imprisonment, the world outside  Rowan’s gates has already become hostile.  Far from home, cut off behind enemy lines,  Max and his allies must journey across Europe, descend into the fabled Frankfurt  Workshop, brave the tangled corners of the Black Forest . . . and cross beyond the  veils of our very world.  “After devouring this title, young fans will be clamoring  for more.”*—Kirkus Reviews*Visit www.rowanacademy.com for original content, exclusive artwork, and more!


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In the thirty-four years since his retirement, Henry Aaron's reputation has only grown in magnitude: he broke existing records (RBIs, total bases, extra-base hits) and set new ones (hitting at least thirty home runs per season fifteen times, becoming the first player in history to hammer five hundred home runs and three thousand hits). But his influence extends beyond statistics, and at long last here is the first definitive biography of one of baseball's immortal figures. Based on meticulous research and interviews with former teammates, family, two former presidents, and Aaron himself, The Last Hero chronicles Aaron's childhood in segregated Alabama, his brief stardom in the Negro Leagues, his complicated relationship with celebrity, and his historic rivalry with Willie Mays---all culminating in the defining event of his life: his shattering of Babe Ruth's all-time home-run record. Bryant also examines Aaron's more complex second act: his quest to become an important voice beyond the ball field when his playing days had ended, his rediscovery by a public disillusioned with today's tainted heroes, and his disappointment that his career home-run record was finally broken by Barry Bonds during the steroid era, baseball's greatest scandal. Bryant reveals how Aaron navigated the upheavals of his time-fighting against racism while at the same time benefiting from racial progress-and how he achieved his goal of continuing Jackie Robinson's mission to obtain full equality for African-Americans, both in baseball and society, while he lived uncomfortably in the public spotlight. Eloquently written, detailed and penetrating, this is a revelatory portrait of a complicated, private man who through sports became an enduring American icon. From the Hardcover edition.


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The first book in the epic saga of humankind's war of transcendence   There is a milestone in the evolution of every sentient race, a Tech Singularity Event, when the species achieves transcendence through its technological advances. Now the creatures known as humans are near this momentous turning point.   But an armed threat is approaching from deepest space, determined to prevent humankind from crossing over that boundary—by total annihilation if necessary.   To the Sh'daar, the driving technologies of transcendent change are anathema and must be obliterated from the universe—along with those who would employ them. As their great warships destroy everything in their path en route to the Sol system, the human Confederation government falls into dangerous disarray. There is but one hope, and it rests with a rogue Navy Admiral, commander of the kilometer-long star carrier America, as he leads his courageous fighters deep into enemy space towards humankind's greatest conflict—and quite possibly its last.


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Eleanor of Aquitaine was a remarkable woman. She was an important factor in the reign of four kings, lived to the ripe old age of 82, bore 10 children and outlived all but two of them. Her sons were kings of England and her daughters queens of Castile and Sicily, while her later descendants included a Holy Roman emperor and kings of France and Spain, as well as a couple of saints. In an age of men, she was indeed a powerful woman. Born in 1122 into the sophisticated and cultured court of Poitiers, Eleanor of Aquitaine came of age in a world of luxury, bloody combat, and unbridled ambition. At only fifteen, she inherited one of the great fortunes of Europe - the prize duchy of Aquitaine - yet was forced to submit to a union with the handsome but sexually withholding Louis VII, the teenage king of France. The marriage endured for fifteen fraught years, until Eleanor finally succeeded in having it annulled - only to enter an even stormier match with Henry of Anjou, who would soon ascend to the English throne as Henry II. With astonishing historic detail, mesmerizing pageantry, and irresistible accounts of royal scandal and intrigue, Weir re-creates not only a remarkable personality, but a magnificent past era. As Weir traces the fascinating intersection of public and private lives in Europe's twelfth-century courts, Eleanor comes to life as a complex, boldly original woman who transcended the mores of society. Later, after sixteen years of imprisonment for plotting to overthrow Henry, the humbled Queen emerged, at age sixty-seven, to rule England.


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"A SURPRISINGLY FRESH AND TREMENDOUSLY THOROUGH CONTRIBUTION to the debate...Weir's book is, no doubt, not the last on this subject, but it might be the best....[She] constructs a devastating case...[and] brilliantly illuminates the nature of late-medieval political power." --The Boston Globe Despite five centuries of investigation by historians, the sinister deaths of the boy king Edward V and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, remain two of the most fascinating murder mysteries in English history. Did Richard III really kill "the Princes in the Tower," as is commonly believed, or was the murderer someone else entirely? Carefully examining every shred of contemporary evidence as well as dozens of modern accounts, English historian Alison Weir reconstructs the entire chain of events leading to the double murder. We are witnesses to the rivalry, ambition, intrigue, and struggle for power that culminated in the imprisonment of the prince and the hushed-up murders that secured Richard's claim to the throne as Richard III. A masterpiece of historical research and a riveting story of conspiracy and deception, The Princes in the Tower at last provides a solution to this age-old puzzle. "Weir takes on this delicious mystery with a fearsome vengeance. The result is a fascinating and completely credible account." --Milwaukee Journal "Did Richard III do in his nephews or didn't he? How much of the evil-uncle legend was later Tudor propaganda and how much was true?...This is exciting reading." --The Denver Post "A fascinating historical whodunit in which truth is more sordid than fiction." --Kirkus Reviews A MAIN SELECTION OF THE BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB


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Two hundred years after the Forbidding was broken, Santhenar is locked in war with the lyrinx - intelligent, winged predators who will do anything to gain their own world. Despite the development of battle clankers and mastery of the crystals that power them, humanity is losing. Tiaan, a lonely crystal worker in a clanker manufactory, is experimenting with an entirely new kind of crystal when she begins to have extraordinary visions. The crystal has woken her latent talent for geomancy, the most powerful of all the Secret Arts - and the most perilous. Falsely accused of sabotage by her rival, Irisis, Tiaan flees for her life. Struggling to control her talent and hunted by the lyrinx, Tiaan follows her visions all the way to Tirthrax, greatest peak on all the Three Worlds, where a nightmare awaits her . Find out more about this title and others at www.orbitbooks.co.uk


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Santhenar is on its knees. The war with the alien lyrinx drags on, and humanity is losing it, but there is worse to come. The Aachim have invaded with an irresistible force: a fleet of battle constructs. Cursing humanity for the loss of Aachan and his own clan, the embittered Aachim leader, Vithis, demands half the world in reparation. The council is in no position to resist. But even if they agree to his demands, can anything satisfy his thirst for vengeance?Tiaan is in despair. Her life lies in ruins, and now she is being hunted through the abandoned city of Tirthrax by an implacable Nish, who blames her for the attack.The future of the world rests in the hands of three flawed people: Tiaan, whose geomancy holds the key to the power that can save or destroy them; Nish, who has sworn to bring her to justice; and Irisis, whose great talents are hidden even from herself.


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J.J. Smith is an official keeper of world records. Wherever he goes, would-be record holders vie for his attention. But J.J.'s boss says his records are dull. Either he comes up with something special for The Book, or he's fired. So when J.J. hears about someone who is rumoured to be eating a 747, he has to check it out. Soon he finds himself in Superior, Nebraska, where Walter Chubb is, indeed, in the process of consuming an entire airplane, hoping to impress Willa Wyatt, the editor of the local newspaper, whom he has loved ever since she was the only guest who turned up to his tenth birthday party. Richly romantic, joyful and tender, "The Man Who Ate the 747" stretches the imagination, bends the laws of physics and takes you on a whimsical flight of fancy. 'Ben Sherwood is a modern-day Mark Twain who writes of small-town America with love, affection and with a definite twincle in his eye. A delightful and surprising book from start to finish' - Fannie Flagg. 'A brilliant idea, brilliantly executed ...a genuine, old-fashioned tale of romance' - "Daily Mirror".


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From the #1 *New York Times* best-selling author of *God Is Not Great*, a provocative and entertaining guided tour of atheist and agnostic thought through the ages--with never-before-published pieces by Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. 

  Christopher Hitchens continues to make the case for a splendidly godless universe in this first-ever gathering of the influential voices--past and present--that have shaped his side of the current (and raging) God/no-god debate. With Hitchens as your erudite and witty guide, you'll be led through a wealth of philosophy, literature, and scientific inquiry, including generous portions of the words of Lucretius, Benedict de Spinoza, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Mark Twain, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, H. L. Mencken, Albert Einstein, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and many others well-known and lesser known. And they're all set in context and commented upon as only Christopher Hitchens--"political and literary journalist extraordinaire" (*Los Angeles Times*)--can. 

  Atheist? Believer? Uncertain? No matter: *The Portable Atheist* will speak to you and engage you every step of the way.


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Every one of the immortal Sherlock Holmes novels appears in this single volume, unabridged, embellished with beautiful original illustrations, and reasonably priced. The classic works include: A Study in Scarlet, the very first Holmes adventure; The Sign of Four, where Holmes solves the case of a missing treasure in India; The Hound of the Baskervilles, in which Holmes and Watson find themselves involved in an age-old curse; and The Valley of Fear, with a battle between Holmes and his nemesis, Professor Moriarty. “Remarkably affordable and complete. Reproductions of old illustrations are enchanting.”—Baltimore Sun.


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Shelley's enduringly popular and rich gothic tale confronts some of the most feared innovations of evolutionism and science--topics such as degeneracy, hereditary disease, and humankind's ability to act as creator of the modern world. This new edition, based on the harder and wittier 1818 version of the text, draws on new research and examines the novel in the context of the controversial radical sciences developing in the years following the Napoleonic Wars, and shows the relationship of Frankenstein's experiment to the contemporary debate between champions of materialistic science and proponents of received religion.


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*The Time Machine and The Invisible Man*, by **H. G. Wells**, is part of the **Barnes & Noble Classics* *series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of *Barnes & Noble Classics*: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. *Barnes & Noble Classics *pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.** *The Time Machine*, **H. G. Wells**’s first novel, is a tale of Darwinian evolution taken to its extreme. Its hero, a young scientist, travels 800,000 years into the future and discovers a dying earth populated by two strange humanoid species: the brutal Morlocks and the gentle but nearly helpless Eloi.*The Invisible Man* mixes chilling terror, suspense, and acute psychological understanding into a tale of an equally adventurous scientist who discovers the formula for invisibility—a secret that drives him mad.Immensely popular during his lifetime, H. G. Wells, along with Jules Verne, is credited with inventing science fiction. This new volume offers two of Wells’s best-loved and most critically acclaimed “scientific romances.” In each, the author grounds his fantastical imagination in scientific fact and conjecture while lacing his narrative with vibrant action, not merely to tell a “ripping yarn,” but to offer a biting critique on the world around him. “The strength of Mr. Wells,” wrote Arnold Bennett, “lies in the fact that he is not only a scientist, but a most talented student of character, especially quaint character. He will not only ingeniously describe for you a scientific miracle, but he will set down that miracle in the midst of a country village, sketching with excellent humour the inn-landlady, the blacksmith, the chemist’s apprentice, the doctor, and all the other persons whom the miracle affects.” **Alfred Mac Adam**** teaches literature at Barnard College-Columbia University. He is a translator and art critic.


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Robert Louis Stevenson's short novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, first published in 1886, became an instant classic, a Gothic horror originating in a feverish nightmare whose hallucinatory setting in the back streets of London gripped a nation mesmerized by crime and violence. Its revelatory ending is one of the most original and thrilling in English Literature. This new edition of Stevenson's most famous work includes three additional short stories, two short essays, and extracts from contemporary writing on psychological disorders. The introduction considers the reasons for the book's popularity, "the double," and psychoanalytic interpretations, as well as crime, sex, class, and urbanism in the 1880s. Appendixes provide contextual historical material by Henry Maudsley, Frederic Myers, and W.T. Stead. This edition also provides an up-to-date bibliography and full notes, including details of the initial responses of Stevenson's contemporaries, such as John Addington Symonds, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Rider Haggard.


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The Woman in White (1859-60) is the first and greatest "Sensation Novel." Walter Hartright's mysterious midnight encounter with the woman in white draws him into a vortex of crime, poison, kidnapping, and international intrigue. This new critical edition is the first to use the original manuscript of the novel. John Sutherland examines Collins's contribution to Victorian fiction, traces his practices as a creator of plot, and provides a chronology of the novel's complicated events.


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With an introduction by Arnold Rampersad  "The Library of America has insured that most of Wright's major texts are now available as he wanted them to be read." --Alfred Kazin, New York Times Book Review  Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny: by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection of the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.  "This new edition gives us a Native Son in which the key line in the key scene is restored to the great good fortune of American letters. The scene as we now have it is central both to an ongoing conversation among African-American writers and critics and to the consciousness among all American readers of what it means to live in a multi-racial society in which power splits among racial lines." --Jack Miles, Los Angeles Times


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The marriage of Marc Antony and Cleopatra is one of the greatest love stories of all time, a tale of unbridled passion with earth-shaking political consequences. Feared and hunted by the powers in Rome, the lovers choose to die by their own hands as the triumphant armies of Antony's revengeful rival, Octavian, sweep into Egypt. Their three orphaned children are taken in chains to Rome; only two- the ten-year-old twins Selene and Alexander-survive the journey. Delivered to the household of Octavian's sister, the siblings cling to each other and to the hope that they will return one day to their rightful place on the throne of Egypt. As they come of age, they are buffeted by the personal ambitions of Octavian's family and court, by the ever-present threat of slave rebellion, and by the longings and desires deep within their own hearts. The fateful tale of Selene and Alexander is brought brilliantly to life in "Cleopatra's Daughter. "Recounted in Selene's youthful and engaging voice, it introduces a compelling cast of historical characters: Octavia, the emperor Octavian's kind and compassionate sister, abandoned by Marc Antony for Cleopatra; Livia, Octavian's bitter and jealous wife; Marcellus, Octavian's handsome, flirtatious nephew and heir apparent; Tiberius, Livia's sardonic son and Marcellus's great rival for power; and Juba, Octavian's watchful aide, whose honored position at court has far-reaching effects on the lives of the young Egyptian royals. Selene's narrative is animated by the concerns of a young girl in any time and place-the possibility of finding love, the pull of friendship and family, and the pursuit of her unique interests and talents. While coping with the loss of both her family and her ancestral kingdom, Selene must find a path around the dangers of a foreign land. Her accounts of life in Rome are filled with historical details that vividly capture both the glories and horrors of the times. She dines with the empire's most illustrious poets and politicians, witnesses the creation of the Pantheon, and navigates the colorful, crowded marketplaces of the city where Roman-style justice is meted out with merciless authority. Based on meticulous research, "Cleopatra's Daughter "is a fascinating portrait of imperial Rome and of the people and events of this glorious and most tumultuous period in human history. Emerging from the shadows of the past, Selene, a young woman of irresistible charm and preternatural intelligence, will capture your heart. "From the Hardcover edition."


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In ancient Egypt, a forgotten princess must overcome her familyGÇÖs past and remake history. The winds of change are blowing through Thebes. A devastating palace fire has killed the Eighteenth DynastyGÇÖs royal family-all with the exception of Nefertari, the niece of the reviled former queen, Nefertiti. The girlGÇÖs deceased family has been branded as heretical, and no one in Egypt will speak their names. A relic of a previous reign, Nefertari is pushed aside, an unimportant princess left to run wild in the palace. But this changes when she is taken under the wing of the PharaohGÇÖs aunt, then brought to the Temple of Hathor, where she is educated in a manner befitting a future queen. Soon Nefertari catches the eye of the Crown Prince, and despite her familyGÇÖs history, they fall in love and wish to marry. Yet all of Egypt opposes this union between the rising star of a new dynasty and the fading star of an old, heretical one. While political adversity sets the country on edge, Nefertari becomes the wife of Ramesses the Great. Destined to be the most powerful Pharaoh in Egypt, he is also the man who must confront the most famous exodus in history. Sweeping in scope and meticulous in detail, The Heretic Queen is a novel of passion and power, heartbreak and redemption.


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This fictionalized life of the notorious queen is told from the point of view of her younger sister, Mutnodjmet. In 1351 B.C., Prince Amunhotep secretly kills his older brother and becomes next in line to Egypt's throne: he's 17, and the 15-year-old Nefertiti soon becomes his chief wife. He already has a wife, but Kiya's blood is not as royal, nor is she as bewitching as Nefertiti. As Mutnodjmet, two years younger than her sister, looks on (and falls in love), Amunhotep and the equally ambitious Nefertiti worship a different main god, displace the priests who control Egypt's wealth and begin building a city that boasts the royal likenesses chiseled in stone. Things get tense when Kiya has sons and the popular Nefertiti has only daughters, and they come to a boil when the army is used to build temples to the pharaoh and his queen instead of protecting Egypt's borders. Though sometimes big events are telegraphed, Moran, who lives in California and is making her U.S. debut, gets the details just right, and there are still plenty of surprises in an epic that brings an ancient world to life.


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Charleen, a divorced woman attending her widowed mother's second wedding, makes startling discoveries about other family members attending the reunion and achieves a new understanding of herself and her own life. Reprint.


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Ian Wigby is about to find out that he is a very special boy. Along the southern coast of England, atop the White Cliffs of Dover, stands a castle. And at that castle's old keep is an orphanage. Delphi Keep has seen many youngsters come and go through its gates, and Ian Wigby and his sister, Theodosia, are happy to call it home. Life has always been simple at the Keep, and the orphanage safe, until one day, Ian and Theo find a silver treasure box. And within the box, a prophesy. Three thousand years ago a great Greek oracle wrote of a quest. A quest on which the fate of the world depends. A quest that names two childrenIan and Theodosia. Suddenly Delphi Keep is no longer safe. And Ian and Theo, along with a very special group of friends, realize they must unravel the meaning behind the scroll of Dover cavern before darkness falls on the world. And before an unfathomable evil catches up with them. From the Hardcover edition.


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Before the Dominion War and the decimation of Cardassia...before the coming of the Emissary and the discovery of the wormhole...before space station Terok Nor became Deep Space 9(TM)...there was the Occupation: the military takeover of an alien planet and the violent insurgency that fought against it. Now that fifty-year tale of warring ideologies, terrorism, greed, secret intelligence, moral compromises, and embattled faiths is at last given its due in the three-book saga of "Star Trek"'s Lost Era...Eighteen years into the Occupation, a new star rises in Bajor's sky. It is the seat of power in this system, a place of slave labor and harsh summary judgments, the symbol of Cardassian might and the futility of resisting it. But even as the gray metal crown of Terok Nor ascends to its zenith, ragtag pockets of Bajoran rebels -- including a fierce young fighter named Kira Nerys -- have begun to strike back at their world's oppressors, and they intend to show the Cardassians that the night belongs to them.


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Before the Dominion War and the decimation of Cardassia...before the coming of the Emissary and the discovery of the wormhole...before space station Terok Nor became Deep Space 9™...there was the Occupation: the military takeover of an alien planet and the violent insurgency that fought against it. Now that fifty-year tale of warring ideologies, terrorism, greed, secret intelligence, moral compromises, and embattled faiths is at last given its due in the three-book saga of Star Trek's Lost Era...TEROK NORAs violence all across Bajor continues to escalate, Cardassian forces tighten their grip on the captive planet, driving back the resistance at every turn; but on Terok Nor and elsewhere, the winds of change are stirring -- the beginnings of a hurricane that will alter the landscape of the Occupation. And while secret dealings, shifting alliances, and personal demons buoy the wings of revolution, a mysterious shape-shifting life form begins a journey that will decide the fate of worlds.


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Julie and Ronan are the perfect married couple: with two incomes, and both personal and professional success, theirs is a lifestyle to envy. That is, until the day Julie comes home unexpectedly early from a week away to find a yellow wonderbra hanging from the doorknob. It seems that in the age-old style it has all gone terribly wrong - Ronan is having an affair. Fuelled by anger, despair and whiskey, Julie embarks on a campaign of detection. Revenge may not be sweet, but it is most definitely worth it . . .


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Lilly, the main character of Camilla Gibb’s stunning new novel, has anything but a stable childhood. The daughter of English/Irish hippies, she was “born in Yugoslavia, breast-fed in the Ukraine, weaned in Corsica, freed from nappies in Sicily and walking by the time [they] got to the Algarve…” The family’s nomadic adventure ends in Tangier when Lilly’s parents are killed in a drug deal gone awry. Orphaned at eight, Lilly is left in the care of a Sufi sheikh, who shows her the way of Islam through the Qur’an. When political turmoil erupts, Lilly, now sixteen, is sent to the ancient walled city of Harar, Ethiopia, where she stays in a dirt-floored compound with an impoverished widow named Nouria and her four children.  In Harar, Lilly earns her keep by helping with the household chores and teaching local children the Qur’an. Ignoring the cries of “farenji” (foreigner), she slowly begins to put down roots, learning the language and immersing herself in a culture rich in customs and rituals and lush with glittering bright headscarves, the chorus of muezzins and the scent of incense and coffee. She is drawn to an idealistic half-Sudanese doctor named Aziz, and the two begin to meet every Saturday at a social gathering. As they stay behind to talk, Lilly finds her faith tested for the first time in her life: “The desire to remain in his company overwhelmed common sense; I would pick up my good Muslim self on the way home.” Just as their love begins to blossom, they are wrenched apart when the aging emperor Haile Selassie is deposed by the brutal Dergue regime. Lilly seeks exile in London, while Aziz stays to pursue his revolutionary passions.In London, Lilly’s life as a white Muslim is no less complicated. A hospital staff nurse, she befriends a refugee from Ethiopia named Amina, whose daughter she helped to deliver in a back alley. The two women set up a community association to re-unite refugees with lost family members. Their work, however, isn’t entirely altruistic. Both women are looking for someone: Amina, her husband, Yusuf, and Lilly, Aziz, who remains firmly, painfully, implanted in her heart. The first-person narrative alternates seamlessly between England (1981-91) and Ethiopia (1970-74), weaving a rich tapestry of one woman’s quest to maintain faith and love through revolution, upheaval and the alienation of life in exile.**Sweetness in the Belly*** *was universally praised for the tremendous empathy that Gibb brings to an ambitious story. *Kirkus Reviews* writes that the novel "reflect(s) the pain, cultural relocation and uncertainty of tribal, political and religious refugees the world over. Gibb's territory is urgently modern and controversial but she enters it softly, with grace, integrity and a lovely compassionate story. [It is a] poem to belief and to the displaced–humane, resonant, original, impressive."  According to the *Literary Review of Canada, ***Sweetness in the Belly **is “…a novel that is culturally sensitive, consummately researched and deeply compassionate…richly imagined, full of sensuous detail and arresting imagery…Gibb has smuggled Western readers into the centre of lives they might never otherwise come into contact with, let alone understand.”*From the Hardcover edition.*


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For everyone who loves Jane Austen...a marvelously entertaining new series that turns the incomparable author into an extraordinary sleuth!On a visit to the estate of her friend, the young and beautiful Isobel Payne, Countess of Scargrave, Jane bears witness to a tragedy. Isobel's husband—a gentleman of mature years—is felled by a mysterious and agonizing ailment. The Earl's death seems a cruel blow of fate for the newly married Isobel. Yet the bereaved widow soon finds that it's only the beginning of her misfortune...as she receives a sinister missive accusing her and the Earl's nephew of adultery—and murder. Desperately afraid that the letter will expose her to the worst sort of scandal, Isobel begs Jane for help. And Jane finds herself embroiled in a perilous investigation that will soon have her following a trail of clues that leads all the way to Newgate Prison and the House of Lords—a trail that may well place Jane's own person in the gravest jeopardy.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

'Sushi for One? is an entertaining romp into the world of multi-culturalism.  I loved learning the idiosyncrasies of Lex's crazy family---which were completely universal. Enjoy!'  ---Kristen Billerbeck, author of What a Girl Wants    'In Lex Sakai, Camy Tang gives us a funny, plucky, volleyball-playing heroine with way too many balls in the air. I defy anyone to start reading and not root for Lex all the way to the story's romantic, super-satisfying end.'  ---Trish Perry, author of The Guy I'm Not Dating    Lex Sakai's family is big, nosy, and marriage-minded. When her cousin Mariko gets married, Lex will become the oldest single cousin in the clan.     Lex has used her Bible study class on Ephesians to compile a huge list of traits for the perfect man. But the one man she keeps running into doesn't seem to have a single quality on her list.   It's only when the always-in-control Lex starts to let God take over that all the pieces of this hilarious romance finally fall into place.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

New boss-love-child scandal! When plain-Jane Alex McGuire indulged in an innocent flirtation with a staggeringly perfect stranger, she never expected their paths to cross again. Meek and dowdy Alex was the ideal distraction for Gabriel Cruz in his heady playboy days- But, since running the Cruz family business has beckoned, frivolous distractions are a thing of the past- So on Alex-s first day of her new job she not only finds her perfect stranger is her boss-but she must tell him that their short affair left a lasting impression!


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

After her brilliant detective debut in *Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor*, there can be no doubt that Jane Austen would have made aremarkable sleuth. And so, with great aplomb, Stephanie Barron reveals the next superb Jane Austen Mystery... 

Jane Austen and her family are looking forward to a peaceful late-summer holiday in the seaside village of Lyme Regis. But on the road thither, a fearful storm and an overturned carriage lead the shaken travelers to seek refuge at High Down Grange. And there, in a dismal manor house wrapt in an air of malevolent neglect, Jane meets the darkly forbidding yet strangely attractive master of High Down Grange, Mr. Geoffrey Sidmouth. 

What murky secrets does the brooding Mr. Sidmouth hope to preserve behind his fierce glower? And who is the exceedingly lovely young woman dressed in peasant garb who shares his home? Once settled in town, Jane seeks to learn the answers. Yet common gossip is soon forgotten when a man is found hanged from a makeshift gibbet by the sea. 

Only the day before, Jane had observed this same man in a heated exchange with Mr. Sidmouth. Still, the worthies of Lyme are certain the labourer's death is the work of "the Reverend," the notorious ringleader of the midnight smuggling trade. The Reverend's identity is the paramount mystery of Lyme Regis.  And Jane, who can never resist a puzzle, is determined to solve this one. 

But to her dismay, she must soon admit that she harbours a strange sensibility for a man who could very well be a murderer. And then a second mysterious death draws her into a perilous scheme to entrap and expose Geoffrey Sidmouth. From the drawing- rooms of the cultured and the devious to secret caverns and coarse haunts, her mission will take her far from a lady's proper venue...until even so canny a student of character and valiant adventurer must ask herself: "Is the prize worth the risk--to my heart as well as my person?" 

Stylish, suspenseful, and wickedly diverting, *Jane and the Man of the Cloth* delves deep into the foibles, passions, and ruthless machinations that lurk within the most polite society.


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In 1612, Shakespeare gave evidence in a court case at Westminsterand it is the only occasion on which his actual spoken words were recorded. In The Lodger Shakespeare, Charles Nicholl applies a powerful biographical magnifying glass to this fascinating but little-known episode in the Bards life. Drawing on evidence from a wide variety of sources, Nicholl creates a compellingly detailed account of the circumstances in which Shakespeare lived and worked amid the bustle of early seventeenth-century London. This elegant, often unexpected exploration presents a new and original look at Shakespeare as he was writing such masterpieces as Othello, Measure for Measure, and King Lear.


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Introduced to readers in the novels The Atrocity Archive and The Jennifer Morgue, the Laundry is a secret British government agency charged with preventing dark interdimensional entities from destroying the human race. Now, in "Overtime," the Laundry is on a skeleton staff for Christmas—leaving one bureaucrat to be all that stands between the world and annihilation by the Thing That Comes Down Chimneys. Written especially for Tor.com's holiday season, Charles Stross's novelette is a finalist for the 2010 Hugo Award. Charles Stross is the Hugo-winning author of some of the most acclaimed novels and stories of the last ten years, including Singularity Sky, Accelerando, Halting State, the "Merchant Princes" series beginning with The Family Trade, and the story collections Toast and Wireless.


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The daughter of a distinguished soldier, Bess Crawford follows in his footsteps and signs up to go overseas as a nurse during the Great War, helping to deal with the many wounded. There, serving on a hospital ship, she makes a promise to a dying young lieutenant to take a message to his brother, Jonathan Graham: "Tell Jonathan that I lied. I did it for Mother′s sake. But it has to be set right." Later, when her ship is sunk by a mine and she′s sidelined by a broken arm, Bess returns home to England, determined to fulfill her promise.  It′s not so easy, however. She travels to the village in Kent where the Grahams live and passes on to Jonathan his brother′s plea. Oddly, neither Jonathan, his mother, nor his younger brother admit to knowing what the message means. Then Bess learns that there′s another brother, incarcerated in a lunatic asylum since the age of 14 when he was accused of brutally murdering a housemaid.  Bess rightly guesses that the dying soldier′s last words had something to do with the fourth brother. Because the family seems unwilling to do anything, she decides that she will investigate. It′s her own duty to the dead.


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With this outrageous new novel, China Miéville has written one of the strangest, funniest, and flat-out scariest books you will read this—or any other—year. The London that comes to life in Kraken is a weird metropolis awash in secret currents of myth and magic, where criminals, police, cultists, and wizards are locked in a war to bring about—or prevent—the End of All Things.In the Darwin Centre at London’s Natural History Museum, Billy Harrow, a cephalopod specialist, is conducting a tour whose climax is meant to be the Centre’s prize specimen of a rare Architeuthis dux—better known as the Giant Squid. But Billy’s tour takes an unexpected turn when the squid suddenly and impossibly vanishes into thin air.As Billy soon discovers, this is the precipitating act in a struggle to the death between mysterious but powerful forces in a London whose existence he has been blissfully ignorant of until now, a city whose denizens—human and otherwise—are adept in magic and murder.There is the Congregation of God Kraken, a sect of squid worshippers whose roots go back to the dawn of humanity—and beyond. There is the criminal mastermind known as the Tattoo, a merciless maniac inked onto the flesh of a hapless victim. There is the FSRC—the Fundamentalist and Sect-Related Crime Unit—a branch of London’s finest that fights sorcery with sorcery. There is Wati, a spirit from ancient Egypt who leads a ragtag union of magical familiars. There are the Londonmancers, who read the future in the city’s entrails. There is Grisamentum, London’s greatest wizard, whose shadow lingers long after his death. And then there is Goss and Subby, an ageless old man and a cretinous boy who, together, constitute a terrifying—yet darkly charismatic—demonic duo.All of them—and others—are in pursuit of Billy, who inadvertently holds the key to the missing squid, an embryonic god whose powers, properly harnessed, can destroy all that is, was, and ever shall be.


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Two brothers.One mission.And a whole world of troubleSam and Jacob Redman. Two brothers, SAS through and through. They fight alongside each other; they watch each others backs. They are ruthlessly professional in the field of war, fiercely loyal wherever they are. But when Jacob is booted from the Regiment for a moment of madness, he disappears. Not even his family knows where he is, or even if hes still alive.All that is about to change. On his return from a brutal mission in Afghanistan, Sam is ordered to conduct another dangerous operation into an inhospitable part of the world. He soon learns, though, that his unit are not being told everything by their government paymasters; and so he is forced to choose between his duty to the men around him and his loyalty to the brother that he loves. Is Jacob part of a plan that threatens world peace? As the body count rises, only Sam can stop these events from reaching their terrifying conclusion.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

In her sixth engrossing outing, Jane Austen employs her delicious wit and family ties to the Royal Navy in a case of murder on the high seas. Somewhere in the picturesque British port of Southampton, among a crew of colorful, eccentric, and fiercely individual souls, a killer has come ashore. And only Jane can fathom the depths of his ruthless mind....**Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House**“I will assert that sailors are endowed with greater worth than any set of men in England.” So muses Jane Austen as she stands in the buffeting wind of Southampton’s quay beside her brother Frank on a raw February morning. Frank, a post captain in the Royal Navy, is without a ship to command, and his best prospect is the *Stella Maris*, a fast frigate captained by his old friend Tom Seagrave. “Lucky” Tom — so dubbed for his habit of besting enemy ships — is presently in disgrace, charged with violating the Articles of War. Tom’s first lieutenant, Eustace Chessyre, has accused Seagrave of murder in the death of a French captain after the surrender of his ship.  Though Lucky Tom denies the charge, his dagger was found in the dead man’s chest. Now Seagrave faces court-martial and execution for a crime he swears he did not commit.Frank, deeply grieved, is certain his friend will hang. But Jane reasons that either Seagrave or Chessyre is lying — and that she and Frank have a duty to discover the truth.  The search for the captain’s honor carries them into the troubled heart of Seagrave’s family, through some of the seaport’s worst sinkholes, and at long last to Wool House, the barred brick structure that serves as gaol for French prisoners of war. Risking contagion or worse, Jane agrees to nurse the murdered French captain’s imprisoned crew — and elicits a debonair surgeon’s account of the *Stella Maris*’s battle that appears to clear Tom Seagrave of all guilt. When Eustace Chessyre is found murdered, the entire affair takes on the appearance of an insidious plot against Seagrave, who is charged with the crime.  Could any of his naval colleagues wish him dead?  In an era of turbulent intrigue and contested amour, could it be a case of *cherchez la femme* ... or a veiled political foe at work?  And what of the sealed  orders under which Seagrave embarked that fateful night in the *Stella Maris?* Death knocks again at Jane’s own door before the final knots in the killer’s net are completely untangled. Always surprising, **Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House** is an intelligent and intriguing mystery that introduces Jane and her readers to “the naval set” — and charts a true course through the amateur sleuth’s most troubled waters yet.*From the Hardcover edition.*


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<p class="description">Gardens Of The Moon: Malazan Book Of The Fallen 1Bled dry by interminable warfare, infighting and bloody confrontations with Lord Anomander Rake and his Tiste Andii, the vast, sprawling Malazan empire simmers with discontent. Even its imperial legions yearn for some respite. For Sergeant Whiskeyjack and his Bridgeburners and for Tattersail, sole surviving sorceress of the Second Legion, the aftermath of the siege of Pale should have been a time to mourn the dead. But Darujhistan, last of the Free Cities of Genabackis, still holds out - and Empress Lasseen-s ambition knows no bounds.However, it seems the empire is not alone in this great game. Sinister forces gather as the gods themselves prepare to play their hand-Conceived and written on an epic scale, Gardens of the Moon is a breathtaking achievement - a novel in which grand design, a dark and complex mythology, wild and wayward magic and a host of enduring characters combine with thrilling, powerful storytelling to resounding effect. Acclaimed by writers, critics and readers alike, here is the opening chapter in what has been hailed a landmark of epic fantasy: the awesome -The Malazan Book of the Fallen-. Deadhouse Gates: Malazan: Book Of The Fallen 2Weakened by events in Darujhistan, the Malazan Empire teeters on the brink of anarchy. In the vast dominion ofSeven Cities, in the Holy Desert Raraku, the seer Sha-ik gathers an army around her in preparation for the long-prophesied uprising named the Whirlwind. Unprecedented in its size and savagery, it will embroil in one of the bloodiest conflicts it has ever known: a maelstrom of fanaticism and bloodlust that will shape destinies and give birth to legends-In the Otataral mines, Felisin, youngest daughter of the disgraced House of Paran, dreams of revenge against the sister who sentenced her to a life of slavery. Escape leads her to raraku, where her soul will be reborn and her future made clear. The now-outlawed Bridgeburners, Fiddler and the assassin Kalam, have vowed to return the once god-possessed Apsalar to her homeland, and to confront and kill the Empress Laseen, but events will overtake them too. Meanwhile, Coltaine, the charismatic commander of the Malaz 7th Army, will lead his battered, war-weary troops in a last, valient running battle to save the lives of thirty thousand refugees and, in so doing, secure an illustrious place in the Empire-s chequered history. And into this blighted land come two ancient wanderers, Mappo and his half-Jaghut companion Icarium, bearers of a devastating secret that threatens to break free of its chains-Set in a brilliantly-realized world ravaged by anarchy and dark, uncontrollable magic, Deadhouse Gates is the thrilling, brutal second chapter in the Malazan Book of the Fallen. A powerful novel of war, intrigue and betrayal, it confirms Steven Erikson as a storyteller of breathtaking skill, imagination and originality - a new master of epic fantasy.</p>


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Memories of Ice

The ravaged continent of Genabackis has given birth to a terrifying new empire: the Pannion Domin. Like a fanatical tide of corrupted blood, it seethes across the land, devouring all who fail to heed the Word of its elusive prophet, the Pannion Seer. In its path stands an uneasy alliance: Dujek Onearm's Host and the Bridgeburners  each now outlawed by the Empress  alongside their enemies of old including the grim forces of Warlord Caladan Brood, Anomander Rake, Son of Darkness, and his Tiste Andii, and the Rhivi people of the Plains. But more ancient clans too are gathering. As if in answer to some primal summons, the massed ranks of the undead T'lan Imass have risen. For it would seem something altogether darker and more malign threatens the very substance of this world. The Warrens are poisoned and rumours abound of the Crippled God, now unchained and intent on a terrible revenge...Marking the return of many favourite characters from GARDENS OF THE MOON and introducing a host of remarkable new players, MEMORIES OF ICE is a thrilling new chapter in Erikson's magnificent epic fantasy and another triumph of storytelling.The awesome - and acclaimed - fourth instalment in Steven Erikson-s epic fantasy sequence THE MALAZAN BOOK OF THE FALLEN.House of ChainsIn Northern Genabackis, just before the events recounted in GARDENS OF THE MOON, a raiding party of savage tribal warriors descends from the mountains into the southern flat lands. Their intention is to wreak havoc among the despised lowlanders, but for the one named Karsa Orlong it marks the beginning of what will prove an extraordinary destiny. Some years later, it is the aftermath of the Chain of Dogs. Coltaine, revered commander of the Malazan 7th Army is dead. And now Tavore, elder sister of Ganoes Paran and Adjunct to the Empress, has arrived in the last remaining Malazan stronghold of the Seven Cities to take charge. Untested and new to command, she must hone a small army of twelve thousand soldiers, mostly raw recruits, into a viable fighting force and lead them into battle against the massed hordes of Sha'ik's Whirlwind. Her only hope lies in resurrecting the shattered faith of the few remaining survivors from Coltaine's legendary march, veterans one and all.In distant Raraku, in the heart of the Holy Desert, the seer Sha'ik waits with her rebel army. But waiting is never easy. Her disparate collection of warlords - tribal chiefs, High Mages, a renegade Malazan Fist and his sorceror - is locked in a vicious power struggle that threatens to tear the rebellion apart from within. And Sha'ik herself suffers, haunted by the private knowledge of her nemesis, Tavore...her own sister.So begins the awesome new chapter in Steven Erikson's MALAZAN BOOK OF THE FALLEN - an epic novel of war, intrigue, magic and betrayal from a writer regarded as one of the most original, imaginative and exciting storytellers in fantasy today.


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Midnight TidesAfter decades of warfare, the tribes of the Tiste Edur have at last united under the rule of the Warlock King. But peace has been exacted at a terrible price - a pact made with a hidden power whose motives are at best suspect, at worst deadly. To the south, the expansionist kingdom of Lether has devoured all of its less-civilised neighbours with rapacious hunger. All save one - the Tiste Edur. But Lether is approaching a long-prophesied renaissance - from kingdom and lost colony to Empire reborn - and has fixed its gaze on the rich lands of the Tiste Edur. It seems inevitable that the tribes will surrender, either to the suffocating weight of gold, or to slaughter at the edge of a sword. Or so Destiny has decreed.A pivotal treaty between the two sides nears - but unknown ancient forces are awakening. For the impending struggle between these two peoples is but a pale reflection of an altogether more profound, primal battle - a confrontation with the still-raw wound of betrayal and the craving for vengeance at its heart. War and confrontation, magic and myth collide in this, the stunning fifth chapter in Steven Erikson's magnificent -Malazan Book of the Fallen- sequence, hailed as an epic of the imagination and a fantasy classic in the making.The BonehuntersThe Seven Cities Rebellion is over, Sha-ik is dead, but a last rebel force remains, holed up in the city of Y-Ghatan under the fanatical command of Leoman of the Flails. The prospect of laying siege to this ancient fortress makes the battle-weary Malaz 14th Army uneasy - for it was here that the Empire-s greatest champion Dassem Ultor was slain and a tide of Malazan blood spilled... But agents of a far greater conflict have made their opening moves. The Crippled God has been granted a place in the pantheon, a schism threatens, sides must be chosen but whatever each god decides, the rules have changed - and the first blood spilled will be in the mortal world: a world in which a host of characters, familiar and new, search for a fate that they might fashion by their own will. If only the gods would leave them alone. But gods are disinclined to be kind. There shall be war, war in the heavens. And the prize? Nothing less than existence itself-


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Are the Wall Street players Jasper Cunningham encounters along his quest for power merely a pawn in his murderous passion for wealth? From Dawn to Deceit reveals the saga of a self-made multimillionaire whose greed and malice succumb him to fight the justice system to regain his freedom and stature in the business world. Through flashbacks of the adulterous years preceding Jasper's arrest and trial, we encounter cold-blooded murders, corporate fraud and embezzlement, and justified rape. In his journey, Jasper affiliates with seemingly faithful lovers and underworld cohorts who become jointly entangled in their common goal-the pursuit of wealth, sex, and power. But who can Jasper trust? The layers of deception only accelerate after his verdict.


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Join the Mysterious Benedict Society as Reynie, Kate, Sticky, and Constance embark on a daring new adventure that threatens to force them apart from their families, friends, and even each other. When an unexplained blackout engulfs Stonetown, the foursome must unravel clues relating to a nefarious new plot, while their search for answers brings them closer to danger than ever before. Filled with page-turning action and mind-bending brain teasers, this wildly inventive journey is sure to delight.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

The Roses met at an auction on Cape Cod. Oliver had just bought a Staffordshire figurine-one of a pair-but Barbara outbid him for its mate. The figurines belonged together, and so did the Roses. Now the two objets d'art sat together on a shelf in the Roses' home-symbols of the passion their owners shared. A passion that united them and now was about to tear them apart .     

Sharing, for Oliver and Barbara Rose, was a way of life. Living in the mansion they had restored together, with the antiques they had collected together, their rare wines, their orchids, and their children-all the beautiful things they owned-they were happy. Their latest project had been the kitchen, which was to be the core of Barbara's new-found career as a caterer of gourmet foods. Though Oliver was a busy and successful attorney, he had shared all the planning chores with her.     

The tripping point occurred when Oliver collapsed with what seemed to be a heart attack, and Barbara, as he had expected, did not rush to his side. Her indifference to his fate was both galling and an eye-opener about the truth of their marriage, a truth based more on materialism than mutual sharing and love.     

The War of the Roses is a timeless novel.  Yet, this is a story uniquely of our own time, where more and more people measure their happiness and success in terms of the things they possess.     

This is the book that inspired one of the most famous movies about divorce ever produced. Shown somewhere in the world every week, the movie is an excellent adaptation of the book that has been translated in almost every language on the planet. The impact of both the book and the movie have made them both classics and brought the title The War of the Roses into the accepted jargon of divorce, describing the terrible hatred and cruelty engendered in the process.    

A Major Motion Picture starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner released by Twentieth Century Fox.


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A young insurance saleswoman is found strangled at Mitsuse Pass. Her family and friends are shocked and terrified. The pass-which tunnels through a mountainous region of southern Japan-has an eerie history: a hideout for robbers, murderers, and ghostly creatures lurking at night. Soon afterward, a young construction worker becomes the primary suspect. As the investigation unfolds, the events leading up to the murder come darkly into focus, revealing a troubled cast of characters: the victim, Yoshino, a woman much too eager for acceptance; the suspect, Yuichi, a car enthusiast misunderstood by everyone around him; the victimrs"s middle-aged father, a barber disappointed with his life; and the suspectrs"s aging grandmother, who survived the starvation of postwar Japan only to be tormented by local gangsters. And, finally, there is desperate Mitsuyo, the lonely woman who finds Yuichi online and makes the big mistake of falling for him. A stunningly dark thriller and a tapestry of noir,Villainis the English-language debut for Shuichi Yoshida, one of Japanrs"s most acclaimed and accomplished writers. From desolate seaside towns and lighthouses to love hotels and online chat rooms,Villainreveals the inner lives of men and women who all have something to hide. Part police procedural, part gritty realism,Villainis a coolly seductive story of loneliness and alienation in the southernmost reaches of Japan.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

For sometime I’ve been clean and at times it has been hard but I think about my love for me and know that I can´t and refuse to fall back into that self pity state of denial and  that now I understand that it´s not about me also there´s a saying that is so true which say´s in order to keep what you got you must give it away I hope this will help someone or some body´s out there that´s beginning to realize that life is bigger than they are and more important to someone else other than you thank you for time


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Welcome to a society governed through computer games! On New Earth, society is governed and conflicts are resolved in the arena of a fantasy computer game, Epic. If you win, you have the chance to fulfill your dreams; if you lose, your life both in and out of the game is worth nothing. When teenage Erik dares to subvert the rules of Epic, he and his friends must face the Committee. If Erik and his friends win, they may have the key to destroying the Committee’s tyranny. But if they lose . . .


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

John Wayne Cleaver is dangerous, and he knows it.



He’s spent his life doing his best not to live up to his potential.



He’s obsessed with serial killers, but really doesn’t want to become one. So for his own sake, and the safety of those around him, he lives by rigid rules he’s written for himself, practicing normal life as if it were a private religion that could save him from damnation.



Dead bodies are normal to John. He likes them, actually. They don’t demand or expect the empathy he’s unable to offer. Perhaps that’s what gives him the objectivity to recognize that there’s something different about the body the police have just found behind the Wash-n-Dry Laundromat---and to appreciate what that difference means.



Now, for the first time, John has to confront a danger outside himself, a threat he can’t control, a menace to everything and everyone he would love, if only he could.



Dan Wells’s debut novel is the first volume of a trilogy that will keep you awake and then haunt your dreams.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

In this latest internationally bestselling thriller from David Rollins, author of **The Death Trust***, *a bizarre murder leads an ex–Air Force special investigator into a shadow world of conspiracy, cover-up, and military secrecy where the difference between friend or foe is thin as…****A scientist meets a grisly end when he falls from a military research ship and is attacked by a two-ton white shark off the Japanese coast. By the time Special Investigator Vin Cooper reaches the scene, there’s literally very little left to prove that the death wasn’t an accident. But Cooper’s instincts tell him that he’s looking at murder and that in assigning him to this case someone might just as well have shoved him, too, into shark-infested waters.What kind of top secret project could the military be engaged in that would require the services of a foremost marine biologist *and* a genetic researcher? The possibilities are ominous, but not as ominous as the truth. And then the unthinkable tragedy that everyone feared since 9/11 explodes with a terrifying sense of déjà vu—in San Francisco.Suddenly, with a second scientist presumed dead, an unidentified charred body in the morgue, and the “accidental” parachute death of a friend in a Florida training field, Cooper is following a trail as narrow and as dangerous as a knife-edge—a trail that leads to what we all fear most: a secret “government” within our government whose sworn duty is to kill anyone who opposes them.


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Slap bang in the middle of the hottest day of the year, the zoo's drains have blocked up and there's nowhere for the animals' poo to go! Mr Pickles the zoo keeper (who is looking distinctly green) must decide what to do with it all... before the naughty chimps beat him to it!


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<p>Life in the court of King Henry VIII is a complex game. When fifteen-year-old Catherine Howard catches the king’s eye, she quickly transforms from pawn to queen. But even luxury beyond imagination loses its luster as young Catherine finds her life—and her heart—threatened by the needs of an aging king and a family hungry for power. Will their agendas deliver Catherine to the same fate as her infamous cousin, Anne Boleyn—sacrificed at the altar of family ambition?<p>Engaging historical fiction with a throbbing YA heartbeat, this thrilling novel will draw readers into the intrigues and dangers of the Tudor court.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

The year is 1865. The Civil War between the states is raging on. General Sherman, along with over sixty thousand Union troops, has just forced their way into Columbia, South Carolina. By the time the sun rises the following day, Columbia would be in ruins. Three-quarters of the once-striving showcase of the South would be reduced to ashes. The pride of the South, the pride of the Confederacy, would never recover.


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Robert, recently returned to live in Chicago, is contacted by a childhood friend who has just completed more than twenty years in prison for a horrific crime.Without Prejudiceis a compulsive story of race and the dangers that can lie in the past.


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For three days in January 2007, the most-emailed article in The New York Times was "Appreciations: Mr. Noodle," an editorial noting the passing, at age 96, of billionaire Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant ramen. The very existence of the noodle inventor came as a shock to many, but not to Andy Raskin, who had spent nearly three years trying to meet Ando. Why?


 To fix the problems that plagued his love life. 

 *The Ramen King and I* is Raskin's memoir about how despair-and a series of bizarre adventures at Japanese restaurants-led him to confront the truth of his romantic past, and how Ando became his unlikely spiritual guide. Through letters ostensibly penned to the culinary sage, Raskin reveals a relationship history plagued by infidelity, jealousy, and betrayal. After devouring Ando's essays (with titles such as "Peace Follows from a Full Stomach" and "Mankind is Noodlekind"), he sets out to meet the food pioneer-and to discover the secret to a committed relationship.


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A New York Times Notable Book of the YearWinner of the Lannan Literary Fiction AwardWinner of the Guardian Fiction AwardIn 1940 a boy bursts from the mud of a war-torn Polish city, where he has buried himself to hide from the soldiers who murdered his family. His name is Jakob Beer. He is only seven years old. And although by all rights he should have shared the fate of the other Jews in his village, he has not only survived but been rescued by a Greek geologist, who does not recognize the boy as human until he begins to cry. With this electrifying image, Anne Michaels ushers us into her rapturously acclaimed novel of loss, memory, history, and redemption.As Michaels follows Jakob across two continents, she lets us witness his transformation from a half-wild casualty of the Holocaust to an artist who extracts meaning from its abyss. Filled with mysterious symmetries and rendered in heart-stopping prose, Fugitive Pieces is a triumphant work, a book that should not so much be read as it should be surrendered to.


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Few outsiders will ever witness the dark misdeeds of the Heavenly Host. And among this secret society, where exiled Georgian aristocrats gather to indulge their carnal desires, fewer still can match the insatiable appetite of their chief provocateur, the mysterious Viscount Rohan.Pursuit of physical pleasure is both his preferred pastime and his most pressing urge, until he encounters the fascination of a woman who won't be swayed. And while his dark seduction appalls the pure and impoverished Elinor Harriman, she finds herself intrigued...and secretly drawn to the man behind the desire.


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Guardian columnist Dr Ben Goldacre takes us on a hilarious, invigorating and informative journey through the bad science we're fed by the worst of the hacks and the quacks'¦When Dr Ben Goldacre saw someone on daytime TV dipping her feet in an 'Aqua Detox' footbath, releasing her toxins into the water and turning it brown, he thought he'd try the same at home. 'Like some kind of Johnny Ball cum Witchfinder General', using his girlfriend's Barbie doll, he gently passed an electrical current through the warm salt water. It turned brown. In his words: 'before my very eyes, the world's first Detox Barbie was sat, with her feet in a pool of brown sludge, purged of a weekend's immorality.'Dr Ben Goldacre is the author of the 'Bad Science' column in the Guardian and his book is about all the 'bad science' we are constantly bombarded with in the media and in advertising. At a time when science is used to prove everything and nothing, everyone has their own 'bad science' moments ' from the useless pie-chart on the back of cereal packets to the use of the word 'visibly' in cosmetics ads. This book will help people to quantify their instincts ' that a lot of the so-called 'science' which appears in the media and in advertising is just wrong or misleading. Satirical and amusing ' and unafraid to expose the ridiculous ' it provides the reader with the facts they need to differentiate the good from the bad.Full of spleen, this is a hilarious, invigorating and informative journey through the world of 'bad science'.


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The major fantasy debut from bestselling author Joanne Harris, now in paperback.Seven o'clock on a Monday morning, five hundred years after the end of the world, and goblins have been at the cellar again. Not that anyone would admit it was goblins. In Maddy Smith’s world, order rules. Chaos, old gods, faeries, magic—all of these were supposedly vanquished centuries ago. But Maddy knows that a small bit of magic has survived. The “ruinmark” she was born with on her palm proves it—and makes the other villagers fearful and suspicious that she is a witch.But the mysterious traveler One-Eye sees Maddy’s mark not as a defect, but a destiny. And Maddy will need every scrap that One-Eye can teach her about runes, cantrips, and glamours—every ounce of magic she can command—if she is to survive that destiny. * “Harris creates a glorious and complex world replete with rune-based magical spells, bickering gods, exciting adventures and difficult moral issues.”—Publishers Weekly, Starred


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Attending a corporate retreat at a remote resort in Alaska, Lisa Vaughn is plunged into the frigid rapids of the Wild River. Swept away, battered and alone, she has been left for dead.

Lodge owner Mitch Braxton knows something is terribly wrong when Lisa fails to turn up for a private meeting to clear the air and close the book on their broken engagement. Embarking on a heroic search that takes him miles downriver, he saves Lisa from the deadly water, but not before they've been swept deep into the wilderness.

Far from civilization, the former lovers must put aside their hurt feelings and find the will to survive against nature. There's a killer on the loose and, for now, they must measure their future together in days rather than years.


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A delicious and intriguing historical novel about the woman who was William Shakespeare's secret wife by New York Times bestselling author, Karen Harper. In Mistress Shakespeare, Elizabethan beauty Anne Whateley reveals intimate details of her dangerous, daring life and her great love, William Shakespeare. As historical records show, Anne Whateley of Temple Grafton is betrothed to Will just days before he is forced to wed the pregnant Anne Hathaway of Shottery. The clandestine Whateley/Shakespeare match is a meeting of hearts and heads that no one - not even Queen Elizabeth or her spymasters - can destroy. From rural Stratford-upon- Avon to teeming London, the passionate pair struggles to stay solvent and remain safe from Elizabeth I's campaign to hunt down secret Catholics, of whom Shakespeare is rumored to be a part. Often at odds, always in love, the couple sells Will's first plays and, as he climbs to theatrical power in Elizabeth's England, they fend off fierce competition from rival London dramatists, ones as treacherous as they are talented. Persecution and plague, insurrection and inferno, friends and foes, even executions of those they hold dear, bring Anne's heartrending story to life. Spanning half a century of Elizabethan and Jacobean history and sweeping from the lowest reaches of society to the royal court, this richly textured novel tells the real story of Shakespeare in love.


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In 1806 William Thornhill, an illiterate English bargeman and a man of quick temper but deep compassion, steals a load of wood and, as a part of his lenient sentence, is deported, along with his beloved wife, Sal, to the New South Wales colony in what would become Australia. "The Secret River" is the tale of William and Sal's deep love for their small, exotic corner of the new world, and William's gradual realization that if he wants to make a home for his family, he must forcibly take the land from the people who came before him. Acclaimed around the world, "The Secret River" is a magnificent, transporting work of historical fiction.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

*From Cover to Cover* has been considered *the* definitive guide to reading, reviewing, and critically evaluating children's books since its original publication in 1997. Now revised and updated, it remains an invaluable resource offering a fresh, up-to-date look at a fast-changing field.  

 All-new material includes:   An updated introduction that reflects the many changes in the children's book industry A section on genres, including a discussion of graphic novels A section on children's literature blogs An introduction of two new major genre awards—the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal and the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award *And* more than 90 percent of the books cited have been updated to more recent publications!


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Sarah Walters is a less-than-perfect debutante.  She tries hard to follow the time-honored customs of the Charleston Camellia Society, as her mother and grandmother did, standing up straight in cotillion class and attending lectures about all the things that Camellias *don't *do. (Like ride with boys in pickup trucks.)

But Sarah can't quite ignore the barbarism just beneath all that propriety, and as soon as she can she decamps South Carolina for a life in New York City. There, she and her fellow displaced Southern friends try to make sense of city sophistication, to understand how much of their training applies to real life, and how much to the strange and rarefied world they've left behind.

 When life's complications become overwhelming, Sarah returns home to confront with matured eyes the motto "Once a Camellia, always a Camellia"- and to see how much fuller life can be, for good and for ill, among those who know you best.

*Girls in Trucks* introduces an irresistable, sweet, and wise voice that heralds the arrival of an exciting new talent.


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As his men are slaughtered around him, legendary Irish warrior Finian O'Melaghlin is held captive by the despised English Lord Rardove. Struggling to break free, Finian finds aid from an unlikely source: the beautiful Senna de Valery, who is also trying to escape Rardove's bloodthirsty grasp. Risking both their lives, Senna releases Finian from his shackles so they can both flee, but their plight has just begun...Seeking safe refuge, Finian and Senna have only each other to depend on for survival. Neither can deny their immediate attraction, but indulging their desires will put them both in grave danger. Finian vows to protect the woman who saved his life, but he soon learns she is a pawn in a much larger battle. For Senna has an unbreakable link to a priceless treasure many centuries old. It is the stuff from which dreams are made and for which men will kill - and not even Finian may be strong enough to save her.


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Make an appointment for intrigue at Reyn Marten Sawyer's hair salon! Outrageous, flirtatious, and as colorful as a magenta mohawk, Reyn tracks twisted crimes, untangles tight knots, and never, ever leaves loose ends.  Someone clearly meant business when they targeted San Antonio's hair salon king, Ricardo, who was fatally stabbed with a one-of-a-kind weapon: a sharp plastic hair pick. Reyn had loaned Ricardo the tool -- and now she's not only mourning her friend and mentor's murder: she's also a suspect. And in the eyes of sexy detective Jackson Scythe, she's one alluring stylist who should drop her insistent sleuthing like a hot roller. But Reyn's wound a little too tight to stay out of the thick of things, including teasing and taming the stubbornly single Scythe while taking short cuts to catch a killer -- and uncovering the past of a dead man, whose secrets will make Reyn's hair curl....


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In this richly drawn novel set on the streets, porches and in the parlors of 1960s Ohio, Mary Monroe brings to life the bond between two girls from opposite sides of the tracks--and the shattering event that changes their lives forever.

At the heart of the story is Annette Goode, a shy, awkward girl who keeps a terrible secret. Mr. Boatwright, the boarder her hardworking mother has taken in, abuses her daily. Frightened and ashamed, Annette withdraws into a world of books and food. 

But the summer Annette turns thirteen, something incredible happens: Rhoda Nelson chooses her as a friend. Rhoda, who is everything Annette is not--gorgeous, slim, and worldly--welcomes Annette into the heart of her eccentric family, which includes her handsome and dignified father; her lovely, fragile, "Muh'Dear;" her brooding, dangerous brother Jock; and her colorful white relatives--half-crazy Uncle Johnny; sultry Aunt Lola; and scary, surly Granny Goose. 

With Rhoda's help, Annette survives adolescence and blossoms into a woman. But after her beautiful best friend makes a stunning confession about a horrific childhood crime, Annette's world will never be the same.

 "A moving tale of the intricacies of friendship, the awful devastation of silence, and the renewing spirit of survival."--*Ebony *

"Watch out Toni Morrison, there is a new sister in town."--*Rapport*


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The past is another country, in Mary Robinette Kowal's Tor.com tale of time travel and aviation history. "First Flight" is a finalist for the 2010 Locus Award. The winner of the 2008 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of short fiction published in Strange Horizons, Cosmos, and Asimov's. Her first novel, Shades of Milk and Honey, will be published by Tor in 2010.


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Melanie Rawn's best-selling debut is a novel of love and war, magic and madness, and deadly dangerous dragons that hold the secret to unimaginable wealth that could prove key to mutual peace-or a bloody tyrant's reign. And among it all, an idealistic young ruler struggles to civilize a culture that understands the strength of the sword-but has yet to discover the true power of knowledge.


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As High Prince and Princess, Rohan and Sioned must keep both the peace and the secret of the dragons. But the legacy of their evil predecessor remains-and as their son Pol grows up, the kingdom splits in what may become a bloody battle for the crown.     To make things worse, a long-vanquished foe vows to destroy the Prince. The only hope of defeating their dark sorcery lies in reclaiming the knowledge so carefully concealed in the long-lost Star Scroll.


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It began with the discovery of The Star Scroll--the last repository of forgotten spells of sorcery. Now, as Andry, the new Sunrunner Lord of Goddess Keep, begins to master this potentially deadly knowledge and Pol, son of High Prince Rohan, seeks to touch the minds of dragons, their enemy is mobilizes to strike with forbidden lore and treachery.


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Leslie walked away from the Dark Court, determined to reclaim her life and live it on her own terms-even if it meant leaving behind the two faeries who love her. She knows Niall and Irial watch over her, and she would give almost anything to keep them from hurting. But she resists the pull to be with either one of them. Someone knows about Leslie-s past, however, and is intent on using her to reach the fey. And he doesn-t care who gets hurt-.


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The Theocracy has been dead for twenty years, and the Polity rules on Masada. But the Tidy Squad consists of rebels who cannot accept the new order. Their hate for surviving theocrats is undiminished, and the iconic Jeremiah Tombs is at the top of their hit list.Escaping his sanatorium Tombs is pushed into painful confrontation with reality he has avoided since the rebellion. His insanity has been left uncured, because the near mythical hooder called the Technician that attacked him all those years ago, did something to his mind even the AIs fail to understand. Tombs might possess information about the suicide of an entire alien race.The war drone Amistad, whose job it is to bring this information to light, recruits Lief Grant, an ex-rebel Commander, to protect Tombs, along with the black AI Penny Royal, who everyone thought was dead. The amphidapt Chanter, who has studied the bone sculptures the Technician makes with the remains of its prey, might be useful too.Meanwhile, in deep space, the mechanism the Atheter used to reduce themselves to animals, stirs from slumber and begins to power-up its weapons.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

In this delightful, moving debut novel, Peter Pezzelli brings to life the earthy sensuality of Tuscany-- the smell of just-baked bread wafting through the village piazza; the shopkeepers sweeping the sidewalks under the warm, early morning sun; groups of


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An exciting new tale set in the world of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials saga. This collectible hardcover volume includes a short story by Mr. Pullman, plus a fold-out map of Oxford and various "souvenirs" from the past. The book is illustrated throughout with woodcut illustrations by John Lawrence.From the Hardcover edition.


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The heroes are eager to sail to Troy for war, but the wind is still. To fill their sails and set out, they must sacrifice Agamemnon's daughter Iphigenia—and how does a human girl become the wind? The starkness and psychological insight of Rachel Swirsky's Tor.com story earned it a place among the finalists for the 2010 Nebula Award. Rachel Swirsky's short fiction has appeared in Weird Tales, Fantasy Magazine, and Subterranean Magazine, among others, and has been collected in Year's Best anthologies edited by Rich Horton, Jonathan Strahan, and the VanderMeers. She is also the submissions editor of Podcastle, an audio fantasy magazine.


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Originally published on Tor.com, Rachel Swirsky's contemporary tale of love in all its forms — and of one robot's quest to know it, and himself, on his own terms — is a finalist for the 2010 Hugo Award and the 2010 Locus Award.


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"Enthralling...As fascinating as any novel and more so than most!"THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWAgainst the monumental canvas of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe and Russia, unfolds the magnificent story of Peter the Great. He brought Russia from the darkness of its own Middle Ages into the Enlightenment and transformed it into the power that has its legacy in the Russia of our own century.


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Walking the streets of Moscow, indistinguishable from the rest of its population, are the Others. Possessors of supernatural powers and capable of entering the Twilight, a shadowy world that exists in parallel to our own, each owes allegiance either to the Dark or the Light. Night Watch Agent Anton Gorodetsky's holiday is abruptly shortened when an urgent call from Gesar - his boss and Night Watch head - forces him to return to work. Gesar has received an anonymous note, stating that an Other has revealed the full truth about their kind to a human, and intends to convert the human in an Other. The note has also been sent to the Day Watch, and to the Inquisition - but only the very highest-level Others know the addresses. So the Inquisition orders the cooperation of Night and Day Watch in an effort to unmask the culprit.


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Sidney Sheldon introduced the glamorous Blackwell family in his book 'Master of the Game'. Yet the intervening years have not lessened the Blackwells' drama or talent for manipulation, domination, and passion. Though Kate is long gone, the children of her beloved granddaughters, Eve and Alexandra, battle to carry on her powerful legacy. Each is determined to control Kruger-Brent, Ltd., the multibillion-dollar international corporation with holdings in diverse industries around the globe. But only one can reign supreme. Lexi Templeton is a ruthless competitor with the brains and beauty to match. Raised by her psychiatrist father, Lexi burns to follow in her great-grandmother's footsteps and become her own Mistress of the Game. She is not alone in her ambitions. Her handsome and nefarious cousin, Max Webster, the son of Eve, will stop at nothing to own the prize of Kruger-Brent. Driven by hatred, jealousy, and blinding devotion to his bitter and twisted mother, he will seduce, betray, and even kill to succeed. And there is another player with plans of his own - a little-known descendant of Kate's great-grandfather. Growing up in poverty in Aberdeen, Scotland, handsome and cunning Gabriel McGregor is determined to fulfill his destiny, a quest that will lead him deep into the heart of the Kruger-Brent empire. In a family rife with secrets - murder, hidden identities, perversions - and a depraved sense of honor, the player who wins the game may be the only one who will survive.


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Before the Dominion War and the decimation of Cardassia...before the coming of the Emissary and the discovery of the wormhole...before space station Terok Nor became Deep Space 9™...there was the Occupation: the military takeover of an alien planet and the violent insurgency that fought against it. Now that fifty-year tale of warring ideologies, terrorism, greed, secret intelligence, moral compromises, and embattled faiths is at last given its due in the three-book saga of Star Trek's Lost Era...A seemingly benign visitation to the bountiful world of Bajor from the resource-poor Cardassian Union is viewed with cautious optimism by some, trepidation by others, and a calculating gleam by unscrupulous opportunists. What begins as a gesture of compassion soon becomes something very different. Seen through the eyes of participants on both sides -- including those of a young officer named Skrain Dukat -- the personal, political, and religious tensions between the Bajorans and the Cardassians quickly spiral out of control, irrevocably shaping the futures of both worlds in an emotionally charged and unforgettable tale of treachery, tragedy, and hope.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

***Turn Left at the Trojan Horse*** has been described as *On the Road* meets *Eat, Pray, Love* because it goes well beyond a road trip. More than just a funny and profound narrative of Brad Herzog's cross-country trek toward a college reunion in Ithaca (New York) and more than another reimagining of Odysseus's ancient journey (he visits places like Troy, OR... Iliad, MT... Apollo, PA...), it is a memoir exploring the parameters of a heroic existence - by chronicling the lives of people in America's oft-ignored spaces, by examining the universal truths embedded in ancient myths, and by undertaking a fair bit of self-evaluation. It is the memoir of an Everyman searching for the hero within. *(added by author)*


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Mental_floss is proud to present a full-bodied jolt of inspiration for thirsty minds on the go. Blended with titillating facts, startling revelations, and head-scratching theories collected from around the world, Instant Knowledge will jumpstart riveting exchanges at cocktail parties, the watercooler, or any powwow. To experience the clean, rich flavor at home, just tear into a topic of your choice, and add conversation. It's that simple!


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Ever since Darwin and *The Descent of Man*, the existence of humans has been attributed to our intelligence and adaptability. But in *Catching Fire*, renowned primatologist Richard Wrangham presents a startling alternative: our evolutionary success is the result of cooking. In a groundbreaking theory of our origins, Wrangham shows that the shift from raw to cooked foods was the key factor in human evolution. When our ancestors adapted to using fire, humanity began. Once our hominid ancestors began cooking their food, the human digestive tract shrank and the brain grew. Time once spent chewing tough raw food could be sued instead to hunt and to tend camp. Cooking became the basis for pair bonding and marriage, created the household, and even led to a sexual division of labor. Tracing the contemporary implications of our ancestors’ diets, *Catching Fire* sheds new light on how we came to be the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today. A pathbreaking new theory of human evolution, *Catching Fire* will provoke controversy and fascinate anyone interested in our ancient origins—or in our modern eating habits.


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Murder is a Tasty Dish The most hated man in the most dour town in Scotland is sleeping with the fishes, or-more accurately-dumped into a tank filled with crustaceans. All that remain of the murdered victim are his bones. But after the lobsters are shipped off to Britain's best restaurants, the whole affair quickly lands on the plate of Constable Hamish Macbeth. Exiled with his dog, Towser, to the dreary outpost of Cnothan, Macbeth sorely misses his beloved Lochdubh, his formerly beloved Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, and his days of doing nothing but staring at the sheep grazing in a nearby croft. Now the lawman has to contend with a detective chief inspector who wants the modus operandi hushed up, a dark-haired lass who has an ulterior motive to seduce him, and a killer who has made mincemeat of his victim-and without doubt will strike again...


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Although the Thomases were not initially liked by villagers, Trixie Thomas has become a model of domestic efficiency--the perfect wife. So it comes as a great shock to everyone when she is found dead--to everyone but police inspector Hamish Macbeth.


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"Pure bliss."  Atlanta Journal & Constitution

A Hamish Macbeth Mystery by the author of "Death of a Hussy."

With a cold in his head and no place to go for Christmas, Hamish snaps up the invitation of drop-dead gorgeous Jane Wetherby to spend the holiday at her Scottish island health farm -- and figure out who is trying to kill her.

When Hamish arrives on the island of Eileencraig, he finds threatening locals and fellow guests barely more civil, especially a terrible snob named Heather Todd.   It seems like everyone on the island has a grudge against Jane.  How to choose among so many suspects?

But then one suspect is eliminated.  Heather Todd is murdered.  And suddenly Hamish's Christmas is looking very black indeed . . .


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When Hamish Macbeth hears that there has been a murder at the home of the practical joker Arthur Trent, he doesn't race to the scene of the crime. The last time he was called to investigate a death at the manor, the victim turned out to be a manservant covered in fake blood. Ready for another prank, Hamish arrives to find Trent most decidedly dead.


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"ENTRANCING . . . A GEM." --Ocala Star-Banner Hamish Macbeth's life is going to pot. He's been promoted (horrors!), his boss is a dunce, and--to add insult to injury--a sinister self-proclaimed gypsy and his girlfriend have parked their rusty, eye-sore-of-a-van in the village. Hamish smells trouble and as usual he's right. The doctor's drugs go missing. Money vanishes. Neighbors grow suddenly unneighborly. And when the unsavory newcomer is murdered, Hamish regrets it only because his bones tell him the killer may be one of his friends. Nobody wants to volunteer even a scrap of useful information, so canny Hamish single-handedly sets about the delicate work of worming the facts out of his neighbors. Yet in the process he uncovers a story so bizarre that neither he nor the villagers may ever recover from it. . . . "EXCELLENT.. . . A cast of winning characters." --Publishers Weekly "Scottish writer M. C. Beaton develops the locals with humor and verve." --The Christian Science Monitor


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A blinding toothache sends Hamish Macbeth 120 miles out of Lochdubh to the dentist Frederick Gilchrist, only to find him dead. Since everyone is pleased the dentist is deceased--patients, several harassed women, and even his wife--Macbeth faces one of the more biting challenges of his career.


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HOLLYWOOD IN THE HIGHLANDS With the lovely Priscilla Halburton-Smythe away in London, Lochdubh Constable Hamish Macbeth pines for company during the long Scottish winter. He gets his wish -- and more -- when a troupe of flashy, urbane filmmakers clamors into the nearby town of Drim. Before long bedlam erupts around their make-believe mystery ...and culminates in the sudden appearance of one very real corpse. The initial suspect in the killing is one Patricia Martyn-Broyd, the aging mystery writer furious that her musty old cozies are getting a risque face-lift in their TV reincarnation. Yet, going behind the scenes, Hamish soon finds a town full of locals bitten by the movie bug and a cast of quarreling show business types, all harboring their own secrets, lies, and hidden agendas. And as the culprit strikes again, Hamish must quickly find the right killer -- or script the wrong finale to a show gone murderously awry.


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Recovering addict Tommy Jarret rented a chalet to check on reports of a sea monster near the dour village of Drim. When he turns up dead, apparently of a drug overdose, Lochdubh constable Hamish Macbeth finds the lad's demise to be particularly fishy - and not of the local salmon variety. Hamish decides to infiltrate the illicit drug trade in nearby Strathbane, but his daft scheme springs a leak.


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Jane Winters--Lady Jane--was a noted gossip columnist enrolled in the Lachdubh School of Casting (fish casting, that is). She had something on everyone in class--and so, bobby Hamish Macbeth figured, any one of them could have killed her. Martin's.


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When the Carolina Rhapsody Emerald is displayed at the Hatteras West Inn, Innkeeper Alex Winston can't wait to see it leave.  There's just too much stress having the valuable jewel there.  Just before the exhibit is scheduled to end, the emerald is stolen, and the guard is murdered with Alex's lighthouse-shaped letter opener!


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Meet Helena Andrews, sassy, single, smart, and, yes, a bitch—but Tina Fey said it best, bitch is the new black!  

 When Helena Andrews heard this declaration on *Saturday Night Live*, her first reaction was How daaare you? But after a commercial break and some thought, she decided to poke at the stereotype that says "successful" and "bitch" are synonyms. Unafraid and frank, she comes to realize that being a bitch is sometimes the best way to be—except, of course, when it's not.  

 *Bitch Is the New Black* follows Andrews—sexy, single, and a self-described smart-ass—on her trip from kidnapped daughter of a lesbian to Washington, D.C., political reporter who can't remember a single senator's name. Told in Andrews's singular voice, this addictive memoir explores the roller coaster of being educated and single while trying to become an "actual adult" and find love.  

 In these candid yet heartfelt essays, she chronicles that ride from beginning to end: a childhood spent on an all-white island, escaping via episodes of *The Cosby Show*; being set up with Obama's "body guy" Reggie Love by Maureen Dowd; and the shocking suicide of a best friend. Through it all, Andrews and her gang of girlfriends urge each other to "keep it moving." But no one can stay strong all the time—not even the women we believe do so without trying.  

 As Andrews says, "Despite the fact that the most recognizable woman in the United States is black, popular culture still hasn't moved past the only adjective apparently meant to describe us— "strong." She is also flawed, tired, naive, greedy, gutsy, frightened, and kind: secret sides that come out in honest detail here.


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When a young runaway is found dead one morning, a syringe hanging out of his arm, no one is terribly shocked. A known junkie, even local detective Rubens McCauley is quick to conclude that Dallas Boyd died of an accidental overdose. But anomalies in the boy's deathand the haunting memory of a childhood friendcontinue to nag at McCauley. Unable to shake his unease, he soon digs deeper into the case and finds himself enmeshed in a secret network of pedophiles, child abusers, and underage prostitutes. Forced to look evil in the eye, McCauley must conquer his own demons as he battles to find justice for a young boy he never even met.


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The Queen's Witch is a short story connected to the New York Times bestselling Cassandra Palmer and Dorina Basarab series of urban fantasy novels. It features Kit Marlowe in a supernatural thriller set in Elizabethan England.


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The Day of the Dead is a short story connected to the New York Times bestselling Cassandra Palmer series of novels.  It was first published in the Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance (2008) and is now being offered as a free ebook. It features Tomas, a character from Touch the Dark (2006), the first Cassandra Palmer novel.


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Kathy Reichs#1New York Timesbestselling author and producer of the FOX television hitBonesreturns with the thirteenth riveting novel featuring forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan. John Lowery was declared dead in 1968the victim of a Huey crash in Vietnam, his body buried long ago in North Carolina. Four decades later, Temperance Brennan is called to the scene of a drowning in Hemmingford, Quebec. The victim appears to have died while in the midst of a bizarre sexual practice. The corpse is later identified as John Lowery. But how could Lowery have died twice, and how did an American soldier end up in Canada? Tempe sets off for the answer, exhuming Lowery's grave in North Carolina and taking the remains to Hawaii for reanalysisto the headquarters of JPAC, the U.S. military's Joint POW/ MIA Accounting Command, which strives to recover Americans who have died in past conflicts. In Hawaii, Tempe is joined by her colleague and ex-lover Detective Andrew Ryan (how "ex" is he?) and by her daughter, who is recovering from her own tragic loss. Soon another set of remains is located, with Lowery's dog tags tangled among them. Three bodiesall identified as Lowery. And then Tempe is contacted by Hadley Perry, Honolulu's flamboyant medical examiner, who needs help identifying the remains of an adolescent boy found offshore. Was he the victim of a shark attack? Or something much more sinister? A complex and riveting tale of deceit and murder unfolds in this, the thirteenth thrilling novel in Reichs's "cleverly plotted and expertly maintained series" (The New York Times Book Review). With the smash hitBonesnow in its fifth season and in full syndicationand her most recent novel,206 Bones,an instantNew York TimesbestsellerKathy Reichs is at the top of her game.


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SUMMARY:
Sunny Hathaway--introvert, entrepreneur, inventor, poet, dog lover, and lateral thinker--has a lot on her plate. She's moving to a new house, dealing with step-siblings, and starting a dog entertainment business too. Sunny and her expertly blended, thoroughly modern family are moving into her grandmother's old mansion, Windermere. Sunny wins the turret bedroom from her step-siblings (using her powers of reverse psychology), but is soon tangled up in mischief involving bored dogs, a cranky old gardener, an angel sighting, a match-making mission, and a boy who knits. To make matters worse, over at her dad's house, Sunny's baby half-sister Flora has turned the world upside-down, and Steph can't seem to find a way to turn it right-side-up again. Even with a sunny disposition, storm clouds can gather on the horizon, and this winter Sunny must find ways to offer warmth and shelter to those she cares for most.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Laird Keir McQuade is a newcomer to his title, and has much work before him to restore the McQuade honour. Finding a wife is an excellent start. He's duty-bound to go to court and swear homage to his king anyway, a perfect opportunity - were not court women trussed in stupid fashions and corrupted with false mannerisms. Of course, not every lady hides behind a powdered face...Helena Knyvett may be a daughter of the aristocracy, but in truth she is little but a pawn in her brother's ploys for power. Her smallest acts of defiance carry a heavy price. But one honourable man among a crowd of dandies could give her all she needs to change her fortunes - and set her free...Among the ruthless ambitions of England's powerful, love at first sight is a dangerous game. But the treachery, scandal, and treason that follow can unleash as much passion as it does adventure...


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Hot new catalogue company, Velvet, Leather and Lace, is launching a revolution in lingerie--and partners Jamie, Samantha, and Mia are coming apart as fast as their wispy new underwear as their global satellite fashion show nears. Includes a bonus travel tale. Original.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Ali Eteraz's *Children of Dust *is a spellbinding portrayal of a life that few Americans can imagine. From his schooling in a madrassa in Pakistan to his teenage years as a Muslim American in the Bible Belt, and back to Pakistan to find a pious Muslim wife, this lyrical, penetrating saga from a brilliant new literary voice captures the heart of our universal quest for identity. 

*Children of Dust *begins in rural Islam at the lowest levels of Pakistani society in the turbulent eighties. This intimate portrayal of rustic village life is revealed through a young boy's eyes as he discovers magic, women, and friendship. 

After immigrating with his family to the United States, Eteraz struggles to be a normal American teenager under the rules of a strict Muslim household. 

In 1999, he returns to Pakistan to find the villages of his youth dominated by the ideology of the Taliban, filled with young men spouting militant rhetoric, and his extended family under threat. Eteraz becomes the target of a mysterious abduction plot when he is purported to be a CIA agent, and eventually has to escape under military escort. 

Back in the United States, with his fundamentalist illusions now shattered, Eteraz tries to find a middle way within American Islam. At each stage of Eteraz's life, he takes on a different identity to signal his evolution. From being pledged to Islam in Mecca as an infant, through Salafi fundamentalism, to liberal reformer, Eteraz desperately struggles to come to terms with being a Pakistani and a Muslim. 

Astonishingly honest, darkly comic, and beautifully told, *Children of Dust *is an extraordinary adventure that reveals the diversity of Islamic beliefs, the vastness of the Pakistani diaspora, and the very human search for home.


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Missionary work in Africa was the most difficult and faith-affirming labor James Graham had ever faced, and warm, homey presents from a Good Samaritan back home gave him hope to carry on. But an injury halted his work and sent him home to Chicago. There, James met Rachel Ashcroft, who'd sent those thoughtful gifts, and he was intrigued by the sadness that shadowed her features. Bringing the light back into Rachel's face gave him new purpose, but was this respite only temporary? Or could James release his past and open his heart to receive Rachel's gift of love?


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Elizabeth Berg has published fiction and nonfiction and has been nominated for a National Magazine Award. She lives in Massachusetts. "From the Hardcover edition."


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Underwater investigator Hannah Sampson and her partner are suiting up for underwater training in the British Virgin Islands when a plane nosedives into the water and disappears.They save eight people-and lose four. Hannah plunges into an investigation to see if one of the passengers was a target and who would be desperate enough to kill all those people.And as she copes with a nine-year-old survivor, a shady suspect, a shaky relationship-and an approaching hurricane-Hannah begins to feel she might have gotten in too deep.


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Jennifer Shane is stunned when she's named Businessperson of the Year, but she's even more shocked when, at the presentation ceremony. Chamber of Commerce President Eliza Glade, over-dressed, over-made-up, and over-the-top, is killed. Jen and her sister Sara Lynn were among her worst enemies, so they'll have to bend over backwards to clear their names. And an easy resolution is not in the cards.


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When a competing candlemaker comes to town, Harrison Black tries his best to get along, but when the woman threatens to run him out of town at the Founder's Day celebration, Harrison argues with her.  A few minutes later she is murdered, and someone in the crowd points her finger at Harrison as the killer!


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Harrison Black is kayaking on the Gunpowder River in front of River's Edge when he thinks he hits a submerged log.  As he looks closer into the water though, he discovers that it's a body.  Horrified, Harrison tries to bring it to shore, only to realize that it is his ex girlfriend!  Harrison dives into the case, and tries to find out how Becka really died.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Custom Card Creations was Jennifer Shane's chance to break away from her big sister's scrapbooking business. But it hasn't been all glitter and tinsel. Customers are scarce, Jennifer isn't speaking to her sister, and - after finally landing a client - she hears a murder over the phone. When Jennifer receives a threatening note - in large block letters - it's clear someone has designs on her life. But why?


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An alien race known as the Kéthani come to Earth bearing a dubious but amazing gift: immortality. Each chapter is an episode that deals with human emotions in the face of the vast consequences of the alien arrival, and how the lives of a group of friends are changed.


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When Miss Hazelstone Of Jacaranda Park Kills Her Zulu Cook In A Sensational Crime Passionel, The Gallant Members Of The South African Police Force Are Soon On The Scene: Kommandant Van Heerden, Whose Secret Longing For The Heart Of An English Gentleman Leads To The Most Memorable Transplant Operation Yet Recorded; Luitenant Verkramp Of The Security Branch, Ever Active In The Pursuit Of Communist Cells; Konstabel Els, With His Propensity For Shooting First And Not Thinking Later - And Also For Forcing Himself Upon African Women In A Manner Legally Reserved For Male Members Of Their Own Race. In The Course Of The Strange Events Which Follow, We Encounter Some Very Esoteric Perversions When The Kommandant Is Held Captive In Miss Hazelstone'S Remarkable Rubber Room; And Some Even More Amazing Perversions Of Justice When Miss Hazelstone'S Brother, The Bishop Of Barotseland, Is Sentenced To Be Hanged On The Ancient Gallows In The Local Prison. Not A 'Political' Novel In Any Previously Imagined Sense, Riotous Assembly Provides A Completely Fresh Approach To The South African Scene - An Approach At Once Startling In Its Deadpan Savagery And Outrageously Funny.


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First meet young Lockhart Flawse from Flawse Hall on Flawse Fell. Then hear his story of gassing, whipping, blowing up, killing and stuffing - in fact, the everyday tale of a wild child of nature plunged into the genteel mock-Tudor world of surburban Surrey.


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Peregrine Roderick Clyde-Brown, a bumbling British public schoolboy, has a penchant for taking the most innocent commands literally. His adventures whisk him to a French castle, where he commits murder and mayhem. British humor is rarely captured as effectively as this. Fry accomplishes an incredible range of accents and distinctions of age, occupation and sex. If hearing an imitation of a man with a missing lower denture tickles you, then Vintage Stuff is right up your alley.    

"When Tom Sharpe turns his attention to a very minor public school…the result is predictably savage. Hoaxes, chases, car crashes, shootings, and general mayhem. Wicked, riotous humour.”
—Daily Telegraph


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Henry Wilt, tied to a daft job and a domineering wife, has just been passed over for promotion yet again. Ahead of him at the Polytechnic stretch years of trying to thump literature into the heads of plasterers, joiners, butchers and the like. And things are no better at home where his massive wife, Eva, is given to boundless and unpredictable fits of enthusiasm -for transcendental meditation, yoga or the trampoline. But if Wilt can do nothing about his job, he can do something about his wife, in imagination at least, and his fantasies grow daily more murderous and more concrete.
After a peculiarly nasty experience at a party thrown by particularly nasty Americans, Wilt finds himself in several embarrassing positions: Eva stalks out in stratospheric dudgeon, and Wilt, under the inspiration of gin, puts one of his more vindictive fantasies into effect. But suspicions are instantly aroused and Wilt rapidly achieves an unenviable notoriety in the role of The Man Helping Police With Their Enquiries. Or is he exactly helping? Wilt's problem -although he's on the other side of the fence -is the same as Inspector Flint's: where is Eva Wilt? But Wilt begins to flourish in the heat of the investigation, and as the police stoke the flames of circumstantial evidence, Wilt deploys all his powers to show that the Law can't tell a Missing Person from a hole in the ground.


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In this, the second of Tom Sharpe's chronicles about Henry Wilt, our hero is no longer the victim of his own uncontrolled fantasies. As Head of a reconstituted Liberal Studies Department he has assumed power without authority at the Fenland College of Arts & Technology and the fantasies he now confronts are those of political bigots and reactionary bureaucrats- in addition to his wife's enthusiasm for every Organic Alternative under the compost heap and the insistence of his quadruplets on looking at every problem with an unflinching lack of sentimentality. Wilt's problems are compounded by nature in the shape of a rose bush, nostalgia, temporary infatuation with a foreign student and the hostility of medical services unwilling to attend to his most urgent needs. But it is only when Wilt becomes the unintentional participant in a terrorist siege that he is forced to find an answer to the problems of power, which have corrupted greater men than he. With a mental ingenuity born of his innate cowardice, Wilt fights for those liberal values which are threatened both by international terrorism and by the sophisticated methods of police anti- terrorist agents. In the confusion that follows, Wilt resumes his dialogue with the unflagging Inspector Flint and is himself subjected to the indignity of a psycho- political profile. Bitingly funny and brilliantly written, THE WILT ALTERNATIVE exposes the farcical anomalies, which have become the social norms of our time.


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In Tom Sharpe's fourth uproarious Wilt novel, the indefatigable Henry Wilt embarks on the voyage of a lifetime a cross-country trip through England, without map or compass, carrying little more than a backpack and the boots on his feet. A week later sees him drunk and unconscious in the back of an arsonist's pickup truck. His trip goes even further downhill from there until he revives in the hospital, unable to figure out how he could possibly stand accused of arson, assassination and robbery. Meanwhile, Eva has taken the quads to visit Uncle Wally and Aunt Joan in Tennessee. With the four girls leaving their customary trail of insanity and destruction wherever they go, not to mention a mob of embittered drug enforcement agents, Eva's journey has also spiralled out of control. Bitingly funny,Wilt in Nowherepits Wilt against the intricacies of police persecution and the underbelly of Britain's medical facilities, brilliantly exposing the farcical realities of small-town England and America.


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Wilt is still teaching at the Fenland Tech, attempting to drill English into plasterers, dozing through tedious committee meetings and occasionally getting mildly plastered in 'The Pig in a Poke' with one of his few bearable colleagues. But the even tenor of his days is rudely interrupted when the shadow of drug dealing flickers across the Tech. Suddenly Wilt becomes the target of suspicion. His colleagues believe him to be responsible for triggering a departmental inquiry, and his old adversary Inspector Flint, knowing that he's guilty of something, sees a chance to settle a number of scores. What his wife thinks is... well, what all wives think. But what none of them have reckoned with is Wilt's talent for making new enemies. What starts with an accusation of voyeurism in the staff lavatory (of the wrong gender to boot) leads, more or less directly, to a massive confrontation at a nearby US airbase with the forces of law and order on both sides and Wilt in his usual place- in the middle.


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The landscape is flawless, the trees majestic, the flora and the fauna are right and proper, the whole is picturesquely typical of rural England at its best. Sir Giles, an MP of few principles and curious tastes, plots to destroy all this by building a motorway smack through it, to line his own pocket and at the same time to dispose of his wife, the capacious Lady Maude. Sir Giles recruits to his side Hoskins, a corrupt local official, Lord Leakham, the environmental equivalent of a hanging judge, and Dundridge, a troublesome bureaucrat with an unhealthy passion for order. Against this powerful lobby are ranged a mere handful of local residents led by Lady Maude. Hardly at first sight a team to withstand the batteries of official inertia, Compulsory Purchase Orders and bulldozer blades. But Lady Maude enlists a surprising ally in her enigmatic gardener Blott, the Dresden born, ex-Italian naturalised Englishman, in whom adopted patriotism burns bright. Lady Maude's dynamism and Blott's concealed talents enable them to meet pressure with mimicry, loaded tribunals with publicity and chilli powder, requisition orders with wickedly spiked beer. To every official ploy Blott and Lady Maude oppose their own ingenious and unprincipled countermove until in a spectacular finale Blott, with four hundred tins of baked beans among his armoury, takes on the army single-handed. This explosively comic novel will gladden the heart of everyone who has ever confronted a bureaucrat, and spells out in riotous detail how the forces of virtue play an exceedingly dirty game when the issue is close to home.


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This sequel to Tom Sharpe's classic comic novel Porterhouse Blue takes the reader back to the hilarious goings- on at Porterhouse College.     Though as cunning as ever, the formidable Skullion- previously head porter, now elevated to Master- is showing signs of physical frailty after his stroke. So the tricky business of appointing a new Master must start all over again. Meanwhile the College's monstrous debts refuse to go away, and a sinister American media mogul seems determined to make a television documentary on the premises, destroying part of the chapel in the process. Moreover, the widow of the previous Master is convinced that her husband was murdered, so she plants an agent in the Senior Common Room to dig up an unpleasant truth that everyone else would prefer kept under the carpet. Faced with such continuing crises, the instinct of the true Porterhouse man is to reach for the bottle- or to fall back on the subtle and traditional Cambridge skills of blackmail and kidnap. But will those be enough?


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SUMMARY:
A Totally Filthy Novel To Put The Literary World In Spasms - But Sure To Make A Shameful Pile Of Money In America. Frensic, A Literary Agent With A 'Nose For A Bestseller' (As Well As Port And Snuff), Places This Hot Property With Hutchmeyer - Who Is The Least Respected Publisher In The World. And A Gullible Author Is Despatched Across The Atlantic For A Chaotic Publicity Tour.


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Tom Sharpe's second South African novel and a brilliant follow- up to Riotous Assembly  Once again the setting is Piemburgem, the deceptively peaceful- looking capital of Zululand, where Kommandant van Heerden, Konstabel Els and Luitenant Vekramp continue to terrorise true Englishman and even truer Zulus in their relentless search for a perfect South Africa. While that great Anglophile, Kommandant van Heerden, gropes his way towards attaining true 'Englishness' in the company of the eccentric Dornford Yates Club, Luitenant Verkramp, whose hatred of all things English is surpassed only by his fear of sex, sets in motion an experiment in mass chastity, with the help of the redoubtable lady psychiatrist Dr von Blimenstein, which has remarkable and quite unforeseen results. The Kommandant, hunting the fox in the Aardvark mountains, succumbs to the bizarre charms of Mrs Heathcote- Kilkoon, as Luitenant Verkramp's essays in counter- espionage backfire in the bird sanctuary. Once more, Konstabel Els, homicidal to the last, saves the day- or what's left of it- in one of the most savage hunts ever chronicled in fiction.


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Timothy Brights doesn't exactly live up to his name. Brought up to regard copious flows of money as his birthright, he can't understand why the funds have been cut off, nor why friends he recruited as Lloyds' Names no longer want to talk to him. When gambling fails, Timothy turns to embezzlement, but it's the lesser offence of helping himself to some strangely aromatic tobacco that propels him up the motorway and into bed with the Chief Constable's wife. The Chief Constable has just survived charges of bribery and perjury and is not too concerned that his efforts to dispose of Timothy involve false imprisonment, breaking and entering, and a spot of GBH. It is only when the Chief tries to frame his old adversary, the upright Miss Midden, hat things begin to go seriously wrong as his underhand ploy opens up the way to spectacular mayhem.


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A Rabelaisian portrait of a college and the ancient traditions of the university, Porterhouse Blue is one of the best-loved, classic comic novels of our times       Porterhouse College is world renowned for its gastronomic excellence, the arrogance of its Fellows, its academic mediocrity and the social cachet it confers on the athletic sons of county families. Sir Godber Evans, ex-Cabinet Minister and the new Master, is determined to change all this. Spurred on by his politically angular wife, Lady Mary, he challenges the established order and provokes the wrath of the Dean, the Senior Tutor, the Bursar and, most intransigent of all, Skullion the Head Porter -with hilarious and catastrophic results.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Each of us will know physical pain in our lives, but none of us knows when it will come or how long it will stay. Today as much as 10 percent of the population of the United States suffers from chronic pain. It is more widespread, misdiagnosed, and undertreated than any major disease. While recent research has shown that pain produces pathological changes to the brain and spinal cord, many doctors and patients still labor under misguided cultural notions and outdated scientific dogmas that prevent proper treatment, to devastating effect.



In *The Pain Chronicles*, a singular and deeply humane work, Melanie Thernstrom traces conceptions of pain throughout the ages—from ancient Babylonian pain-banishing spells to modern brain imaging—to reveal the elusive, mysterious nature of pain itself. Interweaving first-person reflections on her own battle with chronic pain, incisive reportage from leading-edge pain clinics and medical research, and insights from a wide range of disciplines—science, history, religion, philosophy, anthropology, literature, and art—Thernstrom shows that when dealing with pain we are neither as advanced as we imagine nor as helpless as we may fear.



Both a personal meditation and an intellectual exploration, *The Pain Chronicles *illuminates and makes sense of the all-too-human experience of pain—and confronts with extraordinary grace and empathy its peculiar traits, its harrowing effects, and its various antidotes.


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World-class entertainer and Sazi councilman, Antoine Monier, has taken his big cats all over the world without any trouble—until his latest trip to Stuttgart, where one of his tigers is stolen and killed. to Antoine’s surprise, the German police have another tiger in custody—a tiger who is actually a lovely Turkish American woman, Tahira Kuric.

Like Antoine, Tahira is a shapeshifter, but of the Hayalet Kabile, the ghost tribe of shapeshifters. And despite their immediate attraction, Tahira wants nothing to do with Antoine—the Sazi are the enemy of the Hayalet Kabile.

But Tahira doesn’t have a choice, because she and Antoine have discovered that she is a fabled "power well," able to store magical energy from other shapeshifters—and something is hunting her, eager to use her powers for itself.

Only if they can set aside their peoples’ ancient rivalry and rely completely on each other—body and soul—can Tahira and Antoine save themselves and their people.


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He's Baaaaaack.

Hired killer Tony Giodone is back in action -- this time, believe it or not, working for the 'good guys.' Or should that be the 'not quite as bad guys?' He isn't sure. One thing is for certain, serving as a newly minted member of Wolven, the Sazi law enforcement agency, certainly does keep a guy busy. AND he gets to do what he does best. Kill things. Of course, Carmine doesn't plan to let Tony off the hook, particularly when he's attacked and nearly killed by the boys from the east coast.

Paired up with Ahmad al Narmer Tony's in danger up to his baby blues, which wouldn't bother him a bit, if his wife, Sue wasn't bound and determined to be a part of the action.


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He’s a Wolf...She’s a Jaguar...

Raphael is a former agent of the shapeshifter secret police, forced into retirement after a very public scandal. Now he’s assigned to help the victim of a hideous crime—a woman who has been attacked by a serial killer and accidentally turned into a were-jaguar.

Worse yet, Catherine turns out to be Raphael’s fated mate. But the serial killer is still on her trail, and perhaps even worse, Raphael’s pack wants her dead.

Caught between destiny and duty...

Raphael must make his choice—and in doing so, risk losing his pack—in this tale of obsession, revenge, lust, pack politics and true love.


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Even an assassin can be surprised...

Tony Giodone grew up in a world of predators and prey. He was one of the mafia’s top enforcers and is now a respected freelancer. He thought nothing could shock him more than a real-life werewolf ripping out his throat and leaving him for dead. Until he became one of them. Now, a new client has asked him to undertake an unusual assignment; one that makes even him sit up and take notice. The client wants him to kill her! Can Tony avoid falling in love with the woman he is scheduled to murder, or will his feelings for the one woman that can accept the beast he’s become make him more likely to end her life?


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Cara Salinas, the new Sheriff of Tedford County, Texas, has led her small pack of Mexican red wolves since she was thirteen.

Adam Mueller, a beat cop from Minneapolis, violated the Sazi’s single greatest rule—he allowed humans to see their kind, and must now lead his exiled timber wolves to start a new life with Cara’s pack.

Cara and Adam harbor secrets that could either make them fated mates or deadly enemies. Yet they must find a way to cooperate when a flock of vicious Sazi raptors begin feeding on humans. Can they embrace their future together to save the town, or will they begin a war that could destroy them all?

Hailed as “premiere authors of paranormal romance” and “true genre luminaries” by Romantic Times BOOKreviews and winner of the 2005 Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Werewolf Romance for Moon’s Web, C. T. Adams and Cathy Clamp are back with another tale of shapeshifters, passion and politics in Moon’s Fury.


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Tony Giodone made his living as an assassin—until one of his marks ripped his throat out and turned him into a werewolf. Now he’s the best hired killer there is.

When a curvy woman in an expensive suit tries to hire him to kill her, his wolf senses insist that she is his mate. One kidnapping, a plethora of gunfights, a psychic coma, and two faked deaths later, Tony and Sue have new identities and are hiding in a community of Sazi shapeshifters. All seems well, until Sue begins to pull away from Tony and he realizes that if he can’t be more open with her, he’s going to lose her. To add to his problems, Tony is getting flashes of other peoples’ lives—but he wants it to stop, because he’s learning things he shouldn’t.

What’s more dangerous than a psychic-powered werewolf assassin? Whatever it is, it’s kidnapping and killing female Sazi . . . after it sucks out their powers. Its latest captive is the girlfriend of Carmine, the Mafia don who used to be Tony’s boss. To get her back, Carmine will make war on all the Sazi—and while the Sazi would win, they can’t afford to be exposed to the humans. Now it’s up to Tony & Sue to save Carmine’s girlfriend— and possibly all of humanity!

They could really use the help of Bobby, the python member of the Sazi police force Wolven. But Bobby is a bit preoccupied. It seems that Chicago’s Indonesian pack enforcer, Asri Kho, a deadly Komodo Dragon on the full moon, makes his knees weak whenever she’s not trying to kill him.


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SUMMARY:
Eric Thompson's wolf howl can ruin electronics and send aircraft tumbling from the sky. Considered dangerous even by his fellow Sazi, Eric has become a lone wolf, living in self-imposed isolation. Yet when the very foundations of Sazi life come under attack, Eric knows he must defend his fellow shapeshifters at any cost. Attacked by a band of vicious Sazi, Holly Sanchez should have died. Instead, she survives, emerging as a powerful Sazi healer. Sent to return Eric to the Sazi world he rejected, Holly finds herself by his side as the lone wolf tracks the monster that is killing the Sazi. Holly soon realizes she must make a choicebetween a Sazi life with Eric, and life as a "normal" human being. But first, she must survive long enough to make that choiceand she must save her people, and the world, from evil.


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Josette Monier is one of the Sazi's most powerful seers. But even her foresight isn't infallible. She can be fooled, and has been: Fooled into thinking that Rick, her former husband is long dead. Fooled into thinking that her bitter enemy Ahmad al Narmer is behind all of the attempts on her life. But now Rick is back, and the two of them must find out who is behind the plot against all of the Sazi seers, and how it involves a drug reputed to keep Sazi from turning --- while dodging the assassins on their tails.


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KNOW YOUR ENEMIES

It's good advice—and Kate always thought she did. But everything has changed: there's a new force at the head of the Thrall collective. A force brilliant enough and ruthless enough to hide its sinister plan behind humanitarian work—building and funding halfway houses to ease the victims of drugs and the Thrall back into society.

And then Kate discovers that another part of the plan is rescinding the rules of fair play by which the Thrall have always dealt with humans. Kate is no longer Not Prey. Now she is just like everyone else: Prey.

Uncovering the plot is a start, but stopping it is another thing entirely. Kate must not only call on all of her own resources, but all of those that belong to her werewolf boyfriend Tom. But the Thrall collective has a brand new way of getting to Kate: a very personal series of attacks designed to tear her from Tom. Kate has to decide: save her relationship with Tom, or save the future from the Thrall?


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Kate Reilly has a hard time trusting people.

Six years ago, the love of her life turned her over to the vampire parasites who call themselves the Thrall. Katie survives the powerful bite of the master parasite only to discover that the Thrall's venom, coupled with her own natural psychic ability, has transformed her. Now she is next in line to be the Thrall Queen--and each day might be her last as a human.

Tom, a handsome firefighter, arouses all of Katie's dormant senses, but her heart shies away. After Dylan's betrayal, how can she trust any man—even a seemingly perfect and terribly sexy werewolf?

Tom's sincerity--and sex appeal--begins to wear down Katie's defenses. But his increasingly insistent charm hides a potentially deadly secret: his werewolf pack is hiding the one person who can stop the Thrall from completing Katie's transformation into Queen--and they won't give her up.


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Kate Reilly is having a bad month

She's on trial for murders she didn't commit. She's next on the list of a serial killer. The parasitic vampires known as the Thrall want her to investigate the murder of their young, and will use any means necessary to force her to bow to their demands.

And--possibly worst of all--her boyfriend Tom's werewolf pack is trying to break them up so Tom can mate with a werewolf to ensure the survival of his pack.

Now Kate must fight for Tom--and fight for her very survival in this brand new paranormal romance from the unbeatable, bestselling team of C. T. Adams and Cathy Clamp.


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From the only American journalist ever to have been admitted to the insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police press club: a unique, firsthand, revelatory look at Japanese culture from the underbelly up. At nineteen, Jake Adelstein went to Japan in search of peace and tranquility. What he got was a life of crime . . . crime reporting, that is, at the prestigious "Yomiuri Shinbun." For twelve years of eighty-hour workweeks, he covered the seedy side of Japan, where extortion, murder, human trafficking, and corruption are as familiar as ramen noodles and sake. But when his final scoop brought him face to face with Japan's most infamous "yakuza" boss--and the threat of death for him and his family--Adelstein decided to step down . . . momentarily. Then, he fought back. In "Tokyo Vice," Adelstein tells the riveting, often humorous tale of his journey from an inexperienced cub reporter--who made rookie mistakes like getting into a martial-arts battle with a senior editor--to a daring, investigative journalist with a price on his head. With its vivid, visceral descriptions of crime in Japan and an exploration of the world of modern-day "yakuza" that even few Japanese ever see, "Tokyo Vice" is a fascination, and an education, from first to last. "From the Hardcover edition."


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

The provocative follow-up to the *New York Times* bestseller *Predictably Irrational*   Why can large bonuses make CEOs less productive? How can confusing directions actually help us? Why is revenge so important to us? Why is there such a big difference between what we *think* will make us happy and what *really* makes us happy?   

 In his groundbreaking book *Predictably Irrational*, social scientist Dan Ariely revealed the multiple biases that lead us into making unwise decisions. Now, in *The Upside of Irrationality*, he exposes the surprising negative and positive effects irrationality can have on our lives. Focusing on our behaviors at work and in relationships, he offers new insights and eye-opening truths about what really motivates us on the job, how one unwise action can become a long-term habit, how we learn to love the ones we're with, and more.  

 Drawing on the same experimental methods that made *Predictably Irrational* one of the most talked-about bestsellers of the past few years, Ariely uses data from his own original and entertaining experiments to draw arresting conclusions about how—and why—we behave the way we do. From our office attitudes, to our romantic relationships, to our search for purpose in life, Ariely explains how to break through our negative patterns of thought and behavior to make better decisions. *The Upside of Irrationality* will change the way we see ourselves at work and at home—and cast our irrational behaviors in a more nuanced light.


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Forced to flee his city of Melnibone, Elric and his sorcerous blade Stormbringer journey through barren hills to the edge of a black sea. Elric finds a dark ship and begins a voyage that will bring him face-to-face with all the champions Time can summon--and more. Reissue.


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Moorcock is off at full throttle. Every scene has ironic meaning. A couple of minor stories, and we're into the lush, manic rush to Armageddon that is STORMBRINGER! Still the greatest plot on the planet, build and build until the final, cataclysmic - and said to be the best in all fantasy fiction - ending, which is completely stunning. Long before Pullman won the Whitbread Moorcock was offering this mad, bad and thoroughly humane fantasy to the world. He remains a giant.


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Elric of Melnibonè, proud prince of ruins, last lord of a dying race, wanders the lands of the Young Kingdoms in search of the evil sorcerer Theleb K'aarna. His object is revenge. But to achieve this, he must first brave such horrors as the Creatures of Chaos, the freezing wilderness of World's Edge, the golden-skinned Kelmain hordes, King Urish the Seven-fingered with his great cleaver Hackmeat, the Burning God, the Sighing Desert, and the terrible stone-age men of Pio. Although Elric holds within him a destiny greater than he could ever know, and controls the hellsword Stormbringer, stealer of souls, his task looks hopeless - until he encounters Myshella, Empress of the Dawn, the sleeping sorceress...


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In The Weird of the White Wolf, Elric returns to Imrryr after a long journey and confronts Yyrkoon, who usurped the throne in his absence. Yyrkoon has regained Mournblade through unknown means and uses it to attack. Elric and Stormbringer kill Yyrkoon, and no further mention is made of Mournblade until it is later disclosed that it was recovered by the Seers of Nihrain, to be wielded by Elric's cousin, Dyvim Slorm. Imrryr is sacked, though the pillagers' fate is not much better, being pursued by the golden battle barges and the few dragons who were awakened, led by Dyvim Tvar. Only Elric's ship escapes, propelled by the aid of his sorcery.


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After much wandering and seeking Elric finally discovers the location of the sorcerer who had earlier inconvenienced him. A meeting of old friends and scattered brothers evolves into a union of vengeance. A demon sent hoping to devour an albino is thwarted, but it's master's aim's are met with Elric's capture. A bargain made with a well intentioned merchant wins Elric his freedom, but only half of him is allowed to escape. Elric restored with his symbiotic blade calls upon unholy aide to finally vanquish his meddlesome sorceress enemy. The final assault brings a grievous death as the dragon caves will no longer have a master. A promise broken and an unwanted soul taken by Elric's hungry companion. Another hollow victory causes Elric much discomfort.


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Elric of Melniboné is a requisite title in the hard fantasy canon, a book no fantasy fan should leave unread. Author Michael Moorcock, already a major player in science fiction, cemented his position in the fantasy pantheon with the five-book Elric saga, of which Elric of Melniboné is the first installment. The book's namesake, the brooding albino emperor of the dying nation of Melniboné, is a sort of Superman for Goths, truly an archetype of the genre. The youthful Elric is a cynical and melancholy king, heir to a nation whose 100,000-year rule of the world ended less than 500 years hence. More interested in brooding contemplation than holding the throne, Elric is a reluctant ruler, but he also realizes that no other worthy successor exists and the survival of his once-powerful, decadent nation depends on him alone. Elric's nefarious, brutish cousin Yrkoon has no patience for his physically weak kinsman, and he plots constantly to seize Elric's throne, usually over his dead body. Elric of Melniboné follows Yrkoon's scheming, reaching its climax in a battle between Elric and Yrkoon with the demonic runeblades Stormbringer and Mournblade. In this battle, Elric gains control of the soul-stealing Stormbringer, an event that proves pivotal to the Elric saga. --Paul Hughes


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Rasa joins Aman's two other wives, Amollia and Aster, and travels to Sindupore in order to save Aman from the djinn who has changed him into a donkey


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In this extraordinary new book, Emeril Lagasse continues his lifelong commitment to using fresh, local ingredients in his restaurants and home kitchen. He has spent the past thirty years building close relationships with farmers, fishermen, and ranchers. "Farm to Fork" is his guide to help you explore the great local bounty through fifteen flavorful chapters--sweet summer in "The Three Sisters: Corn, Beans, and Squash," juicy "Berries, Figs, and Melons," sublime naturally raised meats in "Out on the Range," fresh catch in "Fresh Off the Dock," and home canning tips from "Home Economics: Preserving the Harvest."  Fill your basket with the ripest ingredients from every season at the markets (or your backyard garden) and dig into delicious recipes such as Sweet Potato Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter, Cheesy Creole Tomato Pie, Honey-Brined Pork Chops with Nectarine Chutney, Watermelon Rind Crisp Sweet Pickles, and Rhubarb Strawberry Crisp. Even learn how to make your own cheese and pasta at home. Emeril shares his love for fresh from-the-fields foods--and the heritage of the artisans who bring them to the table.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

The city of Isca is set like a dark jewel in the crown of the Duchy of Stonehold. In this sprawling landscape, the monsters one sees are nothing compared to what’s living in the city’s sewers.

Twenty-three-year-old Caliph Howl is Stonehold’s reluctant High King. Thrust onto the throne, Caliph has inherited Stonehold’s dirtiest court secrets. He also faces a brewing civil war that he is unprepared to fight. After months alone amid a swirl of gossip and political machinations, the sudden reappearance of his old lover, Sena, is a welcome bit of relief. But Sena has her own legacy to claim: she has been trained from birth by the Shradnae witchocracyadept in espionage and the art of magical equations writ in bloodand she has been sent to spy on the High King.

Yet there are magics that demand a higher price than blood. Sena secretly plots to unlock the *Cisrym Ta*, an arcane text whose pages contain the power to destroy worlds. The key to opening the book lies in Caliph’s veins, forcing Sena to decide if her obsession for power is greater than her love for Caliph. 

Meanwhile, a fleet of airships creeps ever closer to Isca. As the final battle in a devastating civil war looms and the last page of the *Cisrym Ta* waits to be read, Caliph and Sena must face the deadly consequences of their decisions. And the blood of these conflicts will stain this and other worlds forever.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**From the critically acclaimed, award-nominated author comes a new noir crime classic about one of the most notorious trials in American history.**



 Critics called Ace Atkins’s *Wicked City* “gripping, superb” (*Library Journal*), “stunning” (*The Tampa Tribune*), “terrific” (Associated Press), “riveting” (*Kirkus Reviews*), “wicked good” (*Fort Worth Star-Telegram*), and “Atkins’ best novel” (*The Washington Post*). But *Devil’s Garden* is something else again.



 San Francisco, September 1921: Silent-screen comedy star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle is throwing a wild party in his suite at the St. Francis Hotel: girls, jazz, bootleg hooch . . . and a dead actress named Virginia Rappe. The D.A. says it was Arbuckle who killed her—crushing her under his weight—and brings him up on manslaughter charges. William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers stir up the public and demand a guilty verdict. But what really happened? Why do so many people at the party seem to have stories that conflict? Why is the prosecution hiding witnesses? Why are there body parts missing from the autopsied corpse? Why is Hearst so determined to see Fatty Arbuckle convicted?



 In desperation, Arbuckle’s defense team hires a Pinkerton agent to do an investigation of his own and, they hope, discover the truth. The agent’s name is Dashiell Hammett, and he’s the book’s narrator. What he discovers will change American legal history—and his own life—forever.



 “The historical accuracy isn’t what elevates Atkins’ prose to greatness,” said *The Tampa Tribune*. “It’s his ability to let these characters breathe in a way that few authors could ever imagine. He doesn’t so much write them as unleash them upon the page.” You will not soon forget the extraordinary characters and events in *Devil’s Garden*.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

** From "one of the best crime writers at work today" (Michael Connelly) comes a fast,f unny, violent new noir crime classic-a Coen Brothers movie come to life. **



 He has been compared to Lehane, Ellroy, and Pelecanos, but Ace Atkins's rich, raucous, passionate blend of historical novel and crime story is all his own and never more so than in *Infamous*. 



 In July 1933, the gangster known as George "Machine Gun" Kelly staged the kidnapping-for-ransom of an Oklahoma oil­man. He would live to regret it. Kelly was never the sharpest knife in the drawer, and what started clean soon became messy, as two of his partners cut themselves into the action; a determined former Texas Ranger makes tracking Kelly his mission; and Kelly's wife, ever alert to her own self-interest, starts playing both ends against the middle. 



 The result is a mesmerizing tale set in the first days of the modern FBI, featuring one of the best femmes fatales in history-the Lady Macbeth of Depression-era crime-a great unexpected hero, and some of the most colorful supporting characters in recent crime fiction.
EDITORIAL REVIEW:

** From "one of the best crime writers at work today" (Michael Connelly) comes a fast,f unny, violent new noir crime classic-a Coen Brothers movie come to life. **



 He has been compared to Lehane, Ellroy, and Pelecanos, but Ace Atkins's rich, raucous, passionate blend of historical novel and crime story is all his own and never more so than in *Infamous*. 



 In July 1933, the gangster known as George "Machine Gun" Kelly staged the kidnapping-for-ransom of an Oklahoma oil­man. He would live to regret it. Kelly was never the sharpest knife in the drawer, and what started clean soon became messy, as two of his partners cut themselves into the action; a determined former Texas Ranger makes tracking Kelly his mission; and Kelly's wife, ever alert to her own self-interest, starts playing both ends against the middle. 



 The result is a mesmerizing tale set in the first days of the modern FBI, featuring one of the best femmes fatales in history-the Lady Macbeth of Depression-era crime-a great unexpected hero, and some of the most colorful supporting characters in recent crime fiction.


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It should have been a case like any other: a missing princess, a king willing to pay in gold for her return. But before he realizes it, private investigator Eddie LaCrosse, a slightly shopworn sword jockey with a talent for discretion and detection, is swept up in a web of mystery and deceit involving a brutally murdered royal heir, a queen accused of an unspeakable crime and the tragic past he thought he'd left behind.First in a series of hard-boiled fantasy detective novels, in the vein of Glen Cook's Garrett series.


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Nick Morrelli is the Platte City, Nebraska, sheriff who must be smarter than he appears, since there's a framed Harvard law degree hanging on his wall. Not that appearances don't count. The reader is treated to a number of descriptions of his sexy, lady-killer looks and his charismatic effect on even the most hard-bitten woman character in this somewhat muddled, serial-killer thriller. Nick is investigating the kidnap-murders of two young Platte City boys when FBI profiler Maggie O'Dell shows up and all but takes over the investigation. Several years earlier, the former sheriff--Nick's father--capped his own career with the arrest of the last serial killer in the neighborhood, who abducted and tortured three boys in an eerily similar crime spree. When Antonio Morrelli returns from retirement to meddle in the investigation, and when Nick's own sister uses her connections to advance his career, Nick hardly raises an objection. And that's the central weakness of what would otherwise be a good, first effort. --Jane Adams


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Mindy is being stalked by someone with a vendetta against one of her older brothers and promises to kidnap her to 'make him pay'. After discovering that he is a military man, she's convinced that things like this are the reason she is hell bent against marrying military, even if it is five generations strong in her family.

But the military policeman assigned to her case is smoking hot and hard to ignore. Shane Newhope promises to keep her safe, is it so bad that he sends tingles down her spine in the process?

Only if you've told your brothers that you want nothing to do with the military, and they're convinced that a military man is just what you need.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**They dubbed him the Collector -- so named for his  ritual of collecting victims before disposing of them in the most  heinous ways possible.    

FBI Special Agent Maggie O'Dell spent two years tracking him down,  caught in a game of cat and mouse that left her forever marked by this  killer.    

Now Albert Stucky has escaped from prison. And he is setting up a new  game to draw Maggie back into the chase.**    

Some say Maggie O'Dell has lost it -- lost the professional edge that  makes her one of the best criminal profilers, and lost her ability to  think clearly.  Since capturing Stucky she's been walking a tightwire,  battling nightmares and the guilt over the victims she couldn't  save. Now with news of his escape, she's been taken out of the field  until he's caught again. But Magge knows the truth: only she can see  into the twisted mind of this madman. Only she can catch him. Albert  Stucky wouldn't have it any other way.    

When it becomes undeniable that Stucky's trail of victims is leading  closer and closer to Maggie, the Bureau puts her back on the  case. Under the supervision of Special Agent R.J. Tully, Maggie joins  the hunt for a pyschopath who continues to stay one bloody step ahead  of them. And, once again under the control of a cunning killer, Maggie  finds herself pushed to the very edge.    

What ultimately, is Maggie O'Dell capable of? Has her desire to stop  Albert Stucky -- to make him look into her eyes before she ends the  game once and for all -- become a matter of personal vengeance? Has  she crossed that line in her need to make him suffer as he's made  others suffer? And is this Stucky's game -- to turn Special Agent  O'Dell into a monster?    

As *Split Second* races toward its inevitable climax, Alex Kava paints a chilling, unflinching portrait of the human psyche pushed past its limits. A runaway train of riveting suspense and heart-pounding drama, *Split Second* is a provocative, bold look at the nature of good and evil in all of us.


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In a secluded cabin in rural Massachusetts, six young men stage a deadly standoff with FBI and ATF agents. When dust from the flying bullets finally settles, three agents are wounded, one fatally, and five suspects are dead. In a wooded area near the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., the body of a senator's daughter is discovered. Dead by strangulation, the young woman is left artfully posed, her clothes folded neatly beside her. For FBI Special Agent Maggie O'Dell, there is nothing routine about being called in to work these two cases. As an expert criminal profiler, Maggie provides psychological insight on cases that involve suspected serial killers. She can't understand, then, why her boss, Assistant Director Cunningham, has assigned her to these two seemingly unrelated crimes. But as Maggie and her partner, Special Agent R.J. Tully, delve deeper into the two cases, they learn that there is a connection between the crimes: Reverend Joseph Everett. The charismatic leader of a high-profile religious sect, Everett has cultivated a devoted following that is growing in numbers daily. The young men holed up in the cabin were members of Everett's church, and the murder of the young woman took place following a religious rally Everett held in the capital. The key to unraveling the significance of these two crimes is Everett himself. But he is untouchable, living on a heavily guarded compound the police are unable to penetrate. Maggie realizes, however, that she may have found a way to get to Everett: by using her own mother, a member of his church. Is Everett a psychotic madman who uses his position of power to perform heinous crimes? Or is he merely a scapegoat for a killer more cunning, more disciplined than he? Maggie realizes too late that there is more going on here than the FBI ever imagined . . . and her own mother may be about to pay the price.


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In the tomblike silence of an abandoned rock quarry someone is trying to hide their dirty little secret. A secret that reveals the depths of human depravity. A secret that is about to be discovered. FBI Special Agent Maggie O'Dell is just starting a hard-earned vacation when she gets a call from her friend, psychologist Dr. Gwen Patterson. One of Gwen's patients is missing on a trip to Connecticut. Can Maggie look into Joan Begley's disappearance? At first Maggie dismisses Gwen's concern. But when the body of a woman is discovered buried in an abandoned rock quarry in Connecticut, Maggie heads to the small town on "unofficial" business to see if there's a connection to Joan Begley. Soon the shocking news surfaces that more bodies have been discovered. And before she realizes it, Maggie is drawn into a case that confounds both local law enforcement and a seasoned criminal profiler like herself. The question remains: Where is Joan Begley? Is she in fact the woman discovered buried in the quarry? Or is she the unwilling guest of a killer obsessed with possessing an unimaginable prize from his victims?


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**Someone is killing Catholic priests across America -- ritualized murders that speak of vengeance and hatred.**    

As the killing spree continues unabated, it quickly becomes very clear to Maggie O'Dell -- the FBI profiler assigned to the case -- that more than one perpetrator is responsible. As she begins to drill down into the facts, Maggie discovers a disturbing Internet role-playing game for youths who have been victims of male authority figures -- including Catholic priests.    

With the first real lead in the investigation, Maggie wonders if this group has turned cyberspace justice into reality by dispensing their own brand of vengeance. As the ritualistic killings leave America's heartland reeling, Maggie gets a second lead -- one that leaves her stunned.    

For the past four years she has been driven by blind determination to find Father Michael Keller, the human monster whose acts of brutality continue to haunt her to this day. Sick and twisted, the priest seems to have vanished without a trace. But with an irony that only life can offer, now *he* has become a target.    

When Keller offers to help Maggie solve the crimes in exchange for protection, she has no choice but to ally herself with the elusive child killer -- the person she despises with a conviction that's almost religious in its fervor. Maggie must cross a dangerous line into a world of malevolence and evil from which she may not return unscathed.    

Maggie knows the bargain is a necessary evil . . . one that may be made in blood . . .


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Veteran FBI profiler Maggie O'Dell and Assistant Director Cunningham believed the threat targeted Quantico. It targeted them.A deadly virus—virtually undetectable until it causes death from a million internal cuts. The victims appear random, but Maggie wonders if vengeance isn't the guiding hand.An aficionado of contemporary killers, using bits and pieces from their crimes—the Beltway Sniper's phrases, the Unabomber's clues, the Anthrax Killer's delivery.Maggie knows dangerous minds, but she must tackle this new opponent from within a biosafety isolation ward—while waiting to see if death is already multiplying inside her body. She just fears her last case might end with the most intelligent killer she's ever faced escalating from murder…to epidemic.


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On the busiest shopping day of the year, some idealistic college students believe they’re about to carry out an elaborate media stunt at the largest mall in America. They think the jamming devices in their backpacks will disrupt stores’ computer systems, causing delays and chaos. What they don’t realize is that instead of jamming devices, their backpacks are stuffed with explosives, ready to be detonated by remote control and turning them into suicide bombers.Caught up in a political nightmare, battling a new interim director and still mourning the death of her boss A. D. Cunningham, FBI profiler Maggie O’Dell must put her own troubles aside and fly to Minnesota to help figure out what’s behind this terrorist attack — a massacre that is all the more frightening because no group has claimed responsibility.The search becomes personal when a tip reveals that one of the college students involved is Patrick, Maggie’s brother. Afraid and on the run, Patrick must decide if he can finally trust Maggie enough to help her unravel this horrifying nightmare.Sifting through the debris for answers, Maggie is joined by Nick Morrelli, who has recently taken a job with a national security company that oversees security for the mall. Although Maggie and Nick have investigated several cases together in the past, they’ve never investigated a relationship with each other. Nick would like to change that.When an informant confides in Maggie that there are other attacks on the secret agenda, she knows that she’s running out of time. In less than twenty-four hours she’ll need to figure out exactly when and where the second attack will take place, who to look for and how to keep her brother from becoming one of the casualties.


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One by one they go missing. And in the lake a voice cries out: "Save them. . . ." 

In the darkness, in a lake in the middle of a prosperous college town, Rachel Matre feels the water caressing her bare skin, teasing her senses, drawing her body into a lush erotic embrace. 

For twenty years she has communed with the lake spirits this way-and told no one. 

The price is simple: She must help those in need. But now a series of young women have gone missing. 

The police don't have any bodies, or even a single suspect. 

Only the spirits seem to sense the truth. Through them, Rachel finds herself drawn into a madman's web. 

She alone can save the missing women. But who can save her?


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This first novel in Alexander McCall Smith’s widely acclaimed The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series tells the story of the delightfully cunning and enormously engaging Precious Ramotswe, who is drawn to her profession to “help people with problems in their lives.” Immediately upon setting up shop in a small storefront in Gaborone, she is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, and follow a wayward daughter. But the case that tugs at her heart, and lands her in danger, is a missing eleven-year-old boy, who may have been snatched by witchdoctors.The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency received two Booker Judges’ Special Recommendations and was voted one of the International Books of the Year and the Millennium by the Times Literary Supplement.From the Trade Paperback edition.


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SUMMARY: The modern obsession with celebrity began with the Bright Young People, a voraciously pleasure-seeking band of bohemian party-givers and blue-blooded socialites who romped through the gossip columns of 1920s London. Drawing on the virtuosic and often wrenching writings of the Bright Young People themselves, the biographer and novelist D. J. Taylor has produced an enthralling account of an age of fleeting brilliance. "The laziest way to put someone down is to call him or her an egomaniac. It's what we say when we loathe someone but can't think of anything more precise. That label was often and too easily applied, in London in the late 1920s and early '30s, to members of the so-called Bright Young People: a small, carefully circumscribed circle of elite 20-somethings who seemed to glide, as D. J. Taylor puts it in his nimble new book, on 'a compound of cocktails, jazz, license, abandon and flagrantly improper behavior.' The Bright Young People were the most glamorous, influential, self-absorbed, quasi-bohemian and overeducated creatures in existence. During their flickering moment they were adored and despised in almost equal measure. Good parties are enemy-making machines--You weren't asked? Surely your invitation was lost in the mail--and no one orchestrated them like the Bright Young ones. Nearly every event was an eye-popping spectacle, fully played out in the era's gossip columns. In his novel "Vile Bodies," published in 1930 (and still hilarious), Evelyn Waugh gave an overview of the Champagne-fueled social carnage: 'Masked parties, savage parties, Victorian parties, Greek parties, Russian parties, circus parties, parties where one had to dress as somebody else, almost naked parties in St. John's Wood, parties in flats and studios and houses and ships and hotels and nightclubs, in windmills and swimming baths . . . all the succession and repetition of massed humanity. . . . Those vile bodies.' Waugh, of course, was a Bright Young Thing himself, or at the least he existed at the group's margins. So did others who would go on to become well-known artists: John Betjeman, Nancy Mitford, Anthony Powell, Cecil Beaton and Henry Green among them. These bold-face names were among the lucky survivors. More than a few burned out, got lost or threw their promise away. Other would-be Bright Young People, Lytton Strachey snarked, seemed to have 'just a few feathers where brains should be.' Mr. Taylor, the British author of "Bright Young People: The Lost Generation of London's Jazz Age," is a biographer (he has written lives of Thackeray and Orwell) and literary critic, and he tells this story with a good deal of essayistic flair, precision and flyaway wit. Just as important, he relates this ultimately elegiac narrative with a surprising amount of intellectual and emotional sympathy. He plainly wants to be bothered by the Bright Young People's antics, too. 'One of the great consolations of English literary life, ' Mr. Taylor observes, wonderfully, is the idea that 'seriousness is automatically the preserve of people with cheery, proletarian values and prosaic lifestyles--that a barfly with a private income and a web of well-connected friends has already damned himself beyond redemption.'"--Dwight Garner, "The New York Times ""The saga of Beaton, Evelyn Waugh and the less famous social butterflies that everyone called the Bright Young People may be the ideal escapist fantasy for these sober economic times. Theirs was a life of glittering frivolity, of scavenger hunts that stopped traffic in Sloane Square, cocktails and dancing until dawn, notorious gatherings like the Bath and Bottle Party at a swimming pool ('bring a Bath towel and a Bottle' the invitation said), sprees that envious mortals read about in gossip columns. To make the fantasy complete, the story even offers a satisfying touch of schadenfreude. As D. J. Taylor emphasizes in this incisive social history, these flighty creatures crashed with a thud louder than you'd imagine butterflies could make. Taylor compares the Mozart party photo to a 'medieval morality play' capturing how the Bright Young People got their comeuppance: their zaniness became more self-conscious and attenuated; they tried to ignore the fragile postwar economy and the crumbling aristocracy, but those changes were ready to bite them. It was fun while it lasted, though, for much of the 1920s . . . Lightened by the book's beautiful design, laced with mordant period quotations and delicious satiric cartoons from newspapers and magazines. Taylor's richly detailed work also calls attention to two breezy, auspicious first novels about the Bright Young People that are unfortunately out of print: Nancy Mitford's "Highland Fling" and Anthony Powell's "Afternoon Men.""--Caryn James, "The New York Times Book Review" "Combining diaries, biographies, news reports and novels to paint the social life of 1920s London, D.J. Taylor has created that rarest of books--one you can safely recommend both to scholars of Evelyn Waugh and the entourage of Paris Hilton. The engaging "Bright Young People," written by a critic and novelist best known for his biography of George Orwell, reads like a case study in youth culture, trendsetting, log-rolling and cultivated bohemianism. It examines the symbiotic relationship between a loose-knit group of partygoers and a media that, in gossip columns and mocking denunciations, made them the first celebrities who were famous, in our contemporary sense, for being famous. By the most generous estimate, there were never more than 2,000 souls among the ranks popularly known at the time as the Bright Young People. By most accounts, those souls were self-absorbed, self-mythologizing and terribly jaded. Their defining exploits included boisterous scavenger hunts, extravagant hoaxes and the 'stylized debauchery' of more fancy-dress balls than you can shake an engraved 16-inch-high invitation at--including the Bath and Bottle Party, the Circus Party, the Hermaphrodite Party, the Great Urban Dionysia and the Mozart Party, where the menu came from a cookbook owned by Louis XVI. They excited the public imagination--and incited a moderate moral panic--with their fast living and reflexive flippancy. The greatest talents associated with the movement were Waugh and the photographer Cecil Beaton. Taylor deftly traces how the former drew on his friends' exploits for the hysterical satire of "Vile Bodies" and "Decline and Fall," and how the latter--an Edmund Hilary among social climbers--used his to further his career. Lesser accomplishments detailed here include "Singing Out of Tune," a novel by brewery heir Bryan Guinness that documented the Bright Young Person's daily routine: 'waking up late, meeting people for lunch, bringing the lunch party home for tea, moving on to cocktails and dinner . . . and ending up with a communal trek around the fashionable restaurants of the West End.' But in this realm any accomplishment was an exception, and the non-career of the occasional poet Brian Howard proved emblematic of this wasted youth revolt. 'The books Brian Howard never wrote would fill a decent-sized shelf, ' Taylor writes, elsewhere noting that the man lived out his frustrating life 'in that exotic never-never land where the Ritz bar meets the out-of-season Continental resort.' The fun ended soon enough; by 1931, England was in financial crisis and a 10-hour-long Red and White Ball rang down the era. But Taylor's skillful reconstruction of the whole hazy time feels like a lasting party favor."--Troy Patterson, NPR"A poignant study of the elusive relationship between art and the social world from whence it springs . . . D. J. Taylor, author of a first-rate life of George Orwell, shows the sharp instincts of an expert biographer in his approach to a 1920s English youth culture."--Damian Da Costa, "The New York Observer ""In "Bright Young People" Taylor is writing splendid social history, not fiction, and he brings a more tempered and rueful approach, showing the sadness beneath an entire generation's compulsion to waste its promise and dance in the spotlight. Scott Fitzgerald, a writer admired by Waugh (who was no soft touch), called his own 'lost' contemporaries 'the beautiful and damned'; here, Taylor makes us feel the full force of the reckoning implied in that sad conjunction . . . Taylor has a nice way with a one-liner--'The books Brian Howard never wrote would fill a decent-sized shelf'--and is excellent on the evolution of BYP argot . . . By placing generational tensions and tenderness center-stage, Taylor gives his book a beating emotional heart."--Richard Rayner, "Los Angeles"" Times ""Jam-packed and delicious, crammed with a cast of selfish, feckless, darling, talented, almost terminally eccentric, good-looking men and women, "Bright Young People" chronicles the doings of London's gilded youth in the Roaring Twenties. Even if you think you know a lot (or enough) about them; even if you've read the acerbic novels of the early Evelyn Waugh or plowed your way through Anthony Powell's "A Dance to the Music of Time," there's bound to be material here you haven't seen or heard of."--Carolyn See, "The Washington Post ""If the flappers of the 1920s epitomized the Jazz Age on this side of the Atlantic, in England it was the Bright Young People. The British milieu of society scions flinging themselves into the nonstop pursuit of fun in the aftermath of World War I was immortalized--and hilariously flayed--by Evelyn Waugh in 1930 with his novel "Vile Bodies," but the real-life major players who made up this set are long gone. Thanks are due, then, to English critic D.J. Taylor, who brings them back to life in "Bright Young People." Some were distinguished, others once famous only for being famous and now pretty much forgotten--but they were almost invariably fascinating . . . Mr. Taylor also reminds us of lesser-known characters, such as Beverly Nichols and Bryan Guinness, up-and-coming writers whose work fed on this scene and who were celebrated in London at the time . . . "Bright Young People" was published last year in Britain. It arrives on these shores with a new resonance as we contemplate a world in its worst financial straits since the Depression, with many troubling political and military signs on the horizon as well. Then as now, parties everywhere ended as a more sober age dawned."--Martin Rubin, "The Wall Street Journal" " ""Absorbing . . . The book really takes hold when Taylor seizes on the actual trajectory of the lives of individual members, most . . . poignantly that of Elizabeth Ponsonby . . . The pages devoted to her, enriched by Taylor's access to the Ponsonby family papers, are all the biography her lack of accomplishments and frittered-away youth warrant; yet they greatly deepen this study of a social phenomenon."--Katherine A. Powers, "The Boston Globe ""Waugh was at once an enamored occasional participant in the Bright Young People's decadence and a revolted critic of it. In his novels that memorialize the age, "Vile Bodies" especially, the tone Waugh takes toward his generation is ambivalent. In his captivating new history of the age, "Bright Young People: The Lost Generation of London's Jazz Age," D.J. Taylor takes his sense of 1920s London from Waugh: Mr. Taylor's book is at once elegy and critique. And this is just as it should be, because it is hard not to be by turns enthralled by the splendor of this brief age and, in turn, dismayed by its selfishness and frivolity . . . The Bright Young People's decadence, their frivolity, their refusal of moral seriousness for a shared escapist devotion to pleasure is, as it should be--thanks to Mr. Taylor's deft managing of tone--both enticing and repulsive."--Emily Wilkinson, "The Washington Times" "Holroyd is an accomplished accumulator of facts and anecdotes; and he writes easily and fluently."--Richard Jenkyns, "The New Republic" "[Conveys] precisely the aspect of the Bright Young People that is most difficult to give expression to on paper: not books or parties, but 'an atmosphere . . . An outlook, a gesture, an essence.'"--Mark Bostridge, "The Independent on Sunday ""Compelling and ultimately touching . . . A witty and sensitive account of the pathos and the glamour of the generation fated to 'sorrow in sunlight.' "--Rosemary Hill, "The Guardian ""Excellent . . . the brightest of the Bright Young People [make] their fictional counterparts in Waugh pale into insignificance . . . [Taylor] lays bare their cavortings with an archeological eye."--Philip Hoare, "The Independent ""Taylor, for years a journalist, is fascinated by--and authoritative on--the lucrative relationship forged between the shrewdest of the Bright Young People and the glamour-hunting press . . . Shrewd and absorbing in his analysis of the way Waugh and Nancy Mitford . . . promoted the world they would soon skewer in fiction."--Miranda Seymour, "The Sunday Times" (London) "Moving and always entertaining."--Jane Stevenson, "The Daily Telegraph ""Fascinating . . . A complex study of family, fear and breakdown . . . Taylor's achievement is to remind us that there are few periods of recent history more culturally interesting than the years between the wars."--Frances Wilson, "New Statesman ""A goldmine . . . If I had to choose one book as a summing up of the BYP, it would be Taylor's."--Bevis Hillier, "The Spectator ""An engrossing social history of the blue bloods, bohos, and bobos who constituted the 'lost generation' of post-World War I England."--Michael Moynihan, "Wilson Quarterly" "One yearns to have been a fly on the wall at the 'fancy dress ball . . . featuring a gang of fashionable debutantes dressed as the Eton rowing eight, ' or the notorious Bruno Hat exhibition of faked modernist paintings. Taylor expertly connects this shrill game-playing to memorable depictions of it in Waugh's "Vile Bodies," Powell's "Afternoon Men" and Henry Green's "Party Going," while never neglecting the actual achievements of their lesser peers (e.g., Beverley Nichols's forgotten novel "Singing Out of Tune"). A note of genuine pathos is struck in his description of how the increasingly straitened economic and political circumstances of the '30s began rendering this gaudy subculture obsolete. Immensely readable, and of real value as a sharply pointed cautionary tale."--"Kirkus Reviews ""There are . . . plenty of juicy anecdotes to go around . . . The text is enlivened by several "Punch" cartoons from the period, vividly depicting the hold these rich young partygoers once held on the public's imagination."--"Publishers Weekly" SUMMARY: From Alexander Waugh, the author of the acclaimed memoir Fathers and Sons, comes a grand saga of a brilliant and tragic Viennese family.The Wittgenstein family was one of the richest, most talented, and most eccentric in European history. Karl Wittgenstein, who ran away from home as a wayward and rebellious youth, returned to his native Vienna to make a fortune in the iron and steel industries. He bought factories and paintings and palaces, but the domineering and overbearing influence he exerted over his eight children resulted in a generation of siblings fraught by inner antagonisms and nervous tension. Three of his sons committed suicide; Paul, the fourth, became a world-famous concert pianist, using only his left hand and playing compositions commissioned from Ravel and Prokofiev; while Ludwig, the youngest, is now regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. In this dramatic historical and psychological epic, Alexander Waugh traces the triumphs and vicissitudes of a family held together by a fanatical love of music yet torn apart by money, madness, conflicts of loyalty, and the cataclysmic upheaval of two world wars. Through the bleak despair of a Siberian prison camp and the terror of a Gestapo interrogation room, one courageous and unlikely hero emerges from the rubble of the house of Wittgenstein in the figure of Paul, an extraordinary testament to the indomitable spirit of human survival. Alexander Waugh tells this saga of baroque family unhappiness and perseverance against incredible odds with a novelistic richness to rival Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks.
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From Alexander Waugh, the author of the acclaimed memoir Fathers and Sons, comes a grand saga of a brilliant and tragic Viennese family.The Wittgenstein family was one of the richest, most talented, and most eccentric in European history. Karl Wittgenstein, who ran away from home as a wayward and rebellious youth, returned to his native Vienna to make a fortune in the iron and steel industries. He bought factories and paintings and palaces, but the domineering and overbearing influence he exerted over his eight children resulted in a generation of siblings fraught by inner antagonisms and nervous tension. Three of his sons committed suicide; Paul, the fourth, became a world-famous concert pianist, using only his left hand and playing compositions commissioned from Ravel and Prokofiev; while Ludwig, the youngest, is now regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. In this dramatic historical and psychological epic, Alexander Waugh traces the triumphs and vicissitudes of a family held together by a fanatical love of music yet torn apart by money, madness, conflicts of loyalty, and the cataclysmic upheaval of two world wars. Through the bleak despair of a Siberian prison camp and the terror of a Gestapo interrogation room, one courageous and unlikely hero emerges from the rubble of the house of Wittgenstein in the figure of Paul, an extraordinary testament to the indomitable spirit of human survival. Alexander Waugh tells this saga of baroque family unhappiness and perseverance against incredible odds with a novelistic richness to rival Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks.


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Like an irresistible siren, the veiled dancer with the bewitching green eyes lures dukes and earls down into London's underworld to see her dance—and succumb to her spell. Some say she's a princess, but only one man knows her darkest secret.  

 She is Amy Peel, an orphan from the city's rookeries, and she believes the bold rogue who unmasks her to be nothing but a scoundrel—albeit a dangerously handsome one. He may have rescued her from an attempted kidnapping, but she will not give in to his sensual seduction or to the wicked desire she begins to feel . . .  

 He is Edmund Hawkins, swashbuckling pirate turned reluctant gentleman, and he will not let the lovely Amy slip through his grasp, especially when he learns she's in greater peril than she could possibly know. He will do everything in his power to protect her—for this notorious scoundrel has truly, unbelievably, lost his heart . . .


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For once, business is going well for Quark, not that anyone on "Deep Space Nine(TM)" truly appreciates his genius for finding profit in the most unlikely of circumstances. Quark is even looking forward to making the deal of a lifetime -- when he suddenly finds himself stuck right in the middle of a major dispute between Bajor and the Ferengi Alliance. It seems that the Grand Nagus is refusing to sell one of the lost Orbs of the Prophets to the Bajoran government, which has responded by banning all Ferengi activity in Bajoran space.  With diplomatic relations between the two cultures rapidly breaking down, Quark loses his bar first, then his freedom. But even penniless, he still has his cunning and his lobes, and those alone may be all he needs to come out on top -- and prevent an interstellar war!


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Delving into a murdered man’s life, Detective Erlendur discovers that forty years ago he was accused of an appalling crime. Did his past come back to haunt him? Erlendur uses all the forensic sources available including Iceland’s Genetic Research Centre in order to find the answers.*From the Trade Paperback edition.*


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Downtrodden Detective Erlendur and his team must once again investigate Reykjavik's hidden past to unravel a case of human nastiness. Construction work in an expanding Reykjavik uncovers a shallow grave. Years before, this part of the city was all open hills, and Erlendur and his team hope this is a typical Icelandic missing person scenario; perhaps someone once lost in the snow, who has lain peacefully buried for decades. But things are never that simple. While Erlendur struggles to hold together the crumbling fragments of his own family, his case unearths many other tales of family pain. The hills have more than one tragic story to tell: tales of failed relationships and heartbreak; of anger, domestic violence and fear; of family loyalty and family shame. Few people are still alive who can tell the story, but even secrets taken to the grave cannot remain hidden forever. Alive with tension and atmosphere, and disturbingly real, this is an outstanding continuation of the Reykjavik Murder Mysteries.


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<p>Following the huge success of <I>Silence of the Grave</I>, another spellbinding thriller from the winner of the CWA Gold Dagger.<p>Detective Erlendur encounters memories of his troubled past in this gripping and award-winning continuation of the Reykjavík Murder Mysteries.<p> At a grand Reykjavík hotel the doorman has been repeatedly stabbed in the dingy basement room he called home. It is only a few days before Christmas and he was preparing to appear as Santa Claus at a children's party. The manager tries to keep the murder under wraps. A glum detective taking up residence in his hotel and an intrusive murder investigation are not what he needs.<p> As Erlendur quietly surveys the cast of grotesques who populate the hotel, the web of malice, greed and corruption that lies beneath its surface reveals itself. Everyone has something to hide. But most shocking is the childhood secret of the dead man who, many years before, was the most famous child singer in the country: it turns...
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The third novel in the award-winning Reykjavik Murder Mysteries.The Christmas rush is under way in a big Reykjavik hotel when the police are called to the scene of a murder. The hotel doorman (and long-time resident of its basement) has been stabbed to death. With the hotel fully booked, the manager is desperate to keep the murder under wraps and his reputation intact.Detectives Erlendur and Sigurdur Oli discover that the dead man had had a childhood brush with fame and that two old 45s on which he had sung have become prized collectors’ items. Estranged from his family for decades, why had the man continued to pay secret visits to his boyhood home?As Detective Elinborg investigates a separate case of child abuse, and Erlendur continues to struggle both with his troubled family relationships and the ghosts of his own youth, their parallel stories probe deeper into the riddle of this latest Reykjavik Murder Mystery.From the Trade Paperback edition.


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A brilliant new mystery from the winner of the CWA Gold Dagger and Indridason's best book yet. In the wake of an earthquake, the water level of an Icelandic lake drops suddenly, revealing the skeleton of a man half-buried in its sandy bed. It is clear immediately that it has been there for many years. There is a large hole in the skull. Yet more mysteriously, a heavy communication device is attached to it, possibly some sort of radio transmitter, bearing inscriptions in Russian.                                                                    The police are called in and Erlendur, Elinborg and Sigurdur Olii begin their investigation, which gradually leads them back to the time of the Cold War when bright, left-wing students would be sent from Iceland to study in the 'heavenly state' of Communist East Germany. **The Draining Lake** is another remarkable Indridason mystery about passions and shattered dreams, the fate of the missing and the grief of those left behind.


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On an icy January day the Reykjavik police are called to a block of flats where a body has been found in the garden: a young, dark-skinned boy, frozen to the ground in a pool of his own blood. The discovery of a stab wound in his stomach extinguishes any hope that this was a tragic accident. Erlendur and his team embark on their investigation with little to go on but the news that the boy's Thai half-brother is missing. Is he implicated, or simply afraid for his own life? The investigation soon unearths tensions simmering beneath the surface of Iceland's outwardly liberal, multicultural society. A teacher at the boy's school makes no secret of his anti-immigration stance; incidents are reported between Icelandic pupils and the disaffected children of incomers; and, to confuse matters further, a suspected paedophile has been spotted in the area. Meanwhile, the boy's murder forces Erlendur to confront the tragedy in his own past. Soon, facts are emerging from the snow-filled darkness that are more chilling even than the Arctic night.


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It’s midsummer in Sweden—when the light lingers through dawn and a long, isolating winter finally comes to an end. In this magical time, a brutal killer has chosen to strike. A female priest—who made enemies and acolytes in equal number—has been found hanging in her church. And a big-city lawyer quite acquainted with death enters the scene as police and parishioners try to pick up the pieces....Not long ago, attorney Rebecka Martinsson had to kill three men in order to stop an eerily similar murder spree—one that also involved a priest. Now she is back in Kiruna, the region of her birth, while a determined policewoman gnaws on the case and people who loved or loathed the victim mourn or revel in her demise. The further Rebecka is drawn into the mystery—a mystery that will soon take another victim—the more the dead woman’s world clutches her: a world of hurt and healing, sin and sexuality, and, above all, of sacrifice.In prose that is both lyrical and visceral, Åsa Larsson has crafted a novel of pure entertainment, a taut, atmospheric mystery that will hold you in thrall until the last, unforgettable page is turnedFrom the Hardcover edition.


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Once they used to dance as children, now Jamar Q'ellan wants to take dancing with Kierra Vonne to another level. As the years have elapsed, the distance between Jamar and Kierra has become insurmountable yet both will become entangled in a dance of desire. 

On the planet of Manitee-a in 2975 C.E., skin color determines whether you're of the ruling class or a slave. Sex and love between them is forbidden between the black-skinned Jaquill ruling class and the white kattanee slaves. Kierra, a slave, knows the ultimate penalty if she makes love to Jamar but he is persistent, persuasive, and unwilling to let go of her and consequently the carefree past in which she loved and trusted him without reservation. 

The one time Kierra is allowed to choose, she must make a life or death decision - walk away from Jamar and true love or give him the passionate nights they both deserve. She just might make the wrong choice.


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SUMMARY: Kyra's a con woman and a thief who can steal her target's strongest skill. But when she becomes the target of a hit man, she won't be able to hide from the passion that engulfs them.


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TROUBLE ALWAYS ACCOMPANIED THE RAINY SEASON Rain and isolation could make folks crazy in these parts. Sheriff Mitch Tanner -- the most eligible bachelor in the county -- would have his hands full for sure. Bigfoot sightings and sundry strange happenings he could handle...but he wasn't prepared for murder. With a killer on the loose, he'd have to keep a tight grip on the investigation and a close eye on the mounting list of suspects. Unfortunately, the person causing the most trouble to his male senses was none other than the town's biggest gossip and the one woman he'd do anything to avoid: Charity Jenkins. Sure enough, she'd whittled away at his confirmed-single status with her annoying questions and all-American-girl good looks and had him thinking about something more permanent. Except a killer had other plans for Charity.


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AN ENIGMA... Somehow Ford Lancaster seemed to turn up just when Rozalyn Sawyer needed him most. And as much as she hated to admit it, she couldn't help but want more of his steady presence...his smoldering kisses. Rozalyn was sure a crime had been committed against her family, but was her desperate search for the truth based on fear or madness? Ford had come to settle an old score only to find his investigation colliding with a killer's next target: Rozalyn. She had every reason to doubt his hidden motives, but Ford knew he would pay any price to reconcile the past and claim Rozalyn as his wife.


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It's been a hell of a day for Abby Barlow. In just a few hours, she's survived an explosion, watched her employer die, had a startling dream, and now she finds herself in a seedy Chicago hotel with the sexy, unearthly Dante, a man she both desires and fears. For 341 years, Dante has stood as guardian to The Chalice, a mortal woman chosen to hold back the darkness. A terrible twist of fate has now made Abby that woman. Three hours ago, Dante would have used all his charms to seduce her. Now she is his to protect. And he will do so until his very death. A terrifying plan has been set in motion, one that will plunge Dante and Abby into an epic battle between good and evil and a desperate race to save their love.


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She skidded into town on a bike too powerful for most men, with ten thousand dollars in her saddlebag and a bullet wound in her shoulder. Maggie Randolph was searching for something and running from someone. But she didn't plan on running into a man she could trust.... Timber Falls' deputy sheriff Jesse Tanner had to convince the daredevil beauty that he'd protect her. But first he'd have to catch her--before it was too late.

Jesse was sexy as sin, and chivalrous to boot. But Maggie wasn't exactly playing by the books in her search for the truth about her father's murder and her own adoption. Could she share her secrets with Jesse and find solace in his arms for good?


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THE WILDEST OF THE MCCALL BOYS WAS BACK The wildest of the McCall boys was back...and he had a score to settle with Cassidy Miller! Like two outlaws facing off at high noon, they reunited at the Longhorn Cafe for the whole town to witness the long-awaited showdown. Rourke McCall had been fantasizing about this moment for more than a decade -- except he hadn't counted on Cassidy growing up and growing into a woman. That one high-school kiss suddenly hit him like a shotgun recoiling. But he couldn't let his emerging desire for Cassidy deter his search for a killer, who by all accounts was still at large in Antelope Flats and equally determined to destroy Rourke...and anyone close to him.


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It has been two years since the events of Christine Falls, the bestselling novel that introduced the world to an irascible Dublin pathologist named Quirke. Quirke's beloved Sarah has died, his surrogate father lies paralyzed by a stroke, and he’s been sober for half a year. When a near-forgotten acquaintance asks him to cover up his beautiful young wife’s apparent suicide, Quirke knows he should stay clear, for the sake of his sobriety and his peace of mind. But his old itch is irresistible, and before long he is probing further into the circumstances of Deidre Hunt’s death, into a web of drugs and illicit sex that may have snared his own daughter, Phoebe. With its vivid, intense evocation of 1950s Dublin, and intricate, psychologically complex storyline, The Silver Swan is "even more engrossing than last year’s Christine Falls" (Entertainment Weekly).


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**Is He Her Mortal Enemy-**

Lady Shay is the last of her kind. Half human, half Shalott, her blood is a precious aphrodisiac to vampires, who consider it more precious than gold. Though Shalotts are renowned assassins, a curse held over Shay lands her on the slave auction block, where her fate is uncertain-

**Or The Man Who Will Risk All-**

Viper, the beguiling chief of a deadly vampire clan, can't explain his longing to possess the beautiful Shalott who once saved his life, but now he is free to do anything he wants with her. Strangely, while he desires both Shay-s blood and body, he wants her to surrender willingly. 

**To Save Her Life? **

A hidden evil has been stalking Shay since she left the slave market with Viper. It is an evil that endangers the very existence of Viper's kind, and there's no reason he should court such danger just to protect a Shalott. But the love he feels for Shay is enough to make him willing to go to hell and back if it means spending an eternity with her in his arms.-


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HOW HARD COULD IT BE TO FIND A COWBOY IN MONTANA...? All J.T. McCall cared about were cattle. He'd always been the responsible brother and had taken over the day-to-day management of the family-owned Sundown Ranch years ago. He was as authentic as a cowboy can come -- and Regina Holland knew it. He was just what she was looking for, and she was determined to have him -- for business purposes only, of course. So when she finagled a job with his cattle drive deep in the Montana mountains, she didn't count on becoming a killer's target or on falling for J.T. But would they survive the assault of a madman?


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Quirke—the hard-drinking, insatiably curious Dublin pathologist—is back, and he's determined to find his daughter's best friend, a well-connected young doctorApril Latimer has vanished. A junior doctor at a local hospital, she is something of a scandal in the conservative and highly patriarchal society of 1950s Dublin. Though her family is one of the most respected in the city, she is known for being independent-minded; her taste in men, for instance, is decidedly unconventional.Now April has disappeared, and her friend Phoebe Griffin suspects the worst. Frantic, Phoebe seeks out Quirke, her brilliant but erratic father, and asks him for help. Sober again after intensive treatment for alcoholism, Quirke enlists his old sparring partner, Detective Inspector Hackett, in the search for the missing young woman. In their separate ways the two men follow April's trail through some of the darker byways of the city to uncover crucial information on her whereabouts. And as Quirke becomes deeply involved in April's murky story, he encounters complicated and ugly truths about family savagery, Catholic ruthlessness, and race hatred.Both an absorbing crime novel and a brilliant portrait of the difficult and relentless love between a father and his daughter, this is Benjamin Black at his sparkling best.


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COWBOY SHERIFF IN COMMAND

Despite his previously unblemished reputation, for years, cowboy sheriff Cash McCall had been the prime suspect in his fiancée's disappearance and presumed murder. So when a woman claiming to be her showed up in his office, Cash was finally off the hook...even though his instincts told him he'd never before held this woman in his arms.

Posing as a missing woman had seemed like a good idea to on-the-run Molly Kilpatrick...unfortunately, she'd made the mistake of stealing the wrong identity. Someone wanted the woman dead and would stop at nothing to make sure, this time, she stayed dead. Molly needed Cash's protection and had to trust in his innocence, but if she was wrong, she'd be *dead* wrong.


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Here is Volume Two of Seven Brothers-a magnificent fantasy saga of kingdoms lost, nobles enslaved, families reunited, and gods reborn.  Llesho has succeeded in finding several of his brothers and winning the aid of allies such as the trickster god, the emperor, two gladiators, a young witch and a goddess.  But can he discover the truth about his own identity?  Can he harness his powers?  And can he survive the ultimate masters of evil?


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WEDDING PLANNER UNDER COVER

By day, quiet and reserved Samantha Peters worked for a high-end wedding planner. By night she was a top-notch agent with Miami Confidential. Then she met sexy Alex Graham after tragedy struck outside the Weddings Your Way salon, and Samantha had trouble keeping her two lives separate. Being with Alex brought out Samantha's protective instincts--and the wild side she tried so hard to keep hidden--when she and Alex became the targets of a dangerous enemy. Samantha had to remain focused, or jeopardize the work and the team. After all, forming attachments to victims was wrong...even if being with Alex felt so right....


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He'd waited for this day--this woman--for forever it seemed. Harry Ballantine had been a prisoner of Fernhaven forest and now he found the key to his salvation in Jenna Dante. But would she surrender to him before she left the hidden hamlet?

With an angry ex on her tail and rain pouring, the last thing Jenna Dante needed was car trouble and a cranky child. Her only option was to seek refuge in the desolate hotel on the hill in Fernhaven. But the restored walls seemed to hold more than memories. For Jenna they vibrated with life and an all-male seduction she could only see and feel in her mind. But when danger came to call, she would need flesh-and-blood protection--and maybe something more lethal...like transcending love.


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The first in a new series, introducing a splendid hero, against the background of Europe in the One Hundred Years' War. Thomas of Hookton becomes an archer in the army of King Edward III. He revels in the life of an army at war with France and becomes known for his wildness and his fearsome skills.


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CHRISTMAS NEVER MEANT MUCH AT THE BONNER ESTATE...BUT COULD IT BECOME A HOLIDAY TO REMEMBER AT CHANCE WALKER'S MONTANA CABIN?

Ten years ago Dixie Bonner was the favorite wild child of a powerful Texas oilman. But after uncovering a dark family secret that cast suspicion on everyone close to her, she took off for a new life and never looked back.

Chance Walker was the cool-eyed cowboy hired to bring her home by Christmas. But after catching her, he couldn't decide if she was a blackmailer or a victim. Was he tempted to protect her because she told the truth--or was he falling for her? Holed up in a remote Montana cabin with the bad guys closing in, two stubborn souls needed to trust each other if they hoped to survive the season.


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Enter a world where bloody battles, and heroic deeds combine in the historic struggle to unite Britain in the face of a common enemy.The third instalment in Bernard Cornwell's King Alfred series, follows on from the outstanding previous novels The Last Kingdom and The Pale Horseman.The year is 878 and Wessex is free from the Vikings.Uhtred, the dispossessed son of a Northumbrian lord, helped Alfred win that victory, but now he is disgusted by Alfred's lack of generosity and repelled by the king's insistent piety. He flees Wessex, going back north to seek revenge for the killing of his foster father and to rescue his stepsister, captured in the same raid. He needs to find his old enemy, Kjartan, a renegade Danish lord who lurks in the formidable stronghold of Dunholm.Uhtred arrives in the north to discover rebellion, chaos and fear. His only ally is Hild, a West Saxon nun fleeing her calling, and his best hope is his sword, with which he has made a formidable reputation as a warrior. He will need the assistance of other warriors if he is to attack Dunholm and he finds Guthred, a slave who believes he is a king. He takes him across the Pennines to where a desperate alliance of fanatical Christians and beleaguered Danes form a new army to confront the terrible Viking lords who rule Northumbria.'The Lords of the North' is a powerful story of betrayal, romance and struggle, set in an England of turmoil, upheaval and glory. Uhtred, a Northumbrian raised as a Viking, a man without lands, a warrior without a country, has become a splendid heroic figure.


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Bernard Cornwell's new novel, following the enormous success of his Arthurian trilogy (The Winter King, Enemy of God, and Excalibur) is the tale of three brothers and of their rivalry that creates the great temple. One summer's day, a stranger carrying great wealth in gold comes to the settlement of Ratharryn. He dies in the old temple. The people assume that the gold is a gift from the gods. But the mysterious treasure causes great dissension, both without from tribal rivalry, and within. The three sons of Ratharryn's chief each perceive the great gift in a different way. The eldest, Lengar, the warrior, harnesses his murderous ambition to be a ruler and take great power for his tribe. Camaban, the second and an outcast from the tribe, becomes a great visionary and feared wise man, and it is his vision that will force the youngest brother, Saban, to create the great temple on the green hill where the gods will appear on earth. It is Saban who is the builder, the leader and the man of peace. It is his love for a sorceress whose powers rival those of Camaban and for Aurenna, the sun bride whose destiny is to die for the gods, that finally brings the rivalries of the brothers to a head. But it is also his skills that will build the vast temple, a place for the gods certainly but also a place that will confirm for ever the supreme power of the tribe that built it. And in the end, when the temple is complete, Saban must choose between the gods and his family. Stonehenge is Britain's greatest prehistoric monument, a symbol of history; a building, created 4 millenia ago, which still provokes awe and mystery. Stonehenge A novel of 2000 BC is first and foremost a great historical novel. Bernard Cornwell is well known and admired for the realism and imagination with which he brings an earlier world to life. And here he uses all these skills to create the world of primitive Britain and to solve the mysteries of who built Stonehenge and why. 'A circle of chalk, a ring of stone, and a house of arches to call the far gods home'


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There was a standoff brewing between Dillon Savage and cattle inspector Jacklyn Wilde. Toe to toe, they were an equal match, but together they were an imperfect pair. After four long years, they were hitting the open range again, to bring justice to a lawless land. Attached at the hip until a rustling ring was busted, they had to make the best of a bad situation. But the real trouble was Dillon Savage. The cowboy was as cocksure and adventurous as ever. He had old scores to settle, and Jacklyn was there to make sure he didn't stray from his path. Only she didn't know that she was first in line.…


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Penguin Decades bring you the novels that helped shape modern Britain. When they were published, some were bestsellers, some were considered scandalous, and others were simply misunderstood. All represent their time and helped define their generation, while today each is considered a landmark work of storytelling.Joseph decides to take his mistress and son, together with a few friends, to stay in a cabin in deepest Wales for the weekend - with absolutely disastrous results. Beryl Bainbridge's gift for deadpan dialogue and spare narrative, and her darkly comic vision of the world, are all in evidence in this early novel.


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THE MISSION: FIND MOTHER AND CHILD Finding Isabella Montenegro and her young daughter and bringing them back to testify should have been easy. But one look at Isabella and Texas Confidential Agent Jake Cantrell remembered a woman he'd cherished...a woman who'd died. And one look at the child -- and he saw himself in her eyes.... Until she'd met Jake Cantrell, Isabella's past had been a blank. Now fragmented memories began to assault her. Who was she? If Jake had fathered her child, then her entire life was a lie. Now that false life and the life of her daughter were at stake -- and there was only Jake to trust.


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SHE HAD THE KIND OF SECRET NO WOMAN COULD KEEP... When Josie O'Malley found herself pregnant, she knew her father would surely mete out the Texas law of the West -- and shoot the no 'count before he'd demand a shotgun wedding. What her dad didn't know was the Josie has been with the one man he'd respected above all others. Clay Jackson. HE'D NEVER GUESSED HE FATHERED HER CHILD... Two years ago Josie left Texas in a hurry for the solitude of Montana. Now Clay knew why. But it boiled his blood that she'd had anybody's baby but his. It burned him even more that a thief led Clay to her doorstep. So what was Josie hiding besides a child? And what would Clay's investigation reveal about the toddler's father...and the woman he'd never stopped loving?


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Beryl Bainbridge seems drawn to disaster. First she tackled the unfortunate Scott expedition to the South Pole in The Birthday Boys; later (but emphatically pre-DiCaprio) came the sinking of the Titanic, in Every Man for Himself. Now, in her 3rd historical novel (and her 16th overall), she takes on the Crimean War, and the result is a slim, gripping volume with all of the doomed intensity of the Light Brigade's charge--but, thankfully, without the Tennysonian bombast. "Some pictures," a character confides, "would only cause alarm to ordinary folk." There's a warning concealed here, and one that easily disturbed readers would do well to heed: Master Georgie is intense, disturbing, revelatory--and not always pretty to look at. Bainbridge's narrative circles round the enigmatic figure of George Hardy, a surgeon, amateur photographer, alcoholic, and repressed homosexual who counters the dissipation of his prosperous Liverpool life by heading for the Crimean Peninsula in 1854. His journey and subsequent tour of duty are told in three very different voices: Myrtle, an orphan whose lifelong loyalty to her "Master Georgie" becomes an overriding obsession; Pompey Jones, street urchin, fire-eater, photographer, and George's sometime lover; and Dr. Potter, George's scholarly brother-in-law, whose retreat from the war's carnage and into books takes on a tinge of madness. United by a sudden death in a Liverpool brothel in 1846, these characters plumb the curious workings of love, war, class, and fate. In between, Bainbridge frames an unforgettable series of tableaux morts: a dying soldier, one lens of his glasses "fractured into a spider's web"; a decapitated leg, toes "poking through the shreds of a cavalry boot"; two dead men "on their knees, facing one another, propped up by the pat-a-cake thrust of their hands." Glimpsed as if sidewise and then passed over in language that is as understated as it is lovely, these are images that sear into the brain. Master Georgie is full of such moments, horrors painted with an exquisite brush. --Mary Park


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Things are really bustling at the Witt's End resort in Northern Minnesota. Clients are vying for one of the few remaining rentals, except Cabin 14thing isno one gets out of Cabin 14 alive.  Sadie isn't your typical sixty-four year old senior citizen. She has things she wants to do and shouldn't be expected to solve a murder while trying to prevent an unscrupulous sheriff's deputy from shutting down the lakeside resort she owns with her straight arrow sister. But that's exactly what Sadie Witt must do.  When five guests with hidden agendas arrive at Cabin 14, they're stunned to learn that the flamboyant Sadie is their conduit to the hereafter. Clad in the latest fashion trends--fads typically reserved for those without sagging body parts--and sporting hairdos that make bystanders want to look away but can't, Sadie realizes one of the guests has been murdered and must work against the clock to untangle the web and prevent further mayhem.


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War with their archrival, the evil Ansara clan, is unavoidable. For Mercy Raintree, a war means she must assume her position as guardian of the Sanctuary—the sacred Raintree home place deep in the Smoky Mountains. But doing so threatens to disclose her most prized secret—one Mercy has kept to herself for six years. As the solstice looms and the battle heats up, Dranir Judah Ansara gathers his forces, intending to wipe every Raintree from the face of the land. Including Mercy, whom he's claimed as his to kill. Then he comes face-to-face with her—and with her daughter, Eve. Will Mercy's closely guarded secret change not only the outcome of the battle—but also Judah's own bitter heart?


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Darcy Smith always sensed she was different from everyone else - if only she knew how different. Possessing a secret strong enough to end an entire race of demons, Darcy unwittingly becomes a pawn in an epic battle between the vampires and the weres as she discovers a new world filled with ecstasy-and dark passions...Consumed with lust for Darcy, Styx - the Anasso of vampires - will do everything in his power to keep her out of the lair of Salvatore Giuliani, the deadly leader of the weres. But protecting the woman he loves could cost Styx the ultimate price...Salvatore Giuliani knows time is running out for the weres. Pushed to the brink of extinction, he will stop at nothing to make Darcy his ultimate conquest and queen - for she alone holds the key to his survival. But which of these men can Darcy truly trust? For all it takes is one bite to plunge her into a lifetime of servitude - or a lifetime of pleasure...


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His face was concealed by a mask...yet piercing blue eyes inexorably drew Jill Lawson into his arms. What came over her, she'd never know -- but a case of mistaken identity landed her in more than a little hot water, because now she was being framed for murder. Not to mention she'd made mad, passionate love with a stranger! Trying to establish her innocence proved a lot harder than Jill imagined, especially when she was so distracted by the memory of the mystery man's kisses -- kisses that were suspiciously similar to investigator Mac Cooper's. But was Mac set up, just as Jill was? In a race against time and a cunning adversary, could Mac and Jill unmask the real killer before it was too late...?


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SHE WAS EVERYTHING HE WANTED...OR WAS SHE?

The moment Will Sheridan met Samantha Murphy at a party, he knew she was the woman he'd been waiting for. Then a kiss, and suddenly she had disappeared. But Will hadn't given up looking for her, for he vowed to make her his bride--once he discovered who she was, that is....

Samantha Murphy's identity was something the female private investigator was trying very hard to hide. She had a job to do and Will, sexy and gorgeous as he was, was in the way. When her latest case took a dangerous turn, Will was caught in the middle of the chase and became her accidental partner. Now on the run to save an innocent life, can they fight their attraction long enough to stay alive?


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**

In A Town Full Of Secrets**

To most people, men like Mark Cantrell are fine, upstanding pillars of the community, completely beyond reproach. But their killer knows better. They are sinners of the worst kind, and they must burn on earth before they burn in hell. . .

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Trusting The Wrong Person**

Eighteen months after her husband-s unsolved murder, Cathy Cantrell has returned to her Alabama home, eager to build a new life for herself and her son. But pieces of her past are everywhere-including Jackson Perdue, the town-s deputy sheriff. The spate of recent deaths-each victim burned in the same horrifying manner-leave Jack and Cathy in no doubt that a serial killer is at work, one whose rage grows more vicious each day. . .

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Can Be Fatal. . .**

Now as a twisted killer moves in for a final, brutal act of vengeance, buried crimes are coming to light once more. And this time, justice will be swift, merciless, and as silent as the grave. . .


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With spot-on details, a smart new voice, and ingenious plot twists, Beverly Connor has been compared to the hottest crime writers on the scene. Now, she ratchets up the suspense with a brand new series featuring one of today's most cunning and complex sleuths: forensic anthropologist Diane Fallon. Her new job as director of the RiverTrail Museum of Natural History in Georgia takes Diane out of the game-until a former love and a murdered family bring her back in.


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THE ONE MAN SHE CAN'T TRUST Two hundred years have passed since Anna Randal gave herself to Conde Cesar in a night of relentless passion. Since then, Anna has become filled with unearthly power she can't begin to comprehend. And the sexy, charming vampire responsible has eluded all of her efforts to track him down, until now . . .IS THE ONLY ONE Cesar's blissful encounter with Anna cost him two centuries of penance. But one thing hasn't changed-his body's response to her is as urgent as ever. Now, commanded by the Oracles to keep watch over Anna, Cesar finds himself torn between his need to protect her-and to possess her . . . WHO CAN KEEP HER SAFE Someone wants Anna dead. And as an ancient enemy prepares to wage a terrifying battle, Anna must decide whether to succumb to a dark, burning desire and accept a destiny that could change the world forever . . . Praise for Alexandra Ivy's Embrace The Darkness . . . 'Ivy creates such vivid and complex characters, their emotional struggles feel real even though their exploits are supernatural. A true gift to the genre!'- Romantic Times 'Delivers plenty of atmosphere and hot-blooded seduction.'- Publishers Weekly


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The Guardians of Eternity are vampire warriors without equal, bound by their loyalties and sworn to protect their charges from every danger...except those posed by their own hungry desires...A scarred recluse, Jagr makes no secret of his disdain for others' company. But now, as a member of Chicago's powerful vampire clan, he has certain obligations to fulfill. The latest: track down a missing were pureblood and return her to her sister. The problem: Regan Garrett has no intention of complying. And though Jagr agreed not to harm an inch of this stubborn female's distractingly tempting body, he'll gladly kiss her into submission, awakening an urge he hasn't felt in years. Hell, in centuries...Regan vowed never to be at the mercy of another man. That goes double for arrogant, steel-muscled vampires with eyes of ice. All Regan wants is revenge against those who imprisoned her. She doesn't need an ally. She certainly doesn't need a mate. But soon Regan will have to choose-between a lust for vengeance, and a passion as dark and dangerous as the night...Praise for Alexandra Ivy and Darkness Revealed'A darkly erotic adventure with a vampire hero who can bite me anytime!' -Angela Knight, New York Times bestselling author


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FORBIDDEN LOVER? Charlotte "Charlie" Larkin believed she'd been cursed when it came to matters of the heart, especially since every man she'd ever been involved with had met with an untimely end. To add insult to injury, to-die-for true-crime writer Gus Riley had come to the remote Montana town to research her for his next book! Following an attempt on Charlie's life, Gus insisted the two join forces to pursue the investigation. Charlie was unwittingly drawn to her sexy protector, but she knew she should keep her distance. Except when Gus insisted they pretend to be involved to draw out the killer, her defenses crumbled at his all-too-real advances. And being in close proximity to Gus made Charlie forget that the arrangement was supposed to be temporary -- which was dangerous while the real killer lurked.


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A year ago Holly Barrows had raced through a raging snowstorm -- convinced someone was trying to kill her -- into the arms of Slade Rawlins. She'd appeared before him like a beautiful apparition in the dark of night. But she was real, flesh and blood, and his fingers had memorized every curve of her body. Then she'd mysteriously vanished, only to return the following Christmas with an outrageous claim of kidnapping. Monsters, she'd said, had taken her baby. But any baby she'd had would also have been Slade's. And he was consumed by his need to protect Holly and locate their child before the family he desperately wanted was lost...forever.


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In Beverly Connor's absorbing series, the bones of the dead reveal the secrets of the living. In this latest investigation, forensic anthropologist Diane Fallon must lead a chilling excavation of a crime with harrowing implications: the murder of three people, hanged execution-style in an isolated patch of Georgia woods.


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When forensic anthropologist Diane Fallon finds three decades-old skeletons in different locations with desiccated bones, she is plunged into a seventy-year-old mystery of love, greed, and murder that someone would still kill to keep from being solved. Original.


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After centuries of calm, the Nameless One is stirring. An army is gathering: giants, ogres and other creatures joining forces from across the Desolate Lands, united for the first time in history under one black banner. By the spring, or perhaps sooner, the Nameless One and his forces will be at the walls of the great city of Avendoom. Unless Shadow Harold, master thief, can find some way to stop them. Epic fantasy at its best, Shadow Prowler is the first in a trilogy that follows professional thief Shadow Harold on his quest for a magic Horn that will restore peace to the kingdom of Siala. Accompanied by an elfin princess, ten Wild Hearts - the most experienced and dangerous royal fighters - and the King's court jester (who may be more than he seems ... or less), Harold must outwit angry demons, escape the clutches of a band of hired murderers, survive ten bloody skirmishes ... and reach the burial grounds before dark. Can he escape a fate worse than death?


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Reapers, Inc.- Brigit's Cross is the beginning episode of Brigit Malone, a thirty-something lesbian, that is accidently killed on the eve of her ten-year anniversary to her partner, Maggie Devon. When Brigit is offered a position with Reapers, Incorporated-- the firm that actually handles the business of passing souls to their final judgments-- she takes the position in order to keep her promise to Maggie to always be with her, thus, beginning her new career and adventures of being a Grim Reaper.


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As a child, Juliet Price witnessed the bloody slaying of an entire family. Then the killer chased her down, brutalized her, and left her for dead. The police were never able to find the man responsible. For years, Juliet's traumatized mind hid the events from her. Then she sees a television show featuring the unsolved cold case, and the horrors come to her in her nightmares. She shares her fears with Diane Fallon, who realizes that Juliet's shattered visions recall not one, but two intertwined crimes-crimes that Diane intends to uncover.


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SHE HUNTS THE REALMS MOST DANGEROUS GAME. HER FEES ARE EXORBITANT. SHE'S WORTH EVERY COIN SHE RECEIVES. OR IS SHE? Magiere has earned a reputation as the most formidable vampire slayer in the land. Villagers far and wide welcome her with both awe and disdain, grateful to her for ridding their towns of the undead menace, but finding themselves made poorer for their salvation. Magiere has always known she's dealing with simple folk who only wish to have their superstitions silenced, and she's never seen anything wrong with exploiting them for profit. Now, tired of the game, Magiere and her partner, the half-elf Leesil, are ready to hang up their weapons and settle down in a place they can finally call home. But their new found peace will not last. For Magiere has come to the attention of a trio of powerful and dangerous vampires who recognize her true identity  even if she does not  and who fear the birthright that flows through her veins. And they will stop at nothing to keep Magiere from fulfilling her destiny.


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“The sort of book that makes you want to invest in silver bullets before meeting the author.” –Neil Gaiman

SHE KNOWS WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE.

Manhattan veterinarian Abra Barrow has more sense about animals than shehas about men. So when her adored journalist husband returns from a research trip to Romania and starts pacing their apartment like a caged wolf, Abra agrees to move with him to a rural mansion upstate in order to save her marriage. 

But while there are perks to her new life, particularly in the bedroom, Abra soon discovers that nothing in the bucolic town of Northside is what it seems. The local tavern serves a dangerous, predatory underworld. 

Her husband has developed feral new appetites and a roving eye, and his lack of humanity isn’t entirely emotional. As the moon waxes full, Abra must choose between trusting the man she married, taking a chance on a seductive stranger, or following her own animal instincts.


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On the heels of DHAMPIR, Barb and J.C. Hendee's acclaimed Fantasy debut, comes THIEF OF LIVES, the new novel featuring Magiere and Leesil, Slayers of the Undead....     

Magiere the dhampir thinks that her nights of hunting vampires are over. After settling down in her newly adopted village of Miiska — now vampire-free, thanks to her and her half-elf partner, Leesil — she looks forward to quiet days tending to her tavern.     

But far away in the capital city of Bela, a prominent councilman's daughter has been found dead on her own doorstep... and all signs point to a vampire. Knowing that the battered and burned village of Miiska could use an infusion of cash, Bela's town council offers a generous bounty to the dhampir if she will slay their vampire. Magiere resists, wanting nothing more than to forget her past and ignore her half-vampire nature. Only Leesil can persuade Magiere to follow her destiny — before more innocent lives are claimed by darkness.


