The brilliant new novel from the Sunday Times Top 10 bestselling author Three best friends. One five-star hotel. Will it be the holiday of a lifetime . . .? Imogen and her friends Meredith and Nicola have had their fill of budget holidays, cattle-class flights and 6 a.m. offensives for a space by the pool.So when Meredith wins a VIP holiday at Barcelona's hippest new hotel, they plan to sip champagne with the jet set, party with the glitterati and switch off in unapologetic luxury.But when the worst crisis of her working life erupts back home, Imogen has to juggle her BlackBerry with a Manhattan, while soothing a hysterical boss and hunting down an AWOL assistant. Between a robbery, a run-in with hotel security staff and an encounter on a nudist beach that they'd all rather forget, the friends stumble from one disaster to the next. At least Imogen has a distraction in the form of the gorgeous guy who's always in the right place at the very worst time. Until, that is, his motives start to arouse a few suspicions . . . Hilarious and heart-warming by turns, The Time of Our Lives is Jane Costello at her romantic best.Praise for All The Single Ladies: 'Close the doors, open a bottle of wine, get out the chocs and enjoy this wonderfully witty read. Jane Costello at her best' Milly Johnson'Jane Costello earned her place on the bestsellers list with her witty, colourful and fast-paced style. All The Single Ladies proves that she certainly hasn't lost her touch ' Heat'Jane Costello is fast becoming one of our favourite authors - and All the Single Ladies doesn't disappoint' Cosmopolitan Views: 15
Megan has spent forever planning her positively purple birthday sleepover. She's even made glittery purple invitations for every girl in her class. Then a new girl, Alexis Powell, joins their class. Alexis seems perfect: She's smart, pretty, and rules the soccer games on the playground. But no matter how hard Megan tries to be a friend to Alexis, the new girl is aloof or rude. At first Megan thinks Alexis is shy. Then Megan starts to fear that Alexis is treating her differently because she's deaf. When the girls are forced to collaborate on a science fair project, Megan learns the truth — and realizes that nobody's perfect. Once again Marlee Matlin draws on experiences from her own childhood to tell Megan's story. In this funny, poignant book, readers will root for Megan, a spirited young girl who doesn't let anything stand in her way. Views: 15
A former American diplomat reveals a disconnect between Washington policymakers and those who work in US embassies.When the world awoke on November 28, 2010, and read the first of the 251,287 State Department cables made public by WikiLeaks, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini warned, "It will be the September 11th of world diplomacy." The WikiLeaks scandal certainly stirred tempers around the world, but it was not the implosion that many leaders expected: rather, it shed a new spotlight on the work of the U.S. foreign service. In To the Secretary, Mary Thompson-Jones explores the most fascinating and overlooked of these cables to offer an unparalleled window into the day-to-day work of U.S. diplomats, demystifying the lives of those who implement America's foreign policy across the globe.From the story of Bulgaria's Aleksi "the Tractor" Petrov to disappearing ballot ink in Ukraine, a Honduran coup d'état, or disaster relief for a devastated Haiti, To... Views: 15
Kicking off a brand new romantic suspense series from Lee Christine is A Dangerous Arrangement: a violinist with a secret, a billionaire with a problem and a race against time set on the beautiful Amalfi Coast. When violinist Marina Wentworth arrives in Venice en route to a cruise ship for a short working holiday, the last thing she expects is to be confronted by a handsome stranger demanding answers. After going to great lengths to keep her real reasons for the trip a secret, Marina refuses to let her immediate attraction to Dean Logan derail her plans. Desperate to recover his latest superyacht designs, Dean doesn't want to believe the lovely violinist is involved in the devastating cyber-attack that threatens to destroy his yacht-building empire. However his growing feelings for Marina fail to extinguish the nagging suspicion that she is hiding something. Set against the backdrop of Italy's Amalfi Coast, Dean and Marina must... Views: 15
Some bus drivers never meet a "white widow"--a wild card, a woman traveling alone who can change the course of a driver's life, and not always for the best. In this subtle, poignant novel, based on the true experiences of the anchor of PBS's News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Jack T. Oliver, who drives the Houston to Corpus Christi run for the Great Western Trailways bus line, is about to meet his.From Publishers WeeklyThis 10th novel from renowned anchorman Lehrer (The Last Debate; The Sooner Spy) trades journalism and Washington politics for the flat highways of 1950s Texas, where Jack T. "On Time" Oliver drives a Trailways bus between Houston and Corpus Christi-until his overactive imagination begins to shake his simple world apart. Lehrer fills this wistful tale with interesting details of bus line procedures and legends, the most central being the eponymous "White Widow," every bus driver's ultimate dream woman who comes aboard and changes his life. Jack is weeks away from receiving the honorary gold badge of the "master operator," recognizing his seniority and high level of service, when he meets his White Widow, a beautiful Ava Gardner look-alike who rides his bus on Fridays. Although they've exchanged only a few words, Jack begins to concoct love fantasies, losing his concentration as he longs for each Friday's run. His driving begins to suffer, and his wife suspects him of cheating. One stormy Friday, with "Ava" riding across from him in the "angel seat," the consequences of his obsession become dire and irreversible. Lehrer convincingly uses bus driver lore, drawing on memories of his college job as a ticket agent. His delicate portrayal of Jack's life and inner thoughts heightens the story's poignancy. With its tragic elements, simple narrative and strong undercurrent of myth, Lehrer's tale lingers in memory like a sorrowful ghost story. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalEvery week, Jack T. "On Time" Oliver drives his bus round trip from Houston to Corpus Christi and back. Now, in the late 1950s, he is about to receive his reward for faithful service, promotion to "master operator." He cherishes the uniform he wears and is proud of the slimness of his profile since he lost 70 pounds. He is married to the first and only woman he ever dated. Then a beautiful woman, a "white widow" in bus driver jargon, climbs aboard his bus one Friday, en route to the end of the line. In his thoughts, he names her "Ava," after actress Ava Gardner. Images of her confuse and obsess him; he dreams of a life he will never know. His distraction leads to disaster, exposing the fragility of his hold on happiness. PBS news anchor Lehrer (The Last Debate, LJ 8/95) has crafted an affecting story of a man who has anesthetized himself against the emptiness of his life but can do so no longer. Recommended for public libraries.?David Keymer, California State Univ., StanislausCopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 15
Brooke and Aly are forced to work with their nemesis in the tenth and final sparkly story in this shimmering series about two sisters who open their own mini-nail salon.Have Aly and her nemesis Suzy Davis finally reached détente? Brooke and Aly's mother and Suzy's mother join forces and decide to open up a new salon. Does that mean the girls will actually have to work together in a brand-new Sparkle Spa? Like it or not, these frenemies are now in business together! Views: 15
In 1638 two English friends, Daniel Vanderus and Robert Blake, sailed home from the war-torn Dutch Republic. The two had met while riding as pistoleers in the Dutch Militia. Pistoleers were mounted skirmishers who targetted the Empire's officers. As their ship rowed up the River Great Ouse towards Ely, a girl's call for help linked their futures to Oliver, the tithe collector of Ely. Views: 15
Against a backdrop of nuns, hit men, gangsters, rugby and ice-cream, Noisy at the wrong times is an inspiring memoir by Michael Volpe, General Manager and founder of Opera Holland Park, one of the UK's most popular opera festivals. Volpe's upbringing in a fatherless Italian family in London is hardly recognised as being one from which champions of the high, classical arts emerge, but at the heart of this story is his time at Woolverstone Hall, a prestigious state boarding school that took bright, inner city boys and gave them an Eton-style education – with culture at the heart of the curriculum. Volpe's sudden immersion in a world of rules, traditions and high expectation produced some surprising – and not so surprising – results. With brutal honesty, Noisy at the wrong times charts Volpe's torrid path through this extraordinary school; his countless misdemeanours, the tragedies he experienced, his often shameful behaviour and his endless conflicts – both emotional and physical –... Views: 15
SUMMARY:
In her most intriuging case yet, China Bayles discovers that business can be murder when her accountant, Rosemary Robbins, is murdered. With an abusive ex-husband and plenty of former clients in the picture, there's no shortage of suspects. And China must trace a crooked trail of passion and greed to discover who would profit most from murder.
China Bayles consults a psychic for answers when she discovers a murdered woman in a pickup truck who bears a disturbing resemblance to herself. Views: 14
A major work of autobiographical fiction by a second generation Holocaust writer—funny, erotic, irreverent, and deeply moving. Zosha Palovsky was born in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, but she has grown up in Brooklyn and in Washington Heights, joined a Latina gang, and refused to attend a yeshiva. She's a rebel, outspoken, sexually liberated, and determined to live her own life, free of her parents' past. Yet, as daring and defiant as she is, Zosha cannot escape. Her entire life is touched by the war.She has dreams of Auschwitz, falls in love with "her own private Nazi," and has an affair with a kinky Holocaust scholar. Obsessed with events that took place before her birth, she becomes a writer. By day she summons a "shlock muse in rhinestone harlequin glasses, cabana pants, and spiked heels" to write Elizabeth Taylor stories for the readers of Movie Screen magazine and, by night, writes "blood-eyed poems" about... Views: 14
This PEN/Hemingway Award winner about coming of age in Los Angeles is a "little gem of a novel . . . a masterwork of Hollywood fiction" (Salon). He's a child of 1940s Hollywood—specifically, Casa Fiesta, a ranch in the Malibu hills that he shares with his mother, a onetime Broadway headliner, and his father, a star of Westerns. But when his parents fall out of favor in Tinseltown, the narrator of this exquisitely crafted dark comedy loses his youthful idyll and accompanies his lovesick mother on a vodka-soaked international quest for romance and redemption. Meanwhile, his father lives in "diminished circumstances" in California, clinging to his silver-screen mementos, trusting that, someday soon, his ex-wife and his career will return. Tired of tending bar at his mother's parties and listening to his father's sad tales of former glory, the boy moves in with his best friend's family in Beverly Hills. But nothing in La-La Land is quite what it... Views: 14
