The Midnight Bell, a pub on the Euston Road, is the pulse of this brilliant and compassionate trilogy. It is here where the barman, Bob, falls in love with Jenny, a West End prostitute who comes in off the streets for a gin and pep. Around his obsessions, and Ella the barmaid's secret love for him, swirls the sleazy life of London in the 1930s. This is a world where people emerge from cheap lodgings in Pimlico to pour out their passions, hopes and despair in pubs and bars—a world of twenty thousand streets full of cruelty and kindness, comedy and pathos, wasted dreams and lost desires. Views: 63
A modern-day teenage Cinderella. An all-star varsity basketball player. Will the chemistry disappear when they go from anonymous to face-to-face? Geeky Ella Reyes is at the bottom of the totem pole at Westwood High. Her ultra-popular stepsisters refuse to be seen with her at school, and every day she comes home to a mountain of chores. Ella’s only friend (and maybe crush) lives on the other side of her phone’s screen. She and Baller929 know everything about each other, except their real names.When they have a chance to meet at her school’s Halloween ball, Ella must figure out a way to get there without her stepmom or stepsisters finding out. Is revealing her identity to Baller929 worth risking the one good thing left in her life? Or is he too good to be true? Fans of Cinder & Ella by Kelly Oram and the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books will fall in love with this new... Views: 63
What do Boston, Dublin, and Sierra Leone have in common? The movement of blood diamonds at enormous profit but grave human expense: mafia killings in Boston and Ireland and child enslavement and murder in Sierra Leone. And who is ensnared in the middle of all of this Michael Knight and Lex Devlin. Can they stop the enormously profitable trade of these tainted jewels? They must come between the Italian mafia in North Boston and the Irish mafia in South Boston including some remnants of the IRA in Ireland. They must also pit themselves against the enslaved and deadly child-army in Sierra Leone, who smuggle these diamonds into the mainstream for cash to buy weapons and drugs. At great personal risk, Knight and Devlin struggle to find a solution that satisfies this disparate combination of characters and, hopefully, dampens the diamond flow. Views: 63
Hugo! is the remarkable biography of Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela and leader of the Bolivian Revolution. Ex-paratrooper and outspoken socialist, Chavez is known for his stance against big business, fearless threats to the Bush administration, social reforms that have violently polarized his country, and also for providing a model for new governments and social movements across South America. Bart Jones was eyewitness to Chavez' rise to power, and describes his life in extraordinary detail, creating a comprehensive portrait of a man who has affected the most radical transformation of Venezuela for half a century, and dramatically affected the political debate throughout Latin America. Views: 63
"The cure for death by lightning was handwritten in thick, messy blue ink in my mother’s scrapbook, under the recipe for my father’s favourite oatcakes: Dunk the dead by lightning in a cold water bath for two hours and if still dead, add vinegar and soak for an hour more."So begins Gail Anderson-Dargatz’s extraordinary first novel, a seductive and thrilling book that captures the heart and imagination, as filled with the magic and mystery of life as it is with its lurking evils and gut-wrenching hardships. The Cure for Death by Lightning sold more than a staggering 100,000 copies in Canada alone and became a bestseller in Great Britain, later to be published in the United States and Europe. It was nominated for the Giller Prize, the richest fiction prize in Canada, and received a Betty Trask Award in the U.K.The Cure for Death by Lightning takes place in the poor, isolated farming community of Turtle Valley, British Columbia, in the shadow of the Second World War. The fifteenth summer of Beth Weeks’s life is full of strange happenings: a classmate is mauled to death; children go missing on the nearby reserve; an unseen predator pursues Beth. She is surrounded by unusual characters, including Nora, the sensual half-Native girl whose friendship provides refuge; Filthy Billy, the hired hand with Tourette’s Syndrome; and Nora’s mother, who has a man’s voice and an extra little finger. Then there’s the darkness within her own family: her domineering, shell-shocked father has fits of madness, and her mother frequently talks to the dead. Beth, meanwhile, must wrestle with her newfound sexuality in a harsh world where nylons, perfume and affection have no place. Then, in a violent storm, she is struck by lightning in her arm, and nothing is quite the same again. She decides to explore the dangers of the bush.Beth is a strong, honest, and compassionate heroine, bringing hope and joy into an environment that is often cruel. The character of Beth’s haunted mother infuses the book with life by means of her scrapbook of recipes scattered throughout, with luscious descriptions of food, gardening, and remedies, both practical and bizarre. Seen through Beth’s eyes, the West Coast landscape is full of beauty and mysteries, with its forests and rivers, and its rich native culture.The Globe and Mail commented that The Cure for Death by Lightning was "Canadian to the core," with hints of Susannah Moodie and Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro. Anderson-Dargatz’s vision of rural life has drawn comparisons with William Faulkner and John Steinbeck. A magic realism reminiscent of Latin American literature is also present, as flowers rain from the sky, and men turn into animals. Yet the style of The Cure for Death by Lightning, which the Boston Globe called "Pacific Northwest Gothic," is wholly original. Launched in a year with more than the usual number of excellent first novels (1996 was also the year of Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald and Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels), this book with its assured voice heralds a worthy successor to Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields, Margaret Laurence and Alice Munro.From the Trade Paperback edition.From Publishers WeeklyThe year is 1941. For the Weeks family on their frontier farm in Western Canada, life is brutally hard, with moments of joy few and far between. Fifteen-year-old Beth Weeks narrates this coming-of-age story, which is sprinkled with recipes, home remedies and useful homesteading advice (e.g., how to kill and clean a chicken: keep it calm, since "there's nothing as frustrating as trying to kill a panicked chicken"). Though the inventory of authentic period detail is evocative, make no mistake: this is no warmhearted tale of pioneer life. Forget square dances and barn raisings; think bestiality and incest. Beth's tortured, demanding father, mentally ill following a traumatic bear attack and the lingering effects of a head injury he received in WWI, goes on one rampage after another. Beth, meanwhile, does her best to fight off various sexual predators, finding solace of sorts in a tentative love affair with Nora, a troubled half-Indian girl. But Coyote, a sinister shape-changing spirit, stalks them and others, infusing the plot with a weird mystical aura at odds with the hardscrabble realism of the descriptions of day-to-day life. A dysfunctional Little House on the Prairie, this bleak, violent saga is a disturbing mixture of period minutiae and grim supernatural phenomena. (May) FYI: The Cure for Death by Lightning is based on a short story that won the Canadian Broadcasting Company's literary competition in 1993.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From School Library JournalYA?Beth Weeks turns 15 during the early 1940s, when most of the eligible men in rural British Columbia have enlisted. Her older brother remains to help with the farm and to protect her from their father, who received a head injury in World War I and is a violent and unpredictable man. Beth's mother talks aloud, regularly, with her own long-dead mother. Beth comes of age under great obstacles. Her mother refuses to believe her when she tells how other kids torment her, so she stops going to school. She is sexually innocent but instinctively fears her father, and when he rapes her, she withdraws, knowing she can say nothing to her mother. It is her friendship with Bertha Moses, a Native American, and her extended family that sustains her. The community is wrestling with several problems, and it is Bertha who explains that all the bad things that are happening are caused by Coyote, the notorious shape-shifter, who is present, though disguised, and wreaking havoc. The characters are brilliantly portrayed. The writing is spare and powerful: the rape scene is brief and wrenching; the loneliness of Beth and her mother is painful. The writing is wonderful, and the details are just right, but this book is not easy to read. Mature YAs who seek to challenge and stretch their minds will find this a memorable novel.?Judy Sokoll, Fairfax County Public Library, VACopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 63
In the aftermath of a deadly alien invasion, Elle Milton—former Sydney socialite—has carved a role for herself as the communications officer for the toughest commando team fighting for humanity’s survival—Hell Squad. When the squad is tasked with destroying a strategic alien facility, Elle goes head to head with battle-hardened Marcus Steele to convince him she won’t be a liability in the field. Views: 63
The submissive trainees at the Pentagon Agency derive pleasure from even the most demeaning tasks. Their lives are dedicated to sexual servitude; they enjoy pain and humiliation on a daily basis. There is only one punishment they try to avoid: the black room.When private investigator Jo Valentine is assigned to infiltrate the Pentagon Agency, she is prepared to do anything to get results - but nothing can prepare her for what lies in the black room. The more she discovers about the agency, the more she learns of her passion for dark and bizarre sexual games that go beyond anything she has experienced before. Views: 63
CIA operative Mitch Rapp follows a trail of contract killers leading directly to the heart of our nation's capital in "New York Times" bestselling author Vince Flynn's eighth explosive thriller. It's a gorgeous autumn day in Georgetown. The Democratic candidates for president and vice president of the United States are dutifully glad-handing voters and the media outside a grand estate where a national security conference has just been held, bringing together the world's greatest minds to discuss the issues that are threatening the country. It's American politicking at its best. That's when all hell breaks loose. When presidential candidate Josh Alexander's motorcade is ambushed by a group of terrorists, the nation is thrown into turmoil. Two weeks following the attack, Alexander is carried to victory by a sympathy vote, but his assailants have not been found. On the surface it appears to be the work of al-Qaeda, despite the tremendous job that the U.S. and her allies have done eliminating terrorist cells within the heart of America. While the FBI and the rest of the government begin scouring the world for jihadists, CIA director Irene Kennedy and Special Agent Skip McMahon are presented with classified information so toxic that they consider destroying it altogether, as it contains intelligence pointing to some of the most powerful players in Washington. Enter Mitch Rapp, the one man reckless enough to follow the evidence to its explosive conclusion. His journey takes him through the shadowy world of contract killers, into the darkest corners of the globe, and eventually back to Washington, where the fragile pillars of power are shaken to their core. Views: 63
This collection of short essays, written over a period of years, pictures the true Ozarks and its people as Ellen Gray Massey has experienced them. While it captures the scene it also shows how the area has influenced her personal and professional life. From her childhood attending school in Washington D.C., and living all her adult years in the Ozarks, came the material and background to become a writer, her life-long ambition. Views: 63
Imagine that it is your first day of Middle School. How many things could possibly go wrong? Unfortunately for Kati, most of them happened on the first day of school, but then the most wonderful thing occurred - the Cow Pie Gang rode again! Views: 63
