1817 and 1818 have not been good years for Matthew Hervey. His beloved wife Henrietta is dead and he is no longer in the Sixth regiment. Now he is kicking his heels in a corrupt and unruly England far removed from its once glorious past. 1819 sees Hervey in Rome with his sister Elizabeth where a chance meeting with man of letters Percy Bysshe Shelley leads him to rethink his future. Realizing just how much he misses the excitement of military action and the camaraderie of his regiment, Hervey hurriedly purchases a new commission and is refitted for the uniform of the 6th Light Dragoons. Hervey’s most immediate task is to raise a new troop and to organize transport, for his men and horses are to set sail for India with immediate effect. What Hervey and his greenhorn soldiers cannot know is that in India they will face one of their toughest trials. A large number of Burmese warboats are being assembled near the headwaters of the river leading to Chittagong, and the only way to thwart their advance involves an arduous and hazardous march through jungle territory. What begins as a relatively simple operation becomes a journey into the heart of darkness, as Hervey and his troop find themselves in the midst of hot and bloody action once more. From the Hardcover edition. Views: 56
A fighter pilot in Spain, Luke Winslow loses the woman he loves and turns from his faith. When he accidentally kills an old friend while drunk, out of guilt, he tries to help his friend's sister, Joelle, in her work with troubled girls. In the Army Air Corps, he fights his nemesis from the war in Spain, the Black Knight. Now dubbed the White Knight, Luke fights his foe and for the woman he loves, Joelle. In the heat of life's battles, will Luke turn to his only true refuge? Views: 56
Travel back in time to Scotland with bestselling author Julia Kelly for this delightful second installment in her latest historical romance series, The Matchmaker of Edinburgh series. Accomplished matchmaker Moira Sullivan knows that sometimes, the most unlikely pair can be the most entertaining.Only desperation could have driven Caroline Burkett to her brother's home in Scotland, but desperate is exactly what she is. After suing her former fiancé for breaking their engagement and causing a scandal in the papers, her only hope of starting over is to enlist the help of Edinburgh's famous matchmaker, Moira Sullivan. Born to a butler and maid, Jonathan Moray fought hard to find his place in Edinburgh society. Now a powerful newspaperman, he can make or break a person's reputation with his headlines, but Jonathan knows his success isn't guaranteed. He needs salacious stories to keep his readers enthralled, and Caroline's story is just the sort to sell papers in... Views: 56
Josh Faraday is used to getting what he wants. And what he wants is her.The Playboy and The Party Girl with a Hyphen, Josh and Kat from the bestselling The Club series, tell their love story in a scorching new trilogy: The Infatuation, The Revelation, and The Consummation. Whoever said love is patient and kind has never met hell-on-wheels, Kat Morgan.Readers are advised to read the bestselling books of The Club Series in order before reading Josh and Kat's trilogy:The Club (The Club #1)The Reclamation (The Club #2)The Redemption (The Club #3)The Culmination (The Club #4)Find out why readers have made The Club a USA Today and Amazon #1 bestseller in three categories: Romantic Suspense, New Adult and Romantic Erotica!*Readers 18+ due to extremely graphic language and adult situations. Views: 56
Abused and rejected, Benella strives to regain a purpose for her life, and finds herself returning to the last place she ever wanted to see. She must learn when it is right to forgive and when it is time to move on. Views: 56
An unprecedented biography, drawn from the author's exclusive access to high-ranking defectors, intelligence officials, and even Saddam's own relatives -- fully illustrated with photos from his early life to the present Two weeks before September 11, 2001, Saddam Hussein placed his troops on their highest military alert since the Gulf War. As al-Qaeda terrorists set their attacks on America in motion, the Iraqi dictator was prepared to go to war for a second time with the United States. How did an illegitimate child from Tikrit become the West's greatest adversary, and one of the most dangerous and murderous dictators of modem times? Saddam: King of Terror is the most insightful and illuminating portrait of the Iraqi president to date-and a fascinating study of the making of a tyrant. Con Coughlin, executive editor of London's award-winning Sunday Telegraph, has covered the Middle East for decades -- on the front lines, narrowly escaping kidnapping and violence. He has cultivated exclusive contacts among the Western intelligence community and numerous defectors from Saddam's inner circles -- including former generals, political associates, and bodyguards as well as childhood friends. Coughlin knew immediately that American and British declarations of war against terrorism after the September 11th attacks would sooner rather than later encompass Saddam Hussein as well as Osama bin Laden. Coughlin shows that any operation against terrorism will be incomplete as long as Saddam remains in power -- that international policies will have to change from cautious tolerance to active intervention, a change that is already becoming a reality. Coughlin also provides the first complete portrait of Saddam's childhood ever published, compiled from the author's inter-views with Saddam's contemporaries and relatives who have never before spoken publicly about him According to Coughlin, Saddam has a younger sister no one knew about, and he idolizes his mother, although his childhood was deeply marred by his shame about being fatherless. From his earliest years, he looked to his mother's brother as a father figure, and Coughlin tells how it was this uncle who first introduced Saddam to a life of crime and political rebellion. Saddam: King of Terror meticulously traces Saddam's bloody rise to power, from Saddam's first murder and his time in prison, to an eyewitness account of Saddam storming Iraqs presidential palace in a tank, to his almost feral ruthlessness in disposing of his opponents, even dose friends and relatives, to create his regime -- a complex mechanism in which family and tribe are central, held together by Saddam's carefully orchestrated reign of fear. In Saddam: King of Terror, we see both the bizarre, almost pathological behavior of an international pariah and the unshakable power of a tyrant who has defied the world's censure and holds a nation in his grasp. From Publishers Weekly"Writing a biography of Saddam Hussein is like trying to assemble the prosecution case against a notorious criminal gangster. Most of the key witnesses have either been murdered, or are too afraid to talk," notes Coughlin. Despite these formidable obstacles, the London Daily Telegraph correspondent has assembled a timely, detailed portrait of the Iraqi dictator-though not one that fully supports the subtitle's implied link to al-Qaeda. Relying on both primary and secondary sources, as well as interviews with Iraqis living in exile, Coughlin examines how Saddam latched onto a pan-Arab ideology and developed a ruthlessness that allowed him to rise to the top of the Iraqi leadership in 1980. As Saddam became embroiled in the lengthy Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s, and then the 1991 Gulf War, Coughlin shows how the leader used violence to keep himself in power. While emphasizing the brutality of Saddam's regime, Coughlin also explains that the Iraqi strongman developed widespread support through a combination of social programs and cult of personality, and that support so far has survived the poverty and chaos of the past decade. Coughlin provides new details of Saddam's cruel behavior and of internal purges, as well as of the U.S. role, or lack thereof, in attempted coups-though he takes no position on a possible U.S.-led war against Iraq. Still, as a new military action looms, readers looking for a biography of Iraq's strongman will need to look no further. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalDescribed by the publicist as up-to-the-minute-though next week's news could change all that. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 56
The art of needlecraft requires patience, discipline, and creativity. So, too, does the art of detection. Just ask Betsy Devonshire—who’s learning that life in a small-town needlecraft shop can reveal an unexpected knack for knitting…and a hidden talent for unraveling crime.
A Murderous Yarn
Heavens to Betsy Devonshire! She never intended to get so caught up in this year’s antique car race. But as sponsor of one of the entrants, she can’t help but keep a close eye on the outcome—and it’s not pretty. One of the drivers never makes it to the finish line. His car is found exploded in flames. Now Betsy and her crafty friends must determine if it was an accident or the work of a jealous competitor. The answer may be in a piece of needlework, but pinning down a suspect won’t be easy…
** Views: 56
Amazon.com ReviewIn Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, 14-year-old Lily Owen, neglected by her father and isolated on their South Carolina peach farm, spends hours imagining a blissful infancy when she was loved and nurtured by her mother, Deborah, whom she barely remembers. These consoling fantasies are her heart's answer to the family story that as a child, in unclear circumstances, Lily accidentally shot and killed her mother. All Lily has left of Deborah is a strange image of a Black Madonna, with the words "Tiburon, South Carolina" scrawled on the back. The search for a mother, and the need to mother oneself, are crucial elements in this well-written coming-of-age story set in the early 1960s against a background of racial violence and unrest. When Lily's beloved nanny, Rosaleen, manages to insult a group of angry white men on her way to register to vote and has to skip town, Lily takes the opportunity to go with her, fleeing to the only place she can think of--Tiburon, South Carolina--determined to find out more about her dead mother. Although the plot threads are too neatly trimmed, The Secret Life of Bees is a carefully crafted novel with an inspired depiction of character. The legend of the Black Madonna and the brave, kind, peculiar women who perpetuate Lily's story dominate the second half of the book, placing Kidd's debut novel squarely in the honored tradition of the Southern Gothic. --Regina MarlerFrom Publishers WeeklyHoney-sweet but never cloying, this debut by nonfiction author Kidd (The Dance of the Dissident Daughter) features a hive's worth of appealing female characters, an offbeat plot and a lovely style. It's 1964, the year of the Civil Rights Act, in Sylvan, S.C. Fourteen-year-old Lily is on the lam with motherly servant Rosaleen, fleeing both Lily's abusive father T. Ray and the police who battered Rosaleen for defending her new right to vote. Lily is also fleeing memories, particularly her jumbled recollection of how, as a frightened four-year-old, she accidentally shot and killed her mother during a fight with T. Ray. Among her mother's possessions, Lily finds a picture of a black Virgin Mary with "Tiburon, S.C." on the back so, blindly, she and Rosaleen head there. It turns out that the town is headquarters of Black Madonna Honey, produced by three middle-aged black sisters, August, June and May Boatwright. The "Calendar sisters" take in the fugitives, putting Lily to work in the honey house, where for the first time in years she's happy. But August, clearly the queen bee of the Boatwrights, keeps asking Lily searching questions. Faced with so ideally maternal a figure as August, most girls would babble uncontrollably. But Lily is a budding writer, desperate to connect yet fiercely protective of her secret interior life. Kidd's success at capturing the moody adolescent girl's voice makes her ambivalence comprehensible and charming. And it's deeply satisfying when August teaches Lily to "find the mother in (herself)" a soothing lesson that should charm female readers of all ages. (Jan. 28)Forecast: Blurbs from an impressive lineup of women writers Anita Shreve, Susan Isaacs, Ursula Hegi pitch this book straight at its intended readership. It's hard to say whether confusion with the similarly titled Bee Season will hurt or help sales, but a 10-city author tour should help distinguish Kidd. Film rights have been optioned and foreign rights sold in England and France. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Views: 56
"Jack and Ashley's search for eight-year-old Sammy has left them hopelessly lost in a twisted maze of tunnels deep inside Carlsbad Caverns. Bats are everywhere, and the echoes of their screeching cries sends a chill through the trio. The only light is the candle in their lantern. What will happen when it burns out, leaving them in total darkness?"=From the Paperback edition. Views: 56
