From the author of 'The Grafton Girls' comes the story of one Liverpool family preparing for the onslaught of World War Two, while trying not to fight among themselves.Jean and Vi are twins but couldn't be more different. Jean's proud of her honest, hardworking husband and their children, but there's never a penny to spare. Vi's equally proud of her husband's new role as a local councillor and their elegant new house, and has raised her children to expect the best. As war breaks out, agonising decisions must be faced. Should the oldest children enlist? Should the youngest be evacuated? All the traditional certainties are overturned. Then the twins' own younger sister, singer Francine, returns home unexpectedly and stirs up the past, even in the midst of present danger. This is a tremendous saga of fighting spirit and family closeness, and the belief that even though today is full of destruction and pain, there is hope for a better tomorrow. Views: 8
Erotic Romance. 55888 words long. Views: 8
Perhaps the greatest leader of men during the Gallipoli campaign, Lieutenant-Colonel W. G. Malone was commanding officer of New Zealand's Wellington Battalion at Gallipoli. Renowned for his humanity and his superb leadership, he played a key role in the successful assault on Chunuk Bair on 8 August 1915, but was killed later that day. No Better Death reproduces Malone's impressive and often moving correspondence and writings, along with many striking images. Views: 8
Heat up your holidays with this reader-favorite novella by New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis!EMT Dustin Mauer has made it clear that his Christmas mission is to convince tough firefighter Cristina Lewis that she's in love with him. But Cristina lives and breathes her job, and there's no place in her life for a relationship—though she has to admit that Dustin's lean, chiseled body and low, whiskey-thick voice still tempt her. But even Dustin can only take so much rejection. Can she admit that all she wants this Christmas—and every Christmas—is him, before it's too late? Views: 8
When local loan shark John Jaws Harrison is found with his skull caved
in in an alleyway backing on to rundown Primrose Avenue, DCI Joe
Rafferty, and dour sidekick Dafyd Llewellyn, imagine the case will be
easily solved. Armed with a list of local debtors, they begin their
investigations. But they hadnt counted on the apparent consensus of
silence amongst the residents most of whom had good reason to want Jaws
dead . . . Views: 8
Sam Tibbits loves life—especially life at Piddock Beach, where his family spends their vacations. It’s here that he’s come to care for Aubrey, his childhood confidante. So the year Aubrey’s family moves away with no forwarding address, Sam is crushed. He was going to propose.
Aubrey McCart enjoys being with Sam; he accepts her unconditionally like her father never has. But when her father’s pride and joy—her brother—is killed in Vietnam, Aubrey is unable to cope. She chooses a path that changes her life forever, leading her away from Sam.
Years later, when Sam and Aubrey find themselves back at Piddock Beach, the two are forced to confront their abandoned friendship and make peace with their lives. But can they do so without overstepping their moral boundaries? Views: 8
FOR A CHILD'S SAKE A child lay gravely ill, his parents praying for a miracle. But on opposite sides of the hospital bed. Jennie and Michael Stratton's marriage had fallen apart, leaving them both devastated and alone. Yet now, as Michael sat holding his son's small hand, he finally knew what it meant to believe. Jennie struggled to resolve her feelings for the stubborn man she'd married. But their brave little boy needed the strength of their united love. They had to forget their past and focus on the here and now. And then a marriage that had been put asunder might begin to heal, too. Views: 8
When they emerge from Hell, Merle, her friend Junipa who has mirrors for eyes, and Vermithrax the flying stone lion find themselves in Egypt. Of course the Flowing Queen is with them as well, since Merle swallowed her back in Venice. There is something very wrong in Egypt--it is freezing cold, and everything is covered in snow. Winter is here, looking for his lost love, Summer. And another creature is here as well--Seth, the highest of the Horus priests. Betrayed by the pharaoh and his sphinx henchmen, Seth is seeking revenge. Together they travel to the Iron Eye, the vast fortress of the sphinxes.But what does the Flowing Queen want Merle to do there? Meanwhile Serafin, the master thief, the beautiful sphinx Lalapeya, and Eft, the mermaid, are also headed for Egypt. They are traveling underwater, in a submarine piloted by pirates. Serafin is not sure what they can do to the fight the pharaoh, but he knows surrender is not an option. Egypt has captured and enslaved his... Views: 8
Could finding love be his greatest scandal of all? The Duke of Griffin has never lived down his reputation as one of the Rakes of St. James. Now rumors are swirling around London that his twin sisters may bear the brunt of his past follies. Hiring a competent chaperone is the only thing Griffin has on his mind—until he meets the lovely and intriguing Miss Esmeralda Swift. In ways he could never have expected, she arouses more than just his curiosity. Esmeralda Swift considered herself too sensible to ever fall for a scoundrel, but that was before she met the irresistibly seductive Duke of Griffin. His employment offer proves too tempting for her to resist. She can't afford to be distracted by his devilish charms because the stakes are so high for his sisters' debut Season. . .unless one of London's most notorious rakes has had a change of heart and is ready to make Esmeralda his bride in Last Night with the Duke, the first novel in the... Views: 8
The only travel writing book on Gascony, A Summer in Gascony is a charming and humorous tale of an extraordinary summer spent in this relatively unknown part of south-western France, the home of D Artagnan, Cyrano de Bergerac, gutsy red wine, fine sweet wine Armagnac and sunflowers. It is a tale of two love affairs: an idyllic summer romance and a lifelong love affair with Gascony with its village festivals, dusty roads and sun-baked wine country. Stretching from Toulouse in the east to the Atlantic coast in the west, from the river Garonne in the north to the Pyrenees in the south, Gascony is a golden land of rolling hills and wide horizons, swathed with vineyards, sunflowers, maize and pastures. It has a distinct identity which sets it apart from the rest of France and old affinities with England: the Gascons fought alongside the English in the Middle Ages and the Napoleonic Wars against their common foe the French. In the tiny hamlet of Peguilhan, Martin Calder is introduced to... Views: 8
It's the bleak midwinter and the Shenandoah Valley is poised on the brink of an unusually icy and snowy season. Alexei Kamarov's body is discovered in a forest within the Picketsville town limits. His driver's license identifies him as Randall Harris. The last Sheriff Ike Schwartz heard of Kamarov, he was reported missing, presumed dead, in Russia, the victim of intelligence game-playing.Ike is not happy with this piece of his past. Ike's former CIA colleague and friend Charlie Garland asks Ike to keep a lid on the investigation.Slowly, interagency rivalries surface as local petty criminals vie with international assassins and plotters for attention. All the while, Buffalo Mountain looms in the background. Does the community's violent history have something do with this recent murder? Or is Kamarov's death part of some greater political plot? The third in the Sheriff Ike Schwartz series. ** Views: 8
Amazon.com Review Set in Manchester County, Virginia, 20 years before the Civil War began, Edward P. Jones's debut novel, The Known World, is a masterpiece of overlapping plot lines, time shifts, and heartbreaking details of life under slavery. Caldonia Townsend is an educated black slaveowner, the widow of a well-loved young farmer named Henry, whose parents had bought their own freedom, and then freed their son, only to watch him buy himself a slave as soon as he had saved enough money. Although a fair and gentle master by the standards of the day, Henry Townsend had learned from former master about the proper distance to keep from one's property. After his death, his slaves wonder if Caldonia will free them. When she fails to do so, but instead breaches the code that keeps them separate from her, a little piece of Manchester County begins to unravel. Impossible to rush through, The Known World is a complex, beautifully written novel with a large cast of characters, rewarding the patient reader with unexpected connections, some reaching into the present day. From Publishers Weekly In a crabbed, powerful follow-up to his National Book Award-nominated short story collection (Lost in the City), Jones explores an oft-neglected chapter of American history, the world of blacks who owned blacks in the antebellum South. His fictional examination of this unusual phenomenon starts with the dying 31-year-old Henry Townsend, a former slave-now master of 33 slaves of his own and more than 50 acres of land in Manchester County, Va.-worried about the fate of his holdings upon his early death. As a slave in his youth, Henry makes himself indispensable to his master, William Robbins. Even after Henry's parents purchase the family's freedom, Henry retains his allegiance to Robbins, who patronizes him when he sets up shop as a shoemaker and helps him buy his first slaves and his plantation. Jones's thorough knowledge of the legal and social intricacies of slaveholding allows him to paint a complex, often startling picture of life in the region. His richest characterizations-of Robbins and Henry-are particularly revealing. Though he is a cruel master to his slaves, Robbins is desperately in love with a black woman and feels as much fondness for Henry as for his own children; Henry, meanwhile, reads Milton, but beats his slaves as readily as Robbins does. Henry's wife, Caldonia, is not as disciplined as her husband, and when he dies, his worst fears are realized: the plantation falls into chaos. Jones's prose can be rather static and his phrasings ponderous, but his narrative achieves crushing momentum through sheer accumulation of detail, unusual historical insight and generous character writing. Views: 8
Murder down under. The car lies wrecked and abandoned near the world's longest fence, the "rabbit-proof fence" in the wheat belt of Western Australia. There is no sign of its owner. Has George Loftus simply decamped, for reasons of his own? Or was it murder? Bonaparte suspects the worst and is determined to find the body - and the murderer. Views: 8
