New York Times bestseller Robin Hobb is one of the most popular writers in fantasy today, having sold more than one million copies of her work in paperback. She’s perhaps best known for her epic fantasy Farseer series, including Assassins Apprentice, Royal Assassin, and Assassins Quest, as well as the two fantasy series related to it, the Liveship Traders series, consisting of Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, and Ship of Destiny, and the Tawny Man series, made up of Fool’s Errand, Golden Fool, and Fool’s Fate. Recently, she’s started a new fantasy series, the Soldier Son series, composed of Shaman’s Crossing, Forest Mage, and her most recently published novel, Renegade’s Magic. Her early novels, published under the name Megan Lindholm, include the fantasy novels Wizard of the Pigeons, Harpy’s Flight, The Windsingers, The Limbreth Gate, Luck of the Wheels, The Reindeer People, Wolf’s Brother, and Cloven Hooves, the science fiction novel Alien Earth, and, with Steven Brust, the collaborative novel The Gypsy. Here she takes us to the edge of human endurance and considerably beyond, for a harrowing study of the ultimate meaning of loyalty, when everything else has been lost. Views: 23
Sometimes you need to lose yourself before you can find what you're looking for.Andrew and his mate Benny have finished school and are heading for the holiday of their lives in Byron Bay. They are not sure what they're looking forward to most: the surf, the girls, the music, the partying or just being away from Adelaide.Things don't go to plan, and Andrew loses his mates. But he finds Heidi. Heidi is not like anyone he's ever met before, and she takes him into her world, which feels a million miles away from his past. But is Andrew really prepared for the ride he's about to take?The Byron Journals is an exciting debut novel by a fresh new voice in Australian literature. Fun, and sometimes frightening, it takes a clear-eyed look at the desire to escape your past and the dangers of running headlong into your future.'A stormy coming-of-age ride of sex, drugs, and indie-rock...' Good Reading Views: 23
Who were the three men the American and Soviet superpowers exchanged at Berlin's Glienicke Bridge and Checkpoint Charlie in the first and most legendary prisoner exchange between East and West? Bridge of Spies vividly traces their paths to that exchange on February 10, 1962, when their fate helped to define the conflicts and lethal undercurrents of the most dangerous years of the Cold War. Bridge of Spies is the true story of three extraordinary characters – William Fisher, alias Rudolf Abel, a British born KGB agent arrested by the FBI in New York City and jailed as a Soviet superspy for trying to steal America’s most precious nuclear secrets; Gary Powers, the American U-2 pilot who was captured when his plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission over the closed cities of central Russia; and Frederic Pryor, a young American graduate student in Berlin mistakenly identified as a spy, arrested and held without charge by the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police. By weaving the three strands of this story together for the first time, Giles Whittell masterfully portrays the intense political tensions and nuclear brinkmanship that brought the United States and Soviet Union so close to a hot war in the early 1960s. He reveals the dramatic lives of men drawn into the nadir of the Cold War by duty and curiosity, and the tragicomedy of errors that eventually induced Khrushchev to send missiles to Castro. Two of his subjects — the spy and the pilot — were the original seekers of weapons of mass destruction. The third, an intellectual, fluent in German, unencumbered by dependents, and researching a Ph.D. thesis on the foreign trade system of the Soviet bloc, seemed to the Stasi precisely the sort of person the CIA should have been recruiting. He was not. In over his head in the world capital of spying, he was wrongly charged with espionage and thus came to the Agency’s notice by a more roundabout route. The three men were rescued against daunting odds by fate and by their families, and then all but forgotten. Yet they laid bare the pathological mistrust that fueled the arms race for the next 30 years. Drawing on new interviews conducted in the United States, Europe and Russia with key players in the exchange and the events leading to it, among them Frederic Pryor himself and the man who shot down Gary Powers, Bridge of Spies captures a time when the fate of the world really did depend on coded messages on microdots and brave young men in pressure suits. The exchange that frigid day at two of the most sensitive points along the Iron Curtain represented the first step back from where the superpowers had stood since the building of the Berlin Wall the previous summer – on the brink of World War III.** Views: 23
Everyone from Didsbury High remembers Katie Fisher as the dumpy brainiac from the poor side of town. Everyone from Didsbury High remembers Paul van Dorn as the school hockey star—and heartthrob. But now they're facing off—and matching up in more ways than one. Katie's lost the pounds, added some self-confidence, and become a drop-dead gorgeous sociology professor. And since a series of concussions put an end to Paul's pro-hockey career, his star has dimmed. Now he hits the ice as a youth hockey coach. But he's still got the hometown crowd behind him as the owner of a bar called the Penalty Box. Paul is reliving his glory days. Katie wishes she could put those years behind her. And the battle of wills that ensues just might knock love right out of the game... Views: 23
"Fletcher gives readers a strong plot . . . and a triumphant heroine in Corrag, whose travails are truly epic."—Publishers WeeklyIn 1692, brilliant, captivating Corrag-accused witch, orphaned herbalist, and unforgettable heroine-is imprisoned in the Scottish highlands, suspected of witchcraft and murder. As she awaits her death she tells her story to Charles Leslie, an Irish propagandist who seeks information she may have condemning the Protestant King William. Hers is a story of passion, courage, love, and the magic of the natural world. By telling it, she transforms both their lives. Originally published in hardcover under the title Corrag: A Novel. Views: 23
When military gadget girl USAF Lieutenant Samantha Spade tests the latest experimental goggles, she spots a sniper aiming for Sergeant Diane Roth. The assailant is taken out--but the high-level investigation is just beginning. Views: 23
In Washington, CIA operative Todd Van Buren meets with a Washington Post investigative reporter who has uncovered strong evidence that a powerful lobbyist has formed a shadowy group called the Friday Club, a cabal whose members include high-ranking men inside the government: a White House adviser, a three star general at the Pentagon, deputy secretaries at the State Department, Homeland Security, the FBI and even the CIA. That afternoon Van Buren, son-in-law of the legendary spy Kirk McGarvey, is brutally gunned down because of what he’s been told. The same evening the reporter and his family are killed, all traces of the shadow group erased. A grief stricken McGarvey is drawn into the most far-reaching and bizarre investigation of his career, the stakes of which could destabilize the U.S. government, and shake the foundations of the world financial order. Views: 23
