If only a broken heart were all she had to deal with… …but there are Viking ghosts, gods, werebeings, and one sexy as sin vampire on Francesca’s case. And her biggest trouble is Loki, the trickster god. When Fran arrives at Goth-Faire to deal with him, things go from bad to worse, for her immortal ex, Benedikt, is there…with a new girlfriend. Shapesifters, Vikings, and a town filled with deranged opera fans…it’s a good thing Fran’s no ordinary mortal… Views: 46
For the first time: the FBI thrillers Riptide and Hemlock Bay together in one volume. Catherine Coulter's FBI series "twists at every turn" (San Diego Union-Tribune). In two of her most gripping books-Riptide and Hemlock Bay- FBI agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock face dangerous threats in both their professional and personal lives.In Riptide, trouble follows an intrepid reporter to the quiet coastal Maine community, and Savich and Sherlock must face down a KGB agent to find the truth.In Hemlock Bay, the two travel to Maryland to take down the satanic child-killing Tuttle twins. Views: 46
She is a healer, a storyteller, and a warrior. She has fought to preserve Britain's throne. Now she faces her greatest challenge in turning bitter enemies into allies, saving the life of the man she loves . . . and mending her own wounded heart. The young former High Queen, Isolde, and her friend and protector, Trystan, are reunited in a new and dangerous quest to keep the usurper, Lord Marche, and his Saxon allies from the throne of Britain. Using Isolde's cunning wit and talent for healing and Trystan's strength and bravery, they must act as diplomats, persuading the rulers of the smaller kingdoms, from Ireland to Cornwall, that their allegiance to the High King is needed to keep Britain from a despot's hands. Their admissions of love hang in the air, but neither wants to put the other at risk by openly declaring a deeper alliance. When their situation is at its most desperate, Trystan and Isolde must finally confront their true feelings toward each other, in time... Views: 46
Amazon.com ReviewMatterhorn is a marvel--a living, breathing book with Lieutenant Waino Mellas and the men of Bravo Company at its raw and battered heart. Karl Marlantes doesn't introduce you to Vietnam in his brilliant war epic--he unceremoniously drops you into the jungle, disoriented and dripping with leeches, with only the newbie lieutenant as your guide. Mellas is a bundle of anxiety and ambition, a college kid who never imagined being part of a "war that none of his friends thought was worth fighting," who realized too late that "because of his desire to look good coming home from a war, he might never come home at all." A highly decorated Vietnam veteran himself, Marlantes brings the horrors and heroism of war to life with the finesse of a seasoned writer, exposing not just the things they carry, but the fears they bury, the friends they lose, and the men they follow. Matterhorn is as much about the development of Mellas from boy to man, from the kind of man you fight beside to the man you fight for, as it is about the war itself. Through his untrained eyes, readers gain a new perspective on the ravages of war, the politics and bureaucracy of the military, and the peculiar beauty of brotherhood. --Daphne Durham Amazon Exclusive: Mark Bowden Reviews Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War The Philadelphia Inquirer for twenty years and now writes for Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, and other magazines. He lives in Oxford, Pennsylvania. Matterhorn is a great novel. There have been some very good novels about the Vietnam War, but this is the first great one, and I doubt it will ever be surpassed. Karl Marlantes overlooks no part of the experience, large or small, from a terrified soldier pondering the nature of good and evil, to the feel and smell of wet earth against scorched skin as a man tries to press himself into the ground to escape withering fire. Here is story-telling so authentic, so moving and so intense, so relentlessly dramatic, that there were times I wasn’t sure I could stand to turn the page. As with the best fiction, I was sad to reach the end.The wrenching combat in Matterhorn is ultimately pointless; the marines know they are fighting a losing battle in the long run. Bravo Company carves out a fortress on the top of the hill so named, one of countless low, jungle-coated mountains near the border of Laos, only to be ordered to abandon it when they are done. After the enemy claims the hill’s deep bunkers and carefully constructed fields of fire, the company is ordered to take it back, to assault their own fortifications. They do so with devastating consequences, only to be ordered in the end to abandon Matterhorn once again.Against this backdrop of murderous futility, Marlantes’ memorable collection of marines is pushed to its limits and beyond. As the deaths and casualties mount, the men display bravery and cowardice, ferocity and timidity, conviction and doubt, hatred and love, intelligence and stupidity. Often these opposites are contained in the same person, especially in the book’s compelling main character, Second Lt. Waino Mellas. As Mellas and his men struggle to overcome impossible barriers of landscape, they struggle to overcome similarly impossible barriers between each other, barriers of race and class and rank. Survival forces them to cling to each other and trust each other and ultimately love each other. There has never been a more realistic portrait or eloquent tribute to the nobility of men under fire, and never a more damning portrait of a war that ground them cruelly underfoot for no good reason.Marlantes brilliantly captures the way combat morphs into clean abstraction as fateful decisions move up the chain of command, further and further away from the actual killing and dying. But he is too good a novelist to paint easy villains. His commanders make brave decisions and stupid ones. High and low there is the same mix of cowardice and bravery, ambition and selflessness, ineptitude and competence.There are passages in this book that are as good as anything I have ever read. This one comes late in the story, when the main character, Mellas, has endured much, has killed and also confronted the immediate likelihood of his own death, and has digested the absurdity of his mission: "He asked for nothing now, nor did he wonder if he had been good or bad. Such concepts were all part of the joke he’d just discovered. He cursed God directly for the savage joke that had been played on him. And in that cursing Mellas for the first time really talked with his God. Then he cried, tears and snot mixing together as they streamed down his face, but his cries were the rage and hurt of a newborn child, at last, however roughly, being taken from the womb."Vladimir Nabokov once said that the greatest books are those you read not just with your heart or your mind, but with your spine. This is one for the spine. --Mark BowdenFrom Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Thirty years in the making, Marlantes's epic debut is a dense, vivid narrative spanning many months in the lives of American troops in Vietnam as they trudge across enemy lines, encountering danger from opposing forces as well as on their home turf. Marine lieutenant and platoon commander Waino Mellas is braving a 13-month tour in Quang-Tri province, where he is assigned to a fire-support base and befriends Hawke, older at 22; both learn about life, loss, and the horrors of war. Jungle rot, leeches dropping from tree branches, malnourishment, drenching monsoons, mudslides, exposure to Agent Orange, and wild animals wreak havoc as brigade members face punishing combat and grapple with bitterness, rage, disease, alcoholism, and hubris. A decorated Vietnam veteran, the author clearly understands his playing field (including military jargon that can get lost in translation), and by examining both the internal and external struggles of the battalion, he brings a long, torturous war back to life with realistic characters and authentic, thrilling combat sequences. Marlantes's debut may be daunting in length, but it remains a grand, distinctive accomplishment. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Views: 46
Biggles is sent to Jean Bonney Island in the Bay of Bengal, to investigate possible interference with this British sovereign territory. Taking Algy with him, Biggles flies out in his Gadfly aircraft and lands on a lagoon on the island. Here they find a man named Clarence Collingwood who is hostile towards them. He claims to be a biologist. Getting little information out of Collingwood, Biggles is suspicious as to why he is alone on the island but not interested in being rescued. Returning to the lagoon to spend the night, Biggles and Algy are attacked by a Giant Squid. After another confrontation with Collingwood, the Gadfly is cut adrift and Biggles realises there must be a fourth person on the island as well. Biggles searches the small island and finds hashish growing, a notorious narcotic. He discovers an Arab who he later finds out is called Ali. Biggles also discovers what appears to be a man made cave. Meanwhile Algy has some trouble with a shark and has to move the aircraft, losing the anchor in the process. Later, Biggles dives down to recover the anchor and this is the picture on the dust cover of the book, together with a picture of an Arab boat called a dhow. Biggles decides to cut down the hashish crop to destroy it. Returning to the plane, because a storm is brewing, Biggles notices an Arab dhow approaching. However, the storm is preventing it from landing on the island. Biggles finds Algy trying to strap the plane down and, much to his surprise, being helped by Collingwood. All three of them return to Collingwood's hut to take shelter from the terrible storm. Collingwood explains that the drugs belong to the Arabs and are nothing to do with him. He is there to mine opals. Collingwood thinks the Arabs will kill them, because of what Biggles has done to their drug crop. After the storm, they all go to look for Ali and find that he has been buried in the cave, which was an opal mine. They manage to dig him out alive. Biggles and Algy have to repair their storm-damaged aircraft. The next morning, the Arabs in the dhow attempt to land, but the landing party is attacked by a Giant Squid and only one man makes it ashore alive. Algy discovers Collingwood has been murdered during the night and it is obvious that Ali has done it to steal his opals. Biggles goes to confront Ali and finds that the newly arrived Arab has killed him and stolen the opals himself. Chasing after the Arab, the man escapes by swimming the lagoon only to meet justice in the jaws of the shark. The Arabs land, but having seen the shark attack their comrade, they don't blame Biggles or Algy for all of the deaths. The Arabs kill the shark and find the opals inside it but their dhow is wrecked on the coral reef. Biggles and Algy return home reflecting on why opals are considered to be unlucky. Views: 46
This long-awaited biography provides a fascinating and comprehensive picture of García Márquez's life up to the publication of his classic 100 Years of Solitude. Based on nearly a decade of research, this biographical study sheds new light on the life and works of the Nobel Laureate, father of magical realism, and bestselling author in the history of the Spanish language. As García Márquez's impact endures on well into his ninth decade, Stavans's keen insights constitute the definitive re-appraisal of the literary giant's life and corpus. The later part of his life will be covered in a second book. Views: 46
It’s Jax Cassidy’s first mission for L.O.S.T.—one that will give the former cop who went rogue a chance to prove herself. Her assignment: gain the trust of assassin Marcus Cross . . . eliminate him . . . then take down Marcus’s mentor, Joseph Lazarus, a man with a bold eye on the White House. But the woman who’s known by her team for being a femme fatale succumbs to passion, only to discover Cross’s deadly secret. He’s a vampire, and Joseph Lazarus is his creator. Left for dead by his platoon in the violent hills of Afghanistan, Special Ops sniper Marcus Cross was given a second chance at life. His newly heightened skills make him the perfect killing machine, and as Lazarus’s right-hand man, he’s quickly rising to the top of his dark empire, purging enemies with speed and precision. Only when dangerous beauty Jax Cassidy is sent to bring him in does he begin to question Lazarus’s motives and his own actions. But when Jax’s life is threatened by the one thing that can destroy them both, Marcus must make a bitter choice—her death or his. Views: 46
During her preschool years, Tara Sullivan lived in terror that something bad would happen to her mother while they were apart. In grade school, she panicked during the practice fire drills. Practice for what?, Tara asked. For the upcoming disaster that was bound to happen?Then, at the age of 11, it happened. Tara heard the phrase that changed her life: Step on a crack, break your mother's back. Before Tara knew it, she was counting every crack in the sidewalk. Over time, Tara's "quirks" grew and developed: arranging her meals on plates, nonstop prayer rituals, until she developed a new ritual wherin she kissed her fingers and touched doorknobs....From the Paperback edition. Views: 46
The Cabal (Book 14 in the McGarvey series) (2010) 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.and that 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 US government and shake the foundations of the world financial order. Views: 46
