Long-listed for the prestigious Davitt and Ned Kelly Awards for Crime fiction this Amazon Best Seller is a brain-teasing conspiracy thriller for the adventurous reader. 'By the Power of these keys the Head of the Church will be made the Lord of Hell'In late 2012 a cryptic invitation leads a crime novelist to Venice's Island of the Dead. Seventy four years later a similar cryptic invitation brings Grail Historian Otto Rahn to an apartment in Berlin. What awaits him will change his life forever. What ensues is a hunt for Le Serpent Rouge, a notorious book of black magic written by a Pope, a book Himmler wants to add to Hitler's library. But there are others looking for the grimoire. A shadowy circle of men are watching Rahn's every move, and they will stop at nothing to possess the book and the legendary key that unlocks its terrifying power...a power that has the potential to effect the future. The Sixth Key has been described as a three dimensional game of chess with real characters, a time machine that will blow your mind and change the way you see the world and the impulses behind war forever.Review'Chilling, Thrilling, and Willing!' The Canberra Times'It had me hooked from the first page.' - Sisters in Crime'An Addictive Thriller' - Libri Blog'In the tradition of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, Adriana Koulias weaves a tale of esoteric intrigue in The Sixth Key.' - The Cairns Post'Koulias weaves an elegant plot that keeps you guessing until the last page.'
- Good Reading Magazine'Ms Koulias captures the attention of the reader with plot twists and good narrative tension. It is unpredictable to the very end.' - Letteratura & Cinema'...Richly dense, well constructed novel, with a dynamism and excitement that make the pages typically cinematic, sliding like the frames of an Indiana Jones film.' - Libri di Scriveri From the AuthorAUTHOR INTERVIEW:Who is your target audience?AK: I write books that I would read myself and I like complex mysteries, multi layered thrillers that are textured; books that need your full attention. My goal is to engage the reader and to have him or her participate in the imaginative process. I also love playing around with language and usually try to tailor it to the era of my story. So, I guess this means that those who are after a fast read don't usually 'get' my books. I suppose I write for people who like milieu and atmosphere, who love language and historical mysteries tinged with the supernatural and religious.What do you hope your readers will get out of your booksAK: I hope that at the end of reading my books my readers will have questions about the world we live in, about history and what we consider truth and fiction, because they have been given a different perspective.Is there more coming?AK: I am writing the fifth book in the series right now, making my Quartet a Quintet: Ghost Club and the Devil's Alphabet is a story set in London in 1888 around two real historical characters George Albert Smith (the father of UK Cinema) and Douglas Blackburn (who invented short hand). They were both entertainers on the Brighton stage and are involved with mesmerism and hypnotism. They become entangled in a web of intrigue surrounding the death of a mutual friend when they stumbled unwittingly on a strange club that appears to be involved in the Jack the Ripper Murders. I'm having a lot of fun writing it!What makes your books unique/outstanding?AK: They are a series but they can be read in any order because they are only loosely woven together and so each book can stand alone. They interconnect like puzzle pieces. What is your writing process?AK: I work a 10 hour day. I have a rough sketch of what I'm going to write, the themes and characters and the plot and then I just write. After that I do a lot of editing and I end up with a multitude of drafts which eventually I hone into a book. I guess my books are narrative driven and that means I'm often surprised to find out things about my characters that I didn't know! How do you cope with criticism?AK: Well, that is very hard because we all love our work to be loved, but in truth it is unavoidable and it is even something you should be proud of! Yes! As writers we create concepts that may not fit with the concepts already living in the readers for various reasons. What writers should keep in mind is that if writing is to develop as an art then popularity can't be the focus. Writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Herman Hesse were ahead of their times and some of their books were terribly unpopular until the readers caught up with their work and then they were touted as geniuses. The truth is by the time a book becomes popular and is praised universally it is already outdated. That isn't to say that popularity isn't a great byproduct and a consolation! But it should not be the main focus of writing in my view. When I see a criticism that is very emotive, I realise that at least I have touched something in that person because I have been frustrated with a book myself, which many years later I have picked up and have found life changing! It is all in the standpoint. In fact, my favourite quote, given to me recently by a friend is from Lessing's introduction to "The Golden Notebook": Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty." I do believe that to be true. If a book bores you in your 40s and 50s you might have to wait until your next life! :) Views: 35
Faith In Love is a lesbian novel for readers of every sexual identity. Written from the point of view of Faith, a wife, mother and football widow who works in a baker's shop in north London and shops in Tesco's in her lunch hour, it is lively, humorous, candid and challenging.A passionate glance she wasn't meant to see, between two seemingly ordinary women, shows Faith a different view of the world, and sets her on the trail of a new way of life. On route she gets a fresh and surprising view of the people she thought she knew best — her soccer-mad husband, her school-age vegetarian daughter and herself!Faith's journey advances through scenes of love and lust, sudden flashes of violence and queasy revelation, as, her curiosity aroused, she pursues one of the mystery women — at first in a playful way, and then more determinedly into the local lesbian bars. Her family life begins to unravel, as she realizes no one is who they seem to be and nothing is as... Views: 35
The Aldens are volunteers at a medieval fair! They are excited to wear costumes and entertain the crowds. But when a valuable sword goes missing, the children know their toughest job is going to be catching the thief. Can the Boxcar Children find the sword and solve the mystery before the fair moves on to Silver City? Views: 35
Linda and Robin Reismann barely know each other. The only thing that connects them is Linda's six-week-old marriage to Robin's father, who has suddenly died. Widowed at twenty-six, Linda is heading to California to start over, uncertain what the future holds. In the trunk of her car, she carries her husband's amateur paintings, along with his ashes. Robin, her silent, angry teenage stepdaughter, about to be left with relatives she's never met, carries a private stash of pot and some closely guarded secrets. But these two women, journeying on a road alongside drifters and dreamers, lovers and liars, will discover something they never expected to find--between them and inside their hearts.From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 35
Amber Rose Hartford's grandfather made her dowry dependent on her marrying Viscount Costain. Though unaware of this condition, Benedict accepts it for more than one reason. He rescues Amber from her disreputable cousin Patrick, but before they can marry she is abducted. A large ransom is paid but Amber is not released. Benedict must rescue her again-and convince her of his honorable intentions. Historical Romance by Janet Woods; originally published by Belgrave House Views: 35
PRIME SUSPECT When Jess Robinson's ex-boyfriend disappeared, Detective Kyle Branson figured he didn't have to go far to find out who was behind it. Jess had motive, means AND opportunity. And just because he couldn't keep his eyes off her, that still shouldn't blind him to the truth-the lovely Ms. Robinson might protest her innocence, but she had "guilty" written all over her beautiful face. And he could read....right? OR INNOCENT VICTIM? Kyle had knocked on Jess's door, looking to pin a murder rap on her, but a few cozy stakeouts later, he suddenly claimed to believe in her innocence. Jess needed all the help she could get-but in turning to Kyle, was she grabbing onto a lifeline...or going under for the third time? Views: 35
Lee Evans is one of the best-loved comedians in the country; a Hollywood star able to sell out arenas in the blink of eye.But he was not always such a roaring success.The Life of Lee is an utterly hilarious and very moving autobiography charting his ups and downs on the way to the top. Lee takes us on a darkly humorous journey through his childhood spent running wild on a Bristol housing estate and his unconventional school days, when he was publicly derided as 'a failure' by a sadistic teacher.In this brilliantly entertaining and engaging tale, he also guides us through a grim teenage period of numerous dead-end jobs. When he was cleaning toilets and plucking turkeys, he could never have imagined that one day he would be playing to thousands of adoring fans at the O2 Arena.The book also reveals how as a boy Lee got his first taste of showbiz, living out of a suitcase and accompanying his entertainer father around the smoky, rowdy, unforgiving working-men's club and... Views: 35
Andrew Jones was once one of the few surgeons in the world to have that rare, God-given ability called The Touch. But after failing to save his young fiancé, Faith, at the scene of a car accident, Jones abandons his gift and shuns the operating room. Lara Blair owns a Chicago-based biomedical engineering company developing a surgical tool that will duplicate precisely the movement of a surgeon’s hands, reducing or eliminating failed surgical procedures. Lara has pursued the best surgeons in the world to test this surgical tool, and all of them have failed. As Lara pursues Jones’s skill for her project, Jones’s stubborn resistance cracks, and he begins to open up to her about the wounds that still haunt him. But when Jones discovers the urgency behind Lara’s work, he must choose to move beyond his past. As each is forced to surrender secret fears, they are bonded together through the lives of the people Jones serves and by the healing secret that Faith left behind. Views: 35
Writing of Samrat Upadhyay's debut story collection, critics raved: like a Buddhist Chekhov . . . speak[s] to common truths . . . startlingly good" (San Francisco Chronicle) and subtle and spiritually complex" (New York Times). Upadhyay's first novel showcases his finest writing and his signature themes. The Guru of Love is a moving and important story — important for what it illuminates about the human need to love as well as lust, and for the light it shines on the political situation in Nepal and elsewhere.Ramchandra is a math teacher earning a low wage and living in a small apartment with his wife and two children. Moonlighting as a tutor, he engages in an illicit affair with one of his tutees, Malati, a beautiful, impoverished young woman who is also a new mother. She provides for him what his wife, who comes from a privileged background, does not: desire, mystery, and a simpler life. Complicating matters are various political concerns and a small city... Views: 35
