Freya writes uncomfortable domestic dramas. Her friends work in theatre and film, show in galleries, talk politics and are trying new ways of having children with friends. These are the people who are slowly gentrifying the next ring of inner-city suburbs while praising their diversity. As the stultifying heat of summer descends, Shane, an Aboriginal man, moves up the road. He was once close to Matt, Freya's partner, and he not only brings with him a different approach to life, he also has news of a boy who might be Matt's son. Despite wanting to embrace all that Shane represents and the possibility of another child in their life, Freya and Matt stumble, failing each other and their beliefs. Views: 23
This is the riveting story of Noor Inayat Khan, a descendant of an Indian Prince Tipu Sultan (the Tiger of Mysore), who became a British secret agent for SOE during World War II. Shrabani Basu tells the moving story of Noor's life, from her birth in Moscow - where her father was a Sufi preacher - to her capture by the Germans. Noor was one of only three women SOE agents awarded the George Cross and, under torture, revealed nothing, not even her own real name. Kept in solitary confinement, her hands and feet chained together, Noor was starved and beaten, but the Germans could not break her spirit. Then months after she was captured, she was taken to Dachau concentration camp and, on 13th September 194, she was shot. Her last word was 'Liberté'. Views: 23
The author of A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg and Pecked to Death by Ducks gives new meaning to the words "going to extremes" in this exhilarating--and frequently hilarious--collection of adventure travel writing. "Cahill . . . (writes) with the precision ofJohn McPhee and Joan Didion tempered by a Monty Pythonesque sense of the absurd."--San Diego Union-Tribune.From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 23
Trixie's on the trail of a century-old mystery! She's headed to Williamsburg, Virginia, to find an old plantation house, Rosewood Hall, that was the home to the Sunderland family during the Civil War. Rumor has it that a cursed emerald necklace is buried in a secret passageway there. But after all that time, Rosewood Hall is just a ruin. Is it too late for Trixie to find the missing emeralds?From the Hardcover edition. Views: 23
SUMMARY: Dev is a smuggler with the perfect cover. He''s in high demand as a guide for the caravans that carry legitimate goods from the city of Ninavel into the country of Alathia. The route through the Whitefire Mountains is treacherous, and Dev is one of the few climbers who knows how to cross them safely. With his skill and connections, it''s easy enough to slip contraband charms from Ninavel - where any magic is fair game, no matter how dark - into Alathia, where most magic is outlawed. But smuggling a few charms is one thing; smuggling a person through the warded Alathian border is near suicidal. Having made a promise to a dying friend, Dev is forced to take on a singularly dangerous cargo: Kiran. A young apprentice on the run from one of the most powerful mages in Ninavel, Kiran is desperate enough to pay a fortune to sneak into a country where discovery means certain execution - and he''ll do whatever it takes to prevent Dev from finding out the terrible truth behind his getaway. Yet the young mage is not the only one harboring a deadly secret. Caught up in a web of subterfuge and dark magic, Dev and Kiran must find a way to trust each other - or face not only their own destruction, but that of the entire city of Ninavel. Views: 23
There's more than one way of being a modern woman, not that the Devlin sisters would admit it ...Julie used to be the easy-going sister. But now she's a mother of four boys under five, her marriage is under strain and she is struggling to keep sane. She needs support, but her sisters don't understand. After all, their lives are perfect.Lawyer Louise has always been top of her game, with little time for family and even less for romance. But with a drunken mistake threatening everything she's worked for, she may need to accept that she needs help to keep going.Gorgeous Sophie got everything she ever wanted: a loving husband, a beautiful, well-behaved daughter and a designer lifestyle. Her sisters consider her spoiled and shallow but she doesn't care - that's until her life is turned upside-down and she realises they may be right. Not that she's going to let them know the trouble she's in.The Devlin sisters think they have little in common. They might just be in for some... Views: 23
Where Secrets Lie is a riveting exploration of one family's reliance on secrets, how those secrets affect their relationships and alter the directions their lives take, and where those secrets all began. Sara and Katie's mother, Lee, spends her life deploying secrets in order to protect her loved ones not only from difficult truths, but also from the prejudices they elicit. In spite of the torment her own secret laden past causes her, Lee raises her daughters to repress inconvenient truths. As a result, both sisters' relationships with their significant others are in jeopardy. Sara chooses an unorthodox way to reconcile her own unresolved guilt concerning a pregnancy her husband knows nothing about, and Katie cannot muster up enough courage to defy their mother's behavioral boundaries. That is, at least, not openly. Set in Colorado, Where Secrets Lie shifts between the unique foothills community of Boulder, the mile high city of Denver, and the majestic Rocky Mountains as it moves from the sisters' stories to their mother's story weaving them all together and merging each woman's past with her present circumstances. My next novel, Whoever You Are , is a stand alone story, but it features the main characters from Where Secrets Lie and provides insights into how their lives progress. Excerpt READINISTA interviews Donna Marie Lanheady: Q. Can you tell us a little more about Where Secrets Lie? What was your inspiration for this story about family secrets? A. Secrets intrigue me! Not necessarily the secrets themselves but their dynamics, the reasoning behind them, and the havoc they inevitably cause in peoples lives. When I first began to develop the story, I started with one woman and her secret. As I delved into her character, other characters emerged who were impacted by her secret. From there the interplay of a family became the focus of the novel. Q. The main characters in your book are Sara, Katie, and Lee. Please tell us more about their characters. Among the three, do you have any favorites? A. Sara’s secret was the seed that started it all. Why would a woman do what she did? How would she handle the consequences? Would people find her choices understandable or deplorable? The questions go on and on for me! I was completely enthralled by her dilemma. In my mind, Lee is the central character in the novel because she is the central character in this family. The story is all about her husbands, her children, her choices. The events in her life and the decisions she makes have a ripple effect on her family. Katie is by far my favorite! Even I can’t put my finger on exactly why. There’s just something about her I really like. She makes me smile, and I would love to be able to hang out with her, chat over a drink, go for a hike. I really like that girl! Q. When writing Where Secrets Lie, did you find yourself pulling from real life experiences? A. People often ask if the novel is autobiographical. My answer is an emphatic NO! I am way too private to write anything that’s true. That being said, I do abide by the rule to write what you know. I was born in a suburb of Denver and moved near Boulder as a teenager. Growing up I went to camps every summer. I love Boulder creek! I’ve always been an avid reader. I am scared to death of snakes! You see where I’m going, right? There are bits and pieces of me strewn throughout the novel without any of it actually being about me. On the emotional side, I often tap into my own emotions to help me relate to what the character is feeling. For instance, I know how it feels to fall in love, to be terrified to tell my mother something, to be told my husband has passed away. Although my characters don’t feel the exact same way, at its core the emotion is similar enough to help me imagine their feelings and in that way, bring them to life. Q. Do you have any funny habits, quirks, or pet peeves related to writing or organizing your writing? A. Of course not! Perhaps those close to me would disagree though, so let’s not ask them. I prefer to imagine I’m not eccentric. Q. Is there anything else you want to say to readers and fans? A. For those of you who enjoy the characters in Where Secrets Lie , my next novel, Whoever You Are , is a stand alone story, but it features the main characters from Where Secrets Lie and provides insights into how their lives progress. Views: 23
Darcy has invited the Bennets and the Bingleys to spend the Christmastide’s festive days at Pemberley. But as he and Elizabeth journey to their estate to join the gathered families, a blizzard blankets the English countryside. The Darcys find themselves stranded at a small inn while Pemberley is inundated with refugees seeking shelter from the storm. Without her brother’s strong presence, Georgiana Darcy tries desperately to manage the chaos surrounding the arrival of six invited guests and eleven unscheduled visitors. But bitter feuds, old jealousies and intimate secrets quickly rise to the surface. Has Lady Catherine returned to Pemberley for forgiveness or revenge? Will the manipulative Caroline Bingley find a soul mate? Shall Kitty Bennet and Georgiana know happiness? Written in Regency style and including Austen’s romantic entanglements and sardonic humor, Christmas at Pemberley places Jane Austen’s most beloved characters in an exciting yuletide story that speaks to the love, the family spirit and the generosity that remain as the heart of Christmas. Views: 23
At twenty-something, Alice is eager for the milestones of adulthood: leaving home, choosing a career, finding friendship and love on her own terms. But with each step she takes she feels the sharp tug of invisible threads: the love and worry of her parents, who want more than anything to keep her from harm. Her father fears for her safety to an extraordinary degree – but why?As she digs further into her father's story, Alice embarks on a journey of painful discovery: of memories lost and found, of her own fears for the future, of history and how it echoes down the years. Set in Melbourne, China and Cambodia, Her Father's Daughter captures a father–daughter relationship in a moving and astonishingly powerful way. Views: 23
In the small town of Grandon, five very different people discover the true meaning of Christmas. Jennifer and Ryan are both single parents, struggling with their own losses and heartache as they attempt to move forward in the present while still holding onto the memories, joy, and heartache of the past. Sixteen-year-old Kaylee is faced with a life-changing situation that has affected her whole family. Stephen and Lily are happily married and ready to start a family. All of them are facing their own struggles, and all are finding their way through the dark. When they are brought together for a rather unconventional church Nativity, they will learn that with strength, courage, and love, there is always hope. The New York Times bestselling author of the beloved The Christmas Hope series returns with this new heartwarming, inspirational story about the power of love and faith to reveal the possibilities that lay right in front of you. Views: 23
In this brilliant exploration of the post-9/11 world, leading Lebanese novelist and intellectual Amin Maalouf sets out to understand how we have arrived at such disorder. He explores three different but related aspects of disorder: intellectual (manifested in an unleashing of statements on identity that allow no possibility of peaceful co-existence or debate), economic and financial (that is exhausting the earth’s resources), and climatic (the result of turning a blind eye to the consequences of rampant industrialization). Instead of seeing the current disorder of the post-9/11 world as ‘a clash of civilisations’ Maalouf sees it as the ‘exhaustion of two civilisations’, a period in which humanity has reached its threshold of ‘moral incompetence’. Islam and the West have theoretical coherence, he says, but in practice each betrays its true ideals: the West is unfaithful to its own enlightenment values, which has discredited it in the eyes of the people to whom it has introduced democracy by force; while Islam finds itself condemned to a headlong rush into radicalism. These symmetrical disorders are only some of the elements in a global disorder that requires humanity as a whole to take responsibility for its future and face up to the urgent tasks such as climate change and the global financial crisis that threaten us all. Disordered World is a plea by one of the major writers of the last twenty years for intelligence, tolerance and a sense of urgency in order that we develop an adult vision of our patrimony, our beliefs, our differences and the future of the planet which is our common home. Views: 23
