Lincoln Locke's fifteen-year-old life is turned upside down when he's thrust into bachelor-pad living with his father, after his parents' marriage breaks up, and into an exclusive new school. Crestfield Academy offers Lincoln a new set of peers – the crème de la crème of gifted individuals, who also happen to be financially loaded – and a place on the swim relay team with a bunch of thugs in Speedos. Homunculus, the little voice inside his head, doesn't make life any easier; nor does Lincoln's growing awareness of a genetic anomaly that threatens to humiliate him at every turn.On a search for answers to big LIFE questions, he turns to the school library, where he spies a nineteenth-century memoir, My One Redeeming Affliction by Edwin Stroud, a one-time star of Melinkoff's Astonishing Assembly of Freaks. As Lincoln slowly reads this peculiar, life-changing book, the past reaches into his present in fascinating and alarming ways. Ways that defy imagination... Views: 158
'A tender and graceful study of parents and children, and a finely judged and measured attempt to capture the flitting, quicksilver shapes of what we keep and what we lose: the touch, the tone, the gaze of the past as it fades. It is a moving and beautifully achieved memoir, and a testament to the writer's skill and generosity of spirit.' —Hilary MantelBefore the devastating 'loss of her marbles', Mrs Royle, a nurse by profession, is a marvellously no-nonsense character, an autodidact who reads widely and voraciously, swears at her fox-hunting neighbours, and instils in the young Nick a love of literature and of wildlife that will form his character and his career.In this touching, funny and beautifully written portrait of family life, mother-son relationships and bereavement, Nicholas Royle captures the spirit of post-war parenting as well as of his mother, whose dementia and death were triggered by the tragedy of losing her other son—Royle's... Views: 157
Beth (All-Hallows’ Brides) Views: 157
A skilled cryptographer, Zivon Marin fled Russia determined to offer his skills to the Brits. Lily Blackwell is recruited to the intelligence division to help the war with her unsurpassed camera skills. But when her photographs reveal Zivon is being followed, his loyalty is questioned and his enemies are discovered to be closer than he feared. Views: 157
