The sequel to Rift and the prequel to the New York Times bestselling novel Nightshade.
Everything Conatus stands for is at risk. Hoping to gather enough resistance to save their order, Ember and Barrow attempt a desperate escape. But fate offers little mercy. When their mission is exposed, the couple face relentless pursuit by the supernatural horrors that act on the commands of Eira’s ally: the mysterious Bosque Mar. A shocking revelation forces Ember out of hiding, sending her back into the heart of dark magic at Tearmunn keep, where she must convince her old friend Alistair of her love or face dire consequences. Ember’s deception offers the only chance for the resistance to succeed, but what she discovers in the shadows beneath the keep will shatter her world and bring about the Witches’ War.
Richly sensual and full of magic, action and danger, Andrea Cremer's fifth book set in the Nightshade world is an edge-of-your-seat page turner. Views: 550
The fourth of Trollope\'s Palliser novels, Phineas Redux is one of his most spellbinding achievements. Trollope shows a remarkably prescient sense of the importance of intrigue, bribery, and sexual scandal, and the power of the press to make or break a political career. He is equally skilled in portraying the complex nature of Phineas\'s romantic entanglements with three powerful women: the mysterious Madame Max, the devoted Laura Kennedy, and the irrepressible Lady Glencora (now Duchess of Omnium). In his introduction, John Bowen highlights the weaving of public events and private passions in the book, the strength of the female characters, and the analogies, both subtle and comic, between the different kinds of action (politics, hunting, romance) that the book contains. An appendix outlines the internal chronology of the series, providing a unique understanding of the six novels as a linked narrative. In addition, the book features a compact biography of Trollope and a chronology charts his life against the major historical events of the period. Numerous notes explain political, cultural, and social allusions. Views: 550
Comedy, mystery and the battle of the sexes… all set in a haunted castle! Armed with only cunning and charm, who will see it through the night when the ghostly Green Lady walks?In this tale of comedy, mystery and the battle of the sexes, cheating-heart Hamish has finally driven his wife Elizabeth out of her senses. She has fled into the crypt of her ancestral home, convinced that she's the ghost of the Green Lady, whose spectral footsteps stalk the dark passages of Brackley Castle. But Hamish's friend Max isn't so sure. He suspects Elizabeth has a trick or two up her sleeve, especially as she's being aided and abetted by her clever, bewitching cousin Mina. Armed with only cunning and charm, who will see it through the night when the ghostly Green Lady walks? Views: 548
Haunted by his past, hunted by the Pure Ones, Nyroc flies alone. He yearns to go to the great tree, where good and learned owls do noble deeds, but he cannot. He is son of Kludd and Nyra, sworn enemies of all Ga’Hoole stands for, feared and despised everywhere.
By Nyroc has glimpsed hope-and a new destiny-in the flame over his father's very bones. In search of that destiny, he trains his gaze and beats his wings toward a dark, lawless place where desperate characters roam a barren landscape and fire splits the sky-The Beyond the Beyond. Views: 547
A completely honest look at the healthcare system in America by a guy broke enough to actually have to use it.For the part in me that sneaks out every night just to fetch my soul a part of the universe that I belong to and help me keep the flame burning, while the world outside of the corner of my eye, binds me by the wall. Views: 547
A fascinating tale of murder, intrigue, and betrayal. A gripping hour-by-hour account told through the eyes of the hunted and the hunters, this is history as you've never read it before.
The murder of Abraham Lincoln set off the greatest manhunt in American history -- the pursuit and capture of John Wilkes Booth. From April 14 to April 26, 1865, the assassin led Union cavalry and detectives on a wild twelve-day chase through the streets of Washington, D.C., across the swamps of Maryland, and into the forests of Virginia, while the nation, still reeling from the just-ended Civil War, watched in horror and sadness.
At the very center of this story is John Wilkes Booth, America's notorious villain. A Confederate sympathizer and a member of a celebrated acting family, Booth threw away his fame and wealth for a chance to avenge the South's defeat. For almost two weeks, he confounded the manhunters, slipping away from their every move and denying them the justice they sought.
Based on rare archival materials, obscure trial transcripts, and Lincoln's own blood relics, Manhunt is a fully documented work, but it is also a fascinating tale of murder, intrigue, and betrayal. A gripping hour-by-hour account told through the eyes of the hunted and the hunters, this is history as you've never read it before. Views: 547
When A Rogue Meets His Match In The Most Delightful Way...Caroline Gold is desperate to save her family from financial ruin with a proposal from a wealthy duke. But one misstep has her betrothed to the wrong man–Richard Walker, the Earl of Aberland, a handsome but cynical rogue with barely a farthing to his name.Richard spies for the Crown under the guise of a rogue but is intent on revenge. Offering for the beautiful Caroline creates an unwelcome distraction. Yet the desire he finds with her makes him wonder if a life–and love–after he claims justice is possible.Caroline quickly sees there is more to Richard than she expected, and his kindness toward her ailing father melts her heart. But marrying him won’t save her family despite the surprising passion she discovers in his arms.A French spy posing as an English lord is on the loose. Can Richard unveil the man’s identity and stop him before he destroys all Richard holds dear, including Caroline?NOTE: 'A Rogue's Reputation', a Christmas novella, is available exclusively in the 'Winter Wishes' Anthology. Views: 546
Sometimes life looks to be really awful and we seek a little relief by walking and thinking. This man died being transported to Australia but now he knows something and wants to share it…Harrhein is a kingdom in a fantasy world, very much like earth but set five hundred years in the past. There are constant incursions by tribesmen and raiders from the north and east, and Andy is a soldier with the elite Royal Pathfinders. He has taken a spear through the thigh and his presence in the armoury is good for the Kingdom, when there is an infiltrator. An ordinary soldier would probably not even notice the presence of the strange being, let alone catch it.Harrhein is based on a mixture of European countries and this is a story about soldiers, from a time when professional soldiers were beginning to evolve, but the majority were still bound to their lord. The author has clearly drawn on his own experiences to give authenticity to the military angle. Views: 546
Set in South Africa, beginning 15,000 years ago and ending with the Boer War, this is a novel about people caught up in the march of world history. It is a story of adventure and heroism, love and loyalty, and cruelty and betrayal. Views: 546
In his celebrated bestsellers Agent Zigzag and Operation Mincemeat, Ben Macintyre told the dazzling true stories of a remarkable WWII double agent and of how the Allies employed a corpse to fool the Nazis and assure a decisive victory. In Double Cross, Macintyre returns with the untold story of the grand final deception of the war and of the extraordinary spies who achieved it. On June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy and suffered an astonishingly low rate of casualties. D-Day was a stunning military accomplishment, but it was also a masterpiece of trickery. Operation Fortitude, which protected and enabled the invasion, and the Double Cross system, which specialized in turning German spies into double agents, deceived the Nazis into believing that the Allies would attack at Calais and Norway rather than Normandy. It was the most sophisticated and successful deception operation ever carried out, ensuring that Hitler kept an entire army awaiting a fake invasion, saving thousands of lives, and securing an Allied victory at the most critical juncture in the war.The story of D-Day has been told from the point of view of the soldiers who fought in it, the tacticians who planned it, and the generals who led it. But this epic event in world history has never before been told from the perspectives of the key individuals in the Double Cross System. These include its director (a brilliant, urbane intelligence officer), a colorful assortment of MI5 handlers (as well as their counterparts in Nazi intelligence), and the five spies who formed Double Cross’s nucleus: a dashing Serbian playboy, a Polish fighter-pilot, a bisexual Peruvian party girl, a deeply eccentric Spaniard with a diploma in chicken farming and a volatile Frenchwoman, whose obsessive love for her pet dog very nearly wrecked the entire plan. The D-Day spies were, without question, one of the oddest military units ever assembled, and their success depended on the delicate, dubious relationship between spy and spymaster, both German and British. Their enterprise was saved from catastrophe by a shadowy sixth spy whose heroic sacrifice is revealed here for the first time.With the same depth of research, eye for the absurd and masterful storytelling that have made Ben Macintyre an international bestseller, Double Cross is a captivating narrative of the spies who wove a web so intricate it ensnared Hitler’s army and carried thousands of D-Day troops across the Channel in safety.Amazon.com ReviewAmazon Best Books of the Month, August 2012: What do a Polish pilot, a Peruvian party girl, and a Spanish chicken maven have in common? They were all central to the success of Operation Fortitude, the audacious ruse that kept Hitler guessing over the location of the D-Day invasions, saving the lives of countless Allied soldiers and turning the war in their favor. In the same enthralling and entertaining fashion of his previous World War II spy stories (Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat), Ben Macintyre's Double Cross goes behind the standard narratives of armies, generals, and tactics to chronicle the unlikely--and occasionally outlandish--stories of the spooks, spymasters, and double agents that changed the course of the war. --Jon ForoReview“Gripping stories from the perspective of a remarkable ragtag group of spies who tricked the Nazis in an astounding D-Day deception. Puts other spy tales to shame.” – People“It should be said loud and clear that Macintyre is a supremely gifted storyteller. He spins quite a yarn. His books are absurdly entertaining. I would kill for his keen wit. He takes us into a world of bounders, spivs, roués, and men (and women) on the make….Double Cross is a blast.” – *Boston Globe“Forget fiction when you are buying beach reading this summer. Ben Macintyre’s factual account is more gripping than what you will find anywhere else. It is a story unsurpassed in the long history of intelligence.” – Washington Times“Macintyre at once exalts and subverts the myths of spycraft, and has a keen eye for absurdity” – New Yorker“[A] complex, absorbing final installment in his trilogy about World War II espionage….Macintyre is a master storyteller. Employing a wry wit and a keen eye for detail, he delivers an ultimately winning tale fraught with European intrigue and subtle wartime heroics.” – San Francisco Chronicle *“Superb….the story comes alive again in all its stupendous, unimaginable duplicity.…intensely readable” – Washington Post*“A wonderfully entertaining story of deception and trickery that is told with verve and wit….Macintyre’s early books about espionage in World War II have been bestsellers, and this will be no exception.” – Christian Science Monitor“Macintyre revels in the surreal aspects of his story, writing with a breezy, almost tongue-in-cheek style. But the author is also adept at communicating the seriousness and the stakes of the underlying game….Nail-biting and chuckle-inducing reading.” – Columbus Dispatch“Another captivating, improbably fresh story of World War II….Double Cross* is ennobling, invigorating and, above all, entertaining. Macintyre's research is impressive, as is his ability to shape disparate facts into a breathless page-turner….Throw in nail-biting suspense and the occasional decadent Nazi (fickle mistress optional) and, with Macintyre in charge, you're virtually guaranteed a history book that reads like a spy novel.” – Richmond Times-Dispatch“It is the riveting tales of these agents on which Ben Macintyre focuses, to full advantage, in Double Cross….Macintyre makes good use of the material. He knows how to let the high drama unfold on its own.” – Wall Street Journal“London Times writer Macintyre (Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat*) concludes his WWII espionage trilogy with the tantalizing tale of an oddball, ‘Dirty Dozen’-like group of double agents who fool the Nazis into believing the Allied D-Day attack would come at Calais, not Normandy.” – New York Post*, Required reading“A tale of smarts, personal courage and — even knowing what happened on June 6, 1944 — suspense. Where would we be if these troubled, eccentric and hang-it-all characters hadn't known how to lie, and lie well?” – Seattle Times“As in his earlier best-sellers about WWII-era spycraft, Agent Zigzag and Operation Mincemeat*, Macintyre writes with novelistic flair.” – Entertainment Weekly*“The story of D-Day – when 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy – as it’s never been told before….this amazing story shows how double agents and spies tricked the German army and saved thousands of Allied lives.”– New York Post“Only with author Ben Macintyre’s scintillating account has this complex human drama, with all its tortuous twists and turns, finally received the cinematic treatment it deserves….This is edge-of-the seat stuff.” – *WWII Magazine“Macintyre does a fine job depicting this extraordinary cast and exposing the ambiguous world of espionage....compelling.” – MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History“With the same skill and suspense he displayed in Operation Mincemeat and Agent Zigzag….Macintyre effortlessly weaves the agents’ deliciously eccentric personalities with larger wartime events to shape a tale that reads like a top-notch spy thriller.” – Publishers Weekly (starred)*“Macintyre has written a tense, exciting real-life spy story that illuminates a largely obscure aspect of WWII.” – Booklist*“With his latest book, Double Cross, Ben Macintyre tells the astonishing true story of a bizarre group of misfit spies who played a critical role in the success of D-Day. The stories in this book, many of which have never before been told, are nothing short of incredible. Skillfully woven together, they form one of the most gripping narratives I have ever read.” – Candice Millard, author of The River of Doubt and Destiny of the Republic “Ben Macintyre and I work in the same period, and I should be reading him because he is such a scrupulous and insightful writer – a master historian. But, with Double Cross and his other excellent works, I always wind up reading him for pleasure. Double Cross may be his best yet, falling somewhere between top-class entertainment and pure addiction.” – Alan Furst, author of A Mission to Paris"Ben Macintyre’s spellbinding account features an improbable cast of characters who pulled off a counter-intelligence feat that was breathtaking in its audacity. Their deceptions within deceptions—known as the Double Cross—were critical to the success of the D-Day invasion, and continued to mislead the Germans long after Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy. A truly bravura performance, as is Macintyre’s fast-paced tale." -- Andrew Nagorski, author of Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power"How on earth, in 1944, did we dupe Berlin that we would attack the coast of France in completely the wrong place? It was a deception that saved tens of thousands of Allied lives. In Double Cross*, Ben Macintyre ingeniously explains exactly how it was done." – Frederick Forsyth "Never before revealed facts about the workings of the Intelligence Service in the build up to D-Day in the Second World War. Ben Macintyre's remarkable book is a gripping revelation." – Jack Higgins“[Macintyre] has excelled himself with a cast of extraordinary characters and in his storytelling abilities....Double Cross is an utterly gripping story.” – Antony Beevor, The Telegraph“Enthralling....Macintyre is a master at leading the reader down some very tortuous paths while ensuring they never lose their bearings. He’s terrific, too, at animating his characters with the most succinct of touches....gripping.” -- *London Evening Standard Views: 546
At the age of 14 Georg Koves is plucked from his home in a Jewish section of Budapest and without any particular malice, placed on a train to Auschwitz. He does not understand the reason for his fate. He doesn’t particularly think of himself as Jewish. And his fellow prisoners, who decry his lack of Yiddish, keep telling him, “You are no Jew.” In the lowest circle of the Holocaust, Georg remains an outsider.
The genius of Imre Kertesz’s unblinking novel lies in its refusal to mitigate the strangeness of its events, not least of which is Georg’s dogmatic insistence on making sense of what he witnesses–or pretending that what he witnesses makes sense. Haunting, evocative, and all the more horrifying for its rigorous avoidance of sentiment, Fatelessness is a masterpiece in the traditions of Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, and Tadeusz Borowski. Views: 544
Slowly, inexorably, the Striga, a mysterious blue owl from the Middle Kingdoms, gains control over young Coryn's mind. An then the unthinkable happens. The Band is banished from the Great Ga'Hoole Tree. The Striga institutes a harsh new regime that will not stop until learning itself-the very foundation of the tree-becomes suspect and books are consigned to flame. Somehow the Band must open Coryn's eyes to the Striga's malign influence. But how? They are in exile! Views: 544
