Anne Perry's acclaimed Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels have made London's exclusive world of wealth and power an addictive literary destination for readers everywhere. This new masterpiece, a haunting story of love and treason, invites us not only into the secret places of Britain's power but also into the innermost sanctums of the fin de siècle Austro-Hungarian Empire.Thomas Pitt, once a lowly policeman, is now the powerful head of Britain's Special Branch, and some people fear that he may have been promoted beyond his abilities. He, too, feels painful moments of self-doubt, especially as rumors reach him of a plot to blow up connections on the Dover-London rail line--on which Austrian duke Alois Habsburg is soon to travel to visit his royal English kin.Why would anyone destroy an entire train to kill one obscure Austrian royal, or are the rumors designed to distract Pitt from an even more devastating plot? He must resolve this riddle at once, before... Views: 40
While slinging hash in a diner, a would-be Cinderella meets her Prince CharmingCarrie Selden is not at all like the woman you've read about in the papers. Though she was raised in an orphanage, she isn't an orphan. She didn't finish high school until she was nineteen, but that was because she was working as a waitress, not because she was slow. And though she's very cunning, well, she's no femme fatale. But her beauty . . . oh yes, her beauty is everything you've heard. At twenty-one, she takes her savings and moves to New York City, landing a job at a diner called Karb's, at the bottom rung of the restaurant chain's tall corporate ladder. Though she makes minimum wage, Carrie is savvy, and it isn't long before she starts to climb. When her coworkers unionize, they choose her as president, and from there, the sky is the limit. But just as the union gets underway, she meets a mysterious intellectual named Grant—who will either help her rise to the top, or drag her straight... Views: 40
In this haunting 1935 novel, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of My Ántonia performs crystalline variations on the themes that preoccupy her greatest fiction: the impermanence of innocence, the opposition between prairie and city, provincial American values and world culture, and the grandeur, elation, and heartache that await a gifted young woman who leaves her small Nebraska town to pursue a life in art.At the age of eighteen, Lucy Gayheart heads for Chicago to study music. She is beautiful and impressionable and ardent, and these qualities attract the attention of Clement Sebastian, an aging but charismatic singer who exercises all the tragic, sinister fascination of a man who has renounced life only to turn back to seize it one last time. Out of their doomed love affair—and Lucy's fatal estrangement from her origins—Willa Cather creates a novel that is as achingly lovely as a Schubert sonata. Views: 40
Kitty Maule longs to be "totally unreasonable, totally unfair, very demanding, and very beautiful." She is instead clever, reticent, self-possessed, and striking. For years. Kitty has been tactfully courting her colleague Maurice Bishop, a detached, elegant English professor. Now, running out of patience, Kitty's amorous pursuit takes her from rancorous academic committee rooms and lecture halls to French cathedrals and Parisian rooming houses, from sittings with her dress-making grandmother to seances with a grandmotherly psychic. Touching, funny, and stylistically breathtaking, Providence is a brightly polished gem of romantic comedy. Views: 40
Bridget Jones, beloved Singleton and global phenomenon, is back with a bump in Bridget Jones's Baby: The Diaries. As Bridget careers towards baby-deadline, a series of classic Bridget Jones moments finally leads her into pregnancy—but just not quite as intended. It's a pregnancy full of cheesy potatoes, outlandish advice from Drunken Singletons and Smug Mothers, chaos at scans and childbirth classes, high jinks and romance, joy and despair—but all of it dominated by the terribly awkward question: Who's the father? Views: 40
Heaven to Betsy: Betsy Ray is loving every minute of freshman year at Deep Valley High--with new and old friends all around her . . . not to mention boys! But most intriguing of all is the one she and her best friend, Tacy, dub "the Tall Dark Stranger."Betsy in Spite of Herself: Betsy is at the center of every activity as a Deep Valley High sophomore--and suddenly, thanks to her old friend Tib, she's offered a golden opportunity for glorious transformation. But will she impress the special boy by becoming dramatic, mysterious Betsye--or would she be better off just being Betsy in spite of herself? Views: 40
Omar is a restless young Asian man, caring for his alcoholic father in the hustling London of the mid-1980s. His uncle, a keen Thatcherite, offers Omar an entrepreneurial opportunity to revamp a dingy laundrette, and ambitious Omar rolls up his sleeves, enlisting the assistance of his old school-friend Johnny, who has since fallen in with a gang of neo-fascists. Omar and Johnny soon form an unlikely alliance that leads to business success, as well as other, more intimate surprises. Views: 40
Winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award 'A wonderful novel. I doubt I will read a funnier one, or one with more heart, this year, possibly this decade.' Angela Carter, Guardian The hero of Hanif Kureishi's first novel is Karim, a dreamy teenager, desperate to escape suburban South London and experience the forbidden fruits which the 1970s seem to offer. When the unlikely opportunity of a life in the theatre announces itself, Karim starts to win the sort of attention he has been craving - albeit with some rude and raucous results. 'One of the best comic novels of growing up, and one of the sharpest satires on race relations in this country that I've ever read.' Independent on Sunday 'Brilliantly funny. A fresh, anarchic and deliciously unrestrained novel.' Sunday Times 'A distinctive and talented voice, blithe, savvy, alive and kicking.' Hermione Lee, Independent Views: 40
On a mission to the Idaho Territory to find the man she loves, Joan Randle is captured by the notorious stagecoach bandit Jack Kells, who’s determined to make her his woman, with or without her consent. Views: 40
Hot-blooded Georgiana Stockwell will break a man's heart while he's eating out of her hand. Moving from the East to join her schoolteacher sister in the rugged wilds of Tonto Basin, Arizona, Georgiana makes quite an impression. Despite her sister's best efforts, Georgiana creates a culture clash as her modern, free-spirited personality comes up against the code of the West, the unwritten law of the range that everyone is expected to follow. Georgiana's flirtations and coquetry provoke and outrage the proud Westerners of Tonto Basin.The young and steadfast Cal Thurman is especially taken with Georgiana. Cal is a man of the West through and through, courageous, loyal, sincere, quiet-spoken, and hardworking. Though she never expected to, Georgiana finds herself falling for this man from another world. But things are not as simple as either of them may want; Georgiana soon realizes that loving Cal means coming up against a heritage of honor and violence she couldn't have... Views: 40
To Frances, an only child living in McCarthy-era Brooklyn, her mother, Hilda, and her aunt Pearl seem as if they have always been friends. Frances does not question the love between the two women until her father's job as a teacher is threatened by anti-Communism, just as Frances begins to learn about her family's past. Why does Hilda refer to her "first pregnancy," as if Frances wasn't her only child? Whose baby shoes are hidden in Hilda's dresser drawer? Why is there tension when Pearl and her husband come to visit?The story of a young girl in the fifties and her elders' coming-of-age in the unquiet thirties, this book resonates deeply, revealing in beautiful, clear language the complexities of friendship and loss. Views: 40
Dylan had no idea what she was in for when she married Mets superstar short stop Mark Acosta. Practically overnight, her life changes, and despite her best efforts, Dylan feels herself being pulled deeper into a world of designer clothes, celebrity parties and multi-million dollar homes.Can Dylan become the quintessential ‘baseball wife’ and still remain the simple, down-to-earth girl that Mark fell in love with, or will she allow the seductive trappings of her new life to pull them apart? Views: 40
