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Princess in Love

Princess Mia may seem like the luckiest girl ever. But the truth is, Mia spends all her time doing one of three things: preparing for her nerve-racking entrée into Genovian society, slogging through the congestion unique to Manhattan in December, and avoiding further smooching from her hapless boyfriend, Kenny. For Mia, being princess is not the fairy tale it's supposed to be . . . or is it?
Views: 2 294

England, England

Booker Prize Finalist "Wickedly funny." --The New York Times Imagine an England where all the pubs are quaint,  where the Windsors behave themselves (mostly), where the cliffs of Dover are actually white, and where Robin Hood and his merry men really are merry.  This is precisely what visionary tycoon, Sir Jack Pitman, seeks to accomplish on the Isle of Wight, a "destination" where tourists can find replicas of Big Ben (half size), Princess Di's grave, and even Harrod's (conveniently located inside the tower of London). Martha Cochrane, hired as one of  Sir Jack's resident "no-people," ably assists him in realizing his dream.  But when this land of make-believe gradually gets horribly and hilariously out of hand, Martha develops her own vision of the perfect England.  Julian Barnes delights us with a novel that is at once a philosophical inquiry, a burst of mischief, and a moving elegy about authenticity and nationality. From the Trade Paperback edition.
Views: 2 293

On Chesil Beach

In 1962, Florence and Edward celebrate their wedding in a hotel on the Dorset coast. Yet as they dine, the expectation of their marital duties weighs over them. And unbeknownst to both, the decisions they make this night will resonate throughout their lives. With exquisite prose, Ian McEwan creates in On Chesil Beach a story of lives transformed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken. From the Trade Paperback edition.
Views: 2 288

Jacobs Faith

They are a new breed, a new race. Engineered rather than born, trained rather than raised, and their unique genetics have created more than one surprise. . . Jacob left Faith six years before, unaware that the mark he left on her also left her in an agony of sexual heat that never dimmed. Now Jacob and Faith are together again, but surprises lurk around every corner and dangers as dark and deadly as their very creation surround them in more ways than one.
Views: 2 284

One Hot December

Hard as steel…and hotter still!Never mess with a woman who carries a blowtorch in her backpack. Welder and artist Veronica "Flash" Redding\'s playful sense of evil sometimes gets the better of her. Like when her insanely handsome, wealthy, suited-up boss gave her the most sensuously wicked night of her life…then dumped her. Yep, revenge is a dish best served hot. Only Ian Asher isn\'t quite letting Flash get away quite so easily. He\'s not ready to forget the intensity between them. The searing heat when they touch. And the deliciously demanding control Ian wields in the bedroom. Now he has only the holidays to convince Flash that they belong together…and that even the most exquisite, broken things can be welded back together.
Views: 2 279

Guy Walks into a Bar...

The New York Times asked Lee to contribute to a series of Summer Thriller short stories they were planning for their Summer \'09 Op-Ed section. "Why not write a prequel to GONE TOMORROW?" suggested Lee\'s publisher, the brilliant strategist Gina Centrello. So that\'s what he did. Published under the title Guy Walks Into a Bar..., the working title was The Wrongest Girl in the Room. 
Views: 2 276

Bag of Bones

Four years after the sudden death of his wife, forty-year-old bestselling novelist Mike Noonan is unable to write and plagued by vivid nightmares set at the Maine summerhouse he calls Sara Laughs. Mike reluctantly returns to the lakeside getaway and finds his beloved Yankee town held in the grip of a vindictive millionaire, Max Devore, who is trying to take his three-year-old granddaughter away from her widowed young mother, Mattie. As Mike is drawn into Mattie's struggle -- and begins to fall in love with her -- he is also drawn into the mystery of Sara Laughs, now the site of ghostly visitations and escalating terrors. What do the forces that have been unleashed here want of Mike Noonan?
Views: 2 275

Purple Hibiscus

An alternate cover edition for the ISBN can be found here. The limits of fifteen-year-old Kambili’s world are defined by the high walls of her family estate and the dictates of her fanatically religious father. Her life is regulated by schedules: prayer, sleep, study, prayer. When Nigeria is shaken by a military coup, Kambili’s father, involved mysteriously in the political crisis, sends her to live with her aunt. In this house, noisy and full of laughter, she discovers life and love – and a terrible, bruising secret deep within her family. This extraordinary debut novel from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’, is about the blurred lines between the old gods and the new, childhood and adulthood, love and hatred – the grey spaces in which truths are revealed and real life is lived.
Views: 2 273

Desperation

*Also: see Alternate Cover Editions for this ISBN [ACE] * ** [ACE #1](https://www./book/show/7350543) ** There's a place along Interstate 50 that some call the loneliest place on Earth. It's known as Desperation, Nevada. It's not a very nice place to live. It's an even worse place to die. Let the battle against evil begin. Welcome to ... Desperation
Views: 2 266

Rule Breaker

Lion Breed, Rule Breaker had just a few rules he didn\'t break. Not for anything. Not for anyone.#1. Never have sex with a woman outside his own subspecies, especially a human woman.#2. Never, at any time, accept a mission concerning a female when Jonas Wyatt stinks of a lie.#3. Run don\'t walk, skip or stumble. Run, hell for leather away from any female, human or breed, when his desire for her appears, in any way, to have so much as a single sign of Mating Heat.Now, the woman believes he\'s mated, is too helpless, to fun loving and too full of life to ever be able to protect herself, let alone aide him in protecting her.If the damned animal inside him insisted on a mate, then why pick the woman it did? One that could be struck out at, at any time?But, what he suspected was a mating, may not be. No swollen glands? No heat? Just his animal instincts rioting, pacing, irritated whenever he\'s away from her.Okay, he could handle that.What ensues is a fiery affair that breaks all the rules of mating heat and will eventually endanger his mate with the very rules designed to protect the breeds when Jonas learns she\'s possibly been working against them.
Views: 2 238

Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor

Lorna Doone, A Romance of Exmoor is a novel by English author Richard Doddridge Blackmore, published in 1869. It is a romance based on a group of historical characters and set in the late 17th century in Devon and Somerset, particularly around the East Lyn Valley area of Exmoor. In 2003, the novel was listed on the BBC's survey The Big Read. Plot Summary:The book is set in the 17th century in the Badgworthy Water region of Exmoor in Devon and Somerset, England. John (in West Country dialect, pronounced "Jan") Ridd is the son of a respectable farmer who was murdered in cold blood by one of the notorious Doone clan, a once noble family, now outlaws, in the isolated Doone Valley. Battling his desire for revenge, John also grows into a respectable farmer and takes good care of his mother and two sisters. He falls hopelessly in love with Lorna, a girl he meets by accident, who turns out to be not only (apparently) the granddaughter of Sir Ensor Doone (lord of the Doones), but destined to marry (against her will) the impetuous, menacing, and now jealous heir of the Doone Valley, Carver Doone. Carver will let nothing get in the way of his marriage to Lorna, which he plans to force upon her once Sir Ensor dies and he comes into his inheritance. Sir Ensor dies, and Carver becomes lord of the Doones. John Ridd helps Lorna escape to his family's farm, Plover's Barrows. Since Lorna is a member of the hated Doone clan, feelings are mixed toward her in the Ridd household, but she is nonetheless defended against the enraged Carver's retaliatory attack on the farm. A member of the Ridd household notices Lorna's necklace, a jewel that she was told by Sir Ensor belonged to her mother. During a visit from the Counsellor, Carver's father and the wisest of the Doone family, the necklace is stolen from Plover's Barrows. Shortly after its disappearance, a family friend discovers Lorna's origins, learning that the necklace belonged to a Lady Dugal, who was robbed and murdered by a band of outlaws. Only her daughter survived the attack. It becomes apparent that Lorna, being evidently the long-lost girl in question, is in fact heiress to one of the largest fortunes in the country, and not a Doone after all (although the Doones are remotely related, being descended from a collateral branch of the Dugal family). She is required by law, but against her will, to return to London to become a ward in Chancery. Despite John and Lorna's love for one another, their marriage is out of the question. King Charles II dies, and the Duke of Monmouth (the late king's illegitimate son) challenges Charles's brother James for the throne. The Doones, abandoning their plan to marry Lorna to Carver and claim her wealth, side with Monmouth in the hope of reclaiming their ancestral lands. However, Monmouth is defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor, and his associates are sought for treason. John Ridd is captured during the revolution. Innocent of all charges, he is taken to London by an old friend to clear his name. There, he is reunited with Lorna (now Lorna Dugal), whose love for him has not diminished. When he thwarts an attack on Lorna's great-uncle and legal guardian Earl Brandir, John is granted a pardon, a title, and a coat of arms by the king and returns a free man to Exmoor. (Wikipedia.org)
Views: 2 229

The Overstory

A monumental novel about trees and people by one of our most "prodigiously talented" (The New York Times Book Review) novelists.An Air Force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another. These four, and five other strangers—each summoned in different ways by trees—are brought together in a last and violent stand to save the continent's few remaining acres of virgin forest.In his twelfth novel, National Book Award winner Richard Powers delivers a sweeping, impassioned novel of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of—and paean to—the natural...
Views: 2 225

Spells

*"I can't just storm in and proclaim my intentions. I can't 'steal' you away. I just have to wait and hope that, someday, you'll ask," Tamani said. "And if I don't?" Laurel said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Then I guess I'll be waiting forever."* Although Laurel has come to accept her true identity as a faerie, she refuses to turn her back on her human life - and especially her boyfriend, David - to return to the faerie world. But when she is summoned to Avalon, Laurel's feelings for the charismatic faerie sentry Tamani are undeniable. She is forced to make a choice - a choice that could break her heart.
Views: 2 219

Anna Dressed in Blood

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead. So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. They follow legends and local lore, destroy the murderous dead, and keep pesky things like the future and friends at bay. Searching for a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas expects the usual: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home. Yet she spares Cas's life.
Views: 2 219