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The Broom of the System

Published when Wallace was just twenty-four years old, The Broom of the System stunned critics and marked the emergence of an extraordinary new talent. At the center of this outlandishly funny, fiercely intelligent novel is the bewitching heroine, Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman. The year is 1990 and the place is a slightly altered Cleveland, Ohio. Lenore’s great-grandmother has disappeared with twenty-five other inmates of the Shaker Heights Nursing Home. Her beau, and boss, Rick Vigorous, is insanely jealous, and her cockatiel, Vlad the Impaler, has suddenly started spouting a mixture of psycho-babble, Auden, and the King James Bible. Ingenious and entertaining, this debut from one of the most innovative writers of his generation brilliantly explores the paradoxes of language, storytelling, and reality.
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Debt of Honor

Razio Yamata is one of Japan's most influential industrialists, and part of a relatively small group of authority who wield tremendous authority in the Pacific Rim's economic powerhouse. He has devised a plan to cripple the American greatness, humble the US military, and elevate Japan to a position of dominance on the world stage. Yamata's motivation lies in his desire to pay off aDebt of Honor to his parents and to the country he feels is responsible for their deaths—America. All he needs is a catalyst to set his plan in motion. When the faulty gas tank on one Tennessee family's car leads to their fiery death, an opportunistic U. S. congressman uses the occasion to rush a new trade law through the system. The law is designed to squeeze Japan economically. Instead, it provides Yamata with the leverage he needs to put his plan into action. As Yamata's plan begins to unfold, it becomes clear to the world that someone is launching a fully-integrated operation against the United States. There's only one man to find out who the culprit is—Jack Ryan, the new President's National Security Advisor.
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A Woman of the Inner Sea

Woman of the Inner Sea is Thomas Keneally’s strongest, most compelling work since his Booker Prize-winning Schindler’s List. Like that book, the story of Woman of the Inner Sea arises from a true incident, and once more the imagining of it is utterly convincing. Kate Gaffney-Kozinski, an attractive, well educated woman, has gone on “walkabout” to the inner reaches of the Australian outback. Fleeing her wealthy husband, Paul Kozinski, and his unscrupulous clan, Kate is trying to obliterate herself and the grief that haunts her. At first we do not understand its source, but as the story unfolds a kind of mystery evolves around the tragic loss of her two children. In a small town she tries to change herself into a different woman, seeking the companionship and protection of a reticent but rough local man, an explosives expert known as Jelly. But the violence of the west country’s unpredictable weather forces her on and soon she must confront her husband. No one knows Australian society better than Thomas Keneally, who offers here a rich cross-section of his people: from Kate’s prominent father to her controversial uncle, a renegade priest; from the grasping Kozinskis who rule Sydney’s construction business to colorful small-town men like Jelly and his friend Gus, who travels with a kangaroo and emu he has rescued from an entertainment park. And at the center of this panorama stands Kate, a passionate woman of great integrity caught in a nightmare of grief and deception. Woman of the Inner Sea, with its evocation of the heroic in the midst of disaster and evil, will be remembered as one of Thomas Keneally’s best works.  
Views: 398

Hot Toy

Previously published in the anthology Santa, Baby, HOT TOY is now available as a standalone e-story for the first time! Mayhem ensues under the mistletoe as a determined shopper grabs the very last hot toy action figure off the shelf, only to find herself plunged into the middle of a real-life spy game and in the arms of a sexy secret agent...
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Plague Ship

"For four novels, Clive Cussler has charted the exploits of the Oregon, a covert ship completely dilapidated on the outside but on the inside packed with sophisticated weaponry and intelligence-gathering equipment. Captained by the rakish, one-legged Juan Cabrillo and manned by a crew of former military and spy personnel, it is a private enterprise, available for any government agency that can afford it - and now Cussler sends the Oregon on its most extraordinary mission yet." The crew has just completed a top secret mission against Iran in the Persian Gulf when they come across a cruise ship adrift at sea. Hundreds of bodies litter its deck, and, as Cabrillo tries to determine what happened, explosions rack the length of the ship. Barely able to escape with his own life and that of the liner's sole survivor, Cabrillo finds himself plunged into a mystery as intricate - and as perilous - as any he has ever known and pitted against a cult with monstrously lethal plans for the human race ... plans he may already be too late to stop.
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The Laughter of Carthage: Pyat Quartet

Having escaped the horrors of the Russian civil war, Maxim Arturovitch Pyat discovers that the hazards of Europe are as nothing to the perils that await him in America.He is almost immediately involved in further scandals, touring the country as a speaker for the Ku Klux Klan.In this second of Michael Moorcock's acclaimed Pyat series of novels, only the reappearance of Pyat's enduring love, his femme fatale, Mrs Corenelius, offers him a chance of escape.
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The Last Original Wife

Leslie Anne Greene Carter is The Last Original Wife among her husband Wesley's successful Atlanta social set. His cronies have all traded in the mothers of their children—who they promised to love and cherish 'til death did them part—for tanned and toned young Barbie brides. If losing the social life and close friends she adored wasn't painful enough, a series of setbacks has shaken Les up and she's had enough of playing the good wife. Now, she's going to take some time for herself—in the familiar comforts and stunning beauty of Charleston, her beloved hometown. In her brother's historic home, she will reclaim the carefree girl who spent lazy summers sharing steamy kisses with her first love on Sullivans Island. Along Charleston's cobblestone streets, under the Lowcountry's dazzling blue sky, Les will indulge herself with icy cocktails, warm laughter and bittersweet memories. Daring to listen to her inner voice, she will realize what she wants . . . and find the life of which she's always dreamed.
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The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

The sheltered son of a Jewish mobster, Art Bechstein leaps into his first summer as a college graduate as cluelessly as he capered through his school years. But new friends and lovers are eager to guide him through these sultry days of last-ditch youthful alienation and sexual confusion—in a blue-collar city where the mundane can sometimes appear almost magical. From Publishers WeeklyFirst-novelist Chabon, with "distinctive vision" and "an elegiac, graceful style," spins a story about alienated youth that, while serving up some familiar details of sex, alcohol and drugs, "fully engages the reader in the lives of an appealing cast of characters," said PW . Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review'A strikingly accomplished debut' -- Sunday Times 'His style has an enviable suppleness and fluency which offers the perfect vehicle for the moral feints and shifts of the cool crowd he portrays' -- TLS 'Hard as it is to write about youth when you're young, Chabon has done it brilliantly' -- Cosmopolitan 'Mingles wit, sex and fine writing' -- Sunday Telegraph 'His control over his story, the wonderful use he makes of each description, of Pittsburgh itself, are often astonishing...a young writer with a tremendous skill' -- New York Times Book Review
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Sophia, Princess Among Beasts

A princess who has lost her mother and father finds herself in a terrifying world that urgently needs a queen. Sophia is smart, beautiful, and accomplished, a beloved princess devoted to the people and to reading books. The kingdom is hers, until she is plunged into a nightmarish realm populated by the awful beasts she read about as a child. The beasts are real. And so is the great army marching on her castle. The people look to Sophia for protection. They will all perish unless she can unlock an ancient secret as profound as life and death itself. Sophia, Princess Among Beasts is a fabulous adventure, and a stunning mystery. Here again is proof of why James Patterson is the world's most trusted storyteller.
Views: 397

The Moon Is Down

** *Originally published at the zenith of Nazi Germany's power, Steinbeck's masterful fable explores the effects of invasion on conquered and conquerors alike.* ** Occupied by enemy troops, a small, peaceable town comes to face-to-face with evil imposed from the outside--and betrayal born within the close-knit community. As he delves into the motivations and emotions of the enemy commander and the quisling traitor, Steinbeck uncovers profound, often unsettling truths about war--and about human nature. Steinbeck's self-described "celebration of the durability of democracy" had an extraordinary impact as Allied propaganda in Nazi-occupied Europe. Despite Axis efforts to suppress it (in Fascist Italy, mere possession of a copy of the book was punishable by death), *The Moon Is Down* was secretly translated into French, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, and Russian; hundreds of thousands of copies circulated throughout Europe, making it by far the most popular piece of propaganda under occupation. Few literary works of our time have demonstrated so triumphantly the power of ideas in the face of cold steel and brute force.
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Esprit De Corps: Sketches From Diplomatic Life

Antrobus, the hero of Sauve Qui Peut and Stiff Upper Lip, is featured in this novel, and represents the epitome of that most British of institutions, the Foreign Office.
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A Galway Epiphany

"They don't come much tougher than Ken Bruen's Irish roughneck, Jack Taylor, a man with bad habits who does good despite himself."―Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review Ex-cop-turned-PI Jack Taylor has finally escaped the despair of his violent life in Galway in favor of a quiet retirement in the country with his friend, a former Rolling Stones roadie, and a falcon named Maeve. But on a day trip back into the city to sort out his affairs, Jack is hit by a truck in front of Galway's Famine Memorial, left in a coma but mysteriously without a scratch on him. When he awakens weeks later, he finds Ireland in a frenzy over the so-called "Miracle of Galway." People have become convinced that the two children spotted tending to him are saintly, and the site of the accident sacred. The Catholic Church isn't so sure, and Jack is commissioned to help find the children to verify the miracle—or expose the stunt. But Jack isn't the...
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A Christmas to Remember

Romance stars Lisa Kleypas, Lorraine Heath, Megan Frampton, and Vivienne Lorret prove in this collection of stories that love is the most magical during Christmas… I Will by Lisa Kleypas To be reinstated into his father’s will, Andrew, Lord Drake, must court a respectable woman-his friend’s spinster sister, Miss Caroline Hargreaves. After he blackmails Caroline into helping him, the charade begins-but is it really a charade once love takes hold of their hearts…? Deck the Halls With Love by Lorraine Heath Alistair Wakefield, the Marquess of Chetwyn, devastated Lady Meredith Hargreaves when he proposed to another. But when he becomes free to pursue her, it’s too late for she’s on her way to the altar….. As Christmas approaches, Chetwyn vows to lure Lady Meredith back into his arms. No Groom at the Inn by Megan Frampton James Archer detests his mother’s matchmaking ways. When ordered to attend a Christmastime house party filled with simpering maidens, he produces a fiancée-Lady Sophronia Bettesford. James and Sophronia pretend to be in love for one month. But their pact soon turns into love. The Duke’s Christmas Wish by Vivienne Lorret To the Duke of Vale, science solves everything-even marriage. When the impulsive Ivy Sutherland makes him question all of his data, he realizes that he’s overlooked a vital component in his search for the perfect match: love.
Views: 397