Two families intimately and dangerously converge in this boldly dark and tempestuous novel A potentially devastating blizzard approaches New Canaan, Connecticut, while internal forces of desire, frustration, and ennui threaten to tear apart two quintessentially affluent, suburban families. Elena Hood rightfully suspects her husband, Benjamin, is having an affair with neighbor Janey Williams, while Benjamin resents Elena and his mounting feelings of ineptitude. As the snow begins to fall, Benjamin and Elena, as well as Janey and her husband, attend a neighborhood "key party," where they and other respectable suburbanites agree to go home with whomever's keys they draw from a bowl. Meanwhile, the Hoods' and Williams's teenage children are caught up in their own experimentations with sex and drugs as they test the boundaries of their structured upbringing. With author Rick Moody's sharp eye for the nuances of suburban life and allusions to 1970s America... Views: 147
An acclaimed historical thriller by the author of HOUSE OF CARDS – a highly original, fast-moving tale that gives an unexpected twist to the last days of the Second World War. Now reissued in a new cover style. Spring 1945. The final weeks of the war. One man holds the secret that will decide the fate of post-war Europe: Peter Hencke, an unlikely hero, a German prisoner-of-war on the run. Refusing to wait for peace and the freedom it will finally bring, Hencke is fired by a personal mission that drives him to risk everything in his lonely, treacherous journey across wartime Britain, back through the battle-torn remnants of the Third Reich – to the very heart of encircled Berlin. One man faced by the mightiest armies ever assembled, pursued by the most powerful and ruthless men in Europe – and helped and loved by two of the most extraordinary women. The secret of Peter Hencke will be hidden until the very last moments of the war. Views: 147
An intriguing tale of espionage and treason...this is a work to enthrall."—Daily MailMichael Dobbs' thrilling novel about the dawn of World War II, and Winston Churchill's rise to power. It is the dawn of World War II, and Neville Chamberlain believes he has bought "peace for our time" from Adolph Hitler, who has just seized Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The English are alarmed by the huge German army, while the soldiers that would defend London don't even have steel helmets. For many, compromise and appeasement seem to be England's best defense. But there are a few leaders who don't agree. Among them is Winston Churchill, who understands that the relentless march of fascism will be democracy's death knell. In October 1938, Churchill pleads his case in the press to the BBC's Guy Burgess. One of these two will become the most revered man of his time, and the other will be known as the greatest of traitors. Views: 147
In ancient Persia, magical beasts are nearly extinct. But the unicorns are not yet gone—not when the terrifying karkadann wields its deadly horn. It will be up to Heydari, tenderhearted son of an elephant driver, to discover more than a monster in a badly-injured beast.Lisa passes her days as a distracted maid who is slow of speech and thought. But Lisa has unique memories: a terrible sorcerer has cursed with his dying spell, taking both her freedom and her true form.Discover unicorns as you have never imagined them, in this special, limited edition chapbook celebrating fantasy icons Peter S. Beagle and Patricia A. McKillip at the height of their powers. Views: 147
Cameron Paradise, a stunningly beautiful twenty-four-year-old personal trainer, flees her abusive boyfriend in Australia and ends up in L.A. Cameron soon gets a job at a private fitness club where she encounters the city's most important players. She has plans to open her own studio, and while every man she meets comes on to her, she is focused on working hard and saving money to achieve her goal. Until she meets Ryan Lambert, that is. An extremely successful independent movie producer, he's married to overly privileged Mandy Lambert, the daughter of Hamilton J. Heckerling, a Hollywood power-player son-of-a-bitch mogul. Ryan has never cheated on his demanding Hollywood Princess wife, but when he meets Cameron, all bets are off. Only internationally bestselling author Jackie Collins knows what happens when lust and desire collide with marriage and power. And the results lead to murder.Created By Tshirtman Views: 147
This rich and exciting trilogy follows the search of one man--raised to be the ultimate general, the penultimate killing machine--for his own humanity and for the son he's never known. A son who is now his sworn enemy... Views: 147
A delightful new cover and format for this engaging examination of marriage, family and forgiveness. Because we all deserve a second chance at DOLCI DI LOVE. the tuscan town of Montevedova is famous for its rolling green hills, long lazy lunches and delectable cantucci biscuits. But Manhattan workaholic Lily turner is not interested in any of that. She's only there to find her cheating husband. What Lily doesn't know, however, is that beneath the cobbled lanes of this charming hilltop village, an underground network of ancient widows is working tirelessly on finding her a happy ending - whether she wants it or not. then a mischievous six-year-old girl, full of the joys of baking, skips into Lily's world - igniting the demons of her past ... and the promise of the future. Praise for DOLCI DI LOVE'Lynch's tuscany is lovingly rendered and populated with characters whose vitality is contagious in this perfect combo of travel and romance' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY'Satisfying ... an absorbing... Views: 147
Joel is growing up. He is getting interested in girls. Just look at his New Year's resolutions: to see a naked lady, to toughen himself up so that he can live to be a hundred, and to see the sea. They all look pretty impossible for a motherless boy in Northern Sweden. Especially as his sailor dad is keen to drown his sadness in drink, and all the local matrons are narrowly watching the pair of them. And then he saves old Simon from a frozen death in the woods, and Joel becomes a local hero. Views: 147
In this classic thriller, presented with a new introduction by the author, a down-and-out ex-CIA operative runs from his old employers Jud is not too drunk to recognize the assassin. How the hit man found him in this hard-bitten roadhouse, Jud isn't sure, but he's not going to go down without a fight. His hands shaking too much for close combat, Jud perches himself on the bar's roof and drops on the assassin when he steps into the darkness. Though Jud only meant to stun, the man is dead. Jud doesn't care. Quitting the CIA has not proven as easy as he hoped. Once one of the Agency's top killers, Jud's skills have been dulled by civilian life, and his only chance is to go into hiding. Before he disappears off the grid, he makes a call to Nick Kelley, a D.C. journalist who is one of the only men Jud can trust. Between the two of them, they have a shot atstopping the rot at the heart of the CIA. That is, if the rot doesn't kill them first. Views: 147
Leroy Scott was an American writer of novels and screenplays. He was born in Fairmount, Indiana 11 May 1875. His father was a minister with the Religious Society of Friends. He graduated from Indiana University in 1897. Views: 147
SUMMARY:
a selection from CHAPTER ONE: On the ground, new blades of grass sprang up in chlorophyll coats. On the trees, tongues of green protruded from boughs and branches, wrapping them about - soon the place would look like an imbecile Earthchild's attempt to draw Christmas trees - as spring again set spur to the growing things in the southern hemisphere of Dapdrof. Not that nature was more amiable on Dapdrof than elsewhere. Even as she sent the warmer winds over the southern hemisphere, she was sousing most of the northern in an ice-bearing monsoon. Propped on G-crutches, old Aylmer Ainson stood at his door, scratching his scalp very leisurely and staring at the budding trees. Even the slenderest outmost twig shook very little, for all that a stiffish breeze blew. This leaden effect was caused by gravity; twigs, like everything else on Dapdrof. weighed three times as much as they did on Earth. Ainson was long accustomed to the phenomenon. His body had grown round-shouldered and hollow-chested accustoming him to it. His brain had grown a little round-shouldered in the process. Fortunately he was not afflicted with the craving to recapture the past that strikes down so many humans even before they reach middle age. The sight of infant green leaves woke in him only the vaguest nostalgia, roused in him only the faintest recollection that his childhood had been passed among foliage more responsive to April's zephyrs - zephyrs, moreover, a hundred light years away. He was free to stand in the doorway and enjoy man's richest luxury, a blank mind. Idly, he watched Quequo. the female utod, as she trod between her salad beds and under the ammp trees to launch her body into the bolstering mud. The ammp trees were evergreen, unlike the rest of the trees in Ainson's enclosure. Resting in the foliage on the crest of them were big four-winged white birds, which decided to take off as Ainson looked at them, fluttering up like immense butterflies and splashing their shadows across the house as they passed. But the house was already splashed with their shadows. Obeying the urge to create a work of art that visited them perhaps only once in a century, Ainson's friends had broken the white of his walls with a scatterbrained scattering of silhouetted wings and bodies, urging upwards. The lively movement of this pattern seemed to make the low-eaved house rise against gravity; but that was appearance only, for this spring found the neoplastic rooftree sagging and the supporting walls considerably buckled at the knees. This was the fortieth spring Ainson had seen flow across his patch of Dapdrof. Even the ripe stench from the mid-denstead now savoured only of home. As he breathed it in, his grorg or parasite-eater scratched his head for him; reaching up, Ainson returned the compliment and tickled the lizard-like creature's cranium. He guessed what the grorg really wanted, but at that hour, with only one of the suns up, it was too chilly to join Snok Snok Karn and Quequo Kifful with their grorgs for a wallow in the mire. "I'm cold standing out here. I am going inside to lie down," he called to Snok Snok in the utodian tongue. The young utod looked up and extended two of his limbs in a sign of understanding. That was gratifying. Even after forty years* study, Ainson found the utodian language full of conundrums. He had not been sure that he had not said. "The stream is cold and I am going inside to cook it." Catching the right whistling inflected scream was not easy: he had only one sound orifice to Snok Snok's eight. He swung his crutches and went in. "His speech is growing less distinct than it was," Quequo remarked. "We had difficulty enough teaching him to communicate. He is not an efficient mechanism, this manlegs. You may have noticed that he is moving more slowly than he did." Views: 147
