"Our sister is marrying a vampire."When the ever practical Caroline Cabot first hears those words from the lips of her fanciful youngest sister, she accuses Portia of having a wild imagination. But when she discovers their sister Vivienne is actually being courted by Adrian Kane, the mysterious viscount rumored to be a vampire, she decides to accept his invitation to a midnight supper and do some sleuthing of her own. To both her delight and her dismay, she soon finds herself falling under Kane's bewitching spell.After all, what's a proper young lady to do when her sister's suitor arouses more than just her suspicions? Views: 111
In this beautifully written tour de force of a novel, Beth Gutcheon takes readers back to the coastal village of Dundee, Maine. There, in a Victorian summer house called Leeway Cottage, we witness the scenes of a long twentieth-century marriage. Views: 110
Wayward backbencher Tom Goodfellowe makes his third appearance in the new novel of treachery at the highest levels from the bestselling author of House of Cards. Colonel Peter Amadeus is an old soldier with a grievance. He wants an apology from the Prime Minister. But this Prime Minister does not believe in apologizing for anything. For Amadeus it becomes a matter of honour – and retribution. Soon London is a city under siege, its lifelines cut. Then comes his ultimatum: the Prime Minister must resign – or London will be destroyed. Only one man stands between the capital and disaster – Tom Goodfellowe, a backbench MP who can't even sort out his own life, let alone save the lives of others. He is a man torn between ambition, honour and love – with the fate of London slipping swiftly through his fingers. Views: 110
The tour-de-force, hair-raising new novel from Herman Koch, the New York Times bestselling author of The Dinner and Summer House with Swimming Pool Once a celebrated writer, M had his greatest success with a suspense novel based on a real-life disappearance. It told the story of a history teacher who went missing one winter after having a brief affair with a beautiful student of his. The teacher was never found. Upon publication, M's novel was a runaway bestseller, one that marked his international breakthrough. That was years ago, and now M's career is fading. But not when it comes to his bizarre, seemingly timid neighbor who keeps a close eye on him and his wife. Why? From alternating points of view, where no one is to be trusted, Herman Koch weaves together an intricate tale of a writer in decline, a teenage couple in love, a missing teacher, and a single book that entwines all of their fates. Thanks to M's novel,... Views: 110
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERLEE SMITHAuthor of News of the SpiritTHE LAST GIRLSA Novel“Wise and insightful . . . The Last Girls deserves to be shared, pondered, and treasured.”–The Dallas Morning News“[A] GENIAL, THOUGHTFUL, FUNNY NOVEL, WRITTEN WITH THE WIT AND ASSURANCE OF A BORN STORYTELLER.”–The Hartford Courant“RICH AND DELICIOUS . . . THE STORY OF FOUR WOMEN . . .Years ago, they were girls, not women–the last generation of American females to be called ‘girls’–who traveled down the Mississippi River . . . on a makeshift raft while they were on summer vacation . . . There were twelve of them on that trip; now there are these four, brought together by tragedy. One of their classmates . . . has died in an automobile wreck (was it really an accident?), and her husband has asked the old friends to re-create the river journey and scatter her ashes at the mouth of the Mississippi. . . . It’s a reunion of classmates with all of the in-between revealed in intimate detail, as only a skilled and classy storyteller can do it.”–The Boston Globe“AN HONEST PORTRAIT OF INTELLIGENT, WELL-ROUNDED SOUTHERNERS is always refreshing, and The Last Girls delivers. The book may be influenced by Twain, but Smith proves she has a voice all her own.”–USA Today“BREEZILY WRITTEN AND DISPLAYING SMITH’S TRADEMARK PITCH-PERFECT EAR FOR DIALOGUE, funny but with the dark touches of all good comedy, the novel charts the course by which the ‘girls’ . . . seek love and self-fulfillment during the three decades approaching the end of the century. Call it Huckleberry Fin de Siècle.”–Time Out New York“SMITH’S COMIC GENIUS SPARKLES . . . Under Smith’s deft hand, these woman bloom exceptionally authentic.. . Using the premise that both a reunion and a riverboat provide good lookouts on the past, she details the passing terrain as she details each woman’s emotional history, from child to adult, from dates to love affairs, from silly shenanigans to tragic accidents. And what details! The book is filled with memorable scenes. . . . Smith adds a purely feminine, deeply southern twist to the Mark Twain tradition of humor and precision applied generously to the subject of human weakness.”–Richmond Times-Dispatch“Lee Smith’s genius is in her seamless weaving of the two stories, past and present, so that we realize what the stakes are for these women, and how they have arrived at the reunion as footsore pilgrims–a bit battered and bruised, but sailing on nevertheless. . . . Smith has that talent that all storytellers envy: the ability to dive deeply into the lives of her characters, to bring them to life in their rich fullness, warts and all. Each of these women could energize an entire book. Each brings something unique and captivating to a superb tale that will stay with you long after the reading is done. Together they compel each of us to ask what has brought us to the near shore, and how we set sail from here.”–The Boston GlobeAmazon.com ReviewIn the brisk and readable The Last Girls, acclaimed Southern writer Lee Smith reunites four college suitemates on a boat tour of the mighty Mississippi. Thirty-five years before, inspired by reading Twain's Huckleberry Finn in class (a detail not nearly revisited enough), the women floated down the same river on a manmade raft; now they are gathered at the request of their recently deceased ringleader's husband. The story unfolds through the eyes of each woman as the old friends weave college memories with their own dramas spanning the three decades since graduation. Harriet, Courtney, Catherine, and Anna come through muddily compared to their dead friend Baby. Even in death, Baby, a Sylvia Plath-like creature with voracious appetites for poetry, self-mutilation, and sex, nearly overwhelms her more reticent friends with past behaviors better suited to a mental institution than a dorm room. As the tour boat bobs along in the wake of these women's emotional crises, Smith offers up the contemporary female life experience, fivefold. At its heart, this is a book about how we never quite outgrow the past, even after plenty of chances to do otherwise. --Emily RussinFrom Publishers WeeklyThe Big Chill meets Huckleberry Finn in a moving novel inspired by a real-life episode. Thirty-six years ago, Smith (Oral History) and 15 other college "girls" sailed a raft down the Mississippi River from Kentucky to New Orleans in giddy homage to Huck. Here she reimagines that prefeminist odyssey, and then updates it, as four of the raft's alumnae take a steamboat cruise in 1999 to recreate their river voyage and scatter the ashes of one of their own. What results is an unsentimental journey back to not-quite-halcyon college days of the mid-1960s ("periods cramps boys dates birth babies the works") masterfully intercut with more recent stories of marriages, infidelities, health crises and career moves, all set firmly in the South. At first the characters threaten to be mere stereotypes: innocent, self-sacrificing Harriet; arty, maternal Catherine; brittle Southern belle Courtney; brassy romance novelist Anna. But Smith reveals surprising truths about each character, even as she suggests that the fate of their departed classmate-the wild, promiscuous, possibly suicidal Baby-may never be understood. The steamboat setting provides ample opportunities to skewer cruise ship tackiness and Southern kitsch, a witty counterpoint to the often troubled personal stories of the passengers. Readers who like their plots linear may be challenged by the tangle of tales, but those who agree that "there are no grown-ups," and that there's "no beginning and no end" to the "real story" of people's lives, will find this tender, generous, graceful novel a delight. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 110
This is the brooding love story on the themes of music, deafness and nationality, set in London, Vienna and Venice, and is the first novel by Vikram Seth since his 'A Suitable Boy'. Views: 110
It is a sultry August at the very end of the twentieth century, and Tristano is dying. A hero of the Italian Resistance, Tristano has called a writer to his bedside to listen to his life story, though, really, "you don't tell a life...you live a life, and while you're living it, it's already lost, has slipped away." Tristano Dies, one of Antonio Tabucchi's major novels, is a vibrant consideration of love, war, devotion, betrayal, and the instability of the past, of storytelling, and what it means to be a hero.From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 110
In her first book since the cultural phenomenon Sex and the City, Candace Bushnell triumphantly returned with the national best-seller Four Blondes, which The New York Times says "chronicles the glittering lives of semicelebrities, social aspirants, and moneyed folk ... [with] withering precision." Now her collection of novellas is available in paperback -- just in time to pack in your handbag for that summer weekend getaway to the Hamptons or that romantic rendezvous on Martha's Vineyard. Four Blondes tells the stories of four women facing up to the limitations of their rapidly approaching middle age in an era that worships youth. From the former "It-girl" heroine of "Nice N'Easy," who each summer looks for a rich man who'll provide her with a house in the Hamptons, to the writer-narrator of "Single Process," who goes to London on a hunt for love and a good magazine story, Bushnell brings to life contemporary women in search of something more -- when the world is pushing for them... Views: 110
In the stunning conclusion to the epic, New York Times bestselling Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks, kingdoms clash as Kip must finally escape his family's shadow in order to protect the land and people he loves.Gavin Guile, once the most powerful man the world had ever seen, has been laid low. He's lost his magic, and now he is on a suicide mission. Failure will condemn the woman he loves. Success will condemn his entire empire.As the White King springs his great traps and the Chromeria itself is threatened by treason and siege, Kip Guile must gather his forces, rally his allies, and scramble to return for one impossible final stand.The long-awaited epic conclusion of Brent Weeks's New York Times bestselling Lightbringer series.LightbringerThe Black PrismThe Blinding KnifeThe Broken EyeThe Blood MirrorThe Burning... Views: 110
