A tense and nerve-shattering classic from the highly acclaimed masster of action and suspense. A ROLLING FOR KNOX is how the journalists describe the Presidential motorcade as it enters San Francisco across the Golden Gate. Even the ever-watchful FBI believe it is impregnable ? as it has to be with the President and two Arab potentates aboard. But halfway across the bridge the unthinkable happens. Before the eyes of the world a master criminal pulls off the most spectacular kidnapping in modern times? Views: 63
Award-winning author Alissa York’s first novel is a haunting and masterful exploration of how passions of the spirit and the flesh can overwhelm us, and even come to inhabit the ground beneath our feet. Divided into two parts, Mercy pairs a single year in the past with a single night in the present, as they unfold in the town of Mercy, Manitoba, and in the neighbouring black spruce bog.In 1948, a dedicated priest named August Day arrives in Mercy to take over from Father Rock, who has passed away. Although Father Day is young, the bishop has seen fit to let him take over the parish, and August feels he is fulfilling his years of devotion, study and struggle -- at last being able to serve God as alter Christus, or another Christ. The first service he is to perform in his new church is the marriage of Thomas Rose, the town butcher, to Mathilda Nickels, the orphaned niece of the church housekeeper.Thomas Rose is a good man who waited years to express his love for Mathilda. And when Mathilda accepted his proposal, he was sure that their life together would bring them both joy, though in truth he knew little about his betrothed. Mathilda grew up in a Catholic orphanage and has since been living with her aunt Vera at St. Mary’s; she has not explored the world beyond the realm of her religious devotion, and approaches her wedding day with a mix of fear and dread. But when her eyes meet those of Father Day at the ceremony, Thomas seems to dissolve beside her and she feels physical passion for the first time in her life. As of that moment, August and Mathilda will only have eyes, and hearts, for each other.Over the coming weeks, the young bride spends more and more time at St. Mary’s, caring for her ailing aunt and taking over the woman’s cleaning duties, but also savouring her brief moments with Father Day. Her marriage remains unconsummated, and her lust for the priest grows to fever pitch, as does his for her -- fuelled not only by the secrets they share in the confessional, but by the fiery text of the Song of Songs. When they do unite, it seems to mark the end of their secret relationship… but the child Mathilda carries away from the encounter assures us their story is not over. Rather, it is yet another thread to add to the tapestry of unspoken stories underpinning Mercy itself, and one that will affect the town’s psyche for decades to come.Half a century later, another sort of preacher comes to Mercy -- a womanizing widower who wants to develop the black spruce bog on the edge of town and build a religious camp. Reverend Carl Mann is fairly confident of success, having taken up with Mayor Lavinia Wylie, but worries about the well-publicized protests of a woman known as Bog Mary, who has lived her entire life in the heart of the bog. He heads off to confront her and ends up lost and hurt, but Mary uses her natural remedies and knowledge to heal not only his wounds but his broken spirit.A dark yet compassionate novel, Mercy rivals the fiction debuts of Anne Michaels, Ann-Marie MacDonald and Gail Anderson-Dargatz. Alissa York brings to life a tale of misguided love and damaged souls with language of incredible clarity and intensity.From Publishers WeeklyLust and sin grapple with religious piety in this moving, occasionally overwrought novel by Canadian writer York. As August Day's first duty as priest of St. Mary's church in Mercy, Manitoba, in 1948, he marries the kindly but dull town butcher, Thomas Rose, to Mathilda Nickels, the orphaned niece of the church's housekeeper. Immediately overcome by lust for handsome August, virginal Mathilda refuses to consummate her marriage—that is, until she seduces the priest, becomes pregnant with his child and needs to keep Thomas from finding out. York develops this triangular relationship with frequent flashbacks to each protagonist's miserable childhood, alternately focusing on the town drunk, Castor Wylie. The plot can feel schematic, and the grisly denouement of Mathilda and August's sinning is telegraphed early on. But in the novel's second half, set in 2003, readers will find some gripping characters—an autistic child, a woman who lives in a bog, another sinful man of the cloth—that propel the story into new, genuinely surprising territory. York's unflinching but tender eye for the natural world results in graceful ballets of description: butchering techniques have seldom been described in such precise, loving detail, and the flora and fauna of the bog are invested with vibrant individuality. York is a gifted writer whose next novel will no doubt be a more consistent work of emotional power. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistThis debut novel--combining the spirit of Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda laced with the corrosive foreboding of Heidi Julavits' Mineral Palace--marks the arrival of a talented new Canadian writer. In Mercy, Manitoba, an outpost town in the 1940s, the new priest, Father August Day, and the butcher's wife, Mathilda, begin an ill-fated love affair. Father August and Mathilda are dangerously drawn to one another from the moment they lock eyes on her wedding day. The isolation of the community presses down upon them as both the tension of attraction and the fear of discovery mount. In its second half, the novel flashes forward to present-day Mercy, where the past reverberates in unexpected ways. The writing has a trancelike intensity that sets the psychological mood of the characters and the backwater locale. Writing in a confidential voice that sweeps the reader into her character's lives and the dark corners of their minds and actions, York has crafted a beguiling tale of a small town teeming with secrets. Misha StoneCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Views: 63
One of the most provocative and original voices in contemporary literature, Chinua Achebe here considers the place of literature and art in our society in a collection of essays spanning his best writing and lectures from the last twenty-three years. For Achebe, overcoming goes hand in hand with eradicating the destructive effects of racism and injustice in Western society. He reveals the impediments that still stand in the way of open, equal dialogue between Africans and Europeans, between blacks and whites, but also instills us with hope that they will soon be overcome.From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 62
GATSBY GIRLSShe was an impulsive, fashionable and carefree 1920s woman who embodied the essence of the Gatsby Girl -- F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda. As Fitzgerald said, "I married the heroine of my stories." All of the eight short stories contained in this collection were inspired by Zelda.Fitzgerald, one of the foremost writers of American fiction, found early success as a short story writer for the most widely read magazine of the early 20th century -- the Saturday Evening Post. Fitzgerald's stories, first published by the Post between 1920 and 1922, brought the Jazz Age and the "flapper" to life and confirmed that America was changing faster than ever before. Women were bobbing their hair, drinking and flirting shamelessly, and Fitzgerald brought these exciting Gatsby Girls to life in the pages of the Post. A foreword by Jeff Nilsson, archivist for the Post, adds historical context to this wonderful, new collection, which is highlighted by an... Views: 62
A collection of short fiction, twelve works in all, including two never-before-published novellas. Here are disconnected marriages and uneasy reunions, nostalgic reminiscences and sudden epiphanies--a remarkable and moving collage of contemporary lives.From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 62
Introducing part of Jess C Scott’s second erotic anthology (Fashion Icon + AFF / taboo sex + Asian factual fiction). This is a work of contemporary/erotic fiction, not pornography. * * * The full edition of Primal Scream will contain taboo sex, AFF, and BDSM-themed stories. * * * By author/artist/non-conformist, Jess C Scott. Views: 62
