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By Rosanna Ley. 2014
THE #1 KINDLE BESTSELLER. An unforgettable story set off the sun-soaked coast of Sicily for fans of Dinah Jefferies, Victoria…
Hislop and Santa Montefiore.'The perfect holiday companion' - Heat'The ultimate feel-good read' - Candis'Sun-soaked escapism' - Best**********When Tess Angel receives a solicitor's letter inviting her to claim her inheritance - the Villa Sirena, perched on a clifftop in Sicily - she is stunned. Her only link to the island is through her mother, Flavia, who left Sicily during World War II and cut all contact with her family. When Tess goes to Sicily, Flavia realises the secrets from her past are about to be revealed and decides to try to explain her actions. Meanwhile, Tess' teenage daughter Ginny is stressed by college, by her blooming sexuality and filled with questions that she longs to ask her father, if only she knew where he was...********SEE WHAT EVERYONE IS SAYING ABOUT ROSANNA LEY:'An impeccably researched and deftly written narrative that kept me hooked until the end' - Kathryn Hughes, bestselling author of The Letter 'Loved it from start to finish. A brilliant holiday read' - Amazon reviewer'Perfect for fans of Santa Montefiore, Victoria Hislop and Leah Fleming' - Candis 'On so many levels a fantastic read' - Amazon reviewer'A fascinating story with engaging themes' - Dinah Jefferies, bestselling author of The Tea Planter's Wife 'Warm, enthralling, one of my favourite authors' - Amazon reviewerBy Charles Margerison. 2010
As you walk around historic London, you are traveling in the footsteps of amazing people including Charles Dickens, Florence Nightingale,…
Charlie Chaplin, Emmeline Pankhurst and Winston Churchill. In their different ways, they made major contributions to London, which in turn helped make the city what it is today. A city tour unlike any other, Amazing People of London takes you on a fascinating journey through the history of one of the world's most celebrated cities. Through BioViews®, you can meet those who contributed to the music, the business, the politics and other vital and fascinating aspects of London. A BioView® is a short biographical story, similar to an interview. These unique stories provide an easy way of learning about amazing people who made major contributions and changed our world.By Lisa T. Bergren. 2012
When Cora Kensington learns she is the illegitimate daughter of a copper king, her life changes forever. Even as she…
explores Europe with her new family, she discovers that the most valuable journey is within. The first book in the Grand Tour series takes you from the farms of Montana through England and France on an adventure of forgiveness, spiritual awakening, and self-discovery.By Rachel Seiffert. 2014
Stevie comes from a long line of people who have cut and run. Just like he has. Only he's not…
so sure he was right to go. He's been to London, taught himself to get by, and now he's working as a laborer not so far from his childhood home in Glasgow. But Stevie hasn't told his family--what's left of them--that he's back. Not yet. He's also not far from his uncle Eric, another one who left--for love this time. Stevie's toughened himself up against that emotion. And as for his mother, Lindsey . . . well, she ran her whole life. From her father and Ireland, from her husband, and eventually from Stevie, too. Moving between Stevie's contemporary Glaswegian life and the story of his parents when they were young, The Walk Home is a powerful novel about the risk of love, and the madness and betrayals that can split a family. Without your past, who are you? Where does it leave you when you go against your family, turn your back on your home; when you defy the world you grew up in? If you cut your ties, will you cut yourself adrift? Yearning to belong exerts a powerful draw, and Stevie knows there are still people waiting for him to walk home. An extraordinarily deft and humane writer, Rachel Seiffert tells us the truth about love and about hope.By Elisabeth Waldmeier, Susan Tuttle Laube. 2002
The Galungan festival in Bali marks the victory of dharma (order) over adharma(disorder). It is celebrated by the Balinese Hindus,…
who believe that duringthese ten days of prayers, offerings, and feasting, their revered ancestors return to their former homes to be welcomed and entertained. Using this entrancing setting, Swiss illustrator and painter Elisabeth Waldmeier relates the exhilarating festival of the fun-loving Balinesc people through the eyes of a former child dancer, Sadri, who descends to his previous home to participate in the annual rapturous village celebrations. A delightful story accompanying enchanting and detailed illustrations, this book will captivate both children and adults alike.By Lara Vergnaud, Zahia Rahmani. 2016
This moving tale of imprisonment and escape, persecution and loss, is narrated by the daughter of an alleged Harki, an…
Algerian soldier who fought for the French during the Algerian War for Independence. It was the fate of such men to be twice exiled, first in their homeland after the war, and later in France, where fleeing Harki families sought refuge but instead faced contempt, discrimination, and exclusion. Zahia Rahmani blends reality and imagination in her writing, offering a fictionalized version of her own family's struggle. Lara Vergnaud's beautiful translation from the French perfectly captures the voices and emotions of Rahmani's childhood in a foreign land. While the author delves deeply into the past, she also indicts present-day France and Algeria. From the unique perspective of the daughter of an accused Harki, she examines France's complex and controversial history with its former colony and offers new insight into the French civil riots of 2005. She makes a stirring plea for understanding between generations and cultures, and especially for an end to the destructive practice of condemning children for their fathers' actions and beliefs.By Bruno Landis, Pierluigi Serra. 1865
El omicidio del capit n Looman en el puerto de Cagliari es una de las piezas de…
un complicado mosaico que hace de escenario a la b squeda de un misterioso objeto f sico o quiz s no material peleado por dos cofrad as en lucha secular por su posesi n La b squeda de los rastros del pasado y el viaje entendido como camino no solamente material se vuelven el fil rouge que une los acontecimientos narrados en esta novela hist rica Personajes contempor neos y del pasado en planos temporales separados y sin embargo misteriosamente conectados se encuentran el las distintas etapas de un recorrido que presenta todas las caracter sticas del camino inici tico Una v a marcada en los nimos y en los mapas de Europa donde amor caballer a medieval venganza y ocultismo juegan en el antiguo en gma escondido en el Libro del misterioBy Luis Gonzalez, Vasco Figueiredo Cruz Bento. 2016
Clara é uma jovem Cubana, descontente com a Revolução. Planeia partir com o marido para os Estados Unidos, para iniciarem…
uma nova vida. Mas uma estranha Visitação pelo Anjo Gabriel, anunciando-lhe que está grávida da nova Filha de Deus, faz com que Clara reconsidere as suas opções. Irá ela ter a criança em solo Americano? Será feliz com o marido? E Jesus, o que acha Ele da ideia de ter uma irmã? Não percam esta história, original e absorvente.By Janet Todd. 2016
"Strange and haunting, a gothic novel with a modern consciousness." Philippa Gregory"A quirky, darkly mischievous novel about love, obsession and…
the burden of charisma, played out against the backdrop of Venice's watery, decadent glory." Sarah Dunant'A mesmerizing story of love and obsession in nineteenth century Venice: dark and utterly compelling."Natasha Solomons"Intriguing and entertaining; a clever, beguiling debut.Todd knows her Venice backwards."Salley Vickers"Revealing, surprising, compelling, gripping." Miriam Margolyes, actressA Man of Genius portrays a psychological journey from safety into obsession and secrecy. It mirrors a physical passage from flamboyant Regency England through a Europe conquered by Napoleon.Ann, a successful writer of cheap Gothic novels, becomes obsessed with Robert James, regarded by many, including himself, as a genius, with his ideas, his talk, and his band of male followers. However, their relationship becomes tortuous, as Robert descends into violence and madness. The pair leaves London for occupied Venice, where Ann tries to cope with the monstrous ego of her lover. Forced to flee with a stranger, she delves into her past, to be jolted by a series of revelations--about her lover, her parentage, the stranger, and herself. Janet Todd is known for her works about Mary Wollstonecraft, Aphra Behn, the Shelley circle, and Jane Austen. Born in Wales, her wandering childhood in the United Kingdom, Bermuda, and Sri Lanka led to work as an academic in Ghana, the United States, and United Kingdom. Her passion has been for women writers, the largely unknown and the famous. A former president of Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge, she lives in Cambridge and Venice.By Jonathan Kemp. 2013
"London itself is as powerful a presence here as the three gay men whose lives it absorbs."?The Times Literary Supplement"Vivid…
and visceral, London Triptych cuts deep to reveal the hidden layers of a secret history."?Jake Arnott, author of The Long FirmRent boys, aristocrats, artists, and criminals populate this sweeping novel in which author Jonathan Kemp skillfully interweaves the lives and loves of three very different men in gay London across the decades.In the 1890s, a young man named Jack apprentices as a rent boy and discovers a life of pleasure and excess that leads to new friendships, most notably with the soon-to-be-infamous Oscar Wilde. A century later in 1998, David tells his own tale of unashamed decadence from prison, recalling life as a young man arriving in the city in the mid-'80s just as the scourge of AIDS hit. Where their paths cross, in the politically sensitive 1950s, when gay men were the target of police and politicians alike, the artist Colin tentatively explores his sexuality while working on his painting "London Triptych."Moodily atmospheric and rich with history, London Triptych is a sexy, resplendent portrait of the politics and pleasures of queer life in one of the world's most fascinating cities.Jonathan Kemp lives in London, where he currently teaches creative writing at Birkbeck College. London Triptych, his first novel, was published in the United Kingdom in 2010 and won the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award.By Jacques Chessex, Donald Wilson. 1973
Praise for A Jew Must Die:"Chessex, our new Flaubert, has no equal when describing horror without flinching, screaming sotto voce…
and exploring guilt in taut prose."--Le Nouvel Observateur"A masterpiece. Beauty of the world, ubiquity of evil, God's silence, it's all there, delivered like a slap to the face."--Le Point"A great author explores a nightmare not as anachronistic as it might appear."--L'HebdoA novel based on a true story.On April 16, 1942, a handful of Swiss Nazis in Payerne lure Arthur Bloch, a Jewish cattle merchant, into an empty stable and kill him with a crowbar. Europe is in flames, but this is Switzerland, and Payerne, a rural market town of butchers and bankers, is more worried about unemployment and local bankruptcies than the fate of nations across the border. Fernand Ischi, leader of the local Nazi cell, blames it all on the town's Jewish population and wants to set an example, thinking the German embassy would be grateful. Ischi's dream of becoming the local gauleiter is shattered, however, when the milk containers used to dissimulate Bloch's body parts is discovered floating in a lake nearby, leading to his arrest.Jacques Chessex, winner of the prestigious Prix Goncourt, is one of Switzerland's greatest authors. He knew the murderers, went to school with their children, and has written a terse, implacable story that has awakened memories in a country that seems to endlessly rediscover dark areas of its past.By Sena Jeter Naslund. 2006
Marie Antoinette was a child of fourteen when her mother, the Empress of Austria, arranged for her to leave her…
family and her country to become the wife of the fifteen-year-old Dauphin, the future King of France. Coming of age in the most public of arenas--eager to be a good wife and strong queen--she warmly embraces her adopted nation and its citizens. She shows her new husband nothing but love and encouragement, though he repeatedly fails to consummate their marriage and in so doing is unable to give what she and the people of France desire most: a child and an heir to the throne. Deeply disappointed and isolated in her own intimate circle, and apart from the social life of the court, she allows herself to remain ignorant of the country's growing economic and political crises, even as poor harvests, bitter winters, war debts, and poverty precipitate rebellion and revenge. The young queen, once beloved by the common folk, becomes a target of scorn, cruelty, and hatred as she, the court's nobles, and the rest of the royal family are caught up in the nightmarish violence of a murderous time called "the Terror." With penetrating insight and with wondrous narrative skill, Sena Jeter Naslund offers an intimate, fresh, heartbreaking, and dramatic reimagining of this truly compelling woman that goes far beyond popular myth--and she makes a bygone time of tumultuous change as real to us as the one we are living in now.By Ben Pastor. 2001
Praise for Ben Pastor's Lumen: "Pastor's plot is well crafted, her prose sharp. . . . A disturbing mix of…
detection and reflection."--Publishers Weekly "Rivets the reader with its twist of historical realities. A historical piece, it faithfully reproduces the grim canvas of war. A character study, it captures the thoughts and actions of real people, not stereotypes."--The Free Lance-Star "And don't miss Lumen by Ben Pastor. . . . An interesting, original, and melancholy tale."--Literary Review Italy, September 1943. The Italian government switches sides and declares war on Germany. The north of Italy is controlled by the fascist puppets of Germany; the south liberated by Allied forces fighting their way up the peninsula. Having survived hell on the Russian front, Wehrmacht major and aristocrat Baron Martin von Bora is sent to Verona. He is ordered to investigate the murder of a prominent local fascist: a bizarre death threatening to discredit the regime's public image. The prime suspect is the victim's twenty-eight-year-old widow Clara. Haunted by his record of opposition to SS policies in Russia, Bora must watch his step. Against the backdrop of relentless anti-partisan warfare and the tragedy of the Holocaust, a breathless chase begins. Ben Pastor, born and now back in Italy, lived for thirty years in the United States, working as a university professor in Vermont. The first in the Martin Bora series, Lumen, was published by Bitter Lemon Press in May 2011.By Jacques Chessex, Donald Wilson. 1973
"Silky prose in this harrowing account of crime and punishment."--Kirkus Reviews "Using spare, effective prose, Chessex brilliantly renders both the…
inhospitable winter landscape of the mountains and the harshness of a society that makes monsters of its victims.'--London Review of Books"A superb novel, hard as a winter in these landscapes of dark forests, where an atmosphere of prejudice and violence envelops the reader."--L'Express"It's beautiful; it's pure, like a blue sky over a black forest. Giono without garlic and olives."--Le Point"Far from just telling us a simple story Chessex has had the intelligence to integrate a dose of poetry, of the aesthetics of sin, and of the metaphysics of the monster."--LireJacques Chessex, winner of the prestigious Goncourt prize, takes a true story and weaves it into a lyrical tale of fear and cruelty.1903, Ropraz, a small village near the Jura Mountains of Switzerland. On a howling December day, a lone walker discovers a recently opened tomb, the body of a young woman violated, her left hand cut off, genitals mutilated, and heart carved out. There is horror in the nearby villages: the return of atavistic superstitions and mutual suspicions. Then two more bodies are violated. A suspect must be found. Favez, a stableboy with bloodshot eyes, is arrested and placed in psychiatric care. He escapes, enlists in the Foreign Legion as the First World War begins, and is sent into battle in the trenches of the Somme.Jacques Chessex, born in 1934, won the Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary prize for his novel A Father's Love. He is considered one of Switzerland's greatest living authors. He lives in Ropraz.By Sigrid Undset, Tiina Nunnally. 2014
"I have been unfaithful to my husband." Marta Oulie's opening line scandalized Norwegian readers in 1907. And yet, Sigrid Undset…
had a gift for depicting modern women "sympathetically but with merciless truthfulness," as the Swedish Academy noted in awarding her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928. At the time she was one of the youngest recipients and only the third woman so honored. It was Undset's honest story of a young woman's love life--"the immoral kind," as she herself bluntly put it--that made her first novel an instant sensation in Norway.Marta Oulie, written in the form of a diary, intimately documents the inner life of a young woman disappointed and constrained by the conventions of marriage as she longs for an all-consuming passion. Set in Kristiania (now Oslo) at the beginning of the twentieth century, Undset's book is an incomparable psychological portrait of a woman whose destiny is defined by the changing mores of her day--as she descends, inevitably, into an ever-darker reckoning. Remarkably, though Undset's other works have attracted generations of readers, Marta Oulie has never before appeared in English translation. Tiina Nunnally, whose award-winning translation of Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter captured the author's beautifully clear style, conveys the voice of Marta Oulie with all the stark poignancy of the original Norwegian.By Lew Wallace.
By R. A. MacAvoy. 1987
Set against the colorful and magical backdrop of Ireland, The Grey Horse chronicles a time when the Irish people suffered…
under harsh English overlords who sought to destroy their culture and way of life. In the Irish town of Carraroe, a magnificent, completely gray stallion appears. The horse brings with him the promise of better times and magical happenings, for he is actually the shape-shifted form of Ruairi MacEibhir, journeyed to such a time of danger in order to win the hand of the woman he loves.By Lara Vergnaud, Zahia Rahmani. 2016
This moving tale of imprisonment and escape, persecution and loss, is narrated by the daughter of an alleged Harki, an…
Algerian soldier who fought for the French during the Algerian War for Independence. It was the fate of such men to be twice exiled, first in their homeland after the war, and later in France, where fleeing Harki families sought refuge but instead faced contempt, discrimination, and exclusion. Zahia Rahmani blends reality and imagination in her writing, offering a fictionalized version of her own family's struggle. Lara Vergnaud's beautiful translation from the French perfectly captures the voices and emotions of Rahmani's childhood in a foreign land. While the author delves deeply into the past, she also indicts present-day France and Algeria. From the unique perspective of the daughter of an accused Harki, she examines France's complex and controversial history with its former colony and offers new insight into the French civil riots of 2005. She makes a stirring plea for understanding between generations and cultures, and especially for an end to the destructive practice of condemning children for their fathers' actions and beliefs.By Poppy Alexander. 2018
'a fabulous uplifting, festive, feel-good, joyous read that will leave you smiling from ear to ear.' Netgalley reviewerChristmas is a…
time to get together... Kate Thompson used to love Christmas. But that was before her husband went away with the army and didn't come home. Now she can hardly stand the festive season. But Kate knows there is more to life than this, and her son Jack needs a Christmas to remember. What she needs is a Christmas miracle, and if there isn't one on its way, she'll just have to make her own. So begins Kate's advent countdown to the best Christmas ever. She has it all planned out, but you can't plan for the unexpected, and when her life starts to unravel can her friends and the community around her help her save Christmas for all of them...?Curl up and countdown to Christmas with a heart-warming festive romance, perfect for fans of Jenny Colgan, Debbie Johnson, and Holly Martin.'A great Christmas read' Netgalley reviewerBy Mark Polizzotti, Patrick Modiano. 2018
The newest best-seller by Patrick Modiano is a beautiful tapestry that brings together memory, esoteric encounters, and fragmented sensations Patrick…
Modiano’s first book since his 2014 Nobel Prize revisits moments of the author’s past to produce a spare yet moving reflection on the destructive underside of love, the dreams and follies of youth, the vagaries of memory, and the melancholy of loss. Writing from the perspective of an older man, the narrator relives a key period in his life through his relationships with several enigmatic women—Geneviève, Martine, Madeleine, a certain Madame Huberson—in the process unearthing his troubled relationship with his parents, his unorthodox childhood, and the unsettled years of his youth that helped form the celebrated writer he would become. This is classic Modiano, utilizing his signature mix of autobiography and invention to create his most intriguing and intimate book yet.