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The Queen’s Sorrow
The Queen’s Sorrow
Suzannah Dunn
¥66.22
A queen brought low by love compromised and power abused – the tragedy of Mary Tudor. These are desperate times for Mary Tudor. As England’s first ruling queen, her joy should be complete when she marries Philip, the dashing Prince of Spain. But despite her ardent devotion, he’s making it painfully obvious that he cares little for his new wife – and her struggle to produce an heir only makes him colder towards him. Lonely and depressed, Mary begins to vent her anguish on her people – and England becomes a place of cruelty, persecution and fear. Mary’s terrible fall from grace is seen through the eyes of Rafael, a Spanish sundial maker who is part of the Prince’s flamboyant entourage. He becomes the one person that she trusts, but his life – and new-found love – will be caught in the chaos that follows…
A WAG Abroad
A WAG Abroad
Alison Kervin
¥68.67
You can take the WAG out of Luton but you can't take Luton out of the WAG…. Tracie Martin is back! But this time everyone's favourite Wag is in LA, City of Angels - and her idol Victoria Beckham… But it's not all California dreaming. Whilst husband Dean swaps life on the subs bench for coaching the LA Raiders and daughter Paskia-Rose is busy settling into her new school, Tracie is left twiddling her manicured fingers. It seems LA's not ready for WAGS - the women are naturally golden rather than fake bake orange, there's no boozing and everyone is thinner than her - surely that's not possible when she last ate a proper meal in 1997? But at least there's plenty of cosmetic surgery… Enter Jamie, a knight in shining Lycra. He'll show Tracie the sights of LA A's sights - including the Beckhams. But is he all that he seems? Before long, Tracie is sampling all the city has to offer - including South Central street gangs and cheerleading lessons. But then her long-lost father turns up - at the same time as she discovers someone has stolen her identity. Can Tracie leave LA with her pride, bank balance and marriage - not to mention her fake tan - intact? Find out in the funniest read this summer - guaranteed beach material.
The Knitting Circle
The Knitting Circle
Ann Hood
¥73.28
Come on in and join the knitting circle – it might just save your life… Spinning yarns, weaving tales, mending lives… Every Wednesday a group of women gathers at Alice's Sit and Knit. Little do they know that they will learn so much more than patterns… Grieving Mary needs to fill the empty days after the death of her only child. Glamorous Scarlet is the life and soul of any party. But beneath her trademark red hair and beaming smile lurks heartache. Sculptor Lulu seems too cool to live in the suburbs. Why has she fled New York's bright lights? Model housewife Beth never has a hair out of place. But her perfect world is about to fall apart…. Irish-born Ellen wears the weight of the world on her shoulders but not her heart on her sleeve. What is she hiding? As the weeks go by, under mysterious Alice's watchful eye, an unlikely friendship forms. Secrets are revealed and pacts made. Then tragedy strikes, and each woman must learn to face her own past in order to move on…
Damaged Goods
Damaged Goods
Helen Black
¥66.22
A daughter accused of murder. And unable to defend herself… A dark, gritty thriller, perfect for fans of Kimberley Chambers and Jessie Keane. When a prostitute is found butchered on a notorious Luton council estate, the finger is immediately pointed. The prime suspect? Her 14-year-old daughter, Kelsey. But Kelsey is unable to defend herself. After an attempt to take her own life, Kelsey has been left horrifically scarred and mute – unable to even utter the words ‘not guilty’. It’s down to Lilly Valentine – a tough-talking Yorkshire lawyer – to prove Kelsey’s innocence. Prostitution, paedophilia, drugs and blackmail: Lily must put her own life at risk to save a silent, terrified child and find the real killer…
Jimmy Coates: Survival
Jimmy Coates: Survival
Joe Craig
¥51.50
Fifth title and a stunning new look for Jimmy Coates – part boy, part weapon, totally deadly! Can Jimmy save his family AND prevent a war? The choice is simple. The decision is deadly.
Mosquito
Mosquito
Roma Tearne
¥63.18
A lyrical and profoundly moving story of love, loss and civil war, set in Sri Lanka, London and Venice. When author Theo Samarajeeva returns to his native Sri Lanka after his wife’s death, he hopes to escape his gnawing loss amid the lush landscape of his increasingly war-torn country. But as he sinks into life in this beautiful, tortured land, he also finds himself slipping into friendship with an artistic young girl, Nulani, whose family is caught up in the growing turmoil. Soon friendship blossoms into love. Under the threat of civil war, their affair offers a glimmer of hope to a country on the brink of destruction… But all too soon, the violence which has cast an ominous shadow over their love story explodes, tearing them apart. Betrayed, imprisoned and tortured, Theo is gradually stripped of everything he once held dear – his writing, his humanity and, eventually, his love. Broken by the belief her lover is dead, Nulani flees Sri Lanka to a cold and lonely life of exile. As the years pass and the country descends into a morass of violence and hatred, the tragedy of Theo and Nulani's failed love spreads like a poison among friends sickened by the face of civil war, and the lovers must struggle to recover some of what they have lost and to resurrect, from the wreckage of their lives, a fragile belief in the possibility of redemption. Beautifully written, by turns heartbreaking and uplifting, `Mosquito’ is a first novel of remarkable and compelling power.
The Flight
The Flight
Bryan Malessa
¥58.86
A powerful novel set at the end of World War II about one woman and her family's struggle for survival. The thrust of this epic novel occurs in the spring of 1945, during an event known in Germany as Die Flucht, or The Flight, when some 12 million Eastern European ethnic-Germans fled their ancestral homes to escape the advancing Soviet Army. ‘The Flight’ tells the story of Ida, a mother who attempts to take her children from their village in East Prussia to the assumed safety of Berlin. Travelling by foot, boat and rail across enemy lines, she quickly discovers that their survival is dependent on her will to save them, and on overriding the silent tragedies they will face during the journey west. Ida's is a terrifying passage, soaked with a bleak sadness, but her quiet bravery and sorrowful resilience in the face of the depravity of war is captivating. Told with clarity and beauty, in a remarkably understated way, ‘The Flight’ is a captivating novel of authenticity and power, which opens up a chapter of World War II long overlooked.
Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures
Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures
Vincent Lam
¥69.26
An astonishing literary debut, this collection of mature and intricate stories introduces a powerful new voice in fiction. ‘A STUNNING DEBUT’ Margaret Atwood ‘IRRESISTIBLE’ Alice Munro In this beautifully written collection, Vincent Lam weaves together black humour, investigations of both common and extraordinary moral dilemmas, and a sometimes shockingly realistic portrait of today's medical profession. Twelve interlinked stories introduce us to a group of medical students over ten years, as they make the transition from medical school to hospital life. The stories span the unique challenges faced by young, inexperienced doctors – having to decide during a first human dissection whether it is more important to follow the anatomy textbook or keep a tattoo intact – but also delve into their private lives, their relationships and family histories, their fears and motivations. Riveting, convincing and precise, ‘Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures’ looks with rigorous honesty at the specificities of the lives of doctors and their patients and brings us to a deeper understanding of the challenges and temptations that surge around us all.
Alfred and Emily
Alfred and Emily
Doris Lessing
¥57.09
Doris Lessing’s first book after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature revisits her childhood in Southern Africa and the lives, both fictional and factual, that her parents led. ‘I think my father'’s rage at the trenches took me over, when I was very young, and has never left me. Do children feel their parents' emotions? Yes, we do, and it is a legacy I could have done without. What is the use of it? It is as if that old war is in my own memory, my own consciousness.’ In this extraordinary book, Doris Lessing explores the lives of her parents, both of them irrevocably damaged by the Great War. Her father wanted the simple life of an English farmer, but shrapnel almost killed him in the trenches, and thereafter he had to wear a wooden leg. Her mother Emily's great love was a doctor who drowned in the Channel, and she spent the war nursing the wounded in the Royal Free Hospital. In the first half of this book, Lessing imagines the lives her parents might have made for themselves had there been no war, a story that has them meeting at a village cricket match as children but leading separate lives. This is followed by a piercing examination of their lives as they actually came to be in the shadow of that war, their move to Rhodesia, a damaged couple hulking over Lessing’s childhood in a strange land. ‘Here I still am,’ says Doris Lessing, ‘trying to get out from under that monstrous legacy, trying to get free.’
Touch the Devil
Touch the Devil
Jack Higgins
¥54.25
Classic adventure from the million copy bestseller Jack Higgins If there’s such a thing as a grade A terrorist then his name is Frank Barry. His ideology is money and his track record is flawless. When the Russians want review copies of the latest NATO missile system, Barry’s the man to deliver them. Stopping him will be near enough impossible, but one man knows all the moves. Martin Brosnan is a poet, scholar and trained killer. A graduate of Vietnam and polished in the ranks of the IRA he could be the key to ending Barry’s reign. There’s one problem, Brosnan is languishing in a French prison, and only the powerfully persuasive Liam Devlin can get him out and working for British intelligence.
Three Girls and their Brother
Three Girls and their Brother
Theresa Rebeck
¥88.39
A stunning novel about celebrity and the price of fame from a Pulitzer-shortlisted playwright and the creator of hit series SMASH. It was the photograph in the New Yorker which started it all. They were three young, beautiful, red-haired girls, there granddaughters of a literary lion. They were News. But it was the row over the youngest's reaction to the attentions from one of Hollywood's biggest stars that made them Celebrities. The family – the three sisters, their brother, their mother, their normally absent father – are sucked into a whirlwind of agents, producers, managers, photo shoots, paparazzi, journalists, stylists, parties, shows, a maelstrom they have no idea how to control. The three girls – and their brother, an uneasy observer – experiment with life and change, and learn to survive, each of them differently. Each of them pays a different price in their relationship with each other, with their parents and in their beliefs in themselves and the civilisation around them. Three Girls and their Brother is a novel to devour. The story is compelling, sometimes cutting, sometimes touching. The characters leap widely off the page. The setting and portrait of the celebrity scene is completely convincing, busy and yet intimate. Theresa Rebeck's first novel is a triumph.
The Secret Between Us
The Secret Between Us
Barbara Delinsky
¥47.38
As one lie forces another lie, a life falls apart in this stunning novel from bestselling author Barbara Delinsky. When Deborah Monroe’s car hits and kills a man on a deserted road on a dark and rainy night, questions of who is to blame muddy the already complicated life of a woman who is newly divorced and struggling with emotions that are rampant in a house with two vulnerable children. Deborah’s daughter, 16-year old, Grace, was behind the wheel but, desperate to protect her daughter, Deborah covers for her and takes responsibility for the death of the man. But, when it seems that the victim may or may not have been suicidal, issues of guilt and responsibility, truth and honesty, are all brought into sharp focus. Barbara Delinsky is the master of the issue. Perfect for all fans of Jodi Picoult, this novel will make you question where the lines of right and wrong can be drawn.
The Savage Day
The Savage Day
Jack Higgins
¥57.09
Action and blood-thirsty suspense from the master of the game. Simon Vaughan knows what it's like to fight a dirty war, he's had first-hand experience in Korea. Now he languishes in a Greek jail. When it comes to firearms and gun-running nobody does it better, but those days are behind him, until the British army propose a deal. His freedom for his help against the IRA in Belfast. He doesn't haven't any choice, if he wants his freedom back he'll have to conquer a new battlegroung…
Rough Justice (Sean Dillon Series, Book 15)
Rough Justice (Sean Dillon Series, Book 15)
Jack Higgins
¥54.84
The master of the game is back, with another pulse-pounding adventure featuring the unstoppable Sean Dillon Whilst checking up on the volatile situation in Kosovo the US President's right-hand man Blake Johnson meets Major Harry Miller, a member of the British Cabinet. Miller is there doing his own checks for the British Prime Minister. When both men get involved with a group of Russian soldiers about to commit an atrocity, Miller puts and end to the scuffle with a bullet in the forehead of the ring-leader. But this action has dire consequences not only for Miller and Johnson but their associates too, including Britain's Sean Dillon, and all the way to the top of the British, Russian and United States governments. Death begets death, and revenge leads only to revenge, and before the chain reaction of events is over, many will be dead…
Rapscallion
Rapscallion
James McGee
¥63.18
Matthew Hawkwood, ex-soldier turned Bow Street Runner, goes undercover to hunt down smugglers and traitors at the height of the Napoleonic Wars in this thrilling follow-up to Ratcatcher. For a French prisoner of war, there is only one fate worse than the gallows: the hulks. Former man-o'-wars, now converted to prison ships, their fearsome reputation guarantees a sentence served in the most dreadful conditions. Few survive. Escape, it's said, is impossible. Yet reports persist of a sinister smuggling operation within this brutal world – and the Royal Navy is worried enough to send two of its officers to investigate. But when they disappear without trace, the Navy turns in desperation to Bow Street for help. It's time to send in a man as dangerous as the prey. It's time to send in Hawkwood…
A Corpse in Shining Armour
A Corpse in Shining Armour
Caro Peacock
¥63.18
Duelling, derring-do, and dastardly deeds are all in a day’s work for Liberty Lane: the plucky heroine for fans of Georgette Heyer and Sarah Waters’s Victorian novels. London. Summer 1839. And the temperature is rising as Liberty Lane takes on her strangest case yet. Deranged aristocrat Lord Brinkburn is nearing death and his elder son, Stephen, is expecting to inherit the title. But Lady Brinkburn's sudden announcement that Stephen is illegitimate throws the family into turmoil. Tensions reach boiling point between the two brothers, one of whom stands to gain everything, and they come to blows in public - much to the amusement of London Society. Liberty is engaged privately to get to the truth of the matter, but a macabre murder raises the stakes considerably…added to which she finds her own judgement being undermined by the beguiling Lady Brinkburn. She is only too aware that time is running out - one of the brothers may be next, but which will it be…?
The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal
The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal
Sean Dixon
¥72.99
An original, mischievous rites of passage novel which will delight fans of offbeat fiction such as ‘Salmon Fishing in the Yemen’ and ‘A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian’. The Lacuna Cabal Montreal Young Women's Book Club is THE foremost book club in Canada, no, in the world. Priding themselves on their good taste, intelligent discussions and impeccable opinions, they are a group of misfits and oddballs, living on the edge of normality. There are only two rules: what Missy says goes (ok, there is a nod to democracy but let's be honest here) and NO BOYS. EVER. Of course, the premier book club in the world must read the first book ever written: 'The Epic of Gilgamesh'. But this monumental book leads them to break all their rules, shed members who end up missing out on EVERYTHING, and travel across the open seas to Bahrain in search of a wise man who'll hopefully have all the answers. Original, funny, quixotic and ultimately very moving,The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal is set in a time of upheaval: the Iraq war is exploding and people across the world are marching in protest. It's the story of a group of friends who find a family of sorts within their book group, who learn to cope with love, and the lack of it, loss, and the lack of that, and with growing up in a world that is falling apart.
Death of a Dancer
Death of a Dancer
Caro Peacock
¥63.18
Duelling, derring-do, and dastardly deeds are all in a day’s work for Liberty Lane, a new heroine for fans of Georgette Heyer and Sarah Waters’s Victorian novels. The Augustus theatre likes to put on a good show. But when a public spat erupts between two dancers on the London stage, it comes to a dramatic conclusion that definitely wasn’t part of the *: one dead, the other arrested for murder. As far as the jury’s concerned, it’s an open-and-shut case, but Liberty Lane believes otherwise. Soon she’s leading her own investigation, in a desperate race against the hangman’s noose. And while the criminal underworld may be no place for a lady, there’s no place for a criminal to hide once Liberty’s on the case…
Blind Faith
Blind Faith
Sagarika Ghose
¥73.58
A stunning and sumptuous tale of the boundaries between love and hate, truth and deception, set against the anticipation for the Kumbh Mela: the biggest festival in India. When Mia, acutely depressed by the suicide of her artist father, meets Karna, a young and mesmeric guru who bears a startling resemblance to a figure in her father’s painting, she feels compelled to follow him all the way from London to India. And if marrying Vik, the suave businessman her mother so approves of, is the way to get there, so be it. Once in India, Mia learns about Vik’s mother, Indi. She is a figure of great power, inordinately beautiful and gifted, but blind. Her rage ensnares and yet rejects anyone who tries to come close. Mia must travel to the Kumbh Mela, the festival on the banks of the Ganges, to make sense of everything: her own confused love for two men, Indi’s anguish, her own family’s history. And yet when she arrives, nothing is as she thought it would be; through a change in perspective, she comes to realise the limitations of vision… This is a remarkable tale of hope, destruction and ultimately of rebirth, as one young woman explores the shifting sands of illusion and truth.
Across the Mersey
Across the Mersey
Annie Groves
¥56.11
From the author of The Grafton Girls comes the story of one Liverpool family preparing for the onslaught of World War Two, but feuding amongst themselves… Jean and Vi are twins but couldn’t be more different. Jean’s proud of her honest, hardworking husband and their children, but there’s never a penny to spare. Vi’s equally proud of her husband’s new role as a local councillor and their elegant new house, and has raised her children to expect the best. As war breaks out, agonising decisions must be faced. Should the oldest children enlist? Should the youngest be evacuated? All the traditional certainties are overturned. Then the twins’ own younger sister, singer Francine, returns home unexpectedly and stirs up the past, even in the midst of present danger. This is a tremendous saga of fighting spirit and family closeness, and the belief that even though today is full of destruction and pain, there is hope for a better tomorrow.
Zoology
Zoology
Ben Dolnick
¥76.81
A funny, wise and heartwarming story of a young man’s first forays into love during a long, hot summer in New York City. Henry likes to think of himself as a promising jazz musician. The truth, however, is considerably less glamorous. At eighteen, he’s dropped out of university, lives at home with his bickering parents, and spends most of his time with the family dog. So when his brother offers to put him up in his New York City apartment for the summer, Henry leaps at the chance to start living the life of his dreams… In the Big Apple, Henry lands a job at the Central Park Children’s Zoo. Over weeks spent chopping vegetables and shovelling dung, his world gradually expands to include a motley crew of zoo keepers, doormen and animals of every de*ion. Amongst these, the undisputed star is Newman, the zoo’s stoic Nubian goat, in whom Henry confides his growing love for Margaret, the alluringly wholesome girl next door. As the months unfold in a haze of jazz bars, ill-advised romance and hard truths about family, Henry learns what what it is to love – and to lose – in this hilarious, inventive and touching debut novel.