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The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún
The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún
J. R. R. Tolkien
¥58.47
The world first publication of a previously unknown work by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the epic story of the Norse hero, Sigurd, the dragon-slayer, the revenge of his wife, Gudrún, and the Fall of the Nibelungs. “Many years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien composed his own version, now published for the first time, of the great legend of Northern antiquity, in two closely related poems to which he gave the titles The New Lay of the V?lsungs and The New Lay of Gudrún. “In the Lay of the V?lsungs is told the ancestry of the great hero Sigurd, the slayer of Fáfnir most celebrated of dragons, whose treasure he took for his own; of his awakening of the Valkyrie Brynhild who slept surrounded by a wall of fire, and of their betrothal; and of his coming to the court of the great princes who were named the Niflungs (or Nibelungs), with whom he entered into blood-brotherhood. In that court there sprang great love but also great hate, brought about by the power of the enchantress, mother of the Niflungs, skilled in the arts of magic, of shape-changing and potions of forgetfulness. “In scenes of dramatic intensity, of confusion of identity, thwarted passion, jealousy and bitter strife, the tragedy of Sigurd and Brynhild, of Gunnar the Niflung and Gudrún his sister, mounts to its end in the murder of Sigurd at the hands of his blood-brothers, the suicide of Brynhild, and the despair of Gudrún. In the Lay of Gudrún her fate after the death of Sigurd is told, her marriage against her will to the mighty Atli, ruler of the Huns (the Attila of history), his murder of her brothers the Niflung lords, and her hideous revenge. “Deriving his version primarily from his close study of the ancient poetry of Norway and Iceland known as the Poetic Edda (and where no old poetry exists, from the later prose work the V?lsunga Saga), J.R.R. Tolkien employed a verse-form of short stanzas whose lines embody in English the exacting alliterative rhythms and the concentrated energy of the poems of the Edda.” — Christopher Tolkien
Letter from a Stranger
Letter from a Stranger
Barbara Taylor Bradford
¥61.51
Captivating and evocative, Letter from a Stranger will take you on an unforgettable journey from idyllic Connecticut to exotic Istanbul to war-torn Berlin then back to the present day. When award-winning film maker Justine Nolan returns to her beautiful childhood home, she is intrigued by an envelope she finds in her absent mother’s post. But the letter inside contains a shocking revelation. If genuine it will change everything she believes about her family’s recent history, her mother and her adored grandmother, Gabriele. With the support of her beloved twin brother, Richard, Justine resolves to uncover the truth. To do so she must travel to Istanbul – the teeming, beguiling city on the cusp of East and West. It is a place which holds its own secrets, leading her to a fascinating man who appears to know more than he is prepared to disclose. Yet even when her quest succeeds, Justine is faced with a further mystery: Gabriele’s background is not what it seems. Justine is given a book of memories in which the real story unfolds, taking her back to the darkest days of European history, with its suffering and astonishing acts of bravery. At the heart of it lie the final facts of Gabriele’s identity – and her own. The letter from a stranger has brought her not only to the truth about her family but also a chance to heal the wounds of past betrayals, to embrace a new love and new life.
The Trafficked
The Trafficked
Lee Weeks
¥57.09
DETECTIVE JOHNNY MANN IS BACK Missing children. An evil racket. A race against time … Summoned to meet his boss, rebellious Detective Johnny Mann expects to be told that he is being demoted. Instead he is ordered to lead the investigation into the kidnapping of Amy Tang - the illegitimate daughter of a major player in the skin trade, CK Leung. Mann is reluctant to help - he has crossed paths with CK before- but he has no choice. Nine-year-old Amy is the third child to be kidnapped and held for a vast sum of money, but while the other two children were released after the vast ransom was paid, Amy is still being held captive. Mann's investigation takes him to London, where he teams up with DC Becky Stamp. Within days of his arrival, an arson attack kills twelve women and children. The charred bodies of the victims are found chained to their beds - their injuries rendering them identifiable… What is the link between the kidnapping of Amy in Hong Kong and the deaths of these women and children and can Mann discover the truth before it's too late. Prepare to be terrorised all over again with this disturbingly addictive thriller from the writer hailed as the female James Patterson.
The Triumph of Katie Byrne
The Triumph of Katie Byrne
Barbara Taylor Bradford
¥34.14
A riveting novel that begins with a murder in an old Connecticut barn and reaches its climax on Broadway. We first meet Katie Byrne at seventeen. A tall beauty with reddish-gold hair, she has always wanted to be an actress. Her two best friends share her passion for the theatre, and the three girls have spent much of their childhood rehearsing plays in an old barn in Connecticut. Leaving early one day to help her mother prepare dinner, Katie realizes she has left her schoolbooks at the barn and she and her older brother return to retrieve them. When they arrive, they find the barn, the setting of so many happy dreams, has become the scene of a nightmare: one of Katie's friends has been raped and murdered, and the other lies unconscious. Ten years later, Katie, a struggling actress in New York, is still haunted by the tragedy. Her friend Carly remains in a coma, and Katie desperately wants to achieve success and stardom not only for herself but also for her two old friends. Her big chance comes when she is discovered and wins a major role in a Broadway play. A promising love affair adds to the excitement of working on Broadway; but Katie must face the demons of the past before she can embrace the possibilities of the future.
A Secret Affair
A Secret Affair
Barbara Taylor Bradford
¥48.07
Thirty-three-year-old Bill Fitzgerald is an acclaimed American television foreign correspondent. War-weary and exhausted after a long stint in Bosnia, he travels to Venice to meet Francis Xavier Peterson, and old friend and war correspondent for Time magazine. Vanessa Stewart is a twenty-seven-year-old glass designer from New York. She's also in Venice , visiting the glass-blowing works in Murano. Whilst at the bar of the Gritti Palace Hotel on the Grand Canal with Frankie, Bill is struck by the dark beauty of a young woman seated alone. The young woman is Vanessa. The three expatriates meet and decide that, as Americans in Venice , they should celebrate Thanksgiving together. And that evening, full of warmth and comaraderie, begins an illicit though fateful love affair.
In a Cat’s Eye
In a Cat’s Eye
Kevin Bergeron
¥11.77
‘Curious Incident’ meets ‘Catcher in the Rye’ in this crime-noir debut. The police said Nancy OD’d and she was a tramp. But she wasn’t; she was my friend. I didn’t see her Virgin Mary statue in her room, and I said some guy killed her and took it. Mr. Winkley was in the hallway meowing. The Colonel knew all about crimes. He said, Okay Willy we’ll conduct an investigation… There were a lot of suspects in that hotel. When a young woman in her locked room is found dead with junk in her veins, three friends follow a twisted trail of clues through the Morpheum – a seedy, crumbling hotel, home to the lost, the forgotten, the dreamers, and a killer.
Memory of Water
Memory of Water
Emmi Itäranta
¥66.22
With the lyricism of Ishiguro’s NEVER LET ME GO, and the world building brilliance of Atwood, Emmi It?ranta’s effortless and poignant debut novel is a coming of age story full of emotional drama and wonderment. Some secrets demand betrayal. 'You’re seventeen, and of age now, and therefore old enough to understand what I’m going to tell you,’ my father said. ‘This place doesn’t exist.’ ‘I’ll remember,’ I told him, but didn’t realise until later what kind of promise I had made. When Noria Kaitio reaches her seventeenth birthday, she is entrusted with the secret of a freshwater spring hidden deep within the caves near her small rural village. Its preservation has been the responsibility of her family for generations. Apprenticed to her father, one of the last true tea masters, when Noria takes possession of the knowledge, she become much more than the guardian of ancestral treasure; soon, she will hold the fate of everyone she loves in her hands.
Michael Morpurgo: War Child to War Horse
Michael Morpurgo: War Child to War Horse
Maggie Fergusson
¥58.86
Discover the true life story of favourite storyteller Michael Morpurgo, in this biography specially edited for children. Also features seven original Morpurgo stories. We are enchanted by Michael Morpurgo’s amazing stories like ‘Private Peaceful’, ‘Born to Run’ and ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’. And with big screen adaptations of his novels such as ‘War Horse’ being made into film adaptations by Steven Spielberg, it’s no surprise that he’s our nation’s number one favourite storyteller. But what about the real life story of Michael Morpurgo…? How did a boy supremely uninterested in books, who dreamed of becoming an army officer, become a bestselling author and Children’s Laureate? What stories in Michael’s own life inspired him to write more than a hundred books for children? In a unique collaboration, Maggie Fergusson and Michael himself explore his life through biography and stories. This is a specially abridged edition of the critically acclaimed biography ‘War Child to War Horse’, for children. With additional photos not included in the hardback edition, and with a special activities section, this is the perfect gift for any child who has ever loved a Morpurgo story – and there are millions of them out there…
The Death Trade (Sean Dillon Series, Book 20)
The Death Trade (Sean Dillon Series, Book 20)
Jack Higgins
¥58.86
THE NEW HIGGINS HAS LANDED! One man with the key to Armageddon. One chance for Sean Dillon to find him. The hunt is on, in the mesmerizing new Sean Dillon thriller of murder, terrorism and revenge from the Sunday Times bestselling author.
Death in Devon (The County Guides)
Death in Devon (The County Guides)
Ian Sansom
¥27.76
CREAM TEAS! SCHOOL DINNERS! SATANIC SURFERS! Join our heroes as they follow up a Norfolk Mystery with a bad case of … DEATH IN DEVON. Swanton Morley, the People’s Professor, sets off for Devon to continue his history of England, The County Guides. Morley’s daughter Miriam and his assistant Stephen Sefton pack up the Lagonda for a trip to the English Riviera. Morley has been invited to give the Founder’s Day speech at All Souls School in Rousdon. But when the trio arrive they discover that a boy has died in mysterious circumstances. Was it an accident or was it – murder? Join Morley, Sefton and Miram on another adventure into the dark heart of 1930s England.
The Shock of the Fall Free Sampler
The Shock of the Fall Free Sampler
Nathan Filer
¥11.77
WINNER OF THE COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR 2013 ‘I’ll tell you what happened because it will be a good way to introduce my brother. His name’s Simon. I think you’re going to like him. I really do. But in a couple of pages he’ll be dead. And he was never the same after that.’ It is recommended readers use the Publisher's Fonts. There are books you can’t stop reading, which keep you up all night. There are books which let us into the hidden parts of life and make them vividly real. There are books which, because of the sheer skill with which every word is chosen, linger in your mind for days. The Shock of the Fall is all of these books. The Shock of the Fall is an extraordinary portrait of one man’s descent into mental illness. It is a brave and groundbreaking novel from one of the most exciting new voices in fiction.
Rebellion
Rebellion
James McGee
¥63.18
Rebellion is brewing in Napoleonic Paris, in the new action-packed novel from the author of the bestselling Ratcatcher October 1812: Britain and France are still at war. France is engaged on two battle fronts - Spain and Russia - and her civilians are growing weary of the fight. Rebellion is brewing. Since Napoleon Bonaparte appointed himself as First Consul, there have been several attempts to either kill or overthrow him. All have failed, so far… Meanwhile in London, Bow Street Runner Matthew Hawkwood has been seconded to the foreign arm of the Secret Service. There, he meets the urbane Henry Brooke, who tells him he’s to join a colleague in Paris on a special mission. Brooke's agent has come up with a daring plan and he needs Hawkwood's help to put it into action. If the plan is successful it could lead to a negotiated peace treaty between France and the allies. Failure would mean prison, torture and a meeting with the guillotine…
Chicago
Chicago
Alaa al Aswany
¥81.03
Sex, money and politics are the driving forces of society in this new novel from bestselling author Alaa al Aswany. A medley of Egyptian and American lives collides on the campus of the University of Illinois Medical Center in a post-9/11 Chicago, and crises of identity abound. Among the players are an atheistic anti-establishment American professor of the sixties generation, whose relationship with a younger African-American woman becomes a moving target for intolerance; a veiled PhD candidate whose conviction in the code of her traditional upbringing is shaken by her exposure to American society; an emigre who has fervently embraced his new American identity, but who cannot escape his Egyptian roots when faced with the issue of his daughter's 'honour'; an Egyptian State Security informant who spouts religious doctrines while hankering after money and power; and a dissident student poet who comes to America with the sole aim of financing his literary aspirations, but whose experience in Chicago turns out to be more than he bargained for. This tightly plotted page-turner is set far from the downtown Cairo of al Aswany's ‘The Yacoubian Building’, but is no less unflinching an examination of contemporary Egyptian lives.
Dean Spanley: The Novel
Dean Spanley: The Novel
Lord Dunsany,Alan Sharp
¥66.22
The classic humorous novel about an alcohol-loving clergyman who thinks he is the reincarnation of a dog. Complete with the award-winning film screenplay that expands upon the tale. Dean Spanley is affable, conventional and prudent – the very archetype of a bland churchman. Only his keen interest in the transmigration of souls and his obsession with dogs betray any shadow of eccentricity. But then, richly primed with a few glasses of Imperial Tokay, he begins to speak vividly of the joys of rabbiting, of rolling in fresh dung and of baying at the moon. Are these canine memories a drunken fancy? Or can it be that Dean Spanley must once have been a dog? This special edition includes Lord Dunsany’s witty and inventive novel, My Talks With Dean Spanley, together with Alan Sharp’s award-winning screenplay for the film starring Peter O’Toole and Sam Neill, which faithfully adapts and expands upon the events in the story.
Capricornia
Capricornia
Xavier Herbert
¥91.43
A saga of life in the Northern Territories and the clash of white and Aborigine cultures – one of Australia’s all-time best-selling novels and an inspiration for Baz Luhrmann’s lavish film ‘AUSTRALIA’. Capricornia has been described as one of Australia's 'great novels', a sharply observed chronicle about life in the Northern Territory of Australia and the inhumane treatment suffered by Aborigines at the hands of white men. The story is immense and rambling, laced with humour that is often as bitter and as harsh as the terrain in which it is set, and follows with irony the fortunes (and otherwise) of a range of Outback characters over a span of generations. Through their story is reflected the story of Australia, the clash of personalities and cultures that provide the substance on which today's society is founded. Above all, however, this is a novel of protest and of compassion - for the Aborigines and half-bloods of Australia's 'last frontier'. Sprawling, explosive, thronged with characters, plots and sub-plots, Capricornia is without doubt one of the best known and widely read Australian novels of the last 70 years. When it was first published it was acclaimed as 'a turning point', an 'outstanding work of social protest'. Its message is as penetrating today as it was in the 1930s when Herbert himself was official 'Protector of Aborigines' at Darwin.
This Winter (A Solitaire novella)
This Winter (A Solitaire novella)
Alice Oseman
¥22.66
A short story, based on characters from Solitaire – praised as ‘The Catcher in the Rye for the digital age’ The Times I used to think that difficult was better than boring, but I know better now… I’m not going to think about the past few months, about Charlie and me, and all of the sad. I’m going to block it all out. Just for today. "Happy Christmas, " I say. The festive season isn't always happy for Tori and her brother Charlie. And this year's going to be harder than most.
Winning the Single Mum's Heart (Mills & Boon Romance)
Winning the Single Mum's Heart (Mills & Boon Romance)
Linda Goodnight
¥23.05
Single mom Natalie juggles creating fantastic cakes for the Wedding Belles with raising her troublesome twins. But her hard-won independence means she won't be decorating her own cake anytime soon....Cooper Sullivan is a winner. He's competitive and at the top of his career. A new job leads him back to Natalie's door. Seeing her again after so many years makes Cooper realize that the only thing he never won--and the only thing that really matters--is Natalie's heart....
Dog Soldiers: Love, loyalty and sacrifice on the front line
Dog Soldiers: Love, loyalty and sacrifice on the front line
Isabel George
¥66.22
Dog Soldiers tells the story of two brave young ‘dog soldiers’ (Army bomb dog handlers), killed in action in Afghanistan with their dogs by their side, through the inspirational words of their mothers. Lance Corporal Kenneth Rowe and Lance Corporal Liam Tasker were both dog lovers from boyhood and went on to do the job they had always wanted to do. Through the soldiers’ mothers – Lyn Rowe and Jane Duffy – the book will take the reader on a journey and a celebration of the young men’s lives that begins with the two young boys growing up and fulfilling their dream to serve Queen and country as Army dog handlers – Ken Rowe with his dog, Sasha, and Liam Tasker with his canine partner, Theo. Both mothers acknowledge that their sons signed up to do the job they loved best and fell with their loyal and trusted best friend beside them. Jane Duffy said of her son, Liam Tasker: ‘I know my son died doing the job he loved. And he loved that dog as I loved my son, with every ounce of his being. To lose Liam was and still is unbearable. But for Liam to have survived without Theo? Unthinkable.’
Milllionaire Dad, Nanny Needed! (Mills & Boon Romance)
Milllionaire Dad, Nanny Needed! (Mills & Boon Romance)
Susan Meier
¥23.05
Serial playboy meets sensible nanny! One minute wedding planner Audra Greene’s balancing budget sheets, the next she’s changing baby sheets for gorgeous millionaire Dominic Manelli! Corporate tycoon Dominic needs help with his newly orphaned nephew, and he knows exactly who to ask – reliable, trustworthy Audra, daughter of the Manellis’ housekeeper. He knows his playboy ways will only break Audra’s heart, and that he shouldn’t get involved with the hired help. But every look, every touch and every smile is making Dominic want to swap nights out on the town for nights in with Audra and the baby… The Wedding Planners Planning perfect weddings… finding happy endings!
The Things I Should Have Told You
The Things I Should Have Told You
Carmel Harrington
¥60.14
But for the Guinness family a happy ending looks out of reach. Olly and Mae's marriage is crumbling, their teenage daughter Evie is on a mission to self-destruct and their beloved Pops is dying of cancer. Their once strong family unit is slowly falling apart. But Pops has one final gift to offer his beloved family – a ray of hope to cling to. As his life's journey draws to a close, he sends his family on an adventure across Europe in a camper van, guided by his letters, his wisdom and his love. Because Pops knows that all his family need is time to be together, to find their love for each other and to find their way back home… What readers are saying about Carmel Harrington: ‘Carmel Harrington…will make you see life in a different way’ – Woman’s Way ‘A wonderfully life-affirming, heart-warming book. Carmel Harrington writes with such honesty, you'd have to be made of stone not to laugh and cry’ – New York Times bestselling author Hazel Gaynor ‘I always feel a little richer for having read one of Carmel’s books…this inspiring and emotional family-centred read stole my heart’ – Between the Lines
Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Jumper
Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Jumper
Debbie Johnson
¥61.51
But for the Guinness family a happy ending looks out of reach. Olly and Mae's marriage is crumbling, their teenage daughter Evie is on a mission to self-destruct and their beloved Pops is dying of cancer. Their once strong family unit is slowly falling apart. But Pops has one final gift to offer his beloved family – a ray of hope to cling to. As his life's journey draws to a close, he sends his family on an adventure across Europe in a camper van, guided by his letters, his wisdom and his love. Because Pops knows that all his family need is time to be together, to find their love for each other and to find their way back home… What readers are saying about Carmel Harrington: ‘Carmel Harrington…will make you see life in a different way’ – Woman’s Way ‘A wonderfully life-affirming, heart-warming book. Carmel Harrington writes with such honesty, you'd have to be made of stone not to laugh and cry’ – New York Times bestselling author Hazel Gaynor ‘I always feel a little richer for having read one of Carmel’s books…this inspiring and emotional family-centred read stole my heart’ – Between the Lines