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万本电子书0元读

Blood Runs Cold
Blood Runs Cold
Alex Barclay
¥54.25
Kidnap and murder collide in Alex Barclay’s heart-stopping new thriller featuring FBI Agent Ren Bryce. The only way to reach the end is to turn back… When the body of FBI agent Jean Transom is found on the frozen slopes of Quandary Peak, the nearby town of Breckenridge, Colorado, becomes the focus of a major investigation. A quiet, dedicated agent on the surface, it soon becomes clear that there was another side to Jean Transom. And who better to uncover it than Special Agent Ren Bryce, an expert in violent crime and a woman with secrets of her own; secrets that could compromise the entire investigation and put an end to her distinguished career. Her boss, her informant, her colleagues, her ex – Ren needs to know who she can trust … because the last person she can trust is herself.
An Unsuitable Mother
An Unsuitable Mother
Sheelagh Kelly
¥54.25
A memorable saga from one of the best-loved writers of the genre. Sheelagh Kelly gives us the pain and determination of the people of York during the Second World War. Nell is just eighteen when war breaks out, and she’s keen to do her bit - which means leaving her safe office job and starting to train as an auxiliary nurse. This will bring her into contact with women of all ages and from very different parts of society - and it will also bring her face to face with the grim realities of war. But she has a secret to comfort her - a soldier she’s met and fallen in love with, who’s promised to return to marry her. The unthinkable happens: bombs fall on York. And for Nell, this coincides with a dreadful tragedy that she can share with nobody, and which brings life-changing consequences. Shhelagh Kelly writes with deep feeling, evoking all the warmth and hardship of a city under siege - the city in which she was born and which she knows so well. This will thrill her numrous fans and win her many more.
The Watcher
The Watcher
Grace Monroe
¥54.25
When you see him, it's already too late… Four days before Christmas, a young woman's body is found in a ditch in the grounds of Edinburgh Castle, the discovery rendered even more terrifying by the message 'More Will Die' written on her body in blood. Soon, the prophecy is fulfilled, more young women disappear - all redheads - their bodies later found bludgeoned to death, their feet severed. Quickly dubbed 'The Edinburgh Ripper', the murders bring the city to its knees. It might be the season of goodwill but its citizens live in fear of becoming the latest victim. Headstrong young lawyer Brodie McLennan teams up with DI Duncan Bancho in an effort to discover the identity of this warped killer. Soon, their investigations uncover a ring of human traffickers, selling Eastern European women as sex slaves, a depraved group called the ‘Hobbyists’ and a clandestine internet chat room. Unbeknownst to Brodie, the killer's web is spinning ever closer to her and her teenaged half sister Connie, recently back in her life. When Connie is reported missing, Brodie must quickly uncover the Ripper's identity - before her own flesh and blood becomes the latest victim.
No One Listened
No One Listened
Isobel Kerr,Alex Kerr
¥53.76
When Isobel and Alex came home from school to find their abusive father had brutally murdered their mother, their world was thrown into chaos. Plunged into a care system that neglected them, Isobel and Alex were expected to come to nothing, and had only each other to rely on. Isobel and Alex’s mother used to do everything with them. A full-time teacher, she dedicated herself to her children, partly in order to give them every possible opportunity in life, and partly to keep them out of the way of their increasingly eccentric, erratic and unpleasant father. Their father, a violent and frightening man, spent most of his time locked in his bedroom, a room the rest of the family never ventured into. He became increasingly bitter and angry at the outside world in general, and at his wife and children in particular. The local community feared his outbursts as much as Isobel and Alex did, but the neighbours saw far less of him as he became increasingly housebound. No one came to the Kerr’s house to visit. When Isobel was 15 and Alex 13, they came home from school to find police everywhere. Their father had stabbed their mother between fifty and sixty times with a sharpened chisel. As far as anyone could tell the attack was unprovoked and of incredible savagery, but the children were given the minimum amount of information. No one wanted to upset them unnecessarily. Their mother had been an only child and they had never been in contact with their father's family. There was no one else for them to turn to - except each other. This is an inspiring story of a brother and sister who only had each other, and a powerful testament to what can be achieved through courage and love.
The Exodus Quest
The Exodus Quest
Will Adams
¥59.15
Fact collides with fiction in Will Adams second pulse-pounding adventure featuring the enigmatic Daniel Knox – hero of The Alexander Cipher Fact collides with fiction in Will Adams second pulse-pounding adventure featuring the enigmatic Daniel Knox. On the trail of a Dead Sea Scroll, Knox stumbles across an ancient temple being surreptitiously excavated by evangelical Christians outside Alexandria. A chase ends in tragedy with the death of Alexandria's senior archaeologist, and Knox the chief suspect. Meanwhile, Knox's partner Gaille Bonnard is baby-sitting a television crew around the ancient city of Amarna, home of the multiple mysteries of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Kidnapped by rogue soldiers, her time fast running out, she sends Knox a message hidden in a hostage video, pleading with him to come to her rescue. But Knox has problems of his own, under arrest on suspicion of murder, locked in a police cell half a country away. And the only way for him to find and save her is to crack one of the great unsolved mysteries of the ancient world.
Beautiful Losers
Beautiful Losers
Leonard Cohen
¥73.58
One of the best-known experimental novels of the 1960s, this uninhibited tale centres on the hapless members of a love triangle, and their sexual obsession and shared fascination with a mythic saint. Revolving around four central – and intrinsically flawed – characters, ‘Beautiful Losers’ is the frank and humorous story of a nameless narrator, his wife Edith, their domineering friend and mentor ‘F’ and Catherine Tekakwitha, a mythic 17th-century Mohawk virgin saint. The complexities of this three-way love, pain and lust are sent spiralling by the death of Edith and ‘F’ at the novel’s start, leading the damaged narrator to question the nature of love, sexuality and spirituality in a series of explicit flashbacks. The extraordinary and inimitable singer-songwriter’s classic novel, this is Leonard Cohen’s most critically acclaimed literary work, echoing the dark poetry and wry humour of his timeless songs of loss, love, sex and religion. Not just an extremely funny novel, but an incredibly original and explicit examination of friendship, sex and spirituality.
Under Heaven
Under Heaven
Guy Gavriel Kay
¥71.22
An epic historical adventure set in an alternate 8th century China, from the author of the 2008 World Fantasy winner, Ysabel. Under Heaven is a novel of heroes, assassins, concubines and emperors set against a majestic and unforgiving landscape. Honour is beyond measure But its price may be an empire… For two years Shen Tai has mourned his celebrated father and lived like a hermit beyond the borders of the Kitan Empire. There, by a mountain lake, the bones of the soldiers killed in great battles between the Kitai and the Tagurans lie unburied and their wailing ghosts strike terror into the living. Tai has laboured alone, laying to rest the mingled dead of both empires, until a letter arrives. It contains the promise of a poisoned chalice: Tai will be given two hundred and fifty Sardian horses by the Tagurans, legendary steeds from the far west, as a reward for his courage and piety. Now, Tai must try to return alive from solitude to a glittering, dangerous court. For to give a man even one of the famed Sardians is to honour him greatly; to give him so many is a reward which would overwhelm an emperor, and could be Tai's death warrant.
Oscar Wilde’s Stories for All Ages
Oscar Wilde’s Stories for All Ages
Oscar Wilde,Stephen Fry
¥95.75
One of the world’s best loved presenters meets one of the world’s greatest authors in this beautiful selection of timeless, haunting stories. Vividly brought to life through abundant illustrations and Stephen’s masterly introductions, Oscar Wilde’s short stories are here made accessible to an entirely new generation. Whether you know it or not, the stories in this book are familiar. Like old friends whose charm and warmth never fade, Oscar Wilde's short stories have enchanted generations of readers, and this beautiful book makes them accessible to an entirely new readership. Selected and presented by one of Wilde's biggest fans, the book includes a foreword from Stephen Fry, who will also supply short introductions to the stories themselves, explaining why they mean so much to him and why they should mean a lot to you too. Meet the selfish giant, whose garden was cloaked in perpetual winter until he allowed the children to enter and play, the happy prince whose statue stood overlooking his city, who gave the rubies and sapphires embedded in his eyes and clothing to feed the poor, and the tiny swallow who helped him. And let's not forget the remarkable rocket who was so convinced that he would be the brightest, most remarkable rocket of all, yet who ended up in a ditch. There's also the Canterville ghost, so inept at being scary that every attempt to spook his American visitors results in failure. Stephen Fry has always been passionate about Oscar Wilde's writing but he has a particular fondness for his short stories. In this beautifully illustrated book he shares with us what each story means to him and what he feels the reader can take away with them, whether they're five or fifty years old. As well as a general introduction, Stephen offers introductions to the stories themselves, taking the reader through his selection. Illustrated by Nicole Stewart, stunning artwork accompanies each story to give shape to the reader's imagination. Whether you are buying this for yourself, for your wife, your son or daughter, for your nephew, your niece, your mother, your brother or your sister, the book will be a gift that you or they will cherish forever and return to time and time again. These are stories for adults and children of all ages, for all time.
Horse Under Water
Horse Under Water
Len Deighton
¥63.18
The dead hand of a long-defeated Nazi Third Reich reaches out to Portugal, London and Marrakech in Deighton’s second novel, featuring the same anonymous narrator and milieu of The IPCRESS File, but finds Dawlish now head of the secret British Intelligence unit, WOOC(P). The Ipcress File was a debut sensation. Here in the second Secret File, Horse under Water, skin-diving, drug trafficking and blackmail all feature in a curious story in which the dead hand of a long-defeated Hitler-Germany reaches out to Portugal, London and Marrakech, and to all the neo-Nazis of today's Europe. The detail is frightening but unfaultable; the story as up to date as ever it was. The un-named hero of The Ipcress File the same: insolent, fallible, capricious - in other words, human. But he must draw on all his abilities, good and bad, when plunged into a story of murder, betrayal and greed every bit as murky as the waters off the coast of Portugal, where the answers lie buried.
The Ipcress File
The Ipcress File
Len Deighton
¥32.08
Len Deighton’s classic first novel, whose protagonist is a nameless spy – later christened Harry Palmer and made famous worldwide in the iconic 1960s film starring Michael Caine. The Ipcress File was not only Len Deighton’s first novel, it was his first bestseller and the book that broke the mould of thriller writing. For the working class narrator, an apparently straightforward mission to find a missing biochemist becomes a journey to the heart of a dark and deadly conspiracy. The film of The Ipcress File gave Michael Caine one of his first and still most celebrated starring roles, while the novel itself has become a classic.
The Stepmothers’ Support Group
The Stepmothers’ Support Group
Sam Baker
¥51.50
You can’t choose your family – but you can choose your friends… A heartfelt, warm and truthful novel about female friendship. Eve has never imagined herself as a stepmother. But when she falls in love with Ian, he comes with a ready-made family of three children. And, to make matters worse, he's a widower. The ghost of his glamorous and well known wife haunts them. Clare, a teacher and single mother, is Eve's best friend. She is the only person Eve can talk to about how on earth a journalist in her thirties can win round three wary children. But despite Clare's years of practice with her own teenage daughter, it's Lily, her younger sister, who provides the truly sympathetic ear. Mel is sent along to Eve's so-called 'support group' by a colleague. With a fledgling relationship and a new business to get off the ground, she has a very different set of pressures to the other women. And Mandy is the stay-at-home mum, whose relationship comes with stepchildren, and who wants more than anything to stitch together a happy family life for herself, her kids and her new step-kids. As a cup of coffee turns to a bottle of wine and the get-togethers become a regular fixture, conversations about new families evolve into ones about relationships, life and each woman’s deepest hopes and dreams. But the friendship is tested and feelings about lovers, husbands and step-children challenged when the five women are forced to confront new futures as well as unwelcome figures from the past…
The Drought
The Drought
J. G. Ballard,M. John Harrison
¥22.76
With a new introduction by M. John Harrison and a striking new cover design from the artist Stanley Donwood, this acclaimed cult novel sees human existence threatened by devastating climate change. Water. Man’s most precious commodity is a luxury of the past. Radioactive waste from years of industrial dumping has caused the sea to form a protective skin strong enough to devastate the Earth it once sustained. And while the remorseless sun beats down on the dying land, civilization itself begins to crack. Violence erupts and insanity reigns as the remnants of mankind struggle for survival in a worldwide desert of despair. Remarkable for its prescience and the originality of its vision, The Drought is a work of major importance from the early career of one of Britain’s most acclaimed novelists. This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard’s works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including Ned Beauman, Ali Smith, Neil Gaiman and Martin Amis) and brand-new cover designs.
The Gift
The Gift
Cecelia Ahern
¥58.47
Step into the magical world of Cecelia Ahern in this heartwarming bestseller. If you could wish for one gift this Christmas, what would it be? Lou Suffern wishes he could be in two places at once. His constant battle with the clock is a sensitive issue with his wife and family. Gabe wishes he was somewhere warm. When Lou invites Gabe, a homeless man who sits outside his office, into the building and into his life, Lou’s world is changed beyond all measure… An enchanting and thoughtful Christmas story that speaks to all of us abut the value of time and what is truly important in life.
I, Houdini (First Modern Classics)
I, Houdini (First Modern Classics)
Lynne Reid Banks
¥40.02
Houdini is no ordinary hamster. He is an escapologist with an exceptional talent for getting out of cages and urge to escape leads him to all kinds of adventures… New edition published into the First Modern Classics list, fantastic stories for young readers. He may look like a small, furry pet, but really he is a Wild Creature – a freedom-loving hamster with a life-long passion for escape and a yearning for the Great Outside, leaving chaos and destruction as he goes. He tells his hilarious adventures with great intelligence and no modesty – for the world beyond carpets and floorboards can be a terrifying place…
A Song for Arbonne
A Song for Arbonne
Guy Gavriel Kay
¥63.18
Based on the troubadour culture that rose in Provence during the High Middle Ages, this panoramic, absorbing novel beautifully creates an alternate version of the medieval world. The matriarchal, cultured land of Arbonne is rent by a feud between its two most powerful dukes, the noble troubador Bertran de Talair and Urte de Miraval, over long-dead Aelis, lover of one, wife of the other and once heir to the country's throne. To the north lies militaristic Gorhaut, whose inhabitants worship the militant god Corannos and are ruled by corrupt, womanizing King Ademar. His chief advisor, the high priest of Corannos, is determined to irradicate the worship of a female deity, whose followers live to the south. Into this cauldron of brewing disaster comes the mysterious Gorhaut mercenary Blaise, who takes service with Bertran and averts an attempt on his life. The revelation of Blaise's lineage and a claim for sanctuary by his sister-in-law sets the stage for a brutal clash between the two cultures. Intertwined is the tale of a young woman troubadour whose role suggests the sweep of the drama to come.
The Water Children
The Water Children
Anne Berry
¥45.62
Four lives. Four defining moments which will bring them together. Owen Abingdon is haunted by nightmares of the Merfolk. He believes they have stolen his little sister who vanished while he was meant to be minding her on the beach, but he was only a child himself. Is it fair for his mother to blame him? Catherine Hoyle's perfect Christmas with her cousin from America was blighted when they went skating on thin ice and Rosalyn nearly died. Somehow, instead of being praised for raising the alarm, Catherine gets blamed. Sean Madigan grew up on a farm in Ireland. Learning to swim in the Shannon was his way of escaping the bitter poverty of his childhood, but it also incurred his father's wrath. He flees to England, but his heart belongs to the Shannon and her pulling power is evernear… Unlike the other three, Naomi Seddon didn't fear the sea. She'd been orphaned and placed in a children's home in Sheffield and cruelly abused. The sea offered her a way out and she revelled in its cruel power. The "water children" meet in London in the searing hot summer of 1976 and Naomi uses her siren's charm to lure Owen,Catherine and Sean into her tangled web of sexual charm and dangerous passion. A holiday in the Tuscan mountains with a flooded reservoir and its legend of the beautiful Teodora who drowned there brings this emotional drama to a powerful climax. Will the power of family, love and redemption finally help the water children conquer their fears and triumph over their childhood traumas?
Told in Silence
Told in Silence
Rebecca Connell
¥88.39
New novel from exciting young author Rebecca Connell From the outside, Violet seems to lead an ordinary and uneventful existence - single, working in a shop, and living with her parents in rural Kent - but her life has already been touched by tragedy. At 21, Violet is a young widow, and the couple she lives with, Harvey and Laura Blackwood, are not her own parents but those of her late husband, Jonathan. Rocked by grief, Violet has shut herself away from the world, but she soon finds that she cannot escape reality. When Max Croft, an old friend of Jonathan's, enters her life, she is faced not only with the possibility of a new attraction, but with the knowledge that there are secrets behind her husband’s death that she has not yet uncovered, and which threaten to shake her faith in everything she knows about their past life together. Told in Silence is a spellbinding and unforgettable novel of desire, deception and the lengths that we will go to for love.
Burning Secrets
Burning Secrets
Clare Chambers
¥51.50
An intense and thrilling teen mystery set on a tranquil island where all seems perfect… Daniel has dark secrets and a troubled past. So when his family move to the island of Wragge, a gentle backwater where local life remains undisturbed he feels he’s escaped. But outsiders aren’t always welcome and the more Daniel tries to conceal, the more he reveals about sinister goings on. Does this picture perfect community have something even greater to hide? An explosive thriller that tingles with brooding menace and ignites as the clues fall into place…
A Place of Greater Safety
A Place of Greater Safety
Hilary Mantel
¥70.34
From the double Man Booker prize-winner comes an extraordinary work of historical imagination – this is Hilary Mantel’s epic novel of the French Revolution. Georges-Jacques Danton: zealous, energetic and debt-ridden. Maximilien Robespierre: small, diligent and terrified of violence. And Camille Desmoulins: a genius of rhetoric, charming and handsome, yet also erratic and untrustworthy. As these young men, key figures of the French Revolution, taste the addictive delights of power, the darker side of the period’s political ideals is unleashed – and all must face the horror that follows.
Every Day Is Mother’s Day
Every Day Is Mother’s Day
Hilary Mantel
¥66.22
From the author of the Man Booker prize-winners ‘Wolf Hall’ and ‘Bring Up the Bodies’ comes a story of suburban mayhem and merciless, hilarious revenge. Barricaded inside their house filled with festering rubbish, unhealthy smells and their secrets, the Axon family baffle Isabel Field, the latest in a long line of social workers. Isabel has other problems too: a randy, untrustworthy father and a slackly romantic lover, Colin Sidney, history teacher to unresponsive yobs and father of a parcel of horrible children. With all this to worry about, how can Isabel begin to understand what is going on in the Axon household?
Vacant Possession
Vacant Possession
Hilary Mantel
¥66.22
From the Man Booker Prize-winning author of ‘Wolf Hall’ and ‘Bring Up the Bodies’, a savagely funny tale that revisits the characters from the much-loved ‘Every Day is Mother’s Day’. Muriel Axon is about to re-enter the lives of Colin Sidney, hapless husband, father and schoolmaster, and Isabel Field, failed social worker and practising neurotic. It is ten years since her last tangle with them, but for Muriel this is not time enough. There are still scores to be settled, truths to be faced and rather a lot of vengeance to be wreaked.