'Listen. The Sanctuary of the Redeemers on Shotover Scarp is named after a damned lie for there is no redemption that goes on there and less sanctuary'. The Sanctuary of the Redeemers is a vast and desolate place – a place without joy or hope. Most of its occupants were taken there as boys and for years have endured the brutal regime of the Lord Redeemers whose cruelty and violence have one singular purpose – to serve in the name of the One True Faith. In one of the Sanctuary's vast and twisting maze of corridors stands a boy. He is ...
Left penniless by the death of his improvident father, young Nicholas Nickleby assumes responsibility for his mother and sister and seeks help from his Scrooge-like Uncle Ralph. Instantly disliking Nicholas, Ralph sends him to teach in a school run by the stupidly sadistic Wackford Squeers. Nicholas decides to escape, taking with him the orphan Smike, one of Squeers’s most abused young charges, and the two embark on a series of adventurous encounters with an array of humanity’s worst and best—greedy fools, corrupt lechers, cheery innocents, and selfless benefactors.
Against the wilds of sea and wood, a young immigrant woman settles into life outside Duluth in the 1890s, still shocked at finding herself alone in a new country, abandoned and adrift; in the early 1920s, her orphan son, now grown, falls in love with the one woman he shouldn’t and uses his best skills to build them their own small ark to escape. But their pasts travel with them, threatening to capsize even their fragile hope. In this triumphant new novel, Peter Geye has crafted another deeply moving tale of a misbegotten family shaped by the rough landscape in which they live—often at the mercy of wildlife and weather—and by the rough edges of their own breaking hearts.
A New York Times BestsellerA Los Angeles Times BestsellerA Book Sense National BestsellerA Northern California BestsellerA Sunday Times BestsellerA New York Times Notable Book of the YearAnd chosen as one of the best books of 2004 by:Entertainment Weekly • Washington Post • San Francisco Chronicle • Newsday • Seattle Times • Salon.com • Boston Globe • New York Sun • Miami Herald • Dallas Morning News • San Jose Mercury News • Publishers Weekly"In this saga about the Thatcher years Alan Hollinghurst writes harsh but deeply informed social satire from within, just as Proust ...
De Kretser (The Hamilton Case) presents an intimate and subtle look at Tom Loxley, a well-intentioned but solipsistic Henry James scholar and childless divorc?, as he searches for his missing dog in the Australian bush. While the overarching story follows Tom's search during a little over a week in November 2001, flashbacks reveal Tom's infatuation with Nelly Zhang, an artist tainted by scandal-from her controversial paintings to the disappearance and presumed murder of her husband, Felix, a bond trader who got into some shady dealings. As Tom puts the finishing touches on his book about James and the uncanny and ...
Expanding on his Sports Illustrated cover story, Gorant (Fanatic) offers a chilling investigation into Michael Vick' s dog-fighting operation and the men and women who brought him to justice and rehabilitated the rescued dogs. Gorant outlines the rise of Bad Newz Kennels, describing in sometimes painful detail the abuse, torture, and execution of the animals-particularly disturbing is an episode in which Vick and a friend swing a failed fighting dog over their heads like a jump rope and kill it by repeatedly slamming it into the ground-and tracing the rescue of dozens of pit bulls seized from Vick' s ...
Tatjana Soli’s haunting debut novel begins where it ought to end. In this quietly mesmerizing book about journalists covering the war in Vietnam, the first glimpses of the place are the most familiar. The year is 1975. Americans are in a state of panic as North Vietnamese forces prepare to occupy Saigon. The looters, the desperate efforts to escape this war zone, the mobs surrounding the United States Embassy, the overcrowded helicopters struggling to rise above the chaos: these images seem to introduce Ms. Soli’s readers to a story they already know."[A] splendid first novel…Helen’...
The Bram Stoker AwardsMy name was Salmon, like the fish, first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighborhood. My mother liked his border flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertilizer'This is Susie Salmon, speaking to us from heaven. It looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets. There are counsellors to help newcomers to adjust, and friends to room with. Everything she wants appears as soon as she thinks of it – except the thing ...
Autumn in the sleepy California town of Pine Cove is turned upside down by the arrival of a Mississippi Delta blues musician, a huge sea serpent drawn to the sound of the steel guitar, the explosion of a tanker truck at a gas station, and a mysterious trailer that shows up in the local trailer park.
Pretty girls in pretty dresses, partying until dawn.Irresistible boys with mischievous smiles and dangerous intentions.White lies, dark secrets, and scandalous hookups.This is Manhattan, 1899. Beautiful sisters Elizabeth and Diana Holland rule Manhattan's social scene. Or so it appears. When the girls discover their status among New York City's elite is far from secure, suddenly everyone--from the backstabbing socialite Penelope Hayes, to the debonair bachelor Henry Schoonmaker, to the spiteful maid Lina Broud--threatens Elizabeth's and Diana's golden future. With the fate of the Hollands resting on her shoulders, Elizabeth must choose between family ...
This is a brilliant and moving debut novel about one woman’s struggle to preserve an artistic heritage from the horrors and destruction of World War II. In this extraordinary first novel by Debra Dean, the siege of Leningrad by German troops in World War Two is echoed by the destructive siege against the mind and memory of an elderly Russian woman. Marina, the woman in question, was a guide at Leningrad ’s famous Hermitage Museum. In the late autumn of 1941, the Luftwaffe roared over and around Leningrad, she and her colleagues were set the task of taking the ...
Another deliciously seasonal and heart-warming tale from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Twelve Days of Christmas and Chocolate Wishes.In the pretty Lancashire village of Middlemoss, Lizzy is on the verge of leaving her cheating husband, Tom, when tragedy strikes. Luckily she has welcome distraction in the Christmas Pudding Circle, a group of friends swapping seasonal recipes — as well as a rivalry with local cookery writer Nick over who will win Best Mince Pie at the village show…Meanwhile, the whole village is gearing up for the annual Boxing Day Mystery Play. But who will play Adam to Lizzy’s Eve? Could it be the handsome and charismatic soap actor Ritch, or could someone closer to home win her heart? Whatever happens, it promises to be a Christmas to remember!Previously published as , Trisha has extensively reworked the original novel with fabulous new extra material.
The Magus (1966) is the first novel written (but second published) by British author John Fowles. It tells the story of Nicholas Urfe, a teacher on a small Greek island. Urfe finds himself embroiled in psychological illusions of a master trickster that become increasingly dark and serious.The novel was a bestseller, partly because it tapped successfully into—and then arguably helped to promote—the 1960s popular interest in psychoanalysis and mystical philosophy.
