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The Mountain's Morning Song
William Graney - 2019
They know that a day of reckoning is approaching, but events in the United States, and around the world, cause an acceleration of the timeline.La Société de la Frontière Ouverte must awaken and prepare for the exodus.
Maude
Donna Foley Mabry - 2014
My older sister, Helen, came to my room, took me by the hand, and sat me down on the bed. She opened her mouth to say something, but then her face flushed, and she turned her head to look out the window. After a second, she squeezed my hand and looked back in my eyes. She said, “You’ve always been a good girl, Maude, and done what I told you. Now, you’re going to be a married woman, and he will be the head of the house. When you go home tonight after your party, no matter what he wants to do to you, you have to let him do it. Do you understand?"I didn’t understand, but I nodded my head anyway. It sounded strange to me, the way so many things did. I would do what she told me. I didn’t have a choice, any more than I had a choice in being born.
The Last Week Of May
Roisin Meaney - 2007
Now what?As May fits into her new life we meet her friend Pam and her husband Jack - but why is Pam terrified to tell Jack that she's pregnant?And then there's Denis and Bernard, May's next-door neighbours, going about their business oblivious to the deadly threat that lurks close by.There's Paddy, who lives on his own yet never seems to be at home.And Paul, three doors up, willing to risk everything for an affair with Carmel, the young teacher who has yet to learn that there's a price to pay for having something that shouldn't be yours.But what May can't figure out is who gave her the beautiful shell necklace and was it really meant for her?On this one particular week, all is about to change for the inhabitants of Kilpatrick and May discovers that while only love can break your heart, only love can put it back together.
For the Term of His Natural Life
Marcus Clarke - 1874
The most famous work by the Australian novelist and poet, For the Term of His Natural Life is a powerful tale of an Australian penal settlement, which originally appeared in serial form in a Melbourne paper.
The Camomile Lawn
Mary Wesley - 1984
Here, in the dizzying heat of August 1939, five cousins have gathered at their aunt's house for their annual ritual of a holiday. For most of them it is the last summer of their youth, with the heady exhilarations and freedoms of lost innocence, as well as the fears of the coming war.The Camomile Lawn moves from Cornwall to London and back again, over the years, telling the stories of the cousins, their family and their friends, united by shared losses and lovers, by family ties and the absurd conditions imposed by war as their paths cross and recross over the years. Mary Wesley presents an extraordinarily vivid and lively picture of wartime London: the rationing, imaginatively circumvented; the fallen houses; the parties, the new-found comforts of sex, the desperate humour of survival - all of it evoked with warmth, clarity and stunning wit. And through it all, the cousins and their friends try to hold on to the part of themselves that laughed and played dangerous games on that camomile lawn.
One Night in Italy
Lucy Diamond - 2014
When she accidentally comes across a clue that her father is Italian, it opens up a burning curiosity in Anna. Soon she’s cooking Italian food, signing up for an Italian class and even considering dusting off her passport to go and find her dad in person… Sophie is serving gelato to tourists in Italy when she gets the call that her father has had a serious heart attack. In a rush, she grabs her well-worn backpack and heads back to the one place she’s been avoiding for so long – home. Living with her mum again while her dad recuperates, and taking a job teaching Italian to make ends meet, Sophie has to face up to the secrets she’s kept buried in the past. Catherine has no idea what the future holds. Her children have left for university, her husband has left her for another woman and her bank account is left empty after dedicating her life to raising her family. She needs a job and an identity all of a sudden. At an Italian evening class she makes a start in finding new friends Anna and Sophie. And she’s going to need good friends when she discovers her husband’s lies run even deeper than his infidelity… As Anna embarks on the trip to Italy that could answer all of her questions, will the truth live up to her dreams?
Making Hearts
Jack Getze - 2020
But a blunt nurse explains the truth: Emily is giving birth. The seventeen-year-old has tricked her mind and body into believing she isn’t pregnant, when the baby is full term and already being born.A life-affirming, feel-good story of love, family and the special way new babies can inspire, Making Hearts introduces a character readers will strongly care about and root for. Noelle wins the hearts of all with her loving enthusiasm for life, her wit, and by personally defeating the villain’s lowdown scheme in an astonishing climax readers will never forget.
Therapy
David Lodge - 1995
True, he is almost bald and his nickname is "Tubby," but the TV sitcom he writes keeps the money coming in, he has an exclusive house in Rummridge, a state-of-the-art car, a vigorous sex life with his wife of thirty years, and a platonic mistress to talk shop with. What money can't buy, and his many therapists can't deliver, is contentment. It's not the trouble behind the scenes of his TV show that's bugging him or even the persistent pain in his knee; it's this deeper, nameless unease. Is it a spiritual crisis or just one of the midlife variety?Tubby's quest for the source of it will lead into an obsession with Kierkegaard, brushes with the police, gossip-column notoriety, and strange beds and bedrooms worldwide.
The Haj
Leon Uris - 1984
The Middle East is the powerful setting for this sweeping tale of a land where revenge is sacred and hatred noble. Where an Arab ruler tries to save his people from destruction but cannot save them from themselves. When violence spreads like a plague across the lands of Palestine--this is the time of The Haj.
The Secret Between Us
Barbara Delinsky - 2008
Not even the truth.Deborah Monroe and her daughter, Grace, are driving home from a party when their car hits a man running in the dark. Grace was at the wheel, but Deborah sends her home before the police arrive, determined to shoulder the blame for the accident. Her decision then turns into a deception that takes on a life of its own and threatens the special bond between mother and daughter. The Secret Between Us is an unforgettable story about making bad choices for the right reasons and the terrible consequences of a lie gone wrong. Once again, Barbara Delinksy has delivered a riveting study of family and a superbly crafted novel, perfectly targeted to reading groups and fans of provocative fiction.
Spinning
Michael Baron - 2011
At 29, he has great friends, a huge job, all the women he can handle, and no commitments. A public relations executive, Dylan has dashed up the ladder of success by mastering the art of the spin bending the truth to his and his clients’ needs. But when a former lover steps back into his life with a three-year-old girl by her side (no, she’s not his), Dylan suddenly finds himself in a place he can’t spin himself out of. And when Dylan unexpectedly becomes the child’s sole guardian, he finds himself to be like a circus performer trying to keep all of his spinning plates from crashing to the ground. In what seems like a blink of the eye, Dylan Hunter’s life has changed completely
whether he’s ready for it or not.Alternately humorous and poignant, romantic and tragic, playful and dramatic, Spinning is the kind of wise, touching, emotion-packed novel readers have come to expect from Michael Baron.
A Man in Full
Tom Wolfe - 1998
The protagonist is Charles Croker, once a college football star, now a late-middle-aged Atlanta conglomerate king whose outsize ego has at last hit up against reality. Charlie has a 29,000 acre quail-shooting plantation, a young and demanding second wife, and a half-empty office complex with a staggering load of debt.Meanwhile, Conrad Hensley, idealistic young father of two, is laid off from his job at the Croker Global Foods warehouse near Oakland and finds himself spiraling into the lower depths of the American legal system.And back in Atlanta, when star Georgia Tech running back Fareek “the Canon” Fanon, a homegrown product of the city’s slums, is accused of date-raping the daughter of a pillar of the white establishment, upscale black lawyer Roger White II is asked to represent Fanon and help keep the city’s delicate racial balance from blowing sky-high.Networks of illegal Asian immigrants crisscrossing the continent, daily life behind bars, shady real estate syndicates — Wolfe shows us contemporary America with all the verve, wit, and insight that have made him our most admired novelist. Charlie Croker’s deliverance from his tribulations provides an unforgettable denouement to the most widely awaited, hilarious and telling novel America has seen in ages — Tom Wolfe’s most outstanding achievement to date.
As Young As We Feel
Melody Carlson - 2010
So they decided to go by their middle names. And form a club. And be friends forever. But that was 47 years and four lives ago. Now a class reunion has brought them all—the New York lawyer, the empty nester, the frustrated artist, and the aging starlet—together again in their old hometown, at a crossroads in their lives. They’re about to explore the invigorating reality that even the most eventful life has second acts…and there’s no statute of limitations on friendship.
Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less
Jeffrey Archer - 1976
They have one thing in common. Overnight, each novice investor lost his life's fortune to one man. The con: Harvey Metcalfe!!A brilliant, self-made guru of deceit. A very dangerous individual. And now, a hunted man. With nothing left to lose four strangers are about to come together-each expert in their own field. Their plan: find Harvey, shadow him, trap him, and penny-for-penny, destroy him. From the luxurious casinos of Monte Carlo to the high-stakes windows at Ascot to the bustling streets of Wall Street to fashionable London galleries, their own ingenious game has begun. It's called revenge-and they were taught by a master
The Memory of an Elephant
Alex Lasker - 2021
Interwoven with his narrative are the tumultuous lives of the family who raised and then lost him: a famed hunting guide and his wife, who runs an animal orphanage (a conflict that in time upends their marriage); their son and daughter; and the young Kikuyu who finds the orphaned elephant and becomes part of the Hathaway family. This timeless story is alternately heartwarming and heartbreaking, spanning east Africa, Great Britain and New York from 1962 to 2015.