Inspirations: Selections from Classic Literature


Paulo Coelho - 2010
    An anthology then, should be a small token of something much larger. In the case of flowers, they bring to mind the colour & fragrance of the fields, of a season. Coelho's anthology, therefore, is not only a collection of texts or poems, but a gift, something arranged according to his sensitivities, to give to others. The selection of books presented in this volume have been chosen as if from a vast field of flowers, stretching infinitely into time's horizon. Coelho's selection is ordered in to the four elements, symbolizing both our world on all its directions, and the way we dwell in it, the way we say it. In 'Earth' we find writers as diverse as Oscar Wilde and D H Lawrence; in 'Air' Nelson Mandela and Gabriel Garcia Marques; in 'Fire' Rumi and Mary Shelley; in 'Water' Hans Christian Anderson and Machiavelli.

Call After Midnight


Tess Gerritsen - 1987
    Newlywed Sarah Fontaine must join forces with special agent Nick O'Hara to find her husband Geoffrey, who is presumed dead, and as they journey to Europe to discover the truth, they become the pawns in a deadly game of espionage.

Winterbirth


Brian Ruckley - 2006
    For some, war will bring a swift and violent death. Others will not hear the clash of swords or see the corpses strewn over the fields. They instead will see an opportunity to advance their own ambitions. But soon, all will fall under the shadow that is descending.For, while the storm of battle rages, one man is following a path that will awaken a terrible power in him - and his legacy will be written in blood.

Sabrina


Deborah Chiel - 1995
    Arriving home from the sophisticated streets of Paris, a chauffeur's daughter finds herself having to make a difficult choice between two wealthy brothers whom she has known since childhood.

ആരോഹണം | Arohanam


V.K.N. - 1969
    Arohanam portrays the political situation prevailed in India by sketching public figures.

Treasures


Belva Plain - 1992
    the Osbornes -- two sisters  and a brother -- united by family ties but split  apart by different dreams. Lara, the happy young  wife, longs for the family that will make her life  whole. Connie, wild and lovely, is more like her  brother Eddy -- bright, ambitious, and ready to  seize all that life has to offer. A story of  choices... Connie is looking for wealth -- to make or to  marry. Lara, staying behind in a small Ohio town,  finds everything she cherishes threatened by fate  and by her own blind commitment. And Eddy, as Wall  Street's "wonder boy," can make  millions... if he ruthlessly uses his family and friends. A  story of marriages... Lara's held together by  devotion, Connie's shattered by infidelity and  betrayal, and Eddy's rocked by shame and prison. Torn by  conflicting loyalties, they are a family caught in  the tides of scandal... and swept toward a fate  where dreams may end or be born again...

Addition


Toni Jordan - 2008
    Every morning she uses 100 strokes to brush her hair, 160 strokes to brush her teeth. She remembers the day she started to count, how she used numbers to organize her adolescence, her career, even the men she dated. But something went wrong. Grace used to be a teacher, but now she's surviving on disability checks. According to the parents of one of her former students, "she's mad."Most people don't understand that numbers rule, not just the world in a macro way but their world, their own world. Their lives. They don't really understand that everything and everybody are connected by a mathematical formula. Counting is what defines us...the only thing that gives our lives meaning is the knowledge that eventually we all will die. That's what makes each minute important. Without the ability to count our days, our hours, our loved ones...there's no meaning. Our lives would have no meaning. Without counting, our lives are unexamined. Not valued. Not precious. This consciousness, this ability to rejoice when we gain something and grieve when we lose something—this is what separates us from other animals. Counting, adding, measuring, timing. It's what makes us human.Grace's father is dead and her mother is a mystery to her. Her sister wants to sympathize but she really doesn't understand. Only Hilary, her favorite niece, connects with her. And Grace can only connect with Nikola Tesla, the turn-of-the-twentieth-century inventor whose portrait sits on her bedside table and who rescues her in her dreams. Then one day all the tables at her regular café are full, and as she hesitates in the doorway a stranger—Seamus Joseph O'Reilly (19 letters in his name, just like Grace's)—invites her to sit with him. Grace is not the least bit sentimental. But she understands that no matter how organized you are, how many systems you put in place, you can't plan for people. They are unpredictable and full of possibilities—like life itself, a series of maybes and what-ifs.And suddenly, Grace may be about to lose count of the number of ways she can fall in love.

Georgia Peaches: 5-Books RomCom Bundle


Kira Graham - 2020
    They will seduce. They will play dirty. And above all else, they will prove to five alpha men that girls know exactly how to have fun.JULESThe man is infuriating!I can only love once. That’s the family legend and in my case it happens to be true. When Jesse left me, breaking my heart and walking away without a backward glance, I thought I’d live the rest of my life alone, broken and always longing for something that wasn’t meant to be. That’s why it shocks the hell out of me when Jesse comes to me with a deal I can’t refuse. I have to pretend we’re an item for a short time and help him keep his dad occupied while his cousin searches for something I have nothing to do with.I can do that. I can do that all day long. I just hope Jesse knows that this marriage he’s waving under my nose isn’t going to be fake because I have plans…NATALIEHe’s looking for trouble and I’m going to give it to him.He’s a heartbreaker and I hate him. I’ve loved Jett Grey about as much as I’ve hated him. Problem is, I love him a little more sometimes and hate him a little less more and more. In fact, I think I may just want him back, which is ludicrous because the man has no sense, no heart and absolutely no idea how to back down from a challenge. I don’t want him to see me as a challenge though. I want love. Family. All that stuff he promised me three years ago when he made me believe he loved me. And I will get those things. I’m a lawyer. I know how to argue, cheat, and connive.He’s looking for trouble and he’s found me again. I hope he’s ready.MISSYWhat the hell just happened?I’m a lady. I’ve lived half my life being as perfect as I possibly could be and the other half trying to be as invisible and dowdy as I could be, all to avoid love. Love scares me senseless. The thought of falling in love and victim to a family curse that says we only love once…I can’t let that happen. I just can’t. I shouldn’t let Sam Grey push my buttons. I should ignore him and keep going as I have been. But I’ve gone and played with fire and gotten myself trapped and falling. In love. With a wild mountain man. What am I going to do and how will I get over it if it turns out that Sam doesn’t love me?SUNNYI was married. He divorced me. I hate him. I love him.I’ve felt every emotion a woman can feel when Jacob Harper left me high and dry, divorcing me without a reason, without a warning and without the chance to fix a wrong I didn’t know existed. I can’t love another. My family is cursed that way. We love once. We love hard. We love forever. When I’m pregnant, alone and just starting to get back on my feet and I’m determined to move on, he comes back. He wants me back. He wants me to love him but the reality is, I can’t let myself. Jacob broke my heart once before and I am not aiming to give him another chance. Trouble is, my heart and my head aren’t always in agreement.ROSIEI don’t remember a thing.I woke up from a coma and nothing makes sense to me. I don’t know my name, I don’t recognise my crazy family and I have no idea who I am, who I was or who I want to be. All I know is that I feel a connection with Jagger Grey and that for whatever reason, I need him. He doesn’t want me. He’s told me that straight to my face, and yet here I am, kidnapped by a wild mountain man who’s pretending to be civilized while he tries to get me to remember and uses me to break a case that will make his career. I hate being used. I may not know myself anymore but I know that and when I realise Jagger is seducing me with the intention of walking away, I run first.I guess he’s going to have to come catch me…

Dance With Me


Luanne Rice - 2004
    Safe Harbor in paperback topped lists from coast-to-coast and August's The Perfect Summer is sure to be the must-have beach read of the season. Now Dance With Me, her most evocative and compelling work to date, confirms that "Rice has an elegant style, a sharp eye, and a real warmth. In her hands families, and their values ... seem worth cherishing" (San Francisco Chronicle). Jane Porter has always been a free spirit, as wild and beautiful as the vast acres of apple orchards in rural Twin Rivers Valley, Rhode Island--the town that is forever etched upon her heart. Now, fourteen years after she left it behind, Jane is unexpectedly drawn home to her mother and only sister. Dylan Chapman has come back too, shedding the steely exterior he once wore as a New York City police detective in order to follow in the footsteps of his apple-farming father, and escape the memories of the life he once lived. Amid this landscape of loss and renewal, of families struggling to find their way back together with an innocent young girl as their lodestone, a haunting story about small town secrets and two converging lives will unfold. Dance with Me explores emotional connections at their very core, with acute insights into the lives of mothers and daughters, sisters and lovers that will resonate long after the final page is turned.

Your Perfect Year


Charlotte Lucas - 2016
    He’s going to enjoy the day… For hyper-particular publishing heir Jonathan Grief, the day starts like any other—with a strict morning fitness regimen that’ll keep his divorced, easily irritated, cynical, forty-two-year-old self in absolutely flawless physical condition. But all it takes to put a crimp in his routine is one small annoyance. Someone has left a leather-bound day planner with the handwritten title Your Perfect Year in his spot on his mountain bike at his fitness course!Determined to discover its owner, Jonathan opens the calendar to find that someone known only as “H.” has filled it in with suggestions, tasks, and affirmative actions for each day. The more he devotes himself to locating the elusive H., the deeper Jonathan is drawn into someone else’s rich and generous narrative—and into an attitude adjustment he desperately needs.He may have ended up with a perfect year by accident, but it seems fate has set Jonathan on a path toward healing, feeling, and maybe even loving again…if only he can meet the stranger who’s changing his life one day at a time.

A Saint For The Summer


Marjory McGinn - 2018
    Journalist Bronte McKnight is summoned to a hillside village in the wild and beautiful Mani region of Greece by her expat father Angus. She must help him solve a family mystery from the Second World War when his father disappeared in Greece during the disastrous Battle of Kalamata, known as ‘the Greek Dunkirk’. With the country gripped by economic crisis, and the clock ticking against them, their near-impossible quest takes them from Kalamata to a remote mountain village where its inhabitants are bound by old traditions and secrecy. As tensions rise, the pair are helped in their search by a cast of unforgettable characters, especially charismatic doctor Leonidas Papachristou. He has a pivotal role, not least in challenging Bronte’s assumption that she hasn’t the time or the courage to fall in love in Greece. The secrets unearthed by Angus and Bronte will be painful and astonishing and the heart-warming conclusion is one you'll never forget. “Marjory McGinn is a very gifted author.” (Peter Kerr, best-selling writer, Mallorcan Series) Why readers love A SAINT FOR THE SUMMER "An excellent book. I was hooked from the first page." "When I read this author's books, I walk the journeys and with this book, I am Bronte." "I loved the characters and found it all so moving." "A brilliant read … there is closure, reconciliation and the hope of new life." "Marjory is a wonderful author, very funny and entertaining."

Stars in the Southern Sky


Elizabeth Haran - 2003
    From its passionate people, to its mystic wildlife, the outback becomes its own character in Elizabeth Haran's novel about learning how to thrive in the face of adversity.London 1954: When Estella is abandoned by her lawyer husband, James, her life of luxury crumbles. Not only had he left his job and frittered away their savings, James was cheating on Estella - with her cousin Davinia. But the family secrets didn't end there.Heartbroken, Estella turns her back on England. Her distant uncle Charlie beckons her to Australia, where she accepts a new position - village veterinarian. She had studied veterinary medicine, but she'd never had a real job. As Estella sets off for the outback, she carries secrets of her own: she is pregnant with James' baby.Day one in the bush brings the young Londoner to tears. Kangaroo Crossing, population thirteen, was not what Estella had expected. Sweltering. Dusty. Fly-infested. From the gruff propeller plane pilot to the perpetually drunken town doctor, the locals eye the newcomer with suspicion.After a series of harrowing events, Estella strives to prove herself capable of the job. Just as the villagers of Kangaroo Crossing start to accept Estella - and a romance starts to blossom - her past catches up with her. She's been hiding things from them.Back in England, James has gotten wind of the baby. His new wife, Davinia, can't have children - but her lavish inheritance depends on an heir. James will stop at nothing to get what is his. Can Estella save her baby - and herself - from the wild Australian bush? Will she ever learn to love again?

The Wishing Tree


Kay Bratt - 2022
    Someone's hopes. Another's dreams.Welcome to Linden Falls, a quaint Vermont town where friends, family, and guests put their trust in the local lore and branches of the Wishing Tree to bring their hopes to life. Enjoy the introduction of Linden Falls and a peek into the lives of its residents and guests in this free prologue novella, then join six bestselling authors as they bring you six heartwarming stories of love, loss, and the hopes of turning of turning lost dreams into second chances. Don’t miss a Wishing Tree book! Book 1: The Wishing Tree – prequel/prologue book Book 2: I Wish.. by Amanda ProwseBook 3: Wish You Were Here by Kay Bratt Book 4: Wish Again by Tammy L. Grace Book 5: Workout Wishes & Valentine Kisses by Barbara Hinske Book 6: A Parade of Wishes by Camille Di MaioBook 7: Careful What You Wish by Ashley Farley

Christmas in New York


Holly Greene - 2016
     Grab a mug of hot chocolate, sit back and escape to New York this Christmas.... When Londoner Penny decides to visit her best friend Kate in New York for Christmas, the surprise appearance of a previous suitor sends her plans for a relaxing, carefree visit into complete disarray. When she and Mike last saw each other, the timing couldn't have been worse. But when Mike decides to show Penny the very best of what a snowy, festive, New York has to offer at Christmastime - resolving to make it a trip to remember - will she be able to resist his charms this time round?

A Hundred Pieces of Me


Lucy Dillon - 2014
    But the belongings she's treasured for so long just don't seem to fit who she is now.So Gina makes a resolution. She'll keep just a hundred special items - the rest can go.But that means coming to terms with her past and learning to embrace the future, whatever it might bring . . .