Not about Heroes: The Friendship of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen


Stephen MacDonald - 1983
    It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. This moving play is about the poetic life and the inter relationship between two of the finest Great War poets: Owen who died and Siegfried Sasson who didn't. Told by means of letters and poetry, Not About Heroes paints a vivid picture of the war. It was staged to

The Rain Before it Falls


Jonathan Coe - 2007
    She recorded these memories sixty years later, just before her death, on cassettes she bequeathed to a woman she hadn't seen in decades. When her beloved niece, Gill, plays the tapes in hopes of locating this unwitting heir, she instead hears a family saga swathed in promise and betrayal: the story of how Beatrix, starved of her mother's affection, conceived a fraught bloodline that culminated in heart-stopping tragedy--its chief victim being her own granddaughter. And as Rosamond explores the ties that bound these generations together and shaped her experience all along, Gill grows increasingly haunted by how profoundly her own recollections--not to mention the love she feels for her grown daughters, listening alongside her--are linked to generations of women she never knew.A stirring, masterful portrait of motherhood and family secrets, "The Rain Before It Falls" is also a meditation on the tapestries we weave out of the past, whether transcendent or horrific. Hailed by the "Los Angeles Times" for his "sustained, intricate brilliance," Jonathan Coe once again proves himself "an artist of character and of his characters' stories," here more astutely than ever before.

File Under Fidelity


Geraldine wall - 2015
    Distraction comes in the form a wealthy young American who wants to trace his Shropshire family. One question leads to another and the final revelations shock and almost overwhelm him. Meanwhile, Anna faces tragedy in her own family and struggles to come to terms with the chaos of her emotions, plunging deeper and deeper into flight and denial. In the process she almost loses the people she loves most. This is a tale of the deep story of the heart told with humour and compassion and relentless honesty. This is the last novel in the trilogy of Anna Ames books.

Feminine Gospels: Poems


Carol Ann Duffy - 2002
    Sometimes erotic and personal, sometimes historical and grand, sometimes witty and full of surprises, the poems here are all beautifully crafted works that are as varied in style as the poems in Duffy's earlier acclaimed volume The World's Wife. Together, they will challenge and entertain as they explore the fullness of the female condition through their author's unique poetic voice.

Murder Most Fab


Julian Clary - 2007
    He's at the top of the pile: Mr Saturday Night on prime time, with his recent memoir riding high in the best-sellers list. Over lunch at La Mirabelle with his editor Pip Hardback, he announces that next he'd like to write a novel.

The Long Firm


Jake Arnott - 1999
    This swinging sixties novel reveals the seedier side of London where the low life met the high life in the city's dark underbelly.

My Beautiful Launderette


Hanif Kureishi - 1986
    His uncle, a keen Thatcherite, offers Omar an entrepreneurial opportunity to revamp a dingy laundrette, and ambitious Omar rolls up his sleeves, enlisting the assistance of his old school-friend Johnny, who has since fallen in with a gang of neo-fascists. Omar and Johnny soon form an unlikely alliance that leads to business success, as well as other, more intimate surprises.

A Flicker in the Night


John Dean - 2005
     Yet despite the culprit, Reginald Morris, being safely behind bars in a high-security mental hospital, a new series of attacks occurs. Blizzard is flummoxed. Has Morris found someone to do his bidding on the outside? Is this a personal vendetta? A copycat? The only clue to the killer’s identity is obscure poetry that is being sent to Hafton police station. But is it just the work of a deranged mind who enjoys taunting the police, or someone hell-bent on revenge? Will Blizzard piece together the puzzle before there is another flicker in the night? A FLICKER IN THE NIGHT is the seventh murder mystery by John Dean to feature hard-hitting crime solver John Blizzard. The full list of previous books is as follows: 1. THE LONG DEAD 2. STRANGE LITTLE GIRL 3. THE RAILWAY MAN 4. THE SECRETS MAN 5. A BREACH OF TRUST 6. DEATH LIST All of these books are FREE with Kindle Unlimited and available in paperback.

Out of Bounds


Michelle Woods - 2016
    She’s happy—or is at least she’s willing to tell herself she is.But when a relationship from the past resurfaces, it throws Evelyn’s world into turmoil. Suddenly she finds herself tempted in a way she hasn’t thought about in years.Evelyn wants to do the right thing—but she wants to follow her heart more.As her passion and desires intensify, she’s forced to weigh the cost of stepping out of her old life and into the arms of a new lover—and decide whether she’s willing to lose the things she thought she held dear to reunite with the person she thought she’d lost forever.A riveting page-turner about burning desires and secret passions, Out of Bounds is a smoldering romance that will delight hot-blooded women of all ages.

Another Country


Julian Mitchell - 1982
    Bennett is openly gay, while Judd is a Marxist.One night a house man walks in on Martineau and a boy from another house together in the dark room. Martineau commits suicide because of the shame of having been found in a homosexual embrace, and chaos erupts as teachers and the senior students try their hardest to keep the scandal away from parents and the rest of the outside world. However, the gay scandal gives the army-obsessed house captain Fowler, who dislikes both Bennett and Judd, a welcome reason to scheme against them.

Flashpoint


Katherine V. Forrest - 1994
    A political decision to be announced this weekend in California will signal far-reaching ramifications for America's lesbian and gay community.At a cabin in a Southern California mountain resort, three lesbians and a gay man wait in mutual antagonism for Donnelly, the woman who has summoned them here, the woman with whom they have all shared a part of their lives.Publisher Bradley Jones was once married to her. Cabin owner Pat Decker, a teacher nearing retirement, took her away from Bradley.Averill Calder Harmon, in the topmost rank of professional golfers on the LPGA tour, lured Donnelly away from Pat. Querida Quemada, a successful young Chicana professional, is Donnelly's current partner.Donnelly, an activist connected at the highest levels of the national scene, knows about the forthcoming political decision. In the certainty of her connection to these four people, she is convinced that the time is now for each of them to take vital and profoundly personal action.But even Donnelly cannot dream of the extent to which this weekend will be a watershed, with consequences reaching far beyond any of them.Published on the eve of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Stonewall Inn uprising and the birth of the modern gay rights movement, FLASHPOINT is the novel for our times.

A Midsummer's Night Dream (Shakespeare Stories)


Leon Garfield - 1993
    A retelling of Shakespeare's light-hearted comedy of mistaken identity, tangled lovers, meddling fairies, and bumbling amateur actors, set in a wood on a midsummer night.

Olivia


Dorothy Strachey - 1949
    Dorothy Strachey’s classic Olivia captures the awakening passions of an English adolescent sent away for a year to a small finishing school outside Paris. The innocent but watchful Olivia develops an infatuation for her headmistress, Mlle. Julie, and through this screen of love observes the tense romance between Mlle. Julie and the other head of the school, Mlle. Cara, in its final months. “Although not strictly autobiographical, Olivia draws on the author’s experiences at finishing schools run by the charismatic Mlle. Marie Souvestre, whose influence lived on through former students like Natalie Barney and Eleanor Roosevelt. Olivia was dedicated to the memory of Strachey’s friend Virginia Woolf and published to acclaim in 1949. Colette wrote the screenplay for the 1951 film adaptation of the novel. In 1999, Olivia was included on the Publishing Triangle’s widely publicized list of the 100 Best Gay and Lesbian Novels of the 20th Century. “Dorothy Strachey (1865-1960) was the sister of the novelist Lytton Strachey and a prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group…….Olivia, originally published under a pseudonym, is her only novel.” -- Amazon.com

Bedlam & Breakfast at a Devon seaside guesthouse


Sharley Scott
    She is certain she and Jason have a strong and loving relationship that can weather any storm. Hooked by the beauty of Torringham with its quaint harbour and stunning coastline, they purchase Flotsam Guesthouse which needs more than a lick of paint to keep it afloat. Soon, Katie finds that renovating and running a guesthouse is taking its toll, especially when dealing with challenging guests and madcap neighbours, Shona and Kim. Katie comes to learn that trouble is afoot whenever Shona begs a favour. However, when her adored daughter moves back to their old hometown, she wonders if they’ve made a huge mistake, especially when cracks begin to show in her marriage. Her seaside idyll is crumbling along with her relationship. Should she let Flotsam Guesthouse founder while she salvages her marriage? Katie needs to decide where her priorities lie. The only issue is, she doesn’t know.

Other Girls


Diane Ayres - 2002
    . . Other Girls.