For that is what it is: the story of a young English girl's growth towards maturity in the 1930s. We see Mary at school in Kensington and on holiday in Somerset; her attempt at drama school; her year in Paris learning dressmaking and getting engaged to the wrong man; her time as a secretary and companion; and her romance with Sam. We chose this book because we wanted to publish a novel like Dusty Answer, I Capture the Castle or The Pursuit of Love, about a girl encountering life and love, which is also funny, readable and perceptive; it is a 'hot-water bottle' novel, one to curl up with on the sofa on a wet Sunday afternoon. But it is more than this. As Harriet Lane remarks in her Preface: 'It is Mariana's artlessness, its enthusiasm, its attention to tiny, telling domestic detail that makes it so appealing to modern readers.' And John Sandoe Books in Sloane Square (an early champion of Persephone Books) commented: 'The contemporary detail is superb - Monica Dickens's descriptions of food and clothes are particularly good - and the characters are observed with vitality and humour. Mariana is written with such verve and exuberance that we would defy any but academics and professional cynics not to enjoy it.'

    All Jesse wants is a simple life teaching at St. Bart’s… and a chance at love with Joe Riley. She realizes that plan has been thwarted when puzzling occurrences at St. Bartholomew Academy for Girls get increasingly dangerous. The danger doesn’t just spring from the ghost who haunts the grounds of St. Bart’s, but from a sinister presence that is not ghostly at all. As she digs into the mystery, threats on her life and the life of her student escalate. Which danger threatens her life the most? The ghost haunting her student or the secrets buried in the school?

    It tells the story, through an interwoven plot, of the clash between old traditions and growing desires.

    Elder sister Gloria finds romance with the boy next door, until her wealthy, but snobbish and interfering Aunt Sybil steps in, offering her the opportunity of a lifetime. A trip to New York gives Gloria everything she desires - including a wealthy husband. Meanwhile, Betty chooses a career at sea, which offers challenges, personal danger and romance. But with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 tragedy strikes for one of the sisters and through these trials they come to value the bonds of family more than ever. Will they eventually achieve the happiness they desire?

    This book portrays the relationship between a quiet young shop assistant from Ulster and her wealthy employers.

    Yet the spirited young beauty only has eyes for Rafael Alfandari, the handsome Jewish son of an esteemed court physician. In defiance of their families, they marry, fleeing to Paris to build a new life.But when the Nazis invade France and begin rounding up Jews, the exiled lovers will learn that nothing—not war, not politics, not even religion—can break the bonds of family. For after they learn that Selva is but one of their fellow citizens trapped in France, a handful of brave Turkish diplomats hatch a plan to spirit the Alfandaris and hundreds of innocents, many of whom are Jewish, to safety. Together, they must traverse a war-torn continent, crossing enemy lines and risking everything in a desperate bid for freedom. From Ankara to Paris, Cairo, and Berlin, Last Train to Istanbul is an uplifting tale of love and adventure.

    And it's well worth reading. In this unputdownable book you’ll take an unforgettable ride with Genesis that's signed under Na'Kia Presents. Her writing is very clever, and this story is great. **Warning** This is not your typical Urban romance, dope boy, thug love, or kingpin savage book. Heart pounding. Drama filled. Love story Women's fiction. “To my surprise, the wedding I naively attended turned out to be the most heartbreaking reality check I’ve ever had. Ironically, my boyfriend was the groom, but I wasn’t the bride. Not only had he been playing me, but he took infidelity to a whole new level by marrying my cousin and it crushed my soul. Oh yes, he cheated, cheated.” Dr. Koi Montgomery was played by a cold-hearted man she had given her all to. She was a fool in love and had gotten used in the worst way. Adair was her everything, but in the end he wasn’t worth the heartache he’d put her through. Ultimately, the love she gave was filled with hopes and dreams that would be crushed by the two people she trusted the most. Adair was the epitome of a faithless, unadulterated, cocky man that didn’t deserve none of Koi’s time or affection. He abused her love, and she gullably let him. He took advantage of their relationship without a care in the world. Once a person shows you who they are, believe them the first time. Koi’s mistake was not walking away before it was too late. What doesn’t break Koi makes her stronger and once the pain subsides, love may still be in the horizon of someone she never expected it to come from. What happens when she finally moves on, and goes after everything she deserves? Will love be kind to her this time around, or will she find herself caught up once again in a loveless relationship?

    It is the answer he gave his wife (now ex-wife) years earlier when she told him she wanted one. The loss, longing and regret that haunt the years between those two “no”s give rise to one of the most eloquent meditations ever written on the Holocaust. As Kertesz’s narrator addresses the child he couldn’t bear to bring into the world he ushers readers into the labyrinth of his consciousness, dramatizing the paradoxes attendant on surviving the catastrophe of Auschwitz. Kaddish for the Unborn Child is a work of staggering power, lit by flashes of perverse wit and fueled by the energy of its wholly original voice. Translated by Tim Wilkinson

    He’s gorgeous, well-built, and more than confident that he knows exactly what life has in store for him. But when Dhara Swamy walks into his life, brilliant, beautiful, and just a little bit broken, everything he thought he knew turns upside down. Dhara is attacked in her own home by unseen powers, and her scientist mind won’t let her accept the fact that there’s something happening to her that the natural laws of the universe just can’t explain. Kean is well-versed in the supernatural, though, and he recognizes immediately that Dhara needs the kind of help that can’t be found in a lab, explained in a textbook, or theorized in a classroom. Book Two Moira Brennan’s beauty is as vivid as her flame-red hair and glowing dragon scales. Both are a badge of vibrancy and power that she wears proudly, and while she’s not one to start a fight, she won’t walk away from one either. As part of the Boston dragon clan, Moira spends her days imbedded in the secret supernatural world of Boston, and her nights in her true dragon form, flying over the city, diving beneath the ocean, and resting in the tree tops. She’s not interested in settling down or changing anything about her life, but then Grady Princeton walks in a with a problem in his company’s vault and everything turns on its head. Book Three Eaman Cleary is a man of few words, and a bit of a mystery, even to those closest to him. He likes it that way, and he’s happiest when he’s flying through the air, his pure-white dragon form blending into the clouds and the pale-blue sky. White-blonde hair and artic skin only add to his mysterious persona, and nobody has ever inspired him to come out of his shell—at least not until Autumn Pruitt walks into the office, afraid for her own life and her daughters’ lives. Autumn never meant to stumble into the clearing in the woods or to see what she saw, but now she can’t get away from the consequences. Book Four Nothing scares Siobhan MacFaddan, except, perhaps, the fear that she’ll spend her life alone. Tall, tan, and blonde, she certainly gets plenty of attention, but she only wants attention from the man who is supposed to be her soulmate, if she can ever find him. Siobhan may not be exactly sure what she’s looking for in a soulmate, but she certainly knows what she’s not looking for, and that’s Julius Giordano, no matter how drop-dead gorgeous he is. When Julius comes to her office to tell her that he’s having visions where a man murders a woman, it doesn’t take her long to figure out that he has a supernatural window into the future or that the man gets under her skin—and not in a good way. But she has to save the woman in Julius’ visions, and as the case progresses, so do her feelings for the man suddenly gifted with psychic abilities. Book Five Ronan Connolly isn’t just another dragon shifter—he’s the rugged, gorgeous, powerful leader of his generation and the person charged with the responsibility of making sure that the clan’s quickly dwindling numbers don’t spell destruction. Dragon shifters can only breed with other dragon shifters, as the legend tells it, and that means that here is a growing shortage of mates for Ronan and his friends. All he cares about is saving the clan from dying out, and the only way to do that is to find some way for shifters and humans to reproduce together.

    A former circus clown who was spared the gas chamber so that he might entertain thousands of other Jews as they marched to their deaths, Adam Stein is now the ringleader at an asylum in the Negev desert populated solely by Holocaust survivors. Alternately more brilliant than the doctors and more insane than any of the patients, Adam struggles wildly to make sense of a world in which the line between sanity and madness has been irreversibly blurred. With the biting irony of Catch-22, the intellectual vigor of Saul Bellow, and the pathos and humanity that are Kaniuk's hallmarks, Adam Resurrected offers a vision of a modern hell that devastates even as it inches toward redemption.

    There's Ivy League Caroline, who dreams of graduating from the typing pool to an editor's office, naive country girl April, who within months of hitting town reinvents herself as the woman every man wants on his arm; Gregg, the free-spirited actress with a secret yearning for domesticity. Now a classic, and as page-turning as when it first came out, The Best of Everything portrays their lives and passions with intelligence, affection and prose as sharp as a paper cut.(back cover)

    He questions her and finds she thought she was in the apartment of his neighbor, Morris Barnes, who lives above him. While he is on the telephone, she quietly slips out of his flat and heads to Barnes’ abode. A few hours later, she is once again at his door – this time looking scared and faint. She asks Wrayson to escort her downstairs as the hallway is unlit. As they emerge, a hansom sits at the doorway with Morris Barnes in it. But, they discover that Barnes has been strangled. Wrayson soon learns that the young lady is the estranged older daughter of a club acquaintance, retired Colonel Fitzmaurice. He also discovers that he has fallen in love with her. The big question however, has he fallen for a murderess? How can he discover the truth? In typical Oppenheim style, this “whodunit” weaves a tangled web and one must wait until the end to discover the surprising truth. (Summary by Tom Weiss)

    The woman, he gradually comes to realise, was his family's beloved servant many years ago, in his native town of Ruffano. He returns to his birthplace, and once there, finds it is haunted by the phantom of his brother, Aldo, shot down in flames in '43.Over five hundred years before, the sinister Duke Claudio, known as The Falcon, lived his twisted, brutal life, preying on the people of Ruffano. But now it is the twentieth century, and the town seems to have forgotten its violent history. But have things really changed? The parallels between the past and present become ever more evident.

    Erica, a reckless young journalist, pursues passionate but abusive affairs with different women. Bea, a reserved secretary, grows increasingly obsessed with Erica —yet denial and shame keep her from recognizing her attraction. Only Bea’s discovery that Erica is half-Jewish and a member of the Dutch resistance—and thus very much in danger—brings her closer to accepting her own feelings.

    The constant threat of arrest has made everyone in their village a spy, and turned neighbor against neighbor. Though rugged, independent Helena and pretty, gentle Ruth couldn’t be more different, they are staunch allies in protecting their family from the threats the war brings closer to their doorstep with each passing day.Then Helena discovers an American paratrooper stranded outside their small mountain village, wounded, but alive. Risking the safety of herself and her family, she hides Sam—a Jew—but Helena’s concern for the American grows into something much deeper. Defying the perils that render a future together all but impossible, Sam and Helena make plans for the family to flee. But Helena is forced to contend with the jealousy her choices have sparked in Ruth, culminating in a singular act of betrayal that endangers them all—and setting in motion a chain of events that will reverberate across continents and decades.Originally published in 2014. Look for Pam Jenoff’s new novel, The Woman with the Blue Star, an unforgettable story of courage and friendship during wartime.Read these other sweeping epics from New York Times bestselling author Pam Jenoff.The Lost Girls of ParisThe Orphans TaleThe Diplomat’s WifeThe Kommandant’s GirlThe Last Summer at Chelsea BeachThe Ambassador's Daughter