. .Life is certainly beginning to happen to Hubert Bird. But with the origin of his earlier isolation always lurking in the shadows will he ever get to live the life he's pretended to have for so long?From bestselling author Mike Gayle, All the Lonely People is by turns a funny and moving meditation on love, race, old age and friendship that will not only charm and uplift, but also remind you of the power of ordinary people to make an extraordinary difference.

    It was done at last. They were married. The wedding took place in Naples, a city of burning rubble and poverty – for the time was 1944 and the Germans were in retreat. Thousands of Italians were starving and prepared to do anything to survive. Liana was more determined than most, not only to survive, but to get out of the hell-hole that Naples had become. She had lied, cheated, played provocative games, and now stood in a crumbling church before an emaciated priest. Beside her stood Nicholas Hamilton-Howard, Earl of Wessex, a young English officer who was totally bewitched by the exquisite Italian girl. Even during the service she was terrified – terrified that someone would reveal the truth about her, but when the final blessing was given she knew she was safe and she vowed to devote her life to making Nicholas happy, even though she did not love him – even though their life together was to be built on lies and deception… Angela Arney was born in Hampshire, where she still lives with her husband. She has been a teacher, a hospital administrator and a cabaret singer. The author of a number of romances, Cast the First Stone is her first full-length novel.

    expat community of the Middle East during the rise of the Arab Spring.Both Cassie Hugo and Margaret Brickshaw dutifully followed their soldier husbands to the U.S. embassy in Jordan, but that's about all the women have in common. After two years, Cassie's become an expert on the rules, but newly arrived Margaret sees only her chance to explore. So when a fender-bender sends Margaret to the local police station, Cassie reluctantly agrees to watch Margaret's toddler son. But as the hours pass, Cassie's boredom and frustration turn to fear: Why isn't Margaret answering her phone, and why is it taking so long to sort out a routine accident? Snooping around Margaret's apartment, Cassie begins to question not only her friend's whereabouts but also her own role in Margaret's disappearance. With achingly honest prose and riveting characters, The Confusion of Languages plunges readers into a shattering collision between two women and two worlds, affirming Siobhan Fallon as a powerful voice in American fiction and a storyteller not to be missed.

    A woman who can handle any situation, she has her hands full with two headstrong daughters who happen to be complete opposites -- dour Dorothy and sweet Clancy Jane. Hoping money will heal childhood wounds, Dorothy marries the owner of a five-and-dime, while Clancy Jane gets into a mess of trouble, running off with a randy tomcat who pumps gas at the Esso stand. And then there are Gussie's granddaughters, the smart but plain Violet and fancy-talking Bitsy -- a new generation whose lives will reflect a nation's tumultuous times. From Tennessee to New Orleans, from psychedelic San Francisco to a remote Southwestern desert ranch, this funny, poignant novel spans more than four decades as it vividly recounts the universal loves, sorrows, and joys of women's lives.

    A story of suspense written serially by thirteen Florida writers--including Dave Barry, Carl Hiaasen, and Elmore Leonard--features such strange occurances as a riot in Coconut Grove and an appearance by Fidel Castro.

    Eight-year-old Rocky worships his older brother, Paul. Sixteen and full of rebel cool, Paul spends his days cruising in his Chevy Nova blasting Neil Young, cigarette dangling from his lips, arm slung around his beautiful, troubled girlfriend. Paul is happy to have his younger brother as his sidekick. Then one day, in an act of vengeance against their father, Paul picks up Rocky from school and nearly abandons him in the woods. Afterward, Paul disappears. Seven years later, Rocky is a teenager himself. He hasn’t forgotten being abandoned by his boyhood hero, but he’s getting over it, with the help of the wealthy neighbors’ daughter, ten years his senior, who has taken him as her lover. Unbeknownst to both of them, their affair will set in motion a course of events that rains catastrophe on both their families. After a mysterious double murder brings terror and suspicion to their small town, Rocky and his family must reckon with the past and find out how much forgiveness their hearts can hold.

    William Styron traces the betrayals and infidelities—the heritage of spite and endlessly disappointed love—that afflict the members of a Southern family and that culminate in the suicide of the beautiful Peyton Loftis.

    

    You won’t find any dazzlingly handsome, wealthy action heroes or beyond belief beauties here, but real characters … hard working, Irish country folk who grow to depend upon each other through a dangerous and oppressive time in Ireland’s history … a time of hardship, fear and persecution.Liam Flynn travels across Tipperary, his destination the shores of Lough Derg, his objective to fulfill a lifelong dream. The perils he encounters on the road are only the beginning for this young itinerant carpenter. He finds himself thrust into an impossible situation when, with the help of an old Franciscan priest, he tries to save the tiny Irish village of Gortalocca. If he is discovered by the authorities, he faces almost certain execution for treason and, when the villagers discover what action he has taken in his efforts to help them, he becomes the object of their contempt and hatred.These are dangerous times in Ireland and, as the country struggles to piece itself back together after a hundred years of conflict, the very fabric of society has changed. English Parliament has begun to impose harsh Penal Laws in Ireland which will ban Catholics from voting, from receiving an education, even from practicing their own faith. Catholics can no longer own their own land. More than ninety percent of Ireland’s land will be confiscated and given to English and Irish Protestant landlords, who will charge the rightful owners rent as they try to eke out a living on land which their families have worked for generations. Liam and Father Grogan risk their lives in an effort to save their peaceful Irish village from dissolution.A consummate loner, Liam has led a solitary life so far but he finds romance in Gortalocca, not with a retiring Irish lass, but rather with the feisty daughter of Michael Hogan, the owner of Gortalocca’s only store and bar. Roisin grew up in a man’s environment and has seen enough to know that she will never wed if it means compromising herself by marrying a man she doesn’t love. Now, at the age of nineteen, Roisin Hogan is a spinster.There is plenty of fast-paced action in our story and villains abound, from Gortalocca’s homegrown bully, Sean Reilly, and his gang of thugs, to the menacing dark man who appears from nowhere, posing a threat to Liam’s plan and adding a further complication to his life.You will meet Moira, the ancient and mysterious old hag who lives alone in a tiny cottage, hidden deep inside the forest. Moira is one of the ‘wise ones’, a healer, with her own blend of the spiritual and the ritualistic, the Christian and the Pagan. She is feared by the villagers who think her a witch and do not dare to gaze upon her … unless one of them is ill, and then she is beckoned for help. Moira becomes the source of wisdom for Liam and a strange and shadowy, yet important, part of the plot.Of course, an Irish story would not be complete without humor, and there is plenty of ‘craic’ to be had here. In Hogan’s bar, you will experience, first hand, the humor which epitomises the character of the people of Ireland, and sustains them, especially in times of crisis … an unconscious humor, one of habit. You will sit at the bar with Paddy Shevlin, the pig farmer and Ben Clancy, the shepherd, whose banter provides a welcome respite from the tension, and who never let the truth spoil a perfectly good story.Allow yourself to be stirred into this cauldron of Irish stew.

    Despite the direst of circumstances, the spirit of the lost child refuses to leave her ill-equipped young mother's side.For as long as she is needed―through troubled pregnancies, through poverty, through spousal abuse and agonizing betrayals―Cieli Mae, the determined spirit child, narrates their journey. Serving as a safe place and sounding board for Vidalia's innermost thoughts and confusions, lending a strength to her momma's emerging voice, Cieli Mae provides her own special brand of comfort and encouragement, all the while honoring the restrictions imposed by her otherworldly status.Vidalia finds further support in such unlikely townsfolk and relations as Doc Feldman, Gamma Gert and her Wild Women of God, and, most particularly, in Ruby Pearl Banks, the kind, courageous church lady, who has suffered her own share of heartache in their small Southern town of yesteryear's prejudices and presumptions.My Sweet Vidalia is wise and witty, outstanding for its use of vibrant, poetic language and understated Southern dialect, as well as Mantella's clear-eyed observations of race relations as human relations, a cast of unforgettable characters, an in-depth exploration of the ties that bind, and its creative perspective. My Sweet Vidalia is a rare, wonderful, and complex look at hope, strength, the unparalleled power of unconditional love, and a young mother's refusal to give up.

    . ." "The Black Madonna" transports readers to a world centered around the bustling corner of Spring and Thompson streets in New York City's Little Italy, where Teresa, Magdelena, and Antoinette form a God-fearing, vibrant, and dark-souled trio of mothers whose lives are forever transformed by the power of the Black Madonna, the most powerful of Catholic icons.

     When Madeline Stone walks away from Chicago and moves five hundred miles north to the coast of Lake Superior, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, she isn't prepared for how much her life will change. Charged with caring for an aging family friend, Madeline finds herself in the middle of beautiful nowhere with Gladys and Arbutus, two octogenarian sisters-one sharp and stubborn, the other sweeter than sunshine. As Madeline begins to experience the ways of the small, tight-knit town, she is drawn into the lives and dramas of its residents. It's a place where times are tough and debts run deep, but friendship, community, and compassion run deeper. As the story hurtles along-featuring a lost child, a dashed love, a car accident, a wedding, a fire, and a romantic reunion-Gladys, Arbutus, and the rest of the town teach Madeline more about life, love, and goodwill than she's learned in a lifetime. A heartwarming novel, "South of Superior" explores the deep reward in caring for others, and shows how one who is poor in pocket can be rich in so many other ways, and how little it often takes to make someone happy.

    It was a burglary that went wrong, and four culprits were soon arrested. Their trial was concluded swiftly, their punishments were decisive, and society breathed a sigh of relief.In Ashraf El-Ashmawi's telling, there was a fifth accomplice, Abbas, who fled to his home in the countryside to lay low until the murder trial blew over. However, he did not escape empty-handed and kept stolen documents from Cicurel's villa, ones that he imagined would lead him to a hidden safe. Abbas hatched a plan to return to the capital, find the safe, and make his fortune. The first step was to place his sister Zeinab with Cicurel's widow, Paula.Abbas’s rags-to-riches story unfolds as a tale of modern Egypt, taking in the Second World War, the 1952 revolution and rise of Nasser, the 1967 war, and the Sadat and Mubarak eras. Spanning the 1920s to the 1990s, El-Ashmawi deftly weaves together history with fiction in this intriguing English-language debut.

    This widowed mother of a thirteen-year-old has decided it's time for a fresh start for both of them, time to leave behind Carbondale, Illinois, and the pain of loss. Tessie and her daughter move to Gainesville, Florida, where they discover that they aren't the only ones struggling to move forward in the wake of tremendous grief. Betsy Carter has perfectly captured both the innocence of the 1950s, when even the complex events of our lives seemed somehow easier to endure, and the startling and irreversible changes of the 1960s. A story about the relationships people develop in the face of loss, The Orange Blossom Special introduces us to a remarkable cast of characters, all of whom are tested—and transformed—by the changes in their midst. In her own touching and funny style, Carter shows us the unexpected ways in which strangers can become family.

    economic policy, a novel that seems too true to be fiction…On a winter’s night in 2007, a well-heeled “cultural consultant” named Chauncey Suydam gets a call from the head of the world’s most powerful investment bank, who says a financial crisis is brewing, but he has a plan to insulate Wall Street from the fallout—and keep people such as himself out of jail.His mission for Chauncey is simple: to help funnel millions of dollars to a certain presidential candidate preaching hope and change, in exchange for a few Wall Street-friendly names in the resultant administration.Yet as Chauncey wends his way amongst the nation’s political elite, he sees with greater clarity than ever how decisions really get made—on Wall Street and in Washington. And as the magnitude of the fix he’s perpetrating begins to sink in, he starts to have second thoughts…But is it too late?At once shocking and all too plausible, Fixers is a riveting political thriller by a master observer of finance and politics that—despite being fiction—offers a frighteningly reasonable explanation of what really might have happened in 2008.