English translations of several of his works have appeared, but none hitherto of Cecile (1887), first of a brilliant trio of female portraits culminating in Effi Briest (1895). The Baroness von St Arnaud; a delicate beauty married to a retired army officer who neglects her, is a tantalising mystery to the much-travelled civil engineer von Gordon who makes her acquaintance at the fashionable spa of Thale in the Harz Mountains. The reader's curiosity, too, is more and more strongly aroused as a story of mutual sexual attraction unfolds. When the scene shifts to the bustling world of the capital and the sharply caricatured reactionary high society in which the St Arnauds move, Cecile's admirer's discovery of her past precipitates a grim climax. Fontane was in love with his female characters 'for their human qualities, that is, for their weaknesses and sins', as he put it. His commitment to female values in a changing but still starkly male-dominated society is conveyed in virtuoso handling of conversation and endlessly subtle and ironic depiction of Prussian attitudes.

    She tells her version of events, revealing to us that the constellations we see in heaven conceal other heavens we have never seen or allowed ourselves to see. She reveals four of these hidden constellations and describes how they came to be. Each of the four subsequent chapters is the story of one of these new zodiacs, teaching us how to look at these constellations central to women--a knife, a cauldron for cooking, a paradise garden, a pair of lovers embracing--and how to know the women whose stories they tell: a metamorphosis of Sarah, Abraham's wife; an invented polytheist cook; Job's wife; and the queen of Sheba. Patricia Storace brilliantly and radically reimagines the worlds of these women, freeing them from the old tales in which they were trapped, putting them in the foreground of their stories and of the Old Testament itself.

    Elizabeth has always suspected her mother harbours a secret from her time as a young woman in Nazi Germany. But her mother, suffering from dementia, is lost to her now.When Elizabeth stumbles across a Nazi certificate amongst her parent’s paperwork, it forces her to question the very foundations of her 1950s childhood and her first love; a childhood, she now realises, was built on lies.Elizabeth’s quest to find the truth leads her to Germany where she’s met with a wall of silence. She knows that beyond this wall, is the truth, a truth that exists deep within the dark and twisted soul of Hitler’s Germany.Germany, 1944. 18-year-old Hannah, beautiful and naive, volunteers to work in a home for evacuated children. But Doctor Heinkel, a loyal Nazi, decrees that there’s a better way for Hannah to serve the Fatherland.Drawn further into the doctor’s distorted world, Hannah only realises what’s expected of her when it’s too late. Confronted with evil, Hannah makes an impossible choice, a choice that will reverberate down the generations…Part of The Love and War Series, novels set during the 20th century's darkest years.20th Century Historical fiction with heart and drama.

    Now Olivia Goldsmith returns to the trenches in a new novel as unforgettable as The First Wives Club. Michelle has a perfect marriage, a perfect house and a perfect life in middle-class Westchester – until she finds out how her husband has been paying for it all.Her friend Jada has worked too hard to become the first black woman bank manager in their town, as well as a wonderful mother and homemaker, to let her lay-about husband take it all away from her. But can she stop him?Angie is their lawyer – and she knows exactly what they’re going through. Married just a year ago, she’s been shell-shocked to find out about her wealthy, Ivy League husband’s extra-marital activities. Can she help herself, as well as helping her friends?Let down by their men and by the law – now all they have is each other. Moving, funny and angry, this is the story of how a friendship formed in adversity helps Michelle, Jada and Angie fight back.

    In every instance where government gets involved in people's lives with a desire to do good, it can always be relied on to make the situation much, much worse. Yet despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we imagine that a world without the state would be a wild and terrifying place. With wit and devastating clarity of argument, Frisby shows in this book that human nature proves the opposite to be true. Welcome to Life After the State. "Dominic Frisby has gone and done something extraordinary: written a page-turner on the economy. It's both readable and radical, a serious book that is, by turn, fascinating, alarming and contentious. At times, the book makes you want to shout its message from the rooftops; at others, it just makes you want to shout. Life after the State challenges so much of what we take for granted. It is a wake-up call for politicians, economists and us all, written with clarity, verve and, more than that, the restless passion of an intelligent, inquisitive malcontent. Read it." - James Harding, once editor of The Times now Director of BBC News and Current AffairsReviewThought-provoking and original, anyone concerned how big and bloated government has become must read this book. Dominic Frisby asks the kind of questions that those in Westminster need to start asking. - Douglas Carswell, MP We can't go on as we are. All politicians know that. But if they read Life After The State they might also start to understand what they might do about it. A must read for any thinking man or woman. - Merryn Somerset Webb, FT columnist and editor Moneyweek Magazine Things are so bad that in our time only a comedian can make sense of an economy based on printing money. Dominic Frisby's Life After the State is an accessible contemporary anarcho-capitalist critique of the mess we're in with pointers for our escape. - Guido Fawkes, political blogger It's incredibly readable and incredibly thought-provoking. - Al Murray, The Pub Landlord An entertaining cogent attack on state power, which should topple the centralist Trots once and for all. - Tom Hodgkinson, The IdlerAbout the AuthorDominic Frisby is now mostly a writer but has been a comedian, actor, voice-over artist, TV presenter, boxing ring announcer, florist, removal man, camp theatrical agent's PA, sports commentator and busker. The Guardian called his stand-up comedy 'viciously funny and inventive'.

    Placing the Roman conquest and occupation within the context of Romano-British society, this book incorporates the latest discoveries in order to reveal how Roman society in Britain functioned.

    . . 'The year is AD 255 - the Roman Imperium is stretched to breaking point, its authority and might challenged along every border. The greatest threat lies in Persia to the east, where the massing forces of the Sassanid Empire loom with fiery menace. There the isolated Roman citadel of Arete awaits inevitable invasion.One man is sent to marshal the defences and shore up crumbling walls. A man whose name itself means war: a man called Ballista. Alone, Ballista is called to muster the forces, and the courage to stand first and to stand hard, against the greatest enemy ever to confront the Imperium.This is part one of WARRIOR OF ROME: an epic of empire, of heroes, of treachery, of courage, and most of all, a story of brutal, bloody warfare.

    John Crace and Spurs were made for each other. But then the team started to play like possible champions. For most fans, these are the glory moments they dream about. For Crace they just opened a new dimension of anxiety: the fear of success. Crace has supported Spurs for 40 years. His wife thinks he suffers from a psychiatric disorder, but fandom is not only one of the ways he negotiates his relationships, it also helps him make some sense of his life. Vertigo is the story of why fandom that starts out in boyish hope always ends in dark comedy.

    Max is a little jealous of Carlos and Carlos's wife is certainly not happy to see Stephany. It becomes clear that there is more between Stephany and Carlos than just friendship and the tension rises between the two couples. As Max discovers more about Stephany's past, he begins to wonder if he really knows her at all.

    Something big too, very big. At school, in the village, whoever you meet, it's all anyone talks about. It's like a sudden curse has come down on us all. It makes me wonder if we'll ever see the sun again."It's 1943, and Lily Tregenze lives on a farm, in the idyllic seaside village of Slapton. Apart from her father being away, and the 'townie' evacuees at school, her life is scarcely touched by the war. Until one day, Lily and her family, along with 3000 other villagers, are told to move out of their homes – lock, stock and barrel.Soon, the whole area is out of bounds, as the Allied forces practise their landings for D-day, preparing to invade France. But Tips, Lily's adored cat, has other ideas – barbed wire and keep-out signs mean nothing to her, nor does the danger of guns and bombs. Frantic to find her, Lily makes friends with two young American soldiers, who promise to help her. But will she ever see her cat again? Lily decides to cross the wire into the danger zone to look for Tips herself…Now, many years later, as Michael is reading his Grandma Lily's diary, he learns about The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips – and wonders how one adventurous cat could still affect their lives sixty years later.

    The daily routine of a man in charge of children at a state welfare organization and the demands that are made upon him are depicted in this novel set in present day Hungary.

    

    What happens in Mexico stays in Mexico as they completely go loco in Acapulco. This is one trip that they will never forget. This book contains lots of Tequila, hot stuff, boat trips and wild nights. One week of hilarious fun with life-changing consequences.

    After four previous defeats in Grand Slam finals, Murray had finally achieved what no British man had managed since the 1930s. But the story of how he got there was just as compelling as the final itself, with as many twists and turns along the way. Writer Mark Hodgkinson has been covering that story since the start - he was actually the first person to interview Murray for a national newspaper back in 2004, and has worked closely with Judy Murray in the past. In Andy Murray: Champion, Hodgkinson explains how Murray first emerged as a tennis player of true quality, and how his rivalry with his brother Jamie spurred him on. He looks at the close relationship Murray has with his mother, and the various coaches who haved worked with him to assess their influence on his game. In a hugely competitive era of tennis, with Federer, Nadal and Djokovic all counted to be among the greatest tennis players of all time, Murray has earned the right to be ranked alongside them all - and this book explains how and why he has done so, becoming a true national sporting icon in the process.

    For Lisa Nugent and her twin sister Shell, however, madness was impossible to avoid—it was home.Growing up in Essex in the seventies and eighties, Lisa learned quickly that her family wasn’t like her classmates’ families—their mothers were friendly, fierce, or demure women. They had their quirks, but they didn’t assault their husbands, and their frenzied screams didn’t chase their children out of the house in the middle of the night. Not like her mother. Now, for the first time, Lisa relives those troubled years, recounting her development from a nervous, shy, and friendless child through to the woman she is today. Madness and Me isn’t just a memoir about surviving an abusive, paranoid parent—it’s about the importance of family, the pain of loss, and learning to love even when it’s the hardest thing in the world to do.A work of tenderness, dignity, and humour, Madness and Me is sure to appeal to lovers of memoir and drama alike.