Speak For England


James Hawes - 2005
    A contestant on Brit Pluck, Green Hell, Two Million, the ultimate reality TV show, Marley has managed to outlive his rivals and win enough money to change his life. Except that the TV crew has just been wiped out in a helicopter crash. With the crocodiles closing in, he has no option but to climb the vast cliff at his back. Inevitably, he falls......And awakes in a lost world that is remarkably like an Englishman's heaven. There's cricket and rugger, the Union Jack, plucky boys, pretty girls, a tough but fair headmaster - an entire miniature civilization preserved by the surviving passengers from Comet IV, which vanished in 1958. Firmly convinced that they were the first casualties of World War III, they have kept an idyllic, pre-sixties England alive. When Brian contacts the outside world, the Headmaster is outraged to find an embattled New Labour MP unchallenged by a hapless Tory Party. With 50s conviction, he sets about restoring the values of the Eagle to England.

Clara's Heart


Joseph Olshan - 1985
    But the indomitable Clara will take no nonsense and resentment turns into a shaky friendship -- and this friendship turns into a rare and powerful form of love in Joseph Olshan's award-winning, internationally-acclaimed first novel that became the popular film starring Whoopie Goldberg. Rough and loving, Clara introduces David to a world richly textured with legend and magic. He learns her patois and becomes an honorary member of her social circle, mainly consisting of the ladies of Blanche's Beauty Parlor in Brooklyn.

Risky Business


Lisa Jackson - 1990
    And Dane was determined to win Kirsten for himself!Double Exposure (1990)Gavin had loved Melanie—a long time ago. Now, returning to Taylor's Crossing, he wanted only to forget the woman who had broken her promises to him the first chance she got. Would secrets revealed keep them apart—or make their worlds collide forever?

Attila: The Scourge of God


Ross Laidlaw - 2004
    The Western Roman Empire has been overrun by German tribes. Too weak to expel them, the Imperial government has been forced to grant federate status to the invaders. Aetius, the last of the great Roman generals, becomes the virtual ruler of the West over the heads of a weak and vicious emperor and his ambitious mother. In a series of brilliant campaigns, he takes on the German tribes and forces them to settle peacefully. Meanwhile, his old friend Attila, leader of the Huns, launches a devastating attack on the Eastern Empire, before turning on the West. He is confronted by Aetius, now his bitter enemy. In the epic battle that ensues, the stakes for Attila and Aetius could not be higher as the fates of empires of both Romans and Huns hang in the balance. This arresting novel deals with the rivalry between two great men whose friendship turns to enmity. Attila becomes corrupted by power, while Aetius is ennobled by it. Ross Laidlaw's masterful portrayal of these two figures is based on his extensive knowledge of the period and is written in a narrative style that vividly evokes the brutality, decadence and desperation of this fascinating time in European history.

The Death and Life of Miguel de Cervantes


Stephen Marlowe - 1991
    Marlowe gives it to us. The backdrop is Renaissance Europe, a world alive with creative ferment, triple-crossing intrigue, and the passionate quest for novelty. Lofty tragedy and lyric poetry still reign as queens of the literary arts, but young writers heady with ambition seek live action to give substance to their teeming imaginations. It is scoundrel time, and the novel is in gestation. To enter Cervantes's world we cross a threshold that is Shakespearean and quixotic into a metaphysical wonderland where time expands to become space and vast vaulted distances bend back on themselves, where the threads of fiction and the strands of history shuttle back and forth in the great loom of the artist's imagination. Marlowe's Cervantes is a towering creation: flesh and blood and living legend, actor in and creator of the events in his own fantastical life story. He not only survives war, prison, torture, and poverty, he survives death itself, growing inexorably toward the writing of Don Quixote, which would bring both him and his character immortal fame.

Bone


George C. Chesbro - 1989
    Mute and without memory, he nonetheless stands out from the drifting crowd, perhaps because of the ancient human femur he carries everywhere. But when a series of gruesome murders strikes the homeless, the police are convinced Bone is involved, and Bone must desperately piece together his lost past.

Small Town Evil


Ken Berglund - 2013
    When the father realizes that his daughter's condition is getting worse, and that the girl he hit may or may not even exist, he returns to the small town where he had the accident, hoping to find answers.

Apple Tree Lean Down


Mary E. Pearce - 1976
    Beth soons shows her grandfather that she is a strong-willed young woman with clear ideas about her future. Her choices have far-reaching consequences, as she experiences happiness and heartbreak, triumph and sorrow. A heartwarming tale of everyday country life in an English town at the turn of the nineteenth century. Mary E Pearce paints a loving but authentic picture of the people and places of a bygone era. The first title in the five book Apple Tree Saga.

The Messenger Boy Murders


Perihan Mağden - 1991
    Unwillingly charged with investigating mysterious deaths among the city's fleet of seemingly perfect, ageless messenger boys, Stravrogin encounters the city's strange, charismatic characters and its even stranger secret—a program of genetic engineering.

George Orwell's Animal Farm


Harold Bloom - 1996
    Orwell transforms the seeming pastoral innocence of his setting into a pernicious political theater of repression and control. This new edition of critical essays examining Animal Farm provides 10 to 12 full-length critical essays for students of literature, plus a chronology of the author's life, a bibliography, an index, and notes on the contributing writers.

Before We Say Goodbye


Madeleine Reiss - 2018
    . .Heart-warming and tear-jerking, Before We Say Goodbye is a devastatingly beautiful novel about love, family and learning to let go for fans of Jojo Moyes.

Wicked Games


Sasha Wagstaff - 2010
    let the fireworks begin!Debonair and dynamic, millionaire Judd Harrington is back at Brockett Hall. With his socialite wife and family in tow, he’s returned from LA a glittering success. But as he stares across the valley at Lochlin Maguire’s beautiful country house, all he can think of is revenge. Meanwhile Judd’s arch-rival has troubles of his own. Lochlin’s record label is losing major talent to an unknown competitor, his wife Tavvy is distracted and he can’t seem to see eye to eye with his son Shay. And, unbeknownst to Lochlin, his talented singer daughter Iris has fallen for irresistible racing driver Ace Harrington out in LA. Ace is under orders from Judd to break Iris’s heart. What he hadn’t bargained for was losing his own in the process. Can he go against his father's wishes? Or will Judd’s wicked games ruin love’s young dream?

The Missing Girl


Kerry McGinnis - 2021
    Her ailing grandmother, who raised her when she was orphaned as a child, has always been a formidable figure in her life, and this is hardly a welcome summons.When Meg arrives at the ramshackle old homestead, she learns that the place is up for sale. She is expected to care for the property with its extensive garden, while packing up the contents of the house. As she begins the arduous work of bringing the grand old homestead back to its former glory, she is forced to examine the question that has plagued her all her life – why nobody loved her as a child.As the house unfolds the history of an earlier age, it also spills out secrets Meg had never imagined – in particular, the discovery of an aunt she never knew, her mother’s twin sister, Iris. The discovery brings horror in its wake, as Meg learns the secrets of the missing girl and the truth behind a wicked heart where love simply never existed. The more she uncovers, the more questions she has. With her grandmother unwilling to share what she knows, Meg must seek out the truth for herself.Set against the stunning backdrop of the Australian bush in summer, with the ever-present threat of bushfire at its back, this is a highly evocative story of secrets and betrayal from the bestselling author of Croc Country.

Henry VIII and His Court


Luise Mühlbach - 1867
    King Henry the Eighth of England that day once more pronounced himself the happiest and most enviable man in his kingdom, for to-day he was once more a bridegroom, and Catharine Parr, the youthful widow of Baron Latimer, had the perilous happiness of being selected as the king's sixth consort.