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The Sisters Brothers
Patrick deWitt - 2011
The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it. Though Eli doesn't share his brother's appetite for whiskey and killing, he's never known anything else. But their prey isn't an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm's gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living - and whom he does it for.With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable comic tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters - losers, cheaters, and ne'er-do-wells from all stripes of life - and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humor, melancholy, and grit of the Old West, and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love.
Jailbird
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - 1979
This wry tale follows bumbling bureaucrat Walter F. Starbuck from Harvard to the Nixon White House to the penitentiary as Watergate’s least known co-conspirator. But the humor turns dark when Vonnegut shines his spotlight on the cold hearts and calculated greed of the mighty, giving a razor-sharp edge to an unforgettable portrait of power and politics in our times.
The Big Five-OH!
Sandra D. Bricker - 2009
. . or so she thinks. It was a broken heart on her 16th, a car accident on her 21st, pneumonia on her 30th, and a fall down a flight of stairs on her 35th. There were Ohio blizzards on her 38th, 39th, and 40th; and six days before her 45th, she lost the love of her life to a heart attack. Numbing grief stole that birthday and a couple more to follow and, on the morning of her 48th birthday, she received the call she’d dreaded ever since losing her mom so many years ago…she was diagnosed with stage-3 ovarian cancer. The doctors didn’t hold out a lot of hope, but Liv survived and maintained her faith. Months of surgeries and chemotherapy and radiation treatments followed.But now, as her 50th birthday creeps up the icy Ohio path toward her, her hair has grown back, her energy level is up, and she is officially cancer free. It makes her nervous. After everything she’s gone through, Liv hates the idea of driving on icy roads and returning to work as an O.R. nurse in a local Cincinnati hospital.Her best friend Hallie knows just the thing to break Liv out of the winter doldrums, while providing a safe haven of warmth, sunshine, and a time to regroup: a holiday in the Florida sunshine!
Last Man To Die
Michael Dobbs - 1991
Now reissued in a new cover style. Spring 1945. The final weeks of the war. One man holds the secret that will decide the fate of post-war Europe: Peter Hencke, an unlikely hero, a German prisoner-of-war on the run.Refusing to wait for peace and the freedom it will finally bring, Hencke is fired by a personal mission that drives him to risk everything in his lonely, treacherous journey across wartime Britain, back through the battle-torn remnants of the Third Reich – to the very heart of encircled Berlin.One man faced by the mightiest armies ever assembled, pursued by the most powerful and ruthless men in Europe – and helped and loved by two of the most extraordinary women. The secret of Peter Hencke will be hidden until the very last moments of the war.
Crooked Heart
Lissa Evans - 2014
Always desperate for money, she's unscrupulous about how she gets it. Noel's mourning his godmother, Mattie, a former suffragette. Brought up to share her disdain for authority and eclectic approach to education, he has little in common with other children and even less with Vee, who hurtles impulsively from one self-made crisis to the next. The war's thrown up new opportunities for making money but what Vee needs (and what she's never had) is a cool head and the ability to make a plan. On her own, she's a disaster. With Noel, she's a team. Together they cook up an idea. Criss-crossing the bombed suburbs of London, Vee starts to make a profit and Noel begins to regain his interest in life. But there are plenty of other people making money out of the war and some of them are dangerous. Noel may have been moved to safety, but he isn't actually safe at all…
Bluebirds: A Battle of Britain Novel
Melvyn Fickling - 2018
Bluebirds, a novel based on true stories, climaxes in 1940, the world's most dangerous year. A meticulously researched Battle of Britain novel based on the true stories of an East Anglian war hero and the first American volunteer to fire guns against the Nazis, a man who became his friend and brother-in-arms. The Battle of Britain defined the future for Britain, Europe and America. Bluebirds tells the story of four ordinary young men who are thrown together as Hitler plunges the European continent into its darkest hours. Andrew Francis and Gerry Donaldson were born on different sides of the Atlantic just before The Great War. Together with the mildly psychotic Bryan Hale, they fly Spitfires through the summer of 1940. Invasion is imminent and England faces almost certain defeat after Hitler’s unstoppable armies slice through France to the Channel coast. Fighter Command risks total destruction as they rise to meet the Fuhrer’s Luftwaffe hordes in what would become The Battle of Britain. Flying with The Few - Review in FlyPast Magazine October 2017 The first part of a proposed trilogy, Bluebirds stands alone as a gripping fictionalised account of The Battle of Britain, documenting how the lives of its four central characters become intertwined. This has clearly been a labour of love for author Melvyn Fickling, who writes with great clarity about the fast-moving events of that pivotal summer, and who imbues his descriptions of flight with boundless enthusiasm. Structured in time-linear format, Melvyn adheres closely to history, creating an increasingly tense atmosphere that becomes all too tragic when the cost of war is realised. The story follows the path of four pilots, starting with the formative years of three of them, and working its way forward, documenting the fears of war in Europe, and how the threat influences the decisions of all. Andrew Francis joins the pre-war RAF - idealistic and well-mannered, he is somewhat shocked at the fiery antics of fellow pilot Bryan Hale, with whom he nevertheless becomes friends. When war erupts, they are joined at Kenley by American pilot Gerry Donaldson, a volunteer facing pressure from British authorities to document his experiences - a propaganda bid to involve the US more closely in the conflict. Eventually Vincent Drew comes under their wing. Troubled by years of childhood abuse and hiding a serious health condition, with Vincent comes tragedy. In an excellent narrative, the author captures the mood of the times - the fear of invasion, the differing attitudes to the enemy, and the carry-on-regardless spirit that kept Britain in the war. FlyPast Magazine - At the heart of aviation heritage.
The Price of Paradise
Susana López Rubio - 2017
Young Patricio flees impoverished Spain and steps into the sultry island paradise of Havana with only the clothes on his back and half-baked dreams of a better life. Blessed with good looks and natural charm, he lands a job as a runner at El Encanto—one of the most luxurious department stores in the world.Famous for its exquisite offerings from French haute couture to Arabian silks, El Encanto indulges the senses in opulent extravagance. It caters to visiting Hollywood stars, rising politicos, and prerevolutionary Cuba’s wealthiest power players, including the notorious mobster César Valdés.Falling in love with the mobster’s young wife, Gloria, is suicide. But Patricio is irresistibly drawn to the beautiful girl with sad eyes, a razor-sharp intellect, and a penchant for both Christian Dior’s clothes and Einstein’s theories. Within the walls of El Encanto, anything seems possible, even a love that promises to heal them and a desire that thrums with the mambo beat of the city itself.In a reckless love affair that spans half a century, Patricio’s and Gloria’s lives entwine time and again, challenged by every twist of fate—for in a world of murder, betrayal, and revolution, those who dare to reach for paradise seldom survive unscathed.
Return to Quail Crossings
Jennifer McMurrain - 2014
She had dreams of Hollywood stardom, not dirty diapers and pigs. But when Robert Smith, a country boy from head to toe, offers her and her daughter a chance at a normal life, reputation intact, Evalyn can’t help but accept. Little does Robert know, Evalyn is keeping a huge secret. While Evalyn’s family members deal with prejudice in 1940s Texas, fertility, changes of the heart, and even a ghost come back from the dead, Evalyn must fight for her family or lose everything she has grown to love.
The Ballroom
Anna Hope - 2016
1911: Inside an asylum at the edge of the Yorkshire moors, where men and women are kept apart by high walls and barred windows, there is a ballroom vast and beautiful. For one bright evening every week they come together and dance. When John and Ella meet It is a dance that will change two lives forever.Set over the heatwave summer of 1911, the end of the Edwardian era, THE BALLROOM is a tale of unlikely love and dangerous obsession, of madness and sanity, and of who gets to decide which is which.
Deacon King Kong
James McBride - 2020
When the truth does emerge, McBride shows us that not all secrets are meant to be hidden, that the best way to grow is to face change without fear, and that the seeds of love lie in hope and compassion.
The Color of Water in July
Nora Carroll - 2011
For all that time, she’s been haunted by loss—of her innocence and her ability to trust and, most of all, of a profound summer romance that might have been something more. So when her grandmother leaves the house to her, Jess summons her courage and returns to a place full of memories—and secrets.There, she stumbles upon old letters and photographs of a time not so much forgotten as buried. As she begins to unravel the hidden histories of her mother and her grandmother, she makes a startling discovery about a tragic death that prompted her family’s slow undoing. With every uneven and painful step into the past, Jess comes closer to a truth that could alter her own path—and open a door to a different future.
Revised edition: This edition of The Color of Water in July includes editorial revisions.
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan Doyle - 1894
Volume 2. Introduction / by Loren D. Estleman --The hound of the Baskervilles --The valley of fear --His last bow : The adventure of Wisteria Lodge : The singular experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles ; The tiger of San Pedro ; The adventure of the cardboard box ; The adventure of the red circle ; The adventure of the Bruce-Partington plans ; The adventure of the dying detective ; The disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax ; The adventure of the devil's foot ; His last bow --The case-book of Sherlock Holmes : The adventure of the illustrious client ; The adventure of the blanched soldier ; The adventure of the Mazarin stone ; The adventure of the three gables ; The adventure of the Sussex vampire ; The adventure of the three Garridebs ; The problem of Thor Bridge ; The adventure of the creeping man ; The adventure of the lion's mane ; The adventure of the veiled lodger ; The adventure of Shoscombe old place ; The adventure of the retired colourman.
The Wicked City
Beatriz Williams - 2017
Her surprisingly attractive new neighbor, Hector, warns her to stay out of the basement at night. Tenants have reported strange noises after midnight—laughter, clinking glasses, jazz piano—even though the space has been empty for decades. Back in the Roaring Twenties, the place hid a speakeasy.In 1924, Geneva "Gin" Kelly, a smart-mouthed flapper from the hills of western Maryland, is a regular at this Village hideaway known as the Christopher Club. Caught up in a raid, Gin becomes entangled with Prohibition enforcement agent Oliver Anson, who persuades her to help him catch her stepfather Duke Kelly, one of Appalachia’s most notorious bootleggers.Headstrong and independent, Gin is no weak-kneed fool. So how can she be falling in love with the taciturn, straight-arrow Revenue agent when she’s got Princeton boy Billy Marshall, the dashing son of society doyenne Theresa Marshall, begging to make an honest woman of her? While anything goes in the Roaring Twenties, Gin’s adventures will shake proper Manhattan society to its foundations, exposing secrets that shock even this free-spirited redhead—secrets that will echo from Park Avenue to the hollers of her Southern hometown.As Ella discovers more about the basement speakeasy, she becomes inspired by the spirit of her exuberant predecessor, and decides to live with abandon in the wicked city too. . . .
The Other Girl
C.D. Major - 2020
But what if she was telling the truth?1942, New Zealand. Edith’s been locked away for a long time. She was just five years old when she was sent to Seacliff Lunatic Asylum. Fifteen years later, she has few memories of her life before the asylum, but longs for one beyond it.When she survives a devastating fire that destroys her ward, Edith is questioned by the police and a young doctor, Declan Harris. Intrigued by his beautiful patient, Declan begins to doubt the official reasons for her incarceration. Is she truly mad—or could the impossible stories she told as a child actually be true?Time is running out. With Edie awaiting a new and permanent treatment, soon there will be little of her left to save. Meanwhile intrigue has tipped into obsession—Declan needs to uncover the truth, but in doing so he will risk losing everything. As he sets out to save her mind, will he lose his own?
Father of the Rain
Lily King - 2010
Nixon is about to be impeached, his wife is leaving him, and his worldview is rapidly becoming outdated. His daughter, Daley, has spent the first eleven years of her life carefully negotiating her parents’ conflicting worlds: the liberal, socially committed realm of her mother, and the conservative, liquor-soaked life of her father. But when they divorce, and Gardiner’s basest impulses are unleashed, the chasm quickly widens and Daley feels herself stretched thinly across it.As she grows into adulthood, Daley rejects the narrow world that nourished her father’s fears and prejudices, and embarks on her own separate life—until he hits rock bottom. Lured back home by the dream of getting her father sober and rebuilding a trust that was broken years ago, Daley risks losing everything she has found beyond him, including her new love, Jonathan, who represents so much of what Daley’s father claims to hate, and who has given her so much of what he could never provide.Intimate in its detail yet epic in range, Father of the Rain is a raw, compelling journey into the emotional complexities, mercurial contours, and magnetic pull of family. It is also the stunning portrait of a deeply complex man and his daughter’s fierce, primal attachment to him.