Charlotte Bridgwater lives with her father, a former British general, and just one loyal servant in a stately old mansion in the town of Rampur. Money is scarce and the once grand estate is crumbling.In a desperate bid to generate income, Charlotte rents a room to Madan, an Indian tailor with an astonishing talent for making beautiful garments. Madan is unable to communicate verbally, but the two have an immediate and electrifying connection. And, as the extreme heat before the impending monsoon paralyzes the residents of Rampur, the details of their lives unfold: Charlotte's unhappy childhood and the early death of her husband, Madan's poverty-stricken life on the streets, and how and when their paths have crossed before.Told in rich, rhapsodic prose, spanning decades and across continents, Waiting for the Monsoon is an unforgettable tale of love, loss, and the unwavering bond between two people.

    But first, Gustave must pit himself against giants and a Siamese Twin Tornado. He will also encounter the Most Monstrous of All Monsters, rescue a beautiful damsel from a dragon, traverse a forest swarming with evil spirits, navigate a Galactic Gully, and meet a dream princess, a talking horse, and even his own self. Having made a wager with death for nothing less than his life and soul, Gustave must travel from the earth to the moon and back in a single night. Using drawings from the work of Gustave Doré, the most successful illustrator of the 19th century, Walter Moers has once again created a wondrous, utterly enchanting tale.

    Uwe Timm has heard claims that currywurst first appeared in Berlin in the 1950s, but he seems to recall having eaten it much earlier, as a boy in his native Hamburg, at a stand owned and operated by Lena Brücker. He decides to check it out. Although the discovery of curried sausage is eventually explained, it is its prehistory - about how Lena Brücker met, seduced and held captive a German deserter in Hamburg, in April, 1945, just before the war's end - that is the tastiest part. Timm draws gorgeous details from Lena's fine-grained recollections, and the pleasure these provide her and the reader supply the tale's real charm.

    Through the Battle of Solferino, to the entombment of the last Hapsburg emperor, Roth's intelligent compassionate narrative illuminates the crumbling of a way of life.

    She has been summoned to Provence House, a magnificent English country estate, in order to translate a recently uncovered ancient scroll. But it seems the attraction of Provence House stretches beyond the professional…Forbidden from discussing the shocking truths she is uncovering with any outsiders, Laura finds herself swept up in a passionate affair with James, the married heir to Provence House. This one glorious Cornish summer will change Laura’s life – and rewrite history – for ever. Laura must find the courage to expose the devastating historical truths, lost in the mists of time, knowing they will rock civilisation to its very core.For fans of Santa Montefiore and Dinah Jeffries, this sweeping epic is the perfect escapist read for summer 2020.

    Precociously intelligent, self-confident, and attractive but with a stubborn, wayward streak, Sophia withstood a degree of emotional battering that would have broken a weaker spirit until at last she emerged, triumphant over her many enemies, as Empress Catherine II of Russia.Her achievements as empress were prodigious. She brought vast new lands under Russian rule. She raised the prestige of Russia in Europe. She began the process of imposing legal and political order on the chaos she inherited from her predecessors. Yet few historical figures have been so enthusiastically vilified as Catherine the Great. Whispers that she had ordered her husband's murder grew to murmurs that she was an immoral woman and finally to shouts that she was a depraved, lust-crazed nymphomaniac. With deft mastery of historical narrative and an unsurpassed ability to make the past live again, Carolly Erickson uncovers the real woman behind the tarnished image—an indomitable, feisty, often visionary ruler who, in an age of caveats and constraints, blithely went her own way.Great Catherine reveals the complexities of this great ruler's nature, her craving for love, her insecurities, the inevitable sorrows and disappointments of a strong empress who dared not share her power with any man yet longed to be led and guided by a loving consort. Great Catherine is a fresh portrait of an infamous historical figure, one that reveals how Catherine's flawed triumph guaranteed her posthumous fame and enhanced the might and renown of Russia for generations to come.

    Reserved and cool-headed, Marius Temperley has left the army and is struggling to fit into civilian life. His sister, Julia, quick-tempered, proud and passionate, has been running the family business since the death of her father. Both the Chancellor brothers, Jack and Will, are in love with her. As the years go by, family secrets are revealed, and the Temperleys and the Chancellors learn that passion can be both destructive and redemptive.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    There, she slowly regains her strength and her mental state improves.To secure her future, Dorith, who now goes by Tora, trains to be a cook and soon learns she has other abilities too. She is given secret scrolls to study, writings from Hildegard von Bingen and Paracelsus who hid much of their knowledge from the Church.To avoid an accusation of witchcraft she is forced to flee the cloister, and she begins a long adventure to become a white witch.Will Tora ever find her way back to her life and family? Will she ever be safe?

    Set in an unnamed German-occupied ghetto, the story centers on an unlikely hero, Jakob Heym, who accidentally overhears news of vital importance: the Russians are advancing on a city three hundred miles away. As Jakob's tidings rekindle hope and the promise of liberation, he feels compelled to elaborate. Forming a protective bond with a young orphan girl, Jakob becomes caught in his own web of optimistic lies. Awarded Germany's prestigious Heinrich Mann Prize for fiction and in a new translation by Leila Vennewitz, Jakob the Liar is a masterpiece of Kafkaesque comedy which unfolds with the impact of a timeless folk legend.

    Maureen Jackson is a prisoner of her father's blackmail. Three years ago, she'd been hoping to marry Rory, the man of her dreams. However after her mother's death Maureen was left to care and work for the overbearing father who claimed he couldn't manage without her. Now Rory is back in London with a pregnant wife in tow and reminds Maureen of the life that should have been hers. Janet Ashley is the daughter of Peggy and Laurence, landlords of the local pub The Dog and Pheasant on Mulberry Lane. With the war looming, Janet hopes to marry her sweetheart Mike, but her father refuses to grant them his blessing. Going against his wishes Janet finds herself pregnant and Peggy is determined to hold her family together at all costs. The Girls of Mulberry Lane is the first in a series set in London's East End during WW2. Order the next book in the Series out JANUARY 2018 - A Wedding at Mulberry Lane.

    Written in diary form, it tells the tale of an unhappy, passionate young man hopelessly in love with Charlotte, the wife of a friend - a man who he alternately admires and detests. 'The Sorrows of Young Werther' became an important part of the 'Sturm und Drang movement, and greatly influenced later 'Romanticism'. The work is semi-autobiographical - in 1772, two years before the novel was published, Goethe had passed through a similar tempestuous period, when he lost his heart to Charlotte Buff, who was at that time engaged to his friend Johann Christian Kestner.

    She is the legend that will not die–Pope Joan, the ninth-century woman who disguised herself as a man and rose to become the only female ever to sit on the throne of St. Peter. Now in this riveting novel, Donna Woolfolk Cross paints a sweeping portrait of an unforgettable heroine who struggles against restrictions her soul cannot accept.Brilliant and talented, young Joan rebels against medieval social strictures forbidding women to learn. When her brother is brutally killed during a Viking attack, Joan takes up his cloak–and his identity–and enters the monastery of Fulda. As Brother John Anglicus, Joan distinguishes herself as a great scholar and healer. Eventually, she is drawn to Rome, where she becomes enmeshed in a dangerous web of love, passion, and politics. Triumphing over appalling odds, she finally attains the highest office in Christendom–wielding a power greater than any woman before or since. But such power always comes at a price . . .In this international bestseller, Cross brings the Dark Ages to life in all their brutal splendor and shares the dramatic story of a woman whose strength of vision led her to defy the social restrictions of her day.

    Fleeing to her sister's house in the Welsh borders to recuperate, she is disturbed by the cries of a mysterious child. Two thousand years before, the same valley is the site of a great battle between Caractacus, king of the mighty Catuvellauni tribe, and the invading Romans. The proud king is captured and taken as a prisoner to Rome with his wife and daughter, the princess Eigon. Jess is inexorably drawn to investigate Eigon's story, and as the Welsh cottage is no longer a peaceful sanctuary she determines to visit Rome. There lie the connections that will reveal Eigon's astonishing life - and which threaten to reawaken Jess's own tormentor.Barbara Erskine's ability to weave together the past and the present, shedding light on a real but little-known figure, makes this a tremendous novel of Roman and Celtic history, passion and intrigue.

    Flanagan, a grand-scale promoter in the P. T. Barnum vein, organizes a cross-country footrace from Los Angeles to New York, with a purse of $150,000 for the winner. Two thousand runners from around the world gather to participate in the grueling trek, which takes them through mountains, deserts, plains, and cities, forcing some friends and some alliances, tempered of course by the intense competition of the situation. Only a portion of the novel is set in Illinois, but organized fisticuffs in Springfield and organized crime in Chicago provide interesting and lively entertainment, along with period views of those cities.