As the world opens up to war, a young girl closes down on a secret. As a purine, keeper of the secret, protector of the frescreets, she sacrifices her family, her friends and her freedom. What she doesn't know is that she's part of a bigger plan. Nor does she realise that as she gives up her time, she gains freedom from the puppeteer. There are no strings on Florence.Do you ever get the feeling you're being controlled? Like you are a victim of a greater plan? Like fists are pounding the earth beneath you and you are left to pick yourself up?Florence did.The pounding fists controlled her. The frescreets controlled her.Rafael controlled her.Hiter controlled her.And I controlled them all.Yet somehow Florence managed to slip through my fingers.She was uncontrollable.Independent.A purine.She slipped out of my strings and got away.

Goldminer. Counterfeiter. Slave. Dishwasher. Prostitute. Attorney. Sculptor. Mercenary. Elephant. Corpse. The colourful, fascinating characters that roam the pages of Emma Donoghue’ s stories have all gone astray: they are emigrants, runaways, drifters, lovers old and new. They cross other borders, too: those of race, law, sex and sanity. They travel for love or money, incognito or under duress. With rich detail, the celebrated author of Room takes us from puritan Massachusetts to the Yukon gold rush, antebellum Louisiana to a 1960s Toronto highway. Astray offers us a surprising and moving history for restless times.

Beckett's second last prose text, Worstward Ho, is a novella written in 1983, shortly after the largely autobiographical Company and an ironic theological speculation, both previously published as the first two parts of a late trilogy of short novels. The concentration of language and precision of description in the current work is revolutionary, even for Beckett, the great reshaper of literary expression, and its theme is the creation of life, as if by a malignant God or Demiurge. Life, against all possibility, finally exists, and man becomes a painful presence. It is one of the supreme poetic texts of the 20th century.

Rising sous-chef Kelly Matlock's sudden collapse at work is a wake-up call. Disillusioned and burned out, she's retreated to her sister Jillian's house in Virgin River to rest and reevaluate. Puttering in Jill's garden and cooking with her heirloom vegetables is wonderful, but Virgin River is a far cry from San Francisco. Kelly's starting to feel a little too unmotivated…until she meets Lief Holbrook. The handsome widower looks more like a lumberjack than a sophisticated screenwriter—a combination Kelly finds irresistible. But less appealing is Lief's rebellious stepdaughter, Courtney. She's the reason they moved from L.A., but Courtney's finding plenty of trouble even in Virgin River. Kelly's never fallen for a guy with such serious baggage, but some things are worth fighting for. Besides, a bratty teenager can't be any worse than a histrionic chef…right?

**A haunting, beautiful first novel by the bestselling author of *A Long Way Gone * When Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone was published in 2007, it soared to the top of bestseller lists, becoming an instant classic: a harrowing account of Sierra Leone’s civil war and the fate of child soldiers that “everyone in the world should read” (The Washington Post). Now Beah, whom Dave Eggers has called “arguably the most read African writer in contemporary literature,” has returned with his first novel, an affecting, tender parable about postwar life in Sierra Leone. At the center of Radiance of Tomorrow are Benjamin and Bockarie, two longtime friends who return to their hometown, Imperi, after the civil war. The village is in ruins, the ground covered in bones. As more villagers begin to come back, Benjamin and Bockarie try to forge a new community by taking up their former posts as teachers, but they’re beset by obstacles: a scarcity of food; a rash of murders, thievery, rape, and retaliation; and the depredations of a foreign mining company intent on sullying the town’s water supply and blocking its paths with electric wires. As Benjamin and Bockarie search for a way to restore order, they’re forced to reckon with the uncertainty of their past and future alike. With the gentle lyricism of a dream and the moral clarity of a fable, Radiance of Tomorrow is a powerful novel about preserving what means the most to us, even in uncertain times.

The first one-volume paperback of two novels, "Tunc" and "Nunquam", previously available singly, and as a one-volume hardback. The story is about a brilliant young inventor working for an all-powerful international company called Merlin, who creates a perfect robot facsimile of a beautiful woman.

Unmasks the tough, street-smart persona of Charles Bukowski—America's "Ultimate Outsider" Amazing letters filled with passionate, literary, and personal observation Insights into the author of Tales of Ordinary Madness, Notes of a Dirty Old Man, and Run with the Hunted Insights into Sheri Martinelli: the protege of Anais Nin, an accomplished painter, and the mistress of Ezra Pound Charels Bukowski's persona as the Dirty Old Man of American Literature is just that: a persona, a mask beneath which there was a man better read and more cultured than most people realize. Sheri Martinelli was one of the favored few for whom Bukowski dropped the mask and engaged in serious discussion of literature and art, and for that reason the discovery and publication of his letters to her give us a more complete picture of this complicated man.

Chez Joyce Carol Oates, les aspects les plus triviaux de la vie quotidienne peuvent tourner au cauchemar. Ces onze nouvelles dérangeantes et inventives en offrent encore une fois la preuve, disséquant les sentiments et les actes de personnages aux prises avec un univers lisse en surface, mais toujours susceptible de basculer. L'horreur n'est jamais loin : variation autour du meurtre du célèbre Dahlia noir, colocataire de la future Marilyn Monroe; tourments d'une prof vieillissante dont le désir d'enseigner vire à la catastrophe ; angoisse d'une adolescente arrachée par la police à son cours de maths ; mésaventures d'une femme au foyer insatisfaite qui croit voir un intrus chez elle... Comme à son habitude, Oates démontre son sens aigu de l'observation et son humour noir décapant quand elle croque les réactions désordonnées d'une mère apprenant que sa fille est victime de violences ; les tribulations d'un couple d'Américains en pleine crise de la quarantaine à Rome ; la rage rentrée d'un enfant non reconnu ; ou les efforts pitoyables d'un homme en quête de rédemption... Une chose est sûre : les nouvelles de ce recueil procureront au lecteur rires nerveux et délicieux frissons.

Anya Gage has learned that to get anything good in life, you have to work for it. She has no expectations, no dreams. Then she finds herself at a party where she doesn’t want to be and she meets Knight. Knight Sebring knows who he is, what he wants and what he likes. And he gets it. But he never expected something as sweet as Anya Gage to wander into his bedroom during a party he did not expect to be having to borrow his phone. Knight tries to leave Anya to the life she deserves of white picket fences and a man who watches football on Sundays – good, normal and clean. But when Anya comes to his nightclub and finds herself in a situation, he knows someone has to look after her, he can’t fight it anymore and he decides that man will be him. Knight teaches Anya that, just as with the bad, in life you should also expect the good. And he teaches her this by giving it to her. But Knight has a dark past and just as he desires Anya for exactly who she is, he fears when she finds out exactly the man he has become and always intends to be, she’ll leave him for good, normal and clean.

A hilarious and utterly original novel about mothers, daughters, and love, by the author of *Life After Life.* On a weather-beaten island off the coast of Scotland, Effie and her mother, Nora, take refuge in the large, mouldering house of their ancestors and tell each other stories. Nora, at first, recounts nothing that Effie really wants to hear--like who her real father was. Effie tells various versions of her life at college, where in fact she lives in a lethargic relationship with Bob, a student who never goes to lectures, seldom gets out of bed, and to whom Klingons are as real as Spaniards and Germans. But as mother and daughter spin their tales, strange things are happening around them. Is Effie being followed? Is someone killing the old people? And where is the mysterious yellow dog? In a brilliant comic narrative which explores the nonsensical power of language and meaning, Kate Atkinson has created another magical masterpiece.

In this immensely powerful, lyrical and skillfully narrated novel, set in southern Italy, nine year-old Michele discovers a secret so momentous, so terrible, that he daren’t tell anyone about it. Read an exclusive excerpt at BookBrowse today. The hottest summer of the twentieth century. A tiny community of five houses in the middle of wheat fields. While the adults shelter indoors, six children venture out on their bikes across the scorched, deserted countryside. In the midst of that sea of golden wheat, nine year-old Michele Amitrano discovers a secret so momentous, so terrible, that he daren’t tell anyone about it. To come to terms with it he will have to draw strength from his own imagination and sense of humanity. The reader witnesses a dual story: the one that is seen through Michele's eyes, and the tragedy involving the adults of this isolated hamlet. The result is an immensely powerful, lyrical and skillfully narrated novel, its atmosphere reminiscent of Tom Sawyer, Stephen King's Stand By Me and Italo Calvino's Italian Fairy Tales. This is Ammaniti's third book, but his first to be published in the USA.

For fans of Wolf Hall, Alison Weir’s New York Times bestselling biography of Henry VIII brilliantly brings to life the king, the court, and the fascinating men and women who vied for its pleasures and rewards. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Alison Weir’s Mary Boleyn. Henry VIII, renowned for his command of power, celebrated for his intellect, presided over the most stylish—and dangerous—court in Renaissance Europe. Scheming cardinals vied for power with newly rich landowners and merchants, brilliant painters and architects introduced a new splendor into art and design, and each of Henry's six queens brought her own influence to bear upon the life of the court. In her new book, Alison Weir, author of the finest royal chronicles of our time, brings to vibrant life the turbulent, complex figure of Henry VIII and the glittering court he made his own. In an age when a monarch's domestic and political lives were inextricably intertwined, a king as powerful and brilliant as Henry VIII exercised enormous sway over the laws, the customs, and the culture of his kingdom. Yet as Weir shows in this swift, vivid narrative, Henry's ministers, nobles, and wives were formidable figures in their own right, whose influence both enhanced and undermined the authority of the throne. On a grand stage rich in pageantry, intrigue, passion, and luxury, Weir records the many complex human dramas that swirled around Henry, while deftly weaving in an account of the intimate rituals and desires of England's ruling class—their sexual practices, feasts and sports, tastes in books and music, houses and gardens. Stimulating and tumultuous, the court of Henry VIII attracted the finest minds and greatest beauties in Renaissance England—poets Wyatt and Surrey, the great portraitist Hans Holbein, "feasting ladies" like Elizabeth Blount and Elizabeth FitzWalter, the newly rich Boleyn family and the ancient aristocratic clans like the Howards and the Percies, along with the entourages and connections that came and went with each successive wife. The interactions between these individuals, and the terrible ends that befell so many of them, make Henry VIII: The King and His Court an absolutely spellbinding read. Meticulous in historic detail, narrated with high style and grand drama, Alison Weir brilliantly brings to life the king, the court, and the fascinating men and women who vied for its pleasures and rewards. NOTE: This edition does not contain illustrations.

I fell hard for Cade the moment I met up with those bedroom eyes of his, but it’s not my heart I’m interested in gifting him. Cade James is my best friend’s brother, well bred and well bed. To him I’m just another plaything, but I can’t blame him for that. I’m not much to look at, and there’s not a man on the planet that would be willing to make me his own. But Cade is pulling me deeper, asking questions, wanting to know what makes me tick—wanting to know who gave me the scar that takes up the landscape over half my face. Cade wants far more than what I’m willing to give him. If I let him in, let him into the most sacred chamber of my heart, I might end up with a wound far greater than the one that left that scar. The wound Cade James has the power to inflict could never heal. Can be read as a standalone. No Cliffhanger.

Platinum Pohl is the first collection to collect all of the essential works of Frederik Pohl. First and foremost, Pohl is a master of the science fiction short story. For more than fifty years he has been writing incisive, entertaining SF stories, several hundred in all. Even while writing his bestselling triple-crown (Hugo, Nebula, Campbell Award) novel Gateway and the other Heechee Saga novels, he has always written short fiction. Now, for the first time, he has gathered together the best of his many stories. Spanning the decades, these tales are in their way a living history of science fiction. Because Frederik Pohl has been on the frontlines of the field since the halcyon days of the late 1930s, and has written short stories in every decade since. And because he has always been a keen observer of the human condition and the world that is shaped by it, his stories reflect the currents of political movements, social trends, major events that have shaken the world . . . Yet at their core, all his stories are most acutely concerned with people. All sorts of people. Some are people you'll love, some you'll hate. But you will need to find out what happens to the people who inhabit these stories. Because Frederik Pohl imbues his characters with a depth and individuality that makes them as real as people you see every day. Of course, he also employs a mind-boggling variety of scientific ideas and science fictional tropes with which his characters must interact. And he does it all with seemingly no effort at all. That's some trick. Not everyone can do that . . . but that's why he was named a Grand Master of Science Fiction by his peers in the Science Fiction Writers of America. Here are his two Hugo Award winning stories, "Fermi and Frost" and "The Meeting" (with C. M. Kornbluth), along with such classic novellas as the powerful "The Gold at the Starbow's End" and "The Greening of Bed-Stuy," and stories such as "Servant of the People," "Shaffery Among the Immortals," and "Growing Up in Edge City," all finalists for major awards. And dozens of other tales, like the wonderful "The Mayor of Mare Tranq" and the provocative "The Day the Martians Landed" and many others. Altogether, a grand collection of thought-provoking, entertaining science fiction by one of the all-time greats!

Jem Halliday is in love with her best friend. It doesn't matter that Kai is gay, or that he'll never look at her the way she looks at him. Jem is okay with that. But when Kai is outed online by one of their classmates, he does the unthinkable and commits suicide. Jem is left to pick up the pieces of her broken life. Before he died, Kai left her twelve letters—one for each month of the year—and those letters are all Jem has left. That, and revenge. Although Kai's letters beg her not to investigate what happened, Jem can't let it go. She needs to know who did this, and she'll stop at nothing to find the person responsible for Kai's death. One way or another, someone is going down. Someone is going to pay.