本书精选法国著名作家莫泊桑的39篇中短篇小说，有《羊脂球》《我的叔叔于勒》《项链》等不朽名篇，内容丰富多彩，结构巧妙动人。
"Good riddance", is the response of every Pecan Springsresident to the murder of local real estate shark Edgar Coleman. itdoesn't take long for China to learn that Coleman was havingnumerous affairs -- and was blackmailing City Council members fortheir votes on a bad land development deal. With her fianceimmersed in the murder investigation -- and the suspect listgrowing longer by the minute -- China can forget about a honeymoon,unless she can find the killer...
Book De*ion About Dean Koontz's Frankenstein Dean Koontz's Frankenstein is the collective title of a series ofnovels co-written by Dean Koontz. Though technically of the mysteryor thriller genres, the novels also feature the trappings ofhorror, fantasy, and science fiction. From the celebrated imagination of Dean Koontz comes a powerfulreworking of one of the classic stories of all time. If you thinkyou know the story, you know only half the truth. Get ready for themystery, the myth, the terror, and the magic of… Dean Koontz's Prodigal Son Every city has secrets. But none as terrible as this. His name isDeucalion, a tattooed man of mysterious origin, asleight-of-reality artist who’s traveled the centuries with asecret worse than death. He arrives as a serial killer stalks thestreets, a killer who carefully selects his victims for thehumanity that is missing in himself. Detective Carson O’Connor iscool, cynical, and every bit as tough as she looks
A terrorist plot in London leads Israeli spy Gabriel Allon ona desperate search for a kidnapped woman, in a race against timethat will compromise Allonas own conscienceaand life...
Nine strokes from an old country church toll out the death ofan unknown man and call Lord Peter Wimsey to one of his mostbaffling cases. Set in the strange, flat fen-country of EastAnglia, this is a classic tale of suspense by a master ofmystery.
In this collection of five Christmas-themed stories, belovedauthor Mary Balogh brings together tales of love, marriage,friendship, loneliness, and healing. Includes four Balogh holidayclassics, "The Star of Bethlehem," "The Best Gift," "PlayingHouse," and "No Room At the Inn," as well as "A Family Christmas,"which is only available in this anthology.
In 1959 Florence Green, a kindhearted widow with a smallinheritance, risks everything to open a bookshop - the onlybookshop - in the seaside town of Hardborough. By making a successof a business so impractical, she invites the hostility of thetown's less prosperous shopkeepers. By daring to enlarge herneighbors' lives, she crosses Mrs. Gamart, the local arts doyenne.Florence's warehouse leaks, her cellar seeps, and the shop isapparently haunted. Only too late does she begin to suspect thetruth: a town that lacks a bookshop isn't always a town that wantsone.
Matagorda Tap Duvarney lost his innocence in the War Between theStates, then tested his skills in the frontier army. Now he'ssettled on the Texas coast, working a ranch as the partner of hisold friend Tom Kittery--and finding himself in the middle of a feudbetween Kittery and a neighboring family. But the danger fromoutside is nothing compared to the threat within, as Duvarneysuspects Kittery's woman isn't all she appears to be. Tap may haveto go to war again. But this time will it be with his closestfriend? The First Fast Draw East Texas wasn't much of a home forCullen Baker. Few liked him, and some even tried to kill him. Yetafter three years of wandering, he's back to farm the land that isrightfully his. But Cullen's neighbors have long memories, and hisworst adversary has teamed up with a vicious outlaw. With enemiesclosing in on all sides and threatening the woman he loves, Cullenwill have to be faster than lightning--and twice as deadly--just tosurvive.
Isaac and Nora haven't seen each other in five years, yet whenNora phones Isaac late one night, he knows who it is before she'sspoken a word. Isaac, a photographer, is relinquishing his artisticcareer, while Nora, a writer, is seeking to rededicate herself tohers. Fueled by their rediscovered love, Nora is soon on fire withthe best work she's ever done, until she realizes that the storyshe's writing has turned into a fictionalized portrait of Isaac,exposing his frailties and compromises and sure to be viewed by himas a betrayal. How do we remain faithful to our calling if itestranges us from the people we love? How do we remain in loveafter we have seen the very worst of our loved ones? These are someof the questions explored in a novel that critics are calling "anabsolute pleasure" (The Seattle Times).
From #1 "New York Times" bestselling author Tami Hoagcomes this romance classic about a man in love--and the woman who'sdetermined to prove it to him... Maggie McSwain should have beenthrilled when Rylan Quaid asked her to marry him. Instead, she wascrushed. After all her romantic fantasies, Ry's proposal wasmissing one crucial element: "love. "But Maggie would prove to Rythat he had a heart--and then she'd use every teasing, temptingounce of seductive power she had to capture it. The next time heproposed to her--and there would be a next time--common sense wouldbe the last thing on his mind. As far as Ry was concerned, solidpartnerships made for lasting marriages--and that's what he couldhave with Maggie. Of course he wanted her, as any man with eyeswould want her. But he couldn't love her...because he'd vowed neverto fall in love again. Now it seemed that the only way to make herhis wife was to use reverse psychology. He'd just retract hisproposal--and pretend to be immune to her charms. He had no
Slapstick presents an apocalyptic vision seen through the eyesof the current King of Manhattan (and last President of the UnitedStates), a wickedly irreverent look at the all-too-possible resultsof today's follies. But even the end of life-as-we-know-it istransformed by Vonnegut's pen into hilarious farce (a finalslapstick that may be the Almighty's joke on us all.) "Vonnegut'songoing puppet show...that fabulous is reborn."--John Updike "Bothfunny and sad...just about perfect "--"Los AngelesTimes""Imaginative and hilarious...a brilliant vision of ourwrecked, wacked-out future."--"Hartford Courant "*"The New YorkTimes"
Revolution is in the air. The king's court sorcerer is beingeyed with suspicion. Not for dabbling in the black arts...not forconsorting with a demon...not for having a dragon as a pet...noteven for being mobbed up. But for the greatest crime of all:raising taxes. Who is this terrible tyrant? None other than Skeevethe Great. Oh, how the mighty have fallen...
Vicki Forman gave birth to Evan and Ellie, weighing just a poundat birth, at twenty-three weeks gestation. During the delivery shebegged the doctors to "let her babies go" she knew all too wellthat at twenty-three weeks they could very well die and, if theysurvived, they would face a high risk of permanent disabilities.However, California law demanded resuscitation. Her daughter diedjust four days later; her son survived and was indeed multiplydisabled: blind, nonverbal, and dependent on a feeding tube. ThisLovely Life tells, with brilliant intensity, of what became of theForman family after the birth of the twins the harrowing medicalinterventions and ethical considerations involving the sanctity oflife and death. In the end, the longdelayed first steps of afive-year-old child will seem like the fist-pumping stuff of atriumph narrative. Formans intelligent voice gives a sensitive,nuanced rendering of her guilt, her anger, and her eventualacceptance in this portrait of a mothers fierce love for herchildren.
After the Berlin Wall came down and opened up new changes ineastern Europe, John le Carre's stunning novel, The Secret Pilgrim,takes us behind the scenes into the former Cold War world. Nothing is as it was. Old enemies embrace.The dark staging grounds of the Cold War, whose shadows barelyobscured the endless games of espionage, are flooded with light;the rules are rewritten, the stakes changed, the futureunfathomable. John le Carre has seized this momentous turning pointin history to give us the most disturbing experience we have yethad of the frail and brutal world of spydom. The man called Ned speaks to us. All hisadult life he has been in British Intelligence--the Circus--aloyal, shrewd, wily officer of the Cold War. Now, approaching theend of his career, he revisits his own past. He invites us on atour of his three decades in the Circus, burrowing deep into thetwilight world where he ran spies--'joes'--from Poland, Estonia,Hungary.
Four friends come together in a hot contemporary erotic novelfrom the author of Chain Reaction. Meet the friends: Free spirited Jamie is not one to be tieddown—unless it’s in the bedroom. Caleb is Jamie’s sexuallyadventurous lover who has no desire to domesticate her. Mia isJamie’s naive friend whose sexual fulfillment has depended solelyon her first and only lover. Aidan thinks he knows what Mia wants.That’s because he’s the only man she’s ever gone to, to getit. This weekend, four best friends at the crossroads of theirrelationships have decided to do something different. But as sexualpartners shift, Jamie, Caleb, Mia, and Aidan will discover moreabout themselves and each other than they ever imagined.
★Mandy Pajeck had a tough childhood. Now 28,she feelsresponsible for the accident that took her younger brother's sight.But his complete reliance on her care is making them bothmiserable.When she meets handsome Zach Harrigan and his mini guidehorse,she thinks she's found the ticket to her brother'shappiness-and maybe her own
The house looked right, felt right to Dr Louis Creed.Rambling, old, unsmart and comfortable. A place where the family could settle; the children grow and play and explore. The rolling hills and meadows of Maine seemed a world away from the fume-choked dangers of Chicago.Only the occasional big truck out on the two-lane highway, grinding up through the gears, hammering down the long gradients, growled out an intrusive threat.But behind the house and far away from the road: that was safe. Just a carefully cleared path up into the woods where generations of local children have processed with the solemn innocence of the young, taking with them their dear departed pets for burial.A sad place maybe, but safe. Surely a safe place. Not a place to seep into your dreams, to wake you, sweating with fear and foreboding.
