Trouble brews in the tiny country village of Fairacre when it isdiscovered that Farmer Miller's Hundred Acre Field is slated forreal estate development. Alarming rumors are circulating, amongthem the fear that the village school may close. The endearingschoolmistress Miss Read brings her inimitable blend of affectionand clear-sighted candor to this report, in which a young girlfinds her first love, an older woman accepts a new role in life,and the impassioned battle to save the village from being engulfedis at the forefront of every villager's mind.
No one brings to life the Old West like Louis L'Amour. Collectedhere for the first time, these vintage frontier stories introduceyou to lawmen and loners, ranchers and renegades, gunslingers,cardsharps, bank robbers, etc. In these pages L'Amour brings tolife such classic characters as the Cactus Kid, Tensleep Mooney,One-Eared Tim, and the gunfighter Kim Sartain. These are frontiertales as only L'Amour can tell them--stories that surprise like thesharp crack of a Winchester and move like the lonely howl of thewind across an empty plain on the long ride home.
Marguerite Gautier was the most beautiful, brazen-- and expensive--courtesan in all of Paris. Despite being ill with consumption, she lived a glittering, moneyed life of nonstop parties and aristocratic balls and savored every day as if it were her last. Into her life came Armand l)uval. Young, handsome, recklessly headstrong, he was hopelessly in love with Marguerite, but not nearly rich enough. Yet Armand was Marguerite's first true love, and against her better judgment, she threw away her upper-class lifestyle for him. But as intense as their love for each other was, it challenged a reality that would not be denied。
A major new discovery, Susan Krinard electrifies readers oftoday's hottest area of commercial women's fiction: romances with afantasy twist. The hero of Prince of Wolves is one of the lastsurvivors of an ancient race of werewolves--an attractive loner whoguides a vulnerable woman through the rugged Canadian Rockies.
Meet Sugar, a nineteen-year-old prostitute innineteenth-century London who yearns for escape to a better life.From the brothel of the terrifying Mrs. Castaway, she begins herascent through society, meeting a host of lovable, maddening,unforgettable characters on the way. They begin with WilliamRackham, an egotistical perfume magnate whose empire is fueled byhis lust for Sugar; his unhinged, child-like wife Agnes; hismysteriously hidden-away daughter, Sophie; and his pious brotherHenry, foiled in his devotional calling by a persistentlyless-than-chaste love for the Widow Fox. All this is overseen byassorted preening socialites, drunken journalists, untrustworthyservants, vile guttersnipes, and whores of all stripes andpersuasions. Teeming with life, this is a big, juicy must-read of a novel thathas enthralled hundreds of thousands of readers-and will continueto do so for years to come.
Frank, no ordinary sixteen-year-old, lives with his fatheroutsIde a remote Scottish village. Their life is, to say the least,unconventional. Frank's mother abandoned them years ago: his elderbrother Eric is confined to a psychiatric hospital; and his fathermeasures out his eccentricities on an imperial scale. Frank hasturned to strange acts of violence to vent his frustrations. In thebizarre daily rituals there is some solace. But when news comes ofEric's escape from the hospital Frank has to prepare the ground forhis brother's inevitable return - an event that explodes themysteries of the past and changes Frank utterly. Iain Banks'celebrated first novel is a work of extraordinary originality,imagination and horrifying compulsion: horrifying, because itenters a mind whose realities are not our own, whose values of lifeand death are alien to our society; and compulsive, because thehumour and compassion of that mind reach out to us all.
'All modern American literature comes from one book by MarkTwain called Huckleberry Finn, ' Ernest Hemingway wrote. 'It's thebest book we've had.' A complex masterpiece that has spawnedvolumes of scholarly exegesis and interpretative theories, it is atheart a compelling adventure story. Huck, in flight from hismurderous father, and Nigger Jim, in flight from slavery, pilottheir raft thrillingly through treacherous waters, surviving acrash with a steamboat, betrayal by rogues, and the final threatfrom the bourgeoisie. Informing all this is the presence of theRiver, described in palpable detail by Mark Twain, the formersteamboat pilot, who transforms it into a richly metaphoric entity.Twain's other great innovation was the language of the book itself,which is expressive in a completely original way. 'The invention ofthis language, with all its implications, gave a new dimension toour literature, ' Robert Penn Warren noted. 'It is a languagecapable of poetry.' "From the eBook edition."
Nora Roberts continues the romantic saga: the story of threewomen who shared a home and a childhood -- but grew to fulfilltheir own unique destinies.
**DEBUT FICTION** Mary Todd Lincoln is one of history's mostmisunderstood and enigmatic women. The first president's wife to becalled First Lady, she was a political strategist, a supporter ofemancipation, and a mother who survived the loss of three childrenand the assassination of her beloved husband. Yet she also ran herfamily into debt, held seances in the White House, and wascommitted to an insane asylum. In Janis Cooke Newman's debut novel,Mary Todd Lincoln shares the story of her life in her own words.Writing from Bellevue Place asylum, she takes readers from hertempestuous childhood in a slaveholding Southern family through theyears after her husband's death. A dramatic tale filled withpassion and depression, poverty and ridicule, infidelity andredemption, Mary allows us entry into the inner, intimate world ofthis brave and fascinating woman.
In this romantic, funny, and heartwarming classic novel, #1"New York Times" bestselling author Tami Hoag poignantly capturesone eventful summer in the life of a woman facing the ultimaterelationship dilemma. It took only one look for Genna Hastings tomake up her mind about her new next-door neighbor, J. J. Hennessy.She knew his type all too well: Jared Jay Hennessy was tall andhandsome, a man who thought he was God's gift to women. From thepink flamingos dotting his front yard to the all-night boozybarbecues, he threatened to disrupt Genna's peaceful summer offfrom teaching. But beneath his carefree smile and teasing nature,J.J. was a man as serious about the future as he was about Genna.He'd come to this quiet Connecticut town to change his life, and hechallenged Genna to help him become Mr. Right. It was a challengeshe knew she'd be smart to refuse . . . and one J.J. knew shecouldn't resist.
In Victorian England, an orphan girl is sent to a countryestate to work for-and ultimately woo-its young heiress, on behalfof a mysterious benefactor known as Gentleman.
The editors of the best-selling rediscovered Tolkien novelRoverandom present an expanded fiftieth anniversary edition ofTolkien's beloved classic Farmer Giles of Ham, complete with a map,the original story outline, the original first-editionillustrations by Pauline Baynes, and the author's notes for anunpublished sequel. Farmer Giles of Ham is a light-hearted satirefor readers of all ages that tells the tale of a reluctant hero whomust save his village from a dragon. It is a small gem of a talethat grows more delightful with each rereading.
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Nicholas Sparks comes a tender story of hope and joy, of sacrifice and forgiveness-a moving reminder that love is possible at any age, at any time, and often comes when we least expect it. At forty-five, Adrienne Willis must rethink her entire life when her husband abandons her for a younger woman. Reeling with heartache and in search of a respite, she flees to the small coastal town of Rodanthe, North Carolina, to tend to a friend's inn for the weekend. But when a major storm starts moving in, it appears that Adrienne's perfect getaway will be ruined-until a guest named Paul Flanner arrives. At fifty-four, Paul has just sold his medical practice and come to Rodanthe to escape his own shattered past. Now, with the storm closing in, two wounded people will turn to each other for comfort-and in one weekend set in motion feelings that will resonate throughout the rest of their lives.
On the Battersea Reach of the Thames, a mixed bag ofeccentrics live in houseboats. Belonging to neither land nor sea,they belong to one another. There is Maurice, a homosexualprostitute; Richard, a buttoned-up ex-navy man; but most of allthere's Nenna, the struggling mother of two wild little girls. Howeach of their lives complicates the others is the stuff of thisperfect little novel.
In this swashbuckling novel, by the author of Treasure Island,young Dick Shelton is left orphaned. So he seeks the help of themysterious Black Arrow fellowship. Brimming with adventure andsuspense, this is a portrait of England during the War of theRoses, when many, like Dick, were torn between their loyalties.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award, TheSoul of a New Machine was a bestseller on its first publication in1981. With the touch of an expert thriller writer, Tracy Kidderrecounts the feverish efforts of a team of Data General researchersto create a new 32-bit superminicomputer. A compelling account ofindividual sacrifice and human ingenuity, The Soul of a New Machineendures as the classic chronicle of the computer age and themasterminds behind its technological advances. "A superb book," said Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art ofMotorcycle Maintenance. "All the incredible complexity and chaosand exploitation and loneliness and strange, half-mad beauty ofthis field are honestly and correctly drawn." The Washington PostBook World said, "Kidder has created compelling entertainment. Heoffers a fast, painless, enjoyable means to an initialunderstanding of computers, allowing us to understand thecomplexity of machines we could only marvel at before, and toappreciate the skills
