Brigadier Warrington thinks of himself as a well-moneyed playboy. His main wish is to please his son Tom, but his main desire is unsuitable women. This time it's Irma, a mysterious adventuress, unfortunately married to a certain militant Herr Gantzenhausen. When Tom arrives at his father's villa at Trigoso he takes an immediate dislike to Irma. Then there's the threatened appearance of her husband that hangs like thunder round the villa and reduces its inhabitants to a state of siege. The murder comes almost as a relief ... 'One of the funniest moments of truth in recent fiction' Financial Times
Playing games is the best part of growing up. Help kids tap into their playful imaginations with 101 Games to Play Before You Grow Up, the ultimate handbook for kids that introduces tons of games to play by themselves or with friends and family! Offering an extensive list of games, from classic favorites such as H.O.R.S.E., Simon Says, and Handball to quirky card and board games such as Pandemic and Spoons, your children will get up, get outside, and never get bored. 101 Games to Play Before You Grow Up features both indoor and outdoor games for rainy or snowy days. With so many ways to play, kids will always have something new to do!
"Kate was what you wanted, somehow, in this infinitely ironic age. She was the kind of girl about whom other girls used to say, 'All right, so she's thin but,' trying vainly to suss out the appeal. And even now, when her name comes up, and with it the sulky protest it invariably evokes--'She's not that great'--I do not feel compelled to argue in her defense." Some fiction debuts have remarkably strong stories, some have refreshing new voices, some have perfect cultural timing. The Fundamentals of Play is that literary rarity which has all three. George Lenhart is, chronically, in love with Kate Goodenow. So is Nick Beale, the working-class son of a Maine lobsterman from the town where Kate spent her childhood summers. So is Chat Wethers, an old-money friend of George's from Dartmouth. And so is Harry Lombardi, a brilliant, startlingly successful, but socially awkward Dartmouth upstart who has been trying to enter this circle for years. It is George who tells the interwoven stories of these five young people, some of whom, in their lineage or finances, represent the last gasp of the old Northeastern Upper Class. Starting with the year after college, when they all land in Manhattan, George describes the good times and disappointments, ambition and manners, sexual secrets and money-cursed friendships, that have tied these people to one another for a lifetime. He tells of Nick's charismatic past and drug-ridden present, and he shows the snobbery and avarice that lurk in Kate's background--in stark contrast to her ineffable allure. And as George tells these stories (and observes Harry's spectacular rise in the new, as-yet-unnamed phenomenon of the Internet), he implicitly chronicles the end of an era and the emergence of a new definition of class--just as The Fundamentals of Play represents the emergence of a distinctive new talent in American fiction.
Ironskin is Tina Connolly's enchanting historical fantasy, a loose reimagining of Jane Eyre set in an alternate version of England in the early 1900s, in the aftermath of a war between humans and the fey. Jane Eliot wears an iron mask. It's the only way to contain the fey curse that scars her cheek. The Great War is five years gone, but its scattered victims remain—the ironskin. When a carefully worded listing appears for a governess to assist with a "delicate situation"—a child born during the Great War—Jane is certain the child is fey-cursed, and that she can help. Teaching the unruly Dorie to suppress her curse is hard enough; she certainly didn't expect to fall for the girl's father, the enigmatic artist Edward Rochart. But her blossoming crush is stifled by her scars and by his parade of women. Ugly women, who enter his closed studio...and come out as beautiful as the fey. Jane knows Rochart cannot love her, just as she knows that she must wear iron for the rest of her life. But what if neither of these things are true? Step by step Jane unlocks the secrets of a new life—and discovers just how far she will go to become whole again. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
The artistic Ernestina and the analytical Enriquito use their ingenuity to save a herd of wild horses and stop an evil landowner from spoiling their Cuban village.
"Midafternoon on a Tuesday, it occurred to Bean Jessup that she was forgetting her husband's face." So begins this smart and charmingly written debut novel about a young woman trying to start over amid the grandeur of the Alaskan landscape and the creaky confines of an isolated fishing village and its relentless and pungent salmon cannery. A Hole in the Heart is the story of what happens when Bean arrives after accepting a last-minute elementary-school-teaching job in a town of 2500 people on Alaska's southern coast. Love and marriage follow in short order, surprising Bean, who feels that her husband is not only the best thing to happen to her, but the only good thing. Then Mick vanishes leading amateur hikers--or "tuna" as the guides call them--up Mt. McKinley. Suddenly, Bean is thrown back upon herself and into the company of Mick's mother Hanna, an arthritic woman in her seventies who believes that "a little larceny is good for the circulation." The pair chafe at first, but eventually become partners in a road trip back to California. Mike's disappearance feels like a hole in the heart, they decide, and Hanna tells Bean to prize that hole; it's something no one can take away from her. With gentle humor, pathos, and boundless stores of hope, Marquis writes of Bean's struggle with early widowhood, loss, and moving on. An avid bird-watcher, Bean takes much of her wisdom from the Pemberton Guide to Alaska Birds. Like the globe-crossing birds she so admires, she has struggled to get aloft, but for a delicious, perhaps fleeting moment in this marvelous novel, we see her glide. Book Magazine selected Christopher Marquis as one of "Ten To Watch In 2003" for this "Proulxian saga." With its first-rate evocation of landscape and its affectionately drawn characters, A Hole in the Heart marks the publication debut of a prodigiously talented writer.
Part Two of Two sets of books from the Devilish Debutantes Series by Annabelle Anders bundled for your convenience. Hell’s Belle: Emily Goodnight, a curiously smart bluestocking, who cannot see a thing without her spectacles, is raising the art of meddling to new heights. Hell Of A Lady: She's hopeless, and he's hopelessly devoted. Together, they must conquer the ton, her disgrace, and his empty pockets. With a little deviousness and a miracle or two, is it possible this devilish match was really made in heaven? To Hell And Back: Eve Mossant’s life has been quite turned over, as has the carriage she was traveling in to attend her estranged husband’s funeral. Thank heavens for Mr. Waverly, her ever dependable man of business. She wouldn’t know where she’d be without him… Hell’s Wedding Bells: JILTED by one future duke, Lila has no choice but to wed another. She will marry the man, escape from her father's clutches and free her sister as well. Her groom is simply the means to an end, that is, until he becomes so much more.
This “engaging and memorable novel,” set in post-WWI England and France, takes a wise, witty look at love, growing up, and class differences (Publishers Weekly). For the British families who vacation there, the shore town of Dinard, France, is a getaway from the ills of modern life. But when Flora Trevelyan visits with her self-absorbed parents in 1926, it’s not an escape she finds—instead, it’s a doorway into a different world, a different life, that she never knew existed. As the years pass, Flora embarks on a journey of discovery, from falling for three very different young men to understanding the follies of an upper class society of which she will never quite be a part to uncovering the difference between true friends and fair-weather companions. Along the way, her own life and those of her new acquaintances will be upended, and as the shadows of World War II fall over Europe, Flora will have to decide what kind of person she wants to be—and whether being sensible makes sense. Praised by the Daily Telegraph as “delicious,” Mary Wesley’s sharply humorous coming-of-age story weaves a tale of an unloved, neglected child who turns into a fiercely independent woman, both an entertaining romp and an astute glimpse into British society between the two World Wars.