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Testimony
0$4.99At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break. Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape. A Pandora’s box of revelations, the tape triggers a chorus of voices–those of the men, women, teenagers, and parents involved in the scandal–that details the ways in which lives can be derailed or destroyed in one foolish moment.
Writing with a pace and intensity surpassing even her own greatest work, Anita Shreve delivers in Testimony a gripping emotional drama with the impact of a thriller. No one more compellingly explores the dark impulses that sway the lives of seeming innocents, the needs and fears that drive ordinary men and women into intolerable dilemmas, and the ways in which our best intentions can lead to our worst transgressions.
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The Alphabet Sisters
0$4.99As girls growing up in Clare Valley, Australia, Anna, Bett, and Carrie Quinlan were childhood singing stars known as The Alphabet Sisters. The unbridled enthusiasm of their flamboyant grandmother Lola was the glue that held them together. As adults, though, the women haven’t spoken in years – ever since Bett’s fiance deserted her to marry the younger Carrie. Now Lola is turning eighty and she is determined to reunite the girls for a blowout bash. And no one ever says no to Lola.
Bett, who fled to London after the scandal of losing her fiance, is hesitant to face her sisters and her hometown – especially since she has yet to find another man. Sophisticated Anna, the eldest sister, isn’t too keen on the prospect either, though she’s secretly grateful for any excuse to leave her crumbling marriage behind in Sydney. And Carrie, who remained in Clare Valley, is perhaps the most apprehensive. Her marriage – the nominal cause of the sisters’ estrangement – is also on the rocks. Was she wrong to have followed her heart and run off with Bett’s fiance?
When Lola shares her special request, that the girls stage a musical she has written, their short visit becomes a much longer commitment. As they are forced to spend more time together, the sisters must confront the pain that lingers between them. Preconceptions and misunderstandings are slowly put aside and the three find themselves gradually, irresistibly enveloping one another once again – until an unexpected turn of events changes everything in ways none of them could have ever imagined. . . .
Layering the lighthearted antics of small-town life with a heartbreaking story of loyalty lost and found, The Alphabet Sisters is an unforgettable story of two generations of women who learn that being true to themselves means being true to one another.
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The Ancient Future – Book #1 – The Dark Age
0$4.99The white light surrounded her, exuding from the ground within the circle. The mist rose towards the sky to form a billowing cloud. From within the largest stone a ball of blue light steadily made its way towards her.
Late one evening, a car accident leaves Tory – a daughter of a prominent history professor – stranded near a ring of stones in the English countryside. She resolves to spend the night at the sacred site; a black belt in Tae-kwon-do, Tory holds little fear for her safety…
But across the vortex of time and space, she is being watched. The Merlin knows of the legend Tory is to become, and through the wisdom of the Old Ones, teleports her back to the Dark Age.
Prince Maelgwyn of Gwynedd and his band of knights stumble across this mysterious woman dressed in jeans and a leather jacket. Believing she is the witch of the stones, they threaten to kill her. Rising to her own defence, Tory challenges the Prince’s champion to unarmed combat. With her superior fighting skill she easily overwhelms the warrior, winning the admiration of the Prince, and changing the course of British history forever.
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The Ancient Future – Book #2 – An Echo in Time: Atlantis
0$4.99The narrow stairway inside the mountain led to a door, that opened onto a huge marble plateau. Upon this stood a stone circle, that consisted of nine of the largest hunks of polished crystal Tory had ever seen. A turbulent cloud erupted overhead, its core alive with electromagnetic activity. For twenty years the kingdoms of Prydyn, Dumnonia and Dalriada have prospered in peace under the guidance of their High King, Maelgwn of Gwynedd, and his good Queen, Tory. But when the High King is stricken with madness and a mysterious plague, Britain is set to be thrown into the chaos of yesteryear. Tory seeks the advice of the triple Goddess, and is told of an advanced civilization that thrived long before recorded history, where men of great learning and miracles were abundant. The women of the Otherworld agree to aid Tory to make her passage back through time. But once in Atlantis, Tory must use her own devices to find the cure she seeks and a way to return to her loved ones in the Dark Age.
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The Angel of Waterloo
0$5.99The powerful new novel from master storyteller Jackie French
The soldiers she saved called her the Angel of Waterloo.
The husband she loved and lost called her Hen.
The patients she treated in secret called her Auntie Love.
She was Henrietta Bartlett, a surgeon’s daughter, a survivor of the Napoleonic Wars. But now the battlefield is just a blood-soaked memory, and Hen dreams of peace, a home, and a society that allows women to practise medicine.
On the other side of the world, the newly founded colony of New South Wales seems a paradise. But Europe’s wars cast long shadows …
From bestselling author Jackie French comes the story of one woman’s journey from the hell of Waterloo to colonial Australia, where she can forge her own dreams in a land of many nations.
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The Anti Cool Girl
0$5.99Brutal, brave, hilarious – a full-frontal memoir about surviving the very worst that life can throw at you.
Rosie Waterland has never been cool. Growing up in housing commission, Rosie was cursed with a near perfect, beautiful older sister who dressed like Mariah Carey on a Best & Less budget while Rosie was still struggling with various toilet mishaps. She soon realised that she was the Doug Pitt to her sister’s Brad, and that cool was not going to be her currency in this life.
But that was only one of the problems Rosie faced. With two addicts for parents, she grew up amidst rehab stays, AA meetings, overdoses, narrow escapes from drug dealers and a merry-go-round of dodgy boyfriends in her mother’s life. Rosie watched as her dad passed out/was arrested/vomited, and had to talk her mum out of killing herself.
As an adult, trying to come to grips with her less than conventional childhood, Rosie navigated her way through eating disorders, nude acting roles, mental health issues and awkward Tinder dates. Then she had an epiphany: to stop pretending to be who she wasn’t and embrace her true self – a girl who loved drinking wine in her underpants on Sunday nights – and become an Anti-Cool Girl.
An irrepressible, blackly comic memoir, Rosie Waterland’s story is a clarion call for Anti-Cool Girls everywhere.
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The Arsonist: A Mind on Fire
0$5.99On the scorching February day in 2009 that became known as Black Saturday, a man lit two fires in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, then sat on the roof of his house to watch the inferno. In the Valley, where the rates of crime were the highest in the state, more than thirty people were known to police as firebugs. But the detectives soon found themselves on the trail of a man they didn’t know.
The Arsonist takes readers on the hunt for this man, and inside the strange puzzle of his mind. It is also the story of fire in this country, and of a community that owed its existence to that very element. The command of fire has defined and sustained us as a species – understanding its abuse will define our future.
A powerful real-life thriller written with Hooper’s trademark lyric detail and nuance, The Arsonist is a reminder that in an age of fire, all of us are gatekeepers.
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The Beekeeper of Aleppo
0$5.99The unforgettable love story of a mother blinded by loss and her husband who insists on their survival as they undertake the Syrian refugee trail to Europe. Continued Below …
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The Best of Times
0$4.99A hot summer’s day, a crowded motorway, a split second that changed people’s lives forever. Gripping, heartbreaking, exciting and unputdownable, this new novel will be one of 2009’s biggest and most enjoyable novels – from the irresistible Penny Vincenzi.
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The Betrayals
0$5.99If everything in your life was based on a lie
would you risk it all to tell the truth?At Montverre, an exclusive academy tucked away in the mountains, the best and brightest are trained for excellence in the grand jeu: an arcane and mysterious contest. Léo Martin was once a student there, but lost his passion for the grand jeu following a violent tragedy. Now he returns in disgrace, exiled to his old place of learning with his political career in tatters.
Montverre has changed since he studied there, even allowing a woman, Claire Dryden, to serve in the grand jeu’s highest office of Magister Ludi. When Léo first sees Claire he senses an odd connection with her, though he’s sure they have never met before.
Both Léo and Claire have built their lives on lies. And as the legendary Midsummer Game, the climax of the year, draws closer, secrets are whispering in the walls…
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The Break
0$5.99If only.
Amy’s husband Hugh says he isn’t leaving her.
He still loves her, he’s just taking a break – from their marriage, their children and, most of all, from their life together. Six months to lose himself in south-east Asia. And there is nothing Amy can say or do about it.
Yes, it’s a mid-life crisis, but let’s be clear: a break isn’t a break up – yet . . .
However, for Amy it’s enough to send her – along with her extended family of gossips, misfits and troublemakers – teetering over the edge.
For a lot can happen in six-months. When Hugh returns if he returns, will he be the same man she married? And will Amy be the same woman?
Because if Hugh is on a break from their marriage, then isn’t she?
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The Brightest Star in the Sky
0$4.99Welcome to 66 Star Street . . . In the top-floor flat lives music exec Katie. She spends her days fighting off has-been rock stars and wondering how much cheesecake you’d need to eat yourself to death. Below her, a pair of muscular Poles share with a streetwise cabbie named Lydia, who has a sharp tongue, an even sharper brain but some unexpected soft spots. On the first floor is Fionn – a gardener who prefers the company of parsnips to people. But he looks like a fairy-tale prince and when he’s offered his own television show, he’s suddenly thrust into the limelight. And at the bottom of the house live Matt and Maeve, who are Very Much In Love and who stave off despair by doing random acts of kindness. But a mysterious visitor has just landed at 66 Star Street, bringing love, friendship and heartbreak, and a new-found optimism. Old secrets are working their way to the surface and all their lives are about to change in the most unexpected of ways . . .
