Kate Flynn has always been a clever girl, brought up to believe in herself as something special. Now Kate¹s forty-three & has given up her university career in London to come home & look after her mother in Firenze, their big house by a lake in Cardiff. When Kate meets David Roberts, a friend from the old days, she begins to obsess about him: she knows it's because she's bored & hasn't got anything else to do, but she can't stop. David is married, rational, dependable: the last type to want an affair.

David¹s marriage isn't as solid as it looks, though. His wife Suzie has moved out of their bedroom, she avoids talking to David or spending time at home with him & their children, she has made new friends who smoke dope & believe in fortune telling. David takes refuge in Firenze, where he can
talk to Kate about music.

David¹s seventeen-year-old son Jamie is also drawn to the old house full of books & history. He is more like Kate than his father is, bookish & clever: he wants to find out all about life from her. He turns up one night at Firenze, drunk & desperate.

Tessa Hadley's intricate, graceful novel explores the tangled web of connections between parents & children, lovers & friends; the past casts its long shadows in the present; men & women who were once confident they knew themselves, learn to attend to the changes unfolding inside them.






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Kate Flynn has always been a clever girl, brought up to believe in herself as something special. Now Kate¹s forty-three & has given up her university career in London to come home & look after her mother in Firenze, their big house by a lake in Cardiff. When Kate meets David Roberts, a friend from the old days, she begins to obsess about him: she knows it's because she's bored & hasn't got anything else to do, but she can't stop. David is married, rational, dependable: the last type to want an affair.

David¹s marriage isn't as solid as it looks, though. His wife Suzie has moved out of their bedroom, she avoids talking to David or spending time at home with him & their children, she has made new friends who smoke dope & believe in fortune telling. David takes refuge in Firenze, where he can
talk to Kate about music.

David¹s seventeen-year-old son Jamie is also drawn to the old house full of books & history. He is more like Kate than his father is, bookish & clever: he wants to find out all about life from her. He turns up one night at Firenze, drunk & desperate.

Tessa Hadley's intricate, graceful novel explores the tangled web of connections between parents & children, lovers & friends; the past casts its long shadows in the present; men & women who were once confident they knew themselves, learn to attend to the changes unfolding inside them.






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When Richard Buxton is forced to leave the delights of nineteenth century London, marry, & run a country estate, he assumes that the pleasure of the whip are no longer his to be had. Both the estate & his new wife Clarissa, however, provide unexpectedly perverse opportunities, & he is diligent in making the most imaginative use of them. ...

When Richard Buxton is forced to leave the delights of nineteenth century London, marry, & run a country estate, he assumes that the pleasure of the whip are no longer his to be had. Both the estate & his new wife Clarissa, however, provide unexpectedly perverse opportunities, & he is diligent in making the most imaginative use of them. ...

Shanghai, 1926. A city of British Imperial civil servants, American gun-runners, Russian princesses & Chinese gangsters, where heroin is available on room service & everything is for sale. Exotic, sexually liberated & pulsing with life, it is a place & time where anything seems possible.

For Richard Field, it represents a brave new world away from the past he is trying to escape. Seconded to the police force, his first moment of active duty is a brutal crime scene. A young White Russian woman, Lena Orlov, lies spreadeagled on her bed, sadistically murdered. As he begins to peer through the glittering surface to the murky depths beneath, Field sees a world beyond the glamour of the city

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When successful interior designer Elise St John is offered a commission at a remote castle, she jumps at the chance to distance herself from a web of sexual & emotional entanglements. Yet, as she sets work creating rooms in which guests will be able to realise their most erotic fantasies she finds herself indulging in fantasies of her own about two very different men.
Blair Devlin
- overtly sexy & self-confident
- is a local riding instructor. Max Lannsen
- the Master of Shilden
- is darkly attractive but more remote. All they seem to have in common is their hatred for one another. Then, when Elise's sensual daydreams become reality, she discovers that each man's future depends on a decision she will soon be forced to make. To which of them does she really owe her loyalty?




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When successful interior designer Elise St John is offered a commission at a remote castle, she jumps at the chance to distance herself from a web of sexual & emotional entanglements. Yet, as she sets work creating rooms in which guests will be able to realise their most erotic fantasies she finds herself indulging in fantasies of her own about two very different men.
Blair Devlin
- overtly sexy & self-confident
- is a local riding instructor. Max Lannsen
- the Master of Shilden
- is darkly attractive but more remote. All they seem to have in common is their hatred for one another. Then, when Elise's sensual daydreams become reality, she discovers that each man's future depends on a decision she will soon be forced to make. To which of them does she really owe her loyalty?




...

Since the turn of the century, we have seen hopes of a new era of peace shattered by the 9/11 attack on the US. We have witnessed the US become embroiled in a divisive & seemingly unwinnable war in Iraq.. We have looked on as new nuclear rivalries have sprung up with Iran & North Korea. We have also seen Europe struggle to define its place in the New World Order. & we have observed the balance of world focus shift towards China & India as they have continued their unprecedented economic rise.

What is the significance of all of this? Are these random events or is there an underlying pattern? What is required of leaders & individuals to propel the world in a more positive direction? The Master Strategist provides the means to decipher these changes, offering unique insights into the issues & patterns that are defining the future, & pointing the way to strategies for a freer & more peaceful & prosperous world.

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In the same way that Machiavelli, & Sun Tzu before him, exploded all existing ideas about strategy, The Master Strategist ...