Suddenly risen to power & influence, Samuel Fairbrother, manufacturer & retailer of boots, shoes & clogs, decided that his new station in life deserved a more imposing residence. Accordingly he bought himself a thirty-four-roomed mansion situated on the outskirts of Fellburn. With the house came the butler, Maitl&, who at once made plain his belief that Samuel, far from the gentleman his predecessor had been, was no more than an upstart.

So began a clash of wills between master & man, at which Samuel Fairbrother discovered he was at a distinct disadvantage, for Maitland was well skilled in the art of maintaining his indispensability. Fairbrother, for his part, was only too aware that he dare not dispense with Maitland's services. & so an uneasy truce was declared between them.

As the years went by & the century turned, Samuel Fairbrother saw his children, one by one, leave the big house to make lives of their own
- all except his eldest daughter Janet who, by means of a legacy, was enabled to shape the destiny of her father's scattered family & effect the reconciliation that he thought was impossible.




...

West Ham United are widely considered to be one of the giants of English football. Originally known as the Thames Ironworks, the renamed club took the Second Division title in 1958 & 1981 & soared to victory again in 1964, 1975 & 1980 when they won the FA Cup. They also achieved victory in the prestigious European Cup-Winners' Cup in 1965. ...

The Vacillations of Poppy Carey opens with two key events: the departure of Poppy's thoroughly detestable lover, Edmund, ...

The Vagrant Mood is a brilliantly varied & colourful collection of essays. From Kant to Raymond Chandler; from the legend of Zurbaran to the art of the detective story; from Burke to Augustus Hare, Somerset Maugham brings his inimitable mastery of the incisive character sketch to the genre of literary criticism ...

' The heavens are stained with the blood of men,
As the Valkyries sing their song.'
Njal's Saga

Jan



...

Jan Fabel is a troubled man. His relationships with the women in his life are becoming increasingly complicated: his partner, Susanne, is looking for a deeper commitment. His daughter is considering joining the police & his ex-wife holds him responsible.

If that weren't enough, after a gap of ten years, a female serial killer

...

The previous volume of the Vampire Chronicles, Memnoch the Devil, was called 'a modern Paradise Lost' by the Washington Post. Taking the Vampire Lestat from fiction into legend, it left him lying in a New Orleans convent, at the edge of death. Magnificent & electrifying, this new volume in the Vampire Chronicles returns to the glittering story of Arm&, mesmerizing leader of the vampire coven at the eighteenth-century Theatre des Vampires in Paris (seductively played by Antonio Banderas in the film of Interview with the Vampire). Snatched from the steppes of Russia as a child, & sold as a slave in Renaissance Venice, Armand's story sweeps through several hundred years, to New Orleans at the end of the twentieth century, where Lestat lies waiting for immortality, & the legend continues to grow.... . ...