What does somebody with a wealth of common sense do if retirement palls? Why, open a marriage bureau, of course. & soon Mr Ali, from beautiful Vizag in South India, sees his new business flourish as the indomitable Mrs Ali & able assistant Aruna look on with careful eyes. But although many clients go away happy, problems lurk behind the scenes as Aruna nurses a heart-rending secret; while Mr Ali cannot see that he rarely follows the sage advice he so freely dishes out to others. & when love comes calling for Aruna, an impossible dilemma looms...A colourful coastal town & contemporary marriage bureau prove a perfect backdrop for a splendid array of characters making sense of all sorts of pride & prejudice ? & the ways in which true love won`t quite let go ? in this witty & big-hearted debut novel. ...

THE NEW RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB THRILLER & SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER. `A pacey page-turner of a novel... extreme but grippingly thought-provoking` Would you stake your life on your marriage? Newlyweds Jake & Alice are offered a mysterious wedding gift
- membership of a club which promises its couples will never divorce. Signing The Pact seems the start to a perfect marriage. Until one of them breaks the rules. The marriage of their dreams is about to become their worst nightmare. Because The Pact is for life. & its members will do anything to make sure no one leaves... `A brilliant premise... tautly plotted & deftly written` J P Delaney` Ranks with Gone Girl` Joseph Finder ` Beware. This will keep you up all night` Lisa Gardner` You won`t be able to turn the pages fast enough` Paula Daly
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Materena Mahi likes movies about love. & after fourteen years with Pito, the father of her three children, she wants a ring on her finger & a framed wedding certificate on the wall. But Pito does not like movies about love. He likes movies with action & as little talking as possible. Pito thinks that when you give a woman a ring & a wedding certificate she`s going to start acting like she`s the boss. ` Eh`, he insists, `it`s the rope around the neck`. So when a drunken Pito finally proposes, Materena thinks she wouldn`t mind becoming a madame. Before long every relative is giving her advice & Materena is finding it hard to juggle her family, her job & the plans for the wedding. & it doesn`t help that the groom-to-be seems to have forgotten his proposal. Suddenly, she`s not even sure that she really wants that ring on her finger after all. ...

**LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018****A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**` An unforgettable novel.` DAILY TELEGRAPH` More knowing about prison life [than Orange Is The New Black]... so powerful.` NEW YORK TIMES` One of America`s finest writers.` VOGUERomy Hall is at the start of two consecutive life sentences, plus six years, at Stanville Women`s Correctional Facility. Outside is the world from which she has been permanently severed: the San Francisco of her youth, changed almost beyond recognition. The Mars Room strip club where she once gave lap dances for a living. & her seven-year-old son, Jackson, now in the care of Romy`s estranged mother. Inside is a new reality to adapt to: thousands of women hustling for the bare essentials needed to survive. The deadpan absurdities of institutional living, which Kushner details with humour & precision. Daily acts of violence by guards & prisoners alike. Allegiances formed over liquor brewed in socks, & stories shared through sewage pipes. Romy sees the future stretch out ahead of her in a long, unwavering line
- until news from outside brings a ferocious urgency to her existence, challenging her to escape her own destiny & culminating in a climax of almost unbearable intensity. Through Romy
- & through a cast of astonishing characters populating The Mars Room
- Rachel Kushner presents not just a bold & unsentimental panorama of life on the margins of contemporary America, but an excoriating attack on the prison-industrial complex.


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Sam's last adventure sent him to France in search of a missing wine collection, but he thought it'd be a while before he was back, especially with the charms of the fiery Elena Morales to keep him settled in Los Angeles. But when the immensely wealthy Francis Reboul, the recent victim of Sam's own counter-heist, asks him to take a job in Marseille, it's impossible for Sam & Elena to resist. The lure of further excitement & the pleasures of the region beckon them back to France. Quelle joie! Yet as competition over Marseille's valuable waterfront grows more hotly disputed, Sam, representing Reboul, finds himself right in the middle, with intrigue & danger following closely behind. ...

The Marsh Arabs by Wilfred Thesiger. Between 1951and 1958 Wilfred Thesiger spent several months of each year living among the tribal Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq. He gradually won acceptance, as he travelled from village to village by canoe, dispensing medicine & advice. He came to understand & share a way of life that had endured for many centuries. Thesiger has written a testament to what was an almost untouched & yet threatened culture in 1950’s Iraq, a culture that lived an entirely water dominated existence. An introduction by Jon Lee Anderson discusses Thesiger’s views of the places he visited & the hospitable, loyal, & courageous people he encountered, as well as Saddam Hussein’s destruction of the marshlands & the possibilities for their restoration. ...

The Marsh Lions by Brian Jackman, Jonathan & Angie Scott, is a reissue by Bradt of the 1982 wildlife classic, portraying the daily life of the lions, leopards & cheetahs in Kenya’s Masai Mara game reserve. During 5 years the authors followed the drama of life & death in the African plains. The striking & intimate recordings offer a unique insight into the animals & their unforgiving world. The lions became familiar companions with real characters that earned them nicknames like the irascible Notch, majestic Scar & the Marsh sisters. Their tales also featured in the successful BBC’s TV series Big Cat Diary displaying one of the most beautiful wild places on earth. The book marks the 20th Anniversary of the first publication &

Includes:: an additional chapter & stunning new images by Angela Scott, to bring the story up to date. The Marsh Lions is a fascinating study & compelling reading for anyone interested in wildlife.

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The best-seller behind the major film from Ridley Scott, starring Matt Damon & Jessica Chastain. I`m stranded on Mars. I have no way to communicate with Earth. I`m in a Habitat designed to last 31 days. If the Oxygenator breaks down, I`ll suffocate. If the Water Reclaimer breaks down, I`ll die of thirst. If the Hab breaches, I`ll just kind of explode. If none of those things happen, I`ll eventually run out of food & starve to death. So yeah. I`m screwed. ...

London, present day. Jean, a failing journalist in her late thirties, finds herself entertaining a married man
- a handsome,
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Introducing the marvellous Captain Corcoran
- he is charming to ladies, courteous to true gentlemen, death to pirates & merciless
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