From the author of The Grafton Girls comes the story of one Liverpool family preparing for the onslaught of World War Two, but feuding amongst themselves! Jean & Vi are twins but couldn't be more different. Jean's proud of her honest, hardworking husband & their children, but there's never a penny to spare. Vi's equally proud of her husband's new role as a local councillor & their elegant new house, & has raised her children to expect the best. As war breaks out, agonising decisions must be faced. Should the oldest children enlist? Should the youngest be evacuated? All the traditional certainties are overturned. Then the twins' own younger sister, singer Francine, returns home unexpectedly & stirs up the past, even in the midst of present danger. This is a tremendous saga of fighting spirit & family closeness, & the belief that even though today is full of destruction & pain, there is hope for a better tomorrow. ...

From the author of The Grafton Girls comes the story of one Liverpool family preparing for the onslaught of World War Two, but feuding amongst themselves! Jean & Vi are twins but couldn't be more different. Jean's proud of her honest, hardworking husband & their children, but there's never a penny to spare. Vi's equally proud of her husband's new role as a local councillor & their elegant new house, & has raised her children to expect the best. As war breaks out, agonising decisions must be faced. Should the oldest children enlist? Should the youngest be evacuated? All the traditional certainties are overturned. Then the twins' own younger sister, singer Francine, returns home unexpectedly & stirs up the past, even in the midst of present danger. This is a tremendous saga of fighting spirit & family closeness, & the belief that even though today is full of destruction & pain, there is hope for a better tomorrow. ...

The arrival of the young boy in an upper middle class Bengali household triggers a gripping story of love, desire & renunciation. Set in two different cities, New Delhi & Varanasi, Across The Mystic Shore explores the entwining lives of four women forced to confront their past decisions in order to understand their present delusions & insecurities. Questions arise throughout the story & family truths are unveiled. Central to the story is a dark & shocking secret that manifests itself & demands expiation from those entangled in it, having lurked in the past for twenty years. The narratives & memories of the four women enable the characters to grow over a period of twenty years, exploring the link between childhood & growing up & the theme of motherhood. Written with humour & compassion, Across The Mystic Shore is full of the sights, sounds & scents of India & delivers both an exploration of conflicts peculiar to Indian society & a universal underlying message about the strength of love & how it can be both selfish & selfless. ...

In his black-walled fortress at Inuyama, the murderous warlord, Iida Sadamu, surveys his famous nightingale floor. Constructed with exquisite skill, it sings at the tread of each human foot. No assassin can cross it unheard. Brought up in a remote mountain village among the Hidden, a reclusive & spiritual people, Takeo has learned only the ways of peace. Why, then, does he possess the deadly skills that make him so valuable to the sinister Tribe? These supernatural powers will lead him to his violent destiny within the walls of Inuyama
- & to an impossible longing for a girl who can never be his. His journey is one of revenge & treachery, honour & loyalty, beauty & magic, & the passion of first love.
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In his palace at Inuyama, Lord Iida Sadamu, warlord of the Tohan clan, surveys his famous nightingale floor. Its surface sings at the tread of every human foot, & no assassin can cross it. But sixteen-year-old Otori Takeo, his family murdered by Iida's warriors, has the magical skills of the Tribe
- preternatural hearing, invisibility, a second self
- that enable him to enter the lair of the Tohan. He has love in his heart & death at his fingertips.. . Lian Hearn's stunningly powerful bestseller, Across the Nightingale Floor, is an epic story for readers young & old. Set in a mythical, feudal, Japanese l&, a world both beautiful & cruel, the intense love story of two young people takes place against a background of warring clans, secret alliances, high honour & lightning swordplay. The first novel in the epic Tales of the Otori series, Across the Nightingale Floor is followed by Grass For His Pillow & Brilliance of the Moon.

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Add sophistication & charm to your quilts with the projects inspired by the quilts of the British Isles. The frame or medallion quilt projects echo the historical quilts that greatly influenced American quilt makers in the 19th century. In addition there are strippy quilts easily made using the accurate step-by-step directions & reflecting more of the tradition of British quilts. Each quilt or project is named for a memory of Bettina's travels on her many trips. Travel with tour guide Bettina Havig & catch her enthusiasm for these traditional quilts. The lure of the quilts will unfold as you share in her travels. Medallion quilts are impressive & stylish. & they are infectious you can't make just one. Fortunately there are patterns & instructions for several. You will want to make them all! ...

Across the Ravaged Land is the third & final volume in Nick Brandt's trilogy of books documenting the disappearing natural world & animals of East Africa. The book's title, combined with the titles of Brandt's first two books, captures the change he has witnessed: On this Earth, a shadow falls across the ravaged l&. The book offers a darker vision of the world that Brandt has been photographing for the last decade, a world still filled with a stunning beauty, but now tragically tainted & fast disappearing at the hands of man. In addition to a range of new, starkly powerful portraits of animals; elephants, lions, leopards, hyenas, that appear to be posing especially for the photographer as if in a studio, Brandt introduces some new themes. For the first time, humans make an appearance in his photographs. On the jacket, a crouched ranger supports the weight of two giant tusks of an elephant killed by poachers. One new series of photographs has hunters' trophies placed back in the epic landscapes where once these creatures roamed. Another features perfectly preserved animals calcified by the salts of a Rift Valley soda lake. In both instances, the subjects appear strangely alive & sentient in death. Brandt also contributes two essays summing up his photographic odyssey, which has taken more than a decade of intensive work to complete. One details his work from the perspective of conservation, giving a broad overview of the wave of destruction of wildlife & habitat across Africa & describing the work his Big Life Foundation is doing to preserve the Amboseli ecosystem of Kenya & Tanzania. The other discusses technical aspects of his project. ...

The War is just over. In Venice, a city elaborately & affectionately described, the American Colonel, Richard Cantrell, falls passionately in love with Renata, a young Italian countess who has 'a profile that could break your or anyone else's heart'. Cantrell is embittered, war-scarred & old enough to be Renata's father, but he is overwhelmed by the selflessness & freshness of the love she is offering. But this is no fairy tale. The fighting may be ended, but the wounds of war have not yet healed. & for some, the longed-for peace has come too late. ...

In the fall of 1948, Ernest Hemingway made his first extended visit to Italy in thirty years. His reacquaintance with Venice, a city he loved, provided the inspiration for Across the River & into the Trees, the story of Richard Cantwell, a war-ravaged American colonel stationed in Italy at the close of the Second World War, & his love for a young Italian countess. A poignant, bittersweet homage to love that overpowers reason, to the resilience of the human spirit, & to the worldweary beauty & majesty of Venice, Across the River & into the Trees stands as Hemingway's statement of defiance in response to the great dehumanizing atrocities of the Second World War. Hemingway's last full-length novel published in his lifetime, it moved John O' Hara in The New York Times Book Review to call him "the most important author since Shakespeare." ...

Richard Cantrell is an American colonel living in Venice just after the Second World War. The fighting has left him scarred & embittered, a middle-aged man with a heart condition. It seems that only the love of Renata, a nineteen-year-old countess can save him. But Cantrell is living in the shadow of war, every move he makes dictated by old battle instincts, & it is possible that for him the longed-for peace may have come too late. ...