While on a business trip to Kobe, Tsuneo Asai receives the news that his wife Eiko has died of a heart attack. Eiko had a heart condition so the news of her death wasnt totally unexpected. But the circumstances of her demise left Tsuneo, a softly-spoken government bureaucrat, perplexed. How did it come about that his wife who was shy & withdrawn, & only left their house twice a week to go to haiku meetings ended up dead in a small shop in a shady Tokyo neighborhood?

When Tsuneo goes to apologize to the boutique owner for the trouble caused by his wifes death he discovers the villa Tachibana near by, a house known to be a meeting place for secret lovers. As he digs deeper into his wifes recent past, he must eventually conclude that she led a double life...

...

No sporting event has had its past & present, its highs & lows so intricately entwined with those of a country like the Tour has with France. The Tour de France is the biggest annual sporting event in the world, & at the same time it transcends sport. The Tour de France comes to the people. It passes their houses, it turns right in their village squares, it thunders through their suburban streets & into the hearts of their towns & cities. It is a unique event in that people don't so much go to see the Tour, as it comes to see them. A Race for Madmen traces how the Tour de France has developed & examines tactics, bike technology & rider preparation too. It profiles some of the men who have won the Tour de France, & others who have been key players, looking closely at their lives & motivation. Subsidiary competitions, such as the King of the Mountains prize, are featured, as well as Tour lore & traditions. The book examines the Tour's extraordinary history, & how a bike race, a simple sporting contest captured the imagination of a country, then a continent & then the world, while at the same time it has stayed uniquely French, even though a Frenchman hasn't won it for over 20 years. ...

A winning horse. A fierce rivalry. A sudden death.

Belinda Sandford thrills to the cheers of the crowd as her beautiful

...

From medieval Runnymede to twentieth-century Jarrow, from King Alfred to George Orwell, by way of Robin Hood, Wat Tyler & Mary Wollstonecraft, a rich & colourful thread of radicalism, both real & mythic, runs through a thousand years of British history. In this fascinating & vibrant book, Edward Vallance traces a national tendency towards revolution, irreverence & reform wherever it surfaces & in all its variety. Vallance unveils the British yeomen & preachers, millworkers, miners & intellectuals who fought & died for religious freedom, universal suffrage, justice & liberty
- & shows why, now more than ever, their heroic achievements must be recognised & celebrated. Rousing, brilliant & hugely readable, this is a panoramic & invaluable study of a millennium of one nation's free-thinking.
...

In the darkest days on the Blitz, family is more important than ever.

With Ida Brogans family struggling amidst the nightly

...

It's February 1942, & as the Americans finally join Britain & her allies, twenty-three-year-old Francesca Fabrino is doing her

...

Bill Nighy returns as Charles Paris: unsuccessful actor, bad husband & dypsomaniac. He is desperately in need of work, as he has been kicked out of the marital home, Charles jumps at playing a missing property developer in a crime reconstruction programme. ...

Country businessman seeks reliable wife. Compelled by practical reasons. Reply by letter. Rural Wisconsin, 1907. In the bitter cold Ralph Truitt stands alone on a train platform waiting for a woman who answered his newspaper advertisement. But when Catherine steps off the train she's not the 'simple honest' woman Ralph is expecting. For she is motivated by greed. But what Catherine has not counted on is that Ralph might have plans of his own for his new wife... ...

After losing her family in the Great War, Nell is grateful to marry Stan Hibbert, believing she can recapture a sense of family with him.

But five years on, she is just another back-street housewife, making every penny do the work of tuppence & performing miracles with scrag-end. When she discovers that Stan is leading a double-life, she runs away to make a fresh start.

Two years later, in 1924, Nell has carved out a fulfilling new life for herself & her young children in Manchester, where her neighbours believe she is a respectable widow & a talented machinist.

But the past is hard to run from, & Nell must fight to protect the life she has made for herself & her children.

Product Information:
• ISBN: 9780749023416
• Author: Susanna Bavin
• Publisher: Allison & Busby
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 478
• Dimensions: 20 x 13 x 3cm













...

Have hours of fun piecing together this stunning A Ride in the Countryside image. This picture-perfect puzzle



...