Seattle 1972: Neil Countryman & John William Barry two teenage boys from very different backgrounds are at the start of an 800m race. Their lives collide for the first time & so begins an extraordinary friendship. As they grow older Neil follows the conventional route of the American dream but the eccentric fiercely intelligent John William makes radically different choices dropping out of college & moving deep into the woods. Convinced it is the only way to live without hypocrisy John William enlists Neil to help him disappear completely drawing his oldest friend into a web of secrets & agonising responsibility deceit & tragedy
- one that will finally break open with an unexpected life-altering revelation.
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A fabulously fun new twist on Noahs Ark by master storyteller Lynley Dodd! The rain is fast approaching & Noah wants to set sail. There are still lots of animals queueing to get on to the Ark but its absolutely jam packed. Noah has to ask his friend Sam Jam Balu to take the other Ark & all the rest of the animals. So he valiantly starts gathering hip-hopping hippos mad kangaroosters & flying flapdoodles
- not to mention the dithering dingbats & sabre-tooth mice! But no sooner has San Jam Balu finished his task than the Other Ark is well & truly grounded!
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Fabulous historical by No.1 bestseller Philippa Gregory the queen of Tudor novels. Set in the court of King Henry VIII Mary Boleyn attracts the attention of the young king & becomes his mistress; when he tires of her she sets out to school her sister Anne as a replacement. Politics & passion are inextricably bound together in this compelling drama. The Boleyn family is keen to rise through the ranks of society & what better way to attract the attention of the most powerful in the land than to place their most beautiful young woman at court? But Mary becomes the kings mistress at a time of change. He needs his personal pleasures but he also needs an heir. The unthinkable happens & the course of English history is irrevocably changed. For the women at the heart of the storm they have only one weapon; & when its no longer enough to be the mistress Mary must groom her younger sister in the ways of the king. What happens next is common knowledge
- but here it is told in a way weve never heard it before with all of Philippa Gregorys characteristic perceptiveness backed by meticulous research & superb storytelling skills.
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An old farm a deserted landscape a dark secret from times past with fatal consequences for the present. In the tranquil northern seaside town of Scarborough a student is found cruelly murdered. For months the investigators are in the dark until they are faced with a copy-cat crime. The investigation continues apace yet they are still struggling to establish a connection between the two victims. Ambitious detective Valerie Almond clings to the all too obvious: a rift within the family of the second victim. But there is far more to the case than first appears & Valerie is led towards a dark secret inextricably linked to the evacuation of children to Scarborough during World War II. Horrified at her last-minute discovery Valerie realises that she may be too late for action... ...

The Other Country was Carol Ann Duffys third collection & as with her later books takes its readers on journeys that seem initially similar -- but soon prove anything but. This book leads our imagination to places our minds could not have suspected were there or would not have dared to go alone. Some of its voices are disarmingly direct while others blur the lines between fantasy & reality confession & self-delusion forcing us to re-examine everything we thought we knew about some of our most basic human drives & emotions. Deeply intelligent unflinchingly honest with a deftness of touch & tone & openness all the more moving for its lack of sentimentality The Other Country is as remarkable a collection today as it was on its first publication. You cant classify Carol Ann Duffy as a love poet or a comic poet or a political poet because she is all these things but so much more.. . She gets straight to the emotions Daisy Goodwin Sunday Times Urgent & packed with future classics The Other Country is a book that proclaims that poetry is alive. Be in there early Peter Forbes Guardian ...

Chrissie in the twenty-three years shed been together with Richie had always believed that he loved her. He loved their three daughters & their house in Highgate & their happy lively existence. But if she really was the love of his life why had he never given her the one thing that would have made her life perfect? Then suddenly Richie is no longer there & without him Chrissies carefully constructed life is in jeopardy. The one big fact she had always tried to keep from her daughters threatens to overwhelm them all. For Richie had still been married to his first wife the one with a son that he had abandoned in Newcastle. & now with Richie gone & the practicalities of wills & money to be sorted out it is finally time for the two families to face each other... ...

This is the intriguing & moving autobiography of Jacqueline Smith; the story of an extraordinary life. From the beginning in a family run like an army regiment fate made sure that Jacqueline despite her quite normal hopes & dreams would undergo dramas & events to horrify & traumatise the strongest of characters. Jacqueline leads the reader from the hacking to death in Kenya of her native best friend & her whole family to her tempestuous first marriage to a social psychopath who came with the package of the mother in law from hell & his ultimate destruction of their family unit. She hadnt ever wanted to run a pub but we see that happen during her first marriage & not only get her acclaimed by Egon Ronay but would lead to settling her fate for the future. She spent years struggling to bring up her sons one very like his father & then met the man who would indeed change her life forever. Ron & Jacqueline moved to Northern Cyprus where she became the first female Chef & owner of a French Restaurant famous & acclaimed to be excellent enough for the Michelin Guide. The book takes you through the two devastating illnesses that threatened Jacquelines life & on to her subsequent meeting with a Hotelier who would have an amazing impact on her already full life. The Other Grocers Daughter is well-written with a lively style that will appeal to female readers & a style comparable to Catherine Cookson. Reliving all the old memories good & bad was one of the most moving experiences I have ever had. I realised that to other people my life had never been normal & it made sense to try to put it all into perspective
- the book did that for me " says Jacqueline behind her motivation to tell her story."
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Jonathan & Theos childhood is one in which money is abundant but nurture is scarce. With a father who died when they were very young & a mother who starts drinking at lunchtime the brother & sister are largely left to roam around their sprawling estate in rural Wales looking after only themselves & each other. Until that is their grandmother Eve returns to the family home. Eve is a figure who is as enchanting as she is forbidding & she takes the children under her wing answering their questions about their family history that have always been ignored. Yet as they grow older they discover that much of what theyve been told is a fiction & that something very sinister lies in their past. ...

Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize & Costa Novel of the Year this international bestseller has become a reading group classic. We don't want to tell you too much about this book. It is a truly special story & we don't want to spoil it. Nevertheless you need to know something so we will just say this: It is extremely funny but the African beach scene is horrific. The story starts there but the book doesn't. & it's what happens afterwards that is most important. Once you have read it you'll want to tell everyone about it. When you do please don't tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds. ...

First published in 1944 during the darkest days of the war Lord Wavells great anthology of English poetry
- enhanced by his own
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