Arriving home from a pilgrim voyage Sister Fidelma hears that her faithful Saxon companion Brother Eadulf is under sentence of death for murder. She hastens to the capital of Laigin where he is being held determined to appeal against the sentence. The crime took place at the abbey of Fearna where Fidelma clashes with the sinister Abbess Fainder. The evidence against Eadulf seems overwhelming
- can he actually be guilty? Will Fidelmas emotional involvement blind her in her desperate search for the truth?
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Lady Rose Summer prides herself on not being a jealous woman
- & she knows her engagement to Captain Harry Cathcart is only a ruse
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At just twenty years old Claire Mc Mullen is the new owner of the Seabourne Hotel. Shes a mystery to everyone around her
- & thats
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Lizzie Kershaw is an independent spirit; ever since her fathers death she has had to be a survivor. She makes an ill-advised marriage in order to escape her harsh home life. However she quickly discovers that she has married a selfish & violent man. His beatings are ceaseless & she finds herself compelled to run away. With the help of some suffragettes she escapes to Manchester where she finds work in a munitions factory for a while. Sam manages to find her & drags her home. It is only when his violence causes her to lose their unborn baby that Lizzie really finds the strength to make things change & to find happiness with a man who loves her. ...

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS Wormold is a vacuum salesman in a city of power cuts. His adolescent daughter spends his money with a skill that amazes him so when a mysterious Englishman offers him an extra income he's tempted. In return all he has to do is carry out a little espionage & file a few reports. But when his fake reports start coming true things suddenly get more complicated & Havana becomes a threatening place. ...

Mary Ann is illegitimate & life in 1905 is hard. It rapidly becomes worse when her new stepfather begins to interfere with her. Sent away at fifteen to bear his child she meets Gabriel Clough who helps her escape to Blackpool after the birth. The Great War brings Mary Ann many new opportunities & brings Gabriel back into her life. But circumstances mean they can never be together. It is not until her mother dies that Mary Ann returns to Lancashire determined to uncover the secrets of her past. Then danger threatens both her & the child she thought shed lost forever.. . Will history repeat itself or will Mary Anns courage win her the happiness she deserves? ...

Our Mutual Friend Dickens last complete novel gives one of his most comprehensive & penetrating accounts of Victorian society. Its vision of a culture stifled by materialistic values emerges not just through its central narratives but through its apparently incidental characters & scenes. The chief of its several plots centres on John Harmon who returns to England as his fathers heir. He is believed drowned under suspicious circumstances
- a situation convenient to his wish for anonymity until he can evaluate Bella Wilfer whom he must marry to secure his inheritance. The story is filled with colourful characters & incidents
- the faded aristocrats & parvenus gathered at the Veneerings dinner table Betty Higden & her terror of the workhouse & the greedy plottings of Silas Wegg.

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Our Necessary Shadow is the first attempt in a generation to explain the whole subject of psychiatry from the UK's leading expert Tom Burns A lot is written about psychiatry & the things it deals with but very little that describes psychiatry itself. Why should there be such a need? There isn't a raft of books explaining all the other branches of medicine. But for good or ill psychiatry is a polemical battleground critcised on the one hand as an instrument of social control or a barbaric practice while on the other the latest developments in neuroscience are trumpeted as offering lasting solutions to mental illness. Which of these strikingly contrasting positions should we believe? This is the first attempt in a generation to explain the whole subject of psychiatry. In this deeply thoughtful descriptive & sympathetic book Tom Burns reviews the historical development of psychiatry the places where there is much agreement on treatment & where there is not throughout alert to where psychiatry helps & where it is imperfect. What is clear is that mental illnesses are intimately tied to what makes us human in the first place. & the drive to relieve the suffering they cause is even more human. Psychiatry for all its flaws currently represents our best attempts to discharge this most human of impulses. It is not something we can just ignore. It is our necessary shadow. Tom Burns is Professor of Social Psychiatry at Oxford University. From the late 1980s he has conducted research in addition his clinical & teaching work & has produced nearly 200 peer-reviewed scientific articles. ...

An inventive interactive book that shows how a baby grows inside its mother's tummy over the nine months of pregnancy. Each of the 9 months is explored over a double-page section using an ingenious half-page flap to reveal what is going on inside a mum's tum & clearly showing how a baby develops. The lively but detailed illustrations the clear friendly text & the gentle humour make this book perfect to share with a child to explore where they came from or to discuss what is happening when a new baby is on its way. ...

Cleve West is one of Britain's top garden designers with six RHS gold medals to his name & a high profile Daily Telegraph sponsored garden at Chelsea Flower Show 2011. He is also a true allotmenteer heading off to his plot whenever he can to get his hands dirty find peace & contemplate life & nature. His book is a joy to read humorous & humble full of practical commonsense & a belief in the values of community & sustainable living. There is plenty of advice here for plot holders
- often of the what-not-to-do sort & written from sorry experience
- & plenty of inspiration too in the creative ways that Cleve & his partner Christine make the most of their plot & enjoy the company of their fellow allotmenteers. There are easy to follow sections on Vegetables & Herbs Flowers & Fruit with recipes & troubleshooting tips as well as chapters on Community Creativity & Children. Amply illustrated with Cleve's own beautiful photographs fantastical drawings by Cleve & Christine & shots of the two of them at work taken by Cleve's cousin the garden photographer Derek St Romaine Our Plot is also a visual cornucopia. To watch a video of the launch of Our Plot click here

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