![]() ![]() “The emotional and physical carnage of World War I is used to remarkable effect in A TEST OF WILLS, an excellent new mystery and, one hopes, the first of a series.” “…Both a meticulously wrought puzzle and harrowing psychological drama about a shell-shocked police inspector who investigates a murder.” Named a New York Times Notable Book of the year and one of Publishers Weekly’s six best mysteries of the year ![]() “A brilliant return…Memorable characters, subtle plot twists, the evocative seaside setting and descriptions of architecture, the moors and the sea fully reward the attention this novel commands.” “Splendid imagery, in-depth characterization, and glimpses of more than one wounded psyche: an excellent historical mystery.” ![]() “ makes a welcome return in the haunting WINGS OF FIRE…Thoughtful and evocative, Todd’s tale offers interesting, three-dimensional characters.” “Todd’s writing is graceful and evocative of a bygone time and place.” “Novelist Charles Todd now joins that growing little circle of American authors like Elizabeth George and Martha Grimes who have made themselves at home in the exclusive field of the British literary mystery.” “Todd writes exceptionally about a time when people found not just meaning but healing in poetry, when intuition was viewed as kind of ‘second sight,’ and when everyone was stamped by war-not just the legless men, but also the women who lost their loves and so their futures.” E XTRAORDINARY A CCLAIM FOR THE W ORK OF C HARLES T ODD ![]()
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![]() The author explores the various ways that our beliefs about biological sex and gender have varied historically and why, in her opinion, they are still confused. Beginning on a personal note, Blank reveals the circumstances of her own long-term partnership with a person whose genetic structure is anomalous-his sex chromosome is XXY rather than XX or XY-something he only found out belatedly since to all appearance he was a typical male, albeit with an absence of facial hair. In this chronicle of changing sexual mores, the author challenges the common preconception today that the distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality is legitimate. Until then, the term “sodomy” was used to describe proscribed sexual relationships outside of marriage-the presumption being that the purpose of a proper sexual relationship was procreation. ![]() She begins with the startling information that the term heterosexuality was invented as an identifying category in 1869. Independent scholar Blank, a social historian who has written extensively on sexual subjects ( Virgin: The Untouched History, 2007 Big Big Love: A Sourcebook on Sex for People of Size and Those Who Love Them, 2000), turns her attention to changing attitudes toward mainstream sexual identity. ![]() ![]() ![]() It’s not long before she’s in her match’s bed. But Jen, “a thirty-two-year-old white woman whose AIM handle was once jennibaby069,” knows the rulebook for heterosexual dating by heart, so she takes the easy option. ![]() Yes, she has recently come out as bisexual and subsequently sworn off dating men. On the next page, Jen receives a follow-up message, and her desire for male validation takes over. ![]() Upon receiving a one-word text from a mediocre man on a dating app, Winston leads the reader through her thought process: She wants to behave like someone with self-respect, therefore, she will not text him back. Jen Winston’s debut essay collection, Greedy: Notes from a Bisexual Who Wants Too Much, begins with a scene in which she is gazing at her topless reflection in the mirror with her phone to hand. ![]() ![]() This was never dealt with, and her despair over her "wickedness" became boring. Compounding this, Adelaide's endless capacity to forgive this whiney, self-absorbed arsehole who spent a lot of the book blaming others for the things that went wrong in his life was infuriating, as was her self-loathing for her "lustful" impulses. Certainly, one with more strength of character. I really felt she deserved a better man than Nick. She had gone through a great deal, much of it very traumatic, and all of it the fault of the hero, by the way. His lack of self-awareness and plain idiocy at times, when shit was bleedingly obvious, did get very annoying. I cannot say that I liked the hero, Nick, at all. There is quite a backstory here and a lot of it is in the previous book of this series, but I think one can read this without having read book 1. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() But when Mae gasps awake…she’s on an airplane bound for Utah, where she begins the same holiday all over again. The next thing she knows, tires screech and metal collides, everything goes black. Mentally melting down as she drives away from the cabin for the final time, Mae throws out what she thinks is a simple plea to the universe: Please. She’s living with her parents, hates her going-nowhere job, and has just made a romantic error of epic proportions.īut perhaps worst of all, this is the last Christmas Mae will be at her favorite place in the world-the snowy Utah cabin where she and her family have spent every holiday since she was born, along with two other beloved families. ![]() It’s the most wonderful time of the year…but not for Maelyn Jones. One Christmas wish, two brothers, and a lifetime of hope are on the line for hapless Maelyn Jones in In a Holidaze, the quintessential holiday romantic novel by Christina Lauren, the New York Times bestselling author of The Unhoneymooners. ![]() ![]() ![]() Impulsively, she marries the Irishman, her infatuation a secret only to him. Seeing that her uncle needs Calvin as much as Calvin needs him, a wild idea takes hold of her. ![]() When the tryout goes better than even Holland could have imagined, Calvin is set for a great entry into Broadway-until his reason for disappearing earlier becomes clear: he's in the country illegally, his student visa having expired years ago. It starts as a marriage of convenience, but Roomies’ central relationship grows into something deliciously special and real. Using the only resource she has to pay the brilliant musician back, Holland gets Calvin an audition with her uncle, Broadway's hottest musical director. ![]() Calvin Mcloughlin rescues her, but quickly disappears when the police start asking questions. Roomies is a hilarious quick read about a girl in her 20s named Holland who has a crush on a hot guy playing guitar in a NYC subway station. Lacking the nerve to actually talk to the gorgeous stranger, fate steps in one night in the form of a drunken attacker. For months Holland Bakker has invented excuses to descend into the subway station near her apartment, drawn to the captivating music performed by her street musician crush. ![]() Modern love in all its thrill, hilarity, and uncertainty has never been so compulsively readable as in New York Times bestselling author Christina Lauren's Roomies. Summary: From subway to Broadway to happily ever after. ![]() ![]() His latest novel, published by Penguin, is Spook Country (2007). ![]() ![]() William Gibson lives in Vancouver, Canada. As a mystery character operating out of a "peripheral"-a sort of android body that can be inhabited via digital presence-says, the plan is to save "the world." It's just that the world isn't their own. William Gibson is the award-winning author of Neuromancer, Mona Lisa Overdrive, The Difference Engine, with Bruce Sterling, Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties and Pattern Recognition. The peripheral storylines and supporting characters, both good and bad, carry the plot along wonderfully. But a new Amazon Prime Video adaptation of the book makes the primary motivation more clear: altruism, of an essentially political nature. 'A stunning and far-reaching space thriller. ![]() Why meddle? The novel is somewhat coy, suggesting a mix of amusement, curiosity, sadism, and even good intentions. Instead, their connection to the pre-Jackpot world creates a "stub"-a timeline that departs from their own, just a few years into something like our own future-set in a hillbilly enclave on the hard edge of a decaying American society. Amazons The Peripheral season 1 ending finally brings Charlotte Rileys grown-up Aelita West back into the narrative. ![]() In his 2014 novel The Peripheral, science fiction writer William Gibson told the story of a distant future set in the aftermath of a slow-rolling climate-disease-and-politics apocalypse known as the Jackpot, where rich, sad, often vaguely criminal denizens meddle in the affairs of the past. ![]() ![]() What an invasion of her privacy!) I’m supposed to want this guy to get his girl? I’m supposed to think he’s sexy? Was very turned off by him. Warren can’t pay his rent and spends all day lying around watching porn (and don’t get me started on how disrespectful he was towards Bridget when he was trying to find her own porn video. ![]() ![]() ![]() Maybe this is partly because I didn’t realize this was part of a series, so I listened to this on it’s own without any information from the other books, but I found it really hard to root for either character in the romantic pairing, and therefore found it really frustrating to listen to. Will Bridgette find it in herself to warm her heart with Warren and eventually learn to love? He wants to be the one testing this theory. Warren has a theory about Bridgette: anyone who can hate with so much passion is also capable of loving with so much passion. When Warren has the opportunity to live with a female roommate, he. Colleen Hoover, the 1 New York Times bestselling author of It Ends with Us and Maybe Someday, brilliantly brings to life the story of the hilarious and charismatic Warren in this novella. Tension runs high and tempers flare up as the two can’t stand being in the same room together. 10.48 46 Used from 5.95 37 New from 10.24 1 Collectible from 35.48. ![]() When that roommate was Bridgette cold and calculating. When Warren got the chance to live with a female roommate, he immediately agreed. Maybe Not is a literary fiction book by author Colleen Hoover. ![]() ![]() The teen-aged boy living above Townsend’s Horologist’s was having trouble sleeping and he spied the fox from his window. Slinking and thinking, Malkin has no idea he has been spotted. He must get a message to John’s daughter, Lily, but even a creature as clever as he cannot make that journey alone. Professor John’s airship was attacked and it seems the sole survivor is Malkin, the mechanimal fox that serves as family pet and pseudo-protector. ![]() It has to be hard for a young reader to step away from this fast-paced, perilous plot because as an adult, I found myself hurrying through a chore or four so that I could get back to the search for the oh-so-secret cogheart. Set in the skies above and the streets running through London, this scintillating story of clockworks, mechanimals, hybrids and humans is the book that will keep kids reading well past bed-times. ![]() ![]() ![]() The use of vivid verbs while describing the setting and simple vocabulary while the battle scenes were in play made me feel as if the writer was taking me through the book, page by page, holding my hand. The narration was successful in keeping me engaged throughout the story by effectively explaining the relationships, nature, and history of the characters in the story. ![]() It’s not a half-cooked plot of battles and fights for the throne. A tale of disguised identities, fresh bonds, and revelations begin, as Sakhan fights for his mother’s and his life, weeding out traitors on the way. With the eldest brother injured in battle and the unruly exile of Sakhan with his mother, Neneh’s claim to the throne went unchallenged. ![]() His half-brother Neneh, an arrogant but seasoned warrior, detests Sakhan, and never truly considered him to be one of them. Sakhan, a 15-year-old prince of The Lion tribe who’s yet to hear all of his tribe's war stories, is suddenly faced with the brutality of the jungle when his friend Adah is killed under suspicious circumstances. The book takes you into the world of the tribals and their battles to safeguard their land, their lineage, and their honor. ![]() |