8
Fiction
74583 AN IRISH
COUNTRY WEDDING by Patrick Taylor
NEW YORK TIMES BEST-
SELLERS
Love is in the air in the colourful Ulster village of Ballybucklebo where Dr Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly has finally proposed to the darling of his youth, Kitty O’Hallorhan. There’s
a wedding to be planned, but before O’Reilly can make it to the altar, he and his young colleague Barry Laverty, MB, must deal with the usual round of eccentric patients. Easing their troubled housekeeper’s mind is going to be a challenge, on top of the doctors’ many pressing duties which are more than simply splinting broken bones and tending to aches and pains. It can also mean helping a struggling young couple acquire their first home, clearing the name of a cat accused of preying on a neighbour’s prize racing pigeons, and encouraging a bright young working class girl who dreams of some day becoming a doctor herself. And then there is romance with a lovely school teacher whose passionate political convictions might get in the way. 428pp with Glossary and map. Elegant US first edition. $24.99 NOW £6
74584 PRAY FOR US SINNERS
by Patrick Taylor
In Belfast in 1973 the Troubles are raging. Two Ulstermen, two sides - on one, British Army bomb- disposal officer Marcus Richardson. On the other, Davy
MacCutcheon, Provisional IRA armourer who has been
constructing bombs since his teens. Both men are committed to their
causes until events shatter their beliefs. When Marcus is nearly killed by an exploding car bomb, he welcomes the offer of a transfer to the élite SAS, provided that first he accepts an undercover mission to infiltrate the Falls Road ghetto, join the Provisional IRA, identify their upper echelon, and expose their bomb maker. When Davy’s devices are used by the Provos who have switched from military targets to civilian disruption, the bomb maker begins to question what he is doing. Maiming and killing innocent people, one horrific death haunts his nightmares and his request to be discharged is countered by an order that he go on one last mission - a critical attack on a high-ranking British politician. This will allow him to leave Ireland and the PIRA to go to Canada with the woman he loves. Marcus meanwhile attempts to adjust to life as a Republican sympathiser. Exposed to the harsh realities of slum life, he finds that the conflict is not as black and white as he always believed. A runaway series of events leaves both men in an abandoned farmhouse. 332pp in first edition elegant hardback. $24.99 NOW £7
74928 A LESSON IN SECRETS: A Maisie Dobbs Novel
by Jacqueline Winspear In the summer of 1932, Maisie Dobbs’ career takes an exciting new turn when she accepts an undercover assignment directed by Scotland Yard’s Special Branch and the Secret Service. Posing as a junior lecturer, she is sent to a
private college in Cambridge to monitor any activities ‘not in the interests of His Majesty’s Government.’ When the college’s controversial pacifist founder and principal Greville Liddicote is murdered, Maisie is directed to stand back as others spearhead the investigation. She soon discovers however that the circumstances of the death appear inextricably linked to the suspicious comings and goings of faculty and students under her surveillance. Maisie must overcome a reluctant Secret Service, discover shameful hidden truths about Britain’s conduct during the Great War, and face off the rising powers of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the Nazi Party, in Britain. The storm clouds of World War Two are gathering on the horizon. 321pp in elegant hardback.
$25.99 NOW £6.50
75025 THE TWELFTH ENCHANTMENT by David Liss
Lucy Derrick is a young woman of good breeding and poor finances. After the death of her beloved father, she is forced to maintain a shabby dignity as an unwanted boarder of her tyrannical uncle, fending off marriage to a local mill owner. Just as she is on the cusp
of accepting a life of misery, events take a stunning turn when a handsome stranger, the poet and notorious rake Lord Byron, arrives at her house, stricken by what seems to be a curse, and with a cryptic message for Lucy. England is undergoing an industrial transformation and on the verge of revolution and Lucy is drawn into a dangerous conspiracy in which her country’s future is in the balance, and where magic and mortals collide. The key to victory may be connected to a cryptic volume whose powers of enchantment are unbounded. Lucy must harness newfound mystical skills and, enthralled with two exceptional men with designs on her heart, she must master her own desires to claim the destiny she deserves. A beautifully typeset hardback, 400 pages with roughcut edges, a mark of quality in this US first edition. Tiny remainder mark. $26 NOW £6.50
GREAT BARGAIN HOLIDAY READING! ORDER HOTLINE: 020 74 74 24 74
74559 PURPLE SHROUD by Stella Duffy Once, Theodora was little more than a slave, the daughter of a bear-keeper, running barefoot through the streets of Constantinople. Now she is Theou doron, ‘the Gift of God’, Empress of Byzantine Rome and the most powerful woman in the world. She rules alongside her husband, the Emperor Justinian, a true love match in a world of political marriages. From the catastrophic and terrifying riots that burn through the city, to vengeful enemies at the palace who will never accept her, to plagues, plots and murder, Theodora learns what it truly means to be Empress. The drama spans over 20 years. 390pp, map.
£16.99 NOW £5 75110 EMPEROR OF LIES
by Steven Sem-Sandberg In February 1940, the Nazis established what would become the second largest Jewish ghetto in the Poland, in the city of Lodz. A wire fence was built around the Old City, completely separating Jewish families, some quarter of a million, from the rest of the population, and the fence was patrolled by police ordered to shoot on sight should
anyone attempt to escape. The ghetto’s chosen leader was Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, a 63 year old Jewish businessman. Mysterious, ambiguous, monarchical, ‘King Chaim’ was motivated by a titanic ambition. He sought to transform it into a productive industrial complex, forcing adults and children to work punishing hours in workshops to provide supplies for the German military. Was Rumkowski a ruthless opportunist, an accessory to the Nazi regime or was he a pragmatic strategist who managed to save Jewish lives through collaboration? The author’s extraordinary novel draws on genuine chronicles of life in the Lodz ghetto and is regarded as one of the greatest Holocaust novels. A massive page turner which will be bound to leave a strong impact on you. 664pp with glossary. Paperback.
£14.99 NOW £5
74487 HAVISHAM by Ronald Frame The story of Miss Havisham in Dickens’s Great Expectations, jilted at the altar, wearing her bridal dress for ever and teaching her young ward Estella to break men’s hearts, has passed into popular mythology. Here novelist Ronald Frame skilfully retells the story from the brewery heiress Catherine Havisham’s point of view, starting with a sickening accident in which a man is injured and Catherine befriends his daughter Sally. As Catherine rises in the social world, she joins the circle of Lady Chadwyck, attending balls and taking part in tableaux vivants. In the background are Catherine’s profligate brother Arthur, a drunken thief, and the charming William, irresistible to women. A mysterious stranger, Charles Compeyson, enters Catherine’s life and soon they are engaged to be married. He knows everything about Catherine, but how? 361pp.
£16.99 NOW £4
74803 BRING UP THE BODIES
by Hilary Mantel
Unlock the darkly glittering court of Henry VIII, where Thomas Cromwell is now Chief Minister. With Henry captivated by plain Jane Seymour and rumours of Anne Boleyn’s faithlessness whispered by all, Cromwell knows what he must do to secure his position. But the bloody theatre of the Queen’s final
days will leave no one unscathed. ‘A great novel of dark and dirty passions, public and private.’ - Financial Times. The book was the winner of the Man Booker Prize 2012 and the Costa Book of the Year 2012 and has just been announced the most borrowed library book of 2012-13. First time discounted, 485 page paperback.
£9.99 NOW £5
74493 IN-FLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT by Helen Simpson
This fifth collection of 15 short stories are wickedly funny and painfully true and proved very popular when read on BBC Radio Four. A young woman’s diary records a blackly farcical escape attempt involving flamenco, murder and wild picnics. Two students fall in love then almost talk themselves out of it in an argument about the end of the world. A heartfelt anti-cancer spell is cast in the desire to protect a friend. 132pp, paperback. £7.99 NOW £2.50
74499 MR PHILLIPS by John Lanchester One warm July morning Mr Phillips climbs out of bed, leaving Mrs Phillips dozing. He prepares for his commute into the city, but this is no ordinary Monday. It is a day on which Mr Phillips will chat with a pornographer, stalk a TV mini-celebrity, have lunch with an aspiring record mogul, and get caught up in a bank robbery. So why is Mr Phillips, a cautious middle-aged accountant, not at work? An ironic and innocent comedy, astoundingly intelligent, the novel has an easy way with the comic problems of philosophy. 247pp in paperback.
£7.99 NOW £2.50
74567 VALENTINE GREY by Sandi Toksvig
The eponymous heroine of the novel was born in Assam in north- east India and enjoyed a carefree childhood. This is abruptly curtailed by the death of her father, and in 1897 she arrives in damp, cold London. She finds the skirts, petticoats, stays and corsets of Victorian society unbearable, but one thing makes life enjoyable - her
unconventional and homosexual cousin Reggie. Reggie and his lover Frank enjoy an adventurous if clandestine life, one in which they are happy to include Valentine, and she learns all sorts of things a young lady should not. But then comes the Boer War, and Reggie’s father volunteers him - but it will not be Reggie on the boat to Cape Town. Valentine seizes her chance. She heads off for the adventure of war. 341pp, paperback. £7.99 NOW £3
£8.99 NOW £3
74500 MRS FYTTON’S COUNTRY LIFE by Mavis Cheek
Angela Fytton, wonderwife, supermother, bedroom vamp and business partner, has been unceremoniously dumped. Like many a good wife before her she has been swapped by her husband for a younger model. Moving to the country she thinks that country life is pure and good and that country people are next to angels - and finds this very far from the truth. Mavis Cheek has the wickedly sharp eye of a born satirist. 332pp, paperback.
£7.99 NOW £3
74563 STARSHINE by John Wilcox 1914. As British forces are desperately attempting to hold off the German invasion of France, Jim Hickman and Bertie Murphy are plunged into this nightmare. Loyal friends since childhood, they have done everything together from falling in love with the same girl to enlisting when the war began. But while Jim receives honour after honour, Bertie struggles to deal with the mindless slaughter around him. Back in Birmingham, their beloved Polly must find a way to choose between the two men. 445pp in paperback. £7.99 NOW £3.50
74595 DARK FIRE by C. J. Sansom It is 1540 and the hottest summer in the 16th century. Matthew Shardlake, believing himself out of favour with Thomas Cromwell, is busy trying to maintain his legal practice and keep a low profile, but his involvement with a murder case, defending a girl accused of brutally murdering her young cousin, brings him once again into contact with the king’s chief minister, and a new assignment. The secret of Greek Fire, the legendary substance with which the Byzantines destroyed the Arab navies, has been lost for centuries. Now an official of the Court of Augmentations has discovered the formula in the library of a dissolved London monastery. Shardlake is sent to recover it. 595pp, paperback. £6.99 NOW £3
74602 SOVEREIGN by C. J. Sansom Autumn, 1541. King Henry VIII has set out on a spectacular Progress to the North to attend an extravagant submission by his rebellious subjects in York. Already in the city are lawyer Matthew Shardlake and his assistant John Barak. Shardlake has reluctantly undertaken a special mission for Archbishop Cranmer to ensure the welfare of an important but dangerous conspirator who is to be returned to London for interrogation. But the murder of a York glazier involves Shardlake in deeper mysteries. The investigators stumble upon a cache of secret documents which could threaten the Tudor throne. 662pp, paperback. £6.99 NOW £3
66180 COMPLETE RICHARD HANNAY STORIES by John Buchan
Major General Sir Richard Hannay is the fictional secret agent created by writer and diplomat John Buchan, who was himself an Intelligence officer. In Greenmantle, he undertakes a vital mission to prevent jihad in the Islamic Near East. Mr Standfast, set in the decisive months of 1917-18, is the novel in which Hannay finally falls in love. In The Three Hostages, he finds himself unravelling a kidnapping mystery with his wife’s help. In the last adventure, The Island of Sheep, he is called upon to honour an old oath. 992 paperback pages. Great value.
ONLY £2
72114 BOHEMIAN GIRL by Kenneth Cameron Denton, a writer with a reputation for involving himself in murder cases, receives a note from a young woman, Mary, saying she is in terrible danger and needs his help. The letter is months old and was discovered hidden behind a painting. But who is Mary? The search for answers leads Denton into the shadowy world of London’s artistic society and before he learns the shocking truth about Mary, he must endure another hazardous journey into a dark and deadly obsession. Set in 1901. 310pp in paperback.
£7.99 NOW £2.50
72941 TALK OF THE VILLAGE by Rebecca Shaw
The village of Turnham Malpas is bedevilled by talk. In the Royal Oak, the usual banter has turned to bitter wrangling as Caroline causes controversy over an ancient country tradition. And what about Peter, her husband and the rector? Are rumours about him and pushy newcomer Venetia true? Even the older inhabitants are not exempt from gossip, as the Baxter sisters’ eccentric lifestyle is the subject of cruel speculation. Peter must put aside his own problems and unite the village before there is more superstition, madness and tragedy. 263pp in paperback. £6.99 NOW £2.50
73654 LARRY’S PARTY by Carol Shields The dinner party which brings the novel to a deliciously unexpected conclusion is one of the greatest set pieces of modern fiction. We get inside Larry’s mind in 1984. As if, with her glasses off, Megsy didn’t notice what a drip he really was, as though she was oblivious to the honking embarrassment of being Larry Weller and what that might mean. In the ordered riotousness of Hampton Court’s maze, Larry Weller discovers the passion of his life. 339pp in paperback.
£7.99 NOW £2
74594 CUJO by Stephen King Iconic terror from the bestselling author. Cujo is a huge St Bernard dog, the best friend Brett Camber has ever had. Then one day Cujo chases a rabbit into a bolt-hole. Except it isn’t a rabbit’s warren anymore, it is a cave inhabited by rabid bats. Cujo falls very sick, and the gentle giant who once protected the family becomes a vortex of horror inexorably drawing in all the people around him. Once upon a
time, a monster came to the small town of Castle Rock, Maine, not a werewolf, vampire or ghoul, he was only a cop. 420pp, paperback.
73014 ONE DAY by David Nicholls This is a charming story which stays in your heart forever as it captures college days perfectly. Emma and Dexter meet on the night of their graduation on 15th July 1988. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways, so where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that? And every year that follows? A really clever literary device, their lives move on as do their emotions and responses to each other as the reader slips back to their own 20s and early days of discovery, sex, opinions of oneself, and your lovers and friends. Covers twenty years and the same two people. 437pp, paperback.
£7.99 NOW £2
73033 THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE by Audrey Niffenegger
A big, reckless and utterly convincing novel, wonky, sexy and incredible. It is the extraordinary love story of Clare and Henry who meet when Clare was six and Henry was 36, and were married when Clare was 22 and Henry 30. Impossible but true, because Henry suffers with a rare condition where his genetic clock periodically resets and he finds himself pulled suddenly into his past or future. The couple’s struggle to lead normal lives is both intensely moving and entirely unforgettable. 520pp in paperback.
£8.99 NOW £2.50
73084 IF THE DEAD RISE NOT by Philip Kerr Set in 1934, Bernie Gunther, now a hotel detective, finds himself caught between warring factions of the Nazi apparatus as Hitler and Avery Brundage, the head of the US Olympic Committee, connive to soft-pedal Nazi anti-Semitism before the 1936 Olympiad. 1954 - Batista, aided by the CIA, has just seized power. Castro is in prison and the American Mafia is gaining a stranglehold on Cuba’s exploding gaming and prostitution industries. Bernie discovers that he cannot truly outrun his past when he collides with an old lover, and a vicious killer, from his Berlin days. 347pp in paperback. Remainder mark.
$15 NOW £3 73552 FAVOURITE SHERLOCK HOLMES
STORIES by Arthur Conan Doyle In 1927, Strand magazine challenged its readers to guess which of his Sherlock Holmes stories Arthur Conan Doyle rated as his very best. The stories included such classics of the detective genre as The Speckled Band, The Final Problem and The Dancing Men. Now his favourite 12 are published together for the first time along with his original Strand article. Others include Red-Headed League, A Scandal in Bohemia, The Five Orange Pips, The Devil’s Foot, The Musgrave Ritual and The Reigate Squires. 332pp, paperback.
£7.99 NOW £3.50 URSULA K. LE GUIN 74991 EARTHSEA: Tales
from Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin The tales of this book explore or extend the world established in the Earthsea novels, yet each stands on its own. ‘The Finder’, a novella set a few hundred years before ‘A Wizard of Earthsea’ code 74930, presents a dark and troubled Archipelago and shows how some of its customs and institutions came
to be. ‘The Bones of the Earth’ features the wizards who taught the wizard who first taught Ged and demonstrates how humility can contend with an earthquake. ‘Darkrose and Diamond’ is a delightful story of young courtship. ‘On the High Marsh’ tells of the power of love, and ‘Dragonfly’ shows how a determined woman can break the glass ceiling of male magedom. The collection concludes with an account of Earthsea’s history, people, languages, literature and magic. 394pp in paperback. Remainder mark. $8.99 NOW £3.50
74930 EARTHSEA: A Wizard of Earthsea
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Ged was the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea. But he was once called Sparrowhawk, a reckless youth, hungry for power and knowledge who tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of
power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death’s threshold to restore the balance. 251pp in paperback. Remainder mark.
$8.99 NOW £3.50
75013 EARTHSEA: The Other Wind
by Ursula K. Le Guin The sorcerer Alder fears sleep. He dreams of the land of death, of his wife, who died young and longs to return to him so much that she kissed him across the low stone wall that separates our world from the Dry Land. The dead are pulling Alder to them at night and through him they may free
themselves and invade Earthsea. He seeks advice from Ged, once Archmage who tells him to go to Tenar, Tehanu and the young king at Havnor. They are joined by a fierce dragon able to assume the shape of a woman and go to the holiest place in the world to make a last stand. 266pp in paperback. Remainder mark.
$8.99 NOW £3.50
75335 EARTHSEA: Set of Three by Ursula K. Le Guin
Buy all three paperbacks and save more. ONLY £9
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