An der Schwelle zwischen Leben und Tod findet Logan Thibault einen Glücksbringer: die Fotografie einer lächelnden, schönen Frau. Obwohl er sie noch nie zuvor gesehen hat, glaubt Thibault, dass sie den Schlüssel zu seinem Schicksal in Händen hält. Er sucht die geheimnisvolle Frau auf — und sein Leben nimmt eine so wunderbare wie dramatische Wendung.

Romantisch und gefühlvoll: Der dritte Roman des Jahreszeitenzyklus von Nora Roberts. Gemeinsam mit ihren drei besten Freundinnen betreibt die hübsche Konditorin Laurel die erfolgreiche Hochzeitsagentur Vows. Tag für Tag hilft sie glücklichen Paaren, ihre Liebe mit einem rauschenden Fest zu krönen, in Laurels eigenem Privatleben sieht es aber alles andere als rosig aus. Doch dann verliebt sie sich in den smarten Staranwalt Del. Er ist für sie die Liebe ihres Lebens, aber sieht der heißbegehrte Junggeselle das ebenso?

The long-awaited new novel from Margaret Atwood. The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power. The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners — a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life — has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible. Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers... Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away... By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.

Lisbeth Salander — the heart of Larsson's two previous novels — is under close supervision in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She's fighting for her life in more ways than one: when she's well enough, she'll stand trial for three murders. With the help of her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she will have to prove her innocence, and to identify the corrupt politicians who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse. And, on her own, she will plot her revenge — against the man who tried to kill her and the government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life.

Isabels son, Charlie, is now of an ageeighteen monthsto have a social life, and so off they go to a birthday party, where, much to Isabels surprise, she encounters an old adversary, Minty Auchterlonie, now a high-flying financier. Minty had seemed to Isabel a woman of ruthless ambition, but the question of her integrity had never been answered. Now, when Minty takes Isabel into her confidence about a personal matter, Isabel finds herself going another round: Is Minty to be trusted? Or is she the perpetrator of an enormous financial fraud? And what should Isabel make of the rumors of shady financial transactions at Minty's investment bank? Not that this is the only dilemma facing Isabel: she also crosses swords again with her nemesis, Professor Dove, in an argument over plagiarism. Of course her niece, Cat, has a new, problematic man (a tightrope walker!) in her life. And there remains the open question of marriage to Jamiedoting father of Charlie. As always, there is no end to the delight in accompanying Isabel as she makes her way toward the heart of every problem: philosophizing, sleuthing, and downright snooping in her inimitableand inimitably charmingfashion.

Flavia de Luce, a dangerously smart eleven-year-old with a passion for chemistry and a genius for solving murders, thinks that her days of crime-solving in the bucolic English hamlet of Bishop's Lacey are over — and then beloved puppeteer Rupert Porson has his own strings sizzled in an unfortunate rendezvous with electricity. But who'd do such a thing, and why? Does the madwoman who lives in Gibbet Wood know more than she's letting on? What about Porson's charming but erratic assistant? All clues point toward a suspicious death years earlier and a case the local constables can't solve — without Flavia's help. But in getting so close to who's secretly pulling the strings of this dance of death, has our precocious heroine finally gotten in way over her head?

In 1954, in the cookhouse of a logging and sawmill settlement in northern New Hampshire, an anxious twelve-year-old boy mistakes the local constable's girlfriend for a bear. Both the twelve-year-old and his father become fugitives, forced to run from Coos County — to Boston, to southern Vermont, to Toronto — pursued by the implacable constable. Their lone protector is a fiercely libertarian logger, once a river driver, who befriends them. In a story spanning five decades, Last Night in Twisted River — John Irving's twelfth novel — depicts the recent half-century in the United States as 'a living replica of Coos County, where lethal hatreds were generally permitted to run their course'. From the novel's taut opening sentence — 'The young Canadian, who could not have been more than fifteen, had hesitated too long' — to its elegiac final chapter, Last Night in Twisted River is written with the historical authenticity and emotional authority of The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany. It is also as violent and disturbing a story as John Irving's breakthrough bestseller, The World According to Garp. What further distinguishes Last Night in Twisted River is the author's unmistakable voice — the inimitable voice of an accomplished storyteller. Near the end of this moving novel, John Irving writes: 'We don't always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly — as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth — the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives'.

Dieser außergewöhnliche All-Age-Krimi hat die Herzen von Lesern, Buchhändlern und Kritikern aus aller Welt im Sturm erobert! Die junge Flavia de Luce staunt nicht schlecht, als sie im ersten Morgenlicht das Opfer eines Giftmordes in ihrem Gurkenbeet entdeckt! Da jeder ihren Vater, den sanftmütigen Colonel de Luce, für den Mörder zu halten scheint, nimmt die naseweise Flavia persönlich die Ermittlungen auf. Hartnäckig folgt sie jeder noch so abwegigen Spur — bis sie einsehen muss, dass ihr Vater tatsächlich ein dunkles Geheimnis hütet. Und so befürchtet Flavia schließlich, dass sie vielleicht eine zu gute Detektivin ist...

Wie weiterleben, wenn man von einem Moment auf den anderen aus der Lebensbahn geworfen wird, wenn der Tod plötzlich nahe rückt? Christoph Schlingensiefs bewegendes Protokoll einer Selbstbefragung ist ein Geschenk an uns alle, an Kranke wie Gesunde, denen allzu oft die Worte fehlen, wenn Krankheit und Tod in das Leben einbrechen. Eine Kur der Worte gegen das Verstummen — und nicht zuletzt eine Liebeserklärung an die Welt.

Aleksandr Orlov has in the last year become one of the most loved figures in British culture and his catchphrase — Simples! — can be heard from the playground to the office. Written in his inimitable voice (as dictated to his sidekick Sergei), his autobiography will offer the same humour as his TV ads, giving us the full story of his ancestor's Journey of Courageousness from the Kalahari to Russia, the low-down on his life as entrepreneur and founder of comparethemeerkat.com and his love of grubs and cravats. 'My name is Aleksandr Orlov. I live and make work in Moscow. I have a success business. I have a mansion decorate with many fine things. I have a naturally majestic posture. But I would have none of these things if it were not for my family. This book is dedicated to them. I also wish to inspire next generation of young businesskats. I am hope that this book will show what can come of courage, hard work and a good fur-care regime. I am also hope that with royalties I will be able to re-marble roof on Orlov family mansion'.

After a lifetime's struggle with alcohol, critical neglect and depression, in 1840 the nature poet John Clare is incarcerated. The asylum, in London's Epping Forest, is run on the reformist principles of occupational therapy. At the same time, the young Alfred Tennyson, moves nearby and became entangled in the life of the asylum. This historically accurate, intensely lyrical novel, describes the asylum's closed world and Nature's paradise outside the walls: Clare's dream of home, of redemption, of escape.

Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg — an awkward maths prodigy and a painfully shy computer genius — were never going to fit in at elite, polished Harvard. Yet that all changed when master-hacker Mark crashed the university's entire computer system by creating a rateable database of female students. Narrowly escaping expulsion, the two misfits refocused the site into something less controversial — 'The Facebook' — and watched as it spread like a wildfire across campuses around the country, along with their popularity. Yet amidst the dizzying levels of cash and glamour, as silicon valley, venture capitalists and reams of girls beckoned, the first cracks in their friendship started to appear, and what began as a simple argument spiralled into an out-and-out war. The great irony is that Facebook succeeded by bringing people together — but its very success tore two best friends apart.

Somerset Maugham is the acknowledged master of the short story, and his full range is represented in this collection. In acclaimed stories such as Rain, The Letter, The Vessel of Wrath and The Alien Corn, Maugham illustrates his wry perception of human weakness and his genius for evoking compelling drama and an acute sense of time and place.

Rebecka Martinsson, Staatanwältin im nordschwedischen Kiruna, wird in einen besonders grausamen Mordfall hineingezogen: Beim winterlichen Tauchen in einem See stirbt ein junges Pärchen, weil ein Fremder eine Holztür über das Loch schiebt, das sie ins Eis gehackt hatten, um nach einem versunkenen Wrack aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg zu tauchen. Wofür wurden die beiden mit dem Tod bestraft? Bei ihren Nachforschungen entdeckt Rebecka ein gefährliches Netz aus Angst, Schuld und Verrat. Und Schritt für Schritt begreift sie, dass auch 60 Jahre nach dem Ende des Krieges in Kiruna unversöhnliche Konflikte weiterschwelen. Konflikte, die auch sie in tödliche Gefahr zu bringen drohen...

I'm in constant search of chasing beauty, chasing hope — I'm not interested in the dark. The celebrated photographer Richard Phibbs, known for his celebrity portraits and iconic ad campaigns for Ralph Lauren, Giorgio Armani, and more, has an unwavering eye for beauty. Many theorists argue that beauty is subjective, a product of individual preference, but the images from Phibbs' archive of work from 1997-2009, edited, sequenced, and collected in Chasing Beauty, may put that argument to rest. The book is a deeply personal labor of love, affirming Phibbs' belief that photographs can change, inspire, and motivate. Alfredo Paredes, one of the creative minds behind Polo Ralph Lauren, approached Phibbs with the idea of making a monograph — with one caveat: Phibbs was to step back and relinquish control. Paredes had a vision in mind of taking Phibbs' aesthetic and selecting images that would realize his unique eye for beauty. The result is a fascinating juxtaposition of photographs that excite, tantalize, shock, and surprise. A delicate and gorgeous rose is followed by the rawness of a dirty rugby player; a pair of horses is set beside a female nude. These combinations highlight undeniable beauty of both natural and human origin, and show us that if you only look beauty can be found anywhere. Sometimes things cannot be expressed in words — that's what is so expressive, emotional, or revealing about a photograph. Just look and enjoy it. It reveals that exact fleeting moment in time — that's all. When I lose my breath a bit, I know that's the picture.

A translation by Robert & Elizabeth Chandler and Olga Meerson of Platonov's dystopian novel. It describes the lives of a group of Soviet workers who believe they are laying the foundations for a radiant future.

You may know me best as Meredith Nic Essus, princess of faerie. Or perhaps as Merry Gentry, Los Angeles private eye. In the fey and mortal realms alike, my life is the stuff of royal intrigue and celebrity drama. Among my own, I have confronted horrendous enemies, endured my noble kin's treachery and malevolence, and honored my duty to conceive a royal heir — all for the right to claim the throne. But I turned my back on court and crown, choosing exile in the human world — and in the arms of my beloved Frost and Darkness. While I may have rejected the monarchy, I cannot abandon my people. Someone is killing the fey, which has left the LAPD baffled and my guardsmen and me deeply disturbed. My kind are not easily captured or killed. At least not by mortals. I must get to the bottom of these horrendous murders, even if that means going up against Gilda, the Fairy Godmother, my rival for fey loyalties in Los Angeles. But even stranger things are happening. Mortals I once healed with magic are suddenly performing miracles, a shocking phenomenon wreaking havoc on human/faerie relations. Though I am innocent, dark suspicions of banned magical activities swirl around me. I thought I'd left the blood and politics behind in my own turbulent realm. I had dreamed of an idyllic life in sunny L.A. with my beloved ones beside me. But it becomes time to wake up and realize that evil knows no borders, and that nobody lives forever — even if they're magical.