Dublin 1907, a city of whispered rumours. A young actress begins an affair with a damaged older man, the leading playwright at the theatre where she works. Rebellious and flirtatious, Molly Allgood is a girl of the inner city tenements, dreaming of stardom in America. She has dozens of admirers but in the backstage of her life there is a secret. Her lover, John Synge, is a troubled genius, the son of a once prosperous landowning family, a poet of fiery language and tempestuous passions. Yet his life is hampered by convention and by the austere and God-fearing mother with whom he lives. Scarred by a childhood of loneliness and severity he has long been ill, but he loves to walk the wild places of Ireland. The affair, sternly opposed by friends and family, is turbulent, sometimes cruel, often tender. Many years later, an old woman makes her way across London on the morning after a hurricane. Christmas is coming. As she wanders past bombsites and through the city's forlorn beauty, a snowdrift of memories and lost desires seems to swirl. She has twice been married: once widowed, once divorced, but an unquenchable passion for life has kept her afloat as her dazzling career has faded. A story of love's commitment, of partings and reconciliations, of the courage involved in living on nobody else's terms, Ghost Light is a profoundly moving and ultimately uplifting novel.

Some crimes strike too close to home... Private detective Bill Smith is hurtled headlong into the most provocative-and personal-case of his career when he receives a chilling late night telephone call from the NYPD. They're holding his fifteen-year-old nephew Gary. But before he can find out what's going on, Gary escapes Bill's custody and disappears into the dark and unfamiliar streets... With his partner, Lydia Chin, Bill tries to find the missing teen and uncover what it is that has led him so far from home. Their search takes them to Gary's family in a small town in New Jersey, where they discover that one of Gary's classmates was murdered. Bill and Lydia delve into the crime-only to find it eerily similar to a decades-old murder-suicide... The situation is not helped by Bill's long term estrangement from his sister. But now, with his nephew's future at stake, Bill must unravel a long-buried crime and confront the darkness of his own past...

Na Ga was always in search of a better life. But now she sits, alone, in a hotel room in Wanting, a godforsaken town on the Chinese-Burmese border. Plucked from her wild life as a rural eel-catcher, Na Ga is first abandoned by her would-be rescuers in Rangoon. Later, as a teenager, she finds herself chasing the dream of a new life in Thailand — where further betrayals and violations await. Yet it seems that her fighting spirit will not be broken. But for how long can Na Ga belong nowhere and with no one? In the dingy hotel in Wanting, she is forced to confront her compulsion to keep running, and to ask herself why, until now, she's resisted the journey home.

This is the tale of three women — one witch, one mermaid and one missing — and how Ruby was caught up in between. The Black Country town of Cradle Cross — home to buttonmakers, canal folk, and more than its share of widows — is bounded by canals, grief and superstition. Caught within this web is motherless thirteen-year-old Ruby, who dreams of escaping the soot and smoke of her home-town for the clear air of the sea. When a mysterious stranger named Isa Fly appears in the doorway of Captin Len's Fried Fish Shop on a quest to find her dying father's missing wife and daughter, Ruby and Captin Len are both enchanted. But some of the townsfolk are instantly suspicious of the outsider and when Ruby introduces Isa to Truda Blick, the bluestocking graduate who has just inherited the town's button factory, the women are pushed to the brink of riot. Only Ruby knows enough to save them. But first she must save herself.

Maya Lowe is one of the world's biggest movie stars. Steve Watkins is her life-long friend. Both swear their relationship hasn't changed since they shared a school desk as London teenagers. But can a friendship like theirs really survive a fame as great as Maya's? Can a man like Steve, working away for a Heathrow logistics company, seriously remain part of her life? He certainly thinks so. But amid the twists and turns of Maya's public and private lives, the gulf between what Steve thinks and what is actually true gets ever wider. And in a world where the obsession with celebrity seems to make everyone want to be one, truth is hard to find. Set in modern-day Britain, America and France, Alastair Campbell's second novel is part psychological thriller, part exploration of the psychology of fame. Steve is a brilliantly ambiguous figure, narrating a story full of morally complex characters from the worlds of film, business, TV, journalism and private investigation. Whether through stars with a love-hate relationship with their public; agents milking the culture of celebrity; a media that cannot get enough because the public always want more, Campbell depicts a society feeding vainly on fame, and the dangerous consequences for those caught up in its frenzy.

«Singapore — a trading post where different lives jostle and mix. It is 1927, and three young people are starting to question whether this in between island can ever truly be their home. Mei Lan comes from a famous Chinese dynasty but yearns to free herself from its stifling traditions; ten-year-old Howard seethes at the indignities heaped on his fellow Eurasians by the colonial British; Raj, fresh off the boat from India, wants only to work hard and become a successful businessman. As the years pass, and the Second World War sweeps through the east, with the Japanese occupying Singapore, the three are thrown together in unexpected ways, and tested to breaking point. Richly evocative, «A Different Sky» paints a scintillating panorama of thirty tumultuous years in Singapore's history through the passions and struggles of characters the reader will find it hard to forget.»

Deepdene has been swept by what seems to be a vicious tropical disease. Luckily Eve and Jess are both healthy so they're taking their chance to enjoy the unseasonal heat wave. But then teenagers start to disappear. The spread of the disease worsens and the town is placed under lockdown. A demon is among them. It could be anybody. And now there's nowhere to go... The third title in this successful series. It is suitable for all fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed and Twilight.

'The whites want war and we will give it to them' — Sitting Bull. This is the archetypal story of the American West. Whether it is cast as a tale of unmatched bravery in the face of impossible odds or of insane arrogance receiving its rightful comeuppance, Custer's Last Stand continues to captivate the imagination. Nathaniel Philbrick brilliantly reconstructs the build-up to the Battle of the Little Big Horn through to the final eruption of violence. Two legendary figures dominate the events: George Armstrong Custer and Sitting Bull. No longer the fresh-faced 'Boy-General' of the Civil War, Custer was now mired in financial, professional and political problems. A clear and just cause had been replaced by ambiguity and frustration — by ill-fated efforts at peace treaties, treachery and compromises on both sides. Forced to take to the plains to feed themselves, and increasingly outraged by the government's policies towards them, the Sioux and Cheyenne became infused with a new sense of collective identity and purpose. Between six and eight thousand people came together in the largest ever gathering of Native Americans. If the government should be foolish enough to pursue them, they would stand and fight. Sitting Bull was in his mid-forties, His charisma and political savvy had enabled him to emerge as their leader. A vision he received during a Sun Dance — of soldiers falling from the sky — was widely understood to presage a great victory. Nathaniel Philbrick brings vividly to life all those involved — from the Oglala Sioux warrior Crazy Horse and Major Marcus Reno who led the first attack, to Libby Custer waiting with the other army wives at Fort Lincoln. He evokes too the history, geography and haunting beauty of the Great Plains and provides the finest account to date of what happened there — and why — at the end of June 1876.

Time Out's resident team helps you get the best out of the City on the Bay, giving you the inside track on local culture plus hundreds of independent venue reviews. As well as covering visitor essentials. Time Out San Francisco explores the city's diverse neighborhoods and highlights its independent and creative spirit with a tour of its thriving gay, art, food, shopping and cultural venues.

Early one September three friends spend the weekend at a remote cabin by Dead Water Lake. With only a pale moon to light their way, they row across the water in the middle of the night. But only two of them return. When the body of the third friend is discovered, Inspector Sejer is put in charge of the investigation. He is troubled by the apparent suicide and has an overwhelming sense that the surviving pair has something to hide. Weeks pass without further clues and then, in a nearby lake, the body of another teenage boy floats to the surface...

Lee Langley's bewitching story of lost hope and thwarted love opens where Puccini's opera ends; with Madame Butterfly — Cho-Cho-San — handing over her beloved son to his American father before killing herself. In America Joey grows up torn between two cultures, haunted, like his parents, by their memories of what really happened on that fateful day. But just as Joey's fate is inextricably linked with the country of his birth, so too is the fate of America, and both of their paths will ultimately lead to Nagasaki.

My Michael is a beautiful work of great depth and lingers in the mind as a lyric song to his country's people as much as a moving love story. (Arthur Miller). 1950s Jerusalem. Hannah Gonen has just married and is thrilled and pained by her young well-meaning husband, Michael. Haunted by her dreams of two boys who disappeared from Jerusalem after the establishment of the state of Israel, Hannah gradually withdraws from her husband into a private world of fantasy and suppressed desires. A remarkable, precipient picture of the nature of women.

Alex Horne loves words. He loves them so much, in fact, that he's gone on a mental safari and invented some of his own... all he needs to do now is get them into the dictionary. But, as Alex discovers, gaining entry into the official lexicon takes more than just a gentle word in the ear of the editor. Evidence is required — Alex needs what the dictionary authorities call a 'corpus' of examples, hard data showing that his new words are in widespread and long-term usage by people other than just him and his mum. So a corpus he resolves to create, no matter what obstacles he might meet on the way. This is the ridiculous story of one man's struggle to break into the dictionary. From covert word-dropping on Countdown to willfully misinforming young schoolchildren, Alex tries it all in his quest for word-based stardom. Does he succeed? Exactly what is a 'mental safari'? And are you already using one of Alex's words without realising it? You won't regret spending your hard-earned honk on this hugely entertaining book.

In a book that combines psychology and sociology with an insightful understanding of human interactions, Ori and Rom Brafman have written a compelling narrative that helps us to understand the magic behind those moments when we form an incredible connection with other people, or which cause us to become fully engaged in whatever we are doing. In a page-turning narrative in the fashion of their previous book, Sway, the co-authors explore those peak moments in our lives when people or hobbies or activities fully engage our attention — when they 'click' with us. Drawing from recent research in psychology and sociology, and told through the same kinds of engaging stories that made Sway a New York Times bestseller, Click takes us on a roller coaster journey of discovery into those moments in our lives when we are 'in the zone' — when the rest of the world drops away and everything seems to fall into place.

In Atlanta, Charlie Cortez MD diagnoses his mistress with an unknown neurodegenerative disease that is inducing violent and bloody psychosis. The apparent cause? Consumption of infected human flesh... In Vienna, Dr. Reeta Kapoor, eminent anthropologist, is forced to travel to a remote Indian archipelago in order to rescue her brother — he has become embroiled in a plot to thwart the colonization of a mysterious and scarcely contacted native tribe and is in grave danger... In Dubai, Kelly Maelzel, in-demand Australian zoologist, is blackmailed into accepting a new job — protecting the visitors to a strange new project. A millionaire philanthropist has created a game reserve where the livestock are particularly violent, unpredictable... and human. The link: Savage Island, a four-day eastward sail from Chennai and home to the most fearsome legend in the Bay of Bengal; a cannibalistic tribe of natives who ritually destroy anyone unfortunate or foolish enough to set foot on their tropical paradise island. But one megalomaniac wants to sell that paradise to the world. Unfortunately, the natives have other ideas.

Four teenagers find the mutilated corpse of a young girl stuffed into a dumpster in an Edinburgh alleyway. Who is she? Where did she come from? Who killed her and why? Above all, where is the baby to which she has obviously recently given birth? Inspector Rob Brennan, recently back from psychiatric leave, is still shocked by the senseless shooting of his only brother. His superiors think that the case of the dumpster girl will be perfect to get him back on track. But Rob Brennan has enemies within the force, stacks of unfinished business and a nose for trouble. What he discovers about the murdered girl blows the case — and his life — wide open.

The final part of the Langani Trilogy is a breathtaking story of friendship and love set against the backdrop of 20th-century Kenya Fourteen years after independence, the enduring childhood friendship of three women has carried them through times of violence and loss in Kenya, their chosen homeland. Hannah Olsen and her husband Lars own Langani Farm and Safari Lodge where they struggle to protect their wildlife and land from poachers and corrupt officials — but the developing relationship between their daughter and a young African boy with a terrifying legacy tests the strength of their family. Sarah Singh, wildlife researcher and renowned photographer, is married to an Indian journalist, however, their inability to have children puts Sarah's relationship with her husband and his family under increasing pressure. Camilla Broughton Smith, international model and fashion designer, has given up a dazzling career to work with the charismatic safari guide Anthony Chapman, who has been disabled in a tragic accident — yet his bitterness and fear of commitment threaten to shatter her dreams. Set in the magnificent but unpredictable wilds of Kenya, this is a story of courage and fortitude, of loyalty and murderous deceit, of friendship and betrayal, and redeeming sacrifice.

«In a remote, piney wood in Finland stands a convalescent hospital called Suvanto, a curving concrete example of austere Scandinavian design. It is the 1920s, and the patients, all women, seek relief from ailments real and imagined. On the lower floors are the stoic Finnish women; on the upper floors are foreign women of privilege — the «up-patients». They are tended to by head nurse Sunny Taylor, an American who has fled an ill-starred life only to retreat behind a mask of crisp professionalism. On a late-summer day a new patient arrives on Sunny's wardoa faded, irascible former ballroom-dance instructor named Julia Dey. Sunny takes it upon herself to pierce the mystery of Julia's reserve. Soon, Julia's difficulty, her tightly coiled anger, places her at the center of the ward's tangled emotional life. As summer turns to fall, and fall to a long, dark winter, the patients hear rumors about changes being implemented at Suvanto by an American obstetrician, Dr. Peter Weber, who is experimenting with a new surgical stitch. Their familiar routine threatened, the women are not happy (they were not happy before), and the story's escalating menace builds to a terrifying conclusion.»

Ten years after her death, Princess Diana remains a mystery. Was she 'the people's princess', who electrified the world with her beauty and humanitarian missions? Or was she a manipulative, media-savvy neurotic who nearly brought down the monarchy? Tina Brown knew Diana personally, knows her world, understands its players, and has far-reaching insight into the royals and the Queen herself. In The Diana Chronicles, you will meet a formidable female cast and get to know the society they inhabit... as you never have before. Diana's sexually charged mother, her subtly scheming grandmother, the stepmother she hated but eventually came to understand, and a terrifying trio of in-laws and relations: Fergie, the force of nature whose life was full of its own unacknowledged pathos; Princess Margaret, the fading glamour girl; and, the implacable Queen Mother and more formidable than all of them, her mother-in-law, the Queen, whose admiration Diana sought till the day she died. Add Camilla Parker-Bowles, the ultimate 'other woman' into this combustible mix, and it's no wonder that Diana felt the need to break out of her royal cage into celebrity culture, where she found her own power and used it to devastating effect.

In Edwardian England a vow of friendship is a thing of innocence. Even when tested by the passionate militancy of the suffragette movement or the rigorous demands of the Season, the bonds between Rory, Eleanor, Jenny and Francesca hold fast. But nothing can withstand the unprecedented onslaught of the First World War — and as the best of an entire generation is extinguished on the battlefields of Europe, a schoolgirl pledge, too, lies broken...