Aleksandr made a silent promise to the Lord. God would deliver him-would deliver Russia-and he would make Russia into the country that the Almighty wanted it to be. He would be delivered from the destruction that wasted at noonday, and from the pestilence that walked in darkness-the terror by night... 1825, Europe-and Russia-have been at peace for ten years. Bonaparte is long dead and the threat of invasion is no more. For Colonel Aleksei Ivanovich Danilov, life is peaceful. Not only have the French been defeated but so have the twelve monstrous creatures he once fought alongside, and then against, ten or more years ago. His duty is still to serve and to protect his tsar, Aleksandr the First, but now the enemy is human. However the Tsar knows that he can never be at peace. Of course, he is aware of the uprising fermenting within the Russian army-among his supposedly loyal officers. No, what troubles him is something that threatens to bring damnation down upon him, his family and his country. The Tsar has been reminded of a promise: a promise born of blood...a promise that was broken a hundred years before. Now the one who was betrayed by the Romanovs has returned to exact revenge for what has been denied him. And for Aleksei, knowing this chills his very soul. For it seems the vile pestilence that once threatened all he believed in and all he held dear has returned, thirteen years later...

Tessa has just a few months to live. Fighting back against hospital visits, endless tests, drugs with excruciating side-effects, Tessa compiles a list. It's her To Do Before I Die list. And number one is sex. Released from the constraints of 'normal' life, Tessa tastes new experiences to make her feel alive while her failing body struggles to keep up. Tessa's feelings, her relationships with her father and brother, her estranged mother, her best friend, her new boyfriend, all are painfully crystallized in the precious weeks before Tessa's time finally runs out. Before I Die is a brilliantly-crafted novel, heartbreaking yet astonishingly life-affirming. It will take you to the very edge.

«In this sumptuous vision of Venice, Peter Ackroyd turns his unparalleled skill at evoking place from London and the River Thames, to Italy and the city of myth, mystery and beauty, set like a jewel in its glistening lagoon. His account is at once romantic and packed with facts, conjuring up the atmosphere of the canals, bridges and sunlit squares, the churches and the markets, the fiestas and the flowers. He leads us through the history of the city, from the first refugees arriving in the mists of the lagoon in the fourth century to the rise of a great mercantile state and a trading empire, the wars against Napoleon and the tourist invasions of today. Everything is here: the merchants on the Rialto and the Jews in the ghetto; the mosaics of St Mark's and the glass blowers of Murano; the carnival masks and the sad colonies of lepers; and, the doges and the destitute and the artists with their passion for colour and form — Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto, Tiepolo. There are wars and sieges, scandals and seductions, fountains playing in deserted squares and crowds thronging the markets. And there is a dark undertone too, of shadowy corners and dead ends, prisons and punishment. The language and way of thinking of the Venetians sets them aside from the rest of Italy. They are an island people, linked to the sea and to the tides rather than the land. 'The moon rules Venice', Ackroyd writes: 'It is built on ocean shells and ocean ground; it has the aspect of infinity. It is the floating world... changing and variable and accidental. 'This book, like a magic gondola, transports its readers to that sensual, surprising realm. We could have no better guide — reading Ackroyd's «Venice» is, in itself, a glorious journey and the perfect holiday'.»

Tiffany Aching put one foot wrong, made one little mistake... And now the spirit of winter is in love with her. He gives her roses and icebergs, says it with avalanches and showers her with snowflakes — which is tough when you're 13, but also just a little bit... cool. And just because the Wintersmith wants to marry you is no excuse for neglecting your chores. So Tiffany must look after Miss Treason, who's 113 and has far too many eyes, learn the secret of Boffo, catch Horace the cheese, stop the gods from seeing her in the bath — 'Crivens!' Oh, yes, and be helped by the Nac Mac Feegles — whether she wants it or not. But if Tiffany doesn't work it all out, there will never be another springtime.

Google is a dominant force on the Internet, guiding millions of searches and online purchases every day. Understanding how it works and how to make the most of it is therefore essential to anyone building or running a web site, whether for business or as a hobby. This easy-to-follow guide not only explains how Google sifts the billions of pages of information its index contains, but also shows you how you can improve the performance of your own web site in Google's search results, giving specific and detailed instructions about the priority issues you need to address. Superbly practical and readable, it will prove invaluable to web designers, business people and indeed anyone whose livelihood or interested depend on understanding the Internet better. 50 Ways to Make Google Love Your Web Site will teach you how to: capture more of the top results for your market; keep your web site clear of Google's penalities; think more like your googling customers; win more traffic to your web pages; and, build a better web site.

Did you know that the way you eat your food will be sending subliminal messages out about your sexual habits? Or that the way you swing, rock or slump in your office chair, or decorate your desk, could be helping your boss decide about that promotion or pay rise? We're all aware of the subtle messages of design and marketing but what about the signals you send out about yourself and your personality? The You Code is the book that answers all these questions, uncovering the hidden meaning behind the simplest of choices. Judi James, with co-writer and journalist James Moore, pulls no punches in her addictive and entertaining book which gets to the nub of who you really are, telling you more about yourself than you ever wanted to know, as well as providing an intriguing insight into the people around you. From shopping to sex, even down to the filling in your sandwich, The You Code is a must for anyone who wants to find out more about themselves and, more importantly, what everyone else thinks of them.

From the prestigious dormitories of Westfield and Oxford's austere college halls, to the irresistible socialite scene of present-day London, everywhere Allegra McCorquodale goes, scandal follows her. And in Allegra's shadow are her closest friends since school, the Midnight Girls. Romily de Lisle: super rich, brilliant and bored. She's as blessed as Allegra when it comes to looks, but she's a force to be reckoned with. And Imogen Heath: pretty, timid and hopelessly drawn to Allegra's reckless charm. She longs to be a part of the glitzy high-society world where her friends move with such ease. Once free of the cloistered worlds of school and university, the Midnight Girls face new and different challenges, but they are forever bonded by a terrible secret they've sworn never to break. Bitter rivalries arise as their professional lives soon cross paths. Greed, tragedy and sinister passions threaten their allegiance. Each of them stand to lose what they love most, and one of them must make the ultimate sacrifice.

Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg is not like other policemen. His methods appear unorthodox in the extreme: he doesn't search for clues; he ignores obvious suspects and arrests people with cast-iron alibis; he appears permanently distracted. In spite of all this his colleagues are forced to admit that he is highly successful — a born cop. When strange blue chalk circles start appearing overnight on the pavements of Paris, the press take up the story with amusement and psychiatrists trot out their theories. Adamsberg is alone in thinking this is not a game and far from amusing. He insists on being kept informed of new circles and the increasingly bizarre objects which they contain: a pigeon's foot, four cigarette lighters, a badge proclaiming 'I Love Elvis', a hat, a doll's head. Adamsberg senses the cruelty that lies behind these seemingly random occurrences. Soon a circle with decidedly less banal contents is discovered: the body of a woman with her throat savagely cut. Adamsberg knows that other murders will follow. The Chalk Circle Man is the first book featuring Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, one of the most engaging characters in contemporary detective fiction.

As a child Ludo is plucked out of the shantytown where he was born and transported to a world of languid, cosseted luxury. Now twenty-seven, he works high above the sprawling metropolis of Sao Paulo for a vacuous 'communications company'. But this is not his world, and this is not a simple rags-to-riches story: Ludo's destiny moves him around like a chess piece, showing him both extremities of opulent excess and abject poverty, taking him to the brink of madness and brutality.

The subject of this novel is a habitual womaniser. He regards his high libido as physiologically normal; if he goes without a woman for three days, he suffers headaches. He embarks on affairs with Hollywood starlets, with mob molls and numerous female employees, despite debilitating ailments and a persistent fear of losing his beloved wife and children. And this particular philanderer must choose his partners with care and employ painstaking calculation in their seduction. He must go to extraordinary lengths to conceal his affairs from his political rivals — and with good reason. He is the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

The Russian Revolution is breaking out all around him, but Charlie Doig has a private war to fight. Even if he dies in the attempt, he's going to track down and kill Prokhor Glebov, the Bolshevik who raped and tortured his beautiful wife Elizaveta. Certain that Glebov will sooner or later turn up at Lenin's side, he and Kobi, his Mongolian henchman, make their way to St Petersburg. There, amidst the chaos of the Revolution, Charlie discovers that Glebov has been put in charge of the political re-education of the Tsar and his family in Ekaterinburg. The chase begins. There follows an adventure story of the sort they don't write any more. Having captured an armored train, Charlie and the ragtag private army he has recruited fight their way towards Siberia. Near Kazan, he hears rumors that the Tsar's gold reserves are in the city and that Glebov is also after them. He determines that he'll avenge Elizaveta and grab the gold in one swoop. James Fleming is one of modern fiction's great stylists. His prose is marvelously robust and vivid, his plot breathtaking in its pace and excitement, and his protagonist, as the Independent said of the previous Doig novel, White Blood, is 'the right kind of hero: virile, ruthless, adventurous'.

Meet Vish Puri, India's most private investigator. Portly, persistent and unmistakably Punjabi, he cuts a determined swathe through modern India's swindlers, cheats and murderers. In hot and dusty Delhi, where call centres and malls are changing the ancient fabric of Indian life, Puri's main work comes from screening prospective marriage partners, a job once the preserve of aunties and family priests. But when an honest public litigator is accused of murdering his maidservant, it takes all of Puri's resources to investigate. How will he trace the fate of the girl, known only as Mary, in a population of more than one billion? Who is taking pot shots at him and his prize chilli plants? And why is his widowed 'Mummy-ji' attempting to play sleuth when everyone knows Mummies are not detectives? With his team of undercover operatives — Tubelight, Flush and Facecream — Puri ingeniously combines modern techniques with principles of detection established in India more than two thousand years ago — long before 'that Johnny — come-lately' Sherlock Holmes donned his Deerstalker. The search for Mary takes him to the desert oasis of Jaipur and the remote mines of Jharkhand. From his well-heeled Gymkhana Club to the slums where the servant classes live, Puri's adventures reveal modern India in all its seething complexity.

Jasper Jones has come to my window. I don't know why, but he has. Maybe he's in trouble. Maybe he doesn't have anywhere else to go. Late on a hot summer night at the tail end of 1965, Charlie Bucktin, a precocious and bookish boy of thirteen, is startled by an urgent knock on his window. His visitor is Jasper Jones, an outcast in the regional mining town of Corrigan. Rebellious, mixed-race and solitary, Jasper is a distant figure of danger and intrigue for Charlie. So when Jasper begs for his help, Charlie eagerly steals into the night by his side, terribly afraid but desperate to impress. Jasper takes him through town and to his secret glade in the bush, and it's here that Charlie bears witness to Jasper's horrible discovery. With his secret like a brick in his belly, Charlie is pushed and pulled by a town closing in on itself in fear and suspicion. In the simmering summer where everything changes, Charlie learns to discern the truth from the myth, and why white lies creep like a curse.

In a book, rich with characters and plants, this is a romantic and alluring leap into Spanish rural life with the author and his partner, a flamenco dancer, who buy a farm in a remote, steep valley and set about clearing land, planting and harvesting olives.

To Luca Matthews the dangers of the high mountain peaks are quite literally the air upon which he thrives. In the ruthless pursuit of his goals he would sacrifice anything — even another climber's life. His friends and family know and fear it. So when he sights a virgin peak in the Himalayas that exists on no map, no one is surprised when he becomes obsessed with being the first to scale it. Together with his climbing partner, Bill Taylor, they set off into a region of Tibet highly restricted by the Chinese. But a freak accident puts one of their team in mortal danger and it is left to a local Tibetan girl to lead them to Geltang, a monastery that has been hidden from the outside world since the Chinese Cultural Revolution, when most of the monasteries were pillaged and burned. Soon, as the Chinese secret police get wind of them, Luca and Bill find themselves embroiled in an age-old struggle, not for their lives but to protect the precious secret that Geltang hides and the legacy of Tibet itself.

Shannon Burke earned stunning reviews for his debut novel, Safelight, and now he returns with the same minimalist intensity in this arresting follow-up. Black Flies is the story of paramedic Ollie Cross and his first year on the job in mid-1990s Harlem. It is a ground's eye view of life on the streets: the shoot-outs, the bad cops, unhinged medics, and hopeless patients, the dark humour in bizarre circumstances, and one medic's fight to balance his instinct to help against the growing callousness within him that witnessing daily horrors seems to encourage. It is the story of lives that hang in the balance, and of a single job with a misdiagnosed newborn that sends Cross and his long-serving partner into a life-changing struggle between good and evil. A gripping and unforgettable novel about a young man's indelible experiences, Black Flies describes the passing of the torch from the older to the younger man, friendship in extreme conditions, deterioration, despair, and then redemption.

Set against the terrible struggle of the English Civil War and the dark plots of the Commonwealth, Rebels and Traitors tells of soldiers, adventurers, aristocrats and kings, tradesmen, politicians, radicals and scavengers — and the hopes and dreams that carried them through one of the most turbulent eras of English history. Men who never imagined fighting a war gladly risk their lives; women strive to keep families and businesses together through years of deprivation; innocents are caught up in bloodshed and terror. After years of struggle Gideon Jukes and Juliana Lovell, on opposite sides of the Parliamentarian/Royalist divide, are brought together by fate on one of the significant dates of the struggles and its aftermath. After adversity and loss, their mutual attraction may one day bring the comfort and companionship for which they both have yearned through a disastrous war. But a dark shadow lurks over them and even in peace the past is not far behind. Rebels and Traitors is an absolute epic masterpiece, poignant and convincing characterisation and razor-sharp historical realism.

Tatiana, a young Mexican woman, is adrift in Berlin. Choosing a life of solitude, she takes a job transcribing notes for the reclusive Doktor Weiss. Through him she meets 'an illustrator turned meteorologist' Jonas, a Berliner who has used clouds and the sky's constant shape-shifting as his escape from reality. As their three paths intersect and merge, the contours of all their worlds begins to change...

Peter Firstbrook spent many months in Kenya researching the history of Barack Obama's family, tracing Obama's roots from the present back through more than 20 generations, thanks to the Luo tribe's remarkable oral tradition. Seen though the eyes of the Obama family this will be the story of an African dynasty going back over 400 years. It is a truly astonishing drama culminating in the inauguration of Barack Obama on 20 January, 2009. This book establishes the early ancestry of the Obama family in the Alego region, telling the story of farmers and fishermen, of love and tribal warfare, of families lost and found. It traces the Obama roots from famous tribal warriors in the seventeenth century to the first encounters with the white man in the early 1900s; generation by generation we follow the family through colonial rule and the fight for Kenyan independence, including the Mau Mau and the relationship of Barack Obama's father with President Kenyatta. This is a book about a family whose destiny is unknown to them.

«Getting a high score on the GRE Math Subject Test isn't about memorizing everything there is to know about math-it's about targeting your test preparation. We teach you only the information you'll need along with the best strategies for the test day. In this book, you'll learn how to: Use our strategies and techniques to boost your accuracy; Increase your pacing and familiarize yourself with the test format; Understand the topics that will most likely appear on the test; Practice and review the subjects that are hardest for you «Cracking the GRE Math, 4th Edition» also includes a full-length practice GRE Math Subject Test.»