Showing 1–12 of 40 resultsSorted by latest
-
£12.99
Nooteboom’s love for Venice, this ‘absurd combination of power, money, genius and great art’, has been ongoing for more than fifty years. The first visit was in 1964, in the company of a young woman. Then, in 1982, he arrived on the Orient Express. Only on his tenth visit did he take a gondola ride. And in 2018 a violent storm cut off the only road and rail connection between the city and the rest of the world, ensuring that he stayed on much longer than planned. He has dived deep into the labyrinth and discovered his own lagoon city between the alleys, locked gates and countless canals. He is surrounded by the dead, and pays homage to the painters and writers who lived and worked there, to the palaces, bridges, painting and sculpture that give the city a kind of immortality.
-
£8.99
Five women attempt the impossible – to love, to be strong, and to stay true to themselves. Bookseller Paula has lost a child, and a husband. Where will she find her happiness? Fiercely independent Judith thinks more of horses than men, but that doesn’t stop her looking for love online. Brida is a writer with no time to write, until she faces a choice between her work and her family. Abandoned by the ‘perfect’ man, Malika struggles for recognition from her parents. Her sister Jorinde, an actor, is pregnant for a third time, but how can she provide for her family alone?
-
£12.00
Afghanistan has a rich literary history, but chronic instability, compounded now by the current crisis, have meant that women’s voices have remained hidden. This anthology is the result of more than two years working Afghan women writers. They have strong, original, and unexpected stories to tell, but until now have had no opportunity to publish these locally or beyond their borders. Now it seems certain that this opportunity will be taken from them again.
-
£16.99
The summary execution of three dealers – one murdered in full view of a police surveillance team – is the signal for hell to be unleashed in France’s most notorious suburb. Now there’s a new kingpin in charge, using his ruthless teenage enforcer to assert an iron grip on his territory. And the local mayor, no stranger to the criminal underworld, is willing to make a pact with the devil if it will secure her a third term. Enter Capitaine Coste and his team, ready to break the rules to prevent the drugs squad from throwing an elderly stash-minder to the lions as bait. But when the blue touchpaper is lit on the estates, it will be all they can do to save their own skins from the inferno.
-
£12.99
‘The Border’ is a book about Russian and Russian history without its author ever entering Russia itself; a book about being the neighbour of that mighty, expanding empire throughout history. It is a chronicle of the colourful, exciting, tragic and often unbelievable histories of these bordering nations, their cultures, their people, their landscapes.
-
£8.99
In the summer of 1994, the quiet seaside town of Orphea reels from the discovery of two brutal murders. Confounding their superiors, two young police officers, Jesse Rosenberg and Derek Scott crack the case and arrest the murderer, earning themselves handsome promotions and the lasting respect of their colleagues. But twenty years later, just as he is on the point of taking early retirement, Rosenberg is approached by Stephanie Mailer, a journalist who believes he made a mistake back in 1994 and that the real murderer is still out there, perhaps ready to strike again. Before she can give any more details however, Stephanie Mailer mysteriously disappears without trace, and Rosenberg and Scott are forced to confront the awful possibility that her suspicions might have been proved horribly true.
-
£10.99
Little Starhorodivka, a village of three streets, lies in Ukraine’s Grey Zone, the no-man’s-land between loyalist and separatist froces. Thanks to the lukewarm war of sporadic violence and constant propaganda that has been dragging on for years, only two residents remain: retired safety inspector turned beekeeper Sergey Sergeyich and Pashka, a ‘frenemy’ from his schooldays. With little food and no electricity, under ever-present threat of bombardment, Sergeyich’s one remaining pleasure is his bees. As spring approaches, he knows he must take them far from the Grey Zone so they can collect their pollen in peace. This simple mission on their behalf introduces him to combatants and civilians on both sides of the battle lines: loyalists, separatists, Russian occupiers and Crimean Tatars. Wherever he goes, Sergeyich’s childlike simplicity and strong moral compass disarm everyone he meets.
-
£14.99
At first it’s the lie that hurts. A voicemail from her husband tells Sara he’s arrived at the holiday cabin. Then a call from his friend confirms he never did. As the hours stretch out, anger turns to fear. And when the police finally take an interest, they want to know why Sara deleted that voicemail. Now she’s alone in their unfinished dream house, with its kitchen island, wooden pallets on the bathroom floor and the light-suffused office where she receives her patients. Except that she’s not. Not quite. She can’t shake the feeling that she’s being watched. That, whatever happened to her husband, she could be next.
-
£10.00
When Oskar Kokoschka’s affair with Alma Mahler ended, the Austrian painter commissioned a life-sized doll in her image. Rather than keep his peccadillo secret, Kokoschka paraded with the doll through the town. But one day he grows tired of it, smashes a bottle of red wine over its head and throws it out. Years later it comes to play a role in the fate of a group of citizens who survived the thousands of tons of bombs that fell on Dresden during the Second World War. They include Isaac Dresner, a Jew who developed a limp in his left leg after he was burdened with the memory of his best friend being killed in front of him during the war; Bonifaz Vogel, a man who lives with a suspended conscience; Tsilia Kacev, an Orthodox Jew who is marked by the stigmata; and Zsigmond Varga, a millionaire whose dream is to find a method to weigh the human soul, measuring evil and sin with a hydraulic scale.
-
£9.99
Edvard grows up on a remote mountain farmstead in Norway with his taciturn grandfather, Sverre. The death of his parents, when he was three years old, has always been shrouded in mystery – he has never been told how or where it took place and has only a distant memory of his mother. But he knows that the fate of his grandfather’s brother, Einar, is somehow bound up with this mystery. One day a coffin is delivered for his grandfather long before his death – a meticulous, beautiful piece of craftsmanship. Perhaps Einar is not dead after all. Edvard’s desperate quest to unlock the family’s tragic secrets takes him on a long journey – from Norway to the Shetlands, and to the battlefields of France – to the discovery of a very unusual inheritance.
-
£30.00
At the summit of his power, John Law was the most famous man in Europe. Born in Scotland in 1671, he was convicted of murder in London and, after his escape from prison, fled Scotland for the mainland when Union with England brought with it a warrant for his arrest. On the continent he lurched from one money-making scheme to the next – selling insurance against losing lottery tickets in Holland, advising the Duke of Savoy – amassing a fortune of some 80,000. When Louis XIV died, leaving a thoroughly bankrupt France to his five-year-old heir, Law gained the ear of the Regent, Philippe D’Orleans. In the years that followed, Law’s financial wizardry transformed the fortunes of France, enriching speculators and investors across the continent, and he was made Controller-General of Finances, effectively becoming the French Prime Minister. But his fall from grace was every bit as spectacular as his meteoric rise.
-
£8.99
Louise Bonì, maverick chief inspector with the Black Forest crime squad, is struggling with her demons. Divorced at forty-two, she is haunted by the shadows of the past. Dreading yet another a dreary winter weekend alone, she receives a call from the departmental chief which signals the strangest assignment of her career – to trail a Japanese monk wandering through the snowy wasteland to the east of Freiburg, dressed only in sandals and a cowl. She sets off reluctantly, and by the time she catches up with him, she discovers that he is injured, and fearfully fleeing some unknown evil. When her own team comes under fire, the investigation takes on a terrifying dimension, uncovering a hideous ring of child traffickers. The repercussions of their crimes will change the course of her own life.
