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Книги издательства «Random House, Inc.»
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Alfred Day wanted his war. In its turmoil he found his proper purpose as the tail-gunner in a Lancaster bomber; he found the wild, dark fellowship of his crew, and — most extraordinary of all — he found Joyce, a woman to love. But that's all gone now — the war took it away. Maybe it took him, too. Now in 1949, employed as an extra in a war film that echoes his real experience, Day begins to recall what he would rather forget... |
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It started as a joke. From the moment she first meets him Alice is aware that David is impotent. 'I'm impotent', he says, 'in so many ways.' He's separated from his wife and daughter, an HR executive worried for his job at a Glaswegian TV company. She's American, wants to be an artist. They move in together. To start with she tells him stories, bedtime stories about couples having sex, them watching. Then Alice finds that David has gone further, and is logging on to swinging sites — horny housewives, couples willing to try anything... Just as a joke, he says. Alice is intrigued.These people seem so honest, so open about needing to reach out and touch. And maybe this is the answer to David's problem. Maybe they need people like this to give them a love life. And so David and Alice plunge head first into the hidden world of Glasgow swinging, where no one is ugly and nothing is forbidden. Their journey ends at an orgy with nine other couples in the Black Room, where you can see nothing but feel everything. And there, finally, each of them finds what they have been searching for. Like Ewan Morrison's first book, the highly-praised The Last Book You Read and Other Stories, Swung is frank, funny, disturbing and compassionate. It confirms Morrison as a writer of great daring and huge gifts. |
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A model of efficiency and order, the aerodrome stands on the hill looking down on the village below. Roy, coming of age in the messy, violent and adulterous world of the villagers, is simultaneously attracted and repelled by this strange place and by the powerful figure of the Air Vice-Marshal. Soon he is led to leave his family, his friends and his love in order to join the aerodrome and confront the secrets of this mysterious and sinister place... |
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'Nobody fights forever, so I prepared myself for two battles. The first was fighting alongside her. We've done that. As well as two can. But, as the years have ticked by, I've seen a second front coming — and it's the tougher of the two. Abbie might still be swinging but she was beat. To be honest, I think she was still in the ring fighting, simply for me. Lately, the thing that had been keeping me up nights was wondering what would happen if I told her that she could let her guard down — that she could stop fighting. What if she was just waiting on me?' Doss Michaels and Abbie Colman should never have met let alone fallen in love. As the only child of South Carolina's most senior senator, Abbie's father had wanted better for her than Doss, who grew up in a trailer park next to the St Mary's river. Abbie and Doss had married quickly and secretly, returning to face her parents' objections that haven't faded even after over fourteen years of marriage. But now Abbie and Doss are coming to the end of the road. Diagnosed with breast cancer four years before, Abbie's case is now terminal and they've run out of options. Rather than letting Abbie spend her final days in a cold, sterile hospital room, Doss packs their bags and steals away with her in the middle of the night. They carry with them Abbie's 'wish list' — ten things she wants to do before she dies. The wishes are simple, normal; because after four years of non-stop invasive medical treatments, 'normal' is a fleeting memory. Along with taking a final trip with Doss on the river that holds so many memories for them both, Abbie wants to dance with her husband, drink wine on a beach, laugh until it hurts. But as they head for river's end, racing against weather and time, Abbie's father, the press and the police are determined to find them and bring Abbie home... |
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Two helicopters disrupt the peace of Dr Gabe Singleton's remote Wyoming ranch. From one of them strides the President of the United States with startling news — and a stunning request which will turn Gabe's quiet life upside down. President Stoddard's personal physician has suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, and he needs Gabe to take the man's place. Reluctantly, Gabe agrees — but soon he discovers that critical details concerning the President's health have been kept from him. Suspecting that the President's worsening condition may not be due to natural causes, Gabe sets out to uncover who is behind his mysterious illness. But the more questions he asks, the more Gabe seems to be putting himself in danger. |
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In 1903, Leon M — a devout terrorist — is given the responsibility of 'liquidating' Valerian Alexandrovitch Courilof, the notoriously brutal and cold-blooded Russian Minister of Education, by the Revolutionary Committee. The assassination, he is told, must take place in public and be in most grandiose manner possible in order to strike the imagination of the people. Posing as his newly appointed personal physician, Leon M takes up residence with Courliof in his summer house in the Iles and awaits instructions.But over the course of his stay he is made privy to the inner world of Courliof — his failing health, his troubled domestic situation and, most importantly, the tyrannical grip that the Czar himself holds over all his Ministers, forcing them to obey him or suffer the most deadly punishments.Set during a period of radical upheaval in European history, The Courliof Affair is an unsparing observation of human motives and the abuses of power, an elegy to lost world and an unflinchingly topical cautionary tale. |
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It is the summer of 1975. Marco Timoleon, an Onassis-like tycoon, is nearing the end of his life. When he finds out his troubled daughter is pregnant by a man he doesn't approve of, he throws a birthday party for her on his private island, secretly intending to persuade her to terminate the pregnancy. A doctor stands by to perform the operation on the spot. The story of this fateful party and the lives it affects is a brilliant modern fable, a rags-to-riches tale with no certainty of a happily-ever-after ending. |
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Meet Burt Hecker, aka Eckbert Attquiet, a 63 year old medieval re-enactor with a momentous nose, who dresses in tunics and drinks too much home-made mead. His treasured wife Kitty has died and their strange and beautiful relationship is now the stuff of history; he has sold all of his possessions and bought a one-way ticket to Europe, bent on rescuing his beloved son Tristan from the 'evil' city of Prague. If only he knew that his son doesn't want to be rescued, or found. |
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This perfect gem of a novel by the author of the posthumously acclaimed and bestselling Suite Francaise has never previously been published and was discovered only recently in separate archive files. A couple of pages were in the famous suitcase which her daughters saved, and the balance had been deposited with a family friend and editor during the war. A morality tale with doubtful morals, a story of murder, love and betrayal in rural France, Fire in the Blood, planned in 1937, written in 1941, is set in a small village, based on Issy-l'Eveque where Suite Francaise was written, and brilliantly prefigures the village community in her later masterpiece. An old man looks back on a chequered life with secret regrets, concealing a truth he will not reveal until the end. Fire in the Blood is a small and beautiful chamber piece which starts quietly, lyrically, but then races away with revelations and narrative twists in a story about young women forced into marriages with old men, about mothers and daughters, stepmothers and stepdaughters, youthful passions and the regrets of old age, about peasant communities and the way they hide their secrets. Nemirovsky looks at her characters, both young and old, with the same clear-eyed distance and humanity as she displayed in Suite Francaise, unpeeling layer after layer. Atmospheric and haunting as Embers and with the crystalline perfection of Chekhov, Fire in the Blood is a gripping literary find. |
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In school playgrounds across the country parents huddle in worried packs, desperately putting together their final plans to survive the summer weeks of mayhem — school is officially out! For once, Amanda has a simple, cheap and fail-safe plan to make it through the summer holidays with her three, overexcited offspring. But a last minute addition of fellow-mum Suzanne and her perfect son Orlando quickly shatters Amanda's vision of the quintessential bucket-and-spade summer adventure. In fact, before she even makes it to the picture-perfect Cornish idyll that is home to her one-time playground comrade Skyler, Amanda has to endure tantrums, floods, and an eerie B&B, all with three ratty kids and a carsick dog in tow.When they finally arrive, dishevelled and exhausted, she discovers that not only must she endure Suzanne at close quarters in a cramped cottage, but also that Skyler's business in dire need of a helping hand. In the weeks that ensue, Amanda discovers there is only one way to survive the summer holidays, and that's with a stiff drink, a pair of wellies and a bucket-full of bonhomie! Praise for Sarah Tucker — 'Scandal, backstabbing, illicit affairs... a fab, girlie read!' — New Woman. 'Mums will be able to see the truth behind this fun novel' — In The Know. 'A real laugh-out-loud tale' OK! |
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This moving and profoundly truthful story is told in the form of diary, kept by Angelika, the sister-in-law and friend of Klara, who, after her release from Auschwitz, wandered through war-ravaged Europe for two months before returning to Paris in August 1945. Gradually, over a period of six weeks, Klara reveals, with cold anger and pitiless lucidity, the full horror of what she experienced in Auschwitz as she struggles to readapt to normal life. Not since Sophie's Choice has a novelist succeeded in conveying — with truth, dignity, power and intelligence — the inhumanity of the death camps and the scars suffered by those who survived them. |
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Roxanne's world collapses when she comes home one day to discover her husband lying dead on the bathroom floor. Consumed by grief, she runs away from her life, quitting her job and heading for Peaks Island, a tiny speck off the coast of Maine. A former psycologist, she finds herself taking a job as an animal warden and reinventing her past so it doesn't include the tragedy of her husband's death. But despite Roxanne's best efforts to cut herself off from her emotions and people in general, she finds herself drawn to her quirky new neighbours. And then Roxanne meets Lloyd. Lloyd is a large black Labrador retriever who Roxanne finds with a handmade arrow sticking out of his shoulder. It's clear that Lloyd has been woefully mistreated. And so begins a remarkable friendship between a wounded woman and a wounded dog. And as slowly both begin to heal, Roxanne begins to deal with her grief and even discover that happiness can be found in unexpected places. |
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When the spoilt and haughty Dona Constanza tries to divert a river to fill her swimming pool, she starts a running battle with the locals. The skirmishes are so severe that the Government dispatches a squadron of soldiers led by the fat, brutal and stupid Figueras to deal with them. Despite visiting plagues of laughing fits and giant cats upon the troops, the villagers know that to escape the cruel and unusual tortures planned for them, they must run. Thus they plan to head for the mountains and start a new and convivial civilisation. |
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Dionisio Vivo, a South American lecturer in philosphy, is puzzled by the hideously mutilated corpses that keep turning up outside his front door. To his friend, Ramon, one of the few honest policement in town, the message is all too clear: Dionisio's letters to the press, exposing the drug barons, must stop; and although Dionisio manages to escape the hit-men sent to get him, he soon realises that others are more vulnerable, and his love for them leads him to take a colossal revenge. |
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A gritty and captivating story of courage and strength against terrible odds, this is the story of Midge, abandoned with her eccentric uncle during the holidays, and her adventures with the Various, a band of earthily realistic fairies. The existence of the Various, who are strange, wild and sometimes even deadly, has been kept secret since the beginning of time, but when their world begins to clash with that of human beings, their livelihood is threatened with extinction. This is a wonderfully imaginative story of love and loyalty, and is the first in a powerful trilogy. |
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Obabakoak means 'events that happened in Obaba', the village at the centre of a novel composed of 26 inked tales and parodies written with a delicate sense of childlike innocence. But underlying these stories is a darker theme of loss, as the narrator of the book becomes a victim of his own tales. |
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In August 1944, Hans Georg Klamroth was executed for his part in the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler. Wibke Bruhns, his youngest daughter, was six years old at the time. Decades later, watching a documentary about the events of 20 July, images of her father in the Third Reich People's Court appeared on the screen — and she realises she never knew him. In My Father's Country, Bruhns tells of her search for her father. Returning to her ancestral home in Halberstadt, Northern Germany, she retraces her family's story from Kaiser Wilhelm to the end of World War Two, discovering old photographs, letters and diaries, which she uses to piece together a unique and unforgettable family epic. |
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In her second novel, Nicola Monaghan moves her focus from a Nottingham council estate to the City of London. It's the late '90s and party-girl Frankie Cavanagh has just started working as a trader, experiencing life on the trading floor in all its sweaty, adrenalin-fueled madness, for the first time. She is determined to fit in with the boys — she works hard, plays hard and gives as good as she gets. Frankie fancies her American boss, Tom, from the start — he's sexy, charismatic and a lot of fun; exactly what she's looking for in Mr Right Now. They embark on an adventure together, a risky (he's married), exciting but dangerous affair based on doing anything for a thrill. As Frankie begins to lose her grip, she speeds head on towards the ultimate question: just how far is she prepared to go for a dare? In this macho world of sex, drugs and big-money deals, a girl could get pushed too far... Starfishing gives an insight into both the vibrant London club scene and the world of trading in the '90s, crackling with energy and intensity. It's also about an Essex girl who has come to the City to make her fortune (not find a man and spend his), but gets caught up in a game that she doesn't know how to end. This is a powerful and thrilling novel which confirms an impressive talent. |
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The Cologne police know a woman is going to die. They know the day it will happen. And they're powerless to stop it. They call on an outside expert: Jan Fabel, head of Hamburg's Murder Squad and Germany's leading authority on serial killers. Fabel is on the point of leaving the police for good, but Carnival in Cologne is a time when the world goes crazy, and he is drawn into the hunt for the Carnival Cannibal. What he doesn't know is that he is on a collision course with a crack special forces unit from Ukraine and a disturbed colleague with a score to settle. Fabel finds himself on a trail of betrayal and vengeance, violence and death. And once more he faces his greatest enemy. The true Master of the Carnival. |
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This title presents a callous murder, a devastating secret, and a crime of passion. Bishopthorpe Palace, York. September 1373. John Thoresby, the Archbishop of York, lies dying. One of the most powerful men in the country, his imminent demise has the dominant families of the north vying to influence his succession. Owen Archer, Thoresby's master of the guards, is one of the few men Thoresby trusts. He is determined to ensure that his lord's last days are as peaceful as possible, but his plans are thrown into disarray when Thoresby agrees to a visit from Joan, Princess of Wales, wife of the Black Prince and mother of the young heir to the throne of England.She has come to seek the great man's advice before it is too late. Owen resolves to do his duty, but within minutes of Joan's arrival things go disastrously wrong when a member of the royal party is murdered. Then, only days later, a messenger carrying urgent letters for Thoresby is found hanging in the woods. Soon, the shadow of suspicion falls on the whole household. And as Owen races against time to find the murderer amongst them, he starts to realise that not only has one of his own men been compromised, but all their lives are now in danger. |
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