When jockey Martin Stukely dies following a fall at Cheltenham races he accidentally embroils his friend Gerard Logan in a perilous search for a stolen video tape. Logan is a glass-blower on the verge of widespread acclaim for the ingenuity of his work. Long accustomed to the frightful dangers inherent in molten glass & in maintaining a furnace at never less than 1 800F he is suddenly faced with a series of terrifying threats to his business & to his life. But the chilling race to find the tape throws more hazards in Logan's way than his dead jockey friend could ever have imagined. ...

Shattered Lives" bears witness to the lives of children who have experienced abuse & neglect & highlights the effects of early traumatic episodes. Chapters take the form of letters to a child capturing their life experiences hugely impacted by sexual abuse parental substance misuse & loss leading to feelings of shame rejection & worthlessness. Batmanghelidjh offers understanding for those baffled by these hard-to-reach children & warns against stigmatizing them for their problem behaviour. In her critique of existing structures she exposes the plight of children who are overlooked by the authorities & denounces those who value bureaucracy over the welfare of the individual child. Society's failure to acknowledge the truth of their experiences & act to change the environment in which such mistreatment can flourish is she strongly argues leading to the death of childhood. The book is a clarion call for change." ...

The Shattered Pillars" is the second book of Bear's " The Eternal Sky" trilogy & the sequel to " Range of Ghosts". Set in a world drawn from our own great Asian Steppes this saga of magic politics & war sets Re-Temur the exiled heir to the great Khagan & his friend Sarmarkar a Wizard of Tsarepheth against dark forces determined to conquer all the great Empires along the Celedon Road. Elizabeth Bear is an astonishing writer whose prose draws you into strange & wonderful worlds & makes you care deeply about the people & the stories she tells. The world of " The Eternal Sky" is broadly & deeply created
- her award-nominated novella " Bone & Jewel Creatures" is also set there."
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My empire is of the imagination. These are the words of Ayesha the mysterious white queen of a Central African tribe whose dread title She-who-must-be-obeyed testifies to her undying beauty & magical powers; but they serve equally well to describe the hold of her author Henry Rider Haggard on generations of readers. Writing at white heat & in the flush of success after the publication of King Solomons Mines Haggard drew again on his knowledge of Africa & of ancient legends but also on something deeper & more disturbing. To the Englishmen who journey through shipwreck fever & cannibals to her hidden realm She is the goal of a quest bequeathed to them two thousand years before; to Haggards readers She is the embodiment of one of the most potent & ambivalent figures of Western mythology a female who is both monstrous & desirable
- & without question deadlier than the male. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford Worlds Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxfords commitment to scholarship providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features including expert introductions by leading authorities helpful notes to clarify the text up-to-date bibliographies for further study & much more.
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On the night of the 22 September 1943 Pearl Witherington a twenty-nine-year-old British secretary & agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) was parachuted from a Halifax bomber into Occupied France. Like Sebastian Faulks heroine Charlotte Gray Pearl had a dual mission: in her case to fight for her beloved broken France & to find her lost love. Pearls lover was a Parisian parfumier turned soldier Henri Cornioley who had been taken prisoner while serving in the French Logistics Corps & subsequently escaped from his German POW camp. Agent Pearl Witheringtons wartime record is unique & heroic. As the only woman agent in the history of SOEs in France to have run a network she became a fearless & legendary guerrilla leader organising arming & training 3 800 Resistance fighters. Probably the greatest female organiser of armed maquisards in France the woman whom her young troops called Ma M?re Pearl lit the fires of Resistance in Central France so that Churchills famous order to set Europe ablaze which had brought SOE into being finally came to pass. Pearls story takes us from her harsh impoverished childhood in Paris to the lonely forests & farmhouses of the Loir-et-Cher where she would become a true warrior queen. Shortly before Pearls death in 2008 the Queen presented her with a CBE in Paris. While male agents & Special Force Jedburghs received the DSO or Military Cross an ungrateful country had forgotten Pearl. She had been offered a civilian decoration in 1945 which she refused saying There was nothing civil about what I did. But what pleased her most was to receive her Parachute Wings for which she had waited over 60 years. Two RAF officers travelled to her old peoples home & she was finally able to pin the coveted wings on her lapel. Pearl died in February 2008 aged 93. ...

Theres been rising concern in Moscow over a wave of suicides among the citys young bohemians. An intrepid newspaper reporter Zhemailo begins to uncover the truth behind the phenomenon
- that the victims are linked by a secret society the Lovers of Death. But Zhemailo is not the only investigator hot on the heels of these disciples of the occult. Little do they realise that the latest convert to their secret society assuming the alias of a Japanese prince is none other than Erast Fandorin. But when a young & naive provincial woman Masha Mironova becomes embroiled in the society & Zhemalio dies a mysterious death Fandorin must do more than merely infiltrate & observe. Especially when the spin of the Russian roulette wheel decrees that our dashing hero be the next to die by his own h&. Can Fandorin fake his own demise all while outwitting the cults dastardly leader?
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The best-loved English comedy of the 18-century mocks the snobbery of London through the manipulations of the country embodied in Tony Lumpkin. She Stoops to Conquer" also celebrates the virtues of "laughing comedy " which Goldsmith advocated over the prevalent sentimental forms of his contemporaries. Regularly revived on stage." ...

Liverpool late 1950s. This is a story of three people: a suppressed mother; a father projectionist at the local cinema which has seen better days; & their daughter Martha. It is a time of many escapes: Nureyev defects in London; Gagarin escapes the earths atmosphere to be the first man in space; the Beatles escape the dreariness of Liverpool to seek their fortune in Hamburg. In Britain the drab 50s are giving way to the lively 60s & the young sense it. With shades of Billy Liar & Absolute Beginners this novel brilliantly captures that longing for freedom. SHES LEAVING HOME is about the madness the intensity & the passion that made the sixties an iconic decade. ...

Liverpool late 1950s. This is a story of three people: a suppressed mother; a father projectionist at the local cinema which has seen better days; & their daughter Martha. It is a time of many escapes: Nureyev defects in London; Gagarin escapes the earths atmosphere to be the first man in space; the Beatles escape the dreariness of Liverpool to seek their fortune in Hamburg. In Britain the drab 50s are giving way to the lively 60s & the young sense it. With shades of Billy Liar & Absolute Beginners this novel brilliantly captures that longing for freedom. Sixteen year old Martha is leaving home. ...

Mike Zetterberg lives with his wife Ylva & their daughter in a house just outside Helsingborg. One evening Ylva isnt home as expected after work. Mike passes it off as a drink with a work friend but when shes still missing the next day he starts to worry. As Mike battles suspicion from the police & his own despair he is unaware that Ylva is still alive just a stones throw from his own home. Ylva has been drawn into a twisted plot of revenge & tragedy that leads back into her & her abductors shared past... ...