No one expects a princess to be brutal. And Lada Dragwyla likes it that way. Ever since she and her brother were abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman sultan's courts, Lada has known that ruthlessness is the key to survival. For the lineage that makes her and her brother special also makes them targets.
Reissues of the first 2 books in this popular series, with new covers and new introductions by the author. Relaunched to tie in with the 3rd book, }The Sorceress{, which is new in paperback this month, and the 4th book, }The Necromancer{, out for the first time this month.
Oaths sworn ...Loyalties tested ...Forces collide. Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have narrowly escaped with their lives after the colossal battle against the Empire's warriors on the Burning Plains. Now Eragon finds himself bound by promises he may not be able to keep. He must help rescue his cousin Roran's beloved from King Galbatorix's clutches. But he also owes his loyalty to the Varden, the elves and the dwarves, who are in desperate need of his talents and strength. Eragon in the greatest hope to rid the land of tyranny. Can this once simple farm boy unite the rebel forces and defeat the king?
When the family business collapses, Beauty and her two sisters are forced to leave the city and begin a new life in the countryside. However, when their father accepts hospitality from the elusive and magical Beast, he is forced to make a terrible promise - to send one daughter to the Beast's castle, with no guarantee that she will be seen again. Beauty accepts the challenge, and there begins an extraordinary story of magic and love that overcomes all boundaries. This is another spellbinding and emotional tale embroidered around a fairytale from Robin McKinley, an award-winning American author.
A riotous, wise and gripping junior Discworld novel, now in paperback, and published alongside the sequel }A Hat Full Of Sky{ in hardback. Nine-year-old Tiffany must join forces with the Wee Free Men to save her brother from the Queen of the Fairies. Readership level: 12+.
Fans of the Bartimaeus sequence will devour this book - a cracking adventure brimming with magic, intrigue and a treasure trove of characters that the reader can't help but fall for. We find everyone's favourite irascible djinni serving at the court of King Solomon in 950 BC Jerusalem, where he is causing his customary chaos and must help a girl assassin sent by the Queen of Sheba to steal the all-powerful Ring of Solomon. The comic relief is perfectly timed, the dialogue sharp and snappy and the fiendishly clever plot perfectly handled with Jonathan's trademark flair and command of language. Thrills, chills and a danger-spiked finale make Ring of Solomon an absolute must-read.
Johnny Maxwell is just an ordinary boy - not smart, popular or rich. But he does love video games. And as his parents argue themselves out of a marriage, Johnny plays at becoming humanity's' last hope, shooting invading aliens out of a pixelated sky. Then comes a message from the last remaining alien spaceship: We Wish to Talk. And suddenly Johnny is thrust into the very real world of the video game, and comes face to face with an alien race that needs his help. Only Johnny can save them. And this isn't a game any more...
The two that are one must become the one that is all. One to save the world, one to destroy it. San Francisco: Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel have one day left to live, and one job left to do. They must defend San Francisco. The monsters gathered on Alcatraz Island have been released and are heading toward the city.
A real witch never casually steps out of her body, leaving it empty. Eleven-year-old Tiffany does. And there's something just waiting for a handy body to take over. Something ancient and horrible, which can't die...Wise, witty and wonderful, "A Hat Full of Sky" is Terry Pratchett's second novel about Tiffany and the "Wee Free Men" - the rowdiest, toughest, smelliest bunch of fairies ever. They'll fight anything. And even they might not be enough to save Tiffany...
Take a rollercoaster ride through the vastness of space and, in the midst of an exciting adventure, discover the mysteries of physics, science and the universe with George, his new friends next door - the scientist Eric and his daughter, Annie - and a super-intelligent computer called Cosmos, which can take them to the edge of a black hole and back again. Or can it? And who else would like to get their hands on Cosmos? A funny and hugely informative romp through space, time and the universe.
Unexpected. Unrequited. Forbidden. Eternal. Everyone has their own love story. And in a twist of fate, four extraordinary love stories combine over the course of a romantic Valentine's Day in Medieval England. Miles and Shelby find love where they least expect it. Roland learns a painful lesson about finding and losing love. Arianne pays the price for a love so fierce it burns. And for the first - and last - time, Daniel and Luce will spend a night together like none other. Lauren Kate's Fallen in Love is filled with love stories ...the ones everyone has been waiting for. True love never says goodbye ...
It's May 21 1941, thought Johnny.Johnny Maxwell and his friends have to do something when they find Mrs Tachyon, the local bag lady, semi-conscious in an alley . . . Suddenly now isn't the safe place Johnny once thought it was as he finds himself caught up more and more with then . .
Winner of a Parents' Choice Silver Honor Award, 2012 The Newman twins have finally been divided. The end is near. In San Francisco, Josh has chosen a side - and he will not stand with his sister, Sophie, or the Alchemyst, Nicholas Flamel. He has chosen to fight along side John Dee and the mysterious Virginia Dare. Sophie will do anything she can to find her brother, but her training must continue. With Perenelle and Nicholas as weak as they are, Niten must help her to master Earth Magic. Without this, she will fail and the human race will be doomed forever...Can she save the world alone?
Sophie and Josh have returned to San Francisco. They must protect themselves from the Dark Elders, but they've not yet mastered the magic they'll need to do so. Their trust in Nicholas Flamel is shaken, and their friend Scatty is missing. Unbeknownst to the twins, John Dee has amassed an enormous army of foul creatures, with which he plans to battle Nicholas and his wife, Peronelle. In order for his plan to work, he must train a necromancer to raise the Mother of the Gods from the dead. The twins of legend will make the perfect pupils in his diabolical scheme.
'Your Second Life Begins When You Realise You Only Have One' - the novel that has made over 2 million readers happier. At thirty-eight and a quarter years old, Camille has everything she needs to be happy, or so it seems. Why then does she feel as if happiness has slipped through her fingers? All she wants is to find the path to joy and fulfilment. When Claude, a routinologist, offers his unique advice to help get her there, she seizes the opportunity with both hands. Camille's journey is full of surprising, creative and richly meaningful lessons, as she sets out to transform her life and realise her dreams one step at a time.
They say that diplomacy is a gentle art. That mastering it is a lifetime's work. But you do need a certain inclination in that direction. It's not something you can just pick up on the job. A few days ago Sam Vimes was a copper - an important copper, true - chief of police - but still, at his core, a policeman. But today he is an ambassador - to the mysterious, fat-rich country of Uberwald. Today, Sam Vimes is also a man on the run. He has nothing but his native wit and the gloomy trousers of Uncle Vanya (don't ask). It's snowing. It's freezing. And if he can't make it through the forest to civilization there's going to be a terrible war. There are monsters on his trail. They're bright. They're fast. They're werewolves - and they're catching up.
The classic collaboration from the internationally bestselling authors Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, soon to be an original series starring Michael Sheen and David Tennant. "Good Omens . . . is something like what would have happened if Thomas Pynchon, Tom Robbins and Don DeLillo had collaborated. Lots of literary inventiveness in the plotting and chunks of very good writing and characterization. It’s a wow. It would make one hell of a movie. Or a heavenly one. Take your pick.”—Washington Post According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner. So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon—both of whom have lived amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle—are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture.And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist . . .
I've lost it. :( The only thing in the world I wasn't supposed to lose. My engagement ring. It's been in Magnus' family for three generations. And now, the very same day his parents are coming, I've lost it. The very same day. Do not hyperventilate, Poppy. Stay positive!! :) A couple of glasses of bubbly with the girls and Poppy's life has gone into meltdown. Not only has she lost her engagement ring, but in the panic that followed, she's lost her phone too. When she spots an abandoned phone in a bin it seems it was meant to be. Finders Keepers! Except the phone's owner, elusive businessman Sam Roxton, doesn't agree. He wants his phone back, and doesn't appreciate Poppy reading all his messages and wading into his personal life. Can things get any more tangled?
Fantastic fiction from the author of the }Shopoholics{ books. Samantha Smith is a Cambridge-educated lawyer with an IQ of 168. But after she makes a huge mistake at work, she walks out on her high-pressured demanding job and somehow finds herself working as a housekeeper in the country. Samantha learns to slow down but her old life threatens to catch up with her.
Into the cut-throat world of Corinium television comes Declan O'Hara, a mega-star of great glamour and integrity with a radiant feckless wife, a handsome son and two ravishing teenage daughters. Living rather too closely across the valley is Rupert Campbell-Black, divorced and as dissolute as ever, and now the Tory Minister for Sport. Declan needs only a few days at Corinium to realise that the Managing Director, Lord Baddingham, is a crook who has recruited him merely to help retain the franchise for Corinium. Baddingham has also enticed Cameron Cook, a gorgeous but domineering woman executive, to produce Declan's programme. Declan and Cameron detest each other, provoking a storm of controversy into which Rupert plunges with his usual abandon. As a rival group emerges to pitch for the franchise, reputations ripen and decline, true love blossoms and burns, marriages are made and shattered, and sex raises its (delicious) head at almost every throw as, in bed and boardroom, the race is on to capture the Cotswold Crown.
Memories define us.So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep?Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love - all forgotten overnight.And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story.Welcome to Christine
THE COMPANY BUILDS PLANETS. Kin Arad is a high-ranking official of the Company. After twenty-one decades of living, and with the help of memory surgery, she is at the top of her profession. Discovering two of her employees have placed a fossilized plesiosaur in the wrong stratum, not to mention the fact it is holding a placard which reads, 'End Nuclear Testing Now', doesn't dismay the woman who built a mountain range in the shape of her initials during her own high-spirited youth. But then came discovery of something which did intrigue Kin Arad. A flat earth was something new...
The second book in New York Times bestselling author R. A. Salvatore's all-new trilogy-a rollicking a rollicking tale of swordplay, danger, and imaginative thrills, featuring one of fantasy's most beloved and enduring characters, Drizzt Do'Urden.When the legendary drow warrior Zaknafei finally perished, he was content knowing he left behind a legacy as substantial as his son, Drizzt.Except . . . someone wasn't ready for Zaknafein to be dead. Now he's back, hundreds of years later, in a world he does not recognize. His son's companions are not the prideful-and bigoted-males the dark elf was accustomed to in his previous life. Drizzt's friends and companions includes dwarves, elves, and, perhaps worst of all, a human wife.Struggling to navigate this transformed new world, Zaknafein realizes that some things have not changed: the threat of demons and the machinations of a drow matron no longer content with her family's position in the ranks of houses.Though he has been displaced in time, Zaknafein is still a warrior. And no matter what prejudices he must overcome, he knows he will do his duty and fight by Drizzt's side to stem the tide of darkness that threatens the Realms.
Ben Fogle's life has been action-packed to say the least. He has rowed across the Atlantic, walked to the South Pole, run the Sahara and ice-skated across Sweden. He has encountered isolated tribes in deepest Papua New Guinea, caused a Boeing 747 to dump GBP100k of fuel before making an emergency landing in Sao Paolo, and frequently been mistaken for Prince William along the way. So how did a cripplingly shy, geeky, perennially homesick boy end up doing all this? Ben's still not entirely sure himself, but this wonderful book tells his story and will strike a chord with anyone puzzling about life, and how to live it differently. This is a book about defying expectations, conquering fears, battling laziness and, just occasionally, winning.
This is the fascinating autobiography of a society heiress who became the bohemian doyenne of the art world. She amassed one of the most important collections of early twentieth century European and American art embracing cubism, surrealism and expressionism.
Dire Straits filled giant stadiums around the world and sold hundreds of millions of records. Throughout the eighties they were one of the biggest bands on the planet. Their classic songs - 'Sultans of Swing', 'Romeo and Juliet', 'Money for Nothing', 'Brothers In Arms' - formed the soundtrack of a generation and live on today: still racking up sales, still being played on the radio on every continent. In My Life in Dire Straits, John Illsley - founding member, bassist and mainstay - evokes the spirit of the times and tells the story of one of the great live acts of rock history. Starting with his own unlikely beginnings in Middle England, he recounts the band's rise from humble origins in London's spit-and-sawdust pubs to the best-known venues in the world, the working man's clubs to Madison Square Garden, gigging with wild punk bands to the Live Aid stage at Wembley. Until, ultimately, the shattering demands of touring on a global scale and living life in the spotlight took their inevitable toll. John's story is also a tribute to his great friend Mark Knopfler, the band's lead singer, songwriter and gifted guitarist - the only band members to stay the fifteen-year distance. Told with searching honesty, soulful reflection and wry humour, this is the first and only account of that incredible story.
In this book, Dr Eric Berne reveals how everyone's life follows a predetermined script - a script they compose for themselves during early childhood. Demonstrates how each life script gets written, how it works and, more importantly, how anyone can improvise or change their script to make a happy ending.
17-year-old Lucinda falls in love with a gorgeous, intelligent boy, Daniel, at her new school, the grim, foreboding Sword & Cross ...only to find out that Daniel is a fallen angel, and that they have spent lifetimes finding and losing one another as good and evil forces plot to keep them apart.Get ready to fall..
Was the Battle of Hastings a French victory? Non! William the Conqueror was Norman and hated the French. Were the Brits really responsible for the death of Joan of Arc? Non! The French sentenced her to death for wearing trousers. Was the guillotine a French invention? Non! It was invented in Yorkshire. Ten centuries' worth of French historical 'facts' bite the dust as Stephen Clarke looks at what has really been going on since 1066 ...
A stunning book about the right stuff in the wrong war. As a child, Robert Mason dreamed of levitating. As a young man, he dreamed of flying helicopters - and the U.S. Army gave him his chance. They sent him to Vietnam where, between August 1965 and July 1966, he flew more than 1,000 assault missions. In Chickenhawk, Robert Mason gives us a devastating bird's eye-view of that war in all its horror, as he experiences the accelerating terror, the increasingly desperate courage of a man 'acting out the role of a hero long after he realises that the conduct of the war is insane,' says the New York Times, 'And we can't stop ourselves from identifying with it.'
Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)? Why did the Japanese kill Godzilla with missiles made of cadmium (Cd, 48)? How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation? And why did tellurium (Te, 52) lead to the most bizarre gold rush in history? The periodic table is one of our crowning scientific achievements, but it's also a treasure trove of passion, adventure, betrayal and obsession. The fascinating tales in "The Disappearing Spoon" follow carbon, neon, silicon, gold and every single element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, conflict, the arts, medicine and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. Why did a little lithium (Li, 3) help cure poet Robert Lowell of his madness? And how did gallium (Ga, 31) become the go-to element for laboratory pranksters? "The Disappearing Spoon" has the answers, fusing science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, discovery and alchemy, from the big bang through to the end of time.
In this riveting biography, John Gribbin takes us into the heart of the quantum revolution. He tells the story of Erwin Schrödingers surprisingly colourful life (he arrived for a position at Oxford University with both his wife and mistress). And with his accessible style and popular touch, he explains the fascinating world of quantum mechanics, which underpins all of modern science.
In the winter of 1916 in St Petersburg, young Sashenka plays her part in the revolution. 20 years later, and she is married to a powerful man, but she starts an affair that will have devastating consequences. Cross between }Dr Zhivago{ and }The Island{. Montefiore won the 2008 Costa Award for Biography of the Year for }Young Stalin{.
This is the story of the defeats and triumphs of three Irish families. It is a powerful and stirring look at love and hate, both personal and political. Told through the simple lives of its people, this is an epic history of Ireland. From the famine of the 1840s to the 1916 Easter Rising, Trinity chronicles the terrible and beautiful drama of more than half a century. Leon Uris' skill is in capturing a subject seemingly too big to handle and distilling the very essence of that struggle into passionate prose. Years after his death, he remains one of the most popular storytellers of the twentieth century - this is one of his most celebrated novels.
Saladin remains one of the most iconic figures of his age. As the man who united the Arabs and saved Islam from Christian crusaders in the 12th century, he is the Islamic world's preeminent hero. Charting his rise to power, his struggle to unify the warring factions of his faith, this book explores the enduring legacy of this champion of Islam.
Language: English, Binding: Paperback, Number of pages: 592, Publishers: Transworld Publ. Ltd UK, Author: Mark Bowden, ISBN-13: 9780552178976, Date of issue: 2021
"Generation Kill" is about the young men sent to fight their nation's first open-ended war since Vietnam. Despite the flurry of media images to come of the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, you have never really met any of these people, who serve as front-line troops. For whatever reason, the media simply doesn't get them. As we all know, news accounts of the last two wars focused almost exclusively on battlefield imagery of high-tech weapons wreaking astounding destruction, comply with analysis from retired army grandees and other experts, punctuated by the odd heart-warming patriotic sound-bite. The troops themselves play a role in the media's presentation of recent wars rather like extras in "The Triumph of the Will". They are everywhere yet somehow invisible. When they speak you get the sense that what they are saying has been carefully scripted.Now "Generation Kill" tells the soldiers' story in their own words. The narrative focuses on a platoon of 23 marines, many of them veterans of Afghanistan, whose elite reconnaissance unit spearheaded the blitzkrieg on Iraq. This is the story of young men that have been trained to become ruthless killers. It's about surviving death.It's about taking part in a war many questioned before it even began. Evan Wright was the only reporter with First Recon, which operated well ahead of most other forces, usually behind enemy lines. They were among the first marines sent into the fight and one of the last units still engaged on the outskirts of Iraq, even after the city centre fell. "Generation Kill" is not just a combat chronicle but an inside look at how people fighting in war actually experience it. It is both an action narrative like "Black Hawk Down" and a detailed portrait of a generation at war along the lines of "Band of Brothers". It is not a book you are going to forget in a hurry.
'THERE'S A SAYING THAT ALL ROADS LEAD TO ANKH-MORPORK. AND IT'S WRONG. ALL ROADS LEAD AWAY FROM ANKH-MORPORK, BUT SOMETIMES PEOPLE JUST WALK ALONG THE WRONG WAY' from Moving Pictures Ankh-Morpork! City of One Thousand Surprises (according to the famous publication by the Guild of Merchants)! All human life is there! Although, if it walks down the wrong alley, often quite briefly! The city celebrated in the bestselling Discworld series by Terry Pratchett has been meticulously mapped for the first time. It's all here - from Unseen University to the Shades, from major landmarks like the Patrician's Palace to little-known, er, nooks like Dwarf Bread Museum in Whirligig Alley. See the famous streets along which so many heroes have walked, in some cases quite hurriedly! As leading Ankh-Morpork entrepreneur C.M.O.T. Dibbler would say, A nip at any price - and that's cutting our own throat. Well, close.
Most of us grow up having always known to touch wood or cross our fingers, and what happens when a princess kisses a frog or a boy pulls a sword from a stone, yet sadly some of these things are now beginning to be forgotten. Legends, myths, fairytales: our world is made up of the stories we told ourselves about where we came from and how we got there. It is the same on Discworld, except that beings which on Earth are creatures of the imagination - like vampires, trolls, witches and, possibly, gods - are real, alive and in some cases kicking on the Disc. In "The Folklore of Discworld", Terry Pratchett teams up with leading British folklorist Jacqueline Simpson to take an irreverent yet illuminating look at the living myths and folklore that are reflected, celebrated and affectionately libelled in the uniquely imaginative universe of Discworld.
Parisian photographer O returns to the place of her sexual initiation - the elegant chateau Roissy. Here, she submits completely to the sexual whims of one man...her lover. This is the sequel to the classic French erotic bestseller, and a darkly seductive story of dominance and submission. Read it if you dare...
Genghis Khan is one of history's immortals: a leader of genius, driven by an inspiring vision for peaceful world rule. Believing he was divinely protected, Genghis united warring clans to create a nation and then an empire that ran across much of Asia. Under his grandson, Kublai Khan, the vision evolved into a more complex religious ideology, justifying further expansion. Kublai doubled the empire's size until, in the late 13th century, he and the rest of Genghis' 'Golden Family' controlled one fifth of the inhabited world. Along the way, he conquered all China, gave the nation the borders it has today, and then, finally, discovered the limits to growth. Genghis' dream of world rule turned out to be a fantasy. And yet, in terms of the sheer scale of the conquests, never has a vision and the character of one man had such an effect on the world. Charting the evolution of this vision, John Man provides a unique account of the Mongol Empire, from young Genghis to old Kublai, from a rejected teenager to the world's most powerful emperor.
Charles Darwin's masterpiece, "On the Origin of Species", shook society to its core on publication in 1859. Darwin was only too aware of the storm his theory of evolution would provoke but he would surely have raised an incredulous eyebrow at the controversy still raging a century and a half later. Evolution is accepted as scientific fact by all reputable scientists and indeed theologians, yet millions of people continue to question its veracity. In "The Greatest Show on Earth" Richard Dawkins takes on creationists, including followers of 'Intelligent Design' and all those who question the fact of evolution through natural selection. Like a detective arriving on the scene of a crime, he sifts through fascinating layers of scientific facts and disciplines to build a cast-iron case: from the living examples of natural selection in birds and insects; the 'time clocks' of trees and radioactive dating that calibrate a timescale for evolution; the fossil record and the traces of our earliest ancestors; to confirmation from molecular biology and genetics. All of this, and much more, bears witness to the truth of evolution."The Greatest Show on Earth" comes at a critical time: systematic opposition to the fact of evolution is now flourishing as never before, especially in America. In Britain and elsewhere in the world, teachers witness insidious attempts to undermine the status of science in their classrooms. Richard Dawkins provides unequivocal evidence that boldly and comprehensively rebuts such nonsense. At the same time he shares with us his palpable love of the natural world and the essential role that science plays in its interpretation. Written with elegance, wit and passion, it is hard-hitting, absorbing and totally convincing.
Introducing beloved Japanese embroidery artist Yumiko Higuchi's newest collection of motifs, showcased on a variety of purses, wallets, and bags. Inside, you'll find an assortment of the simple, folk-inspired floral and animal designs stitched in Yumiko
Welcome to the third and fabulous colouring and doodling book from the sensational Kerby Rosanes, Mythomorphia. Featuring his unique and intricate ink drawings, this book includes images of gorgeous mythological creatures morphing and shapeshifting to create Kerby's signature, breath-taking scenes.
