Love Only Once

Love Only Once

Johanna Lindsey

Romance / Historical Fiction / Fantasy

The exquisite niece of Lord Edward and Lady Charlotte Malory, Regina Ashton is outraged over her abduction by the arrogant, devilishly handsome Nicholas Eden - and is determined to make the rogue pay with his heart. A golden-haired seducer, Nicholas has been hardened by a painful secret in his past. And now that he has besmirched Reggie's good name, the hot-tempered lady has vowed to wed him. Her fiery beauty stirs Nicholas as no woman ever has - and the rake arouses Reggie's passion to an unendurable level. Such uncontrolled desires can lead only to dangerous misunderstandings and, perhaps, to a love that can live only once in a lifetime.
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Sharpe's Honor

Sharpe's Honor

Bernard Cornwell

Historical Fiction / Mystery & Thrillers

An unfinished duel, a midnight murder, and the treachery of a beautiful prostitute lead to the imprisonment of Sharpe. Caught in a web of political intrigue for which his military experience has left him fatally unprepared, Sharpe becomes a fugitive--a man hunted by both ally and enemy alike.
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A Maggot

A Maggot

John Fowles

Literature & Fiction

In this magnificent and compelling novel, bestselling author John Fowles has created a dazzlingly erotic tale of obsession and desire, madness and murder. Four men and one woman, all traveling under assumed names, are crossing the Devonshire countryside on their way toward a mysterious rendezvous in the spring of 1736. But nothing is as it seems. Before their violent and enigmatic journey ends, one will be hanged, one will vanish, and the others will face a murder trial. A haunting book about the very nature of truth and lies and of the conflict between reason and superstition, A Maggot is at once a rousing detective story and a glimpse from the eighteenth century into the future.
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The Nuclear Age

The Nuclear Age

Tim O'Brien

Tim O'Brien

Going After Cacciato (winner of the National Book Award in 1979) was widely acclaimed as one of the most powerful and emotionally vivid novels about Vietnam. Now, writing with the same sharp, richly expressive language, the same edgy dark humor and complete honesty, and the same rawness of nerve and energy, Tim O’Brien gives us an equally powerful novel about growing up as a child of anxiety—thebig anxiety, the one that’s been with us since the fifties, when we finally realized that Einstein’s theories translated into Russian. It’s 1995 and William Cowling is digging a hole in his backyard. He is forty-nine, and after years and years of pent-up terror he has finally found the courage of a fighting man. And so a hole. A hold that he hopes will one day be large enough to swallow up his almost fifty years’ worth of fear. A hole that causes his twelve-year-old daughter to call him a “nutto,” and his wife to stop speaking to him. A hole that William will not stop digging and out of which rise scenes of his past to play themselves out in his memory. The scenes take him back to his quietly peculiar adolescence (No. 2 pencils had a surprising significance), to his college days, down into the underground, and up through several stabs at “normal” adulthood . . . they take him from Montana to Florida, from Cuba to California, from Kansas to New York to Germany and back to Montana as he makes him way through an often mystifying—but just as often hilarious —labyrinth of fears and desires, obsessions and obligations, blessed madness and less-than-blessed sobriety . . . they take him into the lives of a shrink who’s a whiz a role reversal and of a dizzying eccentric cheerleader; of radical misfits and misfit radicals; of an ethereal stewardess (the traveling man’s dream); and two guerilla commandos who mix shtick and nightmare in their tactical brew. And each scene is a reminder of the unbargained-for-terror that has guided him to the bottom of his hole. For this digging is his final act of “prudence and sanity”—he’s taking control, getting there first, robbing his fears of their power to destroy . . . or so he believes. But is this act really sane? Is his daughter’s estimation of his emotional well-being (“pretty buggo, too”) the only truly sane statement being made? Is sanity even the issue? In the dazzling final scenes, William turns from the hole—from his past and from his future 0 to himself, digging deeper and deeper to find his answers. The Nuclear Age is pyrotechnically funny and moving, courageous and irreverent. It takes on our supreme unacknowledged terror (whose reality we both refuse to accept and all too easily accommodate ourselves to), finds it lunatic core, and shapes it into a story that speaks of, and to, an entire age: our own, our nuclear age. It is an extraordinary novel. **
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The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories

The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories

Connie Willis

Science Fiction / Fantasy

"Variety is the soul of pleasure," And variety is what this comprehensive new collection of Connie Willis is all about. The stories cover the entire spectrum, from sad to sparkling to terrifying, from classics to hard-to-find treasures with everything in between -- orangutans, Egypt, earthworms, roast goose, college professors, mothers-in-law, aliens, secret codes, Secret Santas, tube stations, choir practice, the post office, the green light on Daisy's dock, weddings, divorces, death, and assorted plagues, from scarlet fever to "It's a Wonderful Life." And a dog. Famous for her "sure-hand plotting, unforgettable characters, and top-notch writing," Willis has been called, "the most relentlessly delightful science fiction writer alive," and there are numerous examples here. Among them, Willis's most famous stories -- the Hugo- and Nebula-Award-winning "Fire Watch" and "Even the Queen" and "The Last of the Winnebagos" -- along with undiscovered gems like Willis's heartfelt homage to Jack Williamson, "Nonstop to Portales." Her magical Christmas stories are here, too, from "Newsletter" to "Just Like the Ones We Used to Know..." which last year was made into the TV movie, Snow Wonder, starring Mary Tyler Moore. We've collected stories from throughout Willis's career, from early ones like "Cash Crop" and "Daisy, in the Sun," right up to her newest stories, including the wonderful "The Winds of Marble Arch." There's literally something for everyone here. If you're a diehard Willis fan, you'll be delighted with hard-to-find treasures like the until-now uncollected, "The Soul Selects Her Own Society..." If you've never read Connie Willis, this is your chance to discover "A Letter from the Clearys" and, well, "Chance." To say nothing of, "At the Rialto," the funniest story ever written about quantum physicists. And Willis's chilling, "All My Darling Daughters." And...oh, there are too many great stories here to list and pleasures galore. So enjoy! --subterraneanpress.com
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The King Beyond the Gate

The King Beyond the Gate

David Gemmell

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Once the mighty fortress had stood strong, defended by the mightiest of all Drenai heroes, Druss, the Legend. But now a tyrannical, mad emperor had seized control of the fortress, and his twisted will was carried throughout the land by the Joinings --- abominations that were half-man, half-beast. Tenaka Khan was a half-breed himself, hated by the Drenai for his Nadir blood and despised by the Nadir for his Drenai ancestry. But he alone had a plan to destroy the emperor. The last heroes of the Drenai joined with him in a desperate gamble to bring down the emperor -- even at the cost of their own destruction.
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Politician

Politician

Piers Anthony

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Political prisoner He awoke in a tiny lightless cell, groping for memory…memory that had been erased. Hope Hubris, Jupiter governor, progressive populist, warrior hero, and presidential candidate…a “mem-washed” tool of the enemy. And if his captors’ plan worked, Hope would destroy his own political career, leaving the fate of his planet in the hands of its corrupt presidential incumbent—Tocsin. But Hope Hubris had a destiny to fulfill. He had the cunning to discover code words that could reactivate his mind…the strength to resist addiction to their drugs…the power to win the support of his countrymen, and finally the courage to make an agonizing sacrifice that would ensure his planet's future and his own destiny… Tyrant of Jupiter
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Ransom

Ransom

Jay McInerney

Literature & Fiction

Since Christopher Ransom has been living in Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan, he has devoted himself to the study of karate. But soon he finds himself threatened by everything he thought he had left behind - a sequence of bizarre events whose consequences he cannot escape.
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Beyond the Chocolate War

Beyond the Chocolate War

Robert Cormier

Literature & Fiction / Young Adult / Thriller

The school year is almost at an end, and the chocolate sale is ancient history. But no one at Trinity School can forget the Chocolate War. Devious Archie Costello, commander of the secret school organization called the Vigils, still has some torturous assignments to hand out before he graduates. In spite of this pleasure, Archie is troubled that his right-hand man, Obie, has started to move away from the Vigils. Luckily Archie knows his stooges will fix that. But Obie has some plans of his own.
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Tom O'Bedlam

Tom O'Bedlam

Robert Silverberg

Science Fiction / Fantasy

Tom, like the medieval Tom O'Bedlam, can't decipher the meaning of the images plaguing his mind. Much like the wondering and mad Tom of the medieval ballad, the Tom O'Bedlam of 2103 doesn't know what to make of the images that keep cluttering his mind. To preserve the last shred of his sanity and keep these never-ending wonders a secret, he feigns insanity. But then a probe that has traveled over four light years away transmits the very pictures that have been haunting Tom's dreams. In this post-industrial world on the verge of a total collapse, Tom has become humanity's spokesperson to the distant planet that may be his world's salvation.
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  • 706
Pride

Pride

William Wharton

Fiction

During the Depression, a 10-year-old boy befriends a carnival stuntman and his lion cub and learns about the meaning of family, loyalty, love, and survival.
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The Night Lives On

The Night Lives On

Walter Lord

History

In this New York Times bestseller, the author of A Night to Remember and The Miracle of Dunkirk revisits the Titanic disaster. Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember was a landmark work that recounted the harrowing events of April 14, 1912, when the British ocean liner RMS Titanic went down in the North Atlantic Ocean, a book that inspired a classic movie of the same name. In The Night Lives On, Lord takes the exploration further, revealing information about the ship’s last hours that emerged in the decades that followed, and separating myths from facts. Was the ship really christened before setting sail on its maiden voyage? What song did the band play as water spilled over the bow? How did the ship’s wireless operators fail so badly, and why did the nearby Californian, just ten miles away when the Titanic struck the iceberg, not come to the rescue? Lord answers these questions and more, in a gripping investigation of the night when approximately 1,500 victims were lost to the sea.
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The Cowboys

The Cowboys

Bill Pronzini

Bill Pronzini

Epub (my conversion)They rode hard, played hard, fought hard, and loved hard. This collection captures the grit and daring of the red-blooded men who lived their lives on the range.
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