Burqas, car bombs, and Bombay Sapphire – welcome to life in post-Taliban Kabul from the viewpoint of Sally Cooper, an Australian journalist and aid worker who took a job training journalists for a United Nations humanitarian news agency.When she arrived in Afghanistan, Sally knew next to nothing about the country. Once in Kabul, she moved into the Karwan Sara guesthouse – and quickly met a cast of characters that drew her into the strange realities of life in "the Ghan".Some of the many questions posed include: What do you do when you discover your male hotel cleaner wearing your clothes? How do you blend into the background at a Friday night dog fight when you're the only woman there – and you're a blonde Westerner? Under what circumstances do you decide that wearing a burqa is for your own protection? How do you live and work in a place where the car next to yours at the traffic lights could be driven by a suicide bomber?Irreverent, action-packed,...

In A Killing in the Hills, a powerful, intricate debut from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Julia Keller, a mother and a daughter try to do right by a town and each other before it's too late.What's happening in Acker's Gap, West Virginia? Three elderly men are gunned down over their coffee at a local diner, and seemingly half the town is there to witness the act. Still, it happened so fast, and no one seems to have gotten a good look at the shooter.  Was it random? Was it connected to the spate of drug violence plaguing poor areas of the country just like Acker's Gap? Or were Dean Streeter, Shorty McClurg, and Lee Rader targeted somehow?One of the witnesses to the brutal incident was Carla Elkins, teenaged daughter of Bell Elkins, the prosecuting attorney for Raythune County, WV. Carla was shocked and horrified by what she saw, but after a few days, she begins to recover enough to believe that she might be uniquely placed to help her mother do her job.After all, what better way to repair their fragile, damaged relationship? But could Carla also end up doing more harm than good—in fact, putting her own life in danger?Review"A Killing in the Hills superbly evokes the hard times and wooded beauty of a poverty-stricken county in West Virginia. . .A finely written and engrossing debut."—*Houston Chronicle“A Killing In The Hills* is a gripping, beautifully-crafted murder mystery that shows that small-town West Virginia is no longer Mayberry. Great reading.”—SCOTT TUROW“Julia Keller is that rare talent who combines gripping suspense, a fabulous sense of place and nuanced characters you can't wait to come back to. A must read.”—KARIN SLAUGHTER“A Killing in the Hills is a remarkably written and remarkably tense debut. I loved it.”—DENNIS LEHANE"Julia Keller's A Killing in the Hills is a terrific debut—atmospheric, suspenseful, assured. I hope there's more to come in the story of Bell Elkins and Acker's Gap."—LAURA LIPPMAN"Be careful opening this book because once you do you won't be able to close it. Instead, clear the weekend, silence the phone and settle into Acker's Gap, a place as fascinating and fraught with violence and beauty as Daniel Woodrell's Ozarks or William Gay's Tennessee. A killer novel."—TOM FRANKLIN“Outstanding. . .Keller does a superb job showing both the natural beauty of Appalachia and the hopeless anger of the people trapped there in poverty. . .Unforgettable.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review, Pick of the Week)"A page-turner with substance and depth, this is as suspenseful and entertaining as it is accomplished."—Booklist (starred review)“A fictional debut for a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, born and raised in West Virginia, whose love for the state, filled with natural beauty and deep poverty, pervades a mystery that has plenty of twists and turns and a shocking conclusion.”—Kirkus (starred review) About the AuthorJULIA KELLER was born and raised in West Virginia, and now lives in Chicago and Ohio.  In her career as a journalist, she won the Pulitzer Prize for a three-part series she wrote for the Chicago Tribune about a small town in Illinois rocked by a deadly tornado. A Killing in the Hills is her first mystery.

Bell Elkins, prosecuting attorney for Raythune county, West Virginia, had always believed what she'd been told: Her mother abandoned the family when Bell and her sister, Shirley, were children. Later, Teresa Dolan died somewhere out West.And then comes a shattering discovery.During an excavation in a remote area of the county, a skeleton is found. DNA testing proves it is related to DNA already on file: that of a convicted felon named Shirley Dolan. Along with the age and approximate time of death, the DNA link leads to a chilling conclusion: These are the remains of Bell's mother, Teresa Dolan. She didn't run away. She was here all along. And further examination reveals that she was a homicide victim.Bell automatically pins the blame on her late father, Donnie Dolan. But evidence emerges that it could not have been him. And so Bell must solve the most agonizingly personal case of her career: Who murdered her mother?A Haunting of the Bones is another...

After making a horrifying discovery, Denny faces an uncertain future. With the military closing in and infected swarming the countryside, Denny reaches the end of one journey and the possibility of the beginning of another, if he survives at all.

In the dependably entertaining if less than top-notch fifth Oregon Files thriller from bestseller Cussler and Du Brul (after  Skeleton Crew ), Capt. Juan Cabrillo, who heads the Corporation, a covert military company for hire, and the multifaceted crew of the  Oregon , a high-tech ship disguised to look like a tramp steamer, take on a group known as the Responsivists. The Responsivists publicly espouse a program of global population control, but are secretly planning a devastating attack on the human race utilizing a virulent virus found aboard an ancient ship that may be Noah's Ark. The authors are up to their usual high standards when in fighting mode, though the chief villain, the doctor who heads the Responsivists, falls short of Juan's billing as the single-most-evil human being I have ever met. Readers may wish that next time out the bad guys put up more of a struggle.

A moving family drama of one young woman's fight to survive and to find a place to call home1938: Sixteen-year-old Kate Monroe is living in Birmingham, far away from her family in Ireland. Her parents have always doted on her siblings, Sally and James, leaving no time for her. Kate harbours a dark secret, a deep longing for her cousin. Feelings she must suppress in this deeply staunch Irish-Catholic community -- even if they are reciprocated.Crazed by her infatuation, Kate is left with no option, other than to up-roots once more and seek out a new life, far away from the temptation of Tim Monroe.Will Kate find true love, or will distance make the heart grow fonder?

Originally published in 1936, House of Incest is Anaïs Nin’s first work of fiction. The novel is a surrealistic look within the narrator’s subconscious mind as she attempts to escape from a dream in which she is trapped, or in Nin’s words, as she attempts to escape from “the woman’s season in hell.” In the documentary Anaïs Observed , Nin says House of Incest was based on dreams she’d had for more than a year. Nin’s usage of the word incest in this case is metaphorical, not literal. In this book the word incest describes a selfish love where one can appreciate in another only that which is similar to oneself. One is then only loving oneself, shunning all differences. At first, such a self-love can seem ideal because it is without fear and without risk. But eventually it becomes a sterile nightmare. Review FB2Library.Elements.CiteItem

A thrilling World War One adventure from the author of the Nicholas Everard naval thrillersIt is October 1918 and Germany is suing for peace. All U-boats have been ordered home from patrol. Among them is U81, commanded by Otto von Mettendorff: young, dynamic, and infatuated with a girl who works near Wilhelmshaven, the port U81 is now returning to. Unfortunately, U81 is holed by a destroyer on its way home. Meanwhile in London, Anne Laurie, a young war widow employed in the Intelligence Division of the Royal Navy, learns of Otto's death. It jolts memories of a pre-war weekend in Berlin in the summer of 1913; the genesis of a compulsive story of two magnetic people torn apart by global conflict... Stark Realities is a grippingly authentic First World War adventure, ideal for fans of Alexander Kent, Julian Stockwin and C. S. Forester.

An epic heroic novel, set in Ancient Greece, and based on the true story of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. This is the story of Xeones, the only survivor of 300 Spartan warriors ordered to delay for as long as possible the million-strong invading army of King Xerxes of Persia.