Welcome to our book review site go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Property
WINNER OF THE ORANGE PRIZE • Set in 1828 on a Louisiana sugar plantation, this novel from the bestselling author of Mary Reilly presents a “fresh, unsentimental look at what slave-owning does to (and for) one's interior life.... The writing—so prised and clean limbed—is a marvel" (Toni Morrison, Nobel Prize-winning author of Beloved). Manon Gaudet, pretty, bitterly intelligent, and monstrously self-absorbed, seethes under the dominion of her boorish husband. In particular his relationship with her slave Sarah, who is both his victim and his mistress. Exploring the permutations of Manon’s own obsession with Sarah against the backdrop of an impending slave rebellion, Property unfolds with the speed and menace of heat lightning, casting a startling light from the past upon the assumptions we still make about the powerful and powerful.
I Give It To You
Jan Vidor seems like the ideal tenant for a long summer holiday in a Tuscan villa. Unobtrusive and quietly sociable, the American academic can be relied upon to entertain herself - but her aristocratic landlady Beatrice has made a terrible mistake. A chance remark about a violent death at Villa Chiara during the war piques Jan's writerly interest and sends her digging into the Salviati family's tragic past. Was Beatrice's uncle Sandro really mistaken for a partisan, or was his killer someone closer to home? Does it matter if Jan just fills in the gaps? After all, Beatrice said she could do as she liked with the story, she even said 'I give it to you' . . . Written with a deep understanding of loyalty and temptation, I Give It To You is a riveting novel about who owns a story, whether we have a right to what we inherit, and what a gift really means.
Mary Reilly
From the acclaimed author of the bestselling Italian Fever and award-winning Property, comes a fresh twist on the classic Jekyll and Hyde story, a novel told from the perspective of Dr. Jekyll's dutiful and intelligent housemaid. "Part psychological novel, part social history, part eerie horror tale ... dark and moving and powerful." —The Washington Post Faithfully weaving in details from Robert Louis Stevenson's classic, Martin introduces an original and captivating character: Mary is a survivor—scarred but still strong—familiar with evil, yet brimming with devotion and love. As a bond grows between Mary and her tortured employer, she is sent on errands to unsavory districts of London and entrusted with secrets she would rather not know. Unable to confront her hideous suspicions about Dr. Jekyll, Mary ultimately proves the lengths to which she'll go to protect him. Through her astute reflections, we hear the rest of the classic Jekyll and Hyde story, and this familiar tale is made more terrifying than we remember it, more complex than we imagined possible.
Sea Lovers
Each of these twelve stories is a complete world, where ordinary lives are transformed, myths bloom into reality and the everyday is haunted by obsession and duplicity. A painter is made insufferable by success; a writer is driven to bury the evidence of his inadequacy. Metamorphosis fragments a marriage and beasts bear the consequences of human failings. Living creatures scratch out hauntings, rumours spread like fire. Fantastical beings are made flesh while mortals are engaged in a struggle that should be honourable but more often corrupts. Lyrical and macabre, Valerie Martin's stories are wry and unexpected too. The question 'Are we animals, or are we something else?' is answered by an ancient proposition both whimsical and disturbing: we are neither and both.
The Ghost of the Mary Celeste
Based on actual events about an American merchant vessel discovered off the coast of Spain in 1872, this novel—from the prize-winning author of Property—is a spellbinding exploration of love, nature, and the fictions that pass as truth. • “A sly and masterly historical novel, written with intelligence and flair.” —The New York Times Book Review 1872: the American merchant vessel Mary Celeste is discovered adrift off the coast of Spain. Her cargo is intact and there is no sign of struggle, but her crew has disappeared, never to be found. As news of the derelict ghost ship spreads, the Mary Celeste captures imaginations around the world—from a Philadelphia spiritualist medium named Violet Petra to an unknown young writer named Arthur Conan Doyle. In a haunted, death-obsessed age, the Mary Celeste is by turns a provocative mystery, an inspiration to creativity, and the tragic story of a family doomed by the sea.
The Fiction of Valerie Martin
In the first book-length study of Valerie Martin's fiction, Veronica Makowsky explores the work of this lauded, but often overlooked, contemporary novelist. Winner of the Orange Prize for her novel Property (2003), Martin also won the Kafka Prize for Mary Reilly (1990), which was then translated into sixteen languages and made into a popular film. Despite these successes, her critically acclaimed novels and stories have yet to attain a broad readership. Makowsky addresses this disconnect through a detailed critical study of Martin's distinguished oeuvre, grounding each work in its historical, cultural, and theoretical contexts. Makowsky begins with a sketch of Martin's life and then consider...
Anton and Cecil
The high-seas adventures of two cat brothers.
Trespass
'A compelling, wonderfully observed study of families and the histories from which they evolve ... a strikingly resonant and emotive novel' TIME OUT 'Serene echoes of Ian McEwan's SATURDAY' FINANCIAL TIMES 'Mesmerizing ... a war novel that gives you a glimpse of what war might really mean ... Trespass revels in truth' WASHINGTON POST Toby and Salome are a young, modern couple living in New York, but their backgrounds are world apart. He is a middle-class all-American boy from a family of academics; she is a Croatian refugee raised in New Orleans. When Salome unexpectedly becomes pregnant, they decide to spend their lives together and hastily marry. But finding a way to reconcile their families and pasts proves a difficult task. Toby's mother's deep-seated mistrust of Salome causes tension, leaving her unable to accept her new daughter-in-law. But Salome' s past, full of dangerous secrets, is more horrifying than any of them could imagine - and the violence that destroyed her homeland is far from over...
Italian Fever
'An absolute joy to read...part love story, part ghost story, and a wholly enjoyable and intelligent summer read' Amanda Craig, NEW STATESMAN 'Beautifully written' EVE 'Part love story, part murder mystery, part psychological study... her writing truly soars' TIME OUT Thirtysomething New Yorker Lucy Stark leads a quiet, solitary life working for a bestselling - but remarkably untalented - writer. When he dies at a villa in Tuscany, Lucy flies to Italy to settle his affairs. What begins as a grim chore soon threatens her self-reliance and her very sense of reality. In Italian Fever, Valerie Martin evokes a modern woman's headlong tumble into a world where E.M.Forster's angels feared to tread. Smart and sophisticated, this novel takes us on a journey from which we return, like Lucy, utterly changed.
Starlings & Other Stories
Twelve pictures, twelve tales of crime and mystery. Written by Murder Squad and their six accomplices, these page turning stories uncover a world of intrigue, suspense and fear. With contributions from celebrated crime writers including Ann Cleeves and Martin Edwards, each tale is inspired by the atmospheric and evocative Pembrokeshire collection of photographer David Wilson.
