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The Vague Woman's Handbook
They are bad with directions; they never know when the credit card bill is due. They have perfected the art of turning over a new leaf tomorrow. Meet the vague women in this delightful first novel that doesn’t star a woman looking for the right man – because she’s already found him! At twenty-two, Sharmila Chatterjee has just married her sweetheart of a few years, Abhimanyu Mishra, a somewhat eccentric if handsome twenty-three-and-a-half year old with obscure academic interests and a small fellowship that never arrives on time. They start a household in a tiny rented flat, learning to fend for themselves in the big, bad and snotty world of south Delhi, with penny-pinching landlords, some romance, and a lot of anxiety. At fifty-two, Indira Sen is not sure just how she meandered to where she finds herself now. A senior government officer and single mother, she lives with her daughter and three opinionated old people in a rambling house, drives a battered car, and has a history of credit-card induced shopaholism. The Vague Woman’s Handbook is a story told with equal parts of humour, hysteria and tenderness, about the sparkling friendship between two women as they hurtle through life and its mini-crises while trading secrets in the art of survival.
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Tanzeem
Deep in Waziristan, the Ameer-ul-Momineem, a powerful terrorist warlord, embarks on a deadly mission to take the jihad across international borders. To carry out his horrific plan, he puts together the Tanzeem, a group of leaders spread across the continents. Supporting him are the Mullah in Quetta and the Director of Pakistan’s ISI. Or do they have their own agendas? Across the border in India, a young man named Iqbal, devastated by the death of his wife at the hands of the Ameer’s henchmen, sets out with a singular focus – to find the Ameer and take him down. Supporting him is the spirited Force 22, India’s strike action team. Will Iqbal be able to stop the jihadi terror machine in time? Find out in this taut, thrilling finale to the Lashkar series, where India’s literary storm trooper, Mukul Deva, tells us how the scourge of terrorism began and where it is likely to end.
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The Mask Of Troy
UNRAVEL THE MYSTERY BEHIND THE MASK... 1876. The ancient citadel of Mycenae, Greece. Heinrich Schliemann raises the golden mask of King Agamemnon and finds something extraordinary. The secret follows him to his grave, and the treasure is seemingly lost for ever... UNCOVER THE TRUTH BEHIND THE LIES... Present day. Off Troy, in the Aegean Sea. Marine archaeologist Jack Howard finds a shipwrecked galley that may have belonged to Agamemnon himself. When this astonishing discovery links to Schliemann - and a Nazi operation of unimaginable horror - Jack makes a perilous journey across Europe in search of treasure and the truth. But this time Jack risks losing something of even greater value...his own daughter.
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Shivani's Apradhini
The earth-eating Muggi, groomed by her brother-in-law, cons fourteen men into marrying her and runs off with their money, but falls in love with the fifteenth and eagerly awaits the day she will be released from prison so that she can return to him. The intimidating Vaishnavi pushes a buffalo, her cruel mother-in-law and husband over the edge of a ravine and spends the rest of her life punishing herself, wandering from place to place, homeless and penniless. In this collection of sketches of ordinary women with extraordinary pasts, we read of women whose lives have been changed because of men, women who now survive on the fringes of society - or outside it Compassionate without ever straying into sentimentality, Shivani's histories of the formidable women whose lives she chronicled strike a chord in our hearts even today, forty years after they were first written. A few of her short stories, inspired by these women, also form part of this brilliant translation from the Hindi by her daughter Ira Pande.
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Dead Like You
Don't imagine for one moment that I'm not watching you. . . The Metropole Hotel, Brighton. After a heady New Year's Eve ball, a woman is brutally raped as she returns to her room. A week later, another woman is attacked. Both victims' shoes are taken by the offender. Detective Superintendent Roy Grace soon realises that these new cases bear remarkable similarities to an unsolved series of crimes in the city back in 1997. The perpetrator had been dubbed 'Shoe Man' and was believed to have raped five women before murdering his sixth victim and vanishing. Could this be a copycat, or has Shoe Man resurfaced? When more women are assaulted, Grace becomes increasingly certain that they are dealing with the same man. And that by delving back into the past - a time in which we see Grace and his missing wife Sandy still apparently happy together - he may find the key to unlocking the current mystery. Soon Grace and his team will find themselves in a desperate race against the clock to identify and save the life of the new sixth victim . . .
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Vampire Diaries
The Fury: Faced with an ancient evil, Stefan and Damon must stop their feuding and join forces with Elena to confirm it. But in so doing, they are unwittingly sealing her fate. The Reunion: Elena summons the vampire trio once more to unite and challenge their fate. Together they will be called to face the most terrifying evil Fell's Church has ever known.
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The Five Greatest Warriors
Jack West Jnr must rebuild the final pieces of the fabled, ancient 'Machine' - the only thing that can prevent global catastrophe. But he is out of clues, out of leads . . . until he is presented with an ancient text about five unnamed warriors, great historical figures who were all in some way connected to the mysterious Machine. And so Jack and his loyal team set out to discover their identities - and their secrets. Soon Jack is on the trail of a legendary list of greats: from Moses to Genghis Khan and Napoleon, and finally to one most unlikely warrior, the unknown 'Fifth', who, it is said, will be there 'at the end of all things...'
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Singing Bird
The phone call comes out of the blue. It is the nun who, twenty-seven years earlier, set up the adoption of Lena Molloy's baby girl in Ireland. just tyng up loose ends, she says, nothing to worry about. But Lena is worried - and intrigued - and decides to go on a secret mission to the west of Ireland, with her best friend, to trace the birth parents of her daughter, now making her international debut as an opera singer. At first the trail seems to have gone cold, but at last a chance meeting sets Lena on a journey to an outcome which in her wildest dreams she could not have foreseen.
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Awakened
Exonerated by the Vampyre High Council and returned to her position of High Priestess at Tulsa’s House of Night, Neferet has sworn vengeance on Zoey. Dominion over Kalona is only one of the weapons she plans to use against Z. But Zoey has found sanctuary on the Isle of Skye and is being groomed by Queen Sgiach to take over for her there. Being Queen would be cool, wouldn’t it? And what about Stevie Rae and Rephaim? The Raven Mocker refuses to be used against Stevie Rae, but what choice does he have when no one in the entire world, including Zoey, would be okay with their relationship? Does he betray his father or his heart?
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Xcess Baggage
A young woman fighing for her identity and ready to sacrifice herself for a doomed love. An immortal group of vampires determined to get rid of their endless existence; even if it means butchering an innocent human. These are the key elements of the suspense romantic thriller, Xcess Baggage.
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Tender Hooks
After freeing her darling son, Jonkers, from the clutches of his low class, slutty secretary, Aunty Pussy has charged Butterfly with finding him a new wife—a rich, fair, beautiful, old family type. Quickly. But who wants to marry poor, plain, die-vorced Jonkers? As Butterfly schemes her way through shaadis, GTs (oho baba, Get Togethers!), and kitty parties trying to find a suitable girl from the right bagground, she discovers to her dismay that her hapless cousin has his own ideas about his perfect mate. And secretly she may even agree!Full of wit and wickedness, Tender Hooks is another delightful romp through Pakistani high society from the bestselling author of The Diary of a Social Butterfly.
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Christmas Fairy Tales
It’s the time of year for families and friends, romance and laughter…Daniel MacGregor will make sure that his beautiful granddaughters share it with someone special! Laura is up to all her meddling grandfather’s tricks. So when Royce Cameron arrives on her doorstep, Laura means to resist his charms… Gwen is convinced that she’ll escape the MacGregor’s trap. Until one kiss from Branson Maguire rocks her world… Julia thinks she’s safe – she’s busy with her career and has no time for love. But Callum Murdoch is hard at work changing her mind. As Christmas approaches, will Daniel’s granddaughters escape his schemes? Or will the magic of the festive season soften their stubborn hearts?
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Outlander
Unrivaled storytelling … unforgettable characters … rich historical detail … these are the hallmarks of Diana Gabaldon’s work. Her New York Times bestselling Outlander novels have earned the praise of critics and captured millions of readers. Here is the story that started it all, introducing two remarkable characters, Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser, in a spellbinding novel of passion and history that combines exhilarating adventure with a love story for the ages…. The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon — when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach — an “outlander” — in a Scotland torn by war and raiding Highland clans in the year of Our Lord … 1743. Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into intrigues and dangers that may threaten her life … and shatter her heart. For here she meets James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, and becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire … and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.
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Faith & Fire
Hailed as the Indian version of The Celestine Prophecy, this is the true story of a young couple’s yearning for a meaningful life. Madhu and Rajeev left the city to join a small community in the Himalayas. For seven years they lived under the tutelage of Aropa, an Englishman who had taken sanyas (renunciation). Madhu and Rajeev grew their own food, built their own mountain hut, and lived a truly simple life, all under Aropa’s spiritual leadership. The couple followed his philosophy, believing that every experience is viewed as an opportunity to grow. Over time, questions arose that made Madhu and Rajeev’s life perplexing; doors appeared to close on them, and their personal dilemmas peaked. But through it all, they never gave up hope. Their story speaks to the spirit as it lays bare a struggle to transcend suffering and discover what lies beyond it. By sharing the simple practices that intensified their search, as well as the powerful role of dreams, Madhu Tandan offers us her conviction that there are no dead ends in life; and gives us a glimpse of the mysterious, magical, uplifting support we can receive at every step of such a journey.
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Cold Mountain
One of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain is a masterpiece that is at once an enthralling adventure, a stirring love story, and a luminous evocation of a vanished America in all its savagery, solitude, and splendor. Sorely wounded and fatally disillusioned in the fighting at Petersburg, Inman, a Confederate soldier, decides to walk back to his home in the Blue Ridge Mountains and to Ada, the woman he loved three years before. His trek across the disintegrating South brings him into intimate and sometimes lethal converse with slaves and marauders, bounty hunters and witches, both helpful and malign. At the same time, Ada is trying to revive her father's derelict farm and learn to survive in a world where the old certainties have been swept away. As it interweaves their stories, Cold Mountain asserts itself as an authentic American Odyssey: hugely powerful, majestically lovely, and keenly moving.
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Did You See The Joker?
The girl whispered, “I love you.” It took a while for the words to sink in his consciousness. When they did, he broke into a brief silent smile. The trace of dismissive scorn did not miss the girl. She repeated, “I loved you . . . from the moment I saw you there at the corner table.” He watched her with an amused mocking glint and said in a slurred voice, “It's okay. I paid you already.” “You know, he looked exactly like you, calm, serene, simple, sitting at that corner hidden in the darkness watching me. He was the one who took my virginity.” He stopped for a moment and listened. In a stupor of inebriation, it sounded like a true account. “He said he loved me. He used to come every night. He bought me this gold chain you see.” The girl pointed at her neck. There was a scar at her neck and there was also a thin gold chain resting on her bare chest. Ceaseless flow of life swirls around the bends of tears and laughter, vengeance and passion, hatred and love. Yet it flows . . . nothing can stop it. Nothing can block it. The eternal flow holds the wavering reflection of the joker . . .