Brief lives

Sample

Anita Brookner

I have come to believe that there can be no adequate preparation for the sadness that comes at the end, the sheer regret that one's life is finished, that one's failures remain indelible and one's successes illusory.' Elizabeth and Betsy are old school friends. Born in 1948 and unready for the sixties, they had high hopes of the lives they would lead, even though their circumstances were so different. When they meet again in their thirties, Elizabeth, married to the safe, older Digby is relieving the boredom of a cosy but childless marriage with an affair. Betsy seems to have found real romance in Paris. Are their lives taking off, or are they just making more of the wrong choices without even realising it?

Sample

Anita Brookner

Modest, reliable, decorous George Bland faces retirement, surprised to find himself suddenly alone and uncertain. His solitude is brusquely overturned when the mercurial and invasive Katy Gibb appears. By turn sulky girl and sultry woman, Katy embodies an attitude of entitlement quite foreign to Bland, yet she also appears to offer a last chance for adventure, for abandoning the weight of a lifetime of discretion and responsibility. In the contest of wills that follows, Bland discovers his true nature, his capacity for compromise and self-deception. The result is a novel rich in understanding of human complexity and of the desire to take charge of one's own destiny.

Sample

Lorna J. Cook

After the sudden death of her husband, Dill, Anna Rainey is emotionally unable to return to the home they shared. Instead she becomes a perpetual house guest, going from friend to friend, seeking the solace and security in their lives that she no longer feels in her own. Each friend offers a different kind of comfort.

Sample

Pat Walsh

In March of 1348, the awakening of an ancient evil drives fay creatures from the woods, causes Crowfield Abbey to crumble, and haunts the dreams of the monks, but the demon seems especially drawn to Will, who is beginning to realize the significance of his Sight.