Catch your breath

Sample

Louise Candlish

Anna has waited a long time to fall in love, and now that she has she doesn't intend to let the small matter of Charlie's mother stand in her way. Meredith Grainger is well-bred, highly cultured and impossible to impress. Anna hasn't even been allowed to meet her. Then Charlie leaves the country on business for the summer and Anna decides to take matters into her own hands, reinventing herself into the perfect, butter-wouldn't-melt new model. Garden parties, Sunday tennis, little vintage dresses from Laura Ashley - it all seems so easy. Until, that is, she decides to join Meredith on an Art Explorer's trip to Andalucia. There, she begins to wonder if she might be a little out of her depth after all.

Sample

Graham Greene

The narrator, Maurice Bendrix, purports to hate Henry Miles and his wife Sarah at the time he happens to run into Miles. It is 1946. Bendrix and Miles had not seen each other since June 1944. Henry Miles is a civil servant. He was an Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of Pensions. Later he was moved to the Ministry of Home Security. At his request Maurice follows Henry to his house. Henry is worried about Sarah. Sarah and Maurice Bendrix had been out of contact for eighteen months. The affair between the two had begun in 1939. When Sarah gets in touch with him after his meeting with Miles, Bendrix is elated. (He has just arranged with a private detective to have Sarah followed. Henry expressed to Maurice a sense of unease.) Well, that is the set up. The writing is sensitive, nuanced. Sarah had refused to leave Henry for Bendrix. Eventually, in 1946, Henry sees that Bendrix and Sarah had been lovers. In current parlance, Maurice accuses Henry of enabling the liaison. The book embodies Graham Greene's sincere embrace of Roman Catholicism in the 1940's. Much of the plot and the themes of the novel turn on the religious and spiritual understanding of the characters. Sarah Miles berates herself for having no trust in love. What vows, what promises must be kept to God and to man Sarah wonders. This is her dilemma, the dilemma of a fundamentally good person.

Sample

Laurie Paige

WANTED: ONE FAMILY Each time Deputy Sheriff Nick Dorelli saw fatherless Doogie Clay, his heart ached. If boogie's mother hadn't wed another man, he would be Nick's kid. And Nick would be the father the boy so desperately needed. But best of all, Stephanie Clay would be Nick's wife. Once, they'd dreamed of marriage, and although misunderstandings broke them up, Nick had never stopped thinking of--or loving--her. And now was the time for action. Because not only did Nick want to be a father, he wanted to be a husband--Stephanie's husband.

Sample

Zachary Dillinger

"Immerse yourself in the world of traditional woodworking as period furniture expert Zachary Dillinger walks you through the hand-tool-only construction of six pieces of classic American furniture. From preparing stock by hand to period-correct joinery methods, you'll learn how our forefathers built furniture -- and why they did things the way they did"-- Back cover.