Fairest of them all

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Neil Ten Kortenaar

"Self, Nation, Text in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children is an in-depth study of one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. Neil ten Kortenaar shows that the hybridity of Rushdie's fictional India is created not by the combination of different elements to form a single whole but rather by the relationship among these elements: Rushdie's India is more self-conscious than are communal identities based on language; it is haunted by a dark twin called Pakistan; it is a nation in the way England is a nation, but is imagined against England; it mistrusts the openness of Tagore's Hindu India; and it is at once cosmopolitan and a particular subjective location. The citizen in turn is imagined in terms of the nation. Saleem Sinai's heroic identification of himself with the state is beaten out of him until at the end he sees himself as the Common Man at the mercy of the state."--Jacket.

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Nicole Jordan

To escape marriage to a despised man twice her age, Lady Aurora Demming makes a scandalous arrangement with Nicholas Sabine, a dangerously handsome American facing execution for murder and piracy. She agrees to become his wife for one day . . . and one glorious, intoxicating night. Widowed, Aurora returns to London society with Nicholas's orphaned sister at her side to face a lifetime without love--until her "dead" husband returns, insisting that she honor their vows and haunting her dreams with promises of forbidden desire

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P. G. Wodehouse

'You don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour.' Stephen Fry A Blandings novelLady Constance Keeble, sister of Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle, has both an imperious manner and a valuable diamond necklace. The precarious peace of Blandings is shattered when her necklace becomes the object of dark plottings, for within the castle lurk some well-connected jewel thieves – among them the Honourable Freddie Threepwood, Lord Emsworth's younger son, who wants the reward money to set up a bookmaking business. Psmith, the elegant socialist, is also after it for his newly married chum Mike. And on patrol with the impossible task of bringing management to Blandings is the Efficient Baxter, whose strivings for order lead to a memorable encounter with the castle flowerpots.Will peace ever return to Blandings Castle...?

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Christina Green

Life on a Dartmoor tenant farm is hard and when Becky Yeo meets Joseph, a travelling labourer and folk-singer, her desire is to change her own life. Then, disobeying her family, she refuses to marry Nat, the farm bailiff. She finds work as a kitchen maid at the Manor House, which harbours a dark mystery concerning her family. Meanwhile, Nat, seeking revenge, blackmails her. When Joseph returns, his love for Becky becomes clear and he must challenge Nat for Becky's hand. But after her secret is revealed, can Becky keep her family together and prevent Joseph from leaving once again?