Hester

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Denise Robertson

"Ben Webster appears to have it all - health, wealth, a beautiful wife and a thriving business. In reality, his wife is unfaithful and predators are circling the profitable firm that he heads. And then his beloved grandmother summons him. She tells him that the family business has been built on the theft of the birthright of three children orphaned during the war. 'Find them, ' she says. 'I can't die with what your grandfather did on my conscience.' But where does he begin, and how? As Ben delves into the past he finds relief from his own troubles and, for a moment, the thrill of an affair is a welcome distraction. Sooner or later, however, he must not only deal with the present, he must redress the wrongs of the past."--Publisher's description.

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Frances Itani

The new novel from the award-winning author of Deafening is a poignant exploration of one eighty-year-old life, as its heroine lies at the bottom of a ravine where she has crashed en route to visit the queen. Born the same day as Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, Canadian Georgina Danforth Witley is one of ninety-nine privileged Commonwealth subjects invited to an eightieth birthday lunch at Buckingham Palace. All she has to do is drive to the airport and board the plane for London. Except that Georgie drives off the road, her car plunging into a thickly wooded ravine. Thrown from the car and unable to move, she must rely on her no-nonsense wit, her full store of family memories, and a recitation of the bones in her body -- a childhood exercise that reminds her she is still alive. As Georgina lies helpless, she reflects on her role as a daughter, mother, sister, wife, and widow -- on lost loves and painful secrets -- offering a whimsical and profound insight into the life of one ordinary woman who, while drawing on her instincts to survive, asks herself: what has it all amounted to?

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D.H. Lawrence

<p><i>Sons and Lovers</i>, a story of working-class England, is <a href=" H.</abbr> Lawrence’s</a> third novel. It went through various drafts, and was titled “Paul Morel” until the final draft, before being published and met with an indifferent reaction from contemporary critics. Modern critics now consider it to be <abbr>D. H.</abbr> Lawrence’s masterpiece, with the Modern Library placing it ninth in its “100 Best English-Language Novels of the 20th Century.”</p> <p>The novel follows the Morels, a family living in a coal town, and headed by a passionate but boorish miner. His wife, originally from a refined family, is dragged down by Morel’s classlessness, and finds her life’s joy in her children. As the children grow up and start leading lives of their own, they struggle against their mother’s emotional drain on them.</p> <p><i>Sons and Lovers</i> was written during a period in Lawrence’s life when his own mother was gravely ill. Its exploration of the Oedipal instinct, frank depiction of working-class household unhappiness and violence, and accurate and colorful depiction of Nottinghamshire dialect, make it a fascinating window into the life of people not often chronicled in fiction of the day.</p>

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Thomas Hardy

Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. The first of his works set in the fictional county of Wessex, Hardy's novel of swift passion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships.