Family Secrets


Book Description

We live today in a culture of full disclosure, where tell-all memoirs top the best-seller lists, transparency is lauded, and privacy seems imperiled. But how did we get here? Exploring scores of previously sealed records, Family Secrets offers a sweeping account of how shame--and the relationship between secrecy and openness--has changed over the last two centuries in Britain. Deborah Cohen uses detailed sketches of individual families as the basis for comparing different sorts of social stigma. She takes readers inside an Edinburgh town house, where a genteel maiden frets with her brother over their niece's downy upper lip, a darkening shadow that might betray the girl's Eurasian heritage; to a Liverpool railway platform, where a heartbroken mother hands over her eight-year old illegitimate son for adoption; to a town in the Cotswolds, where a queer vicar brings to his bank vault a diary--sewed up in calico, wrapped in parchment--that chronicles his sexual longings. Cohen explores what families in the past chose to keep secret and why. She excavates the tangled history of privacy and secrecy to explain why privacy is now viewed as a hallowed right while secrets are condemned as destructive. In delving into the dynamics of shame and guilt, Family Secrets explores the part that families, so often regarded as the agents of repression, have played in the transformation of social mores from the Victorian era to the present day. Written with compassion and keen insight, this is a bold new argument about the sea-changes that took place behind closed doors.




A Famished Heart


Book Description

'A fabulous closed-room mystery that will keep you guessing' - DENISE MINA 'Fabulous Dublin-based crime. Very much in the vein of Tana French' - JO SPAIN 'This creeps up on you until you're hooked' - HEAT THEY DID IT TO THEMSELVES BUT SOMEONE WAS WATCHING The Macnamara sisters hadn't been seen for months before anyone noticed. It was Father Timoney who finally broke down the door, who saw what had become of them. Berenice was sitting in her armchair, surrounded by religious tracts. Rosaleen had crawled under her own bed, her face frozen in terror. Both had starved themselves to death. Francesca Macnamara returns to Dublin after decades in the US to find her family in ruins. Meanwhile, Detectives Vincent Swan and Gina Considine are convinced that there is more to the deaths than suicide. Because what little evidence there is, shows that someone was watching the sisters die... A compelling mystery that will keep you reading late into the night, perfect for readers of Val McDermid, Denise Mina, Tana French and Jo Spain. ________________________________________ *** SUNDAY TIMES CRIME CLUB STAR PICK *** *** AN IRISH TIMES CRIME BOOK OF THE YEAR *** 'A terrific new gem of Irish noir, written with a light touch' - SUNDAY TIMES 'Sombre, psychological nuanced and compassionate... gripping' - IRISH TIMES 'Intriguing, compelling and highly entertaining. Formidably impressive' - LIZ NUGENT 'Thrilling... will keep you guessing until the very end' - MY WEEKLY 'Infused with depth, darkness and acute psychological drama' - HERALD




A Cold Creek Secret


Book Description

Just back from a tour of duty, all Major Brant Western wanted was a hot meal and a warm bed. What he didn't need was the stunning socialite in disguise who'd just shown up at his family's Cold Creek ranch. Scandal trailed bad girl Mimi Van Hoyt—aka "Maura"—everywhere she went. But once Brant discovered her secret, how could he turn her away? Being stranded in the middle of nowhere in a blizzard was not Mimi's idea of a fun time in the Tetons. Then why was she starting to think this sexy soldier could be more than her shelter from the storm? And the more determined Brant was to protect her and her unborn child, the more she believed that this honorable, irresistible military man was the only man for her.




Inside Out & Back Again


Book Description

Moving to America turns H&à's life inside out. For all the 10 years of her life, H&à has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, the warmth of her friends close by, and the beauty of her very own papaya tree. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. H&à and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope. In America, H&à discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food, the strange shape of its landscape, and the strength of her very own family. This is the moving story of one girl's year of change, dreams, grief, and healing as she journeys from one country to another, one life to the next.




The Fine Art of Invisible Detection


Book Description

The #1 ebook from the Sunday Times bestseller 'He's the high priest of plot ... deftly woven, but also beautifully written ... I loved it' Mel Giedroyc 'One of the finest crime writers of any generation' Daily Mail -------------- An unlikely heroine. An even more unlikely detective. And a cold case that's resurfacing with deadly consequences. Umiko Wada has recently had quite enough excitement in her life. With her husband recently murdered and a mother who seems to want her married again before his body is cold, she just wants to keep her head down. As a secretary to a private detective, her life is pleasingly uncomplicated, filled with coffee runs, diary management and paperwork. That is, until her boss takes on a new case. A case which turns out to be dangerous enough to get him killed. A case which means Wada will have to leave Japan for the first time and travel to London. Following the only lead she has, Wada quickly realises that being a detective isn't as easy as the television makes out. And that there's a reason why secrets stay buried for a long time. Because people want them to stay secret. And they're prepared to do very bad things to keep them that way... The new novel from Robert Goddard, THE FINE ART OF UNCANNY PREDICTION, is available for pre-order now. -------------------- What readers are saying: ***** 'Guaranteed and satisfying escapism' ***** 'Twists and turns right up to the last page' ***** 'Edge-of-the-seat stuff' ***** 'Fresh and inventive' ***** 'The master of twists and suspense ... sublime' ***** 'Scintillating and wickedly twisty'




On the Fence


Book Description

She's a tomboy. He's the boy next door. With three older brothers, Charlotte Reynolds, aka Charlie, has always been more comfortable calling the shots on a basketball court than flirting with the opposite sex. So when her police officer dad demands she get a summer job to pay for the latest in a long line of speeding tickets, she's more than a little surprised to find herself working at a chichi boutique and going out with a boy who has never seen her tear it up in a pickup game. Charlie seeks late-night refuge in her backyard, talking out her problems with her neighbor and honorary fourth brother, Braden, sitting back-to-back against the fence that separates them. Braden may know her better than anyone. But there's a secret Charlie's keeping that even he hasn't figured out—she's fallen for him. Hard. She knows what it means to go for the win, but if spilling her secret means losing him for good, the stakes just got too high. On the Fence is a sweet and satisfying read about finding yourself and finding love where you least expect it.




Lonestar Secrets


Book Description

USA TODAY bestselling author Colleen Coble delivers romance and suspense in a beautiful West Texas setting. Five years ago, Shannon Astor left the beautiful high-mountain country of West Texas as a single mother. She was desperate for a fresh start and a way to keep the secrets of her past buried. It almost worked. Until a chance to make a better life for her daughter leads her right back home. To the very place of the past betrayals. But it also leads Shannon to horse-trainer Jack MacGowan--her handsome high-school nemesis, now a widowed father. His daughter looks so startlingly like her own that Shannon can't help but question the circumstances surrounding her daughter's birth. Wary of each other's intentions, Shannon and Jack reluctantly join forces to untangle a deep mystery that swirls around Shannon's parents, a lost Spanish treasure, and a legendary black stallion. If Shannon can learn to entrust her secrets to the man falling in love with her, the truth just might set her free. Full-length romantic suspense Includes discussion questions for book clubs Part of the Lonestar series, but can be read as a standalone Book One: Lonestar Sanctuary Book Two: Lonestar Secrets Book Three: Lonestar Homecoming Book Four: Lonestar Angel




Vermeer's Family Secrets


Book Description

Johannes Vermeer, one of the greatest Dutch painters and for some the single greatest painter of all, produced a remarkably small corpus of work. In Vermeer's Family Secrets, Benjamin Binstock revolutionizes how we think about Vermeer's work and life. Vermeer, The Sphinx of Delft, is famously a mystery in art: despite the common claim that little is known of his biography, there is actually an abundance of fascinating information about Vermeer’s life that Binstock brings to bear on Vermeer’s art for the first time; he also offers new interpretations of several key documents pertaining to Vermeer that have been misunderstood. Lavishly illustrated with more than 180 black and white images and more than sixty color plates, the book also includes a remarkable color two-page spread that presents the entirety of Vermeer's oeuvre arranged in chronological order in 1/20 scale, demonstrating his gradual formal and conceptual development. No book on Vermeer has ever done this kind of visual comparison of his complete output. Like Poe's purloined letter, Vermeer's secrets are sometimes out in the open where everyone can see them. Benjamin Binstock shows us where to look. Piecing together evidence, the tools of art history, and his own intuitive skills, he gives us for the first time a history of Vermeer's work in light of Vermeer's life. On almost every page of Vermeer's Family Secrets, there is a perception or an adjustment that rethinks what we know about Vermeer, his oeuvre, Dutch painting, and Western Art. Perhaps the most arresting revelation of Vermeer's Family Secrets is the final one: in response to inconsistencies in technique, materials, and artistic level, Binstock posits that several of the paintings accepted as canonical works by Vermeer, are in fact not by Vermeer at all but by his eldest daughter, Maria. How he argues this is one of the book's many pleasures.




Death of a Nightingale


Book Description

From the Nordic noir duo who brought you The New York Times bestseller The Boy in the Suitcase comes a chilling new thriller with a mystery seventy-years in the making. Nina. Natasha. Olga. Three women united by one terrifying secret. But only one of them has killed to keep it. Natasha Doroshenko, a Ukrainian woman who has been convicted for the attempted murder of her Danish ex-fiancé, escapes police custody on her way to an interrogation in Copenhagen’s police headquarters. That same night, the ex-fiancé’s frozen, tortured body is found in a car. It isn’t the first time the young Ukrainian woman has lost a partner to violent ends: her first husband was murdered three years earlier in Kiev in the same manner. Danish Red Cross nurse Nina Borg has followed Natasha’s case for years now, ever since Natasha first took refuge at her crisis center. Nina just can’t see the young mother as a vicious killer. But in her effort to protect Natasha’s daughter and discover the truth, Nina realizes there is much she didn’t know about Natasha and her past. The mystery has long and bloody roots, going back to a terrible famine that devastated Stalinist Ukraine in 1934, when a ten-year-old girl with the voice of a nightingale sang her family into shallow graves.




The Routledge Companion to Romantic Love


Book Description

The Routledge Companion to Romantic Love is a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary reference work essential for students and researchers interested in the field of love, romance and popular romance fiction. This first-of-its-kind volume illustrates the broad and interdisciplinary nature of love studies. International contributors, including leaders in their field, reflect a range of perspectives from cultural studies, history, literature, popular romance studies, American studies, sociology and gender studies. Comprising over 30 chapters by a team of international contributors the Companion is divided into 12 parts: Love, romance and historical and social change Love and feminist discourses Love and popular romance fiction Love, gender and sexuality Romancing Australia South and Southeast Asian romance communities Nation, place and identity in US popular romance novels Romantic love and national identity in Chinese and Taiwanese discourses of love Muslim and Middle Eastern romances Discourses of romance fiction and technologies of power Writing love and romance Legal and theological fiction and sexual politics This is an important and unique collection aimed at researchers and students across cultural studies, women and gender studies, literature studies and sociology.