Eleanor's Secret


Book Description

An engrossing wartime mystery of past deceptions, family secrets and long-lasting love... London, 1942 When art school graduate, Eleanor Roy, is recruited by the War Artists Advisory Committee, she comes one step closer to realising her dream of becoming one of the few female war artists. But breaking into the art establishment proves difficult until Eleanor meets painter, Jack Valante, only to be separated by his sudden posting overseas. Melbourne, 2010 Although reluctant to leave her family at home, Kathryn can't refuse her grandmother Eleanor's request to travel to London to help her return a precious painting to its artist. But when the search uncovers a long-held family secret, Kathryn has to make a choice to return home or risk her family's future, as Eleanor shows her that safeguarding the future is sometimes worth more than protecting the past. Eleanor's Secret is at once a surprising mystery and compelling love story.




Sherwood Anderson's Secret Love Letters


Book Description

In 1927, tired of the literary life of New York City, New Orleans, and Chicago, a famous but aging American writer named Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941) -- author of Winesburg, Ohio(1919) and other short stories in which he virtually invented the modern American short-story -- moved to rural Southwest Virginia to write for and edit two small-town weekly newspaper that he owned, the Marion Democrat. and the Smyth County News. Living again among the small-town figures with whom he was usually most content, William Faulkner, Thomas Wolf, and indeed an entire generation of the greatest American writers -- worked for several years at making his newspaper nationally famous while struggling to come to terms with a life-threatening psychological depression and a failing third marriage. Both of Anderson's midlife problems were complicated when he met Eleanor Copenhaver, lovely young daughter in one of the prominent first families of Marion and a career social worker for the YWCA. Trying to keep their ardent affair secret in the small town, Anderson avidly courted the socially prominent and much younger Miss Copenhaver while at the same time trying to free himself from his embittered third wife and overcome the disadvantages of his age and his lover's family's distrust of him.Having by the end of 1931 continued for three years his surreptitious and consuming affair with Miss Copenhaver, Anderson determined on the first day of 1932 that the new year should be the year of decisions for him to gain his love in marriage or perhaps to end his life, and he began the new year with a creative venture unique in literature. Starting on January1, Anderson secretly wrote and hid away for Eleanor Copenhaver to find after his eventual death one letter each day, letters that she should someday discover, whether they had ever become married or not, and thereby relive in her memory their days of intense lovemaking a mutual despair about their then-unlikely marriage.Found by Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson only at Sherwood Anderson's death in 1941 and then preserved intact by this grieving widow who had married Anderson in 1933, the carefully hidden letters of 1932 recording their intense and seemingly doomed love affair have remained secret until now. Chosen by Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson before her death in 1985 to publish her husband's secret love letters, Anderson scholar Ray Lewis White has prepared a fascinating edition of these unique letters for the enjoyment of students and scholars of literature as well as for all other readers who savor compelling and inspiring stories of loss and love.




The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook


Book Description

Super-smart Julian Calendar thinks starting junior high at a new school will mean he can shed his nerdy image-but then he meets Ben and Greta, two secret scientists like himself! The three form a secret club, complete with a high-tech lair. There, they can work to their hearts content on projects like the Stink-O-Meter, the Kablovsky Copter, and the Nightsneak Goggles. All that tinkering comes in handy when the trio discovers an evil scientist's dastardly plan to rob a museum. Can three inventors, armed with their wacky creations, hope to defeat this criminal mastermind?




The Secret Eleanor


Book Description

Eleanor of Aquitaine seized hold of life in the 12th century in a way any modern woman would envy! 1151: As Duchess of Aquitaine, Eleanor grew up knowing what it was to be regarded for herself and not for her husband's title. Now, as wife to Louis VII and Queen of France, she has found herself unsatisfied with reflected glory-and feeling constantly under threat, even though she outranks every woman in Paris. Then, standing beside her much older husband in the course of a court ceremony, Eleanor locks eyes with a man-hardly more than a boy, really- across the throne room, and knows that her world has changed irrevocably... He is Henry D'Anjou, eldest son of the Duke of Anjou, and he is in line, somewhat tenuously, for the British throne. She meets him in secret. She has a gift for secrecy, for she is watched like a prisoner by spies even among her own women. She is determined that Louis must set her free. Employing deception and disguise, seduction and manipulation, Eleanor is determined to find her way to power-and make her mark on history.




The Luminaries


Book Description

The winner of the Man Booker Prize, this "expertly written, perfectly constructed" bestseller (The Guardian) is now a Starz miniseries. It is 1866, and Walter Moody has come to stake his claim in New Zealand's booming gold rush. On the stormy night of his arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of 12 local men who have met in secret to discuss a series of unexplained events: a wealthy man has vanished, a prostitute has tried to end her life, and an enormous cache of gold has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely ornate as the night sky. Richly evoking a mid-nineteenth-century world of shipping, banking, and gold rush boom and bust, The Luminaries is at once a fiendishly clever ghost story, a gripping page-turner, and a thrilling novelistic achievement. It richly confirms that Eleanor Catton is one of the brightest stars in the international literary firmament.




My Secret Rockstar Boyfriend


Book Description

Geeky girl meets famous boy . . . what could go wrong? Tuesday Cooper is happy being normal -doing her a-levels and indulging in her twin obsessions: buying weird vintage clothes in charity shops and writing her beloved music blog (which nobody ever reads). Her love for music started when she was thirteen and had a massive crush on Jackson Griffith, teen rock god and SUPER HOT LOVE OF HER LIFE. Now Tuesday's eighteen and has moved on to fancying boys in real life and Jackson went off the celebrity radar years ago. So it can't be him that's messaging her on her blog, can it? From one girl's computer to the pyramid stage at Glastonbury Festival, this is a love story for anyone who has ever wished that someone would sing a love song just for them. Dreams can come true . . .




The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare


Book Description

The fate of the world is often driven by the curiosity of a girl. What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke remains a mystery, but the women who descended from Eleanor Dare have long known that the truth lies in what she left behind: a message carved onto a large stone and the contents of her treasured commonplace book. Brought from England on Eleanor’s fateful voyage to the New World, her book was passed down through the fifteen generations of daughters who followed as they came of age. Thirteen-year-old Alice had been next in line to receive it, but her mother’s tragic death fractured the unbroken legacy and the Dare Stone and the shadowy history recorded in the book faded into memory. Or so Alice hoped. In the waning days of World War II, Alice is a young widow and a mother herself when she is unexpectedly presented with her birthright: the deed to Evertell, her abandoned family home and the history she thought forgotten. Determined to sell the property and step into a future free of the past, Alice returns to Savannah with her own thirteen-year-old daughter, Penn, in tow. But when Penn’s curiosity over the lineage she never knew begins to unveil secrets from beneath every stone and bone and shell of the old house and Eleanor’s book is finally found, Alice is forced to reckon with the sacrifices made for love and the realities of their true inheritance as daughters of Eleanor Dare. In this sweeping tale from award-winning author Kimberly Brock, the answers to a real-life mystery may be found in the pages of a story that was always waiting to be written. Praise for The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare: “From the haunting first line, The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare transports the reader to a mysterious land, time and family . . . the captivating women of the Dare legacy must find their true inheritance hiding behind the untold secrets.” —Patti Callahan, New York Times bestselling author Historical women’s fiction Stand-alone novel Book length: approximately 135,000 words Includes discussion questions for book clubs




Lockdown Secrets


Book Description

A compelling collection of anonymous postcards sent during lockdown, revealing hilarious, salacious, relatable and sometimes heartbreaking secret confessions. In the thick of the 2021 coronavirus lockdown, designer and shopowner Eleanor Tattersfield put out a call on Instagram: 'I'll send you a postcard, you send me a secret'. Lockdown Secrets is an astonishing record of what happened next. Postcards poured in, some beautifully decorated, some simply handwritten, but each one anonymously sharing a very personal confession. They came from people of all ages and all walks of life, including some celebrities. Prominent themes began to emerge: relationships, sex, masturbation, food, rebellion, loneliness and, surprisingly, a lot of love for lockdown itself. This beautiful book brings together the best of the postcards Eleanor received, and all human life is here: furtive infidelities, bad behaviour in the local bakery, sneaking off for baths during a busy homeschooling schedule, rediscovered marital bliss, and, occasionally, poignant moments of sadness and despair. We've all been through the lockdown experience, and every reader will find something to relate to in this fascinating collection, a perfect snapshot of an extraordinary time.




A Daughter's Secret


Book Description

Mia is a high-flying child psychotherapist, hoping to be made partner in the thriving practice where she works. But then she takes on a case which will change her life for ever, and bring back the past she has done her best to bury. Thirteen year old Gemma was the last person to see her father before he went on the run, fleeing from a major criminal trial. The police are desperate to track him down, pressuring Mia to tease the information out of his angry and reluctant daughter. But what does Gemma really know and how hard can Mia push without betraying her? Both are hiding devastating secrets. Both need the other to survive. Will they learn to trust each other before it's too late?




The Secret Diary of Eleanor Cobham


Book Description

England, 1441: Lady Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, hopes to become Queen of England before her interest in astrology and her husband's ambition leads their enemies to accuse her of a plot against the king. Eleanor is found guilty of sorcery and witchcraft. Rather than have her executed, King Henry VI orders Eleanor to be imprisoned for life.More than a century after her death, carpenters restoring one of the towers of Beaumaris Castle discover a sealed box hidden under the wooden boards. Thinking they have found treasure, they break the ancient box open, disappointed to find it only contains a book, with hand-sewn pages of yellowed parchment.Written in a code no one could understand, the mysterious book changed hands many times for more than five centuries, between antiquarian book collectors, until it came to me. After years of frustrating failure to break the code, I discover it is based on a long forgotten medieval dialect and am at last able to decipher the secret diary of Eleanor Cobham.The Secret Diary of Eleanor Cobham from Tony Riches is a new addition to the great historical Fiction tradition of C J Sansom, Conn Iggulden, Philippa Gregory and Anne O'Brien.