English books
Don’t Tempt Me – Sylvia Day
Sometimes Temptation. . .
A hardened mercenary as adept in bed as in battle, Simon Quinn can have any woman he wants, but he prefers those who know the rules of the game. That way it's easier to leave them behind. . .
Can't Be Avoided
But Lysette Rousseau is one female he can't figure out. Beautiful, sensual, seductive, she should be the perfect match for Simon, yet something about her ties him in knots. Bold and manipulative one time, sweetly innocent the next, she is an enigma bound to bring trouble. . .impossible to resist.
Praise for Sylvia Day and her novels
DONNA LEON – A SEA OF TROUBLES
Commissario Brunetti finds himself adrift in his tenth investigation?
Dona Leon has amased devoted fans around the world for her atmospheric and intelligent Commissario Brunetti series. A Sea of Troubles offers a rare glimpse into the scrupulous Commissario?s personal life. When Brunetti investigates the murder of two local fishermen on the island of Pellestrina, the small community closes ranks, forcing him to accept Signorina Elettra?s offer to visit her relatives there to search for clues. Though loyal to his beloved wife, Paola, he must admit that less-than-platonic emotions underlie his concern for his boss?s beautiful secretary. Suspenseful, provocative, and deeply unsettling, A Sea of Troubles is an explosive and irresistible addition to Leon?s marvelous series.
DONNA LEON – THE GIRLS OF HIS DREAMS
Two detectives go undercover in Venice, Italy, in the New York Times–bestselling series by “the undisputed crime fiction queen” (The Baltimore Sun).
A priest recently returned from years of missionary work has made a personal request of Commissario Guido Brunetti—but the police detective suspects the man’s motives. A new, American-style Protestant sect has begun to meet in Venice, and it’s possible the priest is merely apprehensive of the competition. But the preacher could also be fleecing his growing flock, so Brunetti and Inspector Vianello, along with their wives, decide to go undercover. In the midst of the investigation, though, the body of a Gypsy child washes up in a canal—and Brunetti finds himself haunted by both the crime and the girl . . .
“No one knows the labyrinthine world of Venice or the way favoritism and corruption shape Italian life like Leon’s Brunetti . . . the thoughtful Venetian cop with a love of food, an outspoken wife, and a computer-hacker secretary.” —Time
“Gorgeously written.” —The New York Times Book Review
DONNA LEON – THE GOLDEN EGG
When making routine enquiries into a possible bribery case that could embarrass the mayor - a humiliation Vice-Questore Patta is very keen to avoid - Commissario Brunetti receives a call from his wife, Paola, who is evidently very upset. To the neighbourhood he was just the 'boy' who helped out, but nobody knew much about him - not even his name.
DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI – FUN & GAMES
Mulholland Books presents...FUN AND GAMES NUMBER OF ACCIDENTAL DEATHS PER YEAR By suffocation: 3,300 By poisoning: 8,600 STAGED BY PROFESSIONALS: You have no idea. Ex-cop Charlie Hardie's latest job is guarding an isolated mansion in LA's Hollywood Hills. But it comes with an unwanted guest - a D-list actress who says she's being hunted by professional hitmen. Charlie thinks she's just high and paranoid. But he's wrong. The killers are real. They've tracked her to the house. And they're not letting anyone out alive.
DUANE SWIERZYNSKI – POINT & SHOOT
On a day like any other, Kendra Hardie picks up the phone.
A voice says, 'leave the house and you're dead'.
Then the line is cut.
Kendra hasn't seen her husband Charlie for nearly a decade. He hasn't forgotten about her - but neither have his enemies. And he has a lot of enemies.
Charlie thought he could protect her by staying away. But now he has access to secrets his enemies will kill to keep hidden, and they're planning to start with his family.
After years in exile, Charlie's arming up... and heading home.
DUNCAN CAMPBELL – IF IT BLEEDS
The brilliant new novel about contemporary London gangland crime by the hugely well reviewed author of THE PARADISE TRAIL. Britain's best known gangster, Charlie Hook, wants to tell his life story and chooses crime reporter Laurie Lane as his reluctant ghost. But the next day Hook is dead, his blood and hair on the walls of his north London mansion. Who has killed the last of the London Godfathers, the man who used to be a driver for the Kray twins? Laurie is having his own problems - he's suspected of fiddling his expenses and his country singer wife has left him for an older man - but he needs to find the killer to keep his job. Could it be a Russian businessman with a love of Scottish poetry and something dodgy in his Hampstead garden?
DUNCAN FALCONER – ASSASSIN
In Afghanistan, elite operative John Stratton leads a raid on a remote compound, leaving no survivors.
Days later, in London, Stratton is contacted by an old friend in military intelligence with a curious message about being hunted by an assassin.
When the officer vanishes, Stratton is drawn into a desperate race to secure a missing nuclear warhead that has been stolen from the Pakistan military. Against an unknown enemy, he begins a heart-stopping search for the bomb that will take him from a Taliban hideout just a few miles outside Bagram Air Base to the crowded streets of Manhattan.
A terrifying and authentic vision of the special forces world by an ex-SBS operative, this is Duncan Falconer's most gripping thriller to date.
DUSTIN THOMASON :12 21
From the co-author of the two-million copy mega-bestseller The Rule of Four comes a riveting thriller with a brilliant premise based on the 2012 apocalypse phenomenon—perfect for readers of Steve Berry, Preston and Child, and Dan Brown.
For decades, December 21, 2012, has been a touchstone for doomsayers worldwide. It is the date, they claim, when the ancient Maya calendar predicts the world will end.
In Los Angeles, two weeks before, all is calm. Dr. Gabriel Stanton takes his usual morning bike ride, drops off the dog with his ex-wife, and heads to the lab where he studies incurable prion diseases for the CDC. His first phone call is from a hospital resident who has an urgent case she thinks he needs to see. Meanwhile, Chel Manu, a Guatemalan American researcher at the Getty Museum, is interrupted by a desperate, unwelcome visitor from the black market antiquities trade who thrusts a duffel bag into her hands.
By the end of the day, Stanton, the foremost expert on some of the rarest infections in the world, is grappling with a patient whose every symptom confounds and terrifies him. And Chel, the brightest young star in the field of Maya studies, has possession of an illegal artifact that has miraculously survived the centuries intact: a priceless codex from a lost city of her ancestors. This extraordinary record, written in secret by a royal scribe, seems to hold the answer to her life’s work and to one of history’s great riddles: why the Maya kingdoms vanished overnight. Suddenly it seems that our own civilization might suffer this same fate.
With only days remaining until December 21, 2012, Stanton and Chel must join forces before time runs out.
Advance praise for 12.21
“Dustin Thomason, M.D., will invariably be compared to Michael Crichton, M.D., and 12.21 will be favorably compared to The Andromeda Strain. Both authors have written first-rate medical thrillers, the kind of fact-based fiction that is very scary but also very entertaining. Thomason knows his stuff, and it shows on every page. I truly could not put this book down.”—Nelson DeMille
“The most exciting novel of its kind since the days of Michael Crichton, 12.21 takes us from the frontiers of modern neuroscience to the riddles of ancient Maya texts, with nothing less than the future of our civilization at stake.”—Vince Flynn
“A fast-moving tale . . . Thomason displays an impressive depth of knowledge of both science and the ancient Mayan way of life. Along the way, he skillfully ramps up the action, one notch at a time. A winning book.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Fascinating, terrifying for its potential realism. I loved how tightly everything fit together. I had to keep reading.”—Taylor Stevens, New York Times bestselling author of The Informationist
“Fast, suspenseful . . . Michael Crichton fans will find a lot to like.”—Publishers Weekly
E.J. SWIFT – TAMARUQ
Fleeing from her family and the elitist oppression of the Osiris government, Adelaide Rechnov has become the thing she once feared, a revolutionary.
But with the discovery of a radio signal comes the stark realization that there is life outside their small island existence. Adelaide’s worries are about to become much bigger.
Meanwhile, as rumour spreads on the mainland, many head to the lost city of Osiris with their own devious objectives. But in a world where war is king and only the most powerful survive, there can only be one victor…
The thrilling, epic finale to The Osiris Project
E.L. DOCTOROW – ANDREW’S BRAIN
This brilliant new novel by an American master, the author of Ragtime, The Book of Daniel, Billy Bathgate, and The March, takes us on a radical trip into the mind of a man who, more than once in his life, has been an inadvertent agent of disaster.
Speaking from an unknown place and to an unknown interlocutor, Andrew is thinking, Andrew is talking, Andrew is telling the story of his life, his loves, and the tragedies that have led him to this place and point in time. And as he confesses, peeling back the layers of his strange story, we are led to question what we know about truth and memory, brain and mind, personality and fate, about one another and ourselves.
Written with psychological depth and great lyrical precision, this suspenseful and groundbreaking novel delivers a voice for our times-funny, probing, skeptical, mischievous, profound.
E.L. JAMES – FIFTY SHADES DARKER
A special edition of E L James’s #1 New York Times bestselling novel, Fifty Shades Darker, that includes her own photos and caption commentary from the making of the film―and an excerpt from her forthcoming book, Fifty Shades Darker, As Told by Christian Grey.
Daunted by the dark secrets of the tormented young entrepreneur, Christian Grey, Anastasia Steele has broken off their relationship. But desire for Grey still dominates her every waking thought, and when he proposes a new arrangement, she cannot resist.
They rekindle their searing, sensual affair, and soon Ana is learning more about the harrowing past of her damaged, driven and demanding Fifty Shades than she ever thought possible.
But while Christian wrestles with his inner demons, Ana must make the most important decision of her life.
A decision she can only make on her own ...
EDEN MAGUIRE – BEAUTIFUL DEAD
"Redemption and grief, and the love that exists even when people are gone." -The Bookbag
Not alive. Not dead. Somewhere in between lie the Beautiful Dead.
It's been months since Darina has seen her undead boyfriend and her heart is breaking all over again. The wait is slowly driving her crazy.
All she wants to do is be with Phoenix, to feel his arms wrapped around her. But to earn the pleasure of that embrace, Darina must track down the crazed killer that shot Summer Madison.
Was it a random shooting? Or was the gifted singer the victim of an obsessive fan? As time runs out, Darina will risk her own life to discover the truth.
But if she solves Summer's murder, Darina knows it only brings her one step closer to losing Phoenix forever...
"Compelling characters coupled with a powerful mystery. A real page turner." -Julia Eccleshare, Lovereading4kids
EDEN MAGUIRE – PHOENIX BOOK 4
Darina is in denial. Even after all she's been through, the Beautiful Dead can't be real. They must be a figment of her grief-stricken imagination. But visions of Phoenix and Hunter prove otherwise and soon she's drawn back to Foxton, to the barn, to Phoenix - where they have, what may just be, their final reunion. It's the moment they've been dreading - time to solve Phoenix's mystery. Everything has been building to this but Darina knows that revealing the true circumstances of Phoenix's death will lead to their final parting. With this impossible mixture of emotions, Darina begins to unscramble the facts, but she's up against mounting obstacles: the distraction of Hunter's personal mystery, Phoenix's returning father, threats of gang violence and conspiracies to blur and block the truth. With time pressure mounting and the risk of Phoenix being sent back into unending limbo, Darina puts herself in danger, and so the mystery of the Beautiful Dead builds into a heart-breaking climax ...
EDITH TEMPLETON – GORDON
The original Fifty Shades of Grey, Edith Templeton's novel Gordon has been banned, pirated and published under various names for almost fifty years.
Post-war London. Louisa, a smartly dressed young woman in the midst of a divorce, meets a charismatic man in a pub, and within an hour has been sexually conquered by him on a garden bench. Thus begins her baffling but magnetic love affair with Richard Gordon.
Gordon, a psychiatrist, keeps Louisa in his thrall with his almost omniscient ability to see through her, and she is equally gripped by the unexpected pleasure of complete submission. Subjecting herself to repeated humiliations at his hands, but quite unable and unwilling to free herself from his control, Louisa and Gordon sink further and further into the depths - both psychologically and sexually.
An extraordinary novel of psycho-sexual entanglement that was banned for indecency in England in 1966, in Gordon, Edith Templeton captures one of the most unusual and disturbing love stories ever written.
'Templeton's characters are not passive or self-doubting. Their pleasure in sexual submission is a mark of their toughness: they can take what their men give them' The New York Times
'Sexual perversion, masochistic dependency, obsession and suicide' Telegraph
'An unsettling tale of sexual obsession' The New Yorker
'It is unlikely that any young woman will write a book as good, as honest, as provocative as Gordon' Telegraph
'Superbly written and unsettling' Beryl Bainbridge
Edith Templeton was born in Prague in 1916 and spent much of her childhood in a castle in the Bohemian countryside. Her short stories began to appear in The New Yorker in the 1950s and caused a major stir because of their sexual explicitness (these stories are available in one volume entitled The Darts of Cupid as a Penguin ebook). Gordon first appeared in 1966 under the pseudonym Louise Walbrook and was subsequently banned in England and Germany; it was then pirated around the world, appearing under various titles. In 2001, Edith Templeton agreed to publish the novel, with its original title, under her own name. She died in 2006.
