Quercus strana 19 z 28

With The Unmaking of June Farrow, Adrienne Young delivers a brilliant story with romance, mystery, and a touch of the impossible: a story you will never forget. In the small mountain town of Jasper, North Carolina, June Farrow is waiting for fate to find her. The Farrow women are known for their thriving flower farm - and the mysterious curse that has haunted them for generations. The madness that led to Susanna Farrow's disappearance left her daughter, June, to be raised by her grandmother. Everyone in Jasper is certain it's only a matter of time before she finds the same end, but June has kept secret that her unravelling has already begun. After her grandmother's death, June follows a series of clues that link her mother's disappearance to the town's dark history, leading finally to a mysterious door. Behind it may lay the answer to the mysteries that have always lingered like a dark shadow. Upon crossing the threshold, June embarks on a journey that will not only change both the past and the future, but entangle her fate and her heart in a star-crossed love.

Two sworn enemies. One failing hotel. Love is the last thing they need . . . It's the busiest time of the year, and Forest Manor Hotel is quite literally falling apart. So when sworn enemies Izzy and Lucas are given the same shift on the hotel's front desk, they have no choice but to put their differences aside. The hotel won't stay afloat without some sort of miracle. But when Izzy returns a guest's lost wedding ring, the reward convinces management this might fix everything. With four rings still sitting in lost property, the race is on for Izzy and Lucas to save their beloved hotel - and their jobs. As their bitter rivalry turns into something much more complicated, Izzy and Lucas begin to wonder if there's more at stake here than the hotel's future. Can the two of them make it through the season with their hearts intact?

Miss Lydia Bennet may be the youngest, but what she lacks in maturity and responsibility, she more than makes up for in energy, fun - and magic. In this exuberant reimagining of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Lydia Bennet puts pen to paper to relate the real events and aftermath of the classic story from her own perspective. Some facts are well known: Mrs. Bennet suffers from her nerves; Mr. Bennet suffers from Mrs. Bennet, and all five daughters suffer from an estate that is entailed only to male heirs. But Lydia also suffers from entirely different concerns: her best-loved sister Kitty is really a barn cat, and Wickham is every bit as wicked as the world believes him to be, but what else would you expect from a demon? And if you think Mr. Darcy was uptight about dancing etiquette, wait till you see how he reacts to witchcraft. Most of all, Lydia has yet to learn that when you're a witch, promises have power... Full of enchantment, intrigue, danger, and boundless magic, The Shocking Confessions of Miss Lydia Bennet, Witch, has all the irreverent wit, strength, and romance of Pride and Prejudice - while offering a highly unexpected redemption for the wildest Bennet sister.

From the No.1 New York Times bestselling author of Lore and The Darkest Minds trilogy comes this stunning series opener inspired by Arthurian legend and fuelled by love, revenge and pure adrenaline - cementing Alexandra Bracken's status as one of the top fantasy authors writing today. Tamsin Lark didn't ask to be a Hollower. As a mortal with no magical talent, she was never meant to seek legendary relics from the ancient crypts of dark sorceresses. But after her thieving foster father disappeared without so much as a goodbye, it was the only way to keep herself - and her brother, Cabell - alive.Ten years later, rumours are swirling that her guardian vanished with a powerful ring from Arthurian legend, igniting Tamsin's hope of freeing Cabell from a curse that threatens them both. But they aren't the only ones who covet the ring... As word spreads, greedy Hollowers start circling, and Tamsin is forced into an uneasy alliance with her rival Emrys just to survive. Their race for the ring leads them across modern-day England into Avalon, but the misty otherland is nothing like the legends claim. As the mystery rotting the heart of Avalon consumes them, and they come no closer to finding the ring, Tamsin begins to fear she won't just lose her brother - she'll lose her one chance to uncover the secret of who she truly is.

There were tales that only the island knew. Ones that had never been told. I knew, because I was one of them.' Emery Blackwood's life was forever changed on the eve of her high school graduation, when the love of her life, August Salt, was accused of murdering her best friend, Lily. She'd once dreamt of running away with August, eager to escape the misty, remote shores of Saoirse Island and chase new dreams together. Now, she is doing what her teenage self swore she never would: living a quiet existence among this tight-knit community steeped in folklore and tradition, ruled by the seasons and ancient superstitions. But when August returns after fourteen years to bury his mother's ashes, Emery must confront her first love and the reason he left so abruptly. But the town wants August gone again. And as the island begins to show signs of strange happenings, the emergence of deep betrayals and hidden promises threatens to reveal the truth behind Lily's death once and for all.

It all starts with an innocuous curiosity: at the Hotel de Verbier, a luxury hotel in the Swiss Alps, there is no Room 622. This anomaly piques the interest of Joel Dicker, Switzerland's most famous literary star, who flees to the Verbier to recover from a bad breakup, mourn the death of his publisher, and begin his next novel. Before he knows it, he's coaxed out of his slump by a fellow guest, who quickly uncovers the reason behind Room 622's erasure: an unsolved murder. The attendant circumstances: a love triangle and a power struggle at the heart of Switzerland's largest private bank, a mysterious counter-intelligence unit known only as P-30, and a shadowy emigre with more money than God. A Russian doll of a mystery crafted with the precision of a Swiss watch, The Enigma of Room 622 is Joel Dicker's most diabolically addictive thriller yet.

The child you never knew knows all your secrets . . . Out of the blue, Susie Jukes is contacted on social media by Anna, the girl she gave up for adoption fifteen years ago. But when they meet, Anna's home life sounds distinctly strange to Susie and her husband Gabe. And when Anna's adoptive parents seem to overreact to the fact she contacted them at all, Susie becomes convinced that Anna needs her help. But is Anna's own behaviour simply what you'd expect from someone recovering from a traumatic childhood? Or are there other secrets at play here - secrets Susie has also been hiding for the last fifteen years?

AN INCREDIBLE STORY OF COURAGE, RESILIENCE AND SURVIVAL Tova Friedman was one of the youngest people to emerge from Auschwitz. After surviving the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto in Central Poland where she lived as a toddler, Tova was five when she and her parents were sent to a Nazi labour camp, and almost six when she and her mother were forced into a packed cattle truck and sent to Auschwitz II, also known as the Birkenau extermination camp, while her father was transported to Dachau. During six months of incarceration in Birkenau, Tova witnessed atrocities that she could never forget, and experienced numerous escapes from death. She is one of a handful of Jews to have entered a gas chamber and lived to tell the tale. As Nazi killing squads roamed Birkenau before abandoning the camp in January 1945, Tova and her mother hid among corpses. After being liberated by the Russians they made their way back to their hometown in Poland. Eventually Tova's father tracked them down and the family was reunited. In The Daughter of Auschwitz, Tova immortalizes what she saw, to keep the story of the Holocaust alive, at a time when it is in danger of fading from memory. She has used those memories that have shaped her life to honour the victims. Written with award-winning former war reporter Malcolm Brabant, this is an extremely important book. Brabant's thorough research has helped Tova recall her experiences in searing detail. Together they have painstakingly recreated Tova's extraordinary story about one of the worst ever crimes against humanity.

From a New York Times investigative reporter, this "authoritative and devastating account of the impacts of social media" (New York Times Book Review) tracks the high-stakes inside story of how Big Tech's breakneck race to drive engagement-and profits-at all costs fractured the world. The Chaos Machine is "an essential book for our times" (Ezra Klein). We all have a vague sense that social media is bad for our minds, for our children, and for our democracies. But the truth is that its reach and impact run far deeper than we have understood. Building on years of international reporting, Max Fisher tells the gripping and galling inside story of how Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social network preyed on psychological frailties to create the algorithms that drive everyday users to extreme opinions and, increasingly, extreme actions. As Fisher demonstrates, the companies' founding tenets, combined with a blinkered focus on maximizing engagement, have led to a destabilized world for everyone. Traversing the planet, Fisher tracks the ubiquity of hate speech and its spillover into violence, ills that first festered in far-off locales, to their dark culmination in America during the pandemic, the 2020 election, and the Capitol Insurrection. Through it all, the social-media giants refused to intervene in any meaningful way, claiming to champion free speech when in fact what they most prized were limitless profits. The result, as Fisher shows, is a cultural shift toward a world in which people are polarized not by beliefs based on facts, but by misinformation, outrage, and fear. His narrative is about more than the villains, however. Fisher also weaves together the stories of the heroic outsiders and Silicon Valley defectors who raised the alarm and revealed what was happening behind the closed doors of Big Tech. Both panoramic and intimate, The Chaos Machine is the definitive account of the meteoric rise and troubled legacy of the tech titans, as well as a rousing and hopeful call to arrest the havoc wreaked on our minds and our world before it's too late.

Set during the catastrophic defeats of the war's first months, it tracks a Red Army regiment that wins a minor victory in eastern Belorussia but fails to exploit this success. A battalion is then entrusted with the task of slowing the German advance, and eventually encircled, before ultimately breaking out and joining with the rest of the Soviet forces. Grossman's descriptions of the natural world - and his characters' relationship to it - are both vivid and unexpected, as are his memorable character sketches: eleven-year-old Lionya is determined to hang on to his toy revolver as he walks a long distance behind German lines; his defiant grandmother slaps a German officer in the face and is shot; Kotenko, a fiercely anti-Soviet peasant who initially welcomes the Germans, hangs himself in despair when they treat him with contempt; and Semion Ignatiev, a womanizer and gifted story-teller, turns out to be the boldest and most resourceful of the rank-and file soldiers. Grossman spent most of the war years close to the front line. But The People Immortal is far from being mere morale-boosting propaganda. On the contrary, as letters included in this volume make clear, it was read as a textbook, and as a work of military education. This edition includes not only the unredacted novel itself, translated here for the first time since 1946, but also a wealth of background material. A heavily redacted English translation of The People Immortal was published in 1946. This current edition is the first that reflects Grossman's original text. Translated from the Russian by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler

The launch of a new series inspired by Sherlock Holmes. A murder investigation brings together two unlikely allies in a race to uncover a shadowy international conspiracy. Professor Hans Rekke: born into a wealthy Stockholm family, world authority on interrogation techniques, capable of vertiginous feats of logic and observation . . . But he might just fall apart when the going gets tough, leading to substance abuse and despair. Micaela Vargas: community police officer, born to Chilean political refugees in a tough suburb, with two brothers on the shady side of the law. Vargas feels she has something to prove. She's tenacious and uncompromising, but she needs Rekke's unique mind to help her solve the case. Rekke has it all - wealth, reputation - but also a tendency to throw it all away. He needs Vargas to help him get back on an even keel so he can focus his mind on finding the killer before they're both silenced for good. Translated from the Swedish by Ian Giles

Set during the catastrophic defeats of the war's first months, it tracks a Red Army regiment that wins a minor victory in eastern Belorussia but fails to exploit this success. A battalion is then entrusted with the task of slowing the German advance, and eventually encircled, before ultimately breaking out and joining with the rest of the Soviet forces. Grossman's descriptions of the natural world - and his characters' relationship to it - are both vivid and unexpected, as are his memorable character sketches: eleven-year-old Lionya is determined to hang on to his toy revolver as he walks a long distance behind German lines; his defiant grandmother slaps a German officer in the face and is shot; Kotenko, a fiercely anti-Soviet peasant who initially welcomes the Germans, hangs himself in despair when they treat him with contempt; and Semion Ignatiev, a womanizer and gifted story-teller, turns out to be the boldest and most resourceful of the rank-and file soldiers. Grossman spent most of the war years close to the front line. But The People Immortal is far from being mere morale-boosting propaganda. On the contrary, as letters included in this volume make clear, it was read as a textbook, and as a work of military education. This edition includes not only the unredacted novel itself, translated here for the first time since 1946, but also a wealth of background material. A heavily redacted English translation of The People Immortal was published in 1946. This current edition is the first that reflects Grossman's original text. Translated from the Russian by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler

n eye-opening book about how societies are designed to support the status of those in power at the destructive expense of those without it. Read it and take responsibility. ECOLOGICAL OPPRESSION In 1958, China declared war on sparrows, destroying its own crops and contributing to the deaths of more than 10 million people. ECONOMIC OPPRESSION In the nineteenth century, the Shuar people of Ecuador were driven by economic necessity to procure shrunken heads for the Western curio market. The bloody wars that ensued nearly destroyed their society. EDUCATIONAL OPPRESSION There have been fifty-five prime ministers of Great Britain, of whom forty-eight have been privately educated, creating a society built by and for the privileged. These are just some of the stories in this remarkable book that illustrate the key factors that allow societies to create and sustain oppressive systems. Some are historical. Others have played out right before our eyes over the last decade. All are rooted in the systems in which we all participate. Together they represent the layers of systematic, often insidious oppression that make up the world today.

Carlota Moreau: A young woman, growing up in a distant and luxuriant estate, safe from the conflict and strife of the Yucatan peninsula, the only daughter of a genius - or a madman. Montgomery Laughton: A melancholic overseer with a tragic past and a propensity for alcohol, an outcast who assists Dr Moreau with his scientific experiments, which are financed by the Lizaldes, owners of magnificent haciendas with plentiful coffers. The hybrids: The fruits of the Doctor's labour, destined to blindly obey their creator while they remain in the shadows, are a motley group of part-human, part-animal monstrosities. All of them are living in a perfectly balanced and static world which is jolted by the abrupt arrival of Eduardo Lizalde, the charming and careless son of Doctor Moreau's patron - who will, unwittingly, begin a dangerous chain-reaction. For Moreau keeps secrets, Carlota has questions, and in the sweltering heat of the jungle passions may ignite.

THE BOOK THAT YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO PUT DOWN For Alice and Hanna, saint and sinner, growing up is a trial. There is their mother, who takes a divide-and-conquer approach to child-rearing, and their father, who takes an absent one. There is also their older brother Michael, whose disapproval is a force to be reckoned with. There is the catastrophe that is never spoken of, but which has shaped everything . . . As adults, Alice and Hanna must deal with disappointments in work and in love as well as increasingly complicated family tensions, and lives that look dismayingly dissimilar to what they'd intended. They must look for a way to repair their own fractured relationship, and they must finally choose their own approach to their dominant mother: submit or burn the house down. And they must decide at last whether life is really anything more than (as Hanna would have it) a tragedy with a few hilarious moments. From the author of the Waterstones Book of the Month Our Fathers comes a compelling domestic comedy about complex family dynamics, mental health and the intricacies of sibling relationships.

William Morris - poet, designer, campaigner, hero of the Arts & Crafts movement - was a giant of the Victorian age, and his beautiful creations and provocative philosophies are still with us today: but his wife Jane is too often relegated to a footnote, an artist's model given no history or personality of her own. In truth, Jane and William's personal and creative partnership was the central collaboration of both their lives. The homes they made together - the Red House, Kelmscott Manor and their houses in London - were works of art in themselves, and the great labour of their lives was life itself: through their houses and the objects they filled them with, they explored how we all might live a life more focused on beauty and fulfilment. In How We Might Live, Suzanne Fagence Cooper explores the lives and legacies of Jane and William Morris, finally giving Jane's work the attention it deserves and taking us inside two lives of unparalleled creative artistry.