Tobias Hill's first full-length collection, Year of the Dog, won an Eric Gregory award in 1995. Dominated by images and narratives from Hill's stay in Japan, as well as other travel poems, the book contains Hill's celebrated sequence 'A Year in Japan', with its sweeping filmic narratives of the poets encounters in a distant and strange land. Hill's skills in depicting urban pastoral landscapes and human tableux are much in evidence. Now made available in a new edition, this hard to obtain work will delight fans and collectors."Hill's special territory, in poetry and prose, is the 'urban-pastoral' ... his native North London is transformed, with many deftly dark touches, into an uneasy realm of the imagination. Hill clearly appreciated Simon Armitage's storytelling persona; he also drew upon observation of the natural world in ways associated with Ted Hughes. Much of his imagery is by turns delicately 'Japanese', or reminiscent of the heyday of Craig Raine's 'Martian' style. Hill has a romantic dimension in his work that is all his own. As a young man with an intense curiosity about the world, his work is full of sensual images, vignettes of city life - and romance ... these are poems of flirtation and desire."--contemporarywriters.co.uk"The closeup detail taken directly from nature, then skewed through 90* to give the reader something completely new, even unique ... with this third collection, Hill promises to be a real force in poetry, displaying an utterly contemporary understanding of how nature continues to work."--Poetry Review

"Donetsk, the black gem of Ukraine-Eden and Sodom in one, a stew steaming with coal fever, Manifest Destiny of Europe's east: the reader is sent onto a double Odyssey of two adventurers, the fiery blacksmith Alexander and the elusive linguist Lisa, whose paths are destined to cross on the cusp of the war in the Donbas. Only one of them fathoms that their encounter goes far beyond its face-value purpose. A thriller, a romance, a CV, a rose of historical winds, a song of crafts, an ontology of Eastern-Ukrainian mind in one, Carbon: Song of Crafts is told in polyphonic verse-a prayer for the beloved, anguished city"--

Queen Shulamit never expected to inherit the throne of the tropical land of Perach so young. At twenty, grief-stricken and fatherless, she's also coping with being the only lesbian she knows after her sweetheart ran off for an unknown reason. Not to mention, she's the victim of severe digestive problems that everybody think she's faking. When she meets Rivka, an athletic and assertive warrior from the north who wears a mask and pretends to be a man, she finds the source of strength she needs so desperately. Unfortunately for her, Rivka is straight, but that's okay -- Shulamit needs a surrogate big sister just as much as she needs a girlfriend. Especially if the warrior's willing to take her around the kingdom on the back of her dragon in search of other women who might be open to same-sex romance. The real world outside the palace is full of adventure, however, and the search for a royal girlfriend quickly turns into a rescue mission when they discover a temple full of women turned to stone by an evil sorcerer.

Conner, "The Hammer," McVee has a score to settle and enough spare parts in her body to build a small car. Tarent Powers destroyed her life, but even her enhanced abilities and her job as a police agent couldn't get her close enough to the corporate mob boss to bring him down.Now the key to his unravelling has fallen into her lap. Can she do what's necessary to make him pay even if it means destroying the life of an innocent young woman?Come along for a ride in this future that corporate take-overs, plague and automation have made. A world where everything from crime, to central government, to the police are run by the corporations, and where a "mad" cult has sprung up whose members want to remake the world using hand tools and good, hard work."Conner McVee has a problem. She's a throwback in a sterile world almost totally reliant on machines, and she's a cop with ties to the underworld seeking revenge against the man who killed her lover. But when she sets a plot for revenge in motion, it turns into something far more than she ever bargained for. With the copsand criminals both after her, she's got to fight back to protect herself, her new lover, and her way of life. That's okay, she thinks fast, acts faster, and wields a modified nail gun. Maybe it's not a problem after all. Action, attitude, sex, politics, and more attitude... Rosen has another winner " - Rob Gates, free-lance writer & editor of "Spectrum""Selina Rosen writes an action adventure with a heroine who is as hard as nails and just as sharp. I guarantee, you won't want to put this one down." - Laura J. Underwood, author of Ard Magisterand The Black Hunter"Nobody creates tougher than nails heroines better than Selina Rosen. She's outdone even herself with Conner "The Hammer" McVee, a cyborg who is half-human, half-machine, and all woman.Hammer Town is high-octane science fiction overflowing with adventure, humor, romance and blue-collar sensibilities. Persons not enjoying this book must be diagnosed as entertainment impaired." - Garrett Peck, co-editor of Personal Demons and Tooth & Claw

The enchanting novel from Sunday Times bestselling author Santa Montefiore 'Let the wind take me and the soft rain settle me into the Irish soil from where I came. And may my sins be forgiven.' Arethusa Clayton has always been formidable, used to getting her own way. On her death, she leaves unexpected instructions. Instead of being buried in America, on the wealthy East Coast where she and her late husband raised their two children, Arethusa has decreed that her ashes be scattered in a remote corner of Ireland, on the hills overlooking the sea. All Arethusa ever told Faye was that she grew up in a poor farming family and left Ireland, alone, to start a new life in America as did so many in those times of hardship and famine. But who were her family in Ireland and where are they now? What was the real reason that she turned away from them? And who is the mysterious benefactor of a significant share of Arethusa's estate? Arethusa is gone. There is no one left to tell her story. Faye feels bereft, as if her mother's whole family has died with her. Leaving her own husband and children behind, she travels to the picturesque village of Ballinakelly, determined to fulfil her mother's last wish and to find out the reason for Arethusa's insistence on being laid to rest in this faraway land. 'AN ATMOSPHERIC, MESMERISING READ' My Weekly 'PASSIONATE AND INTRIGUING' Woman's Weekly ***PRAISE FOR SANTA MONTEFIORE*** 'Nobody does epic romance like Santa Montefiore' JOJO MOYES 'An enchanting read overflowing with deliciously poignant moments' DINAH JEFFERIES on Songs of Love and War 'Santa Montefiore hits the spot for my like few other writers' SARRA MANNING 'One of our personal favourites' THE TIMES on The Last Secret of the Deverills 'Accomplished and poetic' Daily Mail 'Santa Montefiore is a marvel' Sunday Express 'One of our personal favourites' The Times

From number one bestselling author Santa Montefiore It is 1925 and the war is long over. But much has been lost and life will never truly be the same again. Castle Deverill, cherished home to the Deverill family in the west of Ireland for hundreds of years, has burned to the ground. But young and flighty Celia Deverill is determined to restore the sad ruin to its former glory. Celia married well and has the wealth, after all, to keep it in the family and she cannot bear to see it stand neglected. But dark shadows are gathering once more, as the financial markets start to shake. And everything that felt so certain is thrown once again into doubt. A compelling story of family and history, from the author of the top ten bestseller Songs of Love and War . ***PRAISE FOR SANTA MONTEFIORE*** 'Nobody does epic romance like Santa Montefiore' JOJO MOYES 'An enchanting read, overflowing with deliciously poignant moments' DINAH JEFFERIES 'Santa Montefiore hits the spot for me like few other writers' SARRA MANNING 'One of our personal favourites' The Times 'Accomplished and poetic' Daily Mail 'Santa Montefiore is a marvel' Sunday Express

This show-within-a-show follows the romance between a chorus girl and an assistant stage manager leading to their secret marriage. Their happy union is threatened by the electrician who still carries a torch for the girl and, in a drunken rage, tries to kill them both. A contrasting romance involves the stage manager, whose credo never to fall for a girl in a show he's working on is complicated when a dancer he's been wooing is suddenly thrown into the cast of 'Me and Juliet.' Informed by rich insights into the world of Broadway - how jobs are gotten and lost, the inside tricks of the trade and the pitfalls of backstage romances - Me and Juliet is an innovative, irresistible show that consistently delivers both musically and dramatically.

Historical Fiction At Its Best Ray Comfort and Anna Jackson have crafted a compelling novel of mystery and romance that breathes with suspense and intrigue. Greed over gold, a cold-blooded murder, overwhelming bitterness, abiding faith, romantic love, abuse, blackmail, secrecy, and intense personal struggles are the core elements of this great work that is set in the Wild West of the nineteenth century. How does Jake deal with his father's murder? How does it affect his relationships with his mother, his girlfriend, and God? What is Jake's fortune? Where does it come from? How does a blackmail plot threaten the central family of this book? What secret is being kept from Jake? This book is filled with intricate twists and turns that will surprise you as you read an keep reading. You will identify with Jake's inner turmoil as he endeavors to come to grips with evil in this world. You will be amazed to see how he learns to deal with his own bitterness and his tumultuous emotions. Jake's Fortune will open the door to spiritual understanding and truth, and your reading of this book will challenge you and inspire you to find solid answers for your own life.

"In August 1970, David Biale, a 21-year-old American Jewish student, arrived at Kibbutz Kfar Ruppin in Israel's Bet She'an Valley as a volunteer. There, he met Rachel Korati, nine days shy of her eighteenth birthday. They began an intense dialogue about how a secular Jew might be Jewish and what the role of Israel and kibbutz ought to be in modern Jewish life. They also found a common language in the counter-culture of the 1960s to which both were drawn. Upon David's return to university studies in Berkeley and Rachel's first steps into independent adulthood - living in a town near Tel Aviv and working as a youth movement counselor -- the two commenced a correspondence in which they continued their intellectual and ideological discussions from the summer, engaging Jewish sources on the one hand, and contemporary events on the other. Gradually, the letters became more intimate and so began an epistolary romance, which one might associate more with the nineteenth century and which would be inconceivable in today's world of texting and email. Over the next two years, the correspondence continued, often on a daily basis. Twice, David's plans to come to Israel were dashed. The two struggled to hold onto a relationship composed primarily of written words. In the fall of 1971, Rachel was drafted into the Israeli Army and David had his own brush with the American draft in the last phase of the Vietnam War. Aerograms Across the Ocean: A Love Story in Letters opens a rare window into the lives and thoughts of two passionate young people, trying to find their identities and life trajectories in the tumultuous early 1970s. By turns philosophical and playful, poetic and prosaic, idealistic and uncertain, pensive and erotic, this jointly-written memoir is a coming-of-age story in Israel after the Six Day War and in America in the shadow of the Vietnam War. The book is organized around the 258 letters the authors exchanged, a correspondence that takes readers back into a different age, half a century ago." --

A Paperback Original. Who hasn't been dizzy with the prospect of romance? Now the most popular feature of Lifetimetv.com helps you put your love to the test. Do you fight fair? Should you stay, or go? Are you a flirt? These are just some of the topics covered in this quiz collection compiled by relationship guru Dr. Pepper Schwartz. The quizzes help readers analyze their feelings and actions objectively and help them improve their relationships using the solid advice offered by Dr. Schwartz. Is It Love or Lust -- Take the test! You're at a dinner party with a roomful of people when your partner tells a joke that falls flat. You: A) Turn a little red for him B) Laugh -- loudly, you don't want him to be embarrassed C) Chuckle, and remember again why you love his offbeat sense of humor (If you answered A, you're on the fence! The best answer is B. Your impulse to laugh despite the fact that your partner's funny joke tanked shows your desire to support and protect the one you love. If you answered C, you love him precisely because he's one of a kind. B & C are the answers of a woman in love, not in lust.) The 50 quizzes cover all aspects of your "love psyche" and are a fun and provocative tool for anyone who wants to be kissed by Cupid's arrow.

Muriel Rukeyser's previously unpublished play presents the captivating life of Harry Houdini, one of our country's most intriguing celebrities. The play is magical, sexy, and provocative-presenting Houdini's life from his Brooklyn childhood and tricks (picking up pins with his eyelids) and his young romance with wife Bess, to his relationship with his mother; from picking the lock of a jail and releasing his circus companions to Houdini's Congressional Hearing and his famous escape acts. Part biography, part fantasy, Rukeyser explores issues that tap into desire, race, family, and politics. "Houdini" was performed once in Lenox, Massachusetts in the early 70's, with Christopher Walken playing the lead. This lost drama will appeal to theater people, Houdini fans, poets, magicians, and anyone interested in the interplay between reality and the imagination. How much of our lives do we conjure? Rooted in the early 70's, but timeless in its underlying theme, "Houdini" joins the Rukeyser resurgence that is well underway.Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980) is one of our country's most influential, yet neglected writers. She published fifteen collections of poetry, translations, childrens books, and several works of nonfiction. Her "toys of fame" include the Yale Younger Poets Award, the Copernicus Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Shelley Memorial Award. She served as president of P.E.N. American Center from 1975 to 1976.

Ever since they built the road through her family's farm, separating the big yellow house from the pastures of Sybil's youth, nothing has been the same. At least the house remains, full of her memories, which wander through the rooms like ghosts. When Jess moves to America to marry Laurie in a whirlwind romance, she soon learns that his Grandmother and her creaky old house come with him. Stubborn, ailing and no longer able to look after herself, Sybil must rely on this British girl who has come to steal her beloved grandson from her. The echoing spectres of dead loved ones follow Sybil as she travels farther along the road to senility, but will those same echoes drive Jess towards madness? In Sybil, Monica Dickens has produced a character rich in determination, dark humour, and resilience. First published in 1966, The Room Upstairs is a portrait of a woman's fight with time, who refuses to be forgotten, and who refuses to forget.

When Lily and Ida meet on a flight to America, they embark on a relationship that is to see them through two very different marriages. Lily wants passionately to help people, and to experience romance and adventure at the same time. Falling in love with a married man was not part of the plan. In order to escape her abusive father, Ida flees to America to marry Buddy, looking forward to a clean slate with her new husband. But is having a house and being Mrs. Someone enough for her? Married life will bring them comfort, distress, joy and tragedy in equal measure as the years unfold. Only their friendship can carry them through. First published in 1988, Dear Doctor Lily follows two women as they navigate the complexities of love, family, and friendship.

Lloyd has a particular set of skills. He writes the small print for prescription drugs, marital aids, and incontinence products. The clients present him with a list of possible side effects. His job is "to "ecite and minimize", sometimes by just saying them really fast and other times by finding the language that can render them acceptable. The results are ingenious. The methods diabolical. Lloyd has a habit too. He cops smack during coffee breaks at his new job writing copy for Christian Swingles, an online dating service for the faithful. He finds a precarious balance between hackwork and heroin until he encounters Nora, a mysterious and troubled young woman, a Sylvia Plath with tattoos and implants, who asks for his help. Lloyd falls swiftly in love, but Nora bestows her affections at a cost. Before Lloyd clears his head from the fog of romance, he finds himself complicit in Nora's grand scheme to horrify the world and exact revenge on those who poison the populace in order to sell them the cure.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902. Excerpt: ... A Ghetto Romance. i. "JJ H, Shimshen, you're a lost fellow; you're somewhat too particular about your clothes to-night. Shimshen, that girl has turned your head, as true as I am a Jew." Yoshe, the driver, a tall, thin-legged man with a black, goat-like beard and small, keen eyes, accompanied his words with a sly wink. He placed his forefinger to his sharppointed nose threateningly, smacked his lips, and burst into a shrill, squeaking laughter, which sounded like the neighing of a horse. "Remember, Shimshen, there'll come a time when you'll call me prophet." "Judging by your foolishness, you ought to make a good prophet indeed," remarked Shimshen, as he removed his apron of stamped sackcloth and resumed applying the whisk-broom to his dust-covered hat and coat. "Tuck away your wisdom for some other time; it's late now. Make haste, let's close the store. We've already driven rather far into the Sabbath." At this Yoshe, the driver, turned out one of the gaslights and winked knowingly as he added: "But, Shimshen, mark my word--you're playing a love affair with that red-cheeked girl. Now, don't try to argue. Didn't I see you blush when she spoke to you? Why, your cheeks were as red as your hair. Poor fellow! You must have felt ashamed of your costume--of your apron. Ha, ha, ha! Mark my word! Yoshe among the prophets and Shimshen among the lovers--I wonder which of us is the greater fool!" "If you only knew who she is," blurted out Shimshen, regarding the driver with contempt. "A girl is a girl! They're all of a kind--born to upset our minds. Come, come, the boss must be through with the Eighteen Blessings by this time--and the poor horses still out in such a hellish heat from five o'clock in the morning" "Wait awhile. Give your battered jades a rest; they've e...

Rose is dedicated, troubled and on the move. She is an Australian medievalist on sabbatical in modern France. Most of her attention is focused on her research, on buying books, and on the odd behavior of her boyfriend. She finds an inexplicable manuscript that tells the story of Ailinn and Guenloie, two women who lived in Arthurian Britain. Ailinn is determined to solve the world's problems and Guenloie searches for success, romance, and her father. Rose's world parallels theirs. And theirs is about to come to an agonizing close. "The way the past illuminates the present; the way in which human lives throughout the ages illuminate an unchanging, yet always complex, human nature; the way in which art illuminates life, and vice versa: these are some of the concerns at the heart of this very fine novel. Yet it is much more than that: it is a journey deep into the heart of Arthurian myth, of the numinous, and of the human soul. What's more, it is most readable, and layered in a most intriguing and mysterious manner, reminiscent of A.S. Byatt's 'Possession'." -Sophie Massonauthor of the Laylines Trilogy

The interaction of Jew and Greek in antiquity intrigues the imagination. Both civilizations boasted great traditions, their roots stretching back to legendary ancestors and divine sanction. In the wake of Alexander the Great's triumphant successes, Greeks and Macedonians came as conquerors and settled as ruling classes in the lands of the eastern Mediterranean. Hellenic culture, the culture of the ascendant classes in many of the cities of the Near East, held widespread attraction and appeal. Jews were certainly not immune. In this thoroughly researched, lucidly written work, Erich Gruen draws on a wide variety of literary and historical texts of the period to explore a central question: How did the Jews accommodate themselves to the larger cultural world of the Mediterranean while at the same time reasserting the character of their own heritage within it? Erich Gruen's work highlights Jewish creativity, ingenuity, and inventiveness, as the Jews engaged actively with the traditions of Hellas, adapting genres and transforming legends to articulate their own legacy in modes congenial to a Hellenistic setting. Drawing on a diverse array of texts composed in Greek by Jews over a broad period of time, Gruen explores works by Jewish historians, epic poets, tragic dramatists, writers of romance and novels, exegetes, philosophers, apocalyptic visionaries, and composers of fanciful fables—not to mention pseudonymous forgers and fabricators. In these works, Jewish writers reinvented their own past, offering us the best insights into Jewish self-perception in that era.

"She is a shimmering, melancholy angel, flown from Paradise to save him from the suburbs of hell. He an accountant, dreaming of a white Christmas, a little garden and someone to love. A storm of romance and slapstick, of heavenly and earthly delights, in this dystopian philosophical poem about individual freedom and the search for the good life."--Back cover

For ten weeks David Brudnoy, Boston's most popular and erudite conservativeradio-talk-show host, had been off the air. When he signed back on, hisfaithful following was prepared for the usual dose of wry humor, Clintonbashing, and brilliant banter. What they got instead was an electrifyinghourlong monologue, unprecedented in the freewheeling world of talk radio, during which Brudnoy confessed, I am a fifty-four-year-old homosexual...I wassuffering the first attack of HIV--the AIDS virus. What followed was an outpouring of support and devotion from an audience notknown for its tolerance of gay issues. With his story, Brudnoy has crossed thatgreat abyss where the personal and political meet. From his near-halcyon youthas an only child growing up in a small Minnesota town to his heady days as astudent at Yale, he recounts with equal doses of humor and candor a coming ofage that, in fits and starts, eventually recognized a sexual preference for menand a political tendency toward the right. Ruminating on matters that rangefrom his own mortality to TV, radio, friends, family, romance, and politics, Life Is Not a Rehearsal offers up the kind of trenchant and intelligentinsights that are Brudnoy's hallmark.A graduate of Yale with a major in Japanese, David Brudnoy went to graduateschool at Harvard (East Asian studies) before getting his Ph.D. in Americanintellectual history at Brandeis. In 1976 he won a full-time talk radio slot atBoston's WHDH, then moved to WRKO in 1981, finally going on to the region'spowerhouse, WBZ, in 1986. In addition to his hugely successful radio show onWBZ, he is a TV commentator, film critic, newspaper essayist on politics andtravel, and teacher ofjournalism at Boston University. Life Is Not a Rehearsal shows that conservatism is not conformity--or aprejudice or a mere establishmentarian life. Conservatism is about fighting forliberty and embracing responsibility, about war and love if you will. DavidBrudnoy is certainly a veteran of both. --P. J. O'Rourke, author of Give War a Chance David Brudnoy tells the personal story behind the public story of hisremarkable life and extraordinary career. He gives us a memoir that willbenefit many others across the country learning to live with AIDS. --Senator Edward M. KennedyThis is a book about love, loyalty, and the nurturing bonds of family andfriendship. And, it is also a book about the coming of age of a brave andhonorable man who has faced the looming spectre of death with the samecourageous honesty that so many of us have long admired in him. --Sherwin B. Nuland, M.D., author of How We Die In this no-holds-barred memoir, Boston's outspoken, conservative, libertarian, gay, agnostically Jewish, living-with-AIDS, college professor and media iconproves once and for all the inadequacy of labels when it comes to defining alife. Life Is Not a Rehearsal is the story of David Brudnoy as only hecould tell it, with characteristic candor, humor, and the self-awareness of onewho has teetered on the edge, gone over the cliff, and lived to tell. And tellhe does --William F. Weld

Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future. Based on the movie Miracle in East Texas , this is the story of two aging, fast-talking hucksters: Doc Boyd and Dad Everett. These hard-luck con men make their living swindling widows during the Great Depression by selling them shares in sham oil wells. The truth is that they're selling hope and more romance than the widows they swindle have ever known. Once they've sold about a thousand percent of these fraudulent shares, they declare the well a dry hole and head for greener pastures. Then, miraculously, every lie they tell comes true. They hit not just an oil well but the richest strike in North America. They should cap the well, declare it a dry hole, and make their getaway. But then they would have to walk away from being honest oilmen for the first time in their larcenous lives. What follows is funny and poignant, romantic and inspiring. This tall tale inspired by an absolutely true story comes from a time when bums became billionaires and sinners became saints.