Mr. Mani is a deeply affecting six-generation family saga, extending from nineteenth century Greece and Poland to British-occupied Palestine to German-occupied Crete and ultimately to modern Israel. The narrative moves through time and is told in five conversations about the Mani family. It ends in Athens in 1848 with Avraham Mani's powerful tale about the death of his young son in Jerusalem. A profoundly human novel, rich in drama, irony, and wit.

An unforgettable story from one of Brazil's most accomplished and original new voices, this is a profoundly moving portrait of a young woman finding her way back into life. From one of Granta 's Best Young Brazilian Novelists comes a startling and powerful story about returning to one's origins in order to move forward. In Rio de Janeiro, a woman suffering from a mysterious illness, which is eroding her body and mind, decides to accept a challenge from her grandfather: to take the key to the house where he grew up--in the Turkish city of Smyrna--and open the door. As she embarks on this pilgrimage, she begins to write of her progress. The writing soon becomes an exploration of her family's legacy of displacement in Europe, told in several narrative strands. Sifting through family stories--her grandfather's migration from Turkey to Brazil, her parents' exile in Portugal under the Brazilian military dictatorship, her mother's death, and her own love affair with a violent man--she traces her family's history in a journey to make sense of the past and to understand her place in it. With an epic sweep of time and place--traversing Brazil, Turkey, and Portugal--this is a profoundly moving portrait of a young woman finding her way back into life. Spare, heartfelt, and evocative, The House in Smyrna is an unforgettable story from one of the most accomplished and original new voices in Brazil.

A novel for secondary school English classes with great writing and important themes.

From the woman who brought us Scruples , Dazzle , and Spring Collection comes a provocative new novel, a deeply moving mother-daughter tale set amid the elegance of a famed New York auction house and the glamour of Hollywood. A mother's secret... Tessa Kent, exquisite and precocious, gave birth to an illegitimate daughter when she was only fourteen. Her parents raised the infant, Maggie, as their own child, as Tessa went on to become an international movie star. Maggie lives for her glamorous "sister's" infrequent whirlwind visits. But when she accidentally learns the truth, eighteen-year-old Maggie breaks all ties with Tessa and starts to work at the famed Manhattan auction house of Scott & Scott. A daughter's fury... Five years later, a life-altering crisis makes Tessa passionately determined to end this estrangement. There's only one way Tessa can reach out to her daughter: a high-stakes auction of the immensely valuable collection of famed jewels lavished on her by her late husband. Tessa promises Scott & Scott the auction on the condition that Maggie and she work closely together on the sale. Tessa's whole future hangs in the balance--for she knows her happiness depends on what may be an impossible reconciliation....

Lovers is pure Krantz, an intoxicating dance of love lost, stolen, and found among women and men who lure each other with potent combinations of money, talent, ambition, and passion. Chief among them is irresistible Gigi Orsini, the high-spirited, merry, adventurous creature who grew up into enchanting womanhood in Scruples Two . Now Gigi is working as a copywriter in a new Los Angeles advertising agency, with her creative "teammate," David Melville, a brilliant young art director who joins her in seeking new accounts. The agency is headed by dashing Archie Rourke, humorous Byron Bernheim and the severely difficult beauty, Victoria Frost, daughter of the famed Millicent Frost Caldwell who, with her husband Angus Caldwell, owns one of New York's largest advertising agencies. Ben Winthrop, a proper Bostonian and an enormously successful mall builder, attempts to capture Gigi's quicksilver affections, although his fierce contenders for the same prize include both David Melville and the dominating film director, Zach Nevsky. Meanwhile, Billy Winthrop Ikehorn Orsini Elliott, the unforgettably impulsive heroine of Scruples , and her new husband, the great charmer, Spider Elliott, are busy with their own fascinating lives, as are Gigi's father, canny film producer Vito Orsini, and her best friend, the ravishing Sasha Nevsky, none of whom can be forgotten from Scruples and Scruples Two . Lovers completes all the stories set in motion in the first two novels, yet it stands entirely on its own as a slice of life in the exciting years of 1983 and 1984.

The sweeping new saga of strong heroines and family secrets from the bestselling author of The Paris Model. While searching for her lost sister, art historian Wren Summers takes on the glittering world of New York's auction houses. A missing girl, a hidden masterpiece, and the search for the truth 1965: After escaping from anti-war turmoil and the suffocating weight of family expectations, a beautiful young couple embrace a life free of materialism and tradition by a sapphire lake in Italy. But the past does not always let go so easily ... 1987: When talented art historian Wren Summers lands her dream job at the Sydney Art Museum, it seems she can finally leave her wildly unconventional background behind - until a treacherous act threatens everything she has strived for. The revelation of a monstrous family secret sees Wren head to New York, compelled to find the missing girl who holds the key to this shocking mystery - and to make a fresh start in the glittering realm of international art auctions. As she struggles to fulfil her quest, can she navigate this new, high-stakes world of swirling temptation, romance and deceit, danger and betrayal, while staying true to what she knows is right? Praise for Alexandra Joel: 'A mesmerising storyteller' The Australian 'Exceptional research and great storytelling ... She has that rare flair for drawing the reader into sumptuous worlds from glamorous bygone eras' Better Reading

"The Imperial Wife is a smart, engaging novel that parallels two fascinating worlds and two singular women. Irina Reyn writes beautifully of immigrants, art and the vagaries of love."--Jess Walter, National Book Award finalist and author of the New York Times bestseller, Beautiful Ruins Two women's lives collide when a priceless Russian artifact comes to light. Tanya Kagan, a rising specialist in Russian art at a top New York auction house, is trying to entice Russia's wealthy oligarchs to bid on the biggest sale of her career, The Order of Saint Catherine, while making sense of the sudden and unexplained departure of her husband. As questions arise over the provenance of the Order and auction fever kicks in, Reyn takes us into the dazzling world of Catherine the Great, the infamous 18th-century empress, who may have owned the priceless artifact, and who, it turns out, faced many of the same issues Tanya wrestles with in her own life. Suspenseful and beautifully written, The Imperial Wife asks whether we view female ambition any differently today than we did in the past. Can a contemporary marriage withstand an "Imperial Wife"?

Take chocolate candy, add a family business at war with itself, and stir with an outsider's perspective. This is the recipe for True Confections , the irresistible new novel by Katharine Weber, a writer whose work has won accolades from Iris Murdoch, Madeleine L'Engle, Wally Lamb, and Kate Atkinson, to name a few. Alice Tatnall Ziplinsky's marriage into the Ziplinsky family has not been unanimously celebrated. Her greatest ambition is to belong, to feel truly entitled to the heritage she has tried so hard to earn. Which is why Zip's Candies is much more to her than just a candy factory, where she has worked for most of her life. In True Confections , Alice has her reasons for telling the multigenerational saga of the family-owned-and-operated candy company, now in crisis. Nobody is more devoted than Alice to delving into the truth of Zip's history, starting with the rags-to-riches story of how Hungarian immigrant Eli Czaplinsky developed his famous candy lines, and how each of his candies, from Little Sammies to Mumbo Jumbos, was inspired by an element in a stolen library copy of Little Black Sambo, from which he taught himself English. Within Alice's vivid and persuasive account (is her unreliability a tactic or a condition?) are the stories of a runaway slave from the cacao plantations of C�te d'Ivoire and the Third Reich's failed plan to establish a colony on Madagascar for European Jews. Richly informed, deeply moving, and spiked with Weber's trademark wit, True Confections is, at its heart, a timeless and universal story of love, betrayal, and chocolate. From the Hardcover edition.

Winter Games is a dazzling tale of secrets and betrayal, and the perfect novel for fans of The Bolter by Frances Osborne, and all those fascinated by the Mitford sisters. Munich, 1936. She doesn't know it, but eighteen-year old Daphne Linden has a seat in the front row of history. Along with her best friend, Betsy Barton-Hill, and a whole bevy of other young English upper-class girls, Daphne is in Bavaria to improve her German, to go to the Opera, to be 'finished'. It may be the Third Reich, but another war is unthinkable, and the girls are having the time of their lives. Aren't they? London, 2006. Seventy years later and Daphne's granddaughter, Francie Fitzsimon has all the boxes ticked: large flat, successful husband, cushy job writing up holistic spas . . . The hardest decision she has to make is where to go for brunch - until, that is, the discovery of a photograph of Daphne sends her on a quest to discover what really happened to her grandmother in Germany, all those years ago. A dazzling tale of secrets and betrayal, Winter Games is powerful novel of innocent lives caught up in the march of history. 'Johnson has a brilliant eye for the telling specifics . . . She is a natural comic writer and has a breezy, Mitfordian tone that makes you laugh at the same time as wincing in recognition . . . To write an entertaining romp set against the backdrop of Nazi Germany is a tricky feat to pull off. Yet Johnson has done it - and done it in style' Observer 'A rip-roaring read' Evening Standard 'There's never a dreary moment in this blast of a book . . . Johnson's descriptions are irresistibly exuberant . . . As addictively, fizzily invigorating as the Alpine air itself' Daily Mail 'Johnson delivers a genuine sense of time and place . . . there isn't a dull sentence in this sure-footed novel' Jenny Colgan, Telegraph 'An excellent romp. Full of 'tally-ho' Mitfordian charm . . . a witty, fast read' Red 'Excellent on period detail, the blundering innocent abroad and young heartbreak' Sunday Times 'The Jane Austen of W11' Scotsman Rachel Johnson is a journalist who has written two previous novels and two volumes of diaries. The Mummy Diaries , Notting Hell, Shire Hell and A Diary of The Lady are all available now from Penguin.