‘I miss him with every breath and heartbeat. He should have been my happy ending. Instead, he is the sad beginning to my story.’ When Olivia and Luca fell in love as teenagers and eloped to London, they broke the hearts of those closest to them. Luca’s parents run Marinella’s restaurant, the colourful hub of life in an otherwise bleak seaside town, and his mother, Angela, has never forgiven Olivia for causing such a rift in her beloved family. On a freezing January night Olivia’s life is shattered when she learns that Luca has been killed in a car accident. Left with nothing, and gripped by an overwhelming grief, Olivia abandons her job and returns home to where Luca has been buried just to be close to him – even though she knows she will not be welcome. Facing her past and Luca’s family is not easy. When Olivia meets Luca’s married twin brother, Marc, she discovers a man experiencing a loss almost as painful as her own. Their desolation draws them into an affair which both know has no future, but fills the space where Luca should be. And when it spirals out of control, the consequences are both explosive and cruel… The Love of My Life is a beautiful novel that portrays both the innocence of childhood, and the dynamics of love and loss with deftness and sensitivity. It is, above all, a stunning debut from an author with a unique and natural narrative voice.
Paul Lucas ist Psychiater und therapiert in einem Hochsicherheitsgefängnis psychisch kranke Straftäter. Aber mit einem dermaßen durchtriebenen Patienten wie Craig Cavanaugh hat er es noch nie aufnehmen müssen. Der schwerreiche Harvard-Student ist mindestens so verschlagen wie gebildet – und er ist ein psychopathischer Stalker, der vor nichts zurückschreckt. Widerspruch duldet er nicht: Er hat seine Dozentin massiv bedroht, weil sie seine Avancen zurückwies, und nun will er, dass Paul ihn rausboxt. Als dieser sich weigert, sein Werkzeug zu sein, setzt Craig ihn mit perfiden Intrigen unter Druck, die Pauls gesamte Existenz zu zerstören drohen. Ein Psychoduell auf Leben und Tod nimmt seinen Lauf, bei dem Paul lange Zeit nicht begreift, dass er schon längst nicht mehr Herr der Lage ist …
Daisy, 39 und frisch geschieden, lebt wieder bei ihrer Mutter und hat finanzielle Sorgen. Trotz ihrer Erfahrungen mit Männern ist sie entschlossen, ihr Liebesleben neu zu gestalten. Der Roman erzählt humorvoll von ihren Herausforderungen und dem Streben nach Glück in der Liebe. Ideal für den Sommer!
Bookey Peek hat sich einen afrikanischen Traum erfüllt. Sie besitzt eine Wildfarm in Simbabwe, und ihr Herz gehört den Tieren – eine Leidenschaft, die ihr Leben mitunter in ein turbulentes Chaos stürzt …
Ein Afrika-Memoir zum Träumen – und die Geschichte einer wunderbaren Freundschaft.
Mit den Jahren ist die inmitten einer umwerfenden Natur gelegene Farm mit Giraffen, Zebras und Löwen zu einem kunterbunten »Waisenhaus« für alle möglichen Tierkinder geworden, die Bookey und ihr Mann retten und aufziehen. Da ist Nutsy, das Buschhörnchen, das am liebsten im Geschirrschrank der Familie herumturnt. Oder Tsessil, die Antilope, die eines Tages Bookeys kleinen Sohn David zu Tode erschreckt, als sie mit Karacho durch das Glasfenster in sein Zimmer springt. Aber vor allem ist da Poombi, das kleine Warzenschwein, das zusammen mit David genüssliche Schlammbäder nimmt und sich häuslich auf dem Familiensofa einrichtet. Doch als Poombi größer wird, heißt es Abschied nehmen von dem liebgewonnenen Hausgenossen. Wird Bookey ihr bei ihren Streifzügen durch die afrikanische Savanne eines fernen Tages wiederbegegnen?
When the exotic stranger Vianne Rocher arrives in the old French village of Lansquenet and opens a chocolate boutique called “La Celeste Praline” directly across the square from the church, Father Reynaud identifies her as a serious danger to his flock. It is the beginning of Lent: the traditional season of self-denial. The priest says she’ll be out of business by Easter. To make matters worse, Vianne does not go to church and has a penchant for superstition. Like her mother, she can read Tarot cards. But she begins to win over customers with her smiles, her intuition for everyone’s favourites, and her delightful confections. Her shop provides a place, too, for secrets to be whispered, grievances aired. She begins to shake up the rigid morality of the community. Vianne’s plans for an Easter Chocolate Festival divide the whole community. Can the solemnity of the Church compare with the pagan passion of a chocolate éclair? For the first time, here is a novel in which chocolate enjoys its true importance, emerging as an agent of transformation. Rich, clever, and mischievous, reminiscent of a folk tale or fable, this is a triumphant read with a memorable character at its heart. Says Harris: “You might see [Vianne] as an archetype or a mythical figure. I prefer to see her as the lone gunslinger who blows into the town, has a showdown with the man in the black hat, then moves on relentless. But on another level she is a perfectly real person with real insecurities and a very human desire for love and acceptance. Her qualities too - kindness, love, tolerance - are very human.” Vianne and her young daughter Anouk, come into town on Shrove Tuesday. “Carnivals make us uneasy,” says Harris, “because of what they represent: the residual memory of blood sacrifice (it is after all from the word "carne" that the term arises), of pagan celebration. And they represent a loss of inhibition; carnival time is a time at which almost anything is possible.” The book became an international best-seller, and was optioned to film quickly. The Oscar-nominated movie, with its star-studded cast including Juliette Binoche ( The English Patient ) and Judi Dench ( Shakespeare in Love ), was directed by Lasse Hallstrom, whose previous film The Cider House Rules (based on a John Irving novel) also looks at issues of community and moral standards, though in a less lighthearted vein. The idea for the book came from a comment her husband made one day while he was immersed in a football game on TV. “It was a throwaway comment, designed to annoy and it did. It was along the lines of... Chocolate is to women what football is to men… ” The idea stuck, and Harris began thinking that “people have these conflicting feelings about chocolate, and that a lot of people who have very little else in common relate to chocolate in more or less the same kind of way. It became a kind of challenge to see exactly how much of a story I could get which was uniquely centred around chocolate.” Rich with metaphor and gorgeous writing...sit back and gorge yourself on Chocolat .
