Other books that might interest you

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  The Count of Monte Cristo

  Alexandré Dumas

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  Betrayed by his rivals and falsely accused of sedition by a justice system that is anything but, Edmond Dantes is thrown into the dungeon of the Chateau d'If and left for dead. A chance encounter with a mad priest leads to the resurrection of hope, a frightening escape, and the discovery of untold riches. Twenty four years after his incarceration, Edmond Dantes reemerges as the mysterious and vampire like Count of Monte Cristo, with the sole intention of extracting vengeance on those who profited from his disappearance. This classic thriller by Alexandre Dumas has been reimagined many times over the centuries, but this audiobook recording, taken from the original English translation, edited and performed by award winning narrator Joshua Macrae, takes Dumas' Shakespearean poetry and wit and blends it with the craft of modern audio story telling. It's a wild ride from start to finish . . .

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  Luigi Pirandello - A Short Story...

  Luigi Pirandello

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  Luigi Pirandello was born on 28th June 1867 into an upper-class family in Agrigento, in Sicily. 
   
  In 1880, the family moved to Palermo and there he completed high school and thence to the University of Palermo, at that time the centre of what became the Fasci Siciliani movement.  Although not an active member he had close friendships with many of its leading ideologists.  Pirandello then completed his university studies in Rome and Bonn, receiving his Doctorate in March, 1891. 
   
  His time in Rome had provided him with the opportunity to visit its many theatres. "Oh the dramatic theatre! I will conquer it. I cannot enter into one without experiencing a strange sensation, an excitement of the blood through all my veins..." 
   
  1894 brought marriage, at his father's suggestion, to a shy, withdrawn girl: Mara Antonietta Portulano.  The marriage encouraged his studies and writings and, the following year, the first part of the ‘Dialoghi tra Il Gran Me e Il Piccolo Me’ was published. 
   
  In 1903 the flooding of the sulphur mines in which his father had invested the family capital and Antonietta's dowry, brought financial catastrophe.  She, on hearing the news, was mentally broken.  Pirandello would now work a full day and then watch over his troubled wife at night. Somehow he found time to write ‘The Late Mattia Pascal’.  It was an immediate and resounding success.  
   
  In 1909, Pirandello began his collaboration with the prestigious Corriere della Sera.  Whilst his fame as a writer was increasing his private life was poisoned by the suspicion and jealousy of Antonietta who now turned physically violent.  His plays were now being regularly performed but, within a decade, Antonietta had to be placed into an asylum from which she never left. 
   
  In 1921, in Rome his play, ‘Six Characters in Search of an Author’ debuted.  It was a failure.  However, when presented in Milan it was a great success, as it also was in London and New York. 
   
  In 1925, Pirandello, with Mussolini’s help, assumed the artistic direction and ownership of the Teatro d'Arte di Roma.  He now described himself both as ‘a Fascist because I am Italian’ and ‘I'm apolitical, I'm only a man in the world...’  However his later conflicts with fascist leaders meant he fell under close surveillance by the OVRA, the secret police. 
   
  In 1934 he won the Nobel Prize but asked that the medal be melted down for Italy’s occupation of Abyssinia Campaign to which he had given his support.  
   
  Pirandello's canon stretches across novels, short stories, poetry, essays and some 40 plays.  His tragic farces are often cited as forerunners of the Theatre of the Absurd. 
   
  Luigi Pirandello died on the 10th December 1936 at his home at Via Bosio, Rome, Italy.  He was 69.

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  Blue Mercy - A Heartbreaking...

  Orna Ross

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  When Mercy Mulcahy was 40 years old, she was accused of killing her elderly and tyrannical father. Now, at the end of her life, she has written a book about what really happened on that fateful night of Christmas Eve, 1989. 
  The tragic and beautiful Mercy has devoted her life to protecting Star from her father, Star's grandfather. His behavior so blighted her own life – she never wanted it to touch her darling daughter. 
  Yet Star won't even read the manuscript. Star's contempt for Mercy is as painful as it is inexplicable. 
  Why? What has Mercy done? What is she hiding? Was her father's death, as many believe, an assisted suicide? 
  Or something even more sinister? 
  In this book, nothing is what it seems on the surface, and everywhere there are emotional twists and surprises. 
  Set in Ireland and California, Blue Mercy is a compelling novel, combing lyrical description with a page-turning style. It is an enthralling tale of love, loss, and the ever-present possibility of redemption. 
  Praise for Orna Ross and Blue Mercy 
  "A lyrical, gripping, and heartbreakingly beautiful tale of love, loss, and the ever-present possibility of redemption." — WE Magazine for Women 
  "Epic sweep...ambitious scope... an intelligent book". — Sunday Tribune 
  "A riveting story...vividly brought to life." — Emigrant Online

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  Love and War in the Jewish Quarter

  Dora Levy Mossanen

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  A breathtaking journey across Iran where war and superstition, jealousy and betrayal, and passion and loyalty rage behind the impenetrable walls of mansions and the crumbling houses of the Jewish Quarter. 
   
   
   
  Against the tumultuous background of World War II, Dr. Yaran will find himself caught in the thrall of the anti-Semitic Governor General, the most powerful man in the country. Dr. Yaran falls in love with the Governor General's defiant wife, Velvet, upending not only the life of the doctor's beloved daughter, but the entire community. In his quest to save everything and everyone he loves, Dr. Yaran will navigate the intersections of magic, science, lust, and treachery. His sole ally is the Governor General's servant, an exotic eunuch, who will do anything to aid his mistress in her dangerous quest to attain forbidden love.

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  A Slash of Emerald - A Dr Julia...

  Patrice McDonough

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  London, 1867: Among the genteel young ladies of London society, painting is a perfectly acceptable pastime—but a woman who dares to pursue art as a profession is another prospect, indeed. Dr. Julia Lewis, familiar with the disrespect afforded women in untraditional careers, is hardly surprised when Scotland Yard shows little interest in complaints made by her friend, Mary Allingham, about a break-in at her art studio. Mary is just one of many "lady painters" being targeted by vandals. 
   
   
   
  Painters' sitters are vanishing, too—women viewed by some as dispensable outcasts. Inspector Richard Tennant, however, takes the attacks seriously, suspecting they're linked to the poison-pen letters received by other members of the Allingham family. For Julia, the issue is complicated by Tennant's previous relationship with Mary's sister-in-law, Louisa, and by her own surprising reaction to that entanglement. 
   
   
   
  But when someone close to them commits suicide and a woman turns up dead, the case can no longer be so easily ignored by "respectable" society. Layer after layer, Julia and Tennant scrape away the facts of the case like paint from a canvas. What emerges is a somber picture of vice, depravity, and deception stretching from London's East End to the Far East—with a killer at its center, determined to get away with one last, grisly murder . . .

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  Talmadge Farm

  Leo Daughtry

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  "An earnest historical novel...a thoughtful meditation on the inexorability of change, and what happens when justice results in a redistribution of success." — Kirkus Reviews 
  “...a classic. This is a story of triumph and tragedy, of good and evil, and finally reconciliation. A true morality play.” — Gene Hoots, former tobacco executive and author of Going Down Tobacco Road 
  A LOVE LETTER TO THE AMERICAN SOUTH 
  A STORY OF RESILIENCE, HOPE, AND FAMILY—BOTH LOST AND FOUND 
  It's 1957, and tobacco is king. Wealthy landowner Gordon Talmadge enjoys the lavish lifestyle he inherited but doesn't like getting his hands dirty; he leaves that to the two sharecroppers - one white, one Black - who farm his tobacco but have bigger dreams for their own children. While Gordon takes no interest in the lives of his tenant farmers, a brutal attack between his son and the sharecropper children sets off a chain of events that leaves no one unscathed. Over the span of a decade, Gordon struggles to hold on to his family's legacy as the old order makes way for a New South. 
  A sweeping drama that follows three unforgettable families navigating the changing culture of North Carolina at a pivotal moment in history, readers have been raving that Talmadge Farm is one they cannot put down. Perfect for fans of Wiley Cash and Amor Towles.

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