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  The Doll's House - A story...

  Katherine Mansfield

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  Katherine Mansfield was born on 14th October 1888 into a prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand the middle child of five. 
  A gifted Cello player, at one point she thought she might take it up professionally the young Katherine’s first writings were published in school magazines. 
  At 19 Katherine left for Great Britain and met the modernist writers D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf with whom she became close friends. 
  She travelled to Europe before returning to New Zealand in 1906 she began to write the short stories that she would later become famous for. Her stories often focus on moments of disruption and frequently open rather abruptly. In this volume of her poetry her views on life are certainly reflected in her works. By no means is her work great but it is certainly full of interest and observations that make it essential reading for anyone in thrall to her other works. 
  By 1908 she had returned to London and to a rather more bohemian lifestyle. A passionate affair resulted in her becoming pregnant but married off instead to an older man who she left the same evening with the marriage unconsummated. She was then to miscarry and be cut out of her mother’s will (allegedly because of her lesbianism). 
  In 1911 she was to start a relationship with John Middleton Murry a magazine editor and although it was volatile it enabled her to write some of her best stories. 
  During the First World War Mansfield contracted extrapulmonary tuberculosis, which rendered any return or visit to New Zealand impossible and led to her death at the tender age of 34 on January 9th 1923 in Fontainebleau, France.

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  The Short Stories of Leo Tolstoy...

  Leo Tolstoy

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  Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 in the Russian province of Tula to a wealthy noble family. As a child, he had private tutors but he showed little interest in any formal education. When he went to the University of Kazan in 1843 to study oriental languages and law, he left without completing his courses.  Life now was relaxed and idle but with some writing also taking place.  Gambling debts forced an abrupt change of path and he joined the army to fight in the Crimean War.  He was commended for his bravery and promoted but was appalled at the brutality and loss of life.  He recorded these and other earlier experiences in his diaries which formed the basis of several of his works. 
   
  In 1852 ‘Childhood’ was published to immediate success and was followed by ‘Boyhood’ and ‘Youth’. 
   
  His experience in the army and the horrors he witnessed resulted in ‘The Cossacks’ in 1862 and the trilogy ‘Sevastopol Tales’. After the war he travelled around Europe, visiting London and Paris and meeting such luminaries as Victor Hugo and Charles Darwin.  
   
  It was now that Tolstoy began his masterpiece, ‘War and Peace’. Published in 1869 it was an epic work that changed literature. He quickly followed this with ‘Anna Karenina’.  
   
  These successes made Tolstoy rich and helped him accomplish many of his dreams but also brought problems as he grappled with his faith and the lot of the oppressed poor. These revolutionary views became so popular that the authorities now kept him under surveillance.  
   
  He led a life of asceticism and vegetarianism and put his socialist ideals into practice by establishing numerous schools for the poor and food programmes. He also believed in giving away his wealth, which caused much discord with his wife.  
   
  His writing continued to bring forth classics such as ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich’ and many brilliant and incisive short stories such as ‘How Much Land Does A Man Need’.  
   
  In 1901 Tolstoy was excommunicated from the Church and controversially deselected for the Nobel Prize for Literature. 
   
  Whilst undertaking a pilgrimage by train in October 1910 with his daughter Aleksandra he caught pneumonia in the nearby town of Astapovo.  Leo Tolstoy died on November 9th, 1910, he was 82. 
  01 - Leo Tolstoy - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  02 - Diary of a Lunatic by Leo Tolstoy 
  03 - A Dialogue Among Clever People by Leo Tolstoy 
  04 - Aloysha The Pot by Leo Tolstoy 
  05 - God Sees The Truth But Waits by Leo Tolstoy 
  06 - How Much Land Does A Man Need by Leo Tolstoy

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  Drawn and Quartered

  Peter Brandvold

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  In Drawn and Quartered, the explosive new book in Peter Brandvold's Bloody Joe western series, a young man rides back into Mannion's territory with mysterious intent. 
   
   
   
  Matt Severance was accused of stealing a mine payroll with his older brother, Roy. Bloody Joe killed Roy, but the other rider got away. Folks believe Roy hid the money before he died, and they think Matt has returned to retrieve it though Matt insists he's only back to clear his name and to take over his dead father's ranch. 
   
   
   
  Matt faces harassment from all sides, and its Mannion's job to keep the young man, whom he comes to like, alive and to retrieve the hidden loot. As a savage war erupts in the mountains, in Del Norte, Mannion's deputy, Rio Waite, confronts his own growing lack of bravery in the face of many threats in town, and Mannion's wife, the former Jane Ford, confronts her own growing mortality after having been shot in the chest by the savage bounty hunter, Xavier Lodge. 
   
   
   
  Don't miss this new potboiler western from the pen of "Mean" Pete Brandvold!

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  Jennifer

  Beverley Watts

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  From the highly acclaimed author of The Shackleford Sisters, Beverley Watts, comes an exciting new series featuring the next generation. 
  The Shackleford Legacies are a delightful dance of romance, humour, mystery and fun... 
   
  Lady Jennifer Sinclair is halfway through her second season and thoroughly disillusioned with the marriage mart. After one discretion too many, the headstrong only daughter of the powerful Duke of Blackmore finds herself on the way to Scotland in the company of her older brother Peter who’s been tasked by his father to inspect the family estate north of the border. Once at Caerlaverock, the Duke’s estate on the shores of Loch Lomond, Jennifer is surprised to discover an unexpected sense of peace. 
   
  But that peace is not to last… 
   
  Brendon Galbraith, last of the disgraced Clan Galbraith has high hopes of becoming the next steward to Caerlaverock. But though penniless and very nearly homeless, he has another, more important reason to wish for the Duke of Blackmore’s patronage. 
   
  After accidentally discovering a terrible secret, Brendon realises the only person who can possibly help him is the Duke of Blackmore himself. Desperately awaiting Nicholas Sinclair’s forthcoming visit, the discovery that the Duke has sent his son and heir instead is a bitter blow. However, it quickly becomes clear that Peter Sinclair is every bit his father’s son and has no intention of running from the challenge presented by the shocking truths Brendon is forced to reveal. 
   
  But in the end, it’s the unanticipated arrival of the Duke’s beautiful, wilful daughter that proves Brendon’s biggest headache, especially as Jennifer Sinclair very quickly disabuses him of the notion that she has any intention of running from the forthcoming challenge either…

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  Murder in Constantinople

  A.E. Goldin

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  This entertaining historical mystery is the exciting debut novel from London-based musician and screenwriter A.E. Goldin. Thrillingly paced and with an enchanting historical setting, it launches an unforgettable  new hero in a series that provides the nostalgic pleasure of classic Sherlock Holmes. 
   
  London, 1854. Tweny-one-year-old Ben Canaan attracts trouble wherever he goes. His father wants him to be a good Jewish son, working for the family business on Whitechapel Road, but Ben and his friends, the 'Good-for-Nothings', just want adventure.Then the chance discovery of an enigmatic letter and a photograph of a beautiful woman bring Ben an adventure more dangerous than anything he'd imagined. Suddenly he is thrown into the heart of a mystery that takes him away from everything he has known and all the way to Constantinople, the jewel of an empire and the center of a world on the brink of war.Ben's only clue is three words: 'The White Death.' Now he must find what links a string of grisly murders, following a trail through kingmaking and conspiracy, poison and high politics, bloodshed and betrayal. In a city of deadly secrets, no one is safe—and one wrong step could cost Ben his life.

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  The Latchkey Kid

  Helen Forrester

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  Timeless family drama from the best-selling author of Tuppence to Cross the Mersey. With over 3 million copies sold around the world, Helen Forrester’s gripping fiction continues to move readers. 
  Olga Stych has focused all of her efforts on climbing to the top of the social pyramid, letting her son Hank fall by the wayside as she rose. 
  As she works to retain her position, her strained relationship with Hank will prove a threat. When he writes a sensational book that causes a stir in his mother’s circles, it’s only a matter of time before Olga’s secrets are revealed. 
  Is status all that matters to Olga? Or will she finally realise what it has cost her? 
  In The Latchkey Kid, Helen Forrester presents a gripping historical saga that delves into the life of Olga Stych, a woman obsessed with social status. As her son Hank's sensational book threatens to reveal her secrets, Olga must confront the true cost of her ambition. 
  For fans of Katie Flynn (First Love, Last Love), Maureen Lee (Flora and Grace), Rosie Goodwin (The Winter Promise), Sheila Newberry (The Canal Boat Girl), and Shirley Dickson (Our Last Goodbye). 
  HarperCollins 2022

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