Parisian cop Martin Beaumont has never really got over his first love, Gabrielle. Their brief, intense affair in San Francisco and the pain of her rejection still haunt him years later. Now, however, he’s a successful detective – and tonight he’s going to arrest the legendary art thief, Archibald Maclean, when he raids the Musee d’Orsay for a priceless Van Gogh. But the enigmatic Archibald has other plans. Martin’s pursuit of the master criminal across Paris is the first step in an adventure that will take him back to San Francisco, and to the edge of love and life itself.
Kapcsolódó könyvek
Jill Mansell - Kiss
When Izzy is knocked off her motorbike she doesn't just lose her dignity - she loses as a result not one but two long-term boyfriends, her job and, to boot, her extremely bijou flat. Gina, who caused the accident, has more important things to worry about - her husband's mistress is pregnant and she's suddenly on her own. Why should she care about Izzy? Yet somehow the well-heeled Gina finds herself opening her home to Izzy and her spirited teenage daughter. And it's there that Izzy meets heart-stoppingly handsome Sam, whose lingering kiss is all it takes for her to find the true love that has always eluded her - though there are just a few obstacles between that first kiss and the 'happy ever after'...
Jill Mansell - Fast Friends
When bored housewife and mother Camilla Stewart impulsively invites her old schoolchums for dinner she hardly imagines that the evening will shatter her comfortable existence. But Roz Vallender and Loulou Marks are no ordinary guests. Roz, stunning and self-assured, is notorious as a TV presenter and superbitch, whilst the reckless Loulou owns Vampires, the trendiest wine bar in town. Horrified to discover that husband Jack has been playing around, Camilla determines to make some changes. With a little help from her friends she soon finds out that life in the fast lane is a lot more fun and the future still holds plenty of surprises.
Nicholas Sparks - The Last Song
Seventeen year old Veronica "Ronnie" Miller's life was turned upside-down when her parents divorced and her father moved from New York City to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alientated from her parents, especially her father...until her mother decides it would be in everyone's best interest if she spent the summer in Wilmington with him. Ronnie's father, a former concert pianist and teacher, is living a quiet life in the beach town, immersed in creating a work of art that will become the centerpiece of a local church.
The tale that unfolds is an unforgettable story of love on many levels--first love, love between parents and children -- that demonstrates, as only a Nicholas Sparks novel can, the many ways that love can break our hearts...and heal them.
Jill Mansell - Millie's Fling
When Millie Brady saves Orla Hart's life she doesn't realise how drastically it will change her own - not least because the boyfriend who was asking her to move in with him at the time stormed off in a huff. Actually, Millie's relieved. She's happy to enjoy a man-free summer in Cornwall. But Orla has other ideas. She's determined that Millie should meet the man of her dreams. Trouble is, Millie's taste in men doesn't tally with Orla's. The one who really interests her is Hugh Emerson, and he's the man with whom Orla's adamant she mustn't get involved...
Maggie Stiefvater - Linger
This is the story of a boy who used to be a wolf and a girl who was becoming one.
Just a few months ago, it was Sam who was the mythical creature. His was the disease we couldn't cure. His was the good-bye that meant the most. He had the body that was a mystery, too strange and wonderful and terrifying to comprehend.
But now it is spring. With the heat, the remaining wolves will soon be falling out of their wolf pelts and back into their human bodies. Sam stays Sam, and Cole stays Cole, and it's only me who's not firmly in my own skin.
Simone Elkeles - Chain Reaction
Luis Fuentes is a good boy who doesn't live with the angst that his big brothers, Alex and Carlos, have always lived with. Luis is smart, funny, and has big dreams of becoming an astronaut. But when he falls for the wrong girl, Luis enters a dark world he's never known, and just when he thinks he's got life all figured out, learns some disturbing news about his family that destroys his positive outlook on life. Will that Fuentes bad boy streak come out with a vengeance and lure Luis to live on the edge like his new girlfriend and his own father?
Jojo Moyes - Me Before You
Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.
What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.
Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.
What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.
Jodi Picoult - Vanishing Acts
New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed for her ability to tap into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she explores what happens when a young woman's past -- a past she didn't even know she had -- catches up to her just in time to threaten her future.
Delia Hopkins has led a charmed life. Raised in rural New Hampshire by her widowed father, Andrew, she now has a young daughter, a handsome fiancé, and her own search-and-rescue bloodhound, which she uses to find missing persons. But as Delia plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can't recall. And then a policeman knocks on her door, revealing a secret that changes the world as she knows it.
In shock and confusion, Delia must sift through the truth -- even when it jeopardizes her life and the lives of those she loves. What happens when you learn you are not who you thought you were? When the people you've loved and trusted suddenly change before your eyes? When getting your deepest wish means giving up what you've always taken for granted? Vanishing Acts explores how life -- as we know it -- might not turn out the way we imagined; how doing the right thing could mean doing the wrong thing; how the memory we thought had vanished could return as a threat. Once again, Jodi Picoult handles a difficult and timely topic with understanding, insight, and compassion.
John Burnham Schwartz - The Commoner
John Burnham Schwartz bases his fourth novel on the Empress Michiko and Crown Princess Masako of Japan. Though Japanese imperial life remains shrouded in mystery, Schwartz teases out the details through extensive research. Much to the astonishment and pleasure of the critics, he gives Haruko an authentic and completely convincing voice. While his vivid depictions of postwar Japan are stunning, it is Haruko’s vibrant inner life that propels the narrative and resounds with readers. Though not as intense as Reservation Road (1998), Schwartz’s unflinching portrayal of the aftermath of a child’s death, and though slightly marred by an implausible ending, The Commoner will captivate readers by providing a haunting look into the 2,000 years of secrets surrounding the Chrysanthemum Throne.
Jojo Moyes - Sheltering Rain
They were three generations of women with very different ideas about love.
Fiercely passionate, Joy falls in love at first sight on the night of the Coronation, and is engaged within twenty-fout hours.
Twenty years on, her estranged daughter Kate is forced to search for her own love in London, and Joy hasn't seen her in years.
When Kate's daughter Sabine is sent to stay with Joy, she may be the one to reunite mother and grandmother. Bur during her stay Sabine uncovers a deeply buried secret, which threatens to destroy family ties forever.
Jodi Picoult - Salem Falls
When Jack St. Bride arrives in the small town of Salem Falls, all he wants is to escape his past. He's spent the last eight months in jail, after being falsely accused of having an affair with an underage student at the school where he taught. In Salem Falls, he gets a job as a dishwasher at a local diner and tentatively begins a romance with the diner's owner, Addie, who is still mourning the death of her young daughter, born after Addie was raped in high school by three drunk boys. As she and Jack fall in love, they both see hope for the future. But their newfound love is threatened when the residents of Salem Falls learn of Jack's conviction and begin harassing him. When, predictably, a teenage girl accuses Jack of raping her, he finds himself back in jail, fighting a serious charge and the town's prejudice. Addie wrestles with her doubts and memories of her own rape, but she believes in Jack and goes on a quest of her own to find out the truth about Jack's initial conviction, even as the Salem Falls trial opens.
Reginald Hill - Deadheads (Oxford Bookworms)
An English rose garden on a summer's day. A small boy watches with interest as his great-aunt cuts the deadheads off the rosebushes with a sharp knife. What could be more peaceful, more harmless?
Young Patrick grows up to be a calm, pleasant man, with a good job, a wife and two children, and the best rose garden for miles around. When somebody tells the police that Patrick Aldermann is killing people, Chief Superintendent Dalziel thinks it's probably all nonsense. But Inspector Pascoe is not so sure...
Terry Pratchett - Equal Rites
The first two Discworld books satirized the classic quest novel. In the third humorous installment of the series, Terry Pratchett takes on traditional gender roles in fantasy. A dying wizard leaves his magical staff to a newborn baby--a baby who, as the eighth son of an eighth son, is fated to be a wizard. But the baby, Eskarina Smith, turns out to be a daughter instead, with a very unique magical destiny indeed. EQUAL RITES introduces a fan favorite character who appears in many of the later books, the iron-willed, irascible, (but secretly good-hearted) witch Granny Weatherwax.
Joanne Harris - Chocolat
When an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, arrives in the French village of Lansquenet and opens a chocolate boutique directly opposite the church, Father Reynaud identifies her as a serious danger to his flock - especially as it is the beginning of Lent, the traditional season of self-denial. War is declared as the priest denounces the newcomer's wares as the ultimate sin.
Suddenly Vianne's shop-cum-café means that there is somewhere for secrets to be whispered, grievances to be aired, dreams to be tested. But Vianne's plans for an Easter Chocolate Festival divide the whole community in a conflict that escalates into a 'Church not Chocolate' battle. As mouths water in anticipation, can the solemnity of the Church compare with the pagan passion of a chocolate éclair?
Karen Chance - Embrace the Night
"Recently named the world’s chief clairvoyant, Cassandra Palmer still has a thorn in her side. As long as Cassie and a certain master vampire—the sizzling-hot Mircea—are magically bound to each other, her life will never be her own …
The spell that binds them can only be broken with an incantation found in the Codex Merlini, an ancient grimoire. The Codex’s location has been lost in the present day, so Cassie will have to seek it out in the only place it can still be found—the past.
But Cassie soon realizes the Codex has been lost for a reason. The book is rumored to contain some seriously dangerous spells, and retrieving it may help Cassie to deal with Mircea, but it could also endanger the world…"
Kiera Cass - The Elite
The hotly-anticipated sequel to the New York Times bestseller The Selection.
Thirty-five girls came to the palace to compete in the Selection. All but six have been sent home. And only one will get to marry Prince Maxon and be crowned princess of Illea.
America still isn’t sure where her heart lies. When she’s with Maxon, she’s swept up in their new and breathless romance, and can’t dream of being with anyone else. But whenever she sees Aspen standing guard around the palace, and is overcome with memories of the life they planned to share. With the group narrowed down to the Elite, the other girls are even more determined to win Maxon over - and time is running out for America to decide.
Just when America is sure she’s made her choice, a devastating loss makes her question everything again. And while she’s struggling to imagine her future, the violent rebels that are determined to overthrow the monarchy are growing stronger and their plans could destroy her chance at any kind of happy ending.
Thomas Hardy - Far from the Madding Crowd (Oxford Bookworms)
Bathsheba Everdene is young, proud, and beautiful. She is an independent woman and can marry any man she chooses - if she chooses. In fact, she likes her independence, and she likes fighting her own battles in a man's world.
But it is never wise to ignore the power of love. There are three men who would very much like to marry Bathsheba. When she falls in love with one of them, she soon wishes she had kept her independence. She learns that love brings misery, pain, and violent passions that can destroy lives...
Egyszerűsített olvasmány angol nyelven. Hasznos segítség a nyelvtanulásban. A kötet 5. nehézségi fokozatú, az olvasásához kb. 1800 szavas szókincs szükséges.
"Oxford Bookworms Stage 5"
Colette - Cheri and The Last of Cheri
Cheri, first published in 1920, is considered Colette's finest novel. Exquisitely handsome, spoilt and sardonic, Cheri is the only son of a wealthy courtesan, a contemporary of Lea, the magnificent and talented woman who for six years has devoted herself to his amorous education. When a rich marriage is arranged for Cheri, Lea reluctantly decides their relationship must end. Cheri, despite his apparent detachment, is haunted by memories of Lea; alienated from his wife, his family and his surroundings, he retreats into a fantasy world made up of dreams and the past, a world from which there is only one route of escape. In her portrait of the fated love affair between a very young man and a middle-aged woman, Colette achieved a peak in her earthy, sensuous and utterly individual art. Cheri caused considerable controversy both in its choice of setting - the fabulous demi-monde of the Parisian courtesans - and in its portrayal of Cheri.
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At the end of Cheri the young Cheri left his aging mistress Lea on the eve of his marriage. Having served in the army during the war Cheri returns to Paris haunted by memories of his carefree youth and the bounty of his benevolent mistress. In the post-war 1920's he finds it impossible to settle down to a new life with his efficient and entrepreneurial wife and friends. As his looks and his reputation begin to deteriorate Cheri's life is thrown into crisis as he attempts to recapture the contentment and companionship of his luxurious youth. As Cheri and Lea confront each other, and the changes a decade has wrought on their lives and their looks, Colette displays the incredible sensitivity and insight for which she is justly famous.
David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas
'Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies...'
A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan's California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified dinery server on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation. The narrators of _Cloud Atlas_ hear each other's echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small. In his extraordinary third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanity's dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us.
Mathias Malzieu - The Boy with the Cuckoo-clock Heart
Edinburgh, 1874. On the coldest night the world has ever seen, Little Jack is born with a frozen heart and immediately undergoes a life-saving operation. But Dr Madeleine is no conventional medic and surgically implants a cuckoo-clock into his chest. Little Jack grows up different to other children: every day begins with a daily wind-up. At school he is bullied for his 'ticking', but Dr Madeleine reminds him he must resist strong emotion: anger is far too dangerous for his cuckoo-clock heart. So when the beautiful young street-singer, Miss Acacia, appears - pursued by Joe, the school bully - Jack is in danger of more than just falling in love...he is putting his life on the line.