Online Library Catalogue

In May 1941, the German battleship Bismarck headed out into the North Atlantic to raid allied shipping. She was accompanied by the Prinz Eugen and her pursuit was an epic of naval warfare. Found and shadowed by British cruisers, she was engaged by the Hood and the Prince of Wales. Within minutes, she had sunk the former, the pride of the Royal Navy, and damaged the latter. The next few days were agonising for both sides.

Desmond Doyle, 29 a painter and decorator, is married with six children and living in the infamous Fatima Mansions in Dublin in 1953. One day he comes home to find his wife has left him. He decides to go to England to find work and is advised to put his children into the state Industrial Schools system for a short time until he returns. When he returns he is told to his horror that the children have been consigned to the state until they are 16. This is the story of how Desmond Doyle fought the Irish legal system to change the law and win back his family. Told through the eyes of Evelyn, Desmond's 9 year old eldest daughter, this is a heartrending true story beautifully told.

Sir Henry Morton Stanley is famously quoted for saying "Dr Livingstone, i Presume?". Born in Wales, he migrated over to the United States at the age of 18, he eventually became an overseas correspondent for the New York Herald. In 1869 Stanley was told by James Gordon Bennett Jr to find Livingstone, a scottish missionary and explorer. When Stanley commented on the cost Bennett's reply was: "Well, I will tell you what you will do. Draw a thousand pounds now; and when you have gone through that, draw another thousand, and when that is spent, draw another thousand, and when you have finished that, draw another thousand, and so on; but, FIND LIVINGSTONE." How I Found Livingstone is Stanley's personnel account of his trip from Zanzibar to Lake Tanganyika on this quest, including time spent exploring the area with Livingstone.

Stephen Hawking was recognized as one of the greatest minds of our time and a figure of inspiration after defying his ALS diagnosis at age twenty-one. He is known for both his breakthroughs in theoretical physics as well as his ability to make complex concepts accessible for all, and was beloved for his mischievous sense of humour. At the time of his death, Hawking was working on a final project: a book compiling his answers to the "big" questions that he was so often posed--questions that ranged beyond his academic field. Within these pages, he provides his personal views on our biggest challenges as a human race, and where we, as a planet, are heading next. The book also features an afterword by Hawking's daughter, Lucy Hawking.

"'As an American spy, you are worthy of death...' With that, he drew his finger across his throat then slapped the hilt of the sword at his side. All time froze around me..In terror I watched the man's hand fold around the hilt of the sword.." This is the true story of a young American missionary woman's courage and triumph of faith in the jungles of New Guinea and her four years in a notorious Japanese prison camp. Never to see her husband again, she was forced to sign a confession to a crime she did not commit and face the executioner's sword, only to be miraculously spared.

Captain James Cook is one of the greatest maritime explorers of all time. Over three remarkable voyages of discovery into the Pacific in the latter part of the 18th century, Cook unravelled the oldest mystery surrounding the existence of Terra Australis Incognita, the Great South Land. He became the first explorer to circumnavigate New Zealand and establish that it was two main islands; discover the Hawaiian Islands for the British Empire; and left an enduring legacy. Rob Mundle introduces us to an unlikely sailor in a teenage Cook, who through the combination of hard-won skills as a seafarer, the talents of a self-taught navigator and surveyor, and an exceptional ability to lead and care for his men, climbed the ranks of the Royal Navy to achieve legendary status among all who sailed and mapped the world.

1863. Professor Liedenbrock deciphers a cryptic message giving instructions on how to find a passage to the centre of the earth through the crater of an Icelandic volcano. And so it passes that the Professor, along with his reluctant son, Axel, and an Icelandic guide, set out on an incredible journey. As the three explorers descend into the bowels of the earth, they encounter many strange phenomena and dangers, including a vast underground world lit by electrically charged gas at the ceiling, a deep subterranean ocean, and creatures that have long since vanished from the surface above. But will the adventurers live long enough to tell their extraordinary tale? (Also published as A Journey to the Centre of the Earth.)

Set amid the civil rights movement, the never-before-told true story of NASA's African-American female mathematicians who played a crucial role in America's space program. Before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as `Human Computers', calculating the flight paths that would enable these historic achievements. Among these were a coterie of bright, talented African-American women. Segregated from their white counterparts, these `colored computers' used pencil and paper to write the equations that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Moving from World War II through NASA's golden age, touching on the civil rights era, the Space Race, the Cold War, and the women's rights movement, Hidden Figures interweaves a rich history of mankind's greatest adventure with the intimate stories of five courageous women whose work forever changed the world.

The Yorkshire home of the Hardow family, Fontaynes Castle, is still run along feudal lines, and presided over by the aging though formidable Earl. Young Ann Tessyman travels a vast distance from the isolated countryside of her birth to take a job as a sewing maid at the magnificent castle. She works hard and earns a promotion to work in the nursery, coming into contact with the children of the house and through them their oldest brother George, the dashing heir to the Earldom and future owner of the Fontaynes. Sensitive and intelligent, George becomes deeply attached to the simple Yorkshire girl, and the two fall desperately in love. A charming Cinderella story with a touch of "Upstairs, Downstairs."

In the summer of 1972, Famagusta in Cyprus is the most desirable resort in the Mediterranean, a city bathed in the glow of good fortune. An ambitious couple are about to open the island's most spectacular hotel, where Greek and Turkish Cypriots work in harmony. Two neighbouring families, the Georgious and the Ozkans, are among many who moved to Famagusta to escape the years of unrest and ethnic violence elsewhere on the island. But beneath the city's facade of glamour and success, tension is building. When a Greek coup plunges the island into chaos, Cyprus faces a disastrous conflict. Turkey invades to protect the Turkish Cypriot minority, and Famagusta is shelled. Forty thousand people seize their most precious possessions and flee from the advancing soldiers. In the deserted city, just two families remain. This is their story.

It's Britain, but not as we know it. Democracy has been replaced by a colourtocracy. Visual colour dominates society, from the feed-pipes that keep the municipal park green to a social hierarchy based upon one's limited colour vision. Eddie Russett has no ambition to be anything other than a loyal drone. With his better-than-average Red perception, he could marry an Oxblood and maybe even make Prefect. Life looks colourful. Life looks good. But then he moves to East Carmine and falls in love with a Grey named Jane who opens his eyes to the painful truth. Where have all the spoons gone? What happened to all the people who never returned from High Saffron?

At twenty-one, Zilah Dabala has already survived a harrowing past. Now she's convinced she can handle anything on her own, even being held hostage by a terrorist group. But Daniel is determined to rescue her, and soon their escape ignites an intimacy neither has ever known. Once Daniel learns Zilah's tragic secret, however, he fears she may be lost to him forever.

It seems like a straightforward domestic murder until a bloodstained sliver of X-ray is found clutched in the dead woman's fist - and it quickly becomes clear that this case is anything but ordinary. Thorne discovers that the victim's mother had herself been murdered fifteen years before by infamous serial killer Raymond Garvey. The hunt to catch Garvey was one of the biggest in the history of the Met, and ended with seven women dead. When more bodies and more fragments of X-ray are discovered, Thorne has a macabre jigsaw to piece together until the horrifying picture finally emerges. A killer is targeting the children of Raymond Garvey's victims. Thorne must move quickly to protect those still on the murderer's list, but nothing and nobody are what they seem. Not when Thorne is dealing with one of the most twisted killers he has ever hunted...

Ex-Princess Ethelinde, daughter of the exiled king of Mitteleuropia, has been kidnapped during a visit to Tawcester Towers, ancestral seat of the Dukes of Tawcester. And ducal family honour demands that she should be rescued. The Dowager Duchess entrusts the task to her son, the Right Hon. Devereux Lyminster, known universally as 'Blotto'. He is, of course, terribly handsome, honourable and brave, but as sadly deficient in the brains department as his sister 'Twinks' is gifted. So Blotto sets off, accompanied by trusty former batman and chauffeur, Corky Froggett. They drive across many countries to Mitteleuropia, a realm now ruled by a usurper, the ex-King's brother, where they suspect the princess has been taken. Can brave Blotto and loyal Corky rescue Ethelinde, or will they meet their end in the evil clutches of King Vlatislav?

It all started with Paris. At the top of the Eiffel Tower, a young man proposes to his girlfriend, cheered on by delighted tourists. In that second, everything changes, not just for the happy couple, but for the family and friends awaiting their return in Bridgeport, Ireland. Vonnie, a widow, is just daring to let love back into her life. And Grace, a divorced head teacher, finds her son's impending wedding means she's spending more time with her ex-husband. After so long apart, is it possible she's made a mistake?

Taunted by everyone around her, 15-year-old Mavis Jackson is devastated when her only ally, her father Ron, leaves home to beat his gambling addiction. Forced to walk the streets in search of junk to sell, the future seems bleak. Until an unexpected fairy godmother arrives in the form of Edith Pugh. She needs help around the home and sees Mavis as the perfect solution. Especially as she has ulterior motives ... Meanwhile, Ron has fallen off the wagon and disappeared. Best mate Pete doesn't know where he is and has to break the terrible news. But does he have another reason for his sudden interest in the Jackson family? Back at Edith's, Mavis revels in her new job. But when she learns of Edith's true motives, she faces a monumental decision, one which could change her life for ever.

Years ago, a young woman was beaten and raped while onlookers did nothing. Now those witnesses are becoming victims themselves. Baltimore Homicide Detective J. D. Fitzpatrick has seen a lot of horrific violence, both as a cop and during his deployment in Afghanistan, but nothing like the trail of tortured bodies that are turning up throughout the city. He's up against a brutal killer with a very personal vendetta, and now J. D. is beginning to suspect that his medical examiner may be shielding some crucial evidence linked to the case. Assigned to the murder victims, forensic pathologist Dr. Lucy Trask is intrigued by J. D.'s compassion, but she isn't about to mix work with pleasure. Not while there's a ruthless killer on the loose. And definitely not while she's keeping a dark secret that could connect her to these vicious killings - and put her next on the hit list.

For the second year at Downey House, it's getting harder and harder to stick to the rules ... It's about making them ... Now she's engaged to sweet and steady Stan, Maggie's just got to stop thinking about David McDonald, her opposite number at Downey Boys ... hasn't she? Can Maggie take a leaf out of the Well Behaved Teacher's exercise book - and stick to it? It's about breaking them ... But headmistress Veronica Deveral has more to lose than anyone. When Daniel Stapleton joins the faculty, she's forced to confront her scandalous secret. How long will she be able to keep it under wraps?

How can you know someone you’ve never met? Joyce Conway remembers things she shouldn't. She knows about tiny cobbled streets in Paris, which she has never visited. And every night she dreams about an unknown little girl with blonde hair. Justin Hitchcock is divorced, lonely and restless. He arrives in Dublin to give a lecture on art and meets an attractive doctor, who persuades him to donate blood. It's the first thing to come straight from his heart in a long time. When Joyce leaves hospital after a terrible accident, with her life and her marriage in pieces, she moves back in with her elderly father. All the while, a strong sense of déjà vu is overwhelming her and she can't figure out why …

Damned by leprosy, Richard FitzEustace must leave his home and family forever. Condemned to shun the company of others he seeks a place of solitude where he can find forgiveness for sins committed in the Holy Land. One more family obligation remains: a secret promise to his grandmother that he will seek out her kinsman, Sir Robert de Lcy, and press her claim to his estate. Meanwhile, headstrong young Johanna FitzEustace, is distraught. With Richard gone he other brother, ruthless and ambitious Roger, becomes head of the family. A marriage is contrived for her to a wealthy old landowner, and without Richard's protection there seems little she can do about it - unless she can escape and find him wherever he may be.

In the wake of a demoralizing infiltration by a Soviet double agent, George Smiley has been made ringmaster of the Circus (aka the British Secret Service). Determined to restore the organization's health and reputation, and bent on revenge, Smiley thrusts his own handpicked operative into action. Jerry Westerby, "The Honourable Schoolboy," is dispatched to the Far East. A burial ground of French, British, and American colonial cultures, the region is a fabled testing ground of patriotic allegiance and a new showdown is about to begin.

Each of Mary's sisters is settled in her own way. Happily married Jane is the mother of many children. Elizabeth has to cope with an unwelcome social pre-eminence she has not envisioned. Lydia is still entranced by military officers; and Kitty is one of the stars of London's fashionable salons. Events transpire that free Mary from her family obligations and dangle the allurements of independence before her hungry gaze. She resolves to publish a book about the plight of England's poor, but her investigations lead her into mortal danger.

Judith Lee is a young woman with an unusual gift, she can read lips at a distance as well as she can hear the person next to her. Her skill leads her into a number of adventures.

Pregnant and unmarried, Irene Thelliston is sent home from India to live with her Aunt in Ireland. On her sea voyage, she reveals her secret to Lady Mary Harling who swears to keep her confidence. Several years later - to the horror of Lady Mary - she becomes engaged to her son Conrad, who has his own rather questionable past.

Back from the Great War, a penniless and disillusioned young soldier finds himself in the home of Miss Marilla Chadwick, a sweet old lady who is expecting her nephew for dinner. Mary Amber, Miss Marilla's neighbor, is also there. He hates girls. She hates men. What will be the result?

On the evening before his marriage, Sinclair loses a precious curiosity from his collection: an amethyst box, containing a tiny flask of deadly poison. He suspects that this poison is in the possession of either his betrothed or her cousin, the girl his best friend Worthington loves. Turning to Worthington for help, they try to recover the box before the poison can be administered...

Geoffrey Holland, a young millionaire, visits his country home in Hillsborough after hearing of a recent string of burglaries. To Holland's surprise, he finds the burglar reading a book in his library. And it's none other than his old schoolmate, Billy McVay. As the blizzard gets stronger, McVay persuades Holland to go out and rescue his sister who is living in a nearby rundown shack. What will Holland do and find?

Hunted by the police ... framed for robbery and murder by the Eye, master fiend and vicious ruler of the underworld ... loathed by Barbara Sutton the girl who loves him ... the BLACK HOOD had to face the blazing purgatory of this murder master's guns to win back Barbara's love and clear himself of the framed charges. (Hooded Detective, Volume III No. 2, January, 1942)

When the body of an aspiring starlet is discovered between two of Manhattan's oldest graveyards, Detective Jude Crosby goes up against a supernatural killer who is recreating Jack the Ripper's gruesome work and turns to paranormal investigator Whitney Trement for help in solving this sinister case.

As the mountain town of Trafalgar, British Columbia, shakes off a long hard winter, famous photographer Rudolph Steiner arrives to do a feature on mountain tourism. Steiner is accompanied by his assistant and sexy young wife, but he has another reason for the visit: to reconnect with the woman who left him twenty-five years ago to marry another man. Twenty-five years ago she was young, beautiful, näive, and an internationally known supermodel. Today Eliza Winters is no longer young, and definitely not näive, but still beautiful and married to Trafalgar City Police Sergeant John Winters. When Steiner is found dead in his luxury hotel room, shot once in the back of the head, suspicion falls upon Eliza. John Winters is forced into the most difficult decision of his life: loyalty to his job or to his wife. As the RCMP dig into the secrets of both Steiner and Eliza, John Winters slowly comes to realize that he doesn't know the woman to whom he has been married for twenty-five years as well as he thought he did. Unable to help the Sergeant, Constable Molly Smith has her own troubles: a series of B&Es has the peaceful town in an uproar, her overprotective Mountie boyfriend is fighting with her colleagues, and a vengeful stalker is watching her every move. When tragedy strikes at the heart of her own family, Molly can't even turn to her mother, Lucky, for help.

She appeared out of nowhere, in the middle of traffic, on a busy day. A teenager with no past, no family, no memories. SUCH A LOVELY CHILD. So blond and beautiful. Carol & Paul were drawn to her, she was the child they'd never had. A dream come true. And then Carol's nightmares began - the ghastly sounds in the night, the bloody face in the mirror...the razor-sharp ax. SUCH RELENTLESS EVIL. So deceptively innocent. Most mothers would die for such a darling little angel. And that's what frightened Carol most of all. (Originally published under the pseudonym Owen West.)

From the moment he saw the girl in the snowstorm, Flynn had less than an hour to live. But he'll remember his last fifty minutes long after he's dead. As an investigator for Child Protective Services, Flynn has seen plenty of misery, but nothing could prepare him for the nightmare inside the Shepards' Long Island home. Soon, that nightmare will send him plunging into a frozen harbor and awaken him to a reality even more terrifying. They've nicknamed Flynn "The Miracle Man" because few have been resuscitated after being dead so long. But people have questions about what really happened at the Shepard house and why the people around Flynn are being murdered. He has questions as well, especially when one victim dies while handing him a note: "This is all your fault." Flynn has returned from the Midnight Road--and someone wants to send him back.

On top of a recent divorce, a failed attempt to move house and trouble with her twelve-year-old son, the husband of her closest friend has just started to show rather too much interest in her as a newly single woman. No longer able to blame everything on a floundering marriage, Charlotte is forced to open her eyes and embark on an emotional journey into her past. Only when she has faced some challenging and revealing truths can she finally shed the unhappy skin she's become so used to, and open up her life - and her heart - to all the promise and possibility that her future holds.

Published in Amazing Stories in 1958, This Crowded Earth is a thriller set on an overpopulated Earth of the future.

Rhoda Massey is a young, sharp reporter for a daily newspaper in San Francisco. After proving herself an astute and fearless investigator on her first big story, she spends most of her waking hours running down leads and doing (almost) anything it takes to produce headline grabbing tales and to be the first one to do so. She must compete with her male colleagues where she works but also with those from other newspapers. Rhoda discovers it useful to be pretty and small in stature (great for eavesdropping from tight and unusual locations) but it's her shrewd mind and her nose for news that propel her to pursue stories in dangerous places and, sometimes, from dangerous characters. Just how far is she prepared to go as a ‘yellow’ journalist who wants the truth and at what price to her integrity? Then there’s the respected and handsome reporter, Ted Thompson, from a rival newspaper. Will he have a place in Rhoda’s life?

Believed to have been written by Chicago socialite, Emma Murdock Van Deventer, this detective story set at the World's Fair follows Carl Masters as he is in pursuit of international criminals Greenback Bob and Delbras. Conmen, lost handbags, jewel robberies, an adventuress... not to mention two missing young men and a murder, all come under the detective's eye.

The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke is a verse novel by Australian novelist and poet C. J. Dennis. The book sold over 60,000 copies in nine editions within the first year, and is probably one of the highest selling verse novels ever published in Australia. The novel tells the story of Bill, a larrikin of the Little Lonsdale Street Push, who is introduced to a young woman by the name of Doreen. The book chronicles their courtship and marriage, detailing Bill's transformation from a violence-prone gang member to a contented husband and father.

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery - or at least that's what his adoptive parents tell him. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do, if eccentric, Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his friendship with the glamorous and dangerous Julian Woodbead. At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from - and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.

Home Place, Sussex, 1937. The English family at home. For two unforgettable summers they gathered together, safe from the advancing storm clouds of war. In the heart of the Sussex countryside these were still sunlit days of childish games, lavish family meals and picnics on the beach. Three generations of the Cazalet family played out their lives, their relatives, their children and their servants, and the fascinating triangle of their affairs.

Originally published: as Peggy Sue got murdered. Includes an introduction read by the author, plus an interview with Tess Gerritsen. The first body is a mystery. She's young. She's beautiful. And her corpse, laid out in the office of Boston medical examiner Cat Novak, betrays no secrets, except for a notebook clutched in one stiff hand, seven numbers scrawled inside. The next body is a warning. When a second victim is discovered, Cat begins to fear that a serial killer is stalking the city streets: a shadowy madman without mercy or apparent motive. The police are skeptical. The mayor won't listen.

Reginald Mason is wealthy, refined, and, by all accounts, a gentleman. However, he is not a gentleman by birth, a factor that pains him and his father, Bernard Mason, within the Regency society that upholds station over all else. That is, until an opportunity for social advancement arises, namely, Lady Annabelle Ashton. Daughter of the Earl of Havercroft, a neighbor and enemy of the Mason family, Annabelle finds herself disgraced by a scandal, one that has left her branded as damaged goods. Besmirched by shame, the earl is only too happy to marry Annabelle off to anyone willing to have her. Though Bernard wishes to use Annabelle to propel his family up the social ladder, his son does not wish to marry her, preferring instead to live the wild, single life he is accustomed to. With this, Bernard serves his son an ultimatum: marry Annabelle, or make do without family funds. Having no choice, Reginald consents, and enters into a hostile engagement in which the prospective bride and groom are openly antagonistic, each one resenting the other for their current state of affairs while their respective fathers revel in their suffering. So begins an intoxicating tale rife with dark secrets, deception, and the trials of love, a story in which very little is as it seems.

Beautiful Troy Alleyn, artist wife of Inspector Alleyn, had been warned about the famed old Shakespearean actor and his eccentric household. But she was not prepared for their acts of malice and mischief. Now Sir Henry is dead, after a large and lethal birthday dinner of champagne and crayfish--and after changing his will in favor of his glamorous young fiancee. And Troy was suddenly star witness in one of her husband's most sensational cases to determine which of the flamboyant characters brought down the final curtain and turned a drawing room farce into tragedy.

Lancashire, 1932. Widower Harry Makepeace lives in Manchester with his sickly daughter Cathie, scrimping and saving to get by. But after she suffers a violent asthma attack, the doctors say she must move to the countryside to have any hope of survival. When Harry chances upon a patch of land for sale in Ellindale, and an advert for a disused railway carriage that can be made into a home, he snaps both up quickly. Harry swiftly becomes part of the community, making friends with the locals, and soon finds himself attracted to Nina, another newcomer to the village. But their problems are far from over.

American Joanna Rand arrived in Japan nearly twelve years ago to become a singer in a nightclub. In all that time, she has never been able to escape the strange dream that haunts her night after night. She feels violated, used--and terrified each time she awakens. Alex Hunter knows Joanna is not who she thinks she is. He has seen her before--in photographs of a senator's daughter who disappeared twelve years ago. And there is only one way to unlock the dark secrets of her soul....

Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in rural Ireland. The similarities end there; they are from very different worlds. When they both earn places at Trinity College in Dublin, a connection that has grown between them lasts long into the following years. This is an exquisite love story about how a person can change another person's life -- a simple yet profound realisation that unfolds beautifully over the course of the novel. It tells us how difficult it is to talk about how we feel and it tells us -- blazingly -- about cycles of domination, legitimacy and privilege.

While Gerhard works for the Fatherland in the hopes of overthrowing Hitler, Saffron Courtney works for the Special Operations Executive to outmanoeuvre a spymaster in occupied Belgium and ascertain how the Nazis have infiltrated SOE's network.

Chris Andersen loves cricket. He may not be a legend like Waugh or Bradman but in the Yarraville West Fourths, Chris Andersen is king. He is the captain, coach, manager and player, and on blistering hot Saturdays Chris ropes in a motley team of men to play at the CEC Bull Memorial Oval. As the wickets fall and the ball is bowled, everyone will learn more about themselves, and each other, than they did at the start of the day.

Forced to flee Napoleon's rampaging army on the continent, orphaned Alana Farmer and her eccentric guardian make a new home for themselves in London. There, Alana enjoys every privilege a daughter of the nobility could hope for, plus an education fit for a queen. Now, on the eve of her debut into London Society, she learns the shocking secret of her birthright. Can it be true? Is she really the lost princess of the European kingdom of Lubinia? Persuaded by her guardian to return to their homeland to quell a bloody revolt, Alana finds herself in an isolated, mountainous country whose customs strike her as medieval. With controversy and intrigue brewing around the beautiful newcomer, Christoph Becker, the captain of the palace guards, arrests Alana on suspicion that she is either a wily imposter or a seductive spy working for the shadowy figures determined to depose the king.

A collection of 20 short stories of the crime, detective, and thriller variety, sharing a common theme of .... you guessed it, revenge, and often with surprise conclusions. Elements of the style of Alfred Hitchcock may be found among many of the tales. Turn down the lights, let the imagination wander as it will, and prepare to expect the unexpected.

It is the early days of The Great War. As the curtain rises, Sara Lee is sitting by the fire in her aunt and uncle’s home, knitting a baby afghan. Her beau’s name is Harvey. He has his eye on a little house that is just perfect for two and he will soon propose to Sara Lee. But in this play, the mise en scène is about to change. A fairyland transformation will take place and Sara Lee will step into a new and different story, where she is the princess in a forest of adventure. There is a prince, too, whose name is Henri. He is as strange as the forest itself. And then just as suddenly, the scene changes back and Sara Lee is once again sitting alone by the fire, knitting socks for the soldiers this time, and with a memory and a new stirring in her heart. This is the story of Sara Lee’s amazing interlude.

One of the most beloved French plays of all time, Cyrano de Bergerac is a clever and tragic tale of truth concealed and love denied. Its titular character is a proud, daring swordsman and genius poet who has one terrible flaw: an abnormally large nose. Too afraid of rejection to confess his love for the beautiful Roxane, Cyrano helps her brainless but handsome suitor Christian to woo her, providing him with love letters while resolutely keeping his own passion a secret. (Summary by Elizabeth Barr)

The case against young Travis Morgan is simple: he walked into his father's house and shot the man at his desk in front of two witnesses. The fact that the murdered man was not his father is immaterial: he still killed a man in cold blood. Although he admits to a passionate hatred and fear of his father, Travis swears he is innocent. This is the case attorney Barbara Holloway is presented with. The trouble is she believes Travis, even though the eyewitness accounts appear irrefutable. As Barbara digs deeper, the case explodes into a dangerous conspiracy, causing Frank, Barbara's father and part-time associate, to hire a bodyguard to protect her.

In 1757, the English and French are engaged in a savage, bloody war for control of the North American continent. Making tenuous, shifting alliances with various Indian tribes, the two European powers struggle to gain the upper hand on unfamiliar, forested battlegrounds. Caught in the middle is Hawkeye, a white scout who was raised among the Indians. Not fully belonging to either world, he has retreated from society to live in the untamed woods of upstate New York. By his side are Chingachgook and the young Uncas, last of the vanishing race of Mohicans. Together, the three embody a code of moral courage, self-sufficiency, and loyalty, and share a deep trust and friendship. Cora and Alice Munro, the daughters of an English commander, are on their way to join their father. Escorting them through the alien wilderness are Alice's fianč, Major Duncan Heyward, and the treacherous Huron warrior Magua, whose attraction to Cora and hatred for whites make him a vengeful, insidious enemy. When Magua betrays his party to the Iroquois, it is up to Hawkeye and his band to rescue the beautiful sisters and escort them through hostile Indian country. Through a series of heroic fights, escapes and adventures, bonds are deepened, lives are lost, and the danger heightens, building toward an epic showdown.

In a Lao village, a woman is killed during a burglary; she is given a funeral and everyone in the village sees her body burned. But three days later she is back in her house as if she never died - and now she can speak to the dead. Lao national coroner Dr. Siri Paiboun and his wife, Madame Daeng, are sent to supervise the excavation. Siri becomes obsessed with the pretty medium's abilities, but Madame Daeng doesn't trust the woman.

Laura and Cora Madison and their younger brother Hedrick live with their parents in a Midwestern American town that is fairly bursting with Cora’s discarded and would-be beaus. Her flirtatiousness annoys the tempestuous Hedrick but not the reserved Laura. The return to town of a handsome, charming former resident and an encounter with a deranged young person set in motion a roller-coaster of events that interweave and play out to an exciting, emotional climax. Booth Tarkington's writing is exceptionally sensitive and perceptive. A popular American novelist and dramatist, he is best remembered for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "Alice Adams".

At a time that preceded the technology of any firearm, when military acumen, strategy, and leadership were all, it was Caesar's genius that prevailed. Yet history forgets that he was also a man, not immune to the human condition. This is the full portrait of Caesar, a man destined to inspire an empire. (Abridged)

Kendall Deaton pulls herself and her baby out of a wrecked car, and a mixture of courage and fear gets her to the top of a ravine, where she flags down help. But she doesn't dare reveal her true identity to the authorities. Instead, she plans her immediate escape. Her perilous flight begins. The best public defender in Prosper, South Carolina, Kendall had stumbled upon the town's chilling secret, and her marriage to one of the town's most powerful men has become a living hell. Now Kendall is a terrified mother trying to save her child's life, a reluctant witness who knows too much about an insidious evil, and a woman surrounded by forces that will stop at nothing to protect what is "theirs."

On the busiest shopping day of the year, idealistic students wade into malls across America carrying concealed devices they believe will cause chaos at the checkouts. But at the nation's largest shopping center, the results are incendiary - and people lie dead. A white-collar lobby group called Citizens for American Pride takes responsibility for the protest action, calling for an end to cheap, foreign-made goods and exported manufacturing jobs. But they insist the bombing was the work of rogue members, zealots who took the message too far. As Maggie and her partner sift through both the debris and the facts of the case, they uncover paranoia, racism and a sinister secret agenda that extends to the CAPs highest ranks. As retailers count down to Christmas Eve, Maggie knows that infiltration is the only option, even though the cost could be huge. And if they fail, more innocent people will pay with their lives.

Faye Longchamp's new archaeological firm has landed a project in St. Augustine, Florida. In four centuries, America's oldest city has accumulated skeletons that should probably stay buried. Within a day of Faye's arrival, a woman disappears, leaving behind blood, priceless artifacts, and a note asking for Faye's help. The detective hires Faye to find the artifacts' origin. But the ghosts of the Ancient City are demanding masters, and Faye is also driven to uncover their secrets--until it becomes clear that what they seek is Faye herself. And her child.

Jack Lanagan is a police reporter for a daily newspaper in San Francisco, who has the confidence of the chief of police and access to all sorts of levels of city life.

Told in the first person, as a narrative of Lilly Bere's life over seventeen days, On Canaan's Side opens as Lilly mourns the loss of her grandson, Bill. Lilly revisits her past, going back to the moment she was forced to flee Ireland at the end of the First World War, and continues her tale in America, a world filled with both hope and danger. At once epic and intimate, Lilly's story unfolds as she tries to make sense of the sorrows and troubles of her life and of the people whose lives she has touched. Spanning nearly seven decades, from the Great Depression to World War II and the Vietnam War, it is the heartbreaking story of a woman whose capability to love is enormous and whose compassion, even for those who have wronged her, is astonishing.

Melanie Starks has never lived by the rules. She and her seventeen-year-old son, Charlie, have been running one con job or another for as long as she can remember, justifying the petty crimes as the necessary survival moves of a single mother. But Melanie is ready to give it up. Then Jared Barnett reappears in her life. Fresh out of prison after serving five years of a life sentence for murder, Jared is released on a technicality that by no means proves his innocence. He has the perfect plan for a big score and he needs Melanie's help. But everything goes horribly wrong - and suddenly there's no turning back.

On a midsummer's night, Paula Hook lies awake, her family sleeping nearby. Contemplating a secret she will reveal to her children the next day, she begins a story that is both a celebration of love and a moving acknowledgment of the fragilities, illusions, and secrets on which even our most intimate sense of self can rest.

Now a Special Agent working to eliminate the rogue undead, half-vampire Cat Crawfield reluctantly teams up with Bones, her vampire former lover and mentor, when she is targeted for assassination by a dangerous adversary.

Translated from the German by Krishna Winston. In a great literary experiment, Nobel Prize winner Gunter Grass writes in the voices of his eight children as they record memories of their childhoods, of growing up, and of their father, who was always at work on a new book, always at the margins of their lives. Memories contradictory, critical, loving, accusatory - they piece together an intimate picture of this most public of men, a shadowy but loving figure. There is one constant though: Marie, a family friend and photographer whose snapshots taken with an old-fashioned Agfa box camera provide the author with inspiration for his novels. But her images offer much more; they reveal a truth beyond the ordinary detail of life, depict the future, tell what might have been, and grant the wishes, in visual form, of those photographed. Marie's camera thus becomes a way for Grass to speak in the voices of his children's hidden selves - their dreams, their disappointments, their secret desires and fears - and to see his own life from unexpected perspectives.

Wedding bells are ringing in Fool's Gold, but not for Nevada Hendrix. Her triplet sisters are engaged, and even her mother has a more active love life than she does. Determined to make a fresh start, she applies for her dream job, only to discover that her new boss is her first love. Maybe she could overlook the fact that they've seen each other naked, but she'll never forget the way he broke her heart. Tucker Janack agrees to Nevada's 'business only' ground rules. After all, love is a trap that the construction millionaire has avoided his whole life. But when great business partners turn out to be so much more, every rule gets broken.

A man climbs a cliff face in the oldest inhabited place on earth, a mountain known as the Citadel, a Vatican-like city-state that towers above the city of Ruin in modern-day Turkey. But this is no ordinary ascent: it is a dangerous, symbolic act. And thanks to the media, it is an event witnessed by the entire world. Few people understand its consequence. But for foundation worker Kathryn Mann and a handful of others, it's evidence that a revolution is at hand. For the Sancti, the secretive monks who live inside the Citadel, it could mean the end of everything they have built, and they will stop at nothing--even murder--to keep what is theirs. For American reporter Liv Adamsen, it spurs the memory of the beloved brother she lost years before, setting her on a journey across the world and into the heart of her own identity, where she will make a discovery so shocking that it will change everything.

Detective Eve Dallas and her partner Peabody are following up on a senseless crime: an elderly grocery owner killed by three stoned punks for nothing more than kicks and snacks. But Peabody soon stumbles upon a trickier situation. After a hard workout, she overhears two fellow officers, Garnet and Oberman, arguing. It doesn't take long to realize they're both guilty of murder. Now Peabody and Eve are trying to get the hard evidence they need to bring the dirty cops down.

Cadence Jones is not your typical girl and certainly not your typical FBI agent. But her special "talent" makes Cadence valuable to the FBI, especially when she and her partner get tagged to bring down the Threefer Killer, a serial killer who likes to kill in threes and leave behind inexplicable newspaper clippings but not one shred of decent forensic evidence. In the meantime, love blooms when Cadence meets her best friend's gorgeous brother who is in town visiting, and she discovers he knows her secret too! Suddenly Cadence finds her unbalanced life turned even more upside down as she tries to date a baker who wants to get in her heart and her bed, dodge a pesky psychiatrist, keep a leash on her sociopath partner, and try to catch a serial killer who's now fixated on her. Some days it's not even worth getting up in the morning.

In Christopher Moore's ingenious debut novel, we meet one of the most memorably mismatched pairs in the annals of literature. The good looking one is one hundred year old ex-seminarian and"roads" scholar Travis O'Hearn. The green one is Catch, a demon with a nasty habit of eating most of the people he meets. Being saddled with a demon gives Travis eternal youth and eternal problems. Behind the fake Tudor facade of Pine Cove, California, Catch sees a four-star buffet. Travis, on the other hand, thinks he sees a way of ridding himself of his toothy travelling companion. The winos, neo-pagans, and deadbeat Lotharios of Pine Cove,meanwhile, have other ideas. And none of them is quite prepared when all hell breaks loose.

The fast lane is much too slow for Rachel Walsh, and Manhattan is the perfect place for a young Irish female to overdo everything. But Rachel's love of a good time is about to land her in the emergency room and cost her a job and the boyfriend she adores. When her loving family hustles her back home and checks her into Ireland's answer to the Betty Ford Clinic, Rachel is hopeful. Perhaps it will be lovely-spa treatments, celebrities, that kind of thing. Instead, she finds a lot of group therapy, which leads her, against her will, to some important self-knowledge. She will also find something that all women like herself fear: a man who might actually be good for her.

Published in 1899 by Houghton Mifflin, Chesnutt's first book, The Conjure Woman, was a collection of seven short stories, all set in "Patesville" (Fayetteville), North Carolina. While drawing from local color traditions and relying on dialect, Chesnutt's tales of conjuring, a form of magic rooted in African hoodoo, refused to romanticize slave life or the "Old South." Though necessarily informed by Joel Chandler Harris's popular Uncle Remus stories and Thomas Nelson Page's plantation fiction, The Conjure Woman consciously moved away from these models, instead offering an almost biting examination of pre- and post-Civil War race relations. These seven short stories use a frame narrator, John, a white carpetbagger who has moved south to protect his wife Annie's failing health and to begin cultivating a grape vineyard. Enamored by remnants of the plantation world, John portrays the South in largely idealistic terms. Yet Uncle Julius McAdoo, the ex-slave and "trickster" figure extraordinaire who narrates the internal story lines, presents a remarkably different view of Southern life. His accounts include Aun' Peggy's conjure spells in "Mars Jeems's Nightmare," "Po' Sandy," "Sis' Becky's Pickaninny," and "Hot Foot Hannibal" as well as those of free black conjure men in "The Conjurer's Revenge" and "The Gray Wolf's Ha'nt." These conjure tales reveal moments of active black resistance to white oppression in addition to calculated (and even self-motivated) plots of revenge. (Introduction provided by Documenting the American South)

One hundred years before the current hit musical Hamilton, Mary Hamlin wrote this historical play for Broadway with a big actor of the day, George Arliss, as co-author playing the leading role. It was made into a movie in 1931 with Arliss also playing the lead.

When a teenage girl dies in a suspicious fire, Detective Olivia Sutherland is assigned to track down the arsonist. Then she discovers something more sinister--a vicious blackmailer who preys on young people and murders without hesitation. Making her work even harder is sexy firefighter David Hunter. He's not only sharing the case but sparking memories of their long-ago night of passion, when feelings were left unspoken and hearts were broken. David has his own ghosts and a million regrets. But while he and Olivia try to face the wall of pain between them, a diabolical puppet master is pulling strings to make a group of twentysomethings do his bidding. Soon Olivia and David are scouring the city for a calculating criminal who seems tantalizingly close--and is moving in for the kill.

Premier William Power: Labor politician, ambitious, driven, oblivious to women. Mrs. Helen Pretty: glamorous widow, wealthy landowner, fatally attractive. When Power’s Compulsory Resumption of Estates Bill threatens the home and property of Mrs Pretty, she pays the Premier a visit. Throw in the Leader of the Opposition (who just happens to be Mrs Pretty’s fiancée), an aggressively conservative journalist, and watch scandals unravel.

Joe Martin had been on many salvage operations, but his gut feeling told him this one was different. The insurance company and the beautiful widow of the dead pilot had hired him to find out what he could about the crash, but some things were best left alone. Before long, what should have been a routine mission becomes a hair-raising adventure packed with danger and betrayal. Then a batch of priceless emeralds are thrown into the equation, and Joe's life is on the line.

The story of how it was to love, and be loved by, the most famous and dashing writer of his generation. As each wife struggles with his mistress for Ernest's heart, and a place in his bed, each marriage slips from tenderness to treachery. Each Mrs. Hemingway thought it would last forever. Each one was wrong. It interweaves the love letters, diaries, and telegrams of four very different women into one spellbinding tale.

A wife comes home rather late, finds the door shut, and threatens to kill herself if her husband does not let her in. She pretends to do so; the good man rushes out quite terrified; the wife, meanwhile, sneaks in, and he is in his turn locked out. Add in her idiot parents (Sotenville means Idiot In Town) and this should be the usual madcap fun.

Off the coast of Africa lie the beautiful Canary Islands, a resort destination of millionaires - But underneath this idyllic paradise is one of the most volatile fault lines in the world - There, an alliance between radical Islamic terrorists and a rogue element of the Chinese government is planning to unleash an act of unimaginable geological terrorism.

Fifty-year-old Marcy Taggart's husband has left her for another woman. Devastating as that may be, it hardly compares to the death of her 21-year-old daughter, Devon, in a canoeing accident. Her body was never found in the icy waters of Georgian Bay, and as a result Marcy has never fully accepted her death. Now, in Ireland, Marcy yet again thinks she sees her daughter casually strolling past her on the sidewalk, which will lead to a desperate search to find the truth.

His semiautobiographical first novel, Fitzgerald traces the early life of Amory Blaine from the end of prep school through Princeton to the start of an uncertain career in New York City. Amory yearns to run with Princeton's rich, fast crowd and become one of the "gods" of the campus. Hopelessly romantic, he learns about love and sex from a series of beautiful young "flappers," women who leave him both exhilarated and devastated.

The legendary battle of Agincourt, fought on October 25th 1415, on St Crispin's Day, is one of the best known battles in English history, in part through the brilliant depiction of it in Shakespeare's Henry V, in part because it was a brilliant and unexpected English victory. It was the first battle won by the use of the longbow - a weapon developed by the English which enabled them to dominate the European battlefields for the rest of the century. Bernard Cornwell's Azincourt is a vivid, breathtaking and meticulously well researched account of this momentous battle and its aftermath. From the varying viewpoints of nobles, peasants, archers, and horsemen, Azincourt skilfully brings to life the hours of relentless fighting, the desperation of an army crippled by disease and the exceptional bravery of the English ...

Tess Newhart knows her ex-boyfriend Nick Jamieson isn't the right guy for her. He's caviar and champagne; she's take-out Chinese pot stickers. He's an uptight Republican lawyer; she was raised in a commune. He wants to get ahead in business; she just wants him. But there's no way Tess will play second fiddle to his job. Yet somehow she finds herself agreeing to play his fianč on a weekend business trip that could make or break Nick's career. And while he's trying to convince Tess that he needs her in his respectable world, Tess is doing her best to keep her opinions to herself and her hands off Nick.

Lexie Sinclair yearns for more than her parents' genteel country life. She makes her way to the city, where she meets a magazine editor, Innes, a man unlike any she has ever imagined. He introduces her to the thrilling world of bohemian postwar London, and Lexie learns to become a reporter, to know art and artists, to live fully, unconventionally, and with deep love. And when she finds herself pregnant by a man wholly unsuitable for marriage or fatherhood, she doesn't hesitate a minute to have the baby on her own. Later, in present-day London, a young painter named Elina dizzily navigates the first weeks of motherhood. Her boyfriend, Ted, traumatized by nearly losing her in labor, begins to recover lost memories. At first he cannot place them, but as they emerge, we discover something heartbreaking and beautiful that connects these two stories.

Emma Brown is a happy-go-lucky child, content to work hard at school, and to play hopscotch with her friends on the pavement outside her house in the run-down Nechells area of Birmingham. As long as everything is alright at home with her Ma and Pa, her little sister Joyce and brother Sid, then life is good. But after Em's mother Cynthia has her baby she just doesn't seem to be able to cope. Her life-long friend and neighbour Dot helps as much as she can, but she has children of her own, and no man to hand; Cynthia's husband Bob, too, does his best, but begins to feel that he's losing the wife he has loved so much; and little Em just can't find enough hours in the day to do all the washing and cleaning. Soon, it seems, the only thing is for Cynthia to go and stay across the city with her tyrannical older sister. With Cynthia away, life only gets harder for Em.

Eleanor and Beatrice dream of lovematches but the Dowager insists romantic love is for housemaids, not for the Graceover women. Beatrice, despatched to London to look over the current crop of bachelors, is unimpressed by the frivolities of the Season. Disturbed by the languid charm of Lord Serle and appalled by the mercenary attitudes to marriage displayed by Society, Beatrice's country innocence and unconventional behaviour lead her into some alarming situations. Meanwhile, the beautiful and headstrong Eleanor is up to mischief of her own which is guaranteed to earn the disapproval of her grandmother. A desperate struggle in the potting shed at midnight clears the air; not only does love triumph after all, but the Dowager is not displeased.

1752. As winter approaches, two guilty secrets drive 17-year-old Agnes Trussel to run away from her home in rural Sussex. Pregnant with an unwanted child and carrying stolen coins, she is shocked by the squalor of London. She finds work as an assistant to a firework-maker, John Blacklock. Soon she meets Cornelius Soul, seller of gunpowder, and hatches a plan which could save her. But why does Blacklock disapprove of Mr Soul? And what is Blacklock hiding from her? Meanwhile, her own secret is becoming harder to conceal, especially from the suspicious eye of Mrs Blight, the housekeeper with a thirst for hangings. Caught between her crime and condition it appears that ruin must be inevitable.

Dice Lashmore will do everything he can in in his quest to become rich. The key is, of course, finding a rich wife. This book describes his numerous courtships of women. It also describes the moral decline of a man who has only one goal, and how other people react to it.

Johnson's only novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, was originally published anonymously in 1912. It is a fictional novel written as a memoir of an unnamed biracial narrator who grew up in the South during the Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction eras. It is a story in which the narrator relates how as a young boy he initially assumed that he was white, and how his notions of racial identity were suddenly turned upside down one day—how from that moment on he was inclined to view himself and the world about him from the perspective of blackness. The novel received very little notoriety until Johnson republished it in 1927, this time taking full credit as its author.

On the eve of her wedding day, Madeleine Van Norman, a beautiful young lady who is soon to come into her family fortune is found dead, apparently stabbed with an ominous blood-stained letter opener found nearby. There is nobody within the household who is not considered a suspect by the police, but how could a killer have slipped through the doors of Madeleine’s locked bedroom? It must have been suicide, as a note was found lying on a table near her body. Or was it? An intriguing mystery ensues which hinges on the discovery of a single, all-important clue.

Young Dr Ellis, a struggling new physician, is enjoying a quiet evening smoking and enjoying conversation with his journalist friend Cass, when their mysterious neighbour, Mrs Moxton, bursts in upon them with startling news - her husband has been murdered! Rushing to the scene, the two men discover Mr Moxton, stabbed in the back. They investigate the body thoroughly, but find no real clues to his assailant except for a mysterious series of markings, scrawled in blood on the dead man's sleeve.

Fleeing her 1980s Bronx family home in the wake of her unfaithful father's abandonment and her mother's mental illness, Korean teen Joon struggles through an adolescence marked by homeless shelters, addiction, and demeaning jobs.

In ancient Greek mythology Atlas, a member of the original race of gods called Titans, leads a rebellion against the new deities, the Olympians. For this he incurs divine wrath: the victorious Olympians force Atlas, guardian of the Garden of Hesperides and its golden apples of life, to bear the weight of the earth and the heavens for eternity. When the hero Heracles, as one of his famous twelve labors, is tasked with stealing these apples he seeks out Atlas, offering to shoulder the world temporarily if the Titan will bring him the fruit. Knowing that Heracles is the only person with the strength to take his burden, and enticed by the prospect of even a short-lived freedom, Atlas agrees and an uneasy partnership is born. With her typical wit and verve, Jeanette Winterson brings Atlas into the twenty-first century. Simultaneously, she asks her own difficult questions about the nature of choice and coercion, and how we forge our own destiny.

The Wearle came to Erth to find out what happened to their previous colony, who never returned. Gabrial, a young blue dragon, is desperate to prove his worth. But the dragons aren't alone in the mountains. Out beyond the scorch line, Ren, a young hom boy, is fascinated by the 'skalers'. Little does he know that his fate and theirs are linked in ways he could never have imagined.

The Luck of the Dudley Grahams is the story of the four Graham children and their recently widowed mother, trying to make ends meet by taking boarders into their somewhat eccentric home, as told by 17-year-old Elizabeth to her diary. She chronicles their struggles with the boarders, housekeeping on a very tight budget, and the adventures of her three younger siblings.

Whether it's a curse, or a blessing, or an ability, the fact remains that whenever Roger is injured or in enough pain he crosses over to the land of the dead. Once there, there are rules. Only the newly dead will talk, for example, and nothing will raise the longer dead from their tranquility. There are rules in the land of the living as well, rules which would have Roger hanged for witchcraft if he was ever caught. But refusing to cross over isn't an option. His uncle depends on Roger to hide under the table in their fairground act, listen to the recently bereaved asking questions of their dear departed, and then cross over to find the answers. It's a hard way of life, made all the harder as his uncle's fists usually provide the trigger for Roger to cross over. It's not the only way of life, though, and when Roger sees a chance to escape he fights for it -- little knowing that love, loss, shocking revelations and, ultimately, war lie ahead of him.

The runt of the piglet litter is nicknamed 'Saddlebottom' by the rest of the farm animals because the white marking of a saddleback has slipped a bit. Since he's no good for showing, Saddlebottom is destined for the butchers. But he runs away.

Sophie lives in Gorom-Gorom with her carnivorous-plant obsessed dad. It is not until they have set off that Sophie begins to realise just how dangerous the desert is - it's full of djinns that creep up behind you and jump on your head and make you go mad, not to mention the infamous Moussa ag Litni, a ruthless bandit who steals camels.

Nancy spends the summer with a cousin she hardly knows who has a friend who seems to be a bad influence. Secrets, jealousy and bitterness fill their days until they learn how to believe in themselves and overcome their bitterness when the truth is revealed.

It is early in the days of radio, and amateurs are using it more and more, and using it illegally. Enter Curlie Carson, who has the job of tracking down the miscreants. Sounds boring. You wouldn't expect high speed car chases, kidnapping, double dealing, and maybe even murder.

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III was an awesome sword-fighter, a dragon-whisperer, and the greatest Viking hero who ever lived. But it wasn't always like that. How to Ride a Dragon's Storm looks back to when Hiccup was just an ordinary boy who was finding it very hard to be a hero. Hiccup has three months, five days, and six hours to discover America, get back to Berk, save his father, battle Polarserpents, and win the annual Inter-Tribal Friendly Swimming Race. Can he do it?