At the beginning of the novel, Mona''s sister, Lindy, is getting married for the second time. The date is given as 23 May 1984. Mona is self-conscious of her appearance; she is a bridesmaid. She plays on the fruit machines in the pub in which her family live, and drinks alcohol to help her cope with the day. After the festivities of the day, she goes to a large house in a nearby village. She occasionally tends to the residents'' pony, Willow, though the Fakenhams don''t pay her much attention, or any money. This evening, however, Mr. Fakenham speaks to her and asks her, in rather an awkward manner, to befriend his youngest daughter, Tamsin - she has been sent home from boarding school and seems to be lonely. Mona herself is feeling quite friendless - she refers to ''poor lost Anne-Marie'' as someone who had once been a school-friend. However, they have drifted apart - Mona had lost her mother to cancer a year previously, and she reflects that Anne-Marie was probably emotionally drained by having to support her through her bereavement. However, she thinks it''s a very pitiful state of affairs that Tamsin''s father is actually begging people to be her friend. Despite this, in the days after the wedding, Mona feels lonely and bored. She is off school - it appears to be exam leave - and she decides to visit the Fakenham''s house. She finds Mr. and Mrs. Fakenham in a blazing row. The girls are then left to their own devices. Mona finds herself instantly drawn to - and fascinated by - Tamsin.

My Summer Of Love

In the future, humankind has tried to develop artificial intelligence, succeeding only once, and then disastrously. A transmission from the project site on an island in the Puget Sound, "rogue consciousness!", was followed by slaughter and destruction, culminating in the island vanishing from the face of the earth. The current project is being run on the moon, and the book tells the story of the seventh attempt in a series of experiments to create an artificial consciousness. For each attempt the scientists raise a group of clones. These clones are kept isolated and raised to believe that they will be the crew of a spaceship that will colonize a planet in the Tau Ceti solar system (Tau Ceti has no habitable planet, its choice - should they manage to reach it - is part of the planned frustration of the crew). The spaceship will take hundreds of years to reach the system and the crew will spend most of their time in hibernation. Along with the crew of six, the ship carries thousands of other clones in hibernation, intended to populate the new colony and, if necessary, provide replacements for any crew members who die along the way. The crew are just caretakers: the ship is controlled by a disembodied human brain, called "Organic Mental Core" or "OMC", that runs the complex operations of the vessel and keeps it moving in space. But the first two OMC''s (Myrtle and Little Joe) become catatonic, while the third OMC goes insane and kills two of the umbilicus crew members. The crew are left with only one choice: to build an artificial consciousness that will enable the ship to continue. The crew knows that if they attempt to turn back they will be ordered to abort (self destruct). The clones have been bred and carefully selected for psychological purposes to reinforce each other, as well as to provide various specialized skills that will give them the best chance of success. The crew includes a chaplain-psychiatrist, Raja Flattery, who knows their real purpose, and that the breakdown of the "OMC"s was planned. He''s aware that six other ships have gone out before theirs, each one failing. He understands the nature of the test: create a high pressure environment in which brilliance may break through out of necessity, and create in the safety of the void what humans couldn''t safely create on Earth. Space Ship Earthling number Seven ultimately succeeds, and the consequences of their success form the basis of the plot for the novels which follow. fr:Destination vide he:Destination: Void

Destination: Void

In the winter of 1812 a group of deserters from all the armies of the Peninsular War - French, British, Spanish and Portuguese - descends on the isolated hamlet of Adrados, on the Spanish-Portuguese border, led by Obadiah Hakeswill, the antagonist of Sharpe''s Company, and Pot-au-Feu aka Sergeant Deron, who appears in Sharpe''s Havoc as Marshal Soult''s cook. The seize a number of women on pilgrimage to a convent in the village, including Josefina Lacosta who is travelling as "Lady Farthingdale", and an Madame Dubreton, the English-born wife of a French colonel of cavalry. Sharpe, recently promoted to the rank of Major is sent, with Patrick Harper, to deliver the ransom demanded for the release of Lady Farthingdale. Upon reaching Adrados they meet Colonel Dubreton and his Sergeant on a similar mission. They see both ladies are safe and deliver the ransom but Hakeswill then demands more by the New Year. Colonel and Madame Dubreton are careful not to let the fact that they know each other be picked up by the deserters. Sharpe and Harper note that Adrados is extremely defensible with a castle, a watchtower and a convent all defensible buildings against attack. Madame Dubreton gives Sharpe a clue that she is in the convent. Nairn believes that the deserters will not agree to a release at all regardless of ransom and thinks a rescue is the best option. It is proposed that Sharpe and the Light Company, with two companies of the 60th American Rifles, will attack the watchtower and the convent to free the ladies and then wait for Colonel Kinney to come with his 113th Fusilier Regiment and Sir Augustus to supervise the surrender of the deserters. They propose to capture the convent on Christmas Eve when the deserters will be almost certainly inebriated. They capture the convent and free the women. Unfortunately, Sharpe discovers that multiple French battalions are on their way to capture the village in order to occupy South Portugal. Sharpe decides to make a stand and blackmails Lord Farthingdale into leaving the village, thus making Sharpe the commanding officer. He ingeniously defends the village by setting a trap for the French, using the rockets to destroy a battalion, mining a building, and generally anticipating his enemies'' moves. His wife, a Spanish partisan commander Teresa Moreno, rides to fetch reinforcements who arrive just in time to assist the tiring men. Hakeswill, who was kept as a prisoner, escapes during the last hours of the fight and kills Teresa. Hakeswill tries to desert to the French, but falls in the hands of Dubreton who returns him to Sharpe as a thank you for rescuing the Colonel''s wife. Hakeswill is executed by a firing squad and the last shot at the man is taken by Sharpe himself.

Sharpe''s Enemy

; Ryo is a high school freshman who tends to take people''s words literally. After being hurt several times because she misunderstood someone, she avoids people. She creates an imaginary cell phone, feeling it would be pointless to buy one when no one would call. One day while she is on the bus, however, her imaginary cell phone begins to ring. At the other end is a boy named Shinya who is also calling with an imaginary cell phone. Ryo is shocked and after they disconnect, she tries calling people and connects with a college student named Yumi, who instructs her in the ways of imaginary phones. Though Shinya lives an hour in the past from Ryo, they talk regularly through their imaginary phones, staying constantly connected. Through their friendship, Ryo is able to find her voice and begin talking in the real world. They eventually talk on the real phone, and decide to meet. Ryo takes a bus to the airport, but a car nearly runs her over. Shinya pushes her out of the way and is struck instead. In the ambulance, Shinya dies. Ryo calls Shinya in the past. She tries to save him by saying she hated him on sight, but he sees through her and gets her to admit what happened. He is determined to save her, so they frantically say their good-byes. Ryo goes to his funeral and afterwards finds his locker where he left a cassette radio he''d promised her. Ryo also realizes that Yumi is really her future self. ; An unnamed Boy is put in the special class at school after he attacks a classmate who teased him about the burn mark on his back. The Boy''s father regularly abused him, including leaving the burn on his back by throwing an iron at him. His mother abandoned him, and he now lives with an aunt and uncle he feels don''t care anything about him. In the class, he meets Asato, a quiet boy who rarely talks. Asato''s mother murdered his father and then tried to kill Asato as well. While alone with Asato after school, the Boy hurts himself carving. Asato comes over and touches him, and half the wound leaves the boy''s arm and moves to Asato''s so that they are equally sharing the pain. They become friends that day, and begin exploring the depths of Asato''s powers. After Asato removes a scrape from a little boy''s knee, the child''s mother treats them to ice cream. At the parlor, they meet Shiho, a young woman with a burned face who hides her scars behind a mask. When a kid the Boy had pushed out of a window breaks his arm with a baseball bat, Asato takes that wound as well, but then moves it to the kid with the bat. The Boy decides Asato should move all of his wounds to his father, who is lying unconscious and dying in the hospital. Whenever gets new injuries, the Boy would take Asato there to use his father''s dying body as a "dumping ground." Eventually, they share the secret of Asato''s powers with Shiho and she asks Asato to remove the burn for just three days so she can remember what its like to live without it. She leaves town afterward, however, and Asato sinks into a depression. No one can stand looking at him with the scar on his face, even the Boy, so they go to the hospital to give it to the Boy''s father. However, when the arrive, they find he had just died. The Boy cries for him, and asks Asato to move all the scars back from his father''s body to him instead. Asato says he can''t and runs, and the Boy realizes Asato had never given any of the wounds to his father after all. Asato runs from through the hospital, curing everyone he touches and taking on their wounds. The Boy realizes Asato wants to die because he thinks no one wants him. Outside, he takes on the fatal wounds of an accident victim, but the Boy convinces him to give him half, just like the day they became friends, so that they could share the pain equally. The wounds are serious and both spend a long time in the hospital, but during the stay the Boy comes to the conclusion that Asato was given the power because he had a pure heart, and that he wants Asato to always know someone is there willing to share his pain. ; A patient at a hospital finds a flower with the face of a girl, that hums a beautiful melody.

Calling You novel

In the second installment of the "Alphabet Mysteries", private investigator Kinsey Millhone is hired by Beverly Danziger to locate her missing sister, Elaine Boldt, whose name is needed on some paperwork regarding an inheritance. Elaine was last seen getting into a cab with the intention of flying down to Boca Raton, Florida, where she spends her winters, but appears to have disappeared along the way. It seems a relatively straightforward matter, so much so that Kinsey is not sure Beverly needs a PI, but she agrees to take the case. Things are not as easy as they seem however, as Kinsey can find no trace of Elaine anywhere in Florida, although she does find a woman called Pat Usher, who claims Elaine agreed to let her sublet the Boca Raton apartment where Elaine lived while she was off travelling. This claim rings false to Kinsey, since no one but Pat Usher has received a postcard from Elaine on her supposed trip, so she secures the able detective assistance of Elaine''s elderly neighbour, Julia, to keep an eye on things in Florida while she goes back to California. Kinsey suspects there is a link between Elaine''s disappearance and the death of her Santa Teresa neighbour, Marty Grice, who was apparently killed by burglars who then set fire to the Grice home a week before Elaine left. Someone breaks into the home of Elaine''s Santa Teresa apartment supervisor, Tilly, apparently on the track of some bills of Elaine''s which Tilly was holding ready to forward on to her. Someone also searches Kinsey''s apartment, and Kinsey realises it is Elaine''s passport which the thief is after. Gravely concerned for Elaine''s safety, Kinsey suggests to Beverly that Elaine''s disappearance should be reported to the police, but Beverly objects so violently that Kinsey terminates their relationship and starts working for Julia instead. Kinsey reports the disappearance and meets Jonah Robb, a recently-separated cop working on missing persons - but despite her attraction to him she is reluctant to get involved. A visit from Beverly''s husband, Aubrey, complicates matters further, as it turns out he was having an affair with Elaine, which Beverly had discovered, and Kinsey begins to wonder if Beverly herself could have had a hand in Elaine''s disappearance. Kinsey becomes increasingly convinced that Elaine is dead, and that Pat Usher is involved. Pat has now disappeared, after totally trashing the Boca Raton apartment. Eventually, she discovers that Pat Usher has applied for a driving licence in Elaine''s name, thus proving Pat''s involvement. Marty''s nephew Mike, a teenage drug dealer, confesses that he was at the Grice home the night of the murder, and from the discrepancy in times between his account and what was told to the police, Kinsey realises that it was Elaine who died in the Grice fire, not Marty. Marty and her husband killed Elaine to steal her identity (which Marty assumed) and her money. They then passed Elaine''s dead body off as Marty''s by switching the dental records. Marty departed for Florida as Elaine, and arrived as Pat Usher, with some cosmetic surgery to help. Having been unable to find Elaine''s passport, she and her husband have been forced to wait for a new one to come through before they can skip the country. Kinsey returns to the Grice home to look for the murder weapon, but while she is there, the Grices find her. Kinsey is shot in the left arm during the fight that ensues, but she manages to detain the two criminals, and calls for help.

"B" Is for Burglar

The novel is set in the near future of 2013, where China has entered a "Golden Age of Ascendancy," while Western nations have stagnated after a second economic crisis in early 2011. Lao Chen, a Hong Kong expatriate and writer living in Beijing, finds himself enjoying the atmosphere of prosperity and contentment. Though suffering from writer''s block, he makes a modest living off renting apartments and attends monthly film screenings held at a restaurant owned by his friend Jian Lin (and attended by an insomniac Politburo member named He Dongsheng). Lao gradually find himself pulled into events by his old friend Fang Caodi, who is frantically searching for the missing month of February 2011 (with official records and public memory jumping from January to March), and his former flame Wei Xihong (known as "Little Xi"), a former public security bureau lawyer who now acts as an Internet activist. Lao''s feelings of contentment begin to vanish as he listens to Wei and Fang''s partial recollections of February 2011 and discovers that any available literature about the Cultural Revolution and political issues of the 1980s (including the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989) are either highly sanitized or unavailable. Lao and Fang eventually follow Wei to the township of Warm Springs, where she is helping a house church negotiate with the local government. After Lao confesses his love to Wei, they return to Beijing. After another film screening at Jian''s restaurant, Lao is inadvertently pulled into a kidnapping of He Dongsheng by Fang, Wei, and Zhang Dou (an aspiring guitarist who also recalls February 2011), who are determined to understand the meaning of the missing month. After Dongsheng and the others agree their situation means they will "live or die together" (with Dongsheng''s disappearance automatically throwing suspicion onto Lao, but Dongsheng admitting his kidnapping would throw cause suspicion of revealing state secrets), they begin to discuss China''s present situation. Dongsheng explains that, with growing challenges to the Communist Party''s legitimacy and authority, the decision was made in the midst of the financial crisis to enact his "Action Plan for Ruling the Nation and Pacifying the World." For one week, all government services and forces were forbidden to intervene without express permission, with widespread upheaval and rumor mongering only ending with the reentry of the People''s Liberation Army and armed police. The restoration of order and ensuing crackdown helped cement the necessity of the Communist Party in the public mind. Dongsheng further explains that the Chinese government was able to save their economy with intrusive measures such as the conversion of large percentages of national bank savings accounts to expiring vouchers; large-scale deregulation; strengthening property rights; crackdowns on corruption, counterfeit consumer goods, and "misinformation," and price controls (citing those by Walther Rathenau in World War I Germany and in World War II America). This is coupled with a foreign policy calling for a "Chinese Monroe Doctrine," with East Asia developing under Chinese direction; advocating non-interventionist economic cooperation and political stability in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia; and even signing a non-aggression pact with Japan. Backing up these challenges to American hegemony is a new "first use" nuclear weapons policy. Dongsheng even reveals that the general atmosphere of contentment is due to the controlled addition of the drug MDMA into the public''s drinking water and bottled drinks and that the missing month of February 2011 is simply a case of social amnesia. After unsuccessfully arguing with Dongsheng over the benefits of liberal democracy, Fang, Zhang, Wei, and Lao release him and part ways in the early morning.

The Fat Years

The book begins with Dexter being observed in the act of dismembering a pedophile by an unknown witness who evades Dexter''s attempt to apprehend them. Meanwhile, an undercover cop is found in the front seat of his car, every bone in his body broken. Dexter''s sister, Deb, begs Dexter to help her solve the case. Dexter, at this point, is unable to help. There is a taco wrapper found near the body. Another police officer is found in front of a fountain near the water. He is also significantly pulverized. Rita, in the interim, has started drinking wine and is suspicious of Dexter heading out every night. He says he is running, when in actuality, he is searching for the person who witnessed his playtime. Dexter has also been contacted through a blog by the person who is watching him. The Shadow, as Dexter calls him, tells Dexter that he knows who he is, and he will be killed in a horrible fashion soon enough. Debra catches the cop-killer and arrests him. Later, Camilla Figg, who works with Dexter in Miami Metro and has a crush on Dexter, is murdered in a fashion similar to the police officers. This is the Shadow, trying to set up Dexter, which he admits to in his blog to Dexter. Dexter is the prime suspect, and Rita accuses him of sleeping with her. Dexter asks his brother Brian to intervene, and Brian, unbeknownst to him, kills the wrong man. Eventually, the Shadow follows Dexter to Key West, where he proceeds to kill another police officer and leave him in Dexter''s suite. The Shadow takes Astor and Cody to an island to set a trap for Dexter. But Dexter gets to the island first and confronts the Shadow. The Shadow runs with Astor in his arms onto a boat and sets off with Dexter managing to barely get on the boat as well. A fight ensues and Astor and Dexter eventually subdue the Shadow, tossing him overboard where he is eaten by a shark. Deb meets Dexter back in Key West, and everything is set to order. fr:Double Dexter it:Doppio Dexter pt:Double Dexter

Double Dexter

The Promise of Eden tells the story of a young boy, Gregory Coleman, who lives in the small town of New Harmony, Indiana. He is raised less by his largely indifferent parents than by a seemingly kind spirit who masquerades as his imaginary playmate named Anna. Anna teaches Gregory about life and love, while secretly preparing him for a journey she needs him to take to a mysterious world called Ibscaca. Anna is further aided by Joseph, an enigmatic hermit with mysterious ties to the small town. At first Gregory accepts Anna at face value, but as Gregory ages and matures he begins to question Anna''s true nature and motives. The fates of both Gregory and Anna are further complicated by the malevolent intentions of Sylvie, a 200-year-old poltergeist which also inhabits the Coleman household. Sylvie is a decidedly evil entity with aspirations of becoming a goddess. While Anna and Sylvie often find it necessary to work together, their relationship is not one of friendship and trust, and their ultimate goals are not the same. As Gregory continues to grow up, he begins to devote less time to Anna. He also begins to develop and explore his sexuality, beginning a relationship with a boy his own age named Jason. Anna, who at first encouraged Gregory to develop other friendships outside their own, begins to see that his new social life is jeopardizing her plans. When Anna''s true plans for Gregory are finally revealed, the decisions he makes have a dramatic impact on both Gregory''s own world, and that of Ibscaca.

The Promise of Eden

When a beloved former First Lady dies, an elaborate funeral is held at St. Patrick''s Cathedral in New York City. Many famous people, including actors and politicians, attend. During the service, gunmen seal the cathedral and take all of the celebrities inside hostage. Knowing that each of their captives is enormously wealthy, they demand a ransom from each captive personally. While the lawyers, families, and talent agents of each of the famous captives assembles their ransom, the gunmen periodically kill and toss out hostages, including the current Mayor of New York City. NYPD Detective Michael Bennett is the lead negotiator with the gunmen. Through the course of his involvement, he consults with the FBI, goes on a botched raid of the cathedral in which an FBI agent and an NYPD officer die, and deals with the death of his cancer-stricken wife. When the gunmen receive their ransom, they demand a fleet of identical-looking sedans be brought to the cathedral. The NYPD provides the sedans with the intent of using snipers to kill each gunman as he exits the cathedral. Unfortunately, everyone emerges from the cathedral dressed identically in hoods and robes—it is impossible to differentiate gunman from hostage. The hostages and gunmen pile into each of the sedans and drive off. Bennett and the NYPD and FBI follow from helicopters as the sedans travel a route that the gunmen had demanded be blocked off. From the helicopter, Bennett struggles to figure out where the sedans are going. Eventually the sedans break off in to two groups—one headed east and one west. Neither group of sedans stops and both eventually end up careening into the Hudson and East rivers. Once submerged, the gunmen escape with the help of SCUBA equipment they stashed in the rivers earlier. The hostages all surface and are rescued. One sedan, however, did not make it to a river, having instead been hijacked by the hostages inside. The sedan crashes into a car dealership where the gunman inside dies after being impaled on a motorcycle''s handlebars. Even though the dead gunman has gone to great lengths to hide his identity (by burning his fingerprints off, for example), the NYPD and FBI are able to determine his identity and that he was a corrections officer at the infamous Sing Sing prison. Bennett and other officers travel to Sing Sing and determine that a group of corrections officers staged a sick out on the morning of the cathedral incident. The lead gunman then reveals himself as one of the officers escorting Bennett around the prison and proceeds to beat Bennett up. The beating ends when Bennett throws the gunman up against a cell and the prisoner inside, seeking retribution against the gunman''s cruelty as a prison guard, puts the gunman in a chokehold. Bennett manages to free the lead gunman and the story ends with Bennett driving him back to face charges in New York City.

Step on a Crack

Spenser is approached by a beautiful blonde widow who wants him to find the identity of the murderer of her late husband. He agrees, but this case will take him away from Boston to Arizona and the resort town of Potshot. Questioning all of the victim''s acquaintances yields little information. However, the couple had just recently moved from Los Angeles, so Spenser heads there to talk to their old neighbors. His visit there is very fruitful, but raises as many questions as it answers. Returning to Potshot, Spenser follows-up on what he found out from old neighbors in LA. Meanwhile, he is investigating a band of thugs that live on the outskirts of town in an area called "The Dell". Everyone is convinced that they killed the victim, and had publicly threatened him. "The Dell" gang is led by a man who calls himself The Preacher. He organized the gang from a ragtag group of drunks and junkies. Now, with leadership, they are bullying the townspeople and extorting protection money from local businesses. After a public confrontation with the gang, the town''s leaders ask Spenser if he can rid the town of the menace. They agree to pay a healthy sum for the service, so Spenser forms a small private band of mercenaries composed of several associates, most of them criminals or people with criminal backgrounds. But he hires them for their shooting skills, which will be needed for the coming battle. The further Spenser digs, however, he finds that all is not what it seems in Potshot and the killing of the widow''s husband may just be the tip of the iceberg of a much larger conspiracy.

Potshot

In the not-too-distant future, a cold war threatens to turn hot. Colonization of Mars seems to be mankind''s only hope of surviving certain Armageddon. To facilitate this, the American government begins a cyborg program to create a being capable of surviving the harsh Martian environment: Man Plus. After the death of the first candidate, due to the project supervisors forgetting to enhance his brain''s ability to process sensory input to cope with the new stimuli he is receiving, Roger Torraway becomes the heart of the program. In order to survive in the thin Martian atmosphere, Roger Torraway''s body must be replaced with an artificial one. At every step he becomes more and more disconnected from humanity, unable to feel things in his new body. It is only after arriving on Mars that his new body begins to make sense to him. It is perfectly adapted to this new world, and thus he becomes perfectly separated from his old world, and from humanity. The success of the Martian mission spurs similar cyborg programs in other spacefaring nations. It is revealed that the computer networks of Earth have become sentient, and that ensuring humanity''s survival will guarantee theirs as well. In the end, the network is puzzled...it appears that something else was behind the push to space, a mystery even to the machines.

Man Plus

In the 1960s, young Celia Marsdon is a rich American heiress who, upon her marriage to English aristocrat Richard Marsdon, goes to live at an ancestral manor in Sussex, England. Shortly afterward, strange things begin to occur &mdash; Richard begins acting out of character, and Celia starts to have strange fits and visions. Celia''s mother, Lily Taylor, has befriended a Hindu guru, Dr. Akananda, and it is he who discovers what''s wrong with the young couple. The troubles of the present time can only be solved by revisiting a tragedy from the past. The book then moves back in time to the reign of Edward VI, as lovely young Celia de Bohun and her guardian aunt take up residence with the noble, Catholic family of Anthony Browne as "poor relations." Celia is a fascinating and believable character, full of contradictions and human failings. She is headstrong and impulsive; innocent but coquettish; and can easily attract male attention. She creates a scandal when she becomes infatuated with the family chaplain, Stephen Marsdon, who in turn desires Celia but does not want to break his vow of chastity. They are forced to part, but never forget each other. Time passes; King Edward dies and his persecution of Catholics ends, only to follow by his successor, Queen Mary I''s persecution of Protestants; the Browne family fortunes prosper under the Marian reign; and sympathetic characters harden into detestable ones. When Celia and Stephen finally meet again, nothing can stop the passion between them. It ends tragically. The Tudor story and the narrative returns to the 1960s to find resolution in the present and lay to rest the tormented souls of Stephen and Celia so that Richard and his wife can live together happily without visions of their past lives coming between them.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

My Summer Of Love

By Helen Cross

Destination: Void

By Frank Herbert

Sharpe's Enemy

By Bernard Cornwell

Calling You novel

By Otsu-ichi

"B" Is for Burglar

By Sue Grafton

The Fat Years

No Author Listed

Double Dexter

By Jeff Lindsay

The Promise of Eden

By Eric Durchholz

Step on a Crack

By M. T. Coffin

Potshot

By Robert B. Parker

Man Plus

By Frederik Pohl

Green Darkness

By Anya Seton