The Art Of War

The Art Of War

O Livro The Art Of War , trata de, A terrifying psychological trip into the life of one Joseph K., an ordinary man who wakes up one day to find himself accused of a crime he did not commit, a crime whose nature is never revealed to him. Once arrested, he is released, but must report to court on a regular basis – an event that proves maddening, as nothing is ever resolved. As he grows more uncertain of his fate, his personal life – including work at a bank and his relations with his landlady and a young woman who lives next door – becomes increasingly unpredictable. As K. tries to gain control, he succeeds only in accelerating his own excruciating downward spiral.Calvino tells the mingled tales of The Castle of Crossed Destinies by means of tarot cards. Travellers meet in a castle – or, in a second section, a tavern – where their powers of speech are magically taken from them and a tarot card is placed at their disposal-Ingenious’ New YorkerThe Castle is the story of K., the unwanted Land Surveyor who is never to be admitted to the Castle nor accepted in the village, and yet cannot go home. As he encounters dualities of certainty and doubt, hope and fear, and reason and nonsense, K.’s struggles in the absurd, labyrinthine world where he finds himself seem to reveal an inexplicable truth about the nature of existence. Kafka began The Castle in 1922 and it was never finished, yet this, the last of his three great novels, draws fascinating conclusions that make it feel strangely complete.”Truly deserving of the accolade Modern Classic, Donna Tartt’s cult bestseller The Secret History is a remarkable achievement – incredibly compelling, dramatic and playful.Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and for ever, and they discover how hard it can be to truly live and how easy it is to kill.””Discover Thomas Pynchon’s brilliant writing in this postmodern literature classic. ‘The greatest, wildest author of his generation’ GuardianWe could tell you the year is 1944, that the main character is called Tyrone Slothrop and that he has a problem because bombs are falling across Europe and crashing to the earth at the exact locations of his sexual conquests. But that doesn’t really begin to cover it. Reading this book is like falling down a rabbit hole into an outlandish, sinister, mysterious, absurd, compulsive netherworld. As The Financial Times said, ‘you must forget earlier notions about life and letters and even the Novel.’ Forty years since its publication, Gravity’s Rainbow has lost none of its power to enthral.”Disdainful of America’s booming commercialism and industrialism, Henry David Thoreau left Concord, Massachusetts in 1845 to live in solitude in the woods near Walden Pond. Walden, the account of his stay, conveys at once a naturalist’s wonder at the commonplace and a Transcendentalist’s yearning for spiritual truth and self-reliance. But even as Thoreau disentangled himself from worldly matters, his musings were often disturbed by his social conscience. Civil Disobedience, also included in this volume, expresses his antislavery and antiwar sentiments and has influenced non-violent resistance movements worldwide. Both give a rewarding insight into a free-minded, principled and idiosyncratic man.”Is Sophie Fevvers, toast of Europe’s capitals, part swan…or all fake?Courted by the Prince of Wales and painted by Toulouse-Lautrec, she is an aerialiste extraordinaire and star of Colonel Kearney’s circus. She is also part woman, part swan. Jack Walser, an American journalist, is on a quest to discover the truth behind her identity. Dazzled by his love for her, and desperate for the scoop of a lifetime, Walser has no choice but to join the circus on its magical tour through turn-of-the-nineteenth-century London, St Petersburg and Siberia.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SARAH WATERS**One of the BBC’s 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**’A spellbinding achievement’ Literary Review””Discover Angela Carter’s classic feminist retelling of favourite fairy tales interwoven by a master of seductive, luminous storytelling.From familiar fairy tales and legends – Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires and werewolves – Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories.’Magnificent set pieces of fastidious sensuality’ Ian McEwan’A quirky, original, and baroque stylist’ Margaret AtwoodFeaturing an introduction from award-winning short story writer Helen Simpson””Isherwood’s short, poignant novel is a tender and wistful love story Celebrated as a masterpiece from its first publication, A Single Man is the story of George, an English professor in suburban California left heartbroken after the death of his lover, Jim. With devastating clarity and humour, Isherwood shows George’s determination to carry on, evoking the unexpected pleasures of life as well as the soul’s ability to triumph over loneliness and alienation.’A virtuoso piece of work…courageous…powerful’ Sunday Times’This mix of humour and stoicism in the face of pent-up grief is essential Isherwood’ Guardian””‘[The Gulag Archipelago] helped to bring down an empire. Its importance can hardly be exaggerated’ Doris Lessing, Sunday Telegraph WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY JORDAN B. PETERSONA vast canvas of camps, prisons, transit centres and secret police, of informers and spies and interrogators but also of everyday heroism, The Gulag Archipelago is Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s grand masterwork. Based on the testimony of some 200 survivors, and on the recollection of Solzhenitsyn’s own eleven years in labour camps and exile, it chronicles the story of those at the heart of the Soviet Union who opposed Stalin, and for whom the key to survival lay not in hope but in despair.A thoroughly researched document and a feat of literary and imaginative power, this edition of The Gulag Archipelago was abridged into one volume at the author’s wish and with his full co-operation. ‘Solzhenitsyn’s masterpiece…The Gulag Archipelago helped create the world we live in today’ Anne Applebaum THE OFFICIALLY APPROVED ABRIDGEMENT OF THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO VOLUMES I, II & III””Discover Toni Morrison’s most iconic work in this Pulitzer-prize winning novel that exemplifies her powerful and important place in contemporary American literature.‘An American masterpiece’ AS ByattIt is the mid-1800s and as slavery looks to be coming to an end, Sethe is haunted by the violent trauma it wrought on her former enslaved life at Sweet Home, Kentucky. Her dead baby daughter, whose tombstone bears the single word, Beloved, returns as a spectre to punish her mother, but also to elicit her love. Told with heart-stopping clarity, melding horror and beauty, Beloved is Toni Morrison’s enduring masterpiece.‘Toni Morrison was a giant of her times and ours…“Beloved,” is a heartbreaking testimony to the ongoing ravages of slavery, and should be read by all’ Margaret Atwood, New York Times ‘The literary titan we must never stop learning from’ MetroWinner of the PEN/Saul Bellow award for achievement in American fiction**One of the BBC’s 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**””A beautiful fairytale filled with unexpected plot twists. Gormenghast is the vast, crumbling castle to which the seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan, is lord and heir. Titus is expected to rule this gothic labyrinth of turrets and dungeons (and his eccentric and wayward subjects) according to strict age-old rituals, but things are changing in the castle. Titus must contend with treachery, manipulation and murder as well as his own longing for a life beyond the castle walls.””Fifty-five fictional cities, each described in beautiful detail – each with a woman’s name… In Invisible Cities Marco Polo conjures up cities of magical times for his host, the Chinese ruler Kublai Khan, but gradually it becomes clear that he is actually describing one city: Venice. As Gore Vidal wrote ‘Of all tasks, describing the contents of a book is the most difficult and in the case of a marvellous invention like Invisible Cities, perfectly irrelevant.’This is a captivating meditation on culture, language, time, memory and the nature of human experience.’Invisible Cities changed the way we read and what is possible in the balance between poetry and prose… The book I would choose as pillow and plate, alone on a desert island’ Jeanette Winterson’Touches inexhaustibly on the essence of the human urge to create cities, be in cities, speak of cities’ Guardian’A subtle and beautiful meditation’ Sunday Times””Avery’s fortune, life, and loves are on the line in the game that everyone will be talking about. To inherit billions, all Avery has to do is survive a few more weeks in Hawthorne House. The paparazzi are dogging her every step. Financial pressures are building. Danger is a fact of life. And the only thing getting Avery through it all is the Hawthorne brothers. Her life is intertwined with theirs. She knows their secrets, and they know her. But as the clock ticks down to when Avery will become the richest teenager on the planet, trouble arrives in the form of a visitor who needs her help-and whose presence in Hawthorne House could change everything. It soon becomes clear that there is one last puzzle to solve, and Avery and the Hawthorne brothers are drawn into a dangerous game against an unknown and powerful player. Secrets upon secrets. Riddles upon riddles. In this game, there are hearts and lives at stake – and there is nothing more Hawthorne than winning.””Intrigue, riches, and romance abound in this thrilling sequel to the New York Times bestselling The Inheritance Games, perfect for fans of Karen McManus and Holly Jackson. The Inheritance Games ended with a bombshell, and now heiress Avery Grambs has to pick up the pieces and find the man who might hold the answers to all of her questions – including why Tobias Hawthorne left his entire fortune to Avery, a virtual stranger, rather than to his own daughters or grandsons. As the mystery grows and the plot thickens, Grayson and Jameson, the enigmatic and magnetic Hawthorne grandsons, continue to pull Avery in different directions. And there are threats lurking around every corner, as adversaries emerge who will stop at nothing to see Avery out of the picture – by any means necessary. With nonstop action, aspirational jet-setting, family intrigue, swoonworthy romance, and billions of dollars hanging in the balance, The Hawthorne Legacy will thrill Jennifer Lynn Barnes fans and new readers alike.””She came from nothing.Avery has a plan: keep her head down, work hard for a better future. Then an eccentric billionaire dies, leaving her almost his entire fortune. And no one, least of all Avery, knows why.They had everything.Now she must move into the mansion she’s inherited. It’s filled with secrets and codes, and the old man’s surviving relatives – a family hell-bent on discovering why Avery got ‘their’ money.Now there’s only one rule: winner takes all.Soon she is caught in a deadly game that everyone in this strange family is playing.But just how far will they go to keep their fortune?””Written in secret during the darkest days of Stalin’s reign, The Master and Margarita became an overnight literary phenomenon when it was finally published it, signalling artistic freedom for Russians everywhere. Bulgakov’s carnivalesque satire of Soviet life describes how the Devil, trailing fire and chaos in his wake, weaves himself out of the shadows and into Moscow one spring afternoon. Brimming with magic and incident, it is full of imaginary, historical, terrifying and wonderful characters, from witches, poets and biblical tyrants to the beautiful, courageous Margarita, who will do anything to save the imprisoned writer she loves.Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, with an Introduction by Richard Pevear”Katherine Mansfield’s perceptive and resonant writing helped to define the modern short story, observing apparently trivial incidents to create quietly devastating revelations of inner lives. Graceful, delicate and burning with emotion, Mansfield’s stories were integral in shaping the Modernist movement and redefined a genre. This collection contains some of Mansfield’s most celebrated stories, including ‘Bliss’, ‘The Garden Party’ and ‘The Daughters of the Late Colonel’.The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim’s brilliant, irrepressible novella, tells the tale of four very different women who, on answering an advertisement in The Times, find themselves far away from the drizzle of London and instead in the warmth of an Italian sun. There, alongside the lapping of the Mediterranean, the women’s spirits begin to shift, and quite unexpected changes take place.”Like his Viennese contemporary Sigmund Freud, the doctor and writer Arthur Schnitzlerwas a bold pioneer in exploring the dark tangled roots of human consciousness. His novella Dream Story tells the tale of a young married man who, after a discussion with his wife about their fantasises, embarks on a eery reverie through Vienna’s underbelly.”Regarded as one of world literature’s foremost novelists, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s short stories are also some of the best ever written. ‘White Nights’ tells of love and loss on the streets of St. Petersburg, ‘A Nasty Business’ presents the hilarious tale of a general dropping in on the wedding of a subordinate, while ‘The Meek One’ is an existentialist tale of marriage and tragedy.Drifters in search of work, George and his childlike friend Lennie have nothing in the world except the clothes on their back – and a dream that one day they will have some land of their own. Eventually they find work on a ranch in California’s Salinas Valley, but their hopes are dashed as Lennie becomes a victim of his own strength. Tackling universal themes of friendship and shared vision, and giving a voice to America’s lonely and dispossessed, Of Mice and Men remains Steinbeck’s most popular work, achieving success as a novel, Broadway play and three acclaimed films.”Greetings to you, the lucky finder of this Gold Ticket from Mr Willy Wonka! Tremendous things are in store for you!Charlie Bucket’s life is about to change forever, thanks to one miraculous moment!Willy Wonka, chocolate maker extraordinaire, has hidden five golden tickets in five ordinary bars of chocolate, and any child who finds one will get the chance to visit his incredible factory.And Charlie has found one . . . But so have . . .Augustus Gloop – a glutton for chocolateVeruca Salt – a spoiled and selfish bratViolet Beauregarde – a repulsive gum-chewerMike Teavee – a television fiendWith a chocolate river, delectable confectionery and mysterious Oompa Loompas, Mr Wonka’s factory is the most wondrous place Charlie has ever seen.””These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: you are not alone.Matilda is a brilliant child with a magical mind.But her parents have decided she’s just a nuisance who wastes too much time on reading and stories.And her headmistress Miss Trunchbull is a terrible bully, who thinks children are rotten and awful and should be locked up.Now it’s time for Matilda to find the power to change her story, and show them just how extraordinary children can be . . .”Laurence Sterne’s great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire defies any attempt to categorize it. Part novel, part digression, its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate ‘hero’ Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter, the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby and a host of other characters.”Tara Chen has had her heart broken ten times, by ten different men. Nevertheless, she is still determined to find her perfect match. The only problem? Tara is a romance novel obsessive, and her standards are sky high.Modern dating apps have killed the meet-cute, so Tara decides to revisit her exes – all ten of them – in the hope of finding her very own trope-worthy second-chance romance. And every heroine needs a sidekick, so she enlists her new flatmate, firefighter Trevor.Trevor Metcalfe is the first to rush into a burning building but the last to rush into a relationship. Love just isn’t his thing. But, the more time they spend together, the more Trevor appreciates Tara’s authentic, dramatic self.Can they break the habits of a lifetime and give their spark a chance?””When Silas Bird wakes in the dead of night, he watches powerlessly as three strangers take his father away. Silas is left shaken, scared and alone, except for the presence of his companion, Mittenwool . . . who happens to be a ghost. But then a mysterious pony shows up at his door, and Silas knows what he has to do. So begins a perilous journey to find his father – a journey that will connect him with his past, his future, and the unknowable world around him.PONY is destined to become a future classic.””Once I had four brothers. Three of them are dead. I am next. Felix Ashe is sure of only one thing. In thirty days, on his eighteenth birthday, he will die. He might be the only one convinced of this, but the gruesome deaths of his three brothers before him seem to point to only one thing: a curse, one doomed to stop anyone inheriting his family’s incredible fortune.Felix doesn’t care about money, or himself, particularly. It’s hard to have a stake in the future when you know you haven’t got one. But he does care about his little brother Nick, very much. And when an opportunity to break the curse appears to present itself, it’s impossible not to heed its dark call.Soon long-buried secrets will take Felix to the darkest underbelly of Jazz-Age New York, to the far-flung wilds of the Yorkshire moors and back again. And bound to everything is a deadly secret society who will either be Felix’s downfall . . . or his one chance at redemption.”The marriage of Gertrude and Walter Morel has become a battleground. Repelled by her uneducated and sometimes violent husband, delicate Gertrude devotes her life to her children, especially to her sons, William and Paul – determined they will not follow their father into working down the coal mines. But conflict is evitable when Paul seeks to escape his mother’s suffocating grasp through relationships with women his own age. Set in Lawrence’s native Nottinghamshire, Sons and Lovers (1913) is a highly autobiographical and compelling portrayal of childhood, adolescence and the clash of generations.Women in Love is widely regarded as D. H. Lawrence’s greatest novel. The novel continues where The Rainbow left off with the third generation of Brangwens: Ursula Brangwen, now a teacher at Beldover, a mining town in the Midlands, and her sister Gudrun, who has returned from art school in London. The focus of the novel is primarily on their relationships, Ursula’s with Rupert Birkin, a school inspector, though he gives that up, and Gudrun’s with Gerald Crich, an industrialist, and later with a sculptor, Loerke.Dorothy Parker was the most talked-about woman of the decadent 1920s, notorious as a hard-drinking bad girl with a talent for endlessly quotable one-liners. In the stories collected here, she brilliantly captures the spirit of the decadent Jazz Age in New York, exposing both the dazzle and the darkness. This selection includes among others ‘The Standard of Living’, ‘Mr Durant’ and her masterpiece, ‘Big Blonde’.Karen Blixen, author of the acclaimed memoir Out of Africa, was also a master of the short story form: her tales offer luminous meditations on rebirth and redemption, on the mystery and unexpectedness of human behaviour. Alongside ‘Babette’s Feast’, this selection also includes ‘Sorrow-Acre’, often thought to be one of her finest stories.Holly Golightly is a glittering socialite mover and shaker: generally upwards, sometimes sideways and, every now and then, down. She’s up all night drinking cocktails and breaking hearts. She’s a shoplifter, a delight, a drifter, a tease. In short, she’s an icon. Truman Capote’s most famous work, Breakfast at Tiffany’s is the ultimate ode to dreamers.Constance Chatterley feels trapped in her sexless marriage to the invalid Sir Clifford. Unable to fulfil his wife emotionally or physically, Clifford encourages her to have a liaison with a man of their own class. But Connie is attracted instead to her husband’s gamekeeper and embarks on a passionate affair that brings new life to her stifled existence. Can she find a true equality with Mellors, despite the vast gulf between their positions in society? One of the most controversial novels in English literature, Lady Chatterley’s Lover is an erotically charged and psychologically powerful depiction of adult relationships.”I’m the type which every man imagines he wants, until he gets me; and then he finds he doesn’t really, after all’Goodbye to Berlin is the novella that inspired Cabaret, evoking the glamour and sleaze, excess and repression of Berlin society. Isherwood shows the lives of people under threat from the rise of the Nazis: a wealthy Jewish heiress, Natalia Landauer, a gay couple, Peter and Otto, and an English upper-class waif, the divinely decadent Sally Bowles.VINTAGE DECO: Nine blazing, daring novels to celebrate the 1920s – 100 years on. “”Puffin Clothbound Classics are stunningly beautiful hardback editions of the most famous stories in the world, now including a beautiful 70th anniversary edition of Charlotte’s Web, the poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.This is the story of a little girl named Fern who loved a little pig named Wilbur and of Wilbur’s dear friend, Charlotte A. Cavatica, a beautiful large grey spider. With the unlikely help of Templeton the rat, and a wonderfully clever plan of her own, Charlotte saves the life of Wilbur, who by this time has grown up to be quite a pig. A time-honoured classic favourite.””Roger Lancelyn Green’s classic retelling of the adventures of the Greek Heroes has been in print for over 60 years and now a stunning Puffin Clothbound edition is available for readers and collectors.Discover the mysterious and exciting legends of the gods and heroes in Ancient Greece, from the adventures of Perseus, the labours of Heracles, the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts, to Odysseus and the Trojan wars.””The book that won Ernest Hemingway the Nobel Prize for Literature’It’s silly not to hope. It’s a sin he thought’Set in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Havana, Hemingway’s magnificent fable is the tale of an old man, a young boy and a giant fish. This story of heroic endeavour won Hemingway the Nobel Prize for Literature. It stands as a unique and timeless vision of the beauty and grief of man’s challenge to the elements.’The best story Hemingway has written. No page of this beautiful master-work could have been done better or differently’ Sunday Times’The writing is as taut, and at the same time as lithe and cunningly played out, as the line on which the old man plays the fish’ Guardian””Ernest’s Hemingway’s powerful autobiographical story of war.‘I don’t live at all when I’m not with you’In 1918 Ernest Hemingway went to war. He volunteered for ambulance service in Italy, was wounded and twice decorated. Out of his experience came A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway’s unforgettable war novel.Recreating the fear, the comradeship, the courage of his young American volunteer, and the men and women he meets in Italy, this is a story of war told with simplicity and immediacy. It is also a love story of immense drama and uncompromising passion.’A novel of great power’ Times Literary Supplement’In these troubled times Hemingway’s clarity, spirituality and sense of hard reality in the midst of confusion is very helpful’ Sunday Telegraph””Hemingway’s great novel of the Spanish Civil War’The world is a fine place and worth fighting for and I hate very much to leave it’High in the pine forests of the Spanish Sierra, a guerrilla band prepares to blow up a vital bridge. Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer, has been sent to handle the dynamiting. There, in the mountains, he finds the dangers and the intense comradeship of war. And there he discovers Maria, a young woman who has escaped from Franco’s rebels…’A sparse, masculine, world-weary meditation on death, ideology and the savagery of war in general’ Sunday Telegraph’One of the greatest novels which our troubled age will produce’ Observer **One of the BBC’s 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**””Sweet, good girl Wren Beaumont is loved by everyone at Lancaster Prep.Everyone but campus bad boy Crew Lancaster.That is, until sparks start to fly during one psychology class when Wren realises there’s more to life than good grades – and Crew finally understands what it’s like to be in love . . .Steamy, romantic and totally addictive. This is a love story for everyone who believes that true love really does happen when you least expect it””From the internationally bestselling author of Netflix’s hottest new show, One of Us is Lying, comes a new, page-turning thriller . . .True crime can leave a false trail.Four years ago, Brynn left Saint Ambrose School following the shocking murder of her favourite teacher. The case was never solved, but she’s sure that the three kids who found Mr. Larkin’s body know more than they’re telling, especially her ex-best friend Tripp Talbot. He’s definitely hiding something.When Brynn gets an internship working on a popular true-crime show, she decides to investigate what really happened that day in the woods. But the further she dives into the past, the more secrets she finds.Four years ago someone got away with murder. Now it’s time to uncover the truth . . .’Given that her high-school-based murder mysteries read like bingeworthy Netflix dramas, it’s easy to see why queen of teen crime Karen McManus is a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic’ – Observer”Few writers have expressed loneliness, the need for human understanding and the search for love with such power and poetic sensibility as the American writer Carson McCullers. The Ballad of the Sad Café is her masterpiece: an unruly, bittersweet novella concerning the most unlikely of love triangles.One morning, ordinary salesman Gregor Samsa wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant cockroach. Metamorphosis, Kafka’s masterpiece of unease and black humour, is one of the twentieth century’s most influential works of fiction, and is accompanied here by two more classic stories.Recently widowed, the unscrupulous and beautiful Lady Susan Vernon is determined to scheme her way through high society in the hope of a profitable new match – all while trying to marry off her unfortunate daughter. Told through a series of letters, Jane Austen’s magnificent first novella is as subversive as it is charming.In this inspirational, allegorical guide, Al Mustafa the prophet delivers spiritual yet practical homilies on the work of living: beauty, truth, possessions, sorrow, joy, death and more. Translated into more than fifty of languages and among the best-selling books of all time, The Prophet remains a wise and revitalising handbook for the soul.”By far the shortest of Pynchon’s great, dazzling novels – and one of the best.Suffused with rich satire, chaotic brilliance, verbal turbulence and wild humour, The Crying of Lot 49 opens as Oedipa Maas discovers that she has been made executrix of a former lover’s estate. The performance of her duties sets her on a strange trail of detection, in which bizarre characters crowd in to help or confuse her. But gradually, death, drugs, madness and marriage combine to leave Oepida in isolation on the threshold of revelation, awaiting The Crying of Lot 49.’Engineered like a rocket’ Ned Beauman, Independent’The best book to start with’ Guardian””Rune and Poppy met as children and quickly fell in love. As they grew older their love became stronger, before Rune returned to Norway. Convinced neither time nor distance can keep them apart they promised to be faithful. Two years later Rune is back, though not the boy Poppy remembers. Is there still a way back to each other after all this time? And will the secret Poppy is carrying bring them closer together or separate them for ever?Discover the story that will break your heart twice yet make you believe true love lasts for eternity . . .”In ‘The Turn of the Screw’, one of the most famous ghost stories of all time, a governess becomes obsessed with the belief that malevolent forces are stalking the children in her care. But are the children really in danger – and if so, from whom? The novella is accompanied here by several more of the very best of Henry James’ short stories, including ‘The Jolly Corner’ and ‘The Third Person’, all of which explore human psychology through ghostly visitations and the uncanny.”This is the story of King Midas…Or that’s what we were always told. The Golden King with his palace of riches and me, his golden touched girl.I’m kept locked away. For my safety, I’m told. No one can get in. Apart from him.But when political upheaval becomes strife in our kingdom, I am sent with the royal court to be with my King.And everything I know starts to change. My love for Midas is challenged, my trust is broken. Everything I knew about him was wrong.We are told it’s his tale but really, it’s mine.””I’ve left the grips of one king to fall into the hands of another.Rip’s name is whispered in taverns and street corners throughout the kingdoms.But as I get to know him, I realise he is not what he seems…He is Fae.Part of the powerful and magical people who abandoned this world hundreds of years ago.But here one stands before me. And when he turns his onyx eyes upon me, I fall captive.For an entirely different reason. As his army marches towards a battle with the king I once adored, I must decide.Midas or Rip.Loyalty or freedom.””Curvy fitness influencer Crystal Chen built her career shattering gym stereotypes. After a recent break-up, she has little time left for men, instead finding joy in the gym – her place of power and positivity.Enter firefighter Scott Ritchie, the smug new guy who routinely steals her favourite squat rack. Soon, sparks start flying . . .As the ultra-competitive foes battle for gym domination, the last thing they expect is to run into each other at their grandparents’ engagement party. And, in the lead-up to the wedding, Crystal discovers there’s a soft heart under Scott’s muscled exterior. Bonding over family, fitness and cheesy pick-up lines, she just might have found her person.But when a photo of them goes viral, savage internet trolls put their relationship to the test . . . Are they strong enough to get through it? “”Nora is a cut-throat literary agent at the top of her game. Her whole life is books. Charlie is an editor with a gift for creating bestsellers. And he’s Nora’s work nemesis.Nora has been through enough break-ups to know she’s the woman men date before they find their happy-ever-after. That’s why Nora’