Search results for ""author tracy""

"A rollicking mix of gunplay, quips, and romance." — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY "Beautifully captures the visual style of the Jazz Age." — BOOKLIST It''s 1927 and Prohibition is in full effect in St. Louis, Missouri. Organized crime has risen to meet the relentless demand for illicit alcohol. Bootleggers, gangsters, and might-makes-right dominate the city''s underworld, fueled by the patrons of speakeasies like Lackadaisy, run by the unstoppable force of widowed Mitzi May. Or at least, she seemed unstoppable until now. After a violent raid from a rival operation left bullet holes all over Lackadaisy — and inside Mitzi''s trusted confidante Viktor — the situation is getting desperate in the glamorous pleasure palace hidden under the unassuming Little Daisy Cafe. As her charms fail to secure new business partners and the faith of her posse waivers

Read more less

A guide for writing an authentic military story, drawing from the author's personal experience as a military writer, the experiences of other veteran writers, and from the experiences of noteworthy writing and teaching professionals.

Read more less

In the summer of 1924, the Bolshevik Party called on scholars, the police, the courts, and state officials to turn their attention to the villages of Russia. The subsequent campaign to 'face the countryside' generated a wealth of intelligence that fed into the regime's sense of alarmed conviction that the countryside was a space outside Bolshevik control. Richly rooted in archival sources, including local and central-level secret police reports, detailed cases of the local and provincial courts, government records, and newspaper reports, Face to the Village is a nuanced study of the everyday workings of the Russian village in the 1920s. Local-level officials emerge in Tracy McDonald's study as vital and pivotal historical actors, existing between the Party's expectations and peasant interests. McDonald's careful exposition of the relationships between the urban centre and the peasant countryside brings us closer to understanding the fateful decision to launch a frontal attack on the countryside in the fall of 1929 under the auspices of collectivization.

Read more less

Does ‘real’ poverty still exist in Britain? How do people differentiate between the supposed ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor? Is there a culture of worklessness passed down from generation to generation? Bringing together historical and contemporary material, Poverty Propaganda: Exploring the myths sheds new light on how poverty is understood in contemporary Britain. The book debunks many popular myths and misconceptions about poverty and its prevalence, causes and consequences. In particular, it highlights the role of ‘poverty propaganda’ in sustaining class divides in perpetuating poverty and disadvantage in contemporary Britain.

Read more less

Young Nikola Tesla got a shock when he rubbed his cat's fur. That small spark lit his imagination forever. Covering his early years to his eventual success in the world of electricity, Bright Dreams showcases Tesla's incredible journey of discovery and perseverance. Author-illustrator Tracy Dockray conveys Tesla's busy and imaginative world with collage-style artwork and informative sidebars.

Read more less

Cities in the North Atlantic coal and steel belt embodied industrial power in the early twentieth century, but by the 1970s, their economic and political might had been significantly diminished by newly industrializing regions in the Global South. This was not simply a North American phenomenon—the precipitous decline of mature steel centers like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Hamilton, Ontario, was a bellwether for similar cities around the world. Contemporary narratives of the decline of basic industry on both sides of the Atlantic make the postindustrial transformation of old manufacturing centers seem inevitable, the product of natural business cycles and neutral market forces. In Remaking the Rust Belt, Tracy Neumann tells a different story, one in which local political and business elites, drawing on a limited set of internationally circulating redevelopment models, pursued postindustrial urban visions. They hired the same consulting firms; shared ideas about urban revitalization on study tours, at conferences, and in the pages of professional journals; and began to plan cities oriented around services rather than manufacturing—all well in advance of the economic malaise of the 1970s. While postindustrialism remade cities, it came with high costs. In following this strategy, public officials sacrificed the well-being of large portions of their populations. Remaking the Rust Belt recounts how local leaders throughout the Rust Belt created the jobs, services, leisure activities, and cultural institutions that they believed would attract younger, educated, middle-class professionals. In the process, they abandoned social democratic goals and widened and deepened economic inequality among urban residents.

Read more less

Cities in the North Atlantic coal and steel belt embodied industrial power in the early twentieth century, but by the 1970s, their economic and political might had been significantly diminished by newly industrializing regions in the Global South. This was not simply a North American phenomenon—the precipitous decline of mature steel centers like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Hamilton, Ontario, was a bellwether for similar cities around the world. Contemporary narratives of the decline of basic industry on both sides of the Atlantic make the postindustrial transformation of old manufacturing centers seem inevitable, the product of natural business cycles and neutral market forces. In Remaking the Rust Belt, Tracy Neumann tells a different story, one in which local political and business elites, drawing on a limited set of internationally circulating redevelopment models, pursued postindustrial urban visions. They hired the same consulting firms; shared ideas about urban revitalization on study tours, at conferences, and in the pages of professional journals; and began to plan cities oriented around services rather than manufacturing—all well in advance of the economic malaise of the 1970s. While postindustrialism remade cities, it came with high costs. In following this strategy, public officials sacrificed the well-being of large portions of their populations. Remaking the Rust Belt recounts how local leaders throughout the Rust Belt created the jobs, services, leisure activities, and cultural institutions that they believed would attract younger, educated, middle-class professionals. In the process, they abandoned social democratic goals and widened and deepened economic inequality among urban residents.

Read more less

Many Americans wish to believe that the United States, founded in religious tolerance, has gradually and naturally established a secular public sphere that is equally tolerant of all religions--or none. Culture and Redemption suggests otherwise. Tracy Fessenden contends that the uneven separation of church and state in America, far from safeguarding an arena for democratic flourishing, has functioned instead to promote particular forms of religious possibility while containing, suppressing, or excluding others. At a moment when questions about the appropriate role of religion in public life have become trenchant as never before, Culture and Redemption radically challenges conventional depictions--celebratory or damning--of America's "secular" public sphere. Examining American legal cases, children's books, sermons, and polemics together with popular and classic works of literature from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, Culture and Redemption shows how the vaunted secularization of American culture proceeds not as an inevitable by-product of modernity, but instead through concerted attempts to render dominant forms of Protestant identity continuous with democratic, civil identity. Fessenden shows this process to be thoroughly implicated, moreover, in practices of often-violent exclusion that go to the making of national culture: Indian removals, forced acculturations of religious and other minorities, internal and external colonizations, and exacting constructions of sex and gender. Her new readings of Emerson, Whitman, Melville, Stowe, Twain, Gilman, Fitzgerald, and others who address themselves to these dynamics in intricate and often unexpected ways advance a major reinterpretation of American writing.

Read more less

WINNER OF THE 2023 SID FLEISCHMAN HUMOR AWARDIn this thrilling and hilarious middle grade adventure, a young Filipino-American boy must team up with his ancestor to break the curse that’s haunted their family for generations . . . or be trapped in an amulet forever.Freddie Ruiz is cursed.While other people may have bad days, Freddie and his family have had bad generations: from bird poop splatting on him during picture day to the many tumbles and trips that earned him the nickname Faceplant Freddie. He’s learned to lay low and keep himself out of trouble—which means: no fun no friends and definitely no risks! But when he discovers a family heirloom, a century-old amulet from the Philippines that’s supposed to bring good fortune, Freddie thinks his luck is finally about to change.He couldn’t be more wrong. Because the spirit of Freddie’s cranky great-granduncle Ramon is trapped in the heirloom, and the evil spirits responsible for his death have returned with a vengeance. Now, Freddie and his cousin, Sharkey, have thirteen days to break the curse, or Freddie will join Ramon for an untimely afterlife in the amulet.A Bank Street College Best Book of the Year!

Read more less

MOST ANTICIPATED READ and MUST READ OF 2024: The Millions, LitHub, Esquire, BookRiot, Bustle, Vulture, Boston Globe, Brit & Co, Southern LivingA National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 honoree delivers her first work of nonfiction: a compulsively readable, genre-bending story of finding her missing birth mother and, along the way, learning the priceless power of self-knowledge.In 2020, Tracy O’Neill began to rethink her ideas of comfort and safety. Just out of a ten-year relationship and thirtysomething, she was driven by an acute awareness that the mysterious mother she’d never met might be dying somewhere in South Korea.After contacting a grizzled private investigator, O’Neill took his suggested homework to heart when he disappeared before the job was done, picking up the trail of clues and becoming her own hell-bent det

Read more less

Spark scientific curiosity from a young age with this six-level course through an enquiry-based approach and active learning. Collins International Primary Science fully meets the requirements of the Cambridge Primary Science Curriculum Framework from 2020 and has been carefully developed for a range of international contexts. Collins International Primary Science is organised into four main strands: Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Earth and Space and the skills detailed under the ‘Thinking and Working Scientifically’ strand are introduced and taught in the context of those areas. Each Progress Book page offers write-in assessment questions which allow learners to apply what they have learned and each unit offers an opportunity for personal reflection on progress.

Read more less

Spark scientific curiosity from a young age with this six-level course through an enquiry-based approach and active learning. Collins International Primary Science fully meets the requirements of the Cambridge Primary Science Curriculum Framework from 2020 and has been carefully developed for a range of international contexts. Collins International Primary Science is organised into four main strands: Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Earth and Space and the skills detailed under the ‘Thinking and Working Scientifically’ strand are introduced and taught in the context of those areas. Each Progress Book page offers photocopiable assessment questions which allow learners to apply what they have learned and each unit offers an opportunity for personal reflection on progress.

Read more less

‘A visual delight’ The Times ‘A splendidly vital recreation of Georgian London’ Sunday Times ‘Tell me, then: would you say you are innocent or experienced?’ 1792. Uprooted from their quiet Dorset village to the riotous streets of London, young Jem Kellaway and his family feel very far from home. They struggle to find their place in this tumultuous city, still alive with the repercussions of the blood-splattered French Revolution. Luckily, streetwise Maggie Butterfield is on hand to show Jem the ropes. Together they encounter the neighbour they’ve been warned about: radical poet and artist William Blake. Jem and Maggie’s passage from innocence to experience becomes the very stuff of poetic inspiration…

Read more less

Why is the past so dominant in the present? This book conceptualizes collective memory as currency, a medium of exchange, a system in common use, and one that is traded between and within nations. Bringing together contemporary case studies and multidisciplinary scholarship, this volume shows how past events are used and perceived as a commodity and a substantially fungible marketable item produced to satisfy wants or needs, their supply or demand being a part of one universal market. This book provides readers with a broader understanding of the power of the past in the present. Specific past events are incarnated into collective memories that can transform into iconic, almost mythical stories that can be employed to help make sense of the present. Through evoking, constructing and reconstructing, selectively highlighting certain aspects or perspectives of prominent past events, these collective memories become a significant resource that actors and publics turn to in times of need.

Read more less

An honest and sensitive blend of biblical teaching and personal testimony which helps people experience the reality of God the Father's love for them in a deep way. There is a growing epidemic of fatherlessness in society today, with more and more people experiencing crippling wounds through their childhood experiences. The Father heart of God longs to heal these wounds and bring joy and freedom in their place. But how do we learn to trust and love a heavenly Father when we have been hurt by our earthly fathers? Tracy Williamson honestly shares the insights and lessons she has learnt on her journey as she has allowed God to free her from deep childhood hurts, into the relevation that she is a beloved daughter of Father God. With a unique mix of practical teaching, personal stories, poems, prophecies and questions for reflection this is a life changing resource for all who carry the wounds of rejection. Tracy helps readers understand God's love for them, and how they can grow in their relationship with him and be a channel of his love to others. Reflection points throughout each chapter allow the reader to take time to pray through and apply lessons learned, gently allowing their hearts to be opened to the Father's deep affection for them.

Read more less

Create the digital games you love to play.Discover an exercise-driven, non-technical approach to game design without the need for programming or artistic experience with Game Design Workshop, Fifth Edition.Tracy Fullerton demystifies the creative process with clear and accessible guidance on the formal, dramatic, and dynamic systems of game design. Using examples of classic and popular games, illustrations of design techniques, and refined exercises to strengthen your understanding of how game systems function, this book gives you the skills and tools necessary to create a compelling and engaging game.This updated 5th edition brings deeper coverage of playcentric design techniques, including setting emotion-focused experience goals and managing the design process to meet them. It includes a host of new diverse perspectives from top industry game designers.Game Design Workshop puts you to work prototyping, playtesting, and revis

Read more less

A girl has gone missing. You’ve never met her, but you’re to blame. From the #1 bestselling author of My Sister’s Secret… Food writer Estelle Forster has the perfect life. And with her first book on the way, it’s about to get even better. When Estelle hears about Poppy O’Farrell’s disappearance, she assumes the girl has simply run away. But Estelle’s world crumbles when she’s sent a photo of Poppy, along with a terrifying note: I’m watching you. I know everything about you. Estelle has no idea who’s threatening her, or how she’s connected to the missing teen, but she thinks the answers lie in the coastal town she once called home, and the past she hoped was long behind her. Estelle knows she must do everything to find Poppy. But how far will she go to hide the truth – that herperfect life was the perfect lie? Her Last Breath is an addictive, page-turning read that fans of Lisa Jewell and Claire Douglas will love…

Read more less

Described as 'accomplished, immersive, [and] moving' by New Zealand Listener, The Hope Fault is a crackling, complex family drama. 'Beautifully restrained' Radio New Zealand In Cassetown, Geologue Bay, Iris and her extended family ― her ex-husband and his wife and their new baby; her son and her best friend’s daughter ― gather on a midwinter long weekend, to pack up the family holiday house now that it has been sold. They are together for one last time, one last weekend, one last party. As the house is stripped bare, their secrets ― and the complex, messy nature of family relationships ― will be revealed. The Hope Fault is a celebration of the complexities of family ― aunties and steps and exes, and a baby in need of a name; parents and partners who are missing, and the people who replace them. It’s about the faultlines that run under the surface, and it’s about uncertainty ― the unsettling notion that the earth might shift, literally or metaphorically, at any moment. It’s a contemporary novel that plays with time and with ways of telling stories. It finds poetry and beauty in science, and pattern and magic in landscape.

Read more less

Longlisted for the 2014 Miles Franklin Literary Award Tracy Farr’s acclaimed debut novel is the fictional memoir of Dame Lena Gaunt: musician, octogenarian, junkie. ''Compelling reading'' The Listener  I hold one regret from that day: that I put my first love, my cello, aside. But it was to take up a bigger love, a greater thing; it was to step into the future. Music''s Most Modern Instrument. And I was to become Music''s Most Modern Musician. Tracy Farr''s debut novel is the fictional memoir of Dame Lena Gaunt: musician, octogenarian, junkie. Documentary filmmaker Mo Patterson approaches veteran musician Lena Gaunt after watching her play at a festival in Perth: her first performance in 20 years. While initially suspicious of Mo''s intentions and reluctant to have her privacy invaded, Lena finds herself sharing stories from her past. From a solitary childho

Read more less

A hopeful single mom moves to the Houston suburbs to start anew, only to find a new adversary in the HOA.Amelia Marsh relocates with her two young kids to a northern suburb of Houston after a brutal divorce. All she wants is a bit of normalcy for her children. The last thing she needs is to be the center of a disagreement with the HOA representative. Believe it or not, her children's garden gnome is accused of violating the association's rules. No way is Amelia backing down on this one. Gnomegate? Really? HOA President Kyle Sanders would be a good friend—or even something more—if Amelia wasn't gearing up for battle with the HOA in her determination to make her house a home and her neighborhood a community…"An excellent read and a surefire hit for those looking to beat the heat this summer." —Library Journal

Read more less

Explores the ethics and debates surrounding artificial intelligence, including AI’s effects on data, privacy, the job market, and the military. Clear text, vibrant photos, and helpful infographics make this book an accessible and engaging read.

Read more less

This exciting book introduces readers to the life and career of WNBA superstar A'ja Wilson. The book also includes a table of contents, a Paving the Way special feature, an At a Glance section, informative sidebars, quiz questions, a glossary, additional resources, and an index. This Focus Readers series is at the Navigator level, aligned to reading levels of grades 3-5 and interest levels of grades 4-7.

Read more less

A hugely-acclaimed black comedy exposing the dark side of the Midwestern American family. When the large Weston family is reunited in Oklahoma after the disappearance of their father, they let loose a maelstrom of repressed truths and unsettling secrets. Tracy Letts's play August: Osage County was first performed by Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago in June 2007. It was first staged in the UK at the National Theatre in 2008. August: Osage County won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best Play and the Critics' Circle Award for Best Play.

Read more less

The sensational conclusion to the massive #1 New York Times bestselling seriesIt's been over three months since my friends and I took down Cyrus. Three months where my biggest fear was what paper was due next... But I should have known it was too good to last. Now everything is falling apart.The Vampire Court has no king, the Dragon Court has no heart, and the Gargoyle Court has mea teenager in way over her head. And it's the worst possible timing, because a threat is brewing just as the Circle is collapsing.I have no choice but to return to the Shadow Realm and face the terrifying queen who nearly ended usand make a deal with her to save Mekhi. But this time, I'm bringing my powerful friends with meand Hudson. Except something is wrong with him, too. He's keeping a secreteven from me.All I know is that everyone's life hangs in the balance. And it's my faultbecause I still owe the Crone a favor...and now she's come to collect.

Read more less

Explores the ethics and debates surrounding artificial intelligence, including AI’s effects on data, privacy, the job market, and the military. Clear text, vibrant photos, and helpful infographics make this book an accessible and engaging read.

Read more less

The Accidental Medium is the first book in a hilarious series from Tracy Whitwell featuring Tanz, the accidental medium who, with the help of the dead, is about to become an unwilling crime-solver.Tanz is a wine-loving, straight-talking, once-successful TV actress from Gateshead, whose career has shrivelled like an antique walnut. She is still grieving for her friend Frank, who died in a car crash three years ago, and she has to find a normal job in London to fund her cocktail habit. When she starts work in a new age' shop, Tanz suddenly discovers that the voices she's hearing in her head are real, not the first signs of madness, and that she can give people messages' from beyond the grave. Alarmed, she confronts her little mam and discovers she is from a long line of psychic mediums. Despite an exciting new avenue of life opening up to Tanz, darkness isn't far away and all too soon there's murder in the air.

Read more less

In over forty books, in a career that spanned over sixty years, Larry McMurtry staked his claim as a superior chronicler of the American West, and as the Great Plains’ keenest witness since Willa Cather and Wallace Stegner. Larry McMurtry: A Life traces his origins as one of the last American writers who had direct contact with this country’s pioneer traditions. It follows his astonishing career as bestselling novelist, Pulitzer-Prize winner, author of the beloved Lonesome Dove, Academy-Award winning screenwriter, public intellectual, and passionate bookseller. A sweeping and insightful look at a versatile, one-of-a-kind American writer, this book is a must-read for every Larry McMurtry fan.

Read more less

Tracy Martin explains the principles behind automotive electrical systems and how they work. This book details the various tools, such as multimeters and test lights, that can be used to evaluate and troubleshoot any vehicle's electrical system. Several hands-on projects take readers on a guided tour of their vehicle's electrical system and demonstrate how to fix specific problems.Automotive electrical systems can be a mystery to the weekend mechanic, and even the experienced professional. No longer shall you fear the mass of wires under your dash and beneath the hood of your vehicle. How To Diagnose and Repair Automotive Electrical Systems explains the principles behind automotive electrical systems and describes how they work. From Ohm's Law to reading wiring diagrams to specific electrical scenarios, author and ASE (Automotive Service Excellence) Certified Master Technician Tracy Martin takes you on a guided tour of your vehicle's electrical system. Martin details the various tools, such as multimeters and test lights, that can be used to evaluate and troubleshoot any vehicle's electrical system, dishing out handy tips to help you banish your electrical gremlins. Don't get lost in the darkness again. The knowledge contained in How To Diagnose and Repair Automotive Electrical Systems is your best tool for understanding your electrical system and diagnosing problems in your vehicle.

Read more less

“This is an excellent and much needed book. It has a clear and logical structure that leads you through the knowledge base needed to critically appraise and evaluate clinical research studies ... Each section has brief measurable learning outcomes to give the learning focus and particularly helpful is the “Jargon Busting” glossary placed at the end of each chapter ... This is the book I wish I had written.”Christine Lorraine Carline, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Health, Staffordshire University, UK“This short book covers all the major issues and perspectives with which health undergraduates must become familiar ... It is written in plain English with clear explanations and appropriate examples, along with exercises, articles and glossaries. For those students who approach the topic of research with trepidation, this book will be a welcome and painless introduction.”David Shaw, Lecturer, The Open University, UK“The author has provided a text that is accessible to a wide range of health students and practitioners ... The discussions about how recent is recent evidence is a question that particularly vexes students and this book provides some guidance to the debate, whilst acknowledging there is no easy answer.”Alan Williams, Lecturer, University of Nottingham, UKThis handy book is an ideal companion for all health and nursing students looking for an accessible guide to research. Written in a friendly style, the book takes the stress out of research learning by offering realistic, practical guidance and demystifying research methods jargon. The book takes you through the main methods, tools and approaches used by health researchers and uses examples and case studies to highlight good and bad practice in research. The book also includes: Guidance on critical thinking and writing, to assist you in interpreting research articles and judging their worth Simple exercises, discussion points and reflective opportunities to help you construct logical arguments and apply research findings to practice Useful tips for surviving and exceeding in your course of study A section in each chapter on ‘jargon busting’ to help you keep on top of the terms and language used in research A Survival Guide for Health Research Methods is a great first book for students and practitioners new to the subject. It will also be of use to staff returning to practice and those with no prior research knowledge.

Read more less

Tracy Reifkind has a message for exercise - phobes and fitness trendsetters alike: The kettlebell swing is the ultimate equalizer! Men and women, athletes and couch potatoes, the physically fit and the overweight - anyone can pick up a kettlebell, and in as few as four sessions, it will begin to transform lives. That's what Reifkind used, and it catapulted her to a healthy new life and a radically different relationship to fitness. Now Reifkind is bringing this powerful workout-popular among elite athletes, but simple enough for a fitness novice-to its widest audience yet. Her program focuses on the simplest of the kettlebell movements, the swing, to create a fast, accessible workout that makes the body leaner and more muscular at the same time. As it swings, the kettlebell creates force that demands full-body involvement and constantly engages the core-all with very little impact on the joints. There's no safer, or more effective, way to work the entire body. Reifkind knows that firsthand. Overweight all her life, she had tried every treadmill, stepper, elliptical, and trendy workout on the market. But it wasn't until she picked up a kettlebell that, as she puts it, her real body began breaking through. Triceps appeared where there had been no definition; her jeans started showing off a firmer, leaner lower body (muscles she hadn't even realized she was toning!). After only a handful of quick sessions, she knew she had to see where the kettlebell swing could take her and began customizing her own workouts-120 pounds later, Reifkind starting teaching others that unique approach, offering her program in classes and quickly converting others to this easy-to-follow fitness regimen. Reifkind's program promises dramatic results in just two half-hour sessions each week (believe it or not, that's just four hours a month!). Along with strong coaching on developing a winning mind-set, and her protein-packed, transformational eating plan, she truly inspires and leads readers at any stage of life to let their real bodies break through.

Read more less

The brand new feel-good, funny and fabulous book from the No.1 bestseller! Starting again never felt so good! The worst day of her life could be the best thing that’s ever happened. Kim Jacobs believes that she is happily married, until her husband tells her he is leaving her. Forced to re-evaluate her life on the same day that her son leaves for university, Kim is shocked to find herself sleeping in the spare room of his college flatshare. She never imagined her prime would be spent with a bunch of man-babies, but amongst the empty pizza boxes and unwashed laundry, Kim can feel something starting to happen. Can her unlikely new housemates help her realise that maybe the best is yet to come? Readers LOVE Tracy Bloom! ‘So, so, so funny, I genuinely laughed out loud’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Just like catching up with a good friend’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A fab read which you don’t want to put down’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Utterly brilliant’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Funny, totally relatable and made me laugh out loud’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘No doubt about it … at least a 6 out of 5!’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Tracy Bloom has the lightest of touches with the deepest of understanding’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Read more less

‘It is a stunning story, compassionately reimagined’ Guardian Tracy Chevalier’s stunning novel of how one woman’s gift transcends class and gender to lead to some of the most important discoveries of the nineteenth century. A revealing portrait of the intricate and resilient nature of female friendship. In the early nineteenth century, a windswept beach along the English coast brims with fossils for those with the eye… From the moment she’s struck by lightning as a baby, it is clear Mary Anning is marked for greatness. When she uncovers unknown dinosaur fossils in the cliffs near her home, she sets the scientific world alight, challenging ideas about the world’s creation and stimulating debate over our origins. In an arena dominated by men, however, Mary is soon reduced to a serving role, facing prejudice from the academic community, vicious gossip from neighbours, and the heartbreak of forbidden love. Even nature is a threat, throwing bitter cold, storms, and landslips at her. Luckily Mary finds an unlikely champion in prickly, intelligent Elizabeth Philpot, a middle-class spinster who is also fossil-obsessed. Their relationship strikes a delicate balance between fierce loyalty and barely suppressed envy. Despite their differences in age and background, Mary and Elizabeth discover that, in struggling for recognition, friendship is their strongest weapon.

Read more less

‘Enormously enjoyable’ Evening Standard ‘Charming’ The Times ‘What would you have me paint instead of a battle, Madame?’Geneviève de Nanterre’s eyes gleamed.‘A unicorn.’ Keen to demonstrate his new-found favour with the King, rising nobleman Jean le Viste commissions six tapestries to adorn the walls of his château. He expects soldiers and bloody battlefields. But artist Nicolas des Innocents instead designs a seductive world of women, unicorns and flowers, using as his muses Le Viste’s wife Geneviève and ripe young daughter Claude. In Belgium, as his designs spring to life under the weavers’ fingers, Nicolas is inspired once more – by the master weaver’s daughter Aliénor and her mother Christine. They too will be captured by his threads.

Read more less