Search results for ""author isabel"

A story about the hidden world of light... Renowned physicist Alan Lightman, author of Ada and the Galaxies, turns his focus to light waves in a second story for children.There’s only one gift Isabel wants for her birthday: a way to see invisible things. She can hardly think of anything else until the day of her party arrives! Unwrapping a big box, Isabel finds a surprise inside – a glass prism – and a dazzling world of previously invisible colour emerges, lighting up the room around her. What else could be out there, waiting for her eyes to discover?In simple, engaging language, complemented by luminous artwork from bestselling illustrator Ramona Kaulitzki, author and physicist Alan Lightman unveils the hidden world of light waves – the ones you can see and the ones you can’t...

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Isabelle Wareham, whilst caring for her beloved widowed father, has not seen much of the world. After his death, Isabelle finds she is no longer her own mistress but under the guardianship of her unscrupulous brother-in-law, Lord Dunsfold, who sees her as a way to improve his own fortunes. The outlook is bleak until events throw Isabelle and the impoverished former soldier Lord Idsworth together. However, Dunsfold is determined to force her into a more lucrative match and Isabelle will need to rise above her circumstances to grasp her chance of happiness.

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''Sisterhood, espionage, and an unstoppable romance between two passionate leads - Isabel and the Rogue is utterly delightful and charming and not to be missed!'' EVIE DUNMOREA wallflower and a spy collide during the London season in this exciting new historical romance novel . . . Isabel Luna Valdés has long since resigned herself to being the ''forgotten'' Luna sister. But thanks to familial connections to the Mexican ambassador in London, wallflower Isabel is poised to unearth any British intelligence hidden by the ton that might aid Mexico during the French Occupation. Though she slips easily from crowded ballrooms into libraries and private studies, Isabel''s search is hampered by trysting couples and prowling rogues - including the rakish Captain Sirius Dawson. As a covert agent for the British Home Office, Sirius makes a game of earning the aristocracy''s confidence. He spends his days befriending foolish poli

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Renowned physicist Alan Lightman, author of Ada and the Galaxies, turns his focus to the hidden world of light in this luminous picture book.There's only one gift Isabel wants for her sixth birthday: a way to see invisible things. She can hardly think of anything else until the day of her party arrives! Unwrapping a big box, Isabel finds a surprise inside a glass prism and a dazzling world of previously invisible colour emerges, lighting up the room around her. What else could be out there, waiting for her eyes to discover?In simple, engaging language, complemented by luminous artwork from bestselling illustrator Ramona Kaulitzki, author and physicist Alan Lightman unveils the hidden world of light waves the ones you can see and the ones you can't.

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Queen Isabel of Castile is perhaps best known for her patronage of Christopher Columbus and for the religious zeal that led to the Spanish Inquisition, the waging of holy war, and the expulsion of Jews and Muslims across the Iberian peninsula. In this sweeping biography, newly revised and annotated to coincide with the five-hundredth anniversary of Isabel's death, Peggy K. Liss draws upon a rich array of sources to untangle the facts, legends, and fiercely held opinions about this influential queen and her decisive role in the tumultuous politics of early modern Spain. Isabel the Queen reveals a monarch who was a woman of ruthless determination and strong religious beliefs, a devoted wife and mother, and a formidable leader. As Liss shows, Isabel's piety and political ambition motivated her throughout her life, from her earliest struggles to claim her crown to her secret marriage to King Fernando of Aragón, a union that brought success in civil war, consolidated Christian hegemony over the Iberian peninsula, and set the stage for Spain to become a world empire.

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Explore the second design book from acclaimed Spanish designer Isabel López-Quesada across stunning locales around the world Described as the most significant European woman designer working today, Isabel López-Quesada returns with a second volume demonstrating her interior design expertise. Showcasing a wider variety of her design projects, this superb, extended monograph is divided into two sections, Town and Country, displaying spectacular residences located on three islands across the Mediterranean Sea, the Caribbean, and more. Innovatively combining period and contemporary furniture and art in a sophisticated, seemingly effortless mix, the interiors of Isabel López-Quesada are inspirational and unforgettable. Beautifully captured by renowned photographer Miguel Flores-Vianna, with whom López-Quesada worked on her first book, her eye-catching designs and the skill with which sheq carefully places decorative objects a

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This revised edition has been updated to cover Allende's three newest books—City of the Beasts, Portrait in Sepia: A Novel, and Daughter of Fortune. It includes four new interviews in which Allende discusses completing her trilogy of novels that began with House of the Spirits, as well as her ongoing spiritual adventure and political interests.

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This much overdue and generously illustrated monograph traces Isabel Alexander's life, influences and work over her sixty-year career.

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When your best friend is a unicorn, magical adventures are guaranteed! Imagine a school where you meet your own unicorn and have amazing adventures together! That's what happens for the girls at Unicorn Academy on beautiful Unicorn Island.Isabel loves racing around Unicorn Academy with her wonderful unicorn, Cloud. She can't wait for him to discover his magic power! Someone has cast a bad spell on Sparkle Lake. Isabel and Cloud will have to learn to trust each other as they go on a dangerous adventure to save the school...With a glittery cover and beautifully illustrated throughout by Lucy Truman, Unicorn Academy is the perfect series for 7+ readers who love magic and adventure.Check out the other titles in this series: Sophia and Rainbow, Scarlett and Blaze, Isabel and Cloud and many more!

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In Empire's Mistress Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez follows the life of Filipina vaudeville and film actress Isabel Rosario Cooper, who was the mistress of General Douglas MacArthur. If mentioned at all, their relationship exists only as a salacious footnote in MacArthur's biography—a failed love affair between a venerated war hero and a young woman of Filipino and American heritage. Following Cooper from the Philippines to Washington, D.C. to Hollywood, where she died penniless, Gonzalez frames her not as a tragic heroine, but as someone caught within the violent histories of U.S. imperialism. In this way, Gonzalez uses Cooper's life as a means to explore the contours of empire as experienced on the scale of personal relationships. Along the way, Gonzalez fills in the archival gaps of Cooper's life with speculative fictional interludes that both unsettle the authority of “official” archives and dislodge the established one-dimensional characterizations of her. By presenting Cooper as a complex historical subject who lived at the crossroads of American colonialism in the Philippines, Gonzalez demonstrates how intimacy and love are woven into the infrastructure of empire.

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“I love this book! Brilliant biography of the…utterly fascinating artist Isabel Rawsthorne” Jennifer Higgie “Every page is gripping, fascinating, forcefully and excitingly written, and sad.” Andrew Motion “Isabel Rawsthorne’s life reads like a ready-made screenplay… – a poverty stricken upbringing, world wars, espionage, affairs, addiction, politics … all set to a series of evocative cinematic backdrops. And that’s before any mention of her career as one of the most hidden but influential artists of the 20th century.” Interiors and Home “Jacobi’s bigger project here, seems to be to reimagine what an artist biography… can be.” The Art Newspaper “Highlights how talented women have often missed out on the recognition they deserved” Observer Isabel Rawsthorne’s painting career at the centre of the Parisian and London avantgardes was eclipsed by the many occasions on which her friends made her the subject of their art, notably Epstein, Derain, Giacometti, Picasso and Bacon. This pioneering painter exhibited from the early 1930s, was influential in the 1940s and well known in the 1960s, but in her later years Giacometti’s and Bacon’s blockbuster biographies made her famous as a muse. Rawsthorne’s work is now in major collections, and this beautifully illustrated book re-writes the pre- and post-war art history of which she was a part: it is traced through the upheavals of the 20th century and her singular relationships with some of its most fascinating figures. A decade of research into the period, Rawsthorne’s art and archives, and the memories of friends, has revealed for the first time her role in a rebel group at Liverpool School of Art; success and tragedy in the 1930s when she was studio assistant to Jacob Epstein; her life-long collaborations with Alberto Giacometti; and, after the war, with Francis Bacon and with African Modernism in the 1960s, as well as her exceptional late work. It also tells the full story of her break from art during the second world war, when she worked for the government in black propaganda.

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In Empire's Mistress Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez follows the life of Filipina vaudeville and film actress Isabel Rosario Cooper, who was the mistress of General Douglas MacArthur. If mentioned at all, their relationship exists only as a salacious footnote in MacArthur's biography—a failed love affair between a venerated war hero and a young woman of Filipino and American heritage. Following Cooper from the Philippines to Washington, D.C. to Hollywood, where she died penniless, Gonzalez frames her not as a tragic heroine, but as someone caught within the violent histories of U.S. imperialism. In this way, Gonzalez uses Cooper's life as a means to explore the contours of empire as experienced on the scale of personal relationships. Along the way, Gonzalez fills in the archival gaps of Cooper's life with speculative fictional interludes that both unsettle the authority of “official” archives and dislodge the established one-dimensional characterizations of her. By presenting Cooper as a complex historical subject who lived at the crossroads of American colonialism in the Philippines, Gonzalez demonstrates how intimacy and love are woven into the infrastructure of empire.

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When Armando Bó and Isabel Sarli began making sexploitation films together in 1956, they provoked audiences by featuring explicit nudity that would increasingly become more audacious, constantly challenging contemporary norms. Their Argentine films developed a large and international fan base. Analyzing the couple's films and their subsequent censorship, Violated Frames develops a new, roughly constructed, and "bad" archive of relocated materials to debate questions of performance, authorship, stardom, sexuality, and circulation. Victoria Ruétalo situates Bó and Sarli’s films amidst the popular culture and sexual norms in post-1955 Argentina, and explores these films through the lens of bodies engaged in labor and leisure in a context of growing censorship. Under Perón, manual labor produced an affect that fixed a specific type of body to the populist movement of Peronism: a type of body that was young, lower-classed, and highly gendered. The excesses of leisure in exhibition, enjoyment, and ecstasy in Bó and Sarli's films interrupted the already fragmented film narratives of the day and created alternative sexual possibilities.

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Oscar Skelton (1878-1941) was a prominent early-twentieth century scholar who became a civil servant and political advisor to prime ministers Mackenzie King and R.B. Bennett. He wrote a number of important books and one, Socialism: A Critical Analysis, was highly praised by Vladimir Lenin. His wife, Isabel Skelton (1877-1956), wrote extensively about literature and history; she was the first historian to treat women from the country's past individually in their own right rather than as a generalized category. Both husband and wife promoted the idea that Canada was an independent nation that no longer needed Britain's tutelage. Terry Crowley has written a unique double biography that examines the lives of Isabel and Oscar, their works, and their careers. He shows how both individuals in their own way influenced the development of Canada as a nation state. Crowley questions why, when both Isabel and Oscar wrote influential works, Oscar's career blossomed, while Isabel remains virtually unrecognized. He concludes that despite Isabel's literary accomplishments, her life remained enmeshed in domestic and family roles, while Oscar's rise to prominence was facilitated by male scholarly and publishing networks as well as the support that women provided to men's careers. This book traces the lives of two people who rejected British colonialism and hailed a new nation on the world's stage, examining the intersections of gender, nationality, and literary expression at a significant juncture in Canada's history.

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When Armando Bó and Isabel Sarli began making sexploitation films together in 1956, they provoked audiences by featuring explicit nudity that would increasingly become more audacious, constantly challenging contemporary norms. Their Argentine films developed a large and international fan base. Analyzing the couple's films and their subsequent censorship, Violated Frames develops a new, roughly constructed, and "bad" archive of relocated materials to debate questions of performance, authorship, stardom, sexuality, and circulation. Victoria Ruétalo situates Bó and Sarli’s films amidst the popular culture and sexual norms in post-1955 Argentina, and explores these films through the lens of bodies engaged in labor and leisure in a context of growing censorship. Under Perón, manual labor produced an affect that fixed a specific type of body to the populist movement of Peronism: a type of body that was young, lower-classed, and highly gendered. The excesses of leisure in exhibition, enjoyment, and ecstasy in Bó and Sarli's films interrupted the already fragmented film narratives of the day and created alternative sexual possibilities.

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Oscar Skelton (1878-1941) was a prominent early-twentieth century scholar who became a civil servant and political advisor to prime ministers Mackenzie King and R.B. Bennett. He wrote a number of important books and one, Socialism: A Critical Analysis, was highly praised by Vladimir Lenin. His wife, Isabel Skelton (1877-1956), wrote extensively about literature and history; she was the first historian to treat women from the country's past individually in their own right rather than as a generalized category. Both husband and wife promoted the idea that Canada was an independent nation that no longer needed Britain's tutelage. Terry Crowley has written a unique double biography that examines the lives of Isabel and Oscar, their works, and their careers. He shows how both individuals in their own way influenced the development of Canada as a nation state. Crowley questions why, when both Isabel and Oscar wrote influential works, Oscar's career blossomed, while Isabel remains virtually unrecognized. He concludes that despite Isabel's literary accomplishments, her life remained enmeshed in domestic and family roles, while Oscar's rise to prominence was facilitated by male scholarly and publishing networks as well as the support that women provided to men's careers. This book traces the lives of two people who rejected British colonialism and hailed a new nation on the world's stage, examining the intersections of gender, nationality, and literary expression at a significant juncture in Canada's history.

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‘This was such a brilliant whodunit thriller that I didn’t want to put down. I picked it up in the morning and by lunchtime I was finished.’ NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ You can cover up the truth, but every murder leaves a trail… The rain was relentless. It stung Ruth Prendergast’s face as she dashed towards her house, desperate to escape the cold and settle down for an early night. But upon entering her bedroom, she finds a man, lying on her bed – a knife buried in his chest. When Detective Isabel Blood and her sergeant arrive on the scene, Ruth claims she’s never laid eyes on the victim before. But with no sign of a break-in, how did the killer gain access to the house? Then Ruth disappears, leaving Isabel and her team to fear the worst. Has their lead suspect escaped, or is Ruth in danger herself? Forensic evidence at the crime scene is sparse, and it’s proving impossible for Isabel to make a breakthrough. With Ruth still missing, time is running out. But how can you catch a killer that doesn’t leave a trace? Uncover the mystery and solve the crime alongside Derbyshire’s best detective. This utterly gripping, unputdownable whodunit will have you hooked and reading long into the night! Fans Val McDermid, Elly Griffiths and ITV’s Vera will love Without a Trace! Readers LOVE Without a Trace! ‘To say that reading ‘Without A Trace’ became addictive is a huge understatement. I would pick the book up only intending to read a chapter… but I would become so wrapped up in the story that I would still be sat there reading over an hour later.’ Ginger Book Geek, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A must read of this year… I loved it. It’s wowsome.’ NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A 5 star novel. Great characters. Plenty of suspense to keep me guessing. All you need for a perfect thriller.’ NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A crime novel to devour in one sitting…’ NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘I was hooked from page one… completely loved the storyline.’ NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A really good, interesting read with lots of clues and red herrings.’ NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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The source of the narrative energy that creates such absorbing stories. Allende's very popular novels have attracted both critical approval and opprobrium, often at the expense of genuine analysis. This sophisticated study explores the narrative architecture of Allende's House of the Spirits [1982], Daughter of Fortune [1999], and Portrait in Sepia [2000] as a trilogy, proposing that the places created in these novels subvert the patriarchal norms that have governed politics, sexuality, and ethnicity. Rooted in the Foucauldian premise that the history of space is essentially the history of power, and supported by Susan Stanford Friedman's cultural geographies of encounter as well as Gloria Anzaldúa's study of borderlands, this study shows that, by rejecting traditional spatial hierarchies, Allende's trilogy systematically deterritorializes the elite while shifting the previously marginalized to the physical and thematic centers of her works. This movement provides the narrative energy which draws the reader into Allende's universe, and sustains the 'good story' for which she has been universally acclaimed. KAREN WOOLEY MARTIN is Associate Professor of Spanish at Union University, Jackson, Tennessee.

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‘This is a cracking page turner with twists galore. When I wasn't reading it I was thinking of this book trying to work out what was going on.’ NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Fans of Vera, Val McDermid and Elly Griffiths will love Last Seen Alive! When Anna Matheson fails to collect her son from the babysitter after a works party, the police are swiftly called. Anna is a stickler for time and a good mother – she would never abandon her baby. Her disappearance is totally out of character and DI Isabel Blood and her team soon suspect foul play. CCTV footage shows Anna was last seen at precisely 11.11pm, as she collected her coat to leave the party. But the cameras outside the venue have failed to pick up her exit from the car park – how could she have vanished in plain sight? Rumour has it that Anna was set to make big changes in the workplace, and Isabel can’t help but think someone wanted her out of the way. Everyone at the party is a suspect, and all the clues point to murder… Readers LOVE Last Seen Alive! ‘Just superb. Well written and so easy to read. Characters were well drawn and I just can’t tell you how good the end was. Brilliant!’ NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Jane does it again with another gripping read. I read this one in 24 hours and had me engrossed from page 1.’ NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Great story, thought I had it all worked out, turned out I hadn't. Thoroughly enjoyed it, once I got into it, did not see that ending coming.’ NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A cracking read with great characters.’ NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘This book was very good. Great storyline so many twists in each chapter. I didn't see the conclusion coming at all. Was so well written. Would recommend this book to others.’ NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘This was an easy read with plenty of twists and turns that kept me engaged throughout.’ NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A well written and thoroughly enjoyable read congratulations to Jane Bettany for a great read.’ NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Isabel and Julian Bannerman have been described as ‘mavericks in the grand manner, touched by genius’ (Min Hogg, World of Interiors) and ‘the Bonnie and Clyde of garden design’ (Ruth Guilding, The Bible of British Taste). Their approach to design, while rooted in history and the classical tradition, is fresh, eclectic and surprising. Designers to the highest in the land, they have made gardens for the Prince of Wales at Highgrove, Lord Rothschild at Waddesdon Manor, the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk at Arundel Castle in Sussex, John Paul Getty II at Wormsley in Buckinghamshire, the great walled garden at Houghton, home of the Marquess of Cholmondeley, and they designed the British 9/11 Memorial Garden in New York. ‘Their work of grand architectural gestures, of mock ruins and oaken temples has made them famous. But it is the houses and gardens they have made for themselves that … eclipse any of these aristocratic delights’ (Mary Keen, Daily Telegraph). Their garden at Hanham Court near Bath was acclaimed by Gardens Illustrated as the top garden of 2009, ahead of Sissinghurst. When they moved from Hanham it was to the fairytale castle of Trematon overlooking Plymouth Sound, where they have created yet another magical garden. Landscape of Dreams celebrates, in the Bannerman’s inimitable, evocative, humorous and highly personal style, the imaginative and practical process of designing, making and planting all of these gardens, and many more.

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Richard Burton was a brilliant, charismatic man - a unique blend of erudite scholar and daring adventurer. Fluent in twenty-nine languages, he found it easy to pass himself off as a native, thereby gaining unique insight into societies otherwise closed to Western scrutiny. He followed service as an intelligence officer in India by a daring penetration of the sacred Islamic cities of Mecca and Medina disguised as a pilgrim. He was the first European to enter the forbidden African city of Harar, and discovered Lake Tanganyika in his search for the source of the Nile. His fascination with, and research into, the intimate customs of ethnic races (which would eventually culminate in his brilliant Kama Sutra) earned him a racy reputation in that age of sexual repression.Little surprise, then, that Isabel Arundell's aristocratic mother objected to her daughter's marriage to this most notorious of figures. Isabel, however, was a spirited, independent-minded woman and was also deeply, passionately in love with Richard. Against all expectations but their own, the Burtons enjoyed a remarkably successful marriage.

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Unique crimes call for unique detectives When a good friend's beloved granddaughter is murdered, our ambisexual downsized-social-worker and her cat, Bunnywit, are enlisted to help solve the case. For the police, Madeline is just one more dead sex worker - so it is down to our hero and her friends to uncover what happened to her (though not the cat. The cat mainly sulks.) With humour, sarcasm and a good dose of irony, our protagonist swaggers through the mean streets of a Canadian city tracking down leads to get the bad guy. Aided by a love of mystery fiction the gang dives deep into the underbelly of city life. What at first seems an average street killing is actually the surface of a grandiose and glittering set of criminal schemes...

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Edited with an introduction by Peter Wakelin. Part of the Modern Wales series. Originally published in 1945, Miner's Day tells of the coalmining life of the thirties in south Wales.

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They were supposed to be pious, fruitful and submissive. The wealthiest women in the kingdom, Anne Beauchamp and her daughters were at the heart of bitter inheritance disputes. Well educated and extravagant, they lived in style and splendour but were forced to navigate their lives around the unpredictable clashes of the Cousins' War. Were they pawns or did they exert an influence of their own? The twists and turns of Fate as well as the dynastic ambitions of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick saw Isabel married without royal permission to the Yorkist heir presumptive, George Duke of Clarence. Anne Neville was married to Edward of Lancaster, the only son of King Henry VI when her father turned his coat. One or the other was destined to become queen. Even so, the Countess of Warwick, heiress to one of the richest titles in England, could not avoid being declared legally dead so that her sons-in-law could take control of her titles and estates. Tragic Isabel, beloved by her husband, would experience the dangers of childbirth and on her death, her midwife was accused of witchcraft and murder. Her children both faced a traitor's death because of their Plantagenet blood. Anne Neville became the wife of Richard, Duke of Gloucester having survived a forced march, widowhood and the ambitions of Isabel's husband. When Gloucester took the throne as Richard III, she would become Shakespeare's tragic queen. The women behind the myth suffered misfortune and loss but fulfilled their domestic duties in the brutal world they inhabited and fought by the means available to them for what they believed to be rightfully their own. The lives of Countess Anne and her daughters have much to say about marriage, childbirth and survival of aristocratic women in the fifteenth century.

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A very good read. It is not only about a baseball player in the AAGPBL, but also about a young Latino woman who makes good in America.—Lance Smith, Guy Who Reviews Sports BooksKat D. Williams traces Isabel “Lefty” Alvarez’s life from her childhood in Cuba, where she played baseball with the boys on the streets of El Cerro, to her reinvention as a professional baseball player and American citizen. Isabel “Lefty” Alvarez gives the reader a look into Alvarez’s young life in Cuba during the turbulent years leading up to Castro’s revolution, as political differences tore families apart. Alvarez came to the United States at fifteen, speaking no English, and experienced the challenge of immigration as her mother pushed her to become a professional athlete in her newly adopted country. Through all the changes and upheaval, Alvarez found acceptance and success as a player in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, where she was called “the Rascal of El Cerro.” After the league ended, Alvarez struggled with an undiagnosed learning disability that limited her options. She persevered and reinvented herself as a factory worker but later battled alcoholism and depression until baseball returned to her life and she was able to reconnect with her former teammates and become part of the active community of former players. Alvarez’s life story illustrates the struggle and strength of a young Latina immigrant and the importance of sport to her transition to her new country and her enduring identity.

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'A touching exploration of passion untested by domesticity' Mail on SundayBefore Isabelle I knew nothing of sex.Before Isabelle I knew nothing of freedom. Before Isabelle I knew nothing of life. Paris in the early Seventies. Sam, an American student, meets a woman in a bookshop. Isabelle is enigmatic, beautiful, older and, unlike Sam, experienced in love's many contradictions. Sam is instantly smitten - but wary of the wedding ring on her finger. What begins as a regular arrangement in Isabelle’s tiny Parisian apartment transforms into a true affair of the heart, and one which lasts for decades to come. Isabelle in the Afternoon is a novel that questions what we seek, what we find, what we settle for - and shows how love, when not lived day in, day out, can become the passion of a lifetime.Praise for Douglas Kennedy‘The absolute master of love stories with heart-stopping twists’ THE TIMES‘Kennedy is skilled at zigzag plotting, blending domestic twists with turns created by global affairs’ OBSERVER

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A beautiful new edition of Elizabeth Strout's tender, brilliant debut novel Isabelle Goodrow has been living in self-imposed exile with her daughter Amy for 15 years. Shamed by her past and her affair with Amy's father she has submerged herself in the routine of her dead-end job and her unrequited love for her boss. But when Amy, frustrated by her quiet and unemotional mother, embarks on an illicit affair with her maths teacher, the disgrace intensifies the shame Isabelle feels about her own past. Throughout one long, sweltering summer as the events of the small town ebb and flow around them, Amy and Isabelle exist in silent conflict until a final act leads ultimately to the understanding they both crave.

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'A touching exploration of passion untested by domesticity' Mail on SundayBefore Isabelle I knew nothing of sex.Before Isabelle I knew nothing of freedom. Before Isabelle I knew nothing of life. Paris in the early Seventies. Sam, an American student, meets a woman in a bookshop. Isabelle is enigmatic, beautiful, older and, unlike Sam, experienced in love's many contradictions. Sam is instantly smitten - but wary of the wedding ring on her finger. What begins as a regular arrangement in Isabelle’s tiny Parisian apartment transforms into a true affair of the heart, and one which lasts for decades to come. Isabelle in the Afternoon is a novel that questions what we seek, what we find, what we settle for - and shows how love, when not lived day in, day out, can become the passion of a lifetime.Praise for Douglas Kennedy‘The absolute master of love stories with heart-stopping twists’ THE TIMES‘Kennedy is skilled at zigzag plotting, blending domestic twists with turns created by global affairs’ OBSERVER

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