Search results for ""author stephen games""

PRINCESS RAINE IS A BRIGHT KID—a very bright kid. And that’s her problem. No one likes smart kids, especially when they’re unaware of the effect they have on 0ther people. Even her Dad (that’s the king) finds her too much. To make things worse, she has two funny, silly, younger brothers—twins—both as dumb as a bar of soap—whom everyone loves. It’s not fair.So when the kingdom of Rainland is threatened by a massive and abnormal heatwave, the reason has to be a natural phenomenon, likeglobal warming—right? It couldn’t be the arrival of some magical, mythical, firebreathing monster. Could it?The king wants Raine to go and investigate but she refuses; let him send his younger son, if he’s so sure there’s a monster: it’s always the youngest who slays the dragon in fairytales. And then something totally unexpected happens to her and everything changes. Buthow? Read on.

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At the end of his last adventure (Belle Nash and the Bath Souffle), Belle Nash was banished for four years to the island of Grenada. It is now 1835, and Belle has returned to Bath, glad to be back but pained by the absence of his most recent Caribbean love. His heartache leads to confusions when he meets Pablo Fanque, the Black equestrian acrobat from Norfolk who longs to set up his own circus. As a well-loved figure in Bath, Belle uses his influence to try and help, but has to run the gauntlet of Lord Servitude, the most hated man in England and a die-hard supporter of slavery. As ever, William Keeling's whimsical tale brings Belle, his gay hero, into a situation where comedy does not obscure stark moral issues to do with prejudice and bigotry that are as alive today as they were in Regency times.

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When a soufflé fails to rise, friends try to find out why and uncover a web of corruption that spreads throughout Bath's legal system. Set in the early 1830s, this comic gay historical novel exposes the bigotry of the times but also introduces a new literary and moral hero—Belle Nash, city councillor and bachelor. About time!

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In wartime Ireland, an Englishman and a German each need the other to betray his country. And if the nationalist firebrands get their way, they may have to fight to the death. But hang on!—Just a few months ago, Flight Lieutenant Oliver Carmichael and Baron Julius von Stulpnagel were living together in Berlin, trying to sell forged paintings. So what are they doing in rundown Ballingore, and how will ex-convent-girl Mary Collins and her devoted red-headed sidekick Niamh Slattery play into their hands? In this hilarious Irish farce, Casey McCartney brilliantly recreates the slapstick flavour of an Ealing Studios comedy.

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Tennis Whites and Teacakes brings together the best of Betjeman's poetry, private letters, journalism and musings to present a fully rounded picture of what he stood for. From his arguments for new steel buildings to his amusement about the etiquette of village teashops, it reveals Betjeman not just as a sentimentalist but as a passionate observer with a wonderful sense of humour and an acute eye.

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Eccentric, sentimental and homespun, John Betjeman's passions were mostly self-taught. He saw his country being devastated by war and progress and he waged a private war to save it. His only weapons were words - the poetry for which he is best known and, even more influential, the radio talks that first made him a phenomenon. From fervent pleas for provincial preservation to humoresques on eccentric vicars and his own personal demons, Betjeman's talks combined wit, nostalgia and criticism in a way that touched the soul of his listeners from the 1930s to the 1950s. Now collected in book form for the first time, his broadcasts represent one of the most compelling archives of twentieth-century broadcasting, reawakening the modern reader to Betjeman's unique perspective and the compelling magic of the golden age of wireless.

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For more than half a century, Betjeman's writings have awakened readers to the intimacy of English places - from the smell of gaslight in suburban churches, to the hissing of backwash on a shingle beach. Betjeman is England's greatest topologist: whether he's talking about a townhall or a teashop, he gets to the nub of what makes unexpected places unique. This new collection of his writings, arranged geographically, offers an essential gazetteer to the physical landmarks of Betjeman Country.A new addition to the popular series of Betjeman anthologies, following on from Trains and Buttered Toast and Tennis Whites and Teacakes, this is a treasure trove for any Betjeman fan and for anyone with a love for the rare, curious and unique details of English life.

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