Download or read book The Lesley Glaister Collection Volume One written by Lesley Glaister and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2018-07-31 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Three dark and mesmerizing novels from an award-winning writer with the “ability to pull terror and suspense from just about anywhere” (Kirkus Reviews). In Lesley Glaister’s world, the domestic and the bizarre walk hand-in-hand. This haunting collection is a testament to the visionary powers of “a natural storyteller who knows how to keep the reader turning the pages” (The Independent). Limestone and Clay: Nadia is a sculptor driven by a single obsession: to conceive a child. When she learns that her geographer husband has donated his sperm to his former lover, who is now pregnant with his child, it is the ultimate betrayal—and warrants the ultimate payback. “Terrifying . . . Glaister truffles her way down to the grim heart, where we find out what makes people tick like time-bombs.” —The Daily Telegraph Digging to Australia: Twelve-year-old Jennifer Maybee spends most of her time alone with her favorite book, Alice in Wonderland. But a revelation from her parents and an encounter with a strange-eyed man set her hurtling into a “topsy-turvy land” of sinister secrets not even Lewis Carroll could have imagined. “Dangerous secrets and sinister undertones power this uncommon coming-of-age tale. . . . Masterful.” —Publishers Weekly Honour Thy Father: In a decaying house in the lowlands of England, four spinster sisters live in self-imposed isolation. For more than sixty years, Milly, Agatha, and the identical twins Ellen and Esther—“Ellenanesther”—have been trapped together, haunted by the specter of their father. As eighty-year-old Milly reminisces, a gothic mystery takes shape: Why is Milly always counting the knives? How did their mother drown under the dyke? And who is baby George, locked away in the cellar? Honour Thy Father is the winner of the Somerset Maugham and Betty Trask Awards. “Eerie and satisfying—a horror story told with tenderness.” —The Sunday Times

Download or read book As Far as You Can Go written by Lesley Glaister and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-12-30 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For a carefree British couple, the Aussie outback becomes a nightmare in this “erotic psychological thriller” from the award-winning author (The Independent). What better way to flee a dreary English winter than a temporary job tending a sheep farm in sunbaked western Australia? For Cassie, a teacher of organic gardening, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. For her commitment-phobic boyfriend, Graham, the arid red-rock landscapes could provide new inspiration for his painting. But the ramshackle sheering station of Woolagong is further from civilization than they anticipated. There is no radio, telephone, or electricity, and though they send letters home, they’ve yet to receive a response. Their only other companions are their peculiar employers, Larry and Mara, who stay sedated in a shed. As Cassie and Graham wonder why they came, everything warps in the stifling heat: their sense of direction, their sex drives, their feelings of safety, and their perception of right and wrong. For the both of them, leaving is no longer an option. Only escape. The Australian outback has been a source of psychological menace in such works as Walkabout, Wake in Fright, The Last Wave, and Wolf Creek. In As far as You Can Go, Somerset Maugham Award winner Lesley Glaister lends her talents to the untapped potentials of this “sun-baked hell . . . cranking up the tension in every possible way. The gripping result is guaranteed to make any flight to Oz go faster.” —The Guardian “Before Gillian Flynn, there was Lesley Glaister.” —Harper’s Bazaar

Download or read book The Private Parts of Women written by Lesley Glaister and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A handsome new cover edition of Lesley Glaister's compelling and disturbing novel

Download or read book The Lesley Glaister Collection Volume Three written by Lesley Glaister and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2018-07-31 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From “one of Britain’s finest novelists”: A tender and terrifying collection of novels about women on the brink of salvation and the edge of disaster (The Sunday Telegraph). Three seductive tales of psychological suspense from a writer who “penetrates the deepest corners of the female psyche” (The Mail on Sunday). The Private Parts of Women: Inis has run away from her husband and children—and the rest of her suburban life in London—and moved into a small flat in the inner city of Sheffield. Her neighbor is eighty-four-year-old Trixie Bell, a hymn-singing veteran of the Salvation Army. But beneath Trixie’s unassuming exterior lies a very different personality. Three very different personalities—one of which is homicidal. “A gripping read . . . from one of Britain’s finest novelists.” —The Sunday Telegraph Partial Eclipse: In solitary confinement, Jennifer knows she isn’t the first in her family to be convicted of a crime. Centuries earlier, the unmarried Peggy Maybee was arrested for trying to steal a peacock so she could give its beautiful feathers to her infant son, Samuel. As Jennifer and Peggy’s parallel lives unfold, long-held secrets are revealed, including the truth about the crime that ultimately landed Jennifer in prison. “Brilliant . . . seductive and assured.” —The Sunday Times Now You See Me: Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction With her parents dead, sixteen-year-old Lamb was alone in the world. Now she cleans houses and lives in an old widower’s cellar, balancing on her high wire of loneliness. If she doesn’t let anyone in, she can’t fall. Then Doggo shows up. A fugitive who committed a violent crime, he needs Lamb’s help to stay off the radar. He also needs her in other ways—even after he learns her terrible secret. “A beautiful bombshell of a story . . . it will break your heart.” —The Independent

Download or read book The Lesley Glaister Collection Volume Two written by Lesley Glaister and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2018-07-31 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Three tales of psychological suspense from a British novelist who “along with Ruth Rendell, has almost cornered the market in horror stories” (The Times, London). According to the Independent on Sunday, Lesley Glaister “has the uncomfortable knack of putting her finger on the things we most fear.” In this spine-chilling anthology, the Somerset Maugham Award–winning novelist finds terror in a Japanese prison camp, a hotel lobby, and the Australian outback. Easy Peasy: Zelda is getting ready for a date when the call comes: Her father has hanged himself. His suicide brings back terrifying childhood memories of screams in the night. A POW in a Japanese prison camp during World War II, her father was haunted by nightmares and guilty secrets. Zelda’s journey into the past unearths troubling questions that must finally be answered. “Utterly satisfying . . . beautifully structured and almost painfully tender.” —The Sunday Telegraph Nina Todd Has Gone: While on a business trip, Nina meets a gorgeous man in her hotel lobby, and even before their tryst is over, she’s sorry she did it. The sooner she puts the sordid encounter behind her, the better. But Rupert isn’t who he seems to be. And he isn’t going away. He’s on a personal mission—one he’s been waiting years to fulfill. And it turns out Nina isn’t exactly who she seems to be either. “A first-rate psychological thriller . . . The game of cat-and-mouse between the protagonists is consistently absorbing.” —The Mail on Sunday As Far as You Can Go: For Cassie and Graham, the ad in the newspaper is a dream come true. Spending a year managing a farm in western Australia sounds like the perfect break from their hectic lives. But the weather in Wollongong is stifling hot and the outback is crawling with lethal creatures. And most unsettling of all, Cassie and Graham can’t shake the feeling that they’re being watched. “Chilling plausibility . . . A story whose message will linger long after the book is closed.” —The Scotsman

Download or read book Honour Thy Father written by Lesley Glaister and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-12-30 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Four English sisters share a terrible family secret in this novel from “the suspense writers’ suspense writer” and author of Trick or Treat (Harper’s Bazaar). Winner of the Somerset Maugham and Betty Trask Awards In a decaying house along the marshy Fenlands of Eastern England, four sisters—Milly, Agatha, and identical, inseparable twins Ellen and Esther—have lived in self-imposed isolation for more than sixty years. Like good sisters, they bicker, go about their daily routines, and believe the bright myth they’ve created about their childhood. Sometimes Milly can recall a blessedly unexceptional youth of ordinary days, domestic tranquility, and young love. But what came after is so much more consuming, and so much harder to forget. So are the questions no one dares to answer out loud . . . Why does Milly still count the knives? What was the corruption their father warned them about? Was their mother really swallowed up by the roaring river? And why does no one sing to Baby George anymore, who’s locked away in the cellar? As a ceaseless rain lashes away at the house, the sisters prepare for a coming storm. With it comes the threat of steadily rising waters that will give up the secrets still holding them in thrall. “A fairytale gone gruesomely wrong”, Lesley Glaister’s debut novel was the recipient of the Somerset Maugham Award, for which she joined the likes of Angela Carter, Doris Lessing, Sarah Waters, and Ian McEwan (The Literary Review). An “eerily tragic and mesmerizing first novel” (Publishers Weekly), Honour Thy Father is “a true original” (The Sunday Times).

Download or read book Easy Peasy written by Lesley Glaister and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-12-30 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A WWII vet’s suicide drives his daughter to uncover his troubled past in this “absorbing, poignant” novel from the award-winning author of Partial Eclipse (Publishers Weekly). Zelda Dawkins knows her older lover, Foxy, is going to leave her. As Zelda prays for something, anything, to prevent the inevitable, she receives a call from her mother. Zelda’s father, a World War II prisoner of war, has hanged himself. It’s not what Zelda wanted. It’s also not unexpected. Zelda comes from a family of unspoken things. Foxy is hers. But for Zelda, her father’s suicide is more than a wellspring for her grief, rage, and guilt. It was his final escape from the screaming nightmares that kept her awake when she was young—and the closely guarded secret he took to bed with him. It’s also stirring in Zelda memories and unanswered questions of her childhood: Why did her father seem to reject her in favor of a damaged neighborhood boy named Vassil? Why was he so taken with the boy’s mother, a prostitute? How did Vassil come to be so disfigured? And what happened to her father those five years in a Japanese prison camp? It’s time for Zelda to confront the past, its legacy of cruelty, and to unearth the secrets—her father’s and her own—that have a cast a shadow over her life. “A writer of addictive emotional thrillers—as if Ruth Rendell had got hold of an A. S. Byatt novel and stripped out the digressive bits.” —The Independent “Step into the world of family secrets, lies and whispers in the dark.” —The Sunday Telegraph

Download or read book Nina Todd Has Gone written by Lesley Glaister and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-12-30 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The truth behind a one-night stand becomes just as terrifying as the consequences, “engrossing” (The Guardian). Nina Todd is a woman of unextraordinary looks, with a dependable boyfriend and a menial job in Sheffield. It’s what she’s craved for years—a completely normal life. Then, while on a business trip in Blackpool, she’s approached by a younger man in the Hotel Astoria. She should have said no, but he was too handsome, and too persuasive to let go. The only trouble is . . . now he won’t let her go. What can he possibly want with her? He doesn’t even know her real name. It wasn’t a random pick-up. Nina’s the one Rupert had been searching for. And he’s not giving up on her. Wherever she goes, Rupert will be there, too—gorgeous, irresistible, distracting, and determined to rip apart Nina’s newly ordered life. Now all she has to fear is her relationship and her job. She’ll never suspect there’s so much more. Nina doesn’t even know his real name. If she did, she’d run like hell. What begins as a fatal attraction takes a terrifying detour as the paths of two apparent strangers converge, in this psychological thriller from “the suspense writers’ suspense writer” (Harper’s Bazaar). “A gripping page-turner.” —Cosmopolitan “Horribly plausible and crisply executed.” —The Sunday Telegraph

Download or read book Digging to Australia written by Lesley Glaister and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-12-30 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An English girl takes a “tumble into a warped wonderland” when her Lewis Carroll-inspired journey unearths unexpected secrets, desires, and dangers (Los Angeles Times). Trapped in suburban England, appalled by her parents, and desperately shy, twelve-year-old Jennifer Maybee is facing the terrors of adolescence alone. After reading Alice in Wonderland, she digs a hole in her backyard hoping to find what her mother calls the “topsy-turvy world of Australia.” Instead, led by a stray cat, Jennifer follows a secret pathway of a different sort. On the other side of a tangle of bramble, Jennifer claims her own Wonderland: an empty playground, a deserted church, and an unattended graveyard. But Jennifer isn’t alone. She meets something close to a friend in Bronwyn, a girl burdened by family tragedy. However, it’s in a squatter named Johnny that Jennifer’s fantasies for a new life begin to bloom. He’s too charming, and too unaccountably sexy for Jennifer to listen to those nasty rumors that he might be responsible for the disappearances of other lonely girls. All Jennifer can do now is marvel at the mysteries to come. From the Somerset Maugham Award–winning author, “dangerous secrets and sinister undertones power this uncommon coming-of-age tale” (Publishers Weekly). Jennifer Maybee, the protagonist of this “enormously enjoyable” novel of innocence lost, returns in Leslie Glaister’s Partial Eclipse (Nick Hornby). “Perverting Wonderland into a place to smoke cigarettes and pry into other people’s secrets . . . this Alice is a match for any dark thing she encounters.” —Los Angeles Times “Before Gillian Flynn, there was Lesley Glaister.” —Harper’s Bazaar

Download or read book Little Egypt written by Lesley Glaister and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER 2014 JERWOOD FICTION UNCOVERED PRIZEElderly, Egypt-mad twins Isis and Osiris find their neglected English lives disturbed to catastrophic effect by the arrival of American Anarchist, SpikeNew from Lesley Glaister, winner of the Somerset Maugham, Betty Trask and Yorkshire Post Author of the Year prizes‘This tale of imprisonment and neglect explores our passion for nostalgia, with hints of Dodie Smith’s darker side. An excellent read that pulls at the heart as well as the head.’ —VICTORIA CLARK, The Lady ‘Eerily atmospheric Little Egypt, made me shudder; certain passages were read through half-closed eyes, the way you watch grisly scenes in a film — desperate to know what happens, but not wanting to disturbing images imprinted on your mind.’ —ROSEMARY GORING, The HeraldLittle Egypt was once a well-to-do country house in the north of England. Now it’s derelict and trapped on a small island of land between a railway, a dual carriageway and a superstore, and although it looks deserted it isn’t. Nonagenarian twins, Isis and Osiris, still live in the home they were born in, and from which in the 1920s their obsessive Egyptologist parents left them to search for the fabled tomb of Herihor – a search from which they never returned. Isis and Osiris have stayed in the house, guarding a terrible secret, for all their long lives until chance meeting between Isis and young American anarchist Spike, sparks an unlikely friendship and proves a catalyst for change. ‘I was gripped by the story from start to finish, finding it a perturbing, poignant and, in places, a darkly humorous read.’ —Amazon.co.ukThis enormously accomplished novel took twenty years to come to fruition: it is well worth the wait — buy your copy now.

Download or read book Fair Helen written by Andrew Greig and published by Quercus. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elderly narrator Harry Langton looks back on the adventures and friends of his youth, transporting the reader to the Scottish Borderlands at the end of the 16th century... The much younger Langton returns to his birthplace to aid an old friend, the brash Adam Fleming, who has fallen for legendary beauty Helen of Annandale. He has also, it seems, fallen foul of a rival for her hand, Robert Bell, a man as violent as he is influential. Fleming confesses to Langton that he fears for his life. In a land where minor lairds vie for power and blood feuds are settled by the sword, Fleming faces a battle to win Helen's hand. By virtue of being the lovers' confidant, Langton is thrust into the middle of this dangerous triangle, and discovers Helen is not so chaste as she is fair. But Langton has his own secrets to keep--and other powers to serve. Someone has noticed Langton's connections to the major players in the Border disputes, and has recruited him in their bid to control the hierarchy of the Border families--someone who would use the lovers as pawns in a game of war. Packed with swordplay, intricate politics, and star-crossed lovers whose actions could change the course of history, Fair Helen is a sumptuous, rousing adventure novel that brings to life one of English poetry's most intriguing heroines.

Download or read book Bitter Leaves written by Tabatha Stirling and published by Unbound Publishing. This book was released on 2019-03-07 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Near the west coast of Singapore lies the leafy enclave of Sabre Green – a haven of wealth and luxury in one of the richest countries in the world. But beneath the glamour lies the insidious truth of the country’s maid culture, where a woman’s life is cheap. Here are the voices of the unheard – of maid and employer, of village girl and city dweller. Follow Lucilla, Ma’am Leslie, Shammi and Madame Eunice as they strive, each in their own way, to exist in a country whose pristine exterior belies the dark shadows beneath. In this candid, often brutal narrative, the lives of four women are woven together. What follows is a story of loss, madness, abuse and hope – and the ways in which they can haunt a woman’s life. * ‘A great read; tense, vivid and involving, both heart-breaking and heart-warming’ – Lesley Glaister, author of Jerwood Prize winner Little Egypt

Download or read book Falling Through Clouds written by Anna Chilvers and published by Bluemoose. This book was released on 2010-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kat, a 22-year-old student, returning home to Devon for the summer holidays meets Gavin on the train. They spend the summer in Cornwall but he has something on his mind. He is plagued with nightmares after having been held hostage in Iraq and she soon finds she is out of her depth, but in too deep to get out unscathed.

Download or read book Miss Mole written by E.H. Young and published by Virago. This book was released on 2020-10-01 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Young is a sharp and funny writer with a brilliant eye for moral fudging and verbal hypocrisy, and she has a splendid foil in Miss Mole' Sally Beauman WINNER OF THE JAMES TAIT BLACK MEMORIAL PRIZE 'Who would suspect her sense of fun and irony, of a passionate love for beauty and the power to drag it from its hidden places? Who would imagine that Miss Mole had pictured herself, at different times, as an explorer in strange lands, as a lady wrapped in luxury and delicate garments?' Miss Hannah Mole has for twenty years earned her living precariously as a governess or companion to a succession of difficult old women.Now, aged forty, a thin and shabby figure, she returns to Radstowe, the lovely city of her youth. Here she is, if not exactly welcomed, at least employed as housekeeper by the pompous Reverend Robert Corder, whose daughters are sorely in need of guidance. But even the dreariest situation can be transformed into an adventure by the indomitable Miss Mole. Blessed with imagination, wit and intelligence, she wins the affection of Ethel and her nervous sister Ruth. But her past holds a secret that, if brought to life, would jeopardise everything.

Download or read book Land of Cockaigne written by Jeffrey Lewis and published by Haus Publishing. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A novel written as a sharp parable of American society, addressing love, purpose, discrimination, and poverty. In Jeffrey Lewis’s novel, the Land of Cockaigne, once an old medieval peasants’ vision of a sensual paradise on earth, is reimagined as a plot on the coast of Maine. In efforts to assuage their grief over their son’s death and to make meaning of his life, Walter Rath and Catherine Gray build what they hope will be a version of paradise for a group of young men from the Bronx. As Walter and Catherine work to reinvent this land, formerly a summer resort, the surrounding town of Sneeds Harbor proves resistant. The residents’ well-meaning doubts lead to well-hidden threats, and the Raths’ marriage unravels as Walter loses faith in democracy. Meanwhile, the Bronx boys, who have only ever known the city, try to navigate this new land that is completely alien to them. Written as a parable of contemporary American society, Land of Cockaigne is by turns furious, funny, subversive, tragic, and horrifying. Faced with the question of what to do amid disastrous times, Walter Rath offers a clue: Love is an action, not a feeling. Once you go down this path of faith, there is much to be done.

Download or read book The Burning Air written by Erin Kelly and published by Penguin Group. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Erin Kelly is a seriously good writer, and this gripping novel is her best yet.” —Sophie Hannah, author of Kind of Cruel A stand-out author of deeply atmospheric psychological thrillers, Erin Kelly is on her way to joining the bestselling ranks of Kate Atkinson and Barbara Vine. Until now, the MacBride family has led a cozy life of upper-class privilege: good looks; tuition-free education at the prestigious private school where their father, Rowan, is headmaster; an altruistic righteousness inherited from their mother, magistrate Lydia. But when the MacBrides gather for the first time since Lydia’s passing at their restored barn in the secluded countryside, the family discovers a stranger in their midst: a stranger who is convinced that Lydia was a murderer—and who has been plotting a spectacular revenge that may shatter their world forever.

Download or read book Up at the Villa written by W. Somerset Maugham and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-08-01 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Up at the Villa" by W. Somerset Maugham. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.