In the first part of the novella, the narrator is a schoolboy, and the narrative consists of his meditations on life, as well as his longing for sexual awakening and the beginning of his adult life. He perceives himself as a voyeur, witnessing couples, sumptuous dining rooms, professionals at work and scenes of family life. In the second part, the young author loses his virginity with Marie, a worldly- wise courtesan who recounts her personal story of erotic experience. Initially, she was a virginal sixteen year old until she was unwillingly married to an elderly suitor who wanted a younger mistress. In return for her acquiescence, though, she has acquired sexual freedom and experience. However, as the reader later learns, she subsequently becomes a tabula rasa, providing her body for the enjoyment of men, but not her individuality or personality. In the concluding section of the novella, the adolescent narrator tries to revisit Marie, but the courtesan and her brothel of residence have vanished. The narrator takes up study toward a legal career, but has already eschewed marriage or professional life. Eventually, he dies.

November

Amy and Dan head for Egypt, with their au pair Nellie Gomez, to find a clue, hidden by Ekaterina founder, Katherine Cahill. They were tailed by Irina Spasky, but escape to a store with an Egyptian goddess statue, the Sakhet. There, a man, Theo Cotter, shows up and convinces them it''s a fake. Discouraged, they go back to Nellie. They go to the Hotel Excelsior and find the Ekaterina stronghold. They find three Sakhets and get trapped by Bae Oh, who is the hotel''s owner. As they escape, one of Grace''s friends, Hilary Vale, takes them to her house. She gives them items from Grace and they find out Theo is Hilary''s grandson. They head for an Egyptian temple and get trapped by Irina and Theo. After Amy and Dan had escaped, they are trapped again by Jonah Wizard, who leaves them on a deserted island on the Nile. After Jonah left them, they are chased by a crocodile across the island, but are saved by a local fisherman. They find out Theo and Hilary Cotter tricked them to get their hands on the Sakhet that Grace left for Amy and Dan. After an unsuccessful attempt to find the clues under the Nile river with Alistair, Amy and Dan find something leading them back to Cairo. After arriving, they find a store which Grace once visited. The store owner, Sami, gives them a Senet board. After opening the puzzle, they identified their clue, Myrrh. It ends with the stronghold getting destroyed, and Amy and Dan finding a mysterious cloth with letter Ms in a pattern, indicating that it must have been the Madrigals.

Beyond the Grave

Midge is sent to stay with her Uncle Brian at Mill Farm in Somerset while her mother is on tour with the orchestra. She comes across a small winged horse which is trapped and injured: her first introduction to the hidden world of the "Royal Forest", an impenetrable thicket on a hill within the farm boundaries. Meanwhile, all the tribes who live in the forest, the Ickri, Naiad, Wisp, Troggles and Tinklers, unite to send a group to search for the missing horse, Pegs. The adventures of the group demonstrate the dangers posed to the Various by the Gorgi world, as Lumst is killed by the ferocious tomcat Tojo. While Midge is accepted by the queen and her advisers as the saviour of Pegs, despite the news she brings of her uncle''s plan to sell the forest land, Scurl and his archers believe that she is herself a danger to the tribes and intend to kill her. At the climax of the novel the archers attack the farm when Midge and her cousins are there alone. Throughout the novel Midge senses another presence, the girl in the photograph on the kitchen wall: it is Celandine, who once lived at the farm and was thought mad for believing she had seen fairies. The story of Celandine is told in the second book of the trilogy, and the bond between her and Midge is explored in Winter Wood.

The Various

Correus Appius Julianus is the slave born son of retired Roman general Flavius Appius Julianus who is currently posted as a senior centurion to the Roman naval base of Misenum in modern-day Naples near Pompeii. The novel opens with Correus frustrated at serving in a peacetime establishment and requesting transfer to a more active post. After overseeing the new emperor Titus''s games, including a naval fight, Correus'' wish is granted as he is sent off to destroy some pirates while his young wife Ygerna has to remain behind to give birth to her baby. She also has to try to assert her authority as a stepmother over Correus'' five-year old son, which provokes a family war with Correus'' half-sister Julia, who has raised the boy for the past five years. Upon returning from his successful mission to destroy the pirates, Correus is caught up in the new emperor Domitian''s determination to win a triumph at the expense of Correus'' old adversaries on the German border. This is complicated by Correus'' own off-again, on-again friendship with the German chief and his half-brother Flavius'' romance with the widow of that same former chieftain. There is also a complicated subplot involving a truly nasty Senator who is attempting to orchestrate a plot to depose the emperor - a plot that the Julianus family ends up being intimately involved in through the actions of their brother-in-law Paulinus. The fast-paced conclusion ends with the defeat of the Germans, and the transfer of Correus to a new post in the Roman province of Dacia.

The Emperor''s Games

The novel depicts a mythical island, Bensalem, which is discovered by the crew of a European ship after they are lost in the Pacific Ocean somewhere west of Peru. The minimal plot serves the gradual unfolding of the island, its customs, but most importantly, its state-sponsored scientific institution, Salomon''s House, "which house or college ... is the very eye of this kingdom." Many aspects of the society and history of the island are described, such as the Christian religion - which is reported to have been born there as a copy of the Bible and a letter from the Apostle Saint Bartholomew arrived there miraculously, a few years after the Ascension of Jesus; a cultural feast in honor of the family institution, called "the Feast of the Family"; a college of sages, the Salomon''s House, "the very eye of the kingdom", to which order "God of heaven and earth had vouchsafed the grace to know the works of Creation, and the secrets of them", as well as "to discern between divine miracles, works of nature, works of art, and impostures and illusions of all sorts"; and a series of instruments, process and methods of scientific research that were employed in the island by the Salomon''s House. The interlocutors include the governor of the House of Strangers, Joabin the Jew, and the Head of Salomon''s House. The inhabitants of Bensalem are described as having a high moral character and honesty, no official accepting any payment from individuals, and the people being described as chaste and pious, as said by an inhabitant of the island: In the last third of the book, the Head of the Salomon''s House takes one of the European visitors to show him all the scientific background of Salomon''s House, where experiments are conducted in Baconian method in order to understand and conquer nature, and to apply the collected knowledge to the betterment of society. Namely: 1) the end of their foundation; 2) the preparations they have for their works; 3) the several employments and functions whereto their fellows are assigned; 4) and the ordinances and rites which they observe. He portrayed a vision of the future of human discovery and knowledge. The plan and organisation of his ideal college, "Salomon''s House", envisioned the modern research university in both applied and pure science. The end of their foundation is thus described: "The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible". In the describing the several employments and functions to which the members of the Salomon''s House are assigned, the Head of the college said: Even this short excerpt demonstrates that Bacon understood that science requires analysis and not just the accumulation of observations. Bacon also foresaw that the design of experiments could be improved. In describing the ordinances and rites observed by the scientists of Salomon''s House, its Head said: And finally, after showing all the scientific background of Salomon''s House, he gave the European visitor permission to publish it:

The New Atlantis

Prologue The story opens with Rebecca and Ruby walking along the coast road from St Just to Zennor in Cornwall. This is during the time of a visit to Cornwall with Adam to visit his relative’s grave. Part One – Shoebox Story Rebecca recounts the discovery of herself as a foundling by Lucia, after she is abandoned by her young mother outside an Italian restaurant. This is at a time when she is working for Mr Damiano, a mysterious ex-circus owner who has set up a chain of boutique hotels that Rebecca helps to manage. On a flight back to England, one of the plane’s engines fails and it is forced to return to New York. It is whilst standing on the tarmac that Rebecca decides to hand in her notice, having lost all zest for her work. Rebecca’s story goes back to the time when she was sharing a flat with Joe, an intellectual who is writing a book about Nadezhda Alliluyeva, the thirty one year old wife of Stalin who committed suicide in 1932. He befriends Adam through a shared interest in chess and he and Rebecca fall in love and then marry. Joe decides to move to Moscow to further his research and lives with Olya, and Rebecca and Adam decide to visit him with Ruby. He tells them about Joseph Stalin’s character and the wave of fear that gripped Russia during his dictatorship. On their return to England, they decide to visit Adam’s grandmother’s grave at Barnoon Cemetery in Cornwall and Rebecca is happy that Ruby will have ancestors that she herself can never have. It is on their return to London on a warm August evening that tragedy strikes when Ruby is run down by a motorist. Rebecca cannot reconcile herself to her daughter’s loss and the intensity of her grief leads to their eventual separation. It is at this time that Rebecca’s shattered life is restored through her work for Mr Damiano, who tells her his life story as the son of poor trapeze artists. Joe, meanwhile, is working on his second novel – about the time of Stalin’s retreat to his dacha when Hitler invaded Russia. After talking to an Afghan war veteran, he decides to abandon the task and goes to Vancouver Island to write a novel. Rebecca leaves London and, on a visit to St Ives, starts working as a waitress in a local cafe. Here, she is visited by Joe who gives her a copy of his story. Part Two – Boomdiara This part is a narrative of Joe’s novel which describes the life of Florence, who works in Madame Blanche’s brothel to support her young daughter, Claire. It is here that she meets Will, a World War One air force pilot, with whom she falls in love. Joe writes to Rebecca that Florence’s character is based in part on her own. Part Three – Flight In this part the stories of Rebecca and Adam and Florence and Will become intertwined. Adam visits Rebecca in her boarding house and they become reunited and return to Ruby who is buried in the same grave as her great grandmother. Will’s plane is shot up in a fire fight with a German Albatros and he has to cut his engine to prevent his plane going down as a flamer.

Mourning Ruby

The story traces the rise and fall of the Peruvattar family, rubber plantation owners based in the Kanyakumari Nanjil district in Tamil Nadu. The story begins in the present and moves back briefly to trace the early life of the family patriarch Ponnu Peruvattar. Ponnu begins life as a forest laborer and slowly grows to acquire the entire forest and converts it into a rubber plantation through hard work and ruthless means. Rubber, which is alien to the Nanjil land, provides wealth, power and social position to the Peruvattar dynasty, but also corrupts it from within. Ponnu''s equally ruthless son Chelliah tries to expand the empire; Chelliah''s wife Thirese exhibits all the trappings of the "nouveau riche" - Chelliah worships her despite her infidelity. The last two of Chelliah and Thirese''s five children are still with the family - Francis, the grandfather''s favourite, is a wastrel; Livy goes to college but lacks morals and compassion. The ailing patriarch Ponnu spends his last days contemplating whether his life was worth anything at all. Chelliah faces financial ruin as he dabbles in exports, and he desperately wants his father to die soon so that he could sell the family home and assets. Dependent on the spiteful family for even minor needs and consumed by guilt and self-pity, Ponnu Peruvattar begs his assistant Kunhi for poison. He is visited by his old friend, the simple and noble Kandan Kaani, a tribal that had roamed the forest land with him in his youth. The novel ends with the passing away of the patriarch and the salvation of family scion Francis.

Rubber

The main story of The Testament is set within a framing narrative which concerns a publisher who recollects the "strange disappearance" of the novel''s main character, Gideon Mack, and the discovery of Mack''s "last testament". The testament itself comprises the main narrative. It recounts the life of its author, a son of the manse (meaning the son of a minister of the Scottish Kirk), who has followed in his father’s steps, eventually becoming minister to the small town of Monimaskit. Since Gideon does not, however, believe in God as such, he becomes increasingly disillusioned with his existence, until an accident sends him tumbling into a local gorge. Believed to be dead, he emerges three days later, claiming to have met and conversed with the Devil, who has confirmed several of his doubts. After scandalising and alienating his friends, the parish, and the Kirk at large, Gideon once again disappears, leaving his written account for posterity. The epilogue to the novel is presented as the report of the freelance journalist who first brought the manuscript to the publisher’s attention. He interviews several of the inhabitants of Monimaskit who were mentioned in Gideon’s testament.

The Testament Of Gideon Mack

Some days later Disley again appears at the door, this time with a note from his mother explaining about the unrest in the townships and asking him to look after the boy. André is dismissive of the black boy, warning Pete in jest about what is illegal with blacks – "Specially seduction of minors. You can shoot them in the back but you can''t go to bed with them". After André leaves, Pete makes Disley have a bath and then pins some of own clothes so that they fit the skinny little boy''s body. Disley is modest as he changes, but Pete is aroused: "I''d found this impromptu ceremony such an enjoyment that a furious guilt arose in me: if I prolonged this it would become more than a merciful deed, and I would be irretrievably lost". He thinks of himself, "kneading an ache over that untouchable item, a black parcel of skin and bone, under age." André has taken to using rent boys, and returns with one called Prince. They all go off to the airport (André is a flight attendant) and go plane spotting. Disley loves it. As Pete gets ready to take Disley to the school where he can stay overnight, he discovers that Disley has deliberately left his jumper and suitcase at Pete''s home. Disley also hints that he knows all about André and Pete being gay, and Pete recognises the possibility of blackmail over his teaching position. So he agrees to let Disley stay and to coach him so that he can stay on at the private school. Pete starts wishfully thinking about what might happen after they finish watching Polanski''s Macbeth on video, "Probably after that he was going to seduce me, probably I was due to have the experience of a lifetime, and be entirely lost." Pete prepares a bed roll for Disley in the corner of his bedroom, goes for a bath, and returns to find Disley has crept into his bed. Pete climbs in and starts intimately stroking the boy, who responds suggestively "You haven''t given me a good-night kiss". Pete thinks "This was not a child, but a lover." Over the next six months, Disley matures, his performance at school improves due to his one-to-one coaching and he starts making friends. But he is drawn back to his roots when a relative dies and disappears from school. Pete and another teacher Jenny set off to find him. Jenny is a radical, always followed by the police, and she seduces Pete and he finally loses his heterosexual virginity. Pete discovers she is laundering money brought into South Africa by André and the novel ends with the suffering typical of the violent world of apartheid and police corruption.

Time of our Darkness

In an attempt to return Abernathy to his former human self, court wizard Questor Thews inadvertently sends the canine court scribe, along with Ben Holiday''s royal medallion, to Earth. Specifically, Abernathy ends up with the medallion in the menagerie of Michel Ard Rhi, a cruel former prince of Landover who was banished from Landover years ago. Ard Rhi is now a Washington state billionaire who keeps a collection of rare and magical items in his personal castle. As part of the botched spell, Abernathy is exchanged for one of Ard Rhi''s magical artifacts, and a strange bottle appears in Landover in Abernathy''s place. The bottle contains a Darkling, a creature similar to an evil genie that corrupts its master. The bottle is stolen by the G''home Gnomes Filip and Sot, and Ben gives chase along with Questor, Willow, and Bunion. Ben and Willow later decide to use Questor''s magic to travel to Earth to find Abernathy. With the help of Miles, Ben''s old law partner, and Elizabeth, the daughter of one of Ard Rhi''s employees, Abernathy is rescued. However, Ard Rhi uses his influence to have the party detained at a police station. Meanwhile, Questor continues to pursue the Darkling. He finds that through a series of thefts, the bottle has ended up in the hands of the evil witch Nightshade. Knowing that only the High Lord can defeat Nightshade, Questor decides to try to convince the dragon Strabo to fly him through the fairy mists to Earth. Using an itch spell, Questor gets the dragon to agree. They arrive at the last moment to rescue Ben and his friends from the police station and fly them back to Landover, but not before Questor uses his magic to restore Ard Rhi''s conscience and convince him to give away his vast estate. Ben and Questor confront Nightshade, and Ben uses his medallion to summon his knight champion, the Paladin. Nightshade, however, uses the Darkling to conjure a perverse version of the Paladin, and the creations give battle. Questor, meanwhile, manages to shrink himself and act as a stopper in the Darkling''s bottle, cutting off the source of its power. The Darkling is destroyed, Nightshade flees, and order is restored to Landover.

Wizard at Large

The novel follows the life of a young boy growing up in Calcutta and later on in Delhi and London. His family – the Datta Chaudharis - and the Prices in London are linked by the friendship between their respective patriarchs – Justice Dattachaudhari and Lionel Tresawsen. The narrator adores Tridib because of his tremendous knowledge and his perspective of the incidents and places. Tha''mma thinks that Tridib is type of person who seems ''determined to waste his life in idle self-indulgence'', one who refuses to use his family connections to establish a career. Unlike his grandmother, the narrator loves listening to Tridib. For the narrator, Tridib''s lore is very different from the collection of facts and figures. The narrator is sexually attracted to Ila but his feelings are passive. He never expresses his feelings to her afraid to lose the relationship that exists between them. However one day he involuntarily shows his feelings when she was changing clothes in front of him being unaware of his feelings. She feels sorry for him. Tha''mma does not like Ila. ''Why do you always speak for that whore'' - She doesn''t like her grandson to support her. Tha''mma has a dreadful past and wants to reunite her family and goes to Dhaka to bring back her uncle. Tridib is in love with May and sacrificed his life to rescue her from mobs in the communal riots of 1963-64 in Dhaka.

The Shadow Lines

Maxine Williams is a well-known and leading child psychiatrist, specializing in trauma and suicide, with three amazing children Daphne, Jack and Sam and a rich and glamorous ex-husband. Blake Williams, one of the richest men in the world has a glamorous life of globe travelling and dating beautiful women whilst Maxine stays in Manhattan looking after their children and pursuing the career she loves.Though divorced, both are extremely affectionate to each other. Blake soon meets the beautiful Arabella and falls deeply in love.Meanwhile Max also starts dating a doctor, Charles West.But Charles is a bit uncomfortable with the children and even starts showing his irritation by suggesting that the kids should be sent to a boarding school.The eldest one, Daphne starts becoming possessive of both her parents and behaves rudely to both Arabella and Charles. When a tragedy strikes in Morocco, Blake and Max join hands to help the victims and orphaned children. Blake transforms into a responsible man, much to Max''s surprise.Blake throws Arabella out after she deceives him. Max and Charles plan to wed soon but Max finds herself happy only in Blake''s company while Charles constantly hurts Blake by behaving rudely whenever he was around. After a series of hilarious events, Max and Blake marry again, much to the delight of their kids.

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November

No Author Listed

Beyond the Grave

By Judy Blundell

The Various

No Author Listed

The Emperor's Games

No Author Listed

The New Atlantis

By Francis Bacon

Mourning Ruby

By Helen Dunmore

Rubber

By Jeyamohan

The Testament Of Gideon Mack

By James Robertson

Time of our Darkness

By Stephen Gray

Wizard at Large

By Terry Brooks

The Shadow Lines

By Amitav Ghosh

Rogue

By Danielle Steel