Bloomsbury

I loved my native city, but how I longed to escape, to go to America - a land full of eligible men...Twenty-something Daria is an intelligent, bilingual secretary who should have her pick of the men in Odessa - except that the only men who are making advances are a dashing mafia gangster and her boss. Fearful that she'll be fired for refusing...

An Education in WarA few weeks after the planes crashed into the World Trade Centre on 9/11, LA Times journalist Megan Stack was thrust into Afghanistan and Pakistan, dodging gunmen and prodding warlords for information. She then travelled to other war ravaged countries of the Middle East including Israel and Libya, witnessing and telling the...

When Tom Brodzinski finally decides to give up smoking during a family holiday in a weird, unnamed land, a moment’s inattention becomes his undoing. Flipping the butt of his last cigarette off the balcony of the holiday apartment, it lands on the head of the elderly Reggie Lincoln, and burns him. Despite Brodzinski’s liberal attitudes and...

Kat and Emily have grown up without their mother for almost as long as they can remember. And now Dad is with Cassy and they all muddle along together well enough - even though they are living in a cramped caravan while their new house is being renovated. Then Cassy and Dad tell them that Cassy is pregnant, and everything seems to shift. Emily...

Peking, 1914. Eight-year-old Eastern Jewel peers from behind a screen as her father, Prince Su makes love to a servant girl. Caught spying by her thirteenth sister, Eastern Jewel's sexual curiosity sees her banished to live with distant relatives in Tokyo, then forced into a passionless marriage in freezing Mongolia. Increasingly isolated, at night...

Egypt, 1964. The great temple at Abu Simbel must be rescued from the rising waters of the Aswan Dam. Block by block it is to be dismantled and resurrected sixty metres higher. This most delicate and daunting of tasks is overseen by Avery, a young engineer who at the same time is carefully, and joyfully, constructing a shared life with his new wife,...