Miss Bensons Beetle A Novel

Miss Benson s Beetle Book PDF/Epub Download

This instant New York Times bestseller is the unforgettable, funny and charming story of a marvelous adventure and unexpected female friendship, from the author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. It is 1950. In a moment of madness Margery Benson abandons her sensible job and advertises for an assistant to accompany her on an expedition. She is going to travel to the other side of the world to search for a beetle that may or may not exist. Enid Pretty, in pink hat and pompom sandals, is not the companion she had in mind. But together they will find themselves drawn into an adventure that exceeds all expectations. They must risk everything and break all the rules, but at the top of a red mountain they will discover their best selves. This is a story that is less about what can be found than the belief it might be found. It is an intoxicating adventure story, but it is also about what it means to be a woman and a tender exploration of a friendship that defies all boundaries.

The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy Book PDF/Epub Download

When Queenie Hennessy discovers that Harold Fry is walking the length of England to save her, and all she has to do is wait, she is shocked. Her note had explained she was dying. How can she wait? A new volunteer at the hospice suggests that Queenie should write again; only this time she must tell Harold everything. In confessing to secrets she has hidden for twenty years, she will find atonement for the past. As the volunteer points out, 'Even though you've done your travelling, you're starting a new journey too.' Queenie thought her first letter would be the end of the story. She was wrong. It was the beginning.

The Music Shop Book PDF/Epub Download

A love story and a journey through music. The exquisite and perfectly pitched new novel from the bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Perfect and The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy. It's 1988. The CD has arrived. Sales of the shiny new disks are soaring on high streets in cities across the England. Meanwhile, down a dead-end street, Frank's music shop stands small and brightly lit, jam-packed with records of every kind. It attracts the lonely, the sleepless, the adrift. There is room for everyone. Frank has a gift for finding his customers the music they need. Into this shop arrives Ilse Brauchmann--practical, brave, well-heeled. Frank falls for this curious woman who always dresses in green. But Ilse's reasons for visiting the shop are not what they seem. Frank's passion for Ilse seems as misguided as his determination to save vinyl. How can a man so in tune with other people's needs be so incapable of helping himself? And what will it take to show he loves her? The Music Shop is a story about good, ordinary people who take on forces too big for them. It's about falling in love and how hard it can be. And it's about music--how it can bring us together when we are divided and save us when all seems lost.

Perfect Book PDF/Epub Download

From the author of the international bestseller, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, comes another exquisite and emotionally resonant novel about the search for the truth and unconditional love. On a foggy spring morning in 1972, twelve-year-old Byron Hemming and his mother are driving to school in the English countryside. On the way, in a life-changing two seconds, an accident occurs. Or does it? Byron is sure it happened, but his mother, sitting right next to him in the car, has no reaction to it. Over the course of the days and weeks that follow, Byron embarks on a journey to discover what really happened--or didn't--that fateful morning when everything changed. It is a journey that will take him--a loveable and cloistered twelve-year-old boy with a loveable and cloistered twelve-year-old boy's perspective on life--into the murkier, more difficult realities of the adult world, where people lie, fathers and mothers fight without words, and even unwilling boys must become men. Byron will have to reconcile the dueling realities of that summer, a testament to the perseverance of the human spirit and the power of compassion.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry Book PDF/Epub Download

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Joyce’s beguiling debut is [a] modest-seeming story of ‘ordinary’ English lives that enthralls and moves you as it unfolds.”—People (four stars) IN DEVELOPMENT AS A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST Meet Harold Fry, recently retired. He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does. Little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning a letter arrives, addressed to Harold in a shaky scrawl, from a woman he hasn’t heard from in twenty years. Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye. But before Harold mails off a quick reply, a chance encounter convinces him that he absolutely must deliver his message to Queenie in person. In his yachting shoes and light coat, Harold Fry embarks on an urgent quest. Determined to walk six hundred miles to the hospice, Harold believes that as long as he walks, Queenie will live. A novel of charm, humor, and profound insight into the thoughts and feelings we all bury deep within our hearts, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry introduces Rachel Joyce as a wise—and utterly irresistible—storyteller.

The Girl in the Garden Book PDF/Epub Download

"Lush and mysterious...casts its spell from the first page...This is a deeply satisfying novel." - Kelly O'Connor McNees, author of The Island of Doves The redemptive journey of a young woman unsure of her engagement, who revisits in memory the events of one scorching childhood summer when her beautiful yet troubled mother spirits her away from her home to an Indian village untouched by time, where she discovers in the jungle behind her ancestral house a spellbinding garden that harbors a terrifying secret.

The Harold Fry and Queenie Hennessy 2 book Bundle Book PDF/Epub Download

Two beloved novels in one volume! THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY Recently retired, sweet, emotionally numb Harold Fry is jolted out of his passivity by a letter from Queenie Hennessy, an old friend, who he hasn't heard from in twenty years. She has written to say she is in hospice and wanted to say goodbye. Leaving his tense, bitter wife Maureen to her chores, Harold intends a quick walk to the corner mailbox to post his reply but instead, inspired by a chance encounter, he becomes convinced he must deliver his message in person to Queenie--who is 600 miles away--because as long as he keeps walking, Harold believes that Queenie will not die. So without hiking boots, rain gear, map or cell phone, one of the most endearing characters in current fiction begins his unlikely pilgrimage across the English countryside. Along the way, strangers stir up memories--flashbacks, often painful, from when his marriage was filled with promise and then not, of his inadequacy as a father, and of his shortcomings as a husband. Ironically, his wife Maureen, shocked by her husband's sudden absence, begins to long for his presence. Is it possible for Harold and Maureen to bridge the distance between them? And will Queenie be alive to see Harold arrive at her door? THE LOVE SONG OF MISS QUEENIE HENNESSY When Queenie Hennessy discovers that Harold Fry is walking the length of England to save her, and all she has to do is wait, she is shocked. Her note had explained she was dying. How can she wait? A new volunteer at the hospice suggests that Queenie should write again; only this time she must tell Harold everything. In confessing to secrets she has hidden for twenty years, she will find atonement for the past. As the volunteer points out, 'Even though you've done your travelling, you're starting a new journey too.' Queenie thought her first letter would be the end of the story. She was wrong. It was the beginning.

Meet Me at the Museum Book PDF/Epub Download

Now being read on BBC Radio Four A beautiful novel about late love and second chances, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award 2018 'A moving tribute to friendship and love, to the courage of the ordinary, and to starting again' RACHEL JOYCE, author of Miss Benson's Beetle 'Full of grace and humanity' Sunday Times ________________________ This story begins with a letter From a housewife to the gentle curator Of an extraordinary museum Where lies peacefully An ancient exhibit That holds the key To Everything We are. Meet Me at the Museum tells of a connection made across oceans and against all the odds. Through intimate stories of joy, despair, and discovery, two people are drawn inexorably towards the other, until a shattering revelation pushes their friendship to the very edge. This deeply affecting debut novel by seventy-three year-old Anne Youngson won the Paul Torday Memorial Prize and was dramatized on BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour ******************************* 'Tender, wise and moving, Meet Me at the Museum is a novel to cherish.' JOHN BOYNE 'Insightful, emotionally acute and absorbing' DAILY EXPRESS 'Beautiful and affecting' NINA STIBBE What readers are saying: 'I loved this book. It was so different from anything else I have read' 'I just loved this book and read it in one sitting. There were times when I felt like underlining the sentences that resonated with me' 'I read this book one letter at a time, just to let the contents sink in. Tears came to my eyes'

A Solitude of Wolverines Book PDF/Epub Download

“Both a mystery and a survival story, here is a novel written with a naturalist’s eye for detail and an unrelenting pace. It reminded me of the best of Nevada Barr." —James Rollins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Last Odyssey The first book in a thrilling series featuring an intrepid wildlife biologist who's dedicated to saving endangered species...and relies on her superior survival skills to thwart those who aim to stop her. While studying wolverines on a wildlife sanctuary in Montana, biologist Alex Carter is run off the road and threatened by locals determined to force her off the land. Undeterred in her mission to help save this threatened species, Alex tracks wolverines on foot and by cameras positioned in remote regions of the preserve. But when she reviews the photos, she discovers disturbing images of an animal of a different kind: a severely injured man seemingly lost and wandering in the wilds. After searches for the unknown man come up empty, local law enforcement is strangely set on dismissing the case altogether, raising Alex’s suspicions. Then another invasive predator trespasses onto the preserve. The hunter turns out to be another human—and the prey is the wildlife biologist herself. Alex realizes too late that she has seen too much—she's stumbled onto a far-reaching illegal operation and now has become the biggest threat. In this wild and dangerous landscape, Alex’s life depends on staying one step ahead—using all she knows about the animal world and what it takes to win the brutal battle for survival.

The Distance Home Book PDF/Epub Download

“[Paula] Saunders skillfully illuminates how time heals certain wounds while deepening others. . . . A mediation of the violence of American ambition.”—The New York Times Book Review NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLE “A deeply involving portrait of the American postwar family” (Jennifer Egan) about sibling rivalry, dark secrets, and a young girl’s struggle with freedom and artistic desire In the years after World War II, the bleak yet beautiful plains of South Dakota still embody all the contradictions—the ruggedness and the promise—of the old frontier. This is a place where you can eat strawberries from wild vines, where lightning reveals a boundless horizon, where descendants of white settlers and native Indians continue to collide, and where, for most, there are limited options. René shares a home, a family, and a passion for dance with her older brother, Leon. Yet for all they have in common, their lives are on remarkably different paths. In contrast to René, a born spitfire, Leon is a gentle soul. The only boy in their ballet class, Leon silently endures often brutal teasing. Meanwhile, René excels at everything she touches, basking in the delighted gaze of their father, whom Leon seems to disappoint no matter how hard he tries. As the years pass, René and Leon’s parents fight with increasing frequency—and ferocity. Their father—a cattle broker—spends more time on the road, his sporadic homecomings both yearned for and dreaded by the children. And as René and Leon grow up, they grow apart. They grasp whatever they can to stay afloat—a word of praise, a grandmother’s outstretched hand, the seductive attention of a stranger—as René works to save herself, crossing the border into a larger, more hopeful world, while Leon embarks on a path of despair and self-destruction. Tender, searing, and unforgettable, The Distance Home is a profoundly American story spanning decades—a tale of haves and have-nots, of how our ideas of winning and losing, success and failure, lead us inevitably into various problems with empathy and caring for one another. It’s a portrait of beauty and brutality in which the author’s compassionate narration allows us to sympathize, in turn, with everyone involved. “A riveting family saga for the ages . . . one of the best books I’ve read in years.”—Mary Karr “Saunders’ debut is an exquisite, searing portrait of family and of people coping with whatever life throws at them while trying to keep close to one another.”—Booklist (starred review)

The Outlander Book PDF/Epub Download

On a moonlit night in 1903, a mysterious young woman flees alone across the Canadian wilderness, one quick step ahead of her pursuers. Mary Boulton is nineteen years old, half mad, and widowed - by her own hand. Tearing through the forest with dogs howling in the distance, she is desperate, her nerves burning, and she is certain of one thing only - that her every move is being traced. Two red-headed brothers, rifles across their backs, lurch close behind her: monstrous figures, identical in every way, with the predatory look of hyenas. She has murdered their brother, and their cold lust for vengeance is unswerving. As the widow scrambles to stay ahead of them, the burden of her existence disintegrates into a battle in which the dangers of her own mind become more menacing than the dangers of the night. Along the way, the steely outlaw encounters a changing cast of misfits and eccentrics. Some, like the recluse known as 'The Ridgerunner', provide a brief respite from her solitude; others, like the Reverend Bonnycastle, offer support only to reveal that they too have their own demons raging inside. As she is plunged further away from civilisation, her path from retribution to redemption slowly unfurls. A startling transformation of the classic western narrative, The Outlander is the haunting tale of one young woman's deliberate journey deep into the wild.

Meet Me in Paradise Book PDF/Epub Download

Marin Cole has never: Seen the ocean Climbed a mountain Taken a risk on love ....But if her sister's plan works, she just might do all three. Ever since her journalist mother died on assignment, Marin has played it safe, refusing to set foot outside the state of Tennessee. Her wild-child younger sister, Sadie, has trotted the globe as a photographer, living off of art and adrenaline. When Sadie returns from a tough assignment abroad and looks a little worse for wear, Marin reluctantly agrees to a sisters' spa weekend on the tropical island of Saba. But her lifelong fear of travel is affirmed when Sadie misses the flight, Marin's luggage gets mixed up with another passenger's, and an episode of turbulence sends her hurtling into the lap of Lucas Tsai, the handsome stranger who stole her sister's seat. For the first time in a long time, Marin has to step outside of her comfort zone as she explores the island with Lucas and learns what she's been missing out on. With each breathtaking new experience, Marin gets closer to her real self, the man she’s falling for, and the heart-wrenching truth about why she’s there in the first place.

On Wilder Seas Book PDF/Epub Download

'A thrilling historical novel.'David Nicholls'In this gripping tale of true feminine courage, strength and spirit of adventure, Nikki Marmery gives voice to a woman who, like so many others, has been written out of history.' Martine McDonagh'On Wilder Seas is a gripping adventure story of an extraordinary journey half way around the world by a woman who was almost completely written out of history. Nikki Marmery brings Macaia (Maria) vividly to life along with a tremendous crew of compelling and believable characters, including Drake himself.' Mandy Haggith'This is a lively, spirited account of the epic voyage made by Maria, a woman who was a mysterious passenger on Francis Drake’s Golden Hind...thoroughly researched and vividly written, with a host of colourful characters. The brutality, horror and discomfort of life on board a 16th century galleon and the wonders and dangers that the crew experiences are skilfully evoked.'Sally O’ReillyApril 1579: When two ships meet off the Pacific coast of New Spain, an enslaved woman seizes the chance to escape.But Maria has unwittingly joined Francis Drake’s circumnavigation voyage as he sets sail on a secret detour into the far north.Sailing into the unknown on the Golden Hind, a lone woman among eighty men, Maria will be tested to the very limits of her endurance. It will take all her wits to survive – and courage to cut the ties that bind her to Drake to pursue her own journey.How far will Maria go to be truly free?Inspired by a true story, this is the tale of one woman’s uncharted voyage to freedom.

The Turn of the Screw Book PDF/Epub Download

The Turn of the Screw, originally published in 1898, is a novella written by Henry James. The story, a part of Gothic and ghost story genres, first appeared in serial format in Collier's Weekly magazine (27 January – 16 April 1898). In October 1898 it appeared in The Two Magics, a book published by Macmillan in New York City and Heinemann in London. Due to its original content, The Turn of the Screw became a favorite text of academics who subscribe to New Criticism. The novella has had differing interpretations, often mutually exclusive. Many critics have tried to determine the exact nature of the evil hinted at by the story. However, others have argued that the brilliance of the novella results from its ability to create an intimate sense of confusion and suspense within the reader.

Beetle Boy Book PDF/Epub Download

Darkus's dad has disappeared - but his new friend, a giant beetle called Baxter, is some consolation. Together, boy and beetle set out to solve the mystery of his father's disappearance. But Lucretia Cutter - a fashion designer with a penchant for beetle jewellery - is dead set against their success ...

Major Pettigrew s Last Stand Book PDF/Epub Download

Honour, duty and a properly brewed cup of tea ... the sweet, moving and uplifting story of a highly unlikely relationship between a very proper English gentleman and a widowed Pakistani shopkeeper, now in paperback.

The Path to the Sea Book PDF/Epub Download

Sometimes going home is just the beginning... ‘Vivid and beautifully written, Liz Fenwick is a gifted storyteller’ Sarah Morgan, Sunday Times bestselling author 'Atmospheric, emotional and full of mystery – an absolute pleasure from page one' Veronica Henry, Sunday Times bestselling author

This Shining Life Book PDF/Epub Download

A boy struggling to process an unexpected loss believes he has been given a series of clues to the biggest puzzle of all—the meaning of life—in this deeply felt debut novel. “An exquisitely beautiful and compelling novel about love, loss, and life.”—Rachel Joyce, New York Times bestselling author of Miss Benson’s Beetle Meet Ollie. He’s eleven years old. He hasn’t yet met a Killer Sudoku he can’t solve, but he finds the world around him difficult. People don’t say what they mean, and he hates being wrong. And now, a sudden tragedy teaches him there is no easy answer to the problem of grief. When Ollie’s happy-go-lucky father, Rich, dies of brain cancer, his mother, Ruth, has no idea how to keep living, and the entire family is thrown into disarray. The only thing that makes sense to Ollie is the puzzle he’s convinced his father left behind: one gift for each member of the family. If Ollie can find the connection between a pink vase and an old pair of binoculars, then somehow he’ll discover the secret he believes Rich wanted to share with them all: what it means to be alive. Interweaving the voices of each character in turn, this deeply felt novel paints a portrait of a family learning to come together through the darkest times. This Shining Life is a poignant yet ultimately uplifting meditation on grief, healing, and love.

Mary Called Magdalene Book PDF/Epub Download

The New York Times bestselling author of The Splendor Before the Dark reveals the untold story of Mary Magdalene—a disciple of Jesus Christ and the most mysterious woman in the Bible. Was Mary Magdalene a prostitute, a female divinity figure, a church leader, or all of those? Biblical references to her are tantalizingly brief, but we do know that she was the first person to whom the risen Christ appeared—and the one commissioned to tell others the good news, earning her the ancient honorific, “Apostle to the Apostles.” Today, Mary continues to spark controversy, curiosity, and veneration. In a vivid re-creation of Mary Magdalene's life story, Margaret George convincingly captures this renowned woman's voice as she moves from girlhood to womanhood, becomes part of the circle of disciples, and comes to grips with the divine. While grounded in biblical scholarship and secular research, Mary, Called Magdalene ultimately transcends both history and fiction to become a “diary of a soul.”

Still Life Book PDF/Epub Download

Set between World War II and the 1980s, Still Life is a beautiful, big-hearted story of strangers brought together by love, war, art, flood, and the ghost of E. M. Forster, from the bestselling, prize-winning author of Tin Man and When God Was a Rabbit. In the wine-cellar of a Tuscan villa, as the Allies advance and bombs fall around them, two people meet and share an extraordinary evening: Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier from London's East End; Evelyn Skinner is a worldly older art historian and possible spy. She has come to Italy to rescue paintings from the ruins and relive her memories of the time she encountered E.M. Forster and had her heart stolen by an Italian maid in a particular Florentine room with a view. Evelyn's talk of truth and beauty plants a seed in Ulysses's mind that night, one that will shape the trajectory of his life--and the lives of those who love him--for the next four decades. Moving from war-ravaged Tuscany to the boozy confines of The Stoat and Parrot pub in London and the piazzas of post-war Florence, Still Life is both sweeping and intimate, mischievous and deeply felt. It is a novel about beauty, love and fate, about the things that make life worth living, and the things we're prepared to die for.

When the Whales Leave Book PDF/Epub Download

This fable of an indigenous Arctic people “offers profound considerations about stewardship of and people’s relationships to the natural world” (Publishers Weekly). Nau cannot remember a time when she was not one with the world around her: with the fast breeze, the green grass, the high clouds, and the endless blue sky above the Shingled Spit. But her greatest joy is to visit the sea, where whales gather every morning to gaily spout rainbows. Then one day, she finds a man in the mist where a whale should be: Reu, who has taken human form out of his Great Love for her. Together these first humans become parents to two whales, and then to mankind. Even after Reu dies, Nau continues on, sharing her story of brotherhood between the two species. But as these origins grow distant, the old woman’s tales are subsumed into myth—and her descendants are increasingly bent on parading their dominance over the natural world. Buoyantly translated into English for the first time by Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse, this new entry in the Seedbank series is at once a vibrant retelling of the origin story of the Chukchi, a timely parable about the destructive power of human ego—and another unforgettable work of fiction from Yuri Rytkheu, “arguably the foremost writer to emerge from the minority peoples of Russia’s far north” (New York Review of Books). “We have so little intimate information about these Arctic people, and the writer’s deep emotional attachment to this landscape of ice (today melting away under global warming forces) makes every sentence seem a poetic revelation.” —Annie Proulx