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The Immortalization Commission: Science and the Strange Quest to Cheat Death
by John GrayA Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 TitleAt the heart of human experience lies an obsession with the nature of death. Religion, for most of history, has provided an explanation for human life and a vision of what comes after it. But in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such beliefs came under relentless pressure as new ideas—from psychiatry to evolution to communism—seemed to suggest that our fate was now in our own hands: humans could cease to be animals, defeat death, and become immortal.In The Immortalization Commission, the acclaimed political philosopher and critic John Gray takes a brilliant and frightening look at humankind's dangerous striving toward a scientific version of immortality. Probing the parallel faiths of Bolshevik "God-builders," who sought to reshape the planet and psychical researchers, who believed they had evidence of a nonreligious form of life after death, Gray raises fascinating questions about how such beliefs threaten the very nature of what it means to be human. He looks to philosophers, journalists, politicians, charlatans, and mass murderers who all felt driven by a specifically scientific and modern worldview and whose revolt against death resulted in a series of experiments that ravaged whole countries. An urgent examination of Darwin's post-religious legacy, The Immortalization Commission is an important work from "one of Britain's leading public intellectuals" (The Wall Street Journal).
Poisoned Legacy: The Human Cost of BP's Rise to Power
by Mike MagnerThe story is all too-familiar: On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, killing eleven workers and creating the largest oil spill in the history of U.S. offshore drilling. But, this wasn't the first time British Petroleum and its cost-cutting practices destroyed parts of the natural world. It also was not the first time that BP's negligence resulted in the loss of human life, ruined family businesses or shattered dreams. Journalist Mike Magner has been tracking BP's reckless path for years and, for the first time, focuses on the human price of BP's rise to power. From Alaska to Kansas to the Gulf, Magner has talked to people whose lives have been destroyed by BP's almost unparalleled corporate greed. When BP acquired an abandoned Kansas refinery in 1998, it discovered one of the most contaminated groundwater plumes in the U.S. Rather than begin a full cleanup, BP declared there was no cause for concern. A former schoolteacher alarmed by cancer cases in the town pushed her community to take BP to court. In 2005, an explosion at BP's Texas City refinery, operating with a raft of safety problems because of neglected maintenance, killed fifteen people including the mother and father of a young woman who was driving there to spend the Easter holidays with her parents. A year later, thousands of gallons of oil spilled onto Alaska's North Slope from a corroded BP pipeline. Following a hurricane, BP's Thunder Horse rig almost sank because of a flaw in its construction, and repair work exposed even more serious problems. Poisoned Legacy is the searing true story of the rise and fall of BP, a company that went from being a green maverick promising a world "Beyond Petroleum" to one of the most notorious corporate villains in history.
Home Land: A Novel
by Sam LipsyteWhat if somebody finally wrote to his high school alumni bulletin and told...the truth! Home Land is a brilliant work from novelist Sam Lipsyte, whom Jeffrey Eugenides calls "original, devious, and very funny" and of whose first novel Chuck Palahniuk wrote, "I laughed out loud--and I never laugh out loud."The Eastern Valley High School Alumni newsletter, Catamount Notes, is bursting with tales of success: former students include a bankable politician and a famous baseball star, not to mention a major-label recording artist. Then there is the appalling, yet utterly lovable, Lewis Miner, class of '89--a.k.a Teabag--who did not pan out. Home Land is his confession in all its bitter, lovelorn glory.Winner of the Believer Book AwardNew York Times Notable Book of the Year
Last Don Standing: The Secret Life of Mob Boss Ralph Natale
by Dan Pearson Larry McShaneAs the last Don of the Philadelphia mob, Ralph Natale, the first-ever mob boss to turn state’s evidence, provides an insider’s perspective on the mafia. Natale’s reign atop the Philadelphia and New Jersey underworlds brought the region’s mafia back to prominence in the 1990s. Smart, savvy, and articulate, Natale came up in the mob and saw first-hand as it hatched its plan to control Atlantic City’s casino unions. Later on, after spending 16 years in prison, he reclaimed the family as his own after a bloody mob war that left bodies scattered across South Philly. He forged connections around the country, invigorated the family with more allies than it had in two decades, and achieved a status within the mob never seen before or since until he was betrayed by his men and decided to testify against them in a stunning turn of events.Using dozens of hours of interviews with Natale along with research and interviews with FBI agents, this book delivers revelatory insights into seminal events in American mob history, including:- The truth about Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance- The murder of Jewish mob icon Bugsy Siegel - The identity of the man who created modern-day Las VegasWith the full cooperation of Natale, New York Daily News reporter Larry McShane and producer Dan Pearson uncover the deadly reign of the last great mob boss of Philadelphia, a tale that covers a half-century of mob lore—and gore.
Thief: A Novel
by Maureen GibbonSuzanne believes she knows who she is: a former wild child, neither virgin nor virginal as a teen; someone who pulls for the wayward girls and troubled boys she now teaches in Minnesota. She has learned to survive good love and bad love and people who don't care at all. At her rented cabin, she gathers strength, like a storm forming over the lake.While looking for a spark in her life, a random coincidence leads Suzanne to try to unlock a harrowing event from her past. She is drawn into an unusual relationship with Alpha Breville, a convicted criminal with a disturbing history; simultaneously, she begins seeing an unpredictable, dark-haired drifter—a cowboy who's part angel, part howling dog. Though the cowboy matches Suzanne in intensity and desire, he's less faithful than the captive Breville.Which man can offer Suzanne the knowledge she seeks? Which man can truly touch her? How can she find her unique peace?In writing that has been likened to Kate Chopin's, Maureen Gibbon constructs a taut story of desire at the other end of the Mississippi, in the north woods of Minnesota. Against deep lakes, casinos, and a bar named the Royal, Gibbon's unconventional characters show us how to play the hands we're dealt and own the choices we make, in a tough and tender book about hard-won redemption from one of America's most original writers.
Conscious Luck: Eight Secrets to Intentionally Change Your Fortune
by Gay Hendricks Carol KlineChange Your Luck and Live a Charmed Life!What if you could create your own luck? What if living a charmed life—being lucky in love, lucky in money, lucky in your chosen work—was within your control? The good news is that it’s all entirely possible…when you know how!In Conscious Luck, New York Times bestselling authors Gay Hendricks and Carol Kline share eight Secrets that will allow you to intentionally change your fortune. Instead of hoping and wishing that luck will come your way, let Conscious Luck show you how to seize control of your destiny and create the dazzling life of your dreams. This powerful step-by-step program, which includes practical techniques, inspiring true stories, and the authors’ personal journeys, will lead you to greater freedom and abundance. The Secrets—four core shifts and four daily practices—teach you how to:· plant the seeds of luck in your own psyche· remove unlucky programming (including lifting “curses”)· move at your Essence Pace· practice Radical Gratitude, and much more. Based on decades of the authors’ trailblazing work, this unique and highly effective toolkit offers a surefire way to transform your life.
I Can't Believe She Did That!: Why Women Betray Other Women at Work
by Nan MooneyI CAN'T BELIEVE SHE DID THAT! offers a new and compelling perspective on conflict and competition among women in the workplace. Nan Mooney explores how and why some women hurt each other on the job, and what we can do to begin cleaning up the mess. Based on real stories from real women, I CAN'T BELIEVE SHE DID THAT! provides a provocative social and cultural exploration of the often troubled and painful dynamics that unfold among female coworkers.The massive influx of women into the workplace in the past thirty years means a whole new category of problems has arisen. Suddenly women are working over, under and alongside other women. Their professional relationships are subject to the pressures and conflicts of organizational culture, not to mention society at large. Women on the job have grown more comfortable with ambition, competition, management and success, but that hasn't negated the value they place on communication and relationships, on being liked and being nice. Striking a balance between these two selves is a delicate undertaking and many women are uncertain how to interact in a workplace where such lines are regularly being blurred. Working together, women have fostered a breathtaking degree of positive change. But there is another side to the story. If women are to continue moving forward, the time has come to examine — honestly and unequivocally — our very human impulse to compete with, hurt and even destroy one another to get what we want. In I CAN'T BELIEVE SHE DID THAT! Nan Mooney provides vivid insights on the emotional toll competition can take on women in business and charts a path towards more productive and fulfilling relationships for professional women everywhere.
Horse Latitudes: Poems
by Paul MuldoonThe title of Horse Latitudes, Paul Muldoon's tenth collection of poetry, refers to those areas thirty degrees north and south of the equator where sailing ships tend to be becalmed, where stasis (if not stagnation) is the order of the day. From Bosworth Field to Beijing, the Boyne to Bull Run, from a series of text messages to the nineteenth-century Irish poet Tom Moore to an elegy for Warren Zevon, and from post-Agreement Ireland to George W. Bush's America, this book presents us with fields of battle and fields of debate, in which we often seem to have come to a standstill, but in which language that has been debased may yet be restruck and made current to our predicament. Horse Latitudes is a triumphant new collection by one of the most esteemed poets of our time.
Shouting Won't Help: Why I—and 50 Million Other Americans—Can't Hear You
by Katherine BoutonFor twenty-two years, Katherine Bouton had a secret that grew harder to keep every day. An editor at The New York Times, at daily editorial meetings she couldn't hear what her colleagues were saying. She had gone profoundly deaf in her left ear; her right was getting worse. As she once put it, she was "the kind of person who might have used an ear trumpet in the nineteenth century."Audiologists agree that we're experiencing a national epidemic of hearing impairment. At present, 50 million Americans suffer some degree of hearing loss—17 percent of the population. And hearing loss is not exclusively a product of growing old. The usual onset is between the ages of nineteen and forty-four, and in many cases the cause is unknown.Shouting Won't Help is a deftly written, deeply felt look at a widespread and misunderstood phenomenon. In the style of Jerome Groopman and Atul Gawande, and using her experience as a guide, Bouton examines the problem personally, psychologically, and physiologically. She speaks with doctors, audiologists, and neurobiologists, and with a variety of people afflicted with midlife hearing loss, braiding their stories with her own to illuminate the startling effects of the condition.The result is a surprisingly engaging account of what it's like to live with an invisible disability—and a robust prescription for our nation's increasing problem with deafness. A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013
Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked
by James LasdunA true story of obsessive love turning to obsessive hate in the crucible of the digital age.Give Me Everything You Have chronicles author James Lasdun's strange and harrowing ordeal at the hands of a former student, a self-styled "verbal terrorist," who began trying, in her words, to "ruin him." Hate mail, online postings, and public accusations of plagiarism and sexual misconduct were her weapons of choice and, as with more conventional terrorist weapons, proved remarkably difficult to combat.James Lasdun's account, while terrifying, is told with compassion and humor, and brilliantly succeeds in turning a highly personal story into a profound meditation on subjects as varied as madness, race, Middle East politics, and the meaning of honor and reputation in the Internet age.
Great Hollywood Wit: A Glorious Cavalcade of Hollywood Wisecracks, Zingers, Japes, Quips, Slings, Jests, Snappers, & Sass from the Stars
by Gene ShalitGreat Hollywood Wit rollicks with hilarious movie lines and backstage zingers-smart, tart, and (in Sir John Gielgud's case) wicked: "Ingrid Bergman speaks five languages and can't act in any of them." Julia Roberts, fashion buff: "I only put clothes on so that I'm not naked when I go out shopping." Retiring Burt Reynolds: "You can only hold your stomach in for so many years."Great Hollywood Wit is an unequaled cavalcade of hilarity that you'll laugh through again and again. A wonderful one-of-a-kind gift.
My Before and After Life: A Novel
by Risa MillerA story of the sometimes prickly relationship between adult children and their parents In Risa Miller's new novel, the first since the highly–acclaimed Welcome to Heavenly Heights—one family member tries on a faith that seems like a bad fit for the rest. Honey and Susan, two sisters in Boston, are shocked to learn that their elderly father has embraced Orthodox Judaism while on vacation in the Holy Land. His daughters fly to Israel to convince him to return, but when they get there they find it hard to communicate their concerns as he tries to educate them on the finer points of religious life. Honey feels abandoned and angry. But the anger turns into an emotion she can't quite identify or accept during the course of the trip. And while she is still enraged, it becomes increasingly difficult for Honey to figure out exactly why she has condemned her father's choice.
The Founding Fortunes: How the Wealthy Paid for and Profited from America's Revolution
by Tom ShachtmanIn The Founding Fortunes, historian Tom Shachtman reveals the ways in which a dozen notable Revolutionaries deeply affected the finances and birth of the new country while making and losing their fortunes. While history teaches that successful revolutions depend on participation by the common man, the establishment of a stable and independent United States first required wealthy colonials uniting to disrupt the very system that had enriched them, and then funding a very long war. While some fortunes were made during the war at the expense of the poor, many of the wealthy embraced the goal of obtaining for their poorer countrymen an unprecedented equality of opportunity, along with independence.In addition to nuanced views of the well-known wealthy such as Robert Morris and John Hancock, and of the less wealthy but influential Alexander Hamilton, The Founding Fortunes offers insight into the contributions of those often overlooked by popular history: Henry Laurens, the plantation owner who replaced Hancock as President of Congress; pioneering businessmen William Bingham, Jeremiah Wadsworth, and Stephen Girard; privateer magnate Elias Hasket Derby; and Hamilton’s successors at Treasury, Oliver Wolcott, Jr. and Albert Gallatin. The Founders dealt with tariffs, taxes on the wealthy, the national debt, regional disparities, the census as it affected finances, and how much of what America needs should be manufactured at home in ways that remain startlingly relevant. Revelatory and insightful, The Founding Fortunes provides a riveting history of economic patriotism that still resonates today.
Admissions Confidential: An Insider's Account of the Elite College Selection Process
by Rachel ToorThere are hundreds of books available that coach kids on writing college application essays, improving SAT scores and trying to beat the admissions system. Admissions Confidential is a definitive look at why those books don't work. Toor lifts the veil on a process that anxious parents and high school students have never had decoded before. And they may be shocked to find out:--that elite colleges spend thousands of dollars recruiting students they will never admit--why some students at the bottom of their high school classes are admitted to top schools when the valedictorians are rejected--how pricey independent college counselors can hurt an applicant's chances--why admission to a top school depends on who reads your application--why the top of the class at a high-performing high school may end up at their second and third choice Written in engaging first-person and covering the entire admissions process--from recruiting to enrollment--Admissions Confidential is a year in the life of a college admissions officer.
Shotgun Alley (The Weiss and Bishop Mysteries)
by Andrew KlavanFrom the Edgar Award-winning and USA Today Bestselling Author of True Crime and Don't Say a Word, both major films, comes Shotgun Alley, the exciting sequel to Dynamite Road Honey—a vivacious, wealthy, seventeen-year-old daughter of a politician—has a penchant for drug dealers, mad-dog bikers, booze, sex, crank, and guns. She's run off with Cobra, the leader of a band of motorcycle-gang outcasts who have dubbed themselves the Outriders since they are too hotheaded and reckless for other rival gangs. But her father, who is running for the U.S. Senate, wants her back before she takes his career down in flames along with her hell-bent soul.Enter Scott Weiss and Jim Bishop, Andrew Klavan's star private eyes from Dynamite Road. Weiss is a former cop who is an accomplished detective with a lot of connections. Bishop is a savvy, strong-willed tough guy and ladies' man who does the legwork for Weiss's agency. Bishop's assignment: infiltrate the Outriders and seduce and steal Honey away from Cobra. But has Bishop finally met his match? Cobra is brilliant as well as bad—an oddly intellectual biker who is one step ahead of everyone on his trail. And Honey is not only rich and beautiful, she is hotter than the hinges of hell, irresistibly alluring, a black widow who draws the hardest, toughest, sharpest hustlers into her lethal web—where she consumes them whole.Bishop, falling for a woman like never before, is drawn into Honey's web, and even with the diabolically clever Weiss in his corner—working with the cops, scheming with the politicians, pulling the strings, and calling the shots—Bishop may be going down.Has Bishop finally met his match? Is Honey too hot to handle?At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Orson Welles's Last Movie: The Making of The Other Side of the Wind
by Josh KarpJournalist Josh Karp shines a spotlight on the making of The Other Side of the Wind—the final unfinished film from the auteur of Citizen Kane in Orson Welles’s Last Movie, the basis of Oscar-winning director Morgan Neville’s Netflix Original Documentary, They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead.In the summer of 1970, legendary but self-destructive director Orson Welles returned to Hollywood from years of self-imposed exile in Europe and decided it was time to make a comeback movie. Coincidentally, it was the story of a legendary self-destructive director who returns to Hollywood from years of self-imposed exile in Europe. Welles swore it wasn’t autobiographical.The Other Side of the Wind was supposed to take place during a single day, and Welles planned to shoot it in eight weeks. It took six years during his lifetime—only to be finally completed more than thirty years after his death by The Last Picture Show director Peter Bogdanovich, who narrates the film, and released by Netflix. Orson Welles’s Last Movie is a fast-paced, behind-the-scenes account of the bizarre, hilarious, and remarkable making of what has been called “the greatest home movie that no one has ever seen.” Funded by the shah of Iran’s brother-in-law, and based on a script that Welles rewrote every night for years, the film was a final attempt to one-up his own best work. It’s a production best encompassed by its star—the celebrated director of The Maltese Falcon, John Huston—who described the making of the film as “an adventure shared by desperate men that finally came to nothing.”
A Risk Worth Taking
by Robin PilcherAfter the dot-com bubble burst, Dan Porter is laid off from his job and must decide what is truly important. His wife of twenty years, Jackie, a beautiful and successful managing director at a clothing designer shop, no longer connects with him. His teenagers, Josh, Nina, and Millie, are distant and confusing. Jackie is tempted by the attentions of a younger man at her office, and thanks to an opportunity suggested by a magazine article, Dan finds himself contemplating a drastic change in his life.A Risk Worth Taking is an insightful, thought-provoking novel of a man who has to discover what he really values in his work, marriage, and life. Robin Pilcher writes fluidly and well, and he is unerringly adept at capturing the details of his characters' lives. He has written a poignant and engrossing story about the real choices many adults face when they start taking stock of their lives.
Shoot the Woman First (Crissa Stone Novels)
by Wallace StrobyA half million dollars in drug proceeds, guarded by three men with automatic weapons. For Wallace Stroby's determined heroine, professional thief Crissa Stone, and her team, stealing it was the easy part. But when the split goes awry in a blaze of gunfire, Crissa finds herself on the run with a duffel bag of stolen cash, bound by a promise to deliver part of the take to the needy family of one of her slain partners.In pursuit are the drug kingpin's lethal lieutenants and a former Detroit cop with his own deadly agenda. They think the money's there for the taking, for whoever finds her first. But Crissa doesn't plan to give it up without a fight, even as her mission of mercy puts her and a young child in mortal danger, with forces on both sides of the law closing in. After all, a debt is a debt…even if it has to be paid in blood.With Shoot the Woman First, Wallace Stroby delivers another powerful, lyrical novel, his third featuring one of the most original female characters in hardboiled fiction.
Don't Leave Me (Superintendent Mike Yeadings Mysteries)
by Clare CurzonWhen Daniel Winterton's ambitious wife, Caroline, went missing from their country home, leaving a little daughter in the charge of her nanny, Mike Yeadings was involved as a sergeant in the investigation. He had hopes that the case would advance his career, however Caroline and her current lover were traced to the Canary Islands, where the trail abruptly ended.Eight years later the case is brought back to Detective Superintendent Yeadings' attention. This time Winterton's daughter Julie, now eleven years old, has vanished. The circumstances of her disappearance are immediately suspicious and Winterton is distraught. Yeadings' Thames Valley team-DI Mott, Sergeant Beaumont and Rosemary Zyczynski-work to uncover the lonely child's secrets and probe the movements of eccentrics on the periphery of the Winterton's circle. Has Caroline at last returned to claim her abandoned child? Or has Julie been snatched for some far more sinister purpose?
The Well of Tears (The Crowthistle Chronicles)
by Cecilia Dart-ThorntonThe beautiful maiden Jewel is the center of her parent's joy. She is the embodiment of their true love and she has grown up surrounded by peace and love in abundance.Jewel's world cruelly shatters when her parents are suddenly killed and she and her uncle Eoin are forced to flee. Leaving the only home she has ever known, Jewel learns that her parents, caught in a tangle of a tragic prophecy, had hidden in the marshland for years to protect the secret knowledge that Jewel is the last of the line of the Janus Jaravhor, the dreaded sorcerer of Strang. That she might be the one person in the world who could unlock the mysterious Dome that is told to hold all of Janus's secrets. And that King Maolmordha now knows of her existence and will stop at nothing to find her.Pain and loss follow and Jewel must make her way alone. Rescued by a traveling band of Weathermasters, exalted magicians who control the heavens for the rich and powerful, she is taken to High Darioneth and is accepted into this tightly knit community. Not just accepted, but loved, for one of the young weathermasters beheld her and his heart was lost.Jewel is left with the promise of true love and a powerful secret. But which path will she choose—and who will suffer if she makes the wrong choice?An interactive CD-ROM of the world of Tir will be included in the hardcover edition of The Well of Tears, which will allow the reader to enter into Dart-Thornton's creation and and experience all the wonders of this mystical and magical land. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Dreaming in Turtle: A Journey Through the Passion, Profit, and Peril of Our Most Coveted Prehistoric Creatures
by Peter LauferA fascinating exploration into the world of turtles across the globe; Laufer charts the lore, love, and peril to a beloved species.Dreaming in Turtle is a compelling story of a stalwart animal prized from prehistory through to today—an animal threatened by human greed, pragmatism, and rationalization. It stars turtles and shady and heroic human characters both, in settings ranging from luxury redoubts to degraded habitats, during a time when the confluence of easy global trade, limited supply, and inexhaustible demand has accelerated the stress on species. The growth of the middle class in high-population regions like China, where the turtle is particularly valued, feeds this perfect storm into which the turtle finds itself lashed. This is a tale not just of endangered turtles but also one of overall human failings, frailties, and vulnerabilities—all punctuated by optimistic hope for change fueled by dedicated turtle champions.
Julia: Her Life
by James SpadaJulia Roberts represents a return to the glamour of the great Hollywood stars of another era. Fans flock to her movies, and she's a staple cover subject of People magazine and every entertainment show imaginable, but her real life has only been seen in tabloid glimpses until now. James Spada has gone back to Julia's beginnings in Athens, Georgia to unearth fascinating facts about her family and her early dating life. And he's followed her career from movie to movie-both on screen and behind the screen-to show fans what the private face of Julia really is. As an artist, Julia has changed dramatically from the talented but sheltered girl who found fame first with a role in the independent movie "Mystic Pizza" and became the exuberant star whose "Pretty Woman" delighted audiences everywhere before becoming an Oscar-winning actress capable of taking on the toughest roles. As a person, she's grown from a skittish and gangly girl moving through relationships with co-stars to become an assured woman making her own bold decisions about how to live her life.Julia will delight fans with its level of detail and fresh information, as well as its thoughtfulness about the life and career of a truly vibrant and complex star.
Southern Peril (Jersey Barnes Mysteries)
by T. Lynn OceanOn the heels of the lauded Southern Poison, readers will welcome another hilarious, suspenseful, and sun-soaked adventure from the unforgettable Jersey Barnes.Why is it so hard for Jersey Barnes to retire? When a state supreme judge calls in a favor, she tells herself (again) that this is her last case. She must investigate the judge's brother, Morgan, and his newly-inherited business. When Jersey realizes the DEA is checking on Morgan, too, she finds herself in the middle of a twenty-year-old mystery and a drug ring investigation. Still checking up on her geriatric father and his trouble-making friends, negotiating the steamy friendship/relationship with her bartender Ox, and dodging the flirtacious sparks flying back and forth with the cute DEA agent, Jersey begins to wonder if retirement is ever in her future.
Getting Off Clean: A Novel
by Timothy MurphyIn Timothy Murphy's Getting Off Clean, the one thing that Eric Fitzpatrick wants is to escape--both from his family and the racially tense town in which he lives. The only son of an Italian-Irish family in a working class suburb of Boston, he intends to go away to college and leave his old life far behind. But all his plans are set askew when he meets Brooks, a mysterious, wealthy, black student at a local prep school. As their relationship grows ever deeper and more complicated, Eric must come to terms not only with his family and community, but with his warring ambitions and desires.
The Summer House: A Novel
by Marcia WillettFor years, Marcia Willett has touched readers with her poignant novels about the intricacies of friendship and family. Now, in The Summer House, she explores the secrets that families keep, and the decisions, made in an instant, that can change our lives. Matt has always felt that there was something missing in his life. His mother kept all his childhood memories in a small inlaid wooden box, along with many photos of Matt as a child. But something about these photos has always puzzled Matt. Why doesn't he remember those clothes? The toys? And where, in the photos, is his sister Imogen? Meanwhile, Imogen is living with her husband and their baby in a rented cottage. Ever since she was a child, she has loved the Summer House, a charming cottage on the grounds of a beautiful and ancient house in Exmoor. When she has a chance to buy but her husband refuses to move, Imogen begins to question the seemingly picturesque life she has built for herself. Eventually, the Summer House provides the key to the strange and tragic secret which has affected everyone involved.