Hodder & Stoughton Dele Weds Destiny Obaro Tomi

Вошедшие в данный сборник рождественские рассказы Энид Блайтон по праву считаются нестареющей классикой детской литературы. Эта книга - отличный подарок для тех, кто насладился этими историями в детстве и хочет познакомить с ними новое поколение читателей • Книга «Enid Blyton`s Christmas Stories» оказалась столь популярной, что издательство Hodder & Stoughton по просьбам читателей выпустило второй праздничный сборник, и именно его вы держите в руках! Энид Блайтон передаёт атмосферу Рождества с несравненным мастерством, какой бы аспект праздника она ни описывала: колядки, ожидание подарков, праздничный стол и, конечно, посиделки с родными и близкими… Да, в историях Блайтон, как обычно, нашлось место для озорства и хаоса, но добро и веселье в них всегда на первом месте! • Рассказы из этой книги ранее не публиковались в «Enid Blyton`s Christmas Stories»

Rebels. Pirates. Women • Caribbean, 1720. Two extraordinary women are on the run - from their pasts, from the British Navy and the threat of execution, and from the destiny that fate has written for them • Plantation owner's daughter, runaway wife, pirate - Anne Bonny has forged her own story in a man's world. But when she is involved in the capture of a British merchant ship, she is amazed to find another woman amongst the crew, with a history as unconventional as her own. Dressed as a boy from childhood, Mary Read has been a soldier, a sailor, a widow - but never a woman in charge of her own destiny • As their exhilarating, tumultuous exploits find fame, the ballad of Bonny and Read is sung from shore to shore - but when you swim against the tide of history, freedom is a dangerous thing

Victory is in sight for Kivilaz and his Batavi army. The Roman army clings desperately to its remaining fortresses along the Rhine, its legions riven by dissent and mutiny, and once-loyal allies of Rome are beginning to imagine the unimaginable: freedom from the rulers who have dominated them since the time of Caesar • The four centurions - two Batavi and two Roman, men who were once comrades in arms - must find their destiny in a maze of loyalties and threats, as the blood tide of war ebbs and flows across Germania and Gaul • For Rome does not give up its territory lightly. And a new emperor knows that he cannot tolerate any threat to his undisputed power. It can only be a matter of time before Vespasian sends his legions north to exact the empire's retribution

The second novel in Jean M. Auel's magnificent epic of life 25,000 years ago when two kinds of human beings, Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon, shared the earth • Forced to leave the Clan and her young son, Ayla sets out alone to travel the frigid steppes until she finds the valley of horses. Unable to find people like herself, the Cro-Magnons, she settles there and seeks friendship elsewhere. First she adopts a young filly, then a wounded lion cub • But far to the west, two young Cro-Magnon brothers have begun a journey. One of them is Jondalar, whose destiny is bound inextricably with Ayla's • Jean Auel's imaginative reconstruction of pre-historic life, rich in detail of language, culture, myth and ritual, has become a set text in schools and colleges around the world

Ayla and Jondalar have reached home: the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii, the old stone age settlement in the region known today as south-west France. Ayla has much to learn from the Zelandonii as well as much to teach them. Jondalar's family are initially wary of the beautiful young woman he has brought back, with her strange accent and her tame wolf and horses. She is delighted when she meets Zelandoni, the spiritual leader of her people, a fellow healer with whom she can share her medicinal skills. After the rigours and dangers that have characterised her extraordinary life, Ayla yearns for peace and tranquillity; to be Jondalar's mate and to have children. But her unique spiritual gifts cannot be ignored, and even as she gives birth to their eagerly-awaited child, she is coming to accept that she has a greater role to play in the destiny of the Zelandonii

Is Lucy's life 'meant to be' . . . or meant to be different? • Lucy's life is at a crossroads. She's just walked out of her unrewarding job and has no idea about her next step: use her savings to pursue her dream of becoming a writer, or move to London to try and revive her career? It almost seems like fate that on that same night she meets Caleb, a stranger in a bar, and runs into Max, the one-time love of her life • Should Lucy stay in the seaside town she grew up in, and in doing so, get to know Caleb better? Or should she go to London and reconnect with Max again after he broke her heart a decade ago? It's just one decision - but sometimes one decision can change the course of your whole life • What Might Have Been is a sweeping and unforgettable novel for anyone who has ever believed in destiny and soulmates - or paused to wonder what your life might look like if you'd made a different choice

Miner's son David Powlett-Jones returns from the carnage of the Western Front in 1918, shell-shocked and bitterly hardened by the violence of war. He begins life again as a master at a remote Devon school, controlling the destiny of boys barely his junior • As the years pass David becomes a teacher of rare talent, begins to find peace, and is able to adjust to the changes which are overwhelming society. But soon he will have to face up to the prospect of another terrible war

On a dark night along a lonely stretch of coast, a small ship, the Silver Wake, sends two people ashore to a stony strand. Their purpose is assassination. They have been hired to do this by two of the most dangerous men alive. The consequences will affect so many lives both great and small, and possibly alter the balance of power in the world • One of those arriving on that night strand is a woman abducted by corsairs from her home as a child, escaping that fate, that destiny, years after, now trying to chart her own course - and bent upon revenge. Another figure, on the boat, bringing it to meet the secretive landing party at the city where they are going, is a merchant who still remembers being exiled as a child with his family from their home, for their faith

So many of us believe that we are free to shape our own destiny. But what if free will doesn't exist? What if our lives are largely predetermined, hardwired in our brains and our choices over what we eat, who we fall in love with, even what we believe are not real choices at all? • Neuroscience is challenging everything we think we know about ourselves, revealing how we make decisions and form our own reality, unaware of the role of our unconscious minds. Did you know, for example, that • - You can carry anxieties and phobias across generations of your family? • - Your genes and pleasure and reward receptors in your brain will determine how much you eat? • - We can sniff out ideal partners with genes that give our offspring the best chance of survival? • Leading neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow draws vividly from everyday life and other experts in their field to show the extraordinary potential, as well as dangers, which come with being able to predict our likely futures and looking at how we can alter what's in store for us

Ghost Girl, Banana is a powerful debut novel about the family secrets unearthed by a surprise inheritance. Set between Hong Kong in the 1960s and London in the 1990s, and revealing the hidden life of a mother to her daughter, it asks questions of identity, race and belonging • 1966: Sook-Yin is exiled from Kowloon to London with orders to restore honour to her family. As she strives to fit into a world that does not understand her, she realizes that survival will mean carving out a destiny of her own • 1997: Sook-Yin's daughter Lily can barely remember the mother she lost as a small child. But when she is unexpectedly named in the will of a powerful Chinese stranger, she embarks on a secret pilgrimage to Hong Kong to discover the lost side of her identity and claim the reward

Returning to the near-Renaissance world of A Brightness Long Ago and Children of Earth and Sky, international bestselling author Guy Gavriel Kay tells a story of vengeance, power, and love • On a dark night along a lonely stretch of coast, a small ship, the Silver Wake, sends two people ashore to a stony strand. Their purpose is assassination. They have been hired to do this by two of the most dangerous men alive. The consequences will affect so many lives both great and small, and possibly alter the balance of power in the world • One of those arriving on that night strand is a woman abducted by corsairs from her home as a child, escaping that fate, that destiny, years after, now trying to chart her own course - and bent upon revenge. Another figure, on the boat, bringing it to meet the secretive landing party at the city where they are going, is a merchant who still remembers being exiled as a child with his family from their home, for their faith

To fulfil his destiny, first he must swear allegiance to his enemy • King Edward of England marches on Scotland, inspired by an Arthurian prophecy to unite the British Isles under one crown. Only one man stands in his way. Robert Bruce is determined to claim the throne of Scotland • But, on the run and hunted by a relentless assassin, his ambition appears far from being realised. And there are other families who hunger for the crown, old rivals gathering against him. Robert was always prepared to die on the battlefield, but in this deadly game of conquest, power and treachery, what else must he sacrifice to keep his hopes alive?