In this novel, Niven presents a fully-fleshed culture of evolved humans who live without gravity in the gas cloud surrounding a neutron star. In this Smoke Ring, free-floating life forms flourish, and all of them, from fish to fowl, can fly...
While helping their grandfather prepare for Greenfield's Winter Festival, the Alden children uncover a mystery surrounding the statue in the town square.
Berg's sweetly understated dramatization of the Nativity story casts Mary and Joseph as provincial teenagers who try to honor family tradition in spite of challenging circumstances. Alternating between the voices of the holy couple, Berg relates a romance that blossoms at the wedding of relatives between the 16-year-old carpenter from Nazareth and the comely 13-year-old girl originally from Sepphoris. Mary, dreamy and intractable, already entertains notions of miraculous circumstances surrounding her own birth to her barren mother, Anne. Joseph is instantly smitten and engenders the trust of both families for a betrothal, yet Mary holds back, cherishing a sense of greater destiny.
Plump Mrs. Pargeter accompanies her friend to a "fat farm" but with no intentions of losing weight. Instead, she enjoys the attentions of its owner, not to mention the full talents of the resort's gourmet chef. Quite accidentally, she stumbles upon the corpse of a young woman who seemingly died of anorexia. The ever-curious Mrs. Pargeter sets out to discover the facts surrounding the suspicious death. Enlisting the help of her dead husband's associates from the underworld, she winds her way through charlatans and impostors and toward a dangerous confrontation.
Added by: JustGoodNews | Karma: 4306.26 | Fiction literature | 22 May 2011
2
Red Dust
Red Dust opens with Gemma Sinclair grieving the death of her husband, Adam, in a horrific plane crash and learning she's inherited the 10,000 hectare station his family has worked for generations. Despite huge scepticism from surrounding landowners, Gemma decides not to sell Billbinya, disregarding Adam's dying words that he's in trouble and she must sell the station.