Guardian Of The Heart

Mary Coles and her husband, Graham, have just moved to a cottage on the edge of a small village. The house hasn’t been lived in for years, and they are drawn to its original features and surprisingly large garden, which stretches down into an apple orchard. It’s idyllic, remote, picturesque: exactly what they need to put the horror of the past behind them. A fresh start. One hundred and fifty years earlier, a huge oak tree was felled in front of the cottage during a raging storm. Beneath it lay a young man with a shock of red hair, presumed dead—surely no one could survive such an accident. But the red-haired man was alive, and after a brief convalescence was taken in by the family living in the cottage and put to work in the fields. The children all loved him, but the eldest daughter, Eliza, had her reservations. There was something about the red-haired man that sat ill with her. A presence. An evil. Back in the present, weeks after moving to the cottage and still drowning beneath the weight of insurmountable grief, Mary starts to sense there’s something in the house. Children’s whispers, footsteps from above, half-caught glimpses of figures in the garden. A young man with a shock of red hair wandering through the orchard. Has Mary’s grief turned to madness? Or have the events that took place so long ago finally come back to haunt her?

Fifteen-year-old Dani was born with her heart on the wrong side of her body. Fourteen-year-old Amanda is a competitive gymnast and in perfect health. The two girls don't know each other, but their lives are about to collide.

Imagining a world where citizens take turns as prisoners and jailers, the prophetic Margaret Atwood delivers a hilarious yet harrowing tale about liberty, power, and the irrepressibility of the human appetite. Several years after the world's brutal economic collapse, Stan and Charmaine, a married couple struggling to stay afloat, hear about the Positron Project in the town of Consilience, an experiment in cooperative living that appears to be the answer to their problems - to living in their car, to the lousy jobs, to the vandalism and the gangs, to their piled-up debt. There's just one drawback: once inside Consilience, you don't get out. After weighing their limited options, Stan and Charmaine sign up, and soon they find themselves involved in the town's strategy for economic stability: a pervasive prison system, whereby each citizen lives a double life, as a prisoner one month, and a guard or town functionary the next. At first, Stan and Charmaine enjoy their newfound prosperity. But when Charmaine becomes romantically involved with the man who shares her civilian house, her actions set off an unexpected chain of events that leave Stan running for his life. Brilliant, dark, and provocative, The Heart Goes Last is a compelling futuristic vision that will drive readers to the edge of their seats.

'They tried to make me go to my sister's funeral today. In the end I'd had to give in ... I'd been walking in her shadow for sixteen years and I liked its cool darkness. It was a good place to hide.' How would you feel if your twin sister died suddenly? Particularly if she was the beautiful one and you were horribly disfigured. And how would it feel to be alone now if you and your sister were the only ones to know the truth about what takes place behind closed doors at home? And what would you do if it was your parents who brought danger and terror into your life? Would you dare reveal how your sister died? And would you be brave enough to find an escape of your own? Black Heart Blue is a powerful novel about the domestic horrors that can unfold within a small community - and one girl's quest to stand up for the truth.

A sly debut story collection that conjures the experience of adolescence through the eyes of Chinese American girls growing up in New York City—for readers of Zadie Smith and Helen Oyeyemi. Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • Winner of the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction • Finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • NPR • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Guardian • Esquire • New York • BuzzFeed A fresh new voice emerges with the arrival of Sour Heart, establishing Jenny Zhang as a frank and subversive interpreter of the immigrant experience in America. Her stories cut across generations and continents, moving from the fraught halls of a public school in Flushing, Queens, to the tumultuous streets of Shanghai, China, during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. In the absence of grown-ups, latchkey kids experiment on each other until one day the experiments turn violent; an overbearing mother abandons her artistic aspirations to come to America but relives her glory days through karaoke; and a shy loner struggles to master English so she can speak to God. Narrated by the daughters of Chinese immigrants who fled imperiled lives as artists back home only to struggle to stay afloat—dumpster diving for food and scamming Atlantic City casino buses to make a buck—these seven stories showcase Zhang’s compassion, moral courage, and a perverse sense of humor reminiscent of Portnoy’s Complaint. A darkly funny and intimate rendering of girlhood, Sour Heart examines what it means to belong to a family, to find your home, leave it, reject it, and return again. Praise for Sour Heart “[Jenny Zhang’s] coming-of-age tales are coarse and funny, sweet and sour, told in language that’s rough-hewn yet pulsating with energy.”—USA Today “One of the knockout fiction debuts of the year.”—New York “Compelling writing about what it means to be a teenager . . . It’s brilliant, it’s dark, but it’s also humorous and filled with love.”—Isaac Fitzgerald, Today “[A] combustible collection . . . in a class of its own.”—Booklist (starred review) “Gorgeous and grotesque . . . [a] tremendous debut.”—Slate

The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller 'Breathtaking' The Times '[The book that] made headlines around the world.' Independent The former Prince of Wales has lived his whole life in the public eye, yet he remains an enigma. He was born to be king, but he aims much higher. A landmark publication, Charles: The Heart of a King reveals Prince Charles in all his complexity: the passionate views that mean he will never be as remote and impartial as his mother; the compulsion to make a difference and the many and startling ways in which the Prince and now King of the United Kingdom and fifteen other realms has already made his mark. The book offers fresh and fascinating insights into the first marriage that did so much to define him and an assessment of his relationship with the woman he calls, with unintended accuracy, his 'dearest wife': Camilla, now Queen Consort. We see Charles as a father and a friend, a serious figure and a joker. Life at court turns out to be full of hidden dangers and unexpected comedy. Now, updated and revised with a new preface and two new chapters - covering details of Harry and Meghan's exit and its implications, the cash-for-honours scandal, Prince Andrew, and more - this significant study reveals a monarchy threatened and a man in sight of happiness yet still driven by anguish and a remarkable belief system, a charitable entrepreneur, activist, agitator and avatar of the Establishment who just as often tilts against it. Based on multiple interviews with his friends and courtiers, palace insiders and critics, and rare access to Charles himself, before his kingship, this biography explores the Prince's philanthropy and his compulsive interventionism, his faith, his significant impact on politics and the philosophy that means when he seeks harmony he sometimes creates controversy. Gripping, at times astonishing, often laugh-out-loud, this is a royal biography unlike any other. 'A must-read ... this important book is nothing short of a manual to our future King's world-view' GQ 'A sustained piece of higher journalism' Independent

Early one blustery day near Le Havre, three teenagers head down to the sea together to go surfing. They are old friends: Chris, Johan and Simon. Exhausted after just one hour in the rough waves, they begin their drive back to town, but Chris, the driver, falls asleep at the wheel and the car skids off the road. Whilst Chris and Johan escape with a few broken bones, it soon becomes clear that Simon is beyond resuscitation, brain-dead in a deep coma. Apart from his brain however, Simon's organs are in perfect condition. His devastated parents face an agonising decision. If his life support is switched off straight away, his organs can still be used to save other lives, but by consenting, his parents will be choosing to end what remains of their son's life. They decide to go ahead: Simon's heart, lungs, liver and kidneys can be removed and used in organ transplants. And with that decision, their son's life ends and the implacable mechanisms of organ donation and transplantation click into gear. Simon's heart is removed and a match is found in Paris: Claire Mejan, who suffers from myocarditis and can only hope for survival if she receives a heart transplant. She has just a few hours notice before her transplant will take place. In the space of just twenty-four hours, Simon Limbres will have said goodbye to his girlfriend, gone surfing with his two best friends, lost his life in a horrific accident, had all his organs removed and shipped around France to waiting matches, and, as his doctor cleans and stitches his empty shell of a body, his heart will begin to beat again many miles away, inside Claire Mejan's body.

A powerful story about friendship, loyalty and family around this topical and controversial issue' - Guardian 'An engrossing story' - Daily Telegraph 'That's all I ever did - watch and listen. I was always a spectator, never a participant. I didn't call that living. I was alive - but that was all.' Cameron is thirteen, and all he wants is a 'normal' life - friends, swimming, school, family. But his life is far from normal. Not every thirteen-year-old desperately needs a new heart because theirs doesn't work properly. Finally, one doctor offers hope. Cameron could - if he and his parents agree - take part in a radical and controversial procedure involving the transplant of a pig's heart into his human body. It's risky. And it's never been done before . . . While Cameron comes to terms with the idea, he finds the world around him is much less accepting. But surely everyone will understand that it's better to have a pig's heart that works than a human heart that doesn't - won't they . . .? 'A sensitive and informative story that provides a vivid insight into transgenics and xenotransplantations and still manages to squeeze in the inevitable guinea-pig and piggy in the middle jokes' - Independent