Her Perfect Man

Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Europe and South Asia. Winner of the 2008 PEN Beyond Margins Award. Identity, friendship, and a long-hidden crime lie at the heart of Naeem Murr’s captivating novel about five friends growing up in a small 1950s Missouri river town. A contender for the Man Booker Prize, this exhilarating story beautifully evokes the extreme joys, as well as the dark and shameful desires, of childhood. Young Rajiv Travers hasn’t had much luck fitting in anywhere. Born to an Indian mother who was sold to his English father for £20, Raj is abandoned by his relatives into the reluctant care of Ruth, an American romance writer living in Pisgah, Missouri. While his skin color unsettles most of the townsfolk, who are used to seeing things in black and white, the quick-witted Raj soon finds his place among a group of children his own age. While the friends remain loyal to one another through the years, it becomes clear that their paths will veer in markedly different directions. But breaking free of the demands of their families and their community, as well as one another, comes at a devastating price: As the chilling secrets of Pisgah’s residents surface, the madness that erupts will cost Raj his closest friend even as it offers him the life he always dreamed of. Taking us into the intimate life of small-town America, The Perfect Man explores both the power of the secrets that shape us and the capacity of love in all its guises to heal even the most damaged of souls.

This is an enhanced ebook with a read-along function. Michael Maxwell McCallum lives in a world just like ours, but peopled by superheroes. When Michael's hero, Perfect Man, quits his job without warning, Michael isn't worried. He knows that Perfect Man will come back. He always does. So that September, when a new teacher shows up in his classroom, a teacher with a number of special powers, Michael figures it out right away. Mr. Clark is Perfect Man. Mr. Clark doesn't say yes and he doesn't say no to Michael's endless questions, but he does encourage Michael to find his own super powers.

New neighbor Chad Lawson seems too perfect. At least to Rebecca McKaslin, who's been burned by a Prince Charmingtype before. Worried, her loving family supports her time-out from romance. Yet, as Rebecca gets to know her handsome, churchgoing neighbor, his reliable, friendly nature challenges her resistance to relationships. Soon, she wonders if God put him in her life for a reason. Should she accept this rare gift and risk her heart again?

One look at firebrand Katherine Mays and Bryce Burnette's life went careening of its steady course. She was a party girl; he was a preacher. But their desire would not be dampened by labels. Underneath Katherine's sassy exterior lurked a depth of spirit, a yearning to be loved. And her barely hidden vulnerability awakened a protective force in Bryce. Still, he wasn't ready for a wife and all the trimmings! Well, ready or not, here she comes...

For the first time ever, a young novel about the teen years of L.M. Montgomery, the author who brought us ANNE OF GREEN GABLES. Fourteen-year-old Lucy Maud Montgomery -- Maud to her friends -- has a dream: to go to college and become a writer, just like her idol, Louisa May Alcott. But living with her grandparents on Prince Edward Island, she worries that this dream will never come true. Her grandfather has strong opinions about a woman's place in the world, and they do not include spending good money on college. Luckily, she has a teacher to believe in her, and good friends to support her, including Nate, the Baptist minister's stepson and the smartest boy in the class. If only he weren't a Baptist; her Presbyterian grandparents would never approve. Then again, Maud isn't sure she wants to settle down with a boy -- her dreams of being a writer are much more important. But life changes for Maud when she goes out West to live with her father and his new wife and daughter. Her new home offers her another chance at love, as well as attending school, but tensions increase as Maud discovers her stepmother's plans for her, which threaten Maud's future -- and her happiness forever.

A remarkable new work from one of our premier historians In his exciting new book, John F. Kasson examines the signs of crisis in American life a century ago, signs that new forces of modernity were affecting men's sense of who and what they really were. When the Prussian-born Eugene Sandow, an international vaudeville star and bodybuilder, toured the United States in the 1890s, Florenz Ziegfeld cannily presented him as the "Perfect Man," representing both an ancient ideal of manhood and a modern commodity extolling self-development and self-fulfillment. Then, when Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan swung down a vine into the public eye in 1912, the fantasy of a perfect white Anglo-Saxon male was taken further, escaping the confines of civilization but reasserting its values, beating his chest and bellowing his triumph to the world. With Harry Houdini, the dream of escape was literally embodied in spectacular performances in which he triumphed over every kind of threat to masculine integrity -- bondage, imprisonment, insanity, and death. Kasson's liberally illustrated and persuasively argued study analyzes the themes linking these figures and places them in their rich historical and cultural context. Concern with the white male body -- with exhibiting it and with the perils to it --reached a climax in World War I, he suggests, and continues with us today.

A captivating novel about family ties, romance and leaving the past behind - THE PERFECT MAN by No. 1 bestselling author Sheila O'Flangan. A perfect read for fans of Liane Moriarty and Kathryn Hughes. Brit doesn't believe in love. One painful mistake was all it took. So she's as surprised as anyone when her novel THE PERFECT MAN becomes a huge bestseller - how did she manage to write so convincingly about love if she really thinks it's a myth? Heartbreak has never stopped her sister Mia from being a hopeless romantic. She can't be with the love of her life, but she's never stopped hoping. They both need to let go of the past to stand a chance of being happy in the future. Could a Caribbean cruise be just what they need to open their hearts?