The Contest

The thrilling international bestseller from Australia's favourite novelist, author of the Scarecrow series and Jack West Jr series with new novel The One Impossible Labyrinth out now. "Reilly hurls readers into an adrenaline-drenched thrill ride ... impossible to put down." Orlando Sentinel "Reilly ... can inspire awe. Speed demons, take note." Publishers Weekly The New York State Library. A silent sanctuary of knowledge; a 100-year-old labyrinth of towering bookcases, narrow aisles and spiralling staircases. For Doctor Stephen Swain and his eight-year-old daughter, Holly, it is the site of a nightmare. For one night, the State Library is to be the venue for a contest. A contest in which Stephen Swain is to compete - whether he likes it or not. The rules are simple: seven contestants will enter, only one will leave. With his daughter in his arms, Swain is plunged into a terrifying fight for survival. He can choose to run, to hide or to fight - but if he wants to live, he has to win. Because in a contest like this, unless you leave as the victor, you do not leave at all. Fans of Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton will love Matthew Reilly.

Dominic, Chris, Perry, Tilt, Sammi, Bryn, and Cameron compete with each other to be selected as part of a team of teenage climbers with the goal of ascending Mount Everest.

An orphan with nothing but her brother. A prince with everything but his freedom. Only one can win ... In a world of haves and have nots, where petty crime is punishable by death and magic is forbidden, a deadly contest unfolds in secret. Twelve competitors are mysteriously invited. The winner gets one wish. For 17-year-old Briar Bishop, this means saving her brother from execution by guillotine, and she’s not going to let anything or anyone get in her way. Especially not Leo Davenbrook, the handsome High Prince, who has grown up with everything she never had and whose very presence threatens her chance at survival. She has no idea a darker battle wages, one that could lead to a fate far worse than the death of her brother.

If I don’t win this contest, there’s no way my grandmother, the most important person in my life, is going to get her life saving medical treatment. Trouble is, it’s difficult to concentrate on what I need to do with the three hottest brothers in town running it. I’m getting in way too deep. Seriously. Instead of getting friendly with each brother, I need to concentrate on winning this contest. And then, things go from bad to worse, ruining any chance I might have had at the elusive prize. Read The Contest now. Adult content. Steamy scenes with HEA guaranteed

"In The Contest over National Security Peter Roady shows how Franklin Roosevelt made the Democrats into the party of national security-and how the coalition between business leaders and social conservatives that made modern conservatism possible was cemented during the national security debates in the 1930s and 1940s, reshaping American politics for decades to come."--

This early work by E. T. A. Hoffmann was originally published in 1818. Born in Königsberg, East Prussia in 1776, Hoffmann's family were all jurists, and during his youth he was initially encouraged to pursue a career in law. However, in his late teens Hoffman became increasingly interested in literature and philosophy, and spent much of his time reading German classicists and attending lectures by, amongst others, Immanuel Kant. Hoffman went on to produce a great range of both literary and musical works. Probably Hoffman's most well-known story, produced in 1816, is 'The Nutcracker and the Mouse King', due to the fact that – some seventy-six years later - it inspired Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker. In the same vein, his story 'The Sandman' provided both the inspiration for Léo Delibes's ballet Coppélia, and the basis for a highly influential essay by Sigmund Freud, called 'The Uncanny'. (Indeed, Freud referred to Hoffman as the "unrivalled master of the uncanny in literature.") Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900's and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions.

This volume explores the troubled eighteenth century in Iran, between the collapse of the Safavids and the establishment of the new Qajar dynasty in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Despite the striking military successes of Nader Shah, to defeat the Afghan invaders, drive back the Ottomans in the west, and launch campaigns into India and Central Asia, Iran steadily lost territory in the Caucasus and the east, where Persian arms failed to recover lands lost to the Afghans and the Ozbeks. The chapters of this book cover the continuity and change over this transitional period from a range of perspectives including political history, historiography, art and material culture. They illuminate the changes in Iran's internal conditions, including the legitimising legacy of the Safavid period in court chronicles, the rise of Nader Shah and his influence on the idea of Iran, as well as the art of successive dynasties competing for power and prestige. The volume also addresses Iran's changed international situation by examining relations with Russia, Britain and India, the result of which would contribute to its re-emergence with a curtailed presence in the new world order of European dominance.

"The book, using a small group of left-wing student activists as a prism, explores the complex politics that underpinned the making of nation-states in Singapore and Malaysia after World War Two. While most works have viewed the period in terms of political contestation groups, the book demonstrates how it is better understood as involving a shared modernist project framed by British-planned decolonization. This pursuit of nationalist modernity was characterized by an optimism to replace the colonial system with a new state and mobilize the people into a new relationship with the state, according them new responsibilities as well as new rights. This book, based on student writings, official documents and oral history interviews, brings to life various modernist strands - liberal-democratic, ethnic-communal, and Fabian and Marxist socialist - seeking to determine the form of post-colonial Malaya. It uncovers a hitherto little-seen world where the meanings of loud slogans were fluid, vague and deeply contested. This world also comprised as much convergence between the groups as conflict, including collaboration between the Socialist Club and other political and student groups which were once its rivals, while its main ally eventually became its nemesis"--Publisher's description.