Barry Unsworth
Sacred hunger
Winner of the 1992 Booker Prize for Fiction. Sacred Hunger is a stunning and engrossing exploration of power, domination, and greed. Filled with the « sacred hunger » to expand its empire and its profits, England entered full into the slave trade and spread the trade throughout its colonies. In this Booker Prize-winning work, Barry Unsworth follows the failing fortunes of William Kemp, a merchant pinning his last chance to a slave ship; his son who needs a fortune because he is in love with an upper-class woman; and his nephew who sails on the ship as its doctor because he has lost all he has loved. The voyage meets its demise when disease spreads among the slaves and the captain’s drastic response provokes a mutiny. Joining together, the sailors and the slaves set up a secret, utopian society in the wilderness of Florida, only to await the vengeance of the single-minded, young Kemp.
Vous aimerez aussi
Rough justice
En Anglais – Dispatched by the President to report on the state of still troubled Kosovo, his trusted agent Blake Johnson runs into a military man there named Harry Miller, who has the same task from the British Prime Minister. They band together just in time to stop a Russian officer from torching a mosque or rather, Miller stops him, with a bullet to the forehead … This action will have considerable consequences, not only for Miller and Johnson and their associates, including Britain's Sean Dillon, but for a great many people, all the way to the top of the governments of the United States, Britain, and Russia. Death begets death, and revenge leads only to revenge, and before the chain reaction of events is done from Kosovo to London to Beirut to Ireland to Moscow there will be plenty of both … Rich with all the ingredients that have made the author justly admired, Rough Justice is further proof that, in the words of the Associated Press, When it comes to thriller writers, one name stands well above the crowd Jack Higgins.
Cool !
En Anglais – One day Robbie is hit by a car while running after his dog, Lucky. Unconscious, Robbie lies in hospital, unable to speak, move or eat. But he can hear; he is aware. His friends and family try desperately to reach him – even Zola, his favourite Chelsea footballer, comes to see him. And still Robbie can’t ‘wake up’. Until one day, against hospital rules, Dad brings Lucky into the hospital. Can Lucky bring Robbie back to life ?
Adam Runaway
En Anglais – « It is 1721 and young Adam Hanaway, devastated by his father’s sudden death, leaves England to seek his fortune in Lisbon, where his uncle is a successful merchant. But almost nothing turns out as Adam planned. His family’s welcome is cool, and Adam’s rise to the top is thwarted by Bartolomeu Gomes, his uncle’s treacherous clerk. » « As Adam attempts to overcome these obstacles he is handicapped by a certain personal trait. Not, he insists, that he is a coward exactly, but he is inclined to boldly put himself in dangerous situations and then at the last minute run away from them – hence the nickname given to him by friends who had observed this failing once too often. » « While Adam’s mother and sisters wait in England for him to rescue them from poverty, Adam is preoccupied with more compelling women: the beautiful, older half-Portuguese lady Maria Beatriz Hutchinson; the spoiled, rich Gabriella Lowther; and his charming young cousin Nancy. But Adam commits a social faux pas so severe he forever ruins his chances for making a good match – yet no one dares tell him what he has done wrong! » « Adam certainly has a lot to learn. …
Undermajordomo minor
En Anglais – Lucy Minor is the resident odd duck in the hamlet of Bury. He is a compulsive liar, a sickly weakling in a town famous for begetting brutish giants. Then Lucy accepts employment assisting the majordomo of the remote, foreboding Castle Von Aux. While tending to his new post as undermajordomo, he soon discovers the place harbours many dark secrets, not least of which is the whereabouts of the castle's master, Baron Von Aux. Thus begins a tale of polite theft, bitter heartbreak, domestic mystery, and cold-blooded murder. Undermajordomo Minor is an ink-black comedy of manners, an adventure, and a mystery, and a searing portrayal of rural Alpine bad behaviour, but above all it is a love story. And Lucy must be careful, for love is a violent thing.