Set in an imagined town outside Tokyo, Clarissa Goenawan’s dark, spellbinding literary debut follows a young man’s path to self-discovery in the wake of his sister’s murder. Ren Ishida has nearly completed his graduate degree at Keio University when he receives news of his sister’s violent death. Keiko was stabbed one rainy night on her way home, and there are no leads. Ren heads to Akakawa to conclude his sister’s affairs, failing to understand why she chose to turn her back on the family and Tokyo for this desolate place years ago. But then Ren is offered Keiko’s newly vacant teaching position at a prestigious local cram school and her bizarre former arrangement of free lodging at a wealthy politician’s mansion in exchange for reading to the man’s ailing wife. He accepts both, abandoning Tokyo and his crumbling relationship there in order to better understand his sister’s life and what took place the night of her death. As Ren comes to know the eccentric local figures, from the enigmatic politician who’s boarding him to his fellow teachers and a rebellious, captivating young female student, he delves into his shared childhood with Keiko and what followed. Haunted in his dreams by a young girl who is desperately trying to tell him something, Ren realizes that Keiko Ishida kept many secrets, even from him.

When Arianna's personal demons start to overwhelm her and risk undoing everything, an unexpected connection changes the course of her life.

The conclusion to the delightful series set in a London townhouse, from the New York Times–bestselling author! The house at 67 Clarges Street in fashionable Mayfair has seen many guests, all looked after by the quirky staff of servants. When the house’s owner, the Duke of Pelham, finally returns, he is grimly determined to find a suitable wife—but completely unprepared for what the season has to offer. The duke’s title alone has always brought him more than his share of feminine attention, and while he claims to not believe in love, he has never been spurned by a lady. The duke’s self-imposed search is soon disrupted by the arrival in London of Miss Jenny Sutherland, a spoiled but beautiful country girl whose vanity is her tragic flaw. According to her guardian Aunt Letitia, lack of competition has made Jenny put on airs; in London, she will get the set-down she sorely deserves. Indeed, at her first important London party, Jenny’s blatant disdain for the duke leads to disaster. But no one has counted on the intervention of John Rainbird, the house’s shrewd and resourceful butler. The result is a mischievous scheme that will insure Jenny’s social success and determine the fate of the close-knit family of servants at 67 Clarges Street . . .

The first novel by the author of Maps for Lost Lovers: a powerful and exquisitely written story set in a small town in Pakistan after the murder of a corrupt and prominent local judge. When a sack of letters that were thought to have disappeared in a train crash nineteen years earlier reappears under mysterious circumstances, the inhabitants of a secluded Pakistani village wait anxiously to see what secrets may come to light. Could the letters hold any information about Judge Anwar's murder? As Aslam traces the murder investigation over the next eleven days, he explores the impact that these two events have on a variety of people in the town--from the surviving family of the judge to a journalist reporting on the delivery of the mail packet. With great attention to detail and beautiful scenes that explore the daily rhythms of life in Pakistan, Aslam creates an exotic and timeless world whose traditional rituals are played out against an ominous backdrop of faraway civil wars, assassinations, changing regimes, and religious tensions.

A stunningly illustrated story about a city child s relationship with nature and the natural world, the trust that children can place in their parents, the responsibility adults have in looking after children and the environment they will inherit. Features collage based illustrations which will appeal to children and adults alike. Price: $28.95 each HB Ages: 4+

Archaeologists have traditionally considered islands as distinct physical and social entities. In this book, Paul Rainbird discusses the historical construction of this characterization and questions the basis for such an understanding of island archaeology. Through a series of case studies of prehistoric archaeology in the Mediterranean, Pacific, Baltic, and Atlantic seas and oceans, he argues for a decentering of the land in favor of an emphasis on the archaeology of the sea and, ultimately, a new perspective on the making of maritime communities. The archaeology of islands is thus unshackled from approaches that highlight boundedness and isolation, and replaced with a new set of principles - that boundaries are fuzzy, islanders are distinctive in their expectation of contacts with people from over the seas, and that island life can tell us much about maritime communities. Debating islands, thus, brings to the fore issues of identity and community and a concern with Western construction of other peoples.

"University sophomore Miwako Sumida has hanged herself, leaving those closest to her reeling. In the months before her suicide, she was hiding away in a remote mountainside village, but what, or whom, was she running from? To Ryusei, a fellow student at Waseda; Chie, Miwako's best friend; and Fumi, Ryusei's older sister, Miwako was more than the blunt, no-nonsense person she projected to the world. Heartbroken, Ryusei begs Chie to take him to the village where Miwako spent her final days. While he is away, Fumi receives an unexpected guest at their shared apartment in Tokyo, increasingly fearful that Miwako's death may ruin what is left of her brother's life. Expanding on the beautifully crafted world of Rainbirds, Clarissa Goenawan gradually pierces through a young woman's careful faðcade, unmasking her most painful secrets"--

She’s a halfbreed in hiding. Rainbird never belonged. To one race, she’s chattel. To the other, she’s an abomination that should never have existed. She lives on the sunway. High above the ground, Rainbird is safe, as long as she does her job, keeps her head down, and never ever draws attention to herself. But one act of sabotage is about to change everything. For Rainbird. And for her world.

PrideHomer Iseoy is horrified to find that the new member of the crew of the Njord is a Vedrinan, their culture of sexual freedom in stark contrast to his own, very rigid beliefs. Iseoy’s tenure aboard the ship is a minor act of rebellion against his father’s strictly enforced expectations. To Iseoy’s surprise, Rainbird is an excellent warrior and they make an effective pairing. Slowly, Iseoy starts to see Rainbird as something more than just another crew member. But after being trapped, thinking they were going to die, Iseoy does something he’s convinced Rainbird can never forgive him for. Can they be brought together for the truth finally set them both free?