Characters: 4 male, 3 female Scenery: Interior One of the Tonight at 8:30 series produced in London and New York. In psychiatrist Christian Faber's drawing room sits his weeping wife and his sad assistants, waiting for the siren Leonora. In four flashbacks the story emerges: Leonora, a girlhood chum, visited Christian's wife and was introduced to him. She set out to capture her friend's husband but was captured herself. She threw him over because of his jealousy. He jumped out of the window. Leonora has come because Christian calls for her on his death bed. She returns slowly from his room to announce he has died and that his last words were tender ones to his wife, for whom he mistook Leonora. Also published in Tonight at 8:30.

Capon shows how the church has lost its astonishment over the Good News and has made Christianity into a religion that focuses on requirements and restrictions rather than on gospel. Recovery of astonishment is his saving remedy.

“A narrative composed of brutal honesty, tenderness, and an aching love for God. I could not put it down.” —Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Secret Life of Bees In the middle of her life, acclaimed memoirist Beverly Donofrio thought she’d found a safe haven in a beautiful town in Mexico—until she was awakened in her bed by a rapist. As she writes in this fierce, unflinching account: “This was not supposed to happen. I was supposed to have escaped: I had hot flashes and liver spots and was in the final stretch.” Here Donofrio wrestles with anger toward her attacker and toward life, yet realizes her despair is not unlike that of other friends who are struggling with grave illnesses, loss of jobs, deaths of loved ones. Hoping to heal from trauma, Donofrio turns to prayer while journeying to five very different monasteries. A testimony to how anyone who is broken can move away from fear and anger toward grace, Astonished will not only be read and shared by fans of Donofrio’s previous books, but also by anyone who hopes to be inspired by Donofrio’s strength and her search for faith, healing, and identity.

When doubt is cast on a presidential election, it sets off an “intricate, skillfully spun” tale of intrigue in this near-future political thriller (Publishers Weekly). At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the CIA has been disbanded and a secret society has taken hold of powerful positions across Washington. After a long and contentious campaign, President Bedford Lockwood is celebrating his reelection. But the revelry is cut short when it’s discovered that his over-zealous aides may have tampered with the vote. On the eve of the Inauguration, Lockwood’s rival—the archconservative Franklin Mallory—presents evidence of fraud. When Lockwood refuses to take the oath of office, it sets in motion a series of events that may destroy him, his party, and the Constitution. From this catastrophic crisis, acclaimed author and former Washington journalist Charles McCarry weaves a smart, tense, and eerily prescient political thriller.

A collection of Coward's ambitious series of ten one-act plays - a sparkling, fast paced and remarkably varied selection of theatrical gems.

First produced in 1925, Hay Fever is technically a masterpiece. A comedy of bad manners which starts with the arrival of four guests, invited independently by different members of the Bliss family for a weekend at their country house near Maidenhead. The promise of an idyllic and peaceful weekend is quickly trounced by the self-absorbed eccentricities of the family who leave the guests to slink away humiliated, embarrassed and abandoned. "It does not date... it is in the highest mood of fantastic comedy, it is deliciously heartless and therefore delicioiusly alive and fresh" The Times

Volume Four of Noël Coward's plays contains a selection of Coward's plays from the thirties and forties which includes Blithe Spirit, a comedy that centres around the spirit medium Madame Arcati. The play that mocks sudden death was produced at precisely the moment when bombs were bringing it to Britain "I shall ever be grateful, for the almost psychic gift that enabled me to write Blithe Spirit in five days during one of the darkest years of the war." The play was for years the longest-running comedy in the history of British theatre. Present Laughter follows the life of Garry Essendine, a world-weary, middle-aged projection of the dilettante, debonair persona - self-obsessed and dressing-gowned who struts through the play like an educated peacock. It is a comedy about the 'theatricals' that Noël best knew and loved, and was originally a star vehicle for himself. It is the closest to an autobiographical play that Coward ever wrote. This Happy Breed is a saga of a lower middle-class family; and three shorter pieces fromTonight at 8.30 - is a farce set in the South of France, and serves as an oblique tribute to Frederick Lonsdale; The Astonished Heart is about the decay of a psychiatrist's mind through personal sexual obsession. Red Peppers, which closes the volume, was a cynical tribute to the lost music halls of the First World War.

The Noël Coward Reader offers a wonderfully wide-ranging selection—the first of its kind—of the best of the Master’s oeuvre, entertainingly annotated and abundantly illustrated, and including material that has never before been published. Here are scenes from Coward’s famous plays, from Private Lives to Blithe Spirit, and his screenplays, from Brief Encounter to In Which We Serve. Here are four of his best short stories, scenes from his only novel, and a generous selection of his verse, alongside the lyrics of many of his most sublime songs, including “Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” “The Stately Homes of England,” and “Mad About the Boy.” The Noël Coward Reader is a must-have book both for those who adore his work and for those who are just discovering the many-faceted delights of his comic genius.

Texas born and raised Jessica Atherton is a wealthy young woman whose heart was broken when the man she intended to marry wedded another. But her world is upended when two new men come into her life, and both manage to stir her heart. Harrison Gable is a successful young lawyer with ambitions that match Jessica's dreams. His warm, attentive manner and thoughtful gifts make her feel special. Austin Todd, a former Secret Service agent, enjoys working now as a Texas Ranger cattle inspector. But after learning of forged gold certificates and missing printing plates, he's drawn back into the world of intrigue and agrees to help solve the case. Jessica is drawn to his kind nature and the unspoken pain she sees in his eyes. If Jessica follows her heart, where will it lead?

Some issues include separately paged sections: Better management, Physical theatre, extra profits; Review; Servisection.