Kirjahaku

The most consistent of all series in terms of language control, length, and quality of story. David R. Hill, Director of the Edinburgh Project on Extensive Reading.

The most consistent of all series in terms of language control, length, and quality of story. David R. Hill, Director of the Edinburgh Project on Extensive Reading.

In 1967, when Roland Haynes arrives in the Channel Island of Alderney to write his first novel, there's a story waiting for him. A ghostly encounter sets him on a search for Aurelie, an island girl who went missing during the Nazi Occupation. Together with Louis Ferrier, Aurelie's boyfriend from the past, Roland unravels the story of a beautiful and courageous young woman who paid the price of defying the Nazis.In Book Two Aurelie's daughter Jacquine takes up the story, telling of her life in the post-war world and how it can also destroy beauty, as the war destroyed her mother's.Set mainly on the wild, sea-swept island of Alderney, this romance combines fact, fiction and the supernatural to create a tragic love story and a chilling warning of how human power can destroy not only nature's beauty but that of the human spirit.

When Max Anastasio goes to stay with his relations in Italy following a turbulent affair, he little suspects the life-changing discovery he is about to make. With his cousin Apollonia, called Polly for short, he finds two ancient Greek bronze statues in the sea, a discovery which leads to his kidnapping by the N'drangheta. Max suffers a deep traumatic experience, but after his recovery he and Polly can no longer avoid revealing their love for each other. When they learn that the bronzes contain a hidden message which apparently has fatal consequences for those who reveal it, the lovers are caught up in a struggle with a horrifying sense of doom. Taking as its focal point the true-life discovery of two magnificent bronze statues in 1972, this controversial novel raises critical issues such as fate and freedom, crime and violence, and the liberating power of beauty, all very relevant to modern times. At the same time it weaves a mesmerizing tale of villainy and tragic love.