Jo Baker tisse des récits captivants qui explorent les relations humaines complexes et les dynamiques sociétales. Son œuvre se distingue par une exploration perspicace de la psyché humaine et de la formation de l'identité dans des contextes variés. Baker aborde fréquemment les thèmes contemporains à travers des perspectives historiques ou non conventionnelles, créant ainsi une expérience littéraire singulière. Sa prose est marquée par une construction méticuleuse des phrases et une profondeur atmosphérique qui immerge le lecteur.
Therapeutic Songwriting provides a comprehensive examination of contemporary methods and models of songwriting as used for therapeutic purposes. It describes the environmental, sociocultural, individual, and group factors shaping practice, and how songwriting is understood and practiced within different psychological and wellbeing orientations.
This 90-day devotional highlights the eternal truths contained in The Pilgrim's Progress that transcend the allegory into your walk with Jesus. Through these insightful readings, you will be shown the practical help the Holy Spirit provides and how to discern the hindrances of the enemy so you can live a victorious and joyful Christian life.
An epic, involving and exquisitely told story of inheritance and chance as it plays out in one family, across one century and four generations.
If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them. In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Pride and Prejudice, the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants’ hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended. Jo Baker dares to take us beyond the drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s classic—into the often overlooked domain of the stern housekeeper and the starry-eyed kitchen maid, into the gritty daily particulars faced by the lower classes in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars—and, in doing so, creates a vivid, fascinating, fully realized world that is wholly her own.
It is 1940 and twenty-year-old Charlotte Richmond watches from her attic window as enemy planes fly over London. Still grieving her beloved brother who never returned from France, she is working hard to keep her own little life ticking over: holding down a dull typist job at the Ministry of Information, sharing gin and confidences with her best friend Elena, and dodging her difficult father. She has good reason to keep her head down and stay out of trouble. She knows what happens when she makes a nuisance of herself. On her way to work she often sees the boy who feeds the birds - a source of unexpected joy amidst the rubble of the Blitz. But every day brings new scenes of devastation, and after yet another heartbreaking loss Charlotte has an uncanny sense of foreboding. Someone is stalking the darkness, targeting her friends. And now he is following her. She no longer knows who to trust. She can't even trust herself. She knows this; her family have told so her often enough. As grief and suspicion consume her, Charlotte's nerves become increasingly frayed, and soon her very freedom is under threat . . . Riveting, astonishing and deeply moving, The Midnight News is the unforgettable new novel from Sunday Times bestselling author Jo Baker - a breathtaking story of love and war, and a tour de force.
From the best-selling author of Longbourn, a stunning new novel that follows an unnamed writer--Samuel Beckett--whose life and extraordinary literary gift are permanently shaped in the forge of war. When war breaks out in Europe in 1939, a young, unknown writer journeys from his home in neutral Ireland to conflict-ridden Paris and is drawn into the maelstrom. With him we experience the hardships yet stubborn vibrancy at the heart of Europe during the Nazis' rise to power; his friendships with James Joyce and other luminaries; his quietly passionate devotion to the Frenchwoman who will become his lifelong companion; his secret work for the French Resistance and narrow escapes from the Gestapo; his flight from occupied Paris to the countryside; and the rubble of his life after liberation. And through it all we are witness to workings of a uniquely brilliant mind struggling to create a language that will express his experience of this shattered world. Here is a remarkable story of survival and determination, and a portrait of the extremes of human experience alchemized into timeless art. From the Hardcover edition.
From the bestselling author of Longbourn: a work of riveting psychological suspense that grapples with how to live as a woman in the world—or in the pages of a book—when the stakes are dangerously high. “Gripping…the perfect marriage of risky literary fiction and full-on thriller.” —Maria Semple, bestselling author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette When a young writer accepts a job at a university in the remote English countryside, it's meant to be a fresh start, away from the bustle of London and the scene of a violent assault she is desperate to forget. But despite the distractions of her new life and the demands of single motherhood, her nerves continue to jangle. To make matters worse, a vicious debate about violence against women inflames the tensions and mounting rivalries in her creative-writing class. When a troubled student starts turning in chapters that blur the lines between fiction and reality, the professor recognizes herself as the main character in his book--and he has written her a horrific fate. Will she be able to stop life imitating art before it's too late? At once a breathless cat-and-mouse game and a layered interrogation of the fetishization of the female body, The Body Lies gives us an essential story for our time that will have you checking the locks on your doors.
'A tour-de-force' IRISH TIMES'Riveting and moving' NINA STIBBE'Gripping' THE TIMES'It had me by the throat' EMMA DONOGHUELondon, 1940. As enemy planes fly over the city, twenty-year-old Charlotte Richmond is trying to make the best of things. She has a dull but steady job at the Ministry of Information, a friend to share gin and secrets with, and an attic room of her own. All she has to do is keep her head down. She knows where her father will send her if she makes a nuisance of herself again.But amid the chaos of the Blitz, Charlotte's grip on reality starts slipping. Is someone following her in the blackouts, or is her mind playing tricks on her? In a city where nothing is safe, it's hard to know who to trust - until she meets the boy who feeds the birds . . .'Glorious' RED'A marvel of storytelling' FRANCIS SPUFFORD'Impressive' DAILY TELEGRAPH'A master storyteller' i PAPER
Set during The Troubles in Northern Ireland, the story follows recent Oxford graduate Claire, who finds herself in a tumultuous relationship and a stagnant job while grappling with her mother's hidden past. As she navigates her self-destructive tendencies, the newfound ceasefire in Belfast mirrors her journey of introspection. Claire embarks on a path to self-acceptance, gradually uncovering her self-esteem and self-worth amidst the chaos surrounding her.
Rachel travels to her mother's isolated country house in order to put her mother's affairs in order. However, along with the memories of her mother, Rachel feels something else, a presence. She grows ever more convinced that the house holds a message for her. Can the ghosts of the past be nudging their way into the present?
