Patricia Duncker Book order

Berlin, September 1872. The Duncker brothers, Max and Wolfgang, own a thriving publishing business in the city. Clever, irresponsible Max is as fond of gambling and brothels as the older, wiser, Wolfgang is of making a profit. When Max's bad habits get out of hand, Wolfgang sends him to the Spa town of Homburg, to dance attendance upon a celebrity author - the enigmatic Sibyl, also known as George Eliot. As enthralling and intelligent as her books, she soon has Max bewitched. Yet Wolfgang has an ulterior motive: for his brother to consider Sophie von Hahn, daughter of a wealthy family friend, as a potential wife. At first, Max is lured by Sophie's beauty and his affectionate memories of their shared childhood. But Sophie proves to be nothing like the vision of angelic domesticity Max was expecting. Mischievous, wilful and daring, Sophie gambles recklessly and rides horses like a man. Both women have Max in thrall - one with her youth and passion, the other with her wisdom and fierce intelligence. Out of his depth, Max finds himself precariously balanced between Sophie and the Sibyl. What's more, Sophie worships the great novelist of questionable morals - and is determined to meet her. A compelling Victorian novel and a playful meditation on the creation of literature, Sophie and the Sibyl balances a tale of courtship and seduction with a fascinating, lively imagining of the writer George Eliot at the end of her boldly unconventional life, and the height of her fame

Toby Hawk, a solitary boy in an Amazon family, leads a mundane life focused on school and online activities. His world shifts dramatically when his mother becomes involved with a captivating yet mysterious scientist named Roehm.

The thrilling tale of a secret suicide sect and the musical mastermind at its center. Shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger, the Best Crime Novel of the Year

Elizabeth Webster is a sixty-nine year old retired school teacher. She is a tough, old bird- spiky, cynical and adamantly independent; a woman who has never married, has no friends and lost touch with all her family. In Little Blessington, the village she lives in, the Miss Marple-like figure is regarded as something of a local oddity. Then one day a beautiful young Moroccan knocks at her door. Cherif's mother befriended Miss Webster on her holiday to Morocco and now the young man is here to begin university in the town nearby. Before she knows it, Miss Webster finds herself with an unexpected lodger. The two could not be more different- the gentle, shy, well mannered young man, bewildered by this strange, new world; and the sharp-tongued old spinster who guides him through its maze. Yet little by little, they become friends. But the villagers of Little Blessington are suspicious. Cherif is too handsome, too young and he's Arab. No good can come of this.

An intricate and self-reflective novel about that most delicate of relationships--meaning the one between writers and readers. The narrator, an anonymous graduate student, sets off on the trail of a French novelist named Paul Michel, who is currently confined to an asylum. Engineering his hero's release, the narrator finds himself enmeshed in a bizarre love triangle, of which the three vertices are himself, the novelist, and the late Michel Foucault. Sex, it seems, can be made safe, but the oddball intimacy of reading cannot.

The seven tales that comprise this collection were written to disturb and provoke. The stories are interwoven and have an edgy tone reminiscent of Edgar Allen Poe at his most dazzling and thought-provoking. They are amoral, vindictive and unforgiving.

At the center of The Deadly Space Between is an adolescent boy, Toby Hawk, whose intimate relationship with his mother and her mysterious lover leads to a chilling outcome. A solitary boy in a family of independent, unconventional women, Toby lives in a small, closed world that consists of school and surfing the Internet. His mother, only fifteen years his senior, is a painter on the brink of commercial success. But everything changes when she takes up with Roehm, a fascinating but enigmatic scientist. As he begins his slow dance of courtship and seduction, alienating mother from son, their lives become unstable and duplicitous. But who is Roehm really -- this huge, sinister, irresistible man with no discernible past? The confused adolescent turns to the Web for clues about his mother's hauntingly seductive, predatory lover -- and the answers he finds transform his life. An eerie psychological ghost story with echoes of Faust, Freud, and Frankenstein, The Deadly Space Between is a disturbing tale of Oedipal passions -- a rich and dark exploration of sexual ambiguity and longing.

"A study in critical readership, this wide-ranging collection of essays challenges accepted theories on everything from classics such as Charlotte BrontdÆs Villette to more contemporary works like Margaret AtwoodÆs Life Before Man . Explored are ideas of sexual subversion and queer politics. LiteratureÆs sacred cows are reevaluated, and new ways to explore both reading and writing are offered."

Patricia Duncker's third book is an elegant exploration of the way gender and identity shape a life. The starring role is given to James Miranda Barry, a 19th century society figure, who enrolled as a student at Edinburgh