Showing results by narrator "Doyle Gerard" in All Categories

The Irish soldier has never been a stranger to fighting the enemy with the odds stacked against him. The notion of charging into adversity has been a cherished part of Ireland's military history. In September 1961, another chapter should have been written into the annals, but it is a tale that lay shrouded in dust for years. The men of A Company, 35th Irish Infantry Battalion, arrived in the Congo as a United Nations contingent to help keep the peace. For many it would be their first trip outside their native shores.

Three men search for some version of home; their lives move inexorably toward a reckoning that will draw them all together. For Farouk, family is all. He has protected his wife and daughter as best he can from the war and hatred that has torn Syria apart. If they stay, they will lose their freedom. Lampy is distracted; he has too much going on in his small town life in Ireland. He has the city girl for a bit of fun, but she's not Chloe. The game was always the lifeblood coursing through John's veins: manipulating people for his enjoyment. But it was never enough.

This electrifying debut from Jeremy Duns launches a trilogy of Cold War spy thrillers. It's 1969 and a KGB colonel has just entered the British High Commission in Nigeria and asked to defect. For MI6 agent Paul Dark, it's a promising opportunity. But Dark soon finds himself in trouble and on the run.

This is a memoir of a boy born in 1926 in a small seaside town on the northwest coast of England who grew up in pre-and wartime Britain and who recalls, in this account, his many adventures before, during, and after the conclusion of World War II. In the latter half of the war, our teenage author enlists in His Majesty King George VI’s Royal Navy and is assigned to serve as a naval Coder on several British warships, culminating on HMS Cavendish, a state-of-the-art Destroyer based primarily in the Southeast Asia theatre of war.

Dubliners is a collection of short stories by James Joyce that was first published in 1914. The 15 stories were meant to be a naturalistic depiction of the Irish middle-class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. The stories were written at a time when Irish nationalism was at its peak and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging; at a crossroads of history and culture, Ireland was jolted by various converging ideas and influences.

Abducted to 1763, Peter Schock and Kate Dyer begin to understand that history has reached a tipping point. The antigravity machine is in the hands of the cruel and ambitious Lord Luxon -- who has set his sights on the most valuable prize of all: America. He is determined to manipulate time to his advantage, no matter what the cost.

Jack Taylor thinks he has a chance at last to rest and heal from the myriad mental and physical traumas that beset him. However, after a skateboarder long suspected of dealing drugs to children is shot dead in mid-air during a public performance, Jack receives a cryptic message with a picture of the skateboarder, a clipping about a rapist gone free through procedural error, and a chilling invitation: "Your turn." The note is signed simply "C 33."

Keith Earls started out in senior rugby as a teenage star and during the course of his long career has become one of the most admired and respected players of his generation. A British & Irish Lion at the age of 21, he is now closing in on his 34th birthday and still playing at the top of his game. A native of Limerick city, Earls grew up in one of its most socially disadvantaged housing estates. His natural sporting talent brought him into the privileged bastion of elite rugby union.

This is the story of John Devine - stuck in a small town in the eerie landscape of southeast Ireland, worried over by his single, chain-smoking, Bible-quoting mother, Lily, and spied on by the "neighborly" Mrs.Nagle. When Jamey Corboy, a self-styled Rimbaudian boy wonder, arrives in town, John's life suddenly seems full of possibility. His loneliness dissipates. He is taken up by mischief and discovery, hiding in the world beyond as Lily's mysterious illness worsens.

A toy soldier. A butter dish. A compass. Mundane objects, perhaps, but to the remarkable authors in this collection, artifacts such as these have inspired stories that go to the heart of the human experience of World War I. Each author was invited to choose an object that had a connection to the war - a writing kit for David Almond, a helmet for Michael Morpurgo - and use it as the inspiration for an original short story.

Drawing on the author’s personal experiences with both tame and wild moose, this handbook contains a wealth of information about this unique animal from all corners of the world. An overview of moose biology is featured, including their specialized diet and the relationship between sex and antlers, where size really does matter. Covering the history of moose on earth and the marked fluctuations in populations that have occurred over time, this guide also contains accessible chapters exploring moose diseases, moose and traffic, moose as a resource, and the uses of live moose in several ways, ranging from transport and clothing to dairy animals and pets.

GBH, short for Grievous Bodily Harm, is an unnerving tale of paranoia and madness in the heart of the 1970s London criminal underworld. Two intertwining narratives - past and present - chronicle the man's tragic fall from power. In London, Fowler resides at the head of a lucrative criminal syndicate that specializes in the production and distribution of "blue films" - illegal pornography and some nasty stuff. Fowler is king, with a beautiful girl at his side and a swanky penthouse office....

Limerick, Ireland. The driveway of the Stokes family home. American Oscar Harvey opens the trunk of the car his hosts have loaned him and finds in it the body of a woman beaten and bloody. But let's start from the beginning. Kate and Mannix Stokes and their children live beside Curragower Falls in Limerick, in a house they love but can barely afford in postrecession Ireland. On top of that, their autistic son, Fergus, is being bullied at school, and their daughter, Izzy, blames herself for not being able to protect him.

It’s taken Matthew Dunne almost three months to get home. Never more than a few meters from the Haters at any time, every single step has been fraught with danger. But he’s made it. During his time in the wilderness, Matt developed a skill that is in high demand: the ability to anticipate and predict Hater behavior. It’s these skills that will thrust him into a web of subterfuge and danger. As the pressure mounts inside the camp, he finds himself under scrutiny from all sides. He’s always done his best to avoid trouble, but sometimes it can’t be helped.

At just 16, Nancy Martin leaves the small island of Cape Clear for the mainland, the only member of her family to survive the effects of the Great Famine. Finding work in a grand house on the edge of Cork City, she is irrepressibly drawn to the charismatic gardener Michael Egan, sparking a love affair and a devastating chain of events that continues to unfold over three generations. Spanning more than a century, Billy O’Callaghan’s Life Sentences weaves together the journey of an Irish family determined against all odds to be free.

Thirteen-year-old Tom Mullen has spent his entire life in foster homes. One night, while visiting a recently discovered mass grave at the local cemetery, he falls through a hole in time and finds himself in 1847 Ireland. Taken in by the first caring family he has ever known, Tom must find a way to help them survive the famine and disease that grips their country.

Trying his best to weasel out of an appointment with the neurologist his only child, Máire, has cornered him into, the poet Thomas Murphy - singer of the oldies, friend of the down-and-out, card sharp, raconteur, piano bar player, bon vivant, tough and honest and all-around good guy - contemplates his sunset years. Máire worries that Murph is losing his memory.

Outside an east Belfast mission hall, pastor and family man Samuel Orr meets Anna, a young Beckett scholar. They embark on an intense, passionate affair, their connection fueled by their respective love of Christ and Beckett. When Anna becomes pregnant, the affair is revealed. The repercussions are slow to emerge but inescapable, and the fallout when it finally comes is shocking, cruel, and violent. Over 30 years later, Sam, their son, is in New York, living a steady, guarded life, his childhood and family safely abandoned.

In a brilliant, nuanced, and wholly original collection of essays, the best-selling and award-winning author of Brooklyn and The Empty Family offers a fascinating exploration of famous writers’ relationships to their families and their work.From Jane Austen’s aunts to Tennessee Williams’s mentally ill sister, the impact of intimate family dynamics can be seen in many of literature’s greatest works. In New Ways to Kill Your Mother, Colm Tóibín traces and interprets those family ties.

After Alfie Budd’s beloved wife dies, he returns to England to find his parents feuding and his grandmother’s health failing. Alfie’s ambitions to be a writer are fading as well. But when he begins tutoring a young single mother for her A level exams, his bewildering life is suddenly transformed. A widely published journalist and the best-selling author of Man and Boy, Tony Parsons also regularly appears on BBC television.