Showing results for "Pearls" in Literature & Fiction

Marianne is eight years old when her mother goes missing. Left behind with her baby brother and grieving father in a ramshackle house on the edge of a small village, she clings to the fragmented memories of her mother’s love; the smell of fresh herbs, the games they played, and the songs and stories of her childhood. As time passes, Marianne struggles to adjust, fixated on her mother’s disappearance and the secrets she’s sure her father is keeping from her.

“There it lay, the great pearl, perfect as the moon.” Like his father and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the gulf beds that once brought great wealth to the Kings of Spain and now provide Kino, Juana, and their infant son with meager subsistence. Then...

Afghan-American Nadia Hashimi's literary debut novel is a searing tale of powerlessness, fate, and the freedom to control one's own fate that combines the cultural flavor and emotional resonance of the works of Khaled Hosseini, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Lisa See. In Kabul, 2007, with a drug-addicted...

When our story begins, Julia Child is an eager but inexperienced codebreaker longing to prove herself in the male-dominated world of intelligence, and Josephine Baker is, well, Josephine Baker—a world-famous entertainer who is now leading a double life as a spy for the French Resistance. When a golden opportunity arises to infiltrate a high-stakes Nazi gala in Vichy France, Julia must put aside her by-the-book mentality to assist her unorthodox new partner.

In this short tale for fans of Cinderella and Bridgerton, Pearl’s ball gown may carry the whiff of mothballs, but her dance card for the duke’s ball is full…until she loses a shoe. In her enthusiasm, Pearl’s foot slides out of her too-big damask slipper in the middle of a dance and gets kicked around the ballroom to the amusement of the sophisticated guests. What is a spirited but clumsy heroine to do? Can her composure and good humor save her social dignity?

On Christmas night of 1998, Maria Meyers learns that her 20-year-old daughter, Pearl, has chained herself outside the American embassy in Dublin, where she intends to starve herself to death. Although Maria was once a student radical and still proudly lives by her beliefs, gentle, book-loving Pearl has never been interested in politics nor in the Catholicism her mother rejected years before. What, then, is driving her to martyr herself?

Award-winning author Lauraine Snelling continues the story of Ruby Torvald in book two of her Dakotah Treasures series. Ruby's most recent boarder at the Dove House is schoolteacher Pearl Hossfuss. Avoiding an arranged marriage, Pearl has deserted her home in Chicago to teach in Little Missouri. There she has befriended Ruby and fallen for carpenter Carl Hegland. But her father threatens to take her back home. Ruby must turn to God for the strength to stand up to her father.

One powerful family holds a city, a faith, and a woman in its grasp—from the national bestselling author of Daughters of Rome and Mistress of Rome. Rome, 1492. The Holy City is drenched with blood and teeming with secrets. A pope lies dying and the throne of God is left vacant, a prize awarded...

Pearl O'Reilly woont al haar hele leven in het slaperige Ierse dorpje Drangan. Ze geniet van haar dagelijkse rituelen: lunchen met haar beste vriendin Una, praten met haar therapeut Mairead en werken in het winkeltje van de O'Callaghans. Haar andere gewoontes – tot tien tellen voor ze de trap op of af gaat en obsessief haar handen wassen – zijn iets minder leuk. Dan ontmoet Pearl Jack, een Nieuw-Zeelander die op rondreis is door Ierland. Zijn bezoek is kort, maar als hij een liefdesbriefje voor haar achterlaat, begint ze na te denken over een ander leven.

Lady Lea - beloved sister of the Emperor Caelan - is gifted with the ability to see into others' hearts and when she is moved to tears, those tears become pearls. When the hardened warrior Lord Shadrael kidnaps her and takes her through the fearsome Hidden Ways of the shadow world, Lea can foresee her destiny in him. For if she is to save Shadrael from his own darkness, she will ultimately have to choose between her brother and her abductor.

In this classic collection of Pearls podcasts, Jill Loree strings together practical spiritual insights in a timeless collection that offers pearls of wisdom we can use every day. Topics include: Privacy & Secrecy • The Lord’s Prayer • Political Systems • The Superstition of Pessimism • Preparing to Reincarnate • Our Relationship to Time • Grace & Deficit • The Power of Words • Perfectionism • Authority • Order • Positive Thinking • Three Faces of Evil • Meditation for Three Voices • The Spiritual Meaning of Crisis • Leadership • Letting Go & Letting God.

On her 40th birthday, Madame Wu carries out a decision she has been planning for a long time: she tells her husband that after 24 years their physical life together is now over and she wishes him to take a second wife. The House of Wu, one of the oldest and most revered in China, is thrown into an uproar by her decision, but Madame Wu will not be dissuaded and arranges for a young country girl to come take her place in bed.

Pearl is the first of the four poems of the Pearl manuscript, a 14th century work contemporaneous with Chaucer, Langland and Gower. It is widely acknowledged as a masterpiece of medieval English literature. In the poem the grief-stricken protagonist describes the loss of a precious pearl in a garden. He falls asleep and in his dream sees a vision of a beautiful Maiden, who through complex imagery is gradually revealed as the pearl, a lost loved one, often interpreted as the Dreamer's young daughter, though never explicitly identified.

In February 1918, as the First World War was still being bitterly fought, Lady Northcliffe appealed to the women of Britain and the Empire to give a pearl from their necklaces to make a new string which could be sold in aid of the British Red Cross. Nearly 4,000 pearls poured in, from priceless heirlooms - one had survived the sinking of the Titanic - to treasured trinkets. Working with Christie's and the International Fundraising Committee of the British Red Cross, Rachel Trethewey weaves the touching story of a generation of women who gave what they had to aid the war effort and commemorate their losses.

When a precious pearl necklace vanishes from the headmistress’s office at the Hamilton School for Girls, all eyes turn to new student Rosie Carter. But Rosie knows she didn’t steal it—and she’s determined to prove it. Teaming up with the mischievous but sharp-witted Susan, Rosie follows a trail of secret passageways, buried letters, and mysterious clues that point to something far more sinister than simple theft. With the school whispering about expulsion and time running out, Rosie must dig deep to uncover the truth—and face a secret that could shake the school to its core.

A collection of three medieval English poems, translated by Tolkien for the modern-day reader and containing romance, tragedy, love, sex and honour. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl are two poems by an unknown author written in about 1400. Sir Gawain is a romance, a fairy-tale for...

London, June 1965. Karl Braun arrives as a lodger in Pimlico: hatless, with a bow-tie, greying hair, slight in build. His new neighbours are intrigued by this cultured German gentleman who works as a piano tuner; many are fellow émigrés, who assume that he, like them, came to England to flee Hitler. That summer, Braun courts a woman, attends classical concerts, dances the twist. But as the newspapers fill with reports of the hunt for Nazi war criminals, his nightmares become increasingly worse.

Former Emperor's consort Ling Suyin was renowned for her beauty: the ultimate seductress. Now she lives quietly alone - until the most ruthless warlord in the region comes and steals her away... Li Tao lives by the sword and is trapped in a web of politics, at the centre of which is Ling Suyin. Can he uncover her mystery without falling under the spell of her innocence and beauty?

On the eve of a popular rebellion, the Chinese government starts to crack down in cities across the country. Fleeing the turmoil, Wang Yuan, the son of a famous general and grandson of the patriarch of The Good Earth, leaves for America to study agriculture. When he returns to China six years later, he encounters a nation still in the grip of violent uprisings. Unprepared for the social upheaval, Wang is torn by the tensions between old traditions and new ways and by his formidable family, whose struggles he hopes to solve.

The latest puzzling mystery facing Jude Dee begins on the night of the Poo-yang dragonboat races in 699 A.D.: a drummer in the leading boat collapses, and the body of a beautiful young woman turns up in a deserted country mansion. There, Judge Dee—tribunal magistrate, inquisitor, and public avenger—steps in to investigate the murders and return order to the Tang Dynasty.