The light house: A love storyThe sun spilled the last of its light in a riot of color that glinted across the tops of the waves, as the far-off headland began to distill into the haze of a smudged horizon. High overhead a gull hung on the currents of the wind, its cry like a lost and lonelylament. The crest of a cold green wave rolled relentlessly towards the rocky shoreline – and at that very instant, Connie Dixontook the photo.
Elaine Risley, a painter, returns to Toronto to find herself overwhelmed by her past. Memories of childhood surface relentlessly, forcing her to confront the spectre of Cordelia, once her best friend and tormentor, who has haunted her for 40 years.
Colonel Leroux is killing Britain's most valuable spies, and it's up to Richard Sharpe to stop him. Thrust into the unfamiliar world of political and military intrigue, Sharpe relentlessly pursues Leroux, determined to exact his revenge with the cold steel of his sword.
Bettina Whitelaw is a grand dame of the English literary scene. Approaching eighty, with a beautiful flat in Holland Park and a comfortable income, her life is not dissimilar to that of her wealthy, elegant neighbours. But her background most certainly is. Brought up in Bundaroo, a small town in the Australian outback, Bettina's childhood was dominated by the relentlessly blazing sun, by the long daily walk to school, and by the simmering animosities of smalltown life. The family house was a simple shack and her parents constantly struggled to make ends meet.
How did a bedraggled band of nomads manage to evolve into a Mesoamerican superpower in such a brief time? This volume looks at the essential elements in the Aztecs' rise, fall, and enduring influence. From their humble origins, it took the Aztecs less than two centuries to become a dominant empire with a main city, Tenochtitian, that left the Spanish gasping in amazement. But as quick as the rise of the Aztecs was, their fall was even more dramatic. Yet Aztec descendents survive today, preserving vestiges of a culture far richer than its relentlessly bloodthirsty public image suggests. A wealth of new archaeological findings and interpretations has sparked a richer understanding of the Aztecs, dispelling many myths.
