Showing titles in Animals

WorldCares scientist Tess Dagomba is always prepared for danger while touring Namibia, Africa. So, she wasn't even that surprised when she found herself in need of an emergency rescue. But when her rescuer turned out to be her first love, the man whose heart she shattered two decades ago… well, nothing could've prepared her for that…

After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night cleaner shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium. Ever since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat over thirty years ago, keeping busy has helped her cope. One night she meets Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium who sees everything, but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

For more than a decade, Jenna Metcalf has never stopped thinking about her mother, Alice, who mysteriously disappeared in the wake of a tragic accident. Refusing to believe she was abandoned, Jenna searches for her mother regularly online and pores over the pages of Alice’s old journals. A scientist who studied grief among elephants, Alice wrote mostly of her research among the animals she loved, yet Jenna hopes the entries will provide a clue to her mother’s whereabouts.

Number One bestselling author Jodi Picoult returns with her compulsive new novel - about the lengths we go to for those who have left us behind; about the staying power of love; and about how three broken souls might have just the right pieces to mend each other. Jenna Metcalf was with her mother the night she disappeared in tragic and mysterious circumstances, but she remembers nothing.

As Samantha Wishaw watches the love of her life marry another woman, she’s ready to give up hope of finding her happy ever after. But when a chance encounter leads Sam to find friendship in Thomas - a lonely, grumpy elderly widower living at derelict Hedgehog Hollow - her life is about to change forever. Glad to have a distraction from family feuds and match-making, Sam vows to fulfill Thomas and his wife Gwendoline's dreams of restoring Hedgehog Hollow to its former glory, and to open a hedgehog rescue centre.

On remote Tuga de Oro, vet Charlotte Walker’s caseload of donkeys, cows, and ailing lizards has only increased. She still can’t believe the humiliating truth about her father. Probably, she ought to feel worse than she does. But the islanders have taken Charlotte to their hearts and somehow, between days on the farms and nights with a new love interest, she’s content to remain in blissful retreat from her real life in London. Just for now.

When a distraught Scottish veteran from Afghanistan is knocked unconscious, waking up to find his beloved ex-service dog missing, Corinna and her lover, Daniel, find themselves inextricably drawn into the machinations of a notorious underworld gang of drug runners. Corinna and Daniel need to pull together all the strings to find the connections between their wandering Scottish veteran, his kidnapped dog, a student dramatic society that's moved into Corinna's building, burglaries and the threatening notes that begin to mysteriously appear in Corinna's apartment.

On his thirty-sixth birthday, Travis Cornell hikes into the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains. But his path is soon blocked by a bedraggled Golden Retriever who will let him go no further into the dark woods. That morning, Travis had been desperate to find some happiness in his lonely, seemingly cursed life. What he finds is a dog of alarming intelligence that soon leads him into a relentless storm of mankind’s darkest creation....

In a faraway land where members of the royal family are named for the virtues they embody, one young boy will become a walking enigma.Born on the wrong side of the sheets, Fitz, son of Chilvary Farseer, is a royal bastard, cast out into the world, friendless and lonely. Only his magical link with animals - the old art known as the Wit - gives him solace and companionship. But the Wit, if used too often, is a perilous magic, and one abhorred by the nobility. So when Fitz is finally adopted into the royal household, he must give up his old ways.

Emma is having a fresh start. After a successful teaching career, an exciting new chapter awaits Emma – helping her fiancé Grayson run one of Beatrix Potter's farms. While imagining days spent supporting Grayson with his dream, working the land and helping with the animals, Emma harvests a dream of her own – to set up an alpaca-walking business around the farm. But working together isn’t as easy as Emma expected. Soon her dreams are in tatters and, broken-hearted, she must start over yet again.

Christy Peacock is devastated when an unfounded scandal throws her life as a drama teacher at a prestigious Sydney school off track. With her dream career in shreds, she spontaneously answers an ad to work at Currawong Creek, a horse therapy camp for troubled children nestled among the picturesque Bunya Mountains.

Soseki Natsume's comic masterpiece, I Am a Cat, satirizes the foolishness of upper-middle class Japanese society during the Meiji era. With acerbic wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventures of a world-weary stray kitten who comments on the follies and foibles of the people around him. A classic of Japanese literature, I Am a Cat is one of Soseki's best-known novels. Considered by many as the greatest writer in modern Japanese history, Soseki's I Am a Cat is a classic novel sure to be enjoyed for years to come.

On the top floor of an old building at the end of a cobbled alley in Kyoto lies the Kokoro Clinic for the Soul. Only a select few - those who feel genuine emotional turmoil - can find it. The mysterious centre offers a unique treatment for its troubled patients: it prescribes cats as medication. Follow how each cat brings joy, hope and self-discovery to the human who is lucky enough to have them in this utterly charming, vibrant celebration of the healing power of cats.

On the outskirts of Tokyo, in a neighbourhood crossed by a commuter railway, local cats weave their way through the lives and homes of their owners as they navigate difficult times. A cat named Chobi sends silent messages of courage to a young woman, willing her to end a faltering relationship; a gifted artist fatally misunderstands her boss's enthusiasm for her paintings; a manga fan shuts herself away after the death of her friend, while her cat Cookie hatches a plan to persuade her outside.

Against changing seasons in Japan, seven cats weave their way through their owners' lives. We meet Spin, a kitten rescued from the recycling bin, whose simple needs teach an anxious father how to parent his own human baby; a colony of wild cats on a holiday island shows a young boy not to stand in nature's way; a family is perplexed by their cat's devotion to their charismatic but uncaring father; a woman curses how her cat constantly visits her at night; and an elderly cat, Kota, hatches a plan to pass into the next world as a spirit so that he and his owner may be together for ever.

Dan Armstrong hasn’t done much retiring since moving to Tuscany, and with his new career as a successful private investigator taking off, it seems murder seems to follow him. He’s hoping a much-needed trip to beautiful Portofino will give him the break he needs and quality time with girlfriend Anna. Portofino is a celebrity paradise, and holidaying on a nearby superyacht is a group of British media stars, all famous for being infamous. Dan isn't impressed by their status or wealth, but when he overhears an argument between two of the group, he suspects something fishy could be going on…

Tama is just a helpless chick when he is rescued by Marnie, and this is where his story might have ended. “If it keeps me awake,” says Marnie's husband Rob, a farmer, “I'll have to wring its neck.” But with Tama come new possibilities for the couple's future. Tama can speak, and his fame is growing. Outside, in the pines, his father warns him of the wickedness wrought by humans. Indoors, Marnie confides in him about her violent marriage. The more Tama sees, the more the animal and the human worlds—and all the precarity, darkness and hope within them—bleed into one another.

Based on the Japanese myth of cats returning favours to humans who are kind to them, "The Full Moon Coffee Shop" is the name of a peculiar cake cafe that is run by talking cats, which has no fixed location and instead materialises unpredictably on the night of a full moon. The protagonists of this story - a successful female scriptwriter in crisis, a heartbroken tv director, and two male entrepreneurs - all end up there in the middle of the night, in a dream-like state, and receive life-changing advice on love, work, and relationships from a cat who interprets his guests' astrological chart.

A pair of fierce but beautiful eyes look out from the undergrowth of conifers. The eyes follow every movement in the great herd of plant-eating dinosaurs that mills around the open meadows, moving back and forth with the rapid scanning of a hunter who is thinking about everything she sees. She is an intelligent killer.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa, read by George Blagden. The tender feelgood story of a man's journey around Japan with a streetcat. Translated by Philip Gabriel, a translator of Murakami. It's not the journey that counts but who's at your side. Nana is on a road trip, but he is not sure where he is going. All that matters is that he can sit beside his beloved owner, Satoru, in the front seat of his silver van. Satoru is keen to visit three old friends from his youth, though Nana doesn’t know why, and Satoru won’t say.