Read The Story of Esther Costello online

Contents ( 26)

Something To Hide
An act of kindness has grave consequences in this heart-rending novel about a young girl, pregnant and abandoned, and the man who helps her. When decent, compassionate Carter takes pity on this young girl, he is quickly drawn into an ordeal beyond his control. Succumbing first to her desperate cries for help, and then to her threats, he agrees to let her spend the night in his flat. Aided only by his own unskilled hands, she gives birth to a sickly baby. For Carter, the anguish has only just begun, as he witnesses a traumatic chain of events unfold.

The Story Of Esther Costello
In a small Irish village, young Esther Costello, victim of a tragic accident that has left her deaf, dumb and blind, is kept barely alive by hardhearted parents. Discovered by a well-meaning American tourist, who is appalled by Esther’s shocking condition, she is whisked away to America for treatment. But all the advances of American medicine are unable to bring about a cure and with unceasing devotion, her patron decides to devote her life to Esther’s care. But a nationwide campaign to raise public awareness eventually results in donations being diverted to the woman’s personal account, and in a harrowing twist to the tale, Esther’s faculties are restored, with shocking consequences.

This Is The Schoolroom
The turbulent Thirties, and all across Europe cry the discordant voices of hunger and death, most notably in Spain, where a civil war threatens to destroy the country. Aspiring writer, Marcus Hendrycks, has toyed with life for twenty-one years. His illusions, developed within a safe, cloistered existence in Cambridge, are shattered forever when he joins the fight against the fascists and is exposed to a harsh reality. As the war takes hold, he discovers that life itself is the real schoolroom.

The Time Before This
On the icy slopes of the great ice-mountain of Bylot Island, set against the metallic blue of the Canadian Arctic sky, Shepherd has a vision of the world as it used to be, before the human race was weakened by stupidity and greed. Peter Benton, the young journalist to whom Shepherd tells his story, is dramatically snapped out of his cozy cynicism and indolent denial of responsibility, to face a dreadful reality. He discovers that he can no longer take a back-seat in the rapid self-destruction of the world, and is forced to make a momentous decision.

The Tribe That Lost Its Head
Five hundred miles off the southwest coast of Africa lies the island of Pharamaul, a British Protectorate, governed from Whitehall through a handful of devoted British civilians. In the south of the island lies Port Victoria, dominated by the Governor’s palatial mansion; in the north, a settlement of mud huts shelter a hundred thousand natives; and in dense jungle live the notorious Maula tribe, kept under surveillance by a solitary District Officer and his young wife. When Chief-designate, Dinamaula, returns from his studies in England with a spirited desire to speed the development of his people, political crisis erupts into a ferment of intrigue and violence.