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Now, with the end of her life in sight, there is one thing above all else she needs to do. Mabel Stark wants to confess.   'The story steams along like a Ringling train... It's impossible not to warm to Hough's plucky, masochistic adventuress, fleeing the wraths of insanity and across every state in the Union; she's the sanest nutter the confession bug ever bit' Observer  'Hough has produced a work which captures the complexity and ambiguity of life' Times Literary Supplement  'A must read' Tatler  'Unputdownable... Mabel's story has grip and gumption along with bucket-loads of sadness and self-destructive glamour' Time Out  'As she swaggers through the book, Mabel's feisty character comes across as an undoubted star' Marie Claire  'Hough has found a voice and tone - prickly and pathetic, sly and wounded - that fits Mabel as snugly as her soiled leather suit' Economist  'Hilarious... It is frankly impossible not to fall in love with the heroine, a woman other women would like to be, and men would like to tame... This book is an uplifiting account of a life lived to the hilt... Captivating' Irish Examiner  'A splendid rumbustious recreation of her bizarre life that simply demands to be read' Woman and Home","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49595592769809,"sku":"GOR001758047","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49878764618001,"sku":"GOR002719731","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50392646222097,"sku":"CIN184354153XA","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50392648483089,"sku":"CIN184354153XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/184354153X.jpg?v=1774432814"},{"product_id":"the-stowaway-book-robert-hough-9780679313007","title":"The Stowaway","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe Stowaway\u003c\/b\u003e is at once a thrilling maritime adventure and a thought-provoking morality tale based on real-life events. The novel begins in the spring of 1996 when Rodolfo Miguel, a bosun on the Taiwanese container ship \u003ci\u003eMaersk Dubai\u003c\/i\u003e, discovers a hungry and frightened pair of Romanian stowaways. He presents them to his officers, fully expecting that they'll be put to work or else dropped off at the nearest port. Instead, he and his fellow Filipino crewmen watch in silent horror as the Romanians are cast overboard in a flimsy raft only to disappear beneath the ship's wake. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Stowaway \u003c\/b\u003emoves seamlessly between two storylines. Aboard the \u003ci\u003eMaersk Dubai\u003c\/i\u003e, Rodolfo and his crewmen must deal with the emotional trauma of what they've seen - as well as grapple with how to act on what they know. The atmosphere on the ship grows increasingly tense as fear, anxiety and paranoia grip the Filipino sailors. Trapped witnesses to a crime, they wonder whom they can trust and whether they themselves will meet with the same fate as the stowaways. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMeanwhile, a nineteen-year-old Romanian named Daniel Pacepa heads out on a nail-biting adventure from Bucharest to Algeciras. Poor, brave and full of youthful indiscretion, Daniel is desperate to stow away on a ship and head to a better life in America. Along the way, he meets another Romanian named Gheorghe and together they perform cheap labour, pose as evangelical Christians and do whatever it takes to find their way to the Spanish port of Algeciras. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEventually the two stories merge when Daniel and Gheorghe sneak onto the ill-fated \u003ci\u003eMaersk Dubai\u003c\/i\u003e. One man is killed, the other discovered by Rodolfo. Once again, the Filipino crewmen find themselves faced with an excruciating moral dilemma. Do they risk their own personal safety to save the life of a complete stranger? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAll of the scenes involving the Filipino sailors are as close to the truth as Robert Hough could manage based on exhaustive interviews with the crewmen as well as on their letters and journals. Though Hough invented the Romanians' land adventure, he based the story on considerable research, including interviews with Romanian-Canadians who had lived under the Ceausescu regime. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHough was widely praised for the deft way in which he mixes fact and fiction in \u003cb\u003eThe Stowaway\u003c\/b\u003e. The critics were also unanimous in their admiration for the novel's ability to seduce with suspense while at the same time posing profound issues for the reader to ponder. This is a powerful novel that artfully combines the vivid, breathless pacing of the best adventure stories with the moral and metaphysical depth of the best literary fiction, said \u003ci\u003eQuill \u0026amp; Quire\u003c\/i\u003e. And from the \u003ci\u003eVancouver Sun\u003c\/i\u003e Harnessing the force of fiction and the weight of history, Hough has created a powerful, deeply human masterpiece out of tragedy and inhumanity.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49606418268433,"sku":"GOR004148590","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50355428426001,"sku":"CIN0679313001G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0679313001.jpg?v=1751295394"},{"product_id":"final-confession-of-mabel-stark-book-robert-hough-9781843541523","title":"The Final Confession Of Mabel Stark","description":"Mabel Stark was the greatest female tiger trainer in history. In the 1910s and 20s, when circus was the most popular entertainment in America, she was the biggest attraction for the Ringling Brothers Barnum \u0026amp; Bailey Circus.Mabel was five-feet tall, brazen, suicidally courageous, obsessed with tigers and sexually eccentric. In The Final Confession of Mabel Stark, Robert Hough has used the documents of her life to explore the mysteries of her heart. His vibrant and moving fictional autobiography starts in 1968. Mabel is just turning eighty and is about to lose her job. Faced with the loss of her cats, she looks back on her life, her escapades and her tragedies, her love affairs with tigers and men. She also confronts her darkest secret, her guilt at committing, 'the worst thing one person can do to another.' Now, with the end of her life in sight, there is one thing above all else she needs to do. Mabel Stark wants to confess. Exuberant and inventive, The Final Confession of Mabel Stark transports its readers to an age before cinema and television, when circus performers were superstars. It is a delightful novel and an unputdownable biography of a gloriously idiosyncratic life.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49635130933521,"sku":"GOR002502360","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50942165025041,"sku":"GOR003099382","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53549097255185,"sku":"GOR003565039","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1843541521.jpg?v=1751185378"},{"product_id":"stowaway-book-robert-hough-9781559707459","title":"The Stowaway","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49910812115217,"sku":"CIN1559707453G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50918526222609,"sku":"CIN1559707453VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52723537838353,"sku":"GOR009425789","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1559707453.jpg?v=1750958685"},{"product_id":"solving-women-s-problems-through-awareness-action-and-contact-book-robert-hough-9780802140432","title":"Solving Women's Problems Through Awareness, Action, and Contact","description":"\u003cp\u003eMabel Stark was the greatest female tiger trainer in history. 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When he first enters the bakery where she works, she is a new arrival from the tiny island nation of Malta, fond of rabbit stew and Hollywood cinema. He is a thoughtful printer's assistant recently released from juvenile detention after stealing and swiftly totalling a stranger's car. Even after years of marriage and two children together, Rose struggles to shake the idea that perhaps she should have held out for someone as voluble and optimistic as herself. But while some marriages are weakened by trauma, Rose and Scotty's union is strengthened by the act of survival, and they find their own kind of happiness along the way.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn The Marriage of Rose Camilleri, Robert Hough writes his larger-than-life characters with warmth, insight and humour, displaying the masterful approach to storytelling that gained his previous novels acclaim and several prestigious award nominations. 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The year is 1664, and Benny Wand, a young thief and board game hustler, is arrested in London for illegal gaming. Deported to the city of Port Royal, Jamaica, known as “the wickedest city on earth,” Wand is forced by his depleted circumstances to join a raid on the Spanish city of Villahermosa. The mission is a perilous success, and Wand attracts the attention of the mission’s leader, an up-and-coming Welsh seaman, Captain Henry Morgan, whose raids on Spanish strongholds are funded by the British government.  While embarking on a campaign in the Caribbean, Wand and Morgan develop an unlikely friendship through a shared love of chess. As Morgan is corrupted by his increasingly sordid attacks on Spanish cities, he slowly becomes Wand’s greatest enemy. To defeat his former ally, Wand embarks on a strategic battle of wits and must help Morgan in the most savage and unexpected way possible. 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